The crowded streets, the blare of horns, the rush of traffic and the mammoth bus station with hundreds of buses; all this was new to them. They were particularly fascinated by the autorickshaws that zipped in and out of traffic like scurrying insects. Here, they boarded another bus that took them further northwest. As they went, the vegetation became sparser; the parched grass could scarcely hide the dry, dark-orange soil that stretched for barren miles on either side of the road. Even though huge tamarinds lined the sides of the road, not many other trees could be seen. At least, nothing they would have called trees. The straggly, pale tan-coloured, thorny acacia trees seemed to be natives of the land and dotted the countryside, but they could hardly be called trees. Their bare outlines looked more like skeletons from which all the flesh had been stripped. Most of them thought of their own country and the lush land they had left behind. How different it was going to be. After about a hundred kilometres, they finally arrived at Virupatchi, a little hamlet at the foot of the Palani hills. The bus dropped them off on the main road, from where they had to walk two kilometres into the flatlands that stretched endlessly before them. This refugee camp had been set up a few years ago and built on the left side of the mud road they were on. They went in between two granite posts that marked the entrance to the settlement. The initial path branched into five more paths, like the symmetrical limbs of a candlestand. On the sides of each path stood small houses. The initial few roofs were asbestos, then there were some with tiles, then some more with asbestos. The first building on the right of the middle street was the camp office, where they now stood in a circle, as the camp officer explained the rules to them. They would be allotted houses.
Each family would receive three hundred rupees in the first week of every month. They could come the next morning to collect their first instalment. They were free to go to the surrounding villages for work, but they would have to be back by 6:45 pm, when a roll call would be taken. Anyone missing from the camp without valid reasons for more than a week, ran the danger of being struck off the rolls and losing their privileges as refugees. New arrivals would be given packed meals from the camp office for three weeks. So on and so forth went the long list, most of which they could not remember. The light was fading in the west when, at last, they were led to their allotted house, number B9 in the second row. Mr Muthu, who had come here during the initial years of the camp, was their guide. They found out he was from Sengai, a town not far from Dibara. Mr Muthu unlocked the rough-hewn wooden door that had no latch, but only a rusted steel ring that aligned with another set into the doorpost. “This lock I have to return to the camp office,” said Mr Muthu. “But here is another one I have,” he continued as he reached for it in his pocket. “You can use it and return it to me once you get one for yourselves.” This would be the first of many favours they would receive at his hands. The adults had to bend low to get into the ramshackle tenement. The torch that Mr Muthu held sent its beam into its recesses. The floor was bare, but tidy. “I live in B3,” said Mr Muthu. “If you need anything, come over. You better go soon and collect your food packets and some candles from the office before they close.”
Later, by candlelight, they looked over their new dwelling. It was a single room, with a U-shaped earthen wood-burning stove in one corner from which an asbestos pipe led up through the roof. Roof tiles were supported by thin tarred rafters and beams, which in turn rested on stout Y-shaped wooden pillars incorporated into the mud wall. The rough cement floor was broken and potholed. Anyway, they thought to themselves, it was better than bamboo and thatch. It would be their home for many years. Over the next few weeks, they settled into camp life. Every morning, while the men went in search of work, Usha helped her mother around the house. They did up their home as best as they could. From their neighbours, they learned how to make the floor better. They filled up the gaps and fissures with clay and then scrounged around the farms nearby for hay and cow dung, which they worked into a thick paste.
This paste was then applied evenly over the floor. When dry, it provided a warm cardboard-like surface. They dusted off the mud trails of termites from the woodwork and dabbed it with lime. In time, the walls also received a thin coat of lime. A lot of time was spent in looking for firewood—twigs, wood chips, brushwood and even plastic—anything that would burn. Here, dry cow dung came to their rescue. The farmers had their own use for cow dung, so the refugee children had to often find their own. So you might have seen many of them hanging around cowherds and their grazing cattle, and as the dung dropped to the ground, the youngsters would zoom in on the steaming pile and scoop it up into the bamboo baskets that they held on their hips. Another source of cow dung was the main road, where droves of cattle were sometimes herded along westwards to Kerala, on the other side of the mountains. But here, you had to get them before the fast-moving traffic smeared them all over the tarmac. When their baskets were full, they trudged back to camp, where the children deftly slapped handfuls of the stuff onto the outer walls of their houses and then patted them down into flat discs. After a few days, they could be peeled off and again dried in direct sunlight before they were ready for the stove. These cow dung cakes often bore, on one face, the marks of the fingers that had made them. And as they went into the fire, those little handprints brought tears to many a mother’s eyes. In a month’s time, her father got a job driving an old Leyland truck in a quarry about six kilometres away. Murali joined a group of men who climbed coconut trees. Here, his training as a rebel soldier stood him in good stead. They climbed the tall swaying trunks to put down the coconuts and dress the top of the palms.
Soon, the insides of his palms were calloused hard from the work, but it was good money. Each tree climbed fetched them eight rupees. Unlike the children in the Mandapam camp, the kids here were not so friendly and Usha spent a lot of time playing alone. There were not many girls of her age. In time, she learned to play with the boys. It was too late to enrol in a school that year. So she spent her days careless and free. She waited for Saturday when the other children in the camp would be on holiday and she could have some company. This was how she spent a hot Saturday morning in late March. Usha spent the first part of the morning following the boys as they wandered about, near a low hill about a kilometre to the north of the campsite. Their activities were centred around a lonely mango tree, in the no man’s land between the hill and road, which skirted it on its south-eastern side. They would allow her to join in some of their games, but not this one they were playing now. ‘Gilli and Dhandu’ was deemed too dangerous for a girl. Guru was the one with the Dhandu. He struck the Gilli and it sprang to life, spinning up into the air. On its descent, he tapped it deftly up again, slowing its rotation, and then gave it a wicked crack that sent it whistling past the fielders who had instinctively turned their back to the danger they knew was coming. It landed a good forty feet away. No doubt Guru was the best, but even for him, this would be a rich haul. The others stood around him as he measured off the points. This traditional village sport had no teams. It was each man for himself, with the others trying to get him out. Once in a while, the Gilli would tear into somebody’s arm or leg, bringing on blood and pain, and later on, at least a mouthful when they got home. A long stick called the Dhandu served as a sort of bat.
This crude instrument was used to hit the short stick on the ground. The short stick, called the Gilli, was tapered to a point on both ends. So when it was struck at its end, it rose up into the air whirling around on its central axis. The striker was then required to hit the Gilli again with the Dhandu, as hard as he could while it was in the air. If he got it right in the middle, it would travel the most distance. Further the Gilli went, more the points. The points were usually measured off in Dhandu lengths from the Gilli’s final position to the point where the Gilli lay at first before the innings began. I suppose we should know how the game begins. At the start, the short stick or the Gilli was placed across a small groove dug into the ground, and the bigger stick was placed vertically behind the first one with its end at the bottom of the groove. The open palm of the left hand of the batsman— or rather, the stick man, in this case—would rest lightly on top of the long stick, steadying it. With his right hand, he would strike the long stick as low down as he deemed best, thereby levering the Gilli and sending it flying through the air. At any stage of the game, if the Gilli was caught while it was airborne, the striker was out. The next stage of the game began where the Gilli landed. The focus would shift there. The other players waited in a new circle to catch the Gilli. This time, there was no groove to help the incumbent. The striker would have to deliver his blow onto one end of the Gilli; only then would it take to the air. If the stick man was able to tap the Gilli up once, before the final stroke, he could count the points in Gilli length, as Guru had done. If, in the rare instance, a player was able to keep the Gilli afloat with two taps, he could count off the points in half Gilli lengths. While the children played, they kept a casual watch on the half-dozen goats in their care.
This was easy, because they were feeding at various levels on the hillside and could be seen easily. As the morning wore on, Usha got bored watching ‘Gilli and Dhandu’ and the boys showed no sign of wanting to shift to a gentler game. So, Usha retired to the shade of an acacia tree, about a third of the way up the hillside. She sat on a large boulder rolled up against its base and leaned back comfortably against the trunk, worn smooth by others who had sat there before her. She gazed lazily into the distance. The plains that stretched before her changed from dun to bluish green in the distance. White cumulus clouds drifted by slowly, driven along by the wind that steadily carried them eastwards. That cloud looked like a dragon’s head, she thought, and that other one like an old man with a beard. She watched as the beard gradually grew shorter by the minute. Then she heard it. The high-pitched cry came from above her and far to the right. She followed the sound, wondering what it was. She was then treated to a most unusual spectacle. A fully grown Brahminy Kite was about twenty feet off the ground. Usha had seen these creatures way up in the sky, but seldom so low. She was struck by how big the bird was. She wondered why it had come so low. Maybe to pick up a rat or a chicken, she reasoned. Whatever the cause, the big fellow had not a morsel in its beak; instead, he had a problem on his hands. He was being heckled by a gang of crows. One of the assailants came at him from the rear. A flick of his wing was enough to take the kite out of harm’s way and send the attacker tumbling past in a chaotic mass of wings and feathers.
Another concerted approach from both flanks was met by a few strong strokes of his huge wings that brushed them aside and took him a few steps higher. The smaller birds came on again and again; some of them ruffled his outer feathers, but nothing more. His nimbleness was more than a match for their persistence. He stalled at a foot’s notice and then banked gracefully, sweeping around the lot of them swiftly, leaving them confused. Although the incursions broke his rhythm frequently, the raptor was steadily flying in ever-widening circles that took him higher and higher at every turn. One by one, the crows fell away. But not all of them. There was one–just one—who clung on doggedly. This brave-heart stuck with the kite, flapping his wings frantically to keep up with the bigger bird. He did more than just keep up; he was making life difficult for his foe. Getting in a peck here on the tail and there on the wing. Up and up went the pair, 200, 400 and finally, what must have been almost 700 feet. Then suddenly, the smaller bird could take it no longer. He tucked in his wings and dived steeply for the ground, streaking in like a dark missile closing in for the kill. He levelled off at about 200 feet and disappeared around the slope of the hill, and that was the last Usha saw of him. Meanwhile, the Brahminy Kite had become a fuzzy dot behind the fringes of the lowest clouds. Usha stood there for some time, staring into the vacant sky, lost in a world quite apart from hers. She returned soon enough as the hot sun reminded her that she was hungry and thirsty, and the time must be well past noon. The boys and goats were nowhere in sight, and so she made her way home alone. On the whole, she deemed her life happy, but soon her wild and carefree days would come to an end.
Her mother found a local school she could go to and she was enrolled in the fourth grade. The first few months were almost intolerable. Her mother knew that she was miserable in school, for she often came back crying and at times refused to go, but she was determined that Usha must somehow finish school. Her classmates were a mean lot. They teased her no end for her quaint accent. “Do you have only these two sets of clothes?” they taunted her. After a week or so, it didn’t hurt her anymore. Not because it didn’t reach her, but because she had withdrawn into a stonewalled citadel, from where she looked out at the world in sullen silence. Her body continued to move by rote, fulfilling the demands that each day thrust on her.
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