In the end it also came to where Kusuma lay, where her baby-unmindful of day or night-was sparkling its eyes, cooing and waving its limbs about although its mother sat lost, her eyes fixed on the self same thing! Beads of sweat from over her forehead would, every now and then, break and drop from her face. Then her hair that stuck to her face with all the sweat, that too didn’t move.
Watching the baby play was twelve-year-old Parsada, Kusuma’s younger brother.And into his unblinking God eyes, his sister Kusuma’s tears overflowed ….
…Wanting so much to make his tearful sister here smile, he began to dance, stepping to the tune of, ‘Ah,winsome lad from afar … oh where … oh where ….’ that came in from somewhere. And as he danced, the vessel of Kusuma’s heart
so overfull with tears … who was it? … Lifting it … clunk! … Wrenched and broke her heart!
And those tears in Kusuma’s eyes, they stopped flowing and those tears on her cheeks, dried on her cheeks
her eyes barely open, Kusuma swayed and swayed
and her hair-two arms long-it swayed about her head
mantrics from around the village, ah they hurried there eight men
and they struck her with the serpent cane, and it broke that cane!
the lying-in woman’s hair they held in their fists in one-fist hold, eight fists-full of hair torn away and still unable to read the murmurs in the wind,
And then
mantrics from Kollegal, ah they hurried there-eight men and they struck her with the serpent cane, and it broke that
cane!
the lying-in woman’s hair they held in their fists in one-fist hold, sixteen fistsful of hair torn away and still unable to read the murmurs in the wind
And then
mantrics, Malayalis!hurried there-eight men
and they struck her with the serpent cane, and it broke that cane!
the lying in woman’s hair they held in their fists
in one-fist hold, thirty-two fistsful of hair torn away and still unable to read the murmurs in the wind
And then
mantrics from all over, came there-eight men and seeing Kusuma’s hairless head
tch! tch! their hands were tied, and
hearing the mutterings from Kusuma’s tongue tch! tch! they were tonguetied
Then
that illiterate Kusuma in French, she said,
‘je veux etre dans ma maison’
‘I want to be in my home, be in my home,’ she said.
* * *