by V. Philipose
Is it possible to confuse a man with a jackfruit tree—a plavu? Yes. It happened to me. I’m an ordinary man, not a storyteller, so I give you the ending at the beginning. (Why not every story begin with the ending? Why Genesis, Zephaniah, and whatnot when we can begin with the Gospels?) Anyway, this story begins at our Feeding Center. Don’t call it Famine Center because the Government says there’s no famine, no matter what your eyes tell you. After everyone left, a pencil-thin old man came carrying a giant chakka bigger than him. This is for you to feed the children tomorrow, he said. If you have a decent cook you can make a good puzhukku. Brother, I said, forgive me, but you look like you are starving, so why give away your chakka? Ha, I don’t give it, he said. The plavu gives it! Nature is generous. I wanted to say, In that case let the plavu send pickle and rice too. Next day he brought an even bigger chakka. From afar he looked like an ant carrying a coconut. I said, brother, eat puzhukku before you go. He refused. Who refuses a meal in these times? I said, brother, how is it a thin old man can carry such heavy things? What’s the secret? He said: Secrets are hidden in the most obvious places.
That day I passed our famous Ammachi plavu—the mother of all jackfruit trees—the very one in whose hollow our Maharajah Marthanda Varma hid from enemies, centuries ago. Yes, your village claims it has the legendary tree, but you’re wrong. It’s here, so let’s not argue. Anyway, I heard a voice say, Have you come to find my secret? I recognized that old man’s voice. But I saw no one. Show yourself, I said. He said, You’re looking right at me.
If I tell you he leaned on the tree, you’d misunderstand. No, he leaned into the tree. His skin was bark and his eyes were knots in the wood. He said, When the famine started, I had no more paddy. I sat against this plavu and awaited death. The bark was rough, but I thought, why complain? I’m soon leaving this world. After a few hours I sank into the tree. It was comfortable, as if I was resting against my Ammachi’s bosom. I said, Oh mighty plavu, if you can make giant fruit even in drought, can you not nourish me? The plavu said, Why not? So that’s how I am here. The plavu provides me everything. Nature is generous. I said, Old man, if nature is generous, why this famine? He said, Blame human nature that makes merchants hoard and Churchill take our rice for his troops while we starve. I said, Don’t you miss company, living alone like this? He smiled. Who says I’m alone? Look there on that small plavu—do you see Kochu Cherian? And here next to me you see Ponnamma? Why not you come sit on my other side? Nature provides.
Friends, I ran for my life. What’s the shame in saying so? Dear Reader, the moral is give as generously as nature gives. And take a good look at your plavu because secrets are hidden in the most obvious places.
“The Plavu Man” wins first prize and is the only story of the three winners to get published. Philipose takes it as a sign. In the space of a few months, he’s been mentioned in the Manorama for starting the Feeding Center, and now his writing appears there. Perhaps newspaper writing is his true vocation. His success doesn’t silence the snide remarks of the likes of Manager Kora over his not returning to Madras, nor does everyone care for “The Plavu Man”—Decency Kochamma thinks it’s blasphemy. But there’s only one reader whose opinion Philipose cares about, the one reader he writes for. He prays Elsie has seen it; he hopes she can tell that he is bent but not broken.
It is now over a year since his return from Madras, even if the wound of that brief sojourn is still raw. After his first published story, the Manorama editor is willing to see more, but he turns down three stories in a row before publishing the fourth under the heading “The Ordinary Man Column.” It suggests to Philipose that he might get to be a regular contributor, though he doesn’t care for the title the editor chose—who wants to be called ordinary?
In that year and the next Philipose has a few more of his Unfictions published. His writing is well received judging by readers’ letters, though Malayalis can always find fault, and do. Still, nothing prepares him or the newspaper for the uproar that follows the publication of a piece entitled “Why No Self-Respecting Rat Works at the Secretariat.” The narrator is an injured rat who drags himself into a grand government building at night and is delighted to find none of his kind there to compete with. The next morning, the employees of the Secretariat arrive:
This huge open space must be a place of worship, I concluded. God is on high, invisible. The ceiling fans are the manifestation of God because they sit directly over the high priests (who are called Head Clerks). The lower your caste, the further away you sit from the fan. What is the work? Aah, it took me hours to understand though it was staring me in the face: the work is to sit. You come in the morning, you sit and stare at the files in front of you, and you make a long face. Eventually you take out your pen. When the high priest looks your way, you take the first file and untie the laces holding papers down. But whenever the high priest steps out, you and the others jump up and stand near his desk, under the fan, telling jokes. That’s the work.
The Clerical Workers’ Union takes strong exception to Philipose’s piece and calls for the Ordinary Man’s head; the uproar only brings more readers to his column. Public sentiment (along with the Union for Journalists and Reporters) is on the writer’s side, because every citizen of Travancore has had the experience of getting tangled in red tape and leaving the Secretariat disheartened. Uplift Master is the rare individual with the patience and skill to take on bureaucracy; he even relishes the battle.
One reader announces himself late at night with a laughing-dove call, a crescendo, a chuckling sound like a woman being tickled. Philipose emerges and greets Joppan by punching him hard on the shoulder. “That’s for not coming by to see me for so long.”
“Aah, did that make you feel better?” Joppan is as sturdy as ever, his compact frame low to the ground, and shoulders as broad as his smile. He has a bottle of toddy in one hand and with the other he punches Philipose back. “And that’s for me being the last person to know that you were a Communist all this time.”
“Is that what I am?” Philipose rubs his stinging shoulder.
“Didn’t you start the Feeding Center? You care enough to do something. I’m proud of you. Vladimir Lenin said, ‘The press should be not only a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.’ So you see, your actions, your words—you’re a revolutionary!”
“Aah, alright. Now I can sleep better. So, how are you, Joppan?”
Joppan shrugs. Iqbal’s barge business, just like every business around, has ground to a halt. Iqbal can’t pay him, but since Joppan is like a son to him, he feeds him. Joppan says, “Look at me. I speak and write Malayalam and can read English. I can keep accounts. I know the backwaters inside out. But now I’m lucky to work as a day laborer now and then. In the evenings I attend Party meetings. It feeds my brain if not my belly. I sleep on the barge because if I come home all I do is argue with my father.”
Philipose says, “You can’t expect him to change.”