Silk

She was not always called Silk. She had a name, and it was lost like all the other things she had lost in life.

This morning Amma and I were just chatting about things important and not so important and she said Silk’s daughter passed away. And memories came tumbling out of the recesses of my mind. I remember as a kid seeing a dark skinned thin woman. She had bald patches and that made her stand out even more in my memory. She was called Silk – a funny reference to the semi porn actress Silk Smitha. I don’t know why she was named that, but that was she was called. She did all the small chores at my grandma’s farm – feeding the cattle, washing the utensils and so on.

As the ages passed by I had visited my grandma’s lesser and lesser and Silk was forgotten. This morning when Amma mentioned her I got inquisitive.  More so because when I was too small to understand the cruelties of the world my mom had told us the story of Silk and her story always tormented me.

Silk was from Ceylon – Srilanka. She was a refugee running away from the war torn country in hopes of a better life. She has travelled from Srilanka to the South western shores of India in a boat along with her family. On the way all her jewelry and money were stolen. She was raped and physically abused. She landed on Indian soil with her family, a pauper. The family travelled all over South Tamil Nadu doing odd jobs here and there to fill their stomachs  and finally set base in a village called Rayavaram, my grandmothers place. My grandma’s house was an informal shelter house for the lost and the destitute – as long as they did some chores they were paid money and given food and so Silk ended up working at my grandma’s.

Here she met Ponampatti – another worker at my grandma’s. No one knew his real name. All we knew was that he was from a village called Ponampatti and that was his name then on - Ponampatti. Ponampatti and Silk got married.  And as far as my memory and my mother’s knowledge go, they lived a relatively normal life. They were the butt of many a joke – two destitute people marrying when they didn’t have anything to hope for.  They were made fun of, even by my grandma –they used to join the laughter and life just moved on. But today I think back and realize – they were most probably marrying in order to have something to hope for.

When I mean “a relatively normal life” I mean they had food to eat and a roof for cover. The only vice they had was betel leaf and Aracanut. I still vividly remember Ponampatti always having a red coloured mouth stained by betel leaf juice, which scared me as a kid.

Ponampatti was the monster that was created in the minds of children who didn’t eat or listen to elders. “Eat your veggies or we will call Ponampatti “was the scaring tactic that always worked on us.

This time when I saw him, he was frail old man still chewing his betel nut and ranting about how money is so hard to come by. I asked him about Silk and without any emotion or any feeling he said she was dead. His son had run away with a gypsy group. His daughter ran away in search of a better life and ended up with a man who made her pregnant when she was 16. She was carrying twins and died of complications during childbirth.

I think back to the times I saw Silk along with the nose leaking young child on her hip and the images haunt me. She left one country for another to escape war and ended up still fighting a war – of poverty and human cruelty.  Her daughter had an even worse ending.

Wars are not fought by countries; they are fought by the cruel intentions of a few men. And the payers of the price of war are the Silks of the world.