The Village Fool Who Saw What Others Missed |Ponmanipudi TALES|

The Fool Who Saw the Potholes

(A Ponmanipudi Tale)

It was eight in the morning, Srikanta had already borrowed five rupees from Murugan, offended the temple priest, and been chased halfway down the street by a woman carrying a broom.

The priest was indignant and said Srikanta had no respect for God.

“The trouble is, Swamigal,” Srikanta had replied, “God never comes to the tea stall. I have nowhere to show my respect.”

The woman with the broom had a different complaint. Srikanta had been sitting on her doorstep, eating groundnuts and dropping the shells where she had just swept. She had warned politely but Srikanta ignored her and continued spitting groundnut shells....

By the time he reached Murugan’s tea stall, the sweeper was behind him, still shouting.

Murugan poured his tea without asking.

“Two rupees,” Srikanta reminded him.

“You owe me eleven.”

“Then what is another two between friends?”

“We are not friends.”

“Good. Then charge me interest. But no compounding.....”

Murugan pushed the glass towards him.

In Ponmanipudi, no one knew exactly what Srikanta did for a living. He was too old to be a boy, too young to be an elder, and too unreliable to be trusted with anything important.

But if there was an argument, a wedding, a funeral, a broken cart or a village meeting, Srikanta would find himself there....Usually blurting something funny without anybody asking him.

That morning, the village headman, Ramaswamy, arrived at the tea stall with news about the road.

“The new road will be ready in ten days,” he announced. “A proper road. Smooth as butter.”

“Excellent,” said Srikanta. “Now we can fall down without scraping our knees.”

A few men laughed.

Ramaswamy ignored them and continued..."The government has sanctioned money, the contractor is experienced, and the work proceeded according to plan. Now it is ready...."

Srikanta watched the workmen scraping earth from the roadside.

“Where will the rainwater go?”

Ramaswamy turned. “What?”

“The rainwater. When it rains, where will it go?”

“Into the drains, naturally....you fool...”

Srikanta pointed towards the old roadside channel. It was clogged with mud, leaves and broken bricks. Near the bend, the channel disappeared beneath a heap of earth.

“Which drain?”

Ramaswamy looked at it briefly.

“Do you know how to build a road, Srikanta?”

“No, sir.”

“Then let the people who know their work do it. And shut up for Kaduval's sake....”

“Of course,” Srikanta said. “I was only asking where the rain should go. It may also want to know.”

The men laughed again. Ramaswamy left, muttering and swearing about people who had nothing better to do.

Srikanta finished his tea and went to see what Gopal and Shankar were shouting about....

Their mango tree stood close to the boundary between their properties. Gopal claimed the tree was his. Shankar claimed that half the branches leaned over his land, and therefore half the mangoes belonged to him.

“Cut it down,” Srikanta advised.

Both brothers stopped arguing long enough to glare at him.

“Then nobody gets mangoes,” he explained. “Very fair. Even the tree gets justice.”

They told him to go away.

He went, but not before picking up a fallen mango.

By noon, he was at Venkatesan’s kirana shop when old Kamakshi discovered she was four rupees short for her rice.

“Put it on my account,” Srikanta said.

Venkatesan looked up from his ledger. “You don't have an account. You are a permanent headache.”

“Then put it under headaches.”

Venkatesan grumbled, but he added the rice to Kamakshi’s bag.

Srikanta wandered out before Kamakshi could thank him, stopping only to ask whether anyone had seen his missing sandal.

By late evening, the road was finished....

It looked splendid. The surface was smooth, the edges neat, and the villagers gathered to admire it....

Ramaswamy stood in the middle with his hands on his hips.

“Tell me, have you seen a better road?”

“Not today,” Srikanta said. “I haven't travelled far.”

This time, even Ramaswamy almost smiled.

It was wonderful for few days...the autos, the cars and the occasional trucks speeded up on seeing the smooth road. The bicycle riders cursed when the air whooshed them as the cars speeded up....

Then one night, the rain arrived....

It started around ten, while Murugan was closing his shop. By midnight, it was coming down hard enough to drown out the barking dogs and rattle the loose shutters along the street. And it poured in torrents....

The next morning, Murugan opened his door and found water around his ankles.

His tea tins were floating....

Across the road, Kamakshi was lifting her bedding onto a cot. Two shopkeepers stood in the rain, arguing with the contractor, who was arguing with Ramaswamy.

“The drain was already blocked!” the contractor shouted.

“Then why didn't you clear it?”

“That wasn't in my contract!”

Nobody seemed to know whose contract included keeping the village dry.

Srikanta arrived carrying an umbrella with a few small holes.... He stopped outside Murugan’s shop and looked at the water.

“Very nice,” he said. “Now we have a road and a river. Two facilities for the price of one.”

Murugan, trying to rescue a tin of tea leaves, told him to shut up and help.

For once, Srikanta did....

He waded towards the bend where the old drain ran beneath the road. A heap of broken bricks and packed mud had sealed the outlet. He tugged at a piece of wood, failed to move it, and called for a spade.

“What are you doing there?” Ramaswamy shouted over the rain.

“Looking for the river, sir. It seems to have lost its way.”

A few men came to help. They pulled out bricks, mud and a sodden bundle of rubbish. The water hesitated just a bit, then began to drain away.

Ramaswamy stood beside Srikanta, watching it move.

“You knew this would happen?”

Srikanta wiped the rain from his face.

“No, sir. I only knew water has to go somewhere.”

“Then why didn't you explain it properly yesterday?”

“I asked you.”

“You made a joke of it!”

Srikanta looked at him, genuinely puzzled.

“You were listening to the joke.”

For a moment, Ramaswamy said nothing. Then he turned and began telling the men where to clear the remaining drain.

Murugan came over, holding a rescued tea tin against his chest.

“Next time, Srikanta, tell me before the rain comes.”

“I did.”

“You told the headman.”

“You were making tea.”

Murugan threw a wet rag at him. Srikanta ducked, laughing, and the rag landed on the contractor's shoulder.

For the first time that morning, even the contractor laughed.

By noon, the water had receded. The new road was still there, smooth in the sunshine, though a muddy strip remained along its edge where the men had cleared the drain.

Srikanta sat beneath the tamarind tree, trying to mend his umbrella with a piece of string.

Murugan brought him a glass of tea.

“On the house,” he said.

Srikanta looked suspiciously at the glass. “Have I become important?”

“No. I don't want you standing outside my shop when it rains.”

“Ah,” Srikanta said. “A business decision.”

He drank his tea and asked Murugan for two rupees.

Murugan snatched the empty glass away.

By evening, the village had found other things to quarrel about. Gopal and Shankar were arguing again, this time over a fallen branch. The temple priest was looking for Srikanta. And Ramaswamy had instructed someone to inspect the drains along the rest of the road.

Srikanta, meanwhile, had lost his piece of string and was accusing a passing child of stealing it.

The child denied everything.

“You see?” Srikanta told Murugan. “Nobody believes me. It is the burden of being an honest man.”

Murugan laughed hard and spilled the tea.

And Srikanta, who had no money, one good sandal and very little sense of timing, went home quite pleased with himself.

Welcome to Ponmanipudi... where nothing is as it seems.

Ponmanipudi is an original village created by Sriranga V.N. Here, ordinary lives become extraordinary stories, and the everyday moments of village life reveal the humour, tenderness, contradictions and quiet mysteries of being human.