Tiger Hills (12 page)

I will find it,
Devanna silently promised himself, his lip jutting out in determination.
And when I do, it shall be named for her and her alone:
Bambusa indica devi.

Chapter 8

1896

M
opping her face with the edge of her sari, Devi lifted the iron blowpipe and blew into the flames. Heat bounced off the pot of oil bubbling on the fire, reeds of blue smoke spiraling from its surface. Devi passed her hands over the pot, and heat hammered against her open palms. Grabbing a twist of rag in one hand and wrapping the end of her sari about the other, she hefted the pot off the fire and through the open doors of the kitchen into the courtyard.

A vat of bitter limes lay waiting outside. She had picked the limes herself, from the two trees that Muthavva had planted years ago by the vegetable patch. The limes had been quartered and tossed with salt, chili powder, sugar, and green peppercorns and then put to cure in the sun a week ago. They had lain there, curling slowly about themselves as the moisture was wrung from their skins, the spices working their way into the rinds. Untying the cheesecloth that covered the wooden mouth of the vat, Devi tipped the smoking oil into its belly. The desiccating limes stretched luxuriously in the hot oil, softening and expanding, a rich braid of smoke and citrus rising from the vat to curl about the courtyard.

As it cooled, she dipped a finger into the pickle and raised it to her mouth. Salty, sweet, lip-puckeringly perfect. Tayi would have to admit that this time Devi had outdone even her.

“Ehhh, kunyi. Is this what I have taught you, to stick your inji fingers into the pot? Must we all share the pleasure of your spit?”

Tayi billowed forth from the house. Devi sat back on her haunches and grinned up at her mischievously. “My sweet-tempered Tayi, I was only tasting it, that's all. First taste, I promise. Would I risk your wrath by going in a second time with my inji, spit-coated fingers?”

“Yes, you would,” said Tayi shortly. “Don't try to charm me now. I am not your father, dancing to your every tune. Get the pickle indoors—it needs to cool completely before it is stored away.”

“What, Tayi, why do you make so much anger? Here, taste this and tell me if it isn't the best pickle you have ever had.” Devi dipped the ladle into the pickle and, pulling on Tayi's hand, dropped a piece of lime onto her palm. Tayi tasted it, still annoyed.

“It's all right … not bad,” she admitted grudgingly.

“Not bad!” Rising to her feet in one fluid, graceful movement, Devi flung her arms about the old lady. “Come on, Tayi, you know your flower bud has outdone herself this time. Come on, say it, say it or I will tickle you! Your flower bud has made the best pickle in the whole world, say it, your sun and moon is the best,
your
sun and moon… ”

Tayi tried to hide her smile. “Cheh. What mad behavior is this? Fully eighteen years old, a grown woman now, and still you behave like a silly little girl.” She tugged at Devi's arms. “Come now, I have a lot of work to do. Stop hugging me like a bear and bring in the pickle. And go see to Tukra—make sure he trusses the chickens properly.”

Devi shook her head fondly as Tayi bustled back to the kitchen. Poor Tayi. Didn't she know better than to take what the village gossips said to heart? Yet another marriage proposal had come for Devi last week. Thimmaya, as was his wont, had asked his daughter her opinion. “No,” she had said at once, and he had politely turned it down.

News had got round the village, and the women had tuttutted.
Poor girl, they said piously, yet another suitor spurned. Why wouldn't her father allow her to get married? Was he so short of help that he should keep his daughter chained to his hearth? Although really, what did anyone expect? A child without a mother was left bereft at the mercy of the father, they sighed. A girl without a mother, like a crop with no rain.

Devi had grown used to their tongues, and they didn't slice into her like they once did, but then she had had over four years since her mother's passing in which to grow a thicker skin. She stirred the pickle angrily, splattering some of it into the mud. Good-for-nothing gossips. She had told them off at first, telling them to mind their own business, that they knew nothing of her private affairs. “Cheh,” the women clucked, “see how this chit of a girl talks back to us. Then again, what can we expect when there is no mother to teach her any better?”

Over time, she had learned it was better to ignore them, or at least to hold her head high and shrug her shoulders, pretend that what they said was of no import to her. Their barbs slid off her now, like rainwater slip-sliding from the leaves of the colocasia plant. Still, their comments wounded Tayi deeply. They shielded Thimmaya from the worst of it, Tayi and she, but nevertheless poor Tayi still bristled and wept. Were they dead, too, she lamented to Thimmaya, did they not have Devi's best interests at heart?

“Leave it be, Avvaiah,” Thimmaya would say tiredly, “let barking dogs bark. Why do you let them get to you?”

They had advised Thimmaya to get married again, these self-proclaimed well-wishers. There was a widow in the neighboring village who would suit him well, they suggested. Thimmaya had refused. He was too old, he told them, and all he wanted now was to see his children settled. Ah, they had exclaimed, at least there Iguthappa had favored him. Devi was growing up to be an undoubted beauty; any man would be lucky to call her his wife. They had helpfully inundated the Nachimanda house with proposals, offering up their sons and brothers, their nephews, cousins and cousins' cousins. Each time, Thimmaya had turned first to Devi
and sought her opinion on the proposed match. Each time, Devi had tossed her head and turned the proposals down.

This past week, spurred on by the women, Tayi had hit upon a new scheme. “Take her with you to Tala Kaveri,” she urged Thimmaya. “Take Devi to the festival.”

Yet again it was time for the Goddess Kaveri to visit Coorg. Every year, when the rains had ended and the fields were tinged with gold, when fireflies flickered in darkening courtyards and the air was like velvet, when the stars hung so low that the constellation of the seven sages was clearly visible, glittering in the night sky, Kaveri, Mother Goddess, life giver, river most sacred to the Coorgs, visited the temple tank at the top of the Bhagamandala mountain. In exactly the second week of October, at a time precisely calculated by the priests from the movement of the planets and the angle of the sun, she burst forth like clockwork into the temple tank.

It was customary for the Coorgs to send at least two members of every household to welcome the Goddess. They trekked to Tala Kaveri from every corner of the land, alongside scores of devotees from as far as Mysore, Canara, and Kerala. Young and old, the healthy and the infirm, rich men being carted fatly along by bullocks and horses, beggars hunched over their bowls, bald priests and shaven-headed Brahmin widows, all united briefly in their quest to witness the miracle of Kaveri's rebirth and to seek her blessings.

Being a practical-minded race, the Coorgs had long realized the other potential of the festival—that of a vast and convenient meeting ground for the marriageable to see and be seen. The festival was full of anxious mothers chaperoning their nubile young daughters. Knots of flower-plaited girls glanced from under lowered eyelashes at the scores of young bachelors cockily strutting through the temple grounds. Many a marriage had been speedily arranged from a meeting at the festival, and Devi had realized full well just why Tayi wanted her to go. If her knotty, arthritic legs had permitted, Tayi might have dragged Devi there herself.

“Will you come, kunyi?” Thimmaya had asked last week.

“No,” Devi had replied simply.

Tayi looked daggers at her son. “Maybe you should,” he pressed Devi. “I have to find you a good husband soon, and so many boys come to the festival … ”

Devi pouted prettily. “Are you in such a hurry to see me leave then, Appaiah?”

“No, of course not, it's okay, it's okay,” Thimmaya said, glancing helplessly at his exasperated mother.

Devi turned pensive as she hauled the pickle onto the ledge of the verandah. Even her father was growing impatient with her, she could tell. How long would she be permitted to turn down the proposals? Calling out to Tukra, she made her way around the side of the house to the chicken coop.

She sighed as she bent over the squawking chickens. “Cheh, Tukra. This string is nowhere near tight enough. Do you want the chickens to flap free halfway through the forest? Are you in such a hurry to get to the shanty today?”

The Poleya blushed under his dark skin in spite of himself, sheepishly rubbing one foot against the other. “Why?” Devi narrowed her eyes as she expertly retied the strings. “Ayy, Tukra. So I was correct, wasn't I? You
are
up to something! What are you rushing to the shanty for? Is someone waiting for you there, eyes upon the road?”

The hapless Tukra blushed even more violently. “That … I … she … nobody, Devi akka,” he stammered.

“So!” Devi exclaimed triumphantly. “Who is she? Come on, you had better tell me before I tell everyone.”

“Aiyo! Devi akka, please! That … she … I … we … the sardine seller,” he confessed. “We … we have arranged to meet there today.”

“Romance, and right under my brother's nose! Shall I let him know what you will be up to at the shanty while his back is turned?”

“Aiyo!” squeaked the alarmed Tukra, and Devi relented.

“Don't be such a mouse—I will say nothing,” she said, laughing. “Here, the chickens are trussed tightly, now hold them still.”
Smiling, she plucked a single feather from each of the birds. “All done. And there—I can hear him calling for you.”

Indeed, Chengappa was shouting from the verandah. Tukra! Ayy, accursed Tukra! Where was he, did he plan on reaching the shanty after the shops were shut? Were the chickens going to take themselves to be sold? And who was going to carry the basket of bananas? Tukra scampered around to the front of the house, chickens slung from both arms, their wings flapping in alarm until it seemed like Tukra had sprouted feathers and might rise into the air himself, fluttering and squawking all the way to the market.

Devi broke into peals of laughter as she watched him fly. And then she stopped abruptly. Even the Poleya had found love, it seemed, in a place as mundane as the local shanty. Meanwhile, she had waited and waited, but Machaiah remained stubbornly absent.

She had spotted him at a wedding once, in the distance. “Look, isn't that Kambeymada Machaiah, the tiger killer?” she had whispered excitedly to her friend.

“Who? Where? Hmm … you might be right.”

“Of course I'm right—look, can't you see his galla meesé? Only a tiger killer is allowed to sport a handlebar mustache and those sideburns.”

“Yes … ,” her friend said dubiously, “but—”

“But nothing. Why are we just sitting here? Come, let's walk around and see just who is here,” Devi had suggested brightly, ignoring the suspicious expression on her friend's face. She had dragged her across the gathering, but by the time they got to the other end of the crowd, Machaiah was gone.

“Devi … leave him be,” her friend had said. “No, don't look at me with those big-big eyes; I know what you are up to. Machaiah is out of your reach. Haven't you heard he is a devotee of Ayappa Swami, God of the hunt?”

Devi nodded, still anxiously scanning the crowd. “What of it? They say Ayappa Swami himself came down from the heavens the day of the tiger hunt, to reward his devotee. They say it must have been Him by Machaiah's side, that it was He who guided Machaiah's
odikathi, that there is no other way a man could fell a tiger with only a sword. I have heard all of it. So what?”

“So,” her friend admonished, pinching Devi's arm, “you know that they say more than that. Do you know how many marriage proposals he has turned down? They say that like his celibate God, Machaiah is simply not interested in getting married.”

“Huh,” scoffed Devi, “maybe it is only because he has yet to see a beauty like me.” She crossed her eyes into a squint and gawped at her friend until they both collapsed giggling.

That had been such a long time ago, Devi brooded now. To her bad luck, she had not seen him since. She let the feathers she had plucked drift slowly from her fingers onto the rickety wooden floor of the coop. “Swami kapad,” she prayed absently as they floated down. “Lord, bless us.” A feather from every bird that left the coop, each feather a surety to the Gods, Tayi had taught her, so that no matter how many hens were sold, still more would come to take their place …

Her friend from that wedding had got married herself, almost two years ago now. Her groom had in fact first asked for Devi's hand. After she had spurned him, his marriage proposal rebounded to her friend, who had accepted at once. Devi had felt awkward when she had gone to help fill the trousseau boxes. “Oh, don't be,” her friend had assured her. “Of course he would have asked for you first, who wouldn't?” She smiled. “I should thank you, I suppose, for turning him down.” Devi bit her lip and said nothing as they stacked piles of brass pots inside the muslin-lined trunk. “You are getting yourself quite a reputation, you know,” her friend continued sweetly. “Keep turning everyone down like this, and soon very few will come forward to ask for your hand. No man likes to be rejected, Devi, and if you keep saying no even to the best of them … ” She shook her head.