One of the young journalists put his finger on the top edge of the newspaper and lowered it slowly; Gururaj offered no resistance. The journalist yelped, and stepped back.
There was a moist dark hole in the innermost sheet of the paper. Pieces of newsprint stuck to the corners of Gururaj’s mouth, and his jaw was moving.
THE LANGUAGES OF KITTUR:
Kannada, one of the major languages of South India, is the official language of the state of Karnataka, in which Kittur is located. The local paper, the Dawn Herald, is published in Kannada. Although understood by virtually everyone in the town, Kannada is the mother tongue only of some of the Brahmins. Tulu, a regional language that has no written script-although it is believed to have possessed a script centuries ago-is the lingua franca. Two dialects of Tulu exist. The “upper-caste” dialect is still used by a few Brahmins, but is dying out as Tulu-speaking Brahmins switch to Kannada. The other dialect of Tulu, a rough, bawdy language cherished for the diversity and pungency of its expletives, is used by the Bunts and Hoykas-this is the language of the Kittur street. Around Umbrella Street, the commercial center, the dominant language changes to Konkani: this is the language of the Gaud Saraswat Brahmins, originally from Goa, who own most of the shops here. (Although Tulu-and Kannada-speaking Brahmins began intermarrying in the 1960s, the Konkani Brahmins have so far rejected all marriage proposals from outsiders.) A very different dialect of Konkani, corrupted with Portuguese, is spoken in the suburb of Valencia by the Catholics who live there. Most of the Muslims, especially those in the Bunder, speak a dialect of Malayalam as their mother tongue; a few of the richer Muslims, being descendants of the old Hyderabad aristocracy, speak Hyderabadi Urdu. Kittur’s large migrant worker population, which floats around the town from construction site to construction site, is mostly Tamil-speaking. English is understood by the middle class.
It must be noted that few other towns in India can match Kittur’s street language for the richness of its expletives, which come from Urdu, English, Kannada, and Tulu. The most commonly heard term, “son of a bald woman,” requires explanation. Upper-caste widows were once forbidden to remarry and forced to shave their heads to prevent them from attracting men. A child born of a bald woman was very likely to be an illegitimate one.
DAY FOUR: UMBRELLA STREET
If you wish to do some shopping while in Kittur, allow yourself a few hours to wander through Umbrella Street, the commercial center of town. Here you will find furniture stores, pharmacies, restaurants, sweet shops, and bookstores. (A few sellers of handmade wooden umbrellas can still be found here, although most have gone out of business because of cheap metal umbrellas imported from China.) The street houses Kittur’s most famous restaurant, the Ideal Traders Ice Cream and Fresh Fruit Juice Parlor, and also the office of the Dawn Herald, “Kittur’s only and finest newspaper.”
Every Thursday evening, an interesting event takes place in the Ramvittala Temple near Umbrella Street. Two traditional minstrels sit on the veranda of this temple and recite verses from the Mahabharata, the great Indian epic of heroism and endurance, all through the night.
ALL THE EMPLOYEES of the furniture shop had gathered in a semicircle around Mr. Ganesh Pai’s desk. It was a special day: Mrs. Engineer had come to the shop in person. She had chosen her TV table, and now she was approaching Mr. Pai’s desk to finalize the deal.
His face was smeared with sandalwood, and he wore a loose-fitting silk shirt over which a dark triangle of his chest hair stuck out. On the wall behind his chair, he had hung gold tin foil images of Lakshmi, goddess of wealth, and the fat elephant god Ganapati. An incense stick smoked below the images.
Mrs. Engineer sat down slowly at the desk. Mr. Pai reached into a drawer, and then held out four red cards to her. Mrs. Engineer paused, bit her lip, and snatched at one of the four cards.
“A set of stainless-steel cups!” Mr. Pai said, showing her the bonus card she had selected. “A truly wonderful gift, madam. Something you’ll treasure for years and years.”
Mrs. Engineer beamed. She took out a small red purse, counted off four one-hundred-rupee notes, and put them on the desk before Mr. Pai.
Mr. Pai, moistening the tip of his finger in a small bowl of water that he kept on his desk for just this purpose, counted the notes afresh; then he looked at Mrs. Engineer and smiled, as if expecting something more.
“The balance on delivery,” she said, getting up from her chair. “And don’t forget to send the bonus gift.”
“She may be the wife of the richest man in town, but she’s still a stingy old cunt,” Mr. Pai said, after he had seen her out of the store. An assistant laughed behind him. He turned and glared at the assistant-a small, dark Tamilian boy.
“Get one of the coolies to deliver it, quickly,” Mr. Pai said. “I want the balance before she forgets about it.”
The Tamilian boy ran out of the shop. The cycle-cart pullers were in their usual position-lying on their carts, staring into space, smoking beedis. Some of them were staring with dull avarice at the store on the other side of the road, the Ideal Traders Ice Cream Parlor; fat kids in T-shirts were licking vanilla cones outside the shop.
The boy stuck out his index finger and motioned to one of the men. “Chenayya-your number is up!”
Chenayya pedaled hard. He had been told to take the direct route to Rose Lane, so he had to go over Lighthouse Hill; he struggled to move the cart with the TV table, which was attached to his cycle. Once he was over the hump of the hill, he let the cycle glide. He slowed down in Rose Lane, found the house number, which he had memorized, and rang the bell.
He was expecting to see a servant, but when a plump, fair-skinned woman opened the door, he knew it was Mrs. Engineer herself.
Chenayya carried the TV table into the house, and put it down where she indicated.
He went out, and returned with a saw. He had walked in holding the thing close to his side, but when he got to the dining room, where he had left the table in two separate pieces, Mrs. Engineer watched as he held the tool at arm’s length, and suddenly it seemed enormous: eighteen inches long, with a serrated edge, rusty, but with patches of the original metal-gray color still showing through, like a sculpture of a shark made by a tribal artist.
Chenayya saw the anxiety in the woman’s eyes. To dispel her fear, he grinned ingratiatingly-it was the exaggerated, death-mask grin of a person not used to groveling-then he looked around as if to remind himself where he had left the table.
The legs were not of equal length. Chenayya closed an eye and examined the legs one by one; then he took the saw to each of the legs, creating a fine dust on the ground. He moved the saw so slowly, so precisely, that it seemed he was just rehearsing his actions; only the accumulation of wood dust on the ground was evidence to the contrary. He examined the four legs again with one eye closed to make sure they were even, and then dropped his saw. He searched the dirty white sarong he was wearing, which was the only garment on his body, for a relatively clean corner, and wiped down the table.
“The table is ready, madam.” He folded his hands and waited.
With an ingratiating smile, he wiped the table again, to make sure that the lady of the house had noticed the care he had taken with her furniture.
Mrs. Engineer had not been watching; she had retreated into an inner room. She returned and counted off seven hundred and forty-two rupees.