Father May Be an Elephant, and Mother only a Small Basket, but…

Trace It!

Jaada

Weddings and funerals—every member of every family has to attend these. This is the way of our village since god knows when. These are the ceremonies of life, and all the rites are conducted, participated in and followed keeping in mind every particular detail, because—well, that is the way of our village. Times are changing, and life has changed completely, but the way of our village has not changed. Except, maybe, a little. So, we are allowed to take some liberties here and there, but all the same, at least one member of every family in our village must attend every funeral and every wedding. That’s that.

When someone in our village dies, every family sends a drummer. We are a wada of drummers and every drummer sent to a funeral must play his drum and throw in a fistful of earth into the deceased’s grave as a sign of respect. They must.

Narsappa’s daughter, Sukkamma, was related to everyone. Even when she grew old and her back grew crooked and she could not even see the glasses on her nose, she was still considered the daughter of the whole village. It seemed like no one noticed that she was old, that was until the day she suddenly up and died. And in our village such news never went unnoticed or unmentioned. We heard about it from every member of every family.

Oye! No work today, Narsappa cried out to the young man working on the other side of the road. Go, go tell everyone, there is not going to be any work today.

Old man, couldn’t you have told us so any earlier? My father has already left for the bazaar, the young man retorted.

If your father has left, how does it matter? You can come and play the dappu. Haven’t you heard what I said? There is a dappu hanging on a hook in my house. Go get it, and you can play.

Play? What will I do there with your dappu and old men like you? I can come and throw in a fistful of earth if you want. Youthfulness is usually not useful in these kinds of situations, and the boy’s response irked the good Narsappa.

You think you are a big guy, huh? That we don’t drum half as well as you? Have you ever heard the sounds that rise from a practised hand? Play with us today and you’ll know that even when a tiger grows old, his stripes don’t fade. Did you learn to play the dappu by watching children play, or did you learn from a master who knows the nuances of his drum? Come today, and you’ll learn from the very best.

Are you challenging me, old man? Your dappu will only play as long as your bottles of toddy are not empty… After that both you and your dappu will be flat on the ground. Go find someone else. It would be more challenging to play kabaddi with trees than to play the dappu with all of you. I don’t want to be the only person who is left to play in the end. Go find someone else.

"What are you saying? Who says you’ll play alone? Bring your friends and tell them to bring their dappu too. Pentadu, Chandrudu, Sammadu, Nagadu, Guruvadu, Yelladu—call all of them, we will all go, and we will play till we drop. No one will

have to play for anyone. Young and old, we will all play together and no one need be tired."

Babaiah was happy to go if his friends were coming. Okay then.

Everyone was called and they left for the other village, their drums slung over their shoulders. They played the drums with gusto—dhoom dham—until the corpse was buried.

They lifted up coins with their sweaty foreheads to the rhythm of the dappu; they picked up needles stuck in the sand with their eyelids, keeping time with the drum. The funeral beat of fifty dappu thundered out the message of Sukkamma’s death to ten surrounding villages. The women keened. The men born from her womb, and those born alongside her, wept like women, into their head-cloths. Crowds came to the funeral as if to a jatra. ‘She came upon this earth and saw all, did all, she now takes leave of us all, our Sukkamma. Death must come like this. It is a good death,’ they thought to themselves. ‘She nursed her daughters and her daughters-in-law, but never troubled anyone herself. It is a death as good as gold,’ people felt as they moved along in the wake. They plucked handfuls of tangedu flowers as they walked and strew them on her body as it lay in the burial pit. Each of them picked a fistful of earth and cast it in. Thus was she buried.

Finally, they sat down on one side and drank a bottle of toddy each. The younger ones did not drink, so they took money instead.

Come, let’s go to Ismail Hotel. We can eat bajji there. Pentaiah held out his hand to collect a share of everyone’s money. They walked to the place where the bus might stop and the old and the young sat and waited, drinking their toddy and eating their bajji.

The bus arrived after some time, and one by one, the old men, the young boys and their dappu climbed in. They squeezed past the passengers, holding onto their dappu for dear life, crushing all and sundry as they hurried towards empty seats. But the bus had not plied even a mile before it sputtered and hushed to a stop. The driver and conductor walked around it, clicking their tongues at each other before one of them stuck his head into the bus and mumbled something about a mechanic. The driver and the conductor looked at each other, and simultaneously said, It will take time. Then they nodded their heads at us.

What could we do? We also looked at each other and nodded our heads. Our dappu were still slung on our shoulders, and at least one of us was losing his patience.

What the hell … first some tea in the morning and then some toddy … I’ve not had anything to eat or drink and it’s making my body tremble. We are too weak to walk to the next village—and the one after that is even further. I think my stomach is going to eat me from the inside. What are we going to do, kids? asked Narsappa.

But the young boys just looked at each other. There was nothing they could do. And what did the kids know anyway about what they could do. Slowly, one by one, they left in search of water—maybe there was a well around … and then someone thought they spotted a ditch near a large banyan tree.

Let’s go and see, Avvola Nagaiah said, his words a query and a command.

They walked around and stopped at the ditch. It looked like there was only a tiny bit of water, and that too at the very bottom. Mostly, it was dry except for the leaf-green moss growing on the damp mud.

Pentaiah, Sendraiah, and Babaiah began digging into the mud with some sticks. First, two of them dug while the third one scooped the mud out. Then the third one dug and the first two did the scooping. Once the hole was a foot-deep, water began trickling into it from the bottom. It rose up to their wrists, and when all three of them had scooped enough mud out, more and more water seeped in. They plucked the nicest moduga leaves and gave them to Yellaiah, who folded them into small cups. Sammaiah and Guruvaiah scooped out the first of the muddy water with their little cups and threw it away, and when the ditch started to fill with shimmering clear water everyone dipped their cups in and drank.

Come Narsappa, Pentaiah and Babaiah called out. Come, drink this water and tell us if it is not sweeter than your toddy.

Beev, they belched after drinking their fill and sat under the shade of the big banyan tree. In the meanwhile, Nagaiah had gone missing. Where the hell did Nagadu go? Has he gone to take a leak? Pentadu wondered aloud. No, probably gone for the big job … he should be back, said Yellaiah, Babaiah agreed. Yeah, looks like that.

Did he take his dappu along or did he leave it with someone? Pentaiah asked, looking around at the men holding on to their dappu. Everyone had only one dappu. Looks like he’s taken it with him. Can someone call out to him? The bus may be ready to leave now.

So Sammaiah began shouting Oree Nagaaa! Nago! O…

Oi! What are you shouting out like that for, you fool … what’s that dappu in your hand for? Can’t you use it, shithead? Babaiah nodded in agreement. And so Sammaiah started to call out with his dappu: "

Jagtak jagtak jagtak.

"

"

Jagintak, jagintak, jagintak

, I’m coming," Nagaiah called out almost instantaneously as he walked back to them. But the bus had still not been fixed.

Looks like this is going to take a long time … shall we play a game? Pentaiah asked. Everyone thought it was a good idea and the boys perked up immediately. Who’ll play the dappu? Pentaiah looked around waiting for a response.

Yellaiah picked up his dappu hanging on the branch next to Babaiah. He stuck it under his arm, pulled out the stick tucked between its strings, and tested the drum:

tan tan

. It sounded fine. He took the german silver ring off his finger.

Pentaiah pulled the towel off Nagaiah’s shoulder to tie it around Sammaiah’s eyes. Yellaiah took Babaiah’s ring and walked some twenty feet away towards a tangedu bush, placed the ring under the bush and covered it with a flat pebble. Blindfolded, Sammaiah would have to find the ring with the help of the beat from Babaiah’s