CHAPTER 13

I had kept her in suspense about the story of chess board, and now I think she was getting even with me by holding the suspense. She wouldn't say what she got. I'll tell you, what's the hurry? She is asking.

Once when I got Indira alone I asked her. "What did she get?"

"I don't know?" she said with a shrug of her shoulders. Some papers, I think. Don't tell her that I sold her out."

I felt she was speaking the truth that she did not know what it was. Let me wait and see. I somehow finished my breakfast. In between Vandana suddenly disappeared leaving a very suspenseful situation. A good ten minutes must have elapsed and I heard Vandana calling me.

"Dad, come here."

I didn't understand where she was calling from. I said.

"Where are you?"

"I am here only, you didn't understand?"

No, dear. You come and take me along."

I knew for sure that she is not in any of the rooms used by us and fear started gripping me. It took quite some time before she appeared before me.

"Come, I'll show you what it is."

I followed her to the corridor and again another corridor and she stopped in front of the unused rooms now lying open.

"Come, it is inside."

There was an arch above the door. In that nalukettu only some doors have such arches above the doors. It is an old style of Kerala architecture. I had heard that all the doors had these arches long back and that one of the ancestors had removed some of them. Now only for the closed rooms have doors with arches. God, is this the room used by Ittiraman Menon?

The window also had a beautiful arch above it, and in the scanty light coming through it, the room looked eerie. Why did this girl venture into these rooms?

There is an old bed with handiwork on one side of the room. It is not a double cot, but a wide one for a person to be comfortable. There was a wooden cupboard on the other side, and a brass lamp on a table in the corner of the room.

"It's is very dark here." I said.

"Okay, I have a solution." Vandana took a match box from the table and lighted the brass lamp."

"Is this light enough for you, Dad?"

"Was this lamp here only?"

"No I had brought it here. This was a lamp lying here." She lifted an old rusted hurricane lamp from the floor. But then suddenly the wire handle broke due to rust and the lamp fell down with a thud. Vandana had a startle herself, and looking at the wire handle she was still holding she said.

"It broke and fell down, Dad."

"Doesn't matter, dear." I took that rusty wire handle from her. "You go and get a broom. We will sweep all these glass pieces and pile it in the corner."

The broom was somewhere in the corridor. With the scanty light coming through the window she swept all the glass pieces and the rusted lamp under the table.

"Now tell me what you have found? Let's us go from here fast. I don't like this place."

She opened the cupboard, took out a bundle of papers and kept it on the table. It looked like some property ownership document. The pages were so brittle that the moment you touch they broke into tiny pieces. You have to be very careful in handling them.

"Let's take it outside and inspect. I can't see anything in the light from the lamp. You walk ahead."

Vandana put out the brass lamp and moved out of the room. I followed her. Suddenly I remembered to close the window. I handed over the bundle of papers to Vandana and went inside. Because the door and windows were closed the bats that hung upside down the wooden ceiling are not seen in these rooms. I was somehow scared of those creatures. May be because of the stories I heard as a child that they are connected to the dead people. Poor creatures. I closed the window and came back, and when I was about to close the door I spotted it, a staircase, rather a shadow of a staircase, as if a light falling down diagonally from the ceiling. It could be just an optical illusion. I opened the door once again to check on it. It had disappeared.

"What's that you're looking at, Dad?"

"Nothing dear."

Again corridors.

"Let's go up to Dad's office room."

"Office room?"

"Yes." I showed her the office space of our younger days. The news that we are now sleeping in the room where her Dad and Kuttan uncle were sleeping was thrilling to her. Indira had never told her about those days.

The first bundle opened was a property document. You should know old Malayalam script to read it. What a strange language. Has Malayalam had such a style before? The document written on a stamp paper must be that of this compound and nalukettu. Don't ask me how I could guess that. This is all that I have deciphered on going through it.

"Dad, shall I ask you question?"

"Tell me."

"Why did you open the door that you have already closed?"

"Just like that...."

"You’re lying, Dad. Shall I tell you? You saw something inside, isn't it?"

"What to see there? How come you feel like that?"

"Shall I tell what you saw inside? You saw a staircase. And when you looked for it a second time it just disappeared, isn't it."

I didn't say anything. I knew I couldn't defend myself any more. Vandana is like that, she will blurt out what she felt true and that too suddenly without giving us time to be prepared. Last one week she too might have seen that, and like me she also might have opened the door for a second time only to find it disappeared. What is the meaning of all these? Does it mean that I should stop my exploration and go back? I have started getting scared of the old man. Whatever be his intention, can't he be a bit more specific?

"What was that, Dad?"

"It could be just a shadow"

"Shadow of what? There is no way that light can enter there. Then how come it is a shadow?"

I started inspecting the documents in front of me. It is a futile exercise. Suddenly a page came to my view. It was a sketch. Looks like the plan of a building. By drawing the plan for my own building in the town I had become an expert. Even if I don't possess a B.Arc degree I can make out the plan of a building just looking at it. Big idea! Since that page was in the middle of the bundle it was not damaged much. I took it out of the bundle. After an hour's study I could realize that it was the plan of an ettukettu that means the building in its original size. It was a crude sketch not prepared by a professional. I could have been drawn by the person who wrote the document. May be the survey department those days used this sort of sketches for their documents. Whatever it may be, the sketch was very clear. Rooms, corridors, two central areas with opening in the ceiling and a cemented sink below for the rain water that eventually flowed out. They have given the overall dimensions especially that of outside walls, and all measurements are in kol. I don't know the conversion between this archaic measuring unit and a feet. I could ask some carpenters, who might still be using it.

Looking at the sketch I could realize one thing. This mansion is neither a nalukettu nor an ettukettu. It is somewhere in between. It looks like they have removed only a quarter of the original ettukettu, which may be up to the first nadumittom or the skylight area. This could be reason why this mansion looks so huge and awesome.

Vandana was browsing through another bundle of papers, and suddenly she saw the sketch in my hand. She was interested.

"What's that, Dad?"

"This is the original sketch of our building. That means the sketch of an ettukettu. You know it was a huge mansion before and some ancestors had trimmed it to the present size. But now I realize that it has not been halved. Only a quarter has been cut off, which is why there are so many rooms in our house than we can expect in a nalukettu. I used to think......."

The knowledge about architecture has not led me anywhere. I will have to work hard to find out how to decipher the chess board and to find out the treasure which myself and Kuttettan think is hidden somewhere in this compound. Where shall I go searching....?

Vandana was disheartened by the fact that her discovery has not made any impact on me.

"I thought......."

I knew what she thought. I moved the whole bundles of papers aside and said.

"Let's play chess."

Afternoon siesta over I had a strong cup of tea prepared by Indira and I felt like going out for a walk. Should I cancel my leave and join office tomorrow? This is a futile search that would lead me nowhere and the result would be utter disappointment. I was sitting in the porch brooding over the whole matter and Indira and Vandana came out ready to go to the temple.

"Coming to the temple with us?" Indira invited.

"Come, Dad. It is fun."

"No you two go and get blessings from the Lord."

"If you are going out, please tell Devi so that she can close the door. She's in the kitchen."

"Okay."

I went inside and changed my dress. I should go out for a walk, where to will be decided spontaneously once you step out of the gate. From the gate I looked back. It’s a huge mansion. As Kuttettan said I should do something about it, not let it ruin. These days you don't need such a big house. If it were in the vicinity of a town somebody might buy it to make a hotel. Who'll buy this old house lying in a god forsaken village? They might buy it because of the timber that can be salvaged from this building.

I was in the middle of the fields. Walking along I was thinking that all these fields belonged to Uncle. During his old age he sold them all, and of course given a share to me and Kuttettan.

"Where do you go to, Sir?"

I wasn't looking at the old man who came across.

"Oh, it is Moothasari?" Moothasari means master carpenter.

"Yes, Sir." he said humbly.

"How are you?"

"So, so, Sir...."

Suddenly I realized that I got just in front of me what I have been searching for. Some unseen force has dragged me to this point. I wished it could be the Ittiraman Menon.

"How is father?"

"He is fine Sir... is in better health than I am. Hardly goes out..... Pretty old..."

I feel uncomfortable when I hear him calling me 'sir'. His son Anil was my classmate. He took B.Arc. Degree and is in Dubai in a good position. He had demolished their old humble house and built a modern two storey building. You could call them rich in our standards. But Muthassari still has that old mindset and calls us Sir or Madam and his house a 'kudi' which means a hutment. This was the result of atrocities committed by the Brahmin and other upper class in the olden days!

"I want to see your father. I haven't seen him for quite some time. Been thinking about it for some time and then too busy......"

"Let us go now." He said.

I had to be introduced to the old Muthassari. He must be at least ninety years old. For almost twenty years he has not been going for work. And before that he was the master builder of not only this village but the neighboring villages as well. Any way I'll ask him. He was very elaborate in his answer.

"What then? It was me who did all that demolition work. It was not really trimmed to half its size. Halfway Ittiraman Thampuram said enough, stop it. I said there are certain rules and if you stop now it will be bad for the inmates. He was a very rude and ruthless man. He said. If it's bad, let it be bad. I will bear it. Stop it now. I had to stop. It was then that the Thirumeni was called in to do prasnam (Horary Astrology), that’s a way in astrology to find out problems especially about temples. You know he was a great astrologer and tantric and he knew quite lot about thachusastra as well. He said if you want to keep the way it is now, you have to install a temple for the Goddess Lakshmi. Otherwise the weight won't match with the compound and the building. It will be lopsided. Before installing the temple he again did another prasnam, this time to locate the exact place for building temple. Then he realized that you can't build a temple in the space left vacant by demolition. The actual position of the temple should be on the South side. So Ittiraman Thampuran said if that is so, let it be on the south side, and he asked me. 'Raama, can you build a temple?' I said if I don't know it nobody else would know it in these parts. Then Thampuran said, okay go ahead. Come to think of it, I was just twenty five years old at that time!”

Sitting in the soft art leather cushion of the sofa Anil had brought from Dubai I heard senior Muthassari talking. So my guess was right. That ettukettu was demolished only in quarter portion. Usually nalukettu and ettukettu must have a pathayappura (usually it is the granary where you store grains harvested in huge pathayams, but the upper story will be habitable). How come there is no pathayappura in the compound. I raised my doubt with Muthassari.

"There is a pathayappura there, and it is in that building that Sankaran Nair's family lives. Pathayappura was at a distance from the ettukettu. I had heard that it was a ten acre compound. One by one your ancestors had sold pieces of it. Was it easy to look after such a large compound?"

"Who is Sankaran Nair?"

"Ha, don't you know that? There is a lady, what's her name, yeah Bhargavi Amma living in the next compound? It's her husband. He was the caretaker of your mansion, died long back."

It was news to me. So that ettukettu was a monstrous structure. I asked.

"Was it you Muthassari who built that ettukettu?"

"My God! No, no. It was done in the time of my father. It was Jadavedan Namboodiri, the famous astrologer and tantric and thachusastra expert who gave the sketches and dimensions. There were eight muthassaris like my father on the job. Apart from that there were numerous carpenters to help them. It was all hearsay only."

"Shall I ask you one thing? Was there any problem because the ettukettu was not demolished as per vastu laws?"

"Sure! Ittiraman Thampuran's elder brother died after three years, and in another three years Ittiraman Thampuran also died. He was ill in the last few months and suffered a lot."

"What was he suffering from?"

"I don't know. Those days whatever happens inside that tharavadu won't come out; all in secrecy. A lot of hearsay, that's all. Those may not be correct."