Pazhani Muthu and the Curse of Komalmozhi: A Village Ballad of Love, Loss, and Toddy Dreams

Sriranga VN
Jul 30, 2025
2 min read

“Pazhani Muthu and the Curse of Komalmozhi”

No one remembers exactly when Pazhani Muthu stopped climbing toddy palms. Some say it was the fall that broke his back; others say it was the woman who broke his spirit.

Komalmozhi.

She wasn’t from Gramam. She came from somewhere beyond Brindlemalai, with sharp eyes and skin as dark and glistening as wet tamarind bark. Muthu had fallen for her in a heartbeat. He used to say, “She walked like the monsoon wind and had eyes like a cobra... how could a man resist?” Despite everyone’s protests—his mother’s sobbing, his friends’ warnings—he married her.

For a while, everything was sweet. She made hot ragi dosais in the morning and sat with him under the mango trees. He even stopped drinking toddy. Villagers whispered, “Muthu has changed. Love does miracles.”

But slowly, the storm began.

Komalmozhi was not a woman of smiles. Her silence could boil water. Her stares could skin fish. And when she was angry—which was often—she spoke like a venom-spitting cobra. She burned his clothes once. Locked him out during the monsoons another time. One morning, she even served him salt instead of sugar in his coffee.

“She’s a black woman with a black heart!” Muthu wailed one day at Appuswamy’s tea kadai, after his third glass of strong Sombu chai spiked with something stronger. “I thought I married night jasmine. Turned out it was black pepper soaked in poison.”

That was the day he stopped coming home.

Since then, Pazhani Muthu has been the wandering soul of the Gramam. Always half-drunk, half-philosopher, always full of stories. He’d lean against the temple wall, arms around a mutt, shouting verses that made no sense and somehow made all the sense in the world.

“We are all fallen toddy men!” he once declared, dramatically throwing flowers at the cows. “Fallen from the tree of trust… into the gutter of heartbreak!”

Only Appuswamy and Dr. Chari knew the full story. Komalmozhi had left years ago, quietly one night, taking nothing with her but a brass pot and her hatred.

Now, Pazhani Muthu lives with ghosts. Of Komalmozhi. Of toddy trees. Of love turned sour.

Yet, he is not unloved.

The temple dogs curl near him each night.

Sundarammal sends him hot rasam rice in a steel tiffin through Bahadur, the Nepali boy. Ammulu once stitched his torn shirt without telling anyone. And Appuswamy always has an extra cup of chai.

In his madness lies his poetry. In his pain, a strange kind of grace.

And every now and then, under the banyan tree, when the breeze is just right, you can hear Muthu sing — a tune off-key, a verse from nowhere:

“Komalmozhi... oh thunder queen,

You danced into my toddy dream.

Now all that’s left is arrack and ache,

And memories I can’t seem to shake…”

And just like that, the whole village sighs.

Because even in his madness, Pazhani Muthu speaks of things we all feel, but dare not say aloud.