Raasa Leela (Tamil) - Charu Nivedita
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| Raasa Leela - Tamil Edition |
On one of those mundane days at the Post Office he works in, Kannayiram Perumal, the protagonist, goes to the toilet - he has this peculiar trait of micturating litres - he hears the telephone ringing. The phone call is for the IPS Paramanand (Indian Postal Service Officer) - the bosses do not attend their phone calls by themselves; it has to bypass via stenos like Perumal; the steno would attend the call, press the buzzer to the boss, asking whether he would like to speak and if affirmative, would transfer the call to the boss. As Perumal returns to his seat, Paramanand presses the buzzer from his room, asking his orderly to send Perumal in. The boss with a stern face asks, "Perumal, is your phone not working?" When he replies it is working, the boss asks that it has been ringing for a long time and where Perumal went without answering the call. Perumal does not say a word, goes out and takes an unofficial leave for about a year.
His boss at the Headquarters of Department of Prisons, Annasamy, the Superintendent, is unhappy that Perumal is not coming to work on Sundays. When Perumal says it is a holiday, Annasamy quotes some obscure rules that a Government Employee should discharge his duties 24 x 7 x 365. One Saturday evening, when the boss gives him file bundles, one after another - to write reminders on beedi for prisoners - a work which cannot be finished in a day, he says he is going home. Annasamy says slyly, " No problem, A 2 sir (his post - Perumal says it is considered obscene in a government office to call one by his name without the suffix 'sir'), you can very well go home now; come tomorrow and finish the work leisurely." He does not go the next day, takes a medical leave and in the meantime, fortunately or unfortunately lands in a job at the Department of Rations, Government of Delhi.
He confesses that he never receives bribe. He reasons out that he already feels like a pimp and does not want to demean himself further.
Perumal, when asked in an interview, what his job is, says that he works as a pimp. In his Delhi office, the boss Khanna would make love with one Sushma, a clerk, in his locked cabin. Perumal would have to lie to Khanna's superiors or anyone for that matter, even to the L.G. (Lieutenant Governor of Delhi) that Khanna has gone out for inspection.
Perumal calls his bosses as lunatics, the post office, a mental asylum and a torture camp.
Meera, Perumal's wife, has to get up at 5 AM, get ready, cook breakfast and lunch for the family, make her son ready to the school, catch the 8:40 bus from Chinmaya Nagar to the Mount Road Office; and worse, she has to wage wars on a daily basis with the frotteurs in the bus.
During his stint at the Prisons Office, Perumal notices that - after all these years of service in a Government Office, after all these years of bending one's body to say Good Morning to their bosses - Kanagasabai and other clerks' body language resembles that of an acrobat's monkey.
Perumal notices that while all his bosses have flat abdomen, his colleagues - the clerks and stenos - have a big paunch; bosses like Paramanand often complain that they do not shave daily. He reasons out: the Superintendents walk daily morning in the park, read news paper leisurely, bath and come in a car to the office at 9 AM sharp. The clerks' lifestyle does not permit this.
Indrani, the Superintendent at the Postal Stores Depot, feels that it is demeaning for her to bring lunch by herself from home. From then on, the orderly Tirupati has to go to her residence at Gowrivakkam from Chetpet, get her lunch in a carrier, gives her the carrier and has to travel again to Gowrivakkam to return the carrier. Perumal gauges that the 'lunch travel' costs Seven Thousand Rupees, a month.
Rangarajan is the Chief PMG (Post Master General) at the Circle Office. One evening, he dictates for three hours, at the rate of One Hundred and Forty words per minute, to his steno Varadan, Perumal's friend and he wants it done in an hour. Varadan gives his soul and body and finishes it by well past midnight. All along, Rangarajan's driver Ezhumalai waits for him at the office. They go to the boss' residence, hand over the file and worse, the boss does not even say thanks. Even worse, when Ezhumalai asks him permission to drop Varadan at his residence in the office car, Rangarajan says, "We have never dropped stenos at their residence in car; Okay, do as per your wish." How bitter?
Where do you find violence and oppression at the most ? The Warfield? The Home? The Office? Rasaleela tells you daringly that it is at one's workplace that cruelty, violence, feudalism, cunningness, oppression and humiliation are at their maximum.
Ramakrishnan, the Malayalam translator of this novel jokingly says Perumal that Railways is a bigger network than the Postal Department. And you will find Four Hundred Stories of red-tapism there. Perumal thinks it is not only the Government Sector but people at the Private Sector too have the same attitude. After the bypass surgery, the Doctor he meets for review, does not even bother to look at the ECG, Echo and the Blood test reports; he never explains why he prescribed a particular drug, let alone clearing Perumal's long list of doubts about do's and don'ts.
'The Withouts Club' comprising clerks like him, Doctors, Engineers, Bank Employees travel daily in Express Trains from Chennai to Katpadi with a season ticket that could be used only in Passenger Trains. They are often caught by the flying squad - thanks to George Fernandes - made to pay fine, squat in the platform of Railway Station for fleeing the rules. Perumal thinks, "Why all this? For the perks of a Government Job."
Rasaleela tells the ordeals of Perumal at his workplace - the Post Office - his self-respect, his unrelenting fight against servitude and oppression, his search for love, his quest for sex, the betrayal and ditching by his friends and soulmates.
Perumal writes in his novel 'Women', " I hate all women because they deny me sex." He certifies that Akila, his colleague at the Post Office is an expert in telephone sex but always denies him real sex. Padmini and Divya are from Malaysia and America respectively. Perumal showers them love to the fullest; they speak with him for hours together, they fantasize various coital positions, attain orgasms - all in internet chats - but, they never ever turn to meet him, when they come to Chennai, at least formally. Padmini, Laya, Divya, Fowshiya - all send love filled letters to Perumal. When Padmini returns to Malaysia, after her boring day in the college at 4 PM, she sends Perumal a message at 4:05 PM Malaysian time, asking whether he is free to chat with her. When he does not reply to the online message, she texts him and calls his landline phone. Perumal postulates the reasons:
1.) They have no one to speak in a foreign soil.
2.) They are currently unemployed or currently students.
3.) They are still unmarried.
4.) Unresolved Electra Complex : Divya constantly compares each and every deed of his with her dad.
He borrows money from a loan shark to educate Anandan in college and to enable him learn French. Perumal's debts rise up to Eighty Thousand Rupees. He finds tough to make the ends meet. Anandan gets a job but he never helps Perumal in repaying the debts, instead he wants to buy a land.
Muse ditches Perumal to befriend Naren and further tries to woo Mani, but Mani never gets trapped. Ranjan and Perumal are bosom friends, until Perumal introduces him to Kumarasamy. It is the bitterness that remains, after reading Perumal's relationship with women (Divya, Padmini, Laya, Spandana, Daisy, Muse), his friendship (Anandan, Ranjan, Raghavan, Celine, U.Tha.E no. 4), their betrayal, with all its absurdity - both cyber and real.
Rasaleela documents Occupational Hazards throughout its course. In the Government sponsored brothels in Bangkok, he sees prostitutes as young as Seven. Kanchana, the sex worker, narrates him the history and culture of Isan, how the Thais destroyed Isan language, a dialect of Lao language. In Paris, he sees prostitutes as old as Eighty, sex clubs, gay clubs, S and M clubs. He tells about prostitution being run as a small scale industry in an Andhra village, where the customer is treated as a guest, given oil bath, a good feast and fulfilling sex - all for Five Hundred Rupees - but the business vanished now, thanks to Chandra Babu Naidu.
He mentions nurses in the list of people he likes, for their sex appeal. At a later date, when in the ICU after a bypass surgery, while he turns in the bed in the middle of the sleep, the nurse immediately attends to him, asking, "May I help you?" She was sitting all through the night, just to oversee the two patients in the room.
The novel speaks about the body, the politics of the body, its desires, its quests, its sufferings and its compromises. The chapter that lists the world renowned torture methods makes the novel a complete one.
Helen is a hilarious character. While it takes thirty years for people to come up in politics, all it took was three months for her. At a public meeting in her village where the heir of the Chief Minister attends, she says, "India's capital is not New Delhi but Alwar Thirunagar because the heir is living there." She hoards Thirty Lakhs Rupees given to her for spending in the MLA election and eventually loses the election. Even before the election result, she was in a research to find the best house in Greenways Road - the elite's hub.
Charu quotes newspaper reports from December 2005 that tells about the stampede that killed Forty people, who were queuing from midnight to get the 'Storm Relief Fund' at MGR Nagar, Chennai. The then Chief Minister alleges the tragedy to rumors purportedly spread by the then Opposition Party, that only two hundred people would be given the relief fund on a first come, first serve basis. The then Opposition Party leader in a public meeting denies the allegation and adds that they requested the Government to utilize their 'services' in the distribution of the relief fund but it turned to deaf ears. Charu does not take stands here; he leaves it to the reader to decide who was at fault.
I used the words 'ordeal' and 'bitterness'. Though it speaks of gloominess, these ordeals and bitterness are interesting to read. This novel is a page-turner. The Chapter 16 is a postmodern carnival. Further, the chapters on Fungula, Kodambakkam Stories, Perumal C, Daisy's shortcut to success - are all interesting to read.
Service is a term far different from servitude. Just because you pay someone, it does not mean that he is your slave. Period.
(Originally written on April 30, 2014 in Charu Nivedita Readers’ Forum, Facebook)
