No brother of mine.
Carry on, bro.
Ani grumbles, gazing into the mirror, slowly buttoning the topmost button of his starched shirt as his wife walks into their bedroom on the second floor of their bungalow.
“I had to iron the shirt. Sleeve’s creased,” he says gruffly, putting on his Rolex after daubing his face with Cuticura talcum powder.
“Shop’s closed today,” his wife says, surprised to see him putting on his gold-rimmed spectacles, the ones reserved for special occasions. He prefers the plastic ones for bantering with customers at the shop.
“Chettan is out with his shovel. He’s at the wall,” he says nodding towards their designer window which gives them the perfect view into the front yard of his elder brother’s house in the next compound across the wall separating the compounds of the two brothers. If only human relationships could be cut and divided as neatly, Aniyan wishes.
His wife stops stacking the freshly washed clothes in his almirah and silently watches him raising his arms spraying on the perfume that Rahul sent him from Dubai before putting on his leather sandals.
“The police just spoke to him yesterday,” she says.
“That’s just one of many lessons Chettan needs to learn,” Ani says, fixing his spectacles behind his ear though it’s sitting perfectly, slipping his wallet into his pocket.
“He is doing as he is told,” she says again. She knows men will be men, still.
“What about Mira?” he asks gazing into the mirror, running his tiny fine-toothed comb through his moustache, the pride of every Malayali man.
“Mira is a doctor. You know Chettan can’t do anything about her. After the police spoke to him, he himself is getting the wall cemented now,” she says.
“Royal blood. Royal blood runs through the veins of everyone in our tharavaadu. Look at him shovelling in the dirt like a coolie. He wants people to say Aniyan made him do it. It’s not enough that he and his daughter have damaged our family andassu,” Ani says, every word spoken softly, the heat emanating from his eyes felt only by his wife.
No Malayali man allows his land or his women to be encroached upon. Aniyan’s wife knows this by now. Chettan’s workers scraping at the dividing wall had hurt Aniyan — his little brother — more than the wall itself.
“He’ll fix the wall,” she says.
“Will you stop spouting your stupidity? It’s not about the wall,” he says, huffing at her. She can’t help it, Aniyan thinks. Pennbuddhi pinnbuddhi. A woman has a far inferior intellect than men. Everyone knows this.
Except Mira.
Confrontation between the two brothers never ended well. Her husband had been disturbed since he heard Mira’s news but she was not surprised. Mira had always been a wild one.
Aniyan shakes his head, walking down the staircase, his hands caressing the beautifully carved teak bannisters, remembering a time when both of them had been notorious all over their village. Chettan of course, the leader, the Don Quixote to Aniyan’s Sancho Panza. Rough-housing happened all the time between the two of them but if anyone hurt Aniyan, he would have to answer to Chettan.
Chettan’s globe-trotting had changed everything. He openly derided their ancestral temple rituals, refusing outright to help with renovations when their family deity was badly in need. Even after he returned to settle down in Kerala, he had expected Aniyan to go on taking care of the land just as he had all these years. In the epic Ramayan, Lord Ram had returned lavishing praise on his younger brother Bharat for ruling over his people in his absence and taken over. Aniyan was the Bharat whose Ram had returned only to pat him on his back, telling him to carry on while Ram hopped on to the next party.
That was only the beginning. Chettan had resented the lion’s share of their father’s inheritance going to Aniyan. He had told people so. People had conveyed his hurt to Aniyan. Aniyan had shown him the finger.
Chettan waxed eloquently on all the dollars he had sent home, never once mentioning Ani’s years of toil and sweat. Mira had sweet-talked Aniyan into thinking she was on his side, but supported her father throughout. Father and daughter had taken the lowly caretaker’s devotion for granted: Aniyan is not as worldly wise as his brother and certainly not as well-read as Mira. Or so they thought, Aniyan thinks, a smile playing on his lips as he walks across the marble flooring of his home.
Aniyan knows that fate has a way of teaching such people lessons. Men who do not behave as men should, they invite destruction. Women must know their place. Mira must learn this the hard way.
Hoity-toity Chettan and that minx Mira hadn’t know that to propitiate their family deity is to receive her abundant blessing. The day after Aniyan completed the temple renovations he had sealed his first property deal.
Rahul, his first-born who had until then been searching for jobs got his first job in the Gulf.
Everything Aniyan touched from then on had turned into gold.
Flicking away the ghosts of memories of him and Chettan in their suspender-shorts, playing with their rubber tyres, he walks to the brick wall, his mundu, white and crisp, rustling in the breeze.
On the other side of the wall, Chettan’s wiry brown arms move in a rhythm of their own, the shovel hitting the dirt with a blunt thunk, his foot pressing it down deep before raising it out in one sweep, throwing more dirt onto a rising mound nearby. His worker had left for the day.
He will be levelling the damn road for a good few years by the time Aniyan is done with him. Nothing wrong with wanting to run a road across his own property but doing so without consulting those in the know — like Aniyan — would mean a lot of red tape to wade through.
Aniyan would make sure he regretted it.
He knows Chettan is putting on a show as usual. Chettan will tell all the passers-by about Aniyan going to the police instead of talking to his own elder brother.
Well, they would have something else to talk about now.
Aniyan clears his throat.
Chettan’s shovel goes back in the earth, ignoring the loud “ahem”.
Thunk.
“I was just going out when I saw you here,” Aniyan says.
The neighbours have gone still, one not daring to turn the page of his newspaper, the other tending to bushes that have no roses on them.
“The police came yesterday,” Chettan says, shovel not missing a beat.
Thunk.
“Something else happened yesterday,” Aniyan says, referring to the Mercedes parked outside Chettan’s home yesterday. The police jeep came later.
“Lucky they didn’t see the police jeep,” Aniyan says. He didn’t want the groom’s side to think badly of their tharavaadu. Their differences aside, Aniyan would still be happy to see Mira settle down.
“Wouldn’t matter if they had,” Chettan says.
Thunk.
“That doctor has the biggest practice in town. He belongs to our caste. He’s a little old but Mira needs someone to reign her in,” Aniyan says, his Rolex-clad hand trembling on his wrist placed on the wall. When would Chettan see sense?
Thunk.
“Have you thought of how she will survive? Raising two children on her own? You didn’t even have the decency to inform me of her divorce. I had to pretend I already knew when I heard at the market-place, of all places. Of the first divorce in our family,” Aniyan says, gritting his teeth.
Let the neighbours hear. They all know anyway.
Thunk.
“How could you reject the doctor’s marriage proposal? Do you know what they say about Mira nowadays? Not fit for a father’s ears,” Aniyan says, slyly watching his words hit their mark.
The shovel stops.
No Malayali man allows his land or his women to be encroached upon. Chettan’s black eyes flash at him, reminding him of the Chettan of yore, towering over him, boxing Ani’s ears for telling on him.
“I know how the doctor makes his money. So does Mira.”
“Our family’s andassu would be restored. She’d be celebrated as a lady doctor with her own family practice. Her own Mercedes. They have a driver as well,” Aniyan says, hoping that Chettan would finally discipline his wayward daughter. Even if he forced her to agree to the marriage it would be for her own good.
Chettan saunters to the wall, his eyes fixed on Aniyan’s gesticulating blabber until Aniyan feels how close Chettan is. So close that he can see the lines on Chettan’s leathery skin, his dark eyes promising trouble. Chettan is twirling his moustache, the same way Aniyan does everyday in front of his mirror.
Chettan stops on the other side of the wall but Aniyan feels intruded upon, those searchlight eyes looking straight into his soul.
Aniyan takes an involuntary step backwards.
“You want to talk to Mira? About the Mercedes?” Chettan asks loudly. Aniyan wants to scream at the neighbours to go back into their damn houses.
“Shameless. Thaanthoni. Who can blame her for what she is? Vithu gunam pathu gunam,” Ani says, spitting out his frustration at Chettan’s insouciance. The apple cannot fall far from the tree.
“You know how she is. Nowadays, Mira talks of wearing her scars proudly. Something about wounds festering otherwise ,” Chettan says sotto voce.
Mira’s wild black hair flashes before Aniyan’s eyes. He and his wife had tried showing fourteen-year-old Mira how beautiful she would look if she put scented coconut oil in her hair and braided it, like good girls from good families did.
Mira had chuckled over their concerns, loosening her hair from his wife’s careful braiding at the first chance. She had even tried to put in some funny ideas into his wife’s head. Even at that age, she had shown signs of being as pig-headed as her father.
Mira would not see the Mercedes for what it was, Aniyan could see that now.
The twinkle in Chettan’s eyes says it all.
Without another word, Aniyan turns to walks towards the hefty teak doors of his mansion.
“I thought you were on your way out?” Chettan says, calling after his little brother.
“I forgot my wallet,” Aniyan says, not looking back.
“Where is my wallet, woman?” Ani says, thundering at his wife knowing full well the wallet’s where he keeps it everyday.
Right there, in his pocket.
Written in response to the Creative Challenge Prompt. Thanks @Jak.e
