Tiger Artist: An indie short-story translation
A translation of Pulikkalaignan, a tamil short story by Ashokamitran
Pulikkalaignan (Tiger Artist) is a story I keep returning to. This, and Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist” resonate with me in similar ways. Ashokamitran wrote this story in 1973.
Ashokamitran was a writer unlike any other. He wrote simple stories about simple people. Beneath the simplicity was an eye for human behavior and absurd images, and a restraint in his writing that showed everything as it was, sometimes at the cost of personal and financial setbacks. He’s one of the writers I admire the most.
Yet, most people won’t know about him because he wrote in Tamil, a South-Indian language with just 86 million speakers (English has 1.45 billion, in contrast. Hindi, India’s dominant language has 610 million). Translation takes away the charm of his bare prose to some extent. I’ve tried to do what I can. I don’t have the rights to this story, but I’m sharing this so that more people discover his work.
Tamil has some nuances that doesn’t translate to English (like any translation). I’ve made some choices along the way and inserted footnotes where more context is helpful. Here’s the story.
From one to two in the afternoon, we had our lunch break. It used to be till 2.30 at one point, they say. At that time, work also used to start later, at 11. For an office timing of 11, sitting down to eat breakfast at 10.30-10.45, reaching office at 11.30, and then immediately going to eat tiffin at 1 o clock was impossible. That's why, in the canteen, the real crowd was around 2 o clock. Now, they've moved the 11 am timing to 10.30, and then again ordered us to show up at 10 am since the last month. Tiffin break was pushed from 1 to 2. The office that used to wind up at 5 in the evening has now been extended to 6 pm. The work is the work that's always been going on. In the factory division, the carpenters, the people in the electrical division, the lotterymen... for them it had always been eight hours of work. In the same way, the people who kept the books. The accounts department. These folks, regardless of the work happening or not happening, had to keep writing the accounts, all the time. And then the telephone operator's telephone – it had neither a break nor a holiday. Hence, only people who were not involved in these divisions sometimes got a break, even during office hours. In days, in weeks, in months.
As far as I know, there's been a time when our studio didn't produce a film for a year and a half. For one and a half years, drawing salary without doing any work, taking naps laying your legs on the tables during office hours, turning your hair grey, gathering flab on your lower bellies, giving space for diabetes to creep in, teaching your eyes to surf waves since there's no goal for your powers of thought, you could let your speech slip into incoherence.
After one and a half years, when work did arrive for real, you could rejoice at your mandatory leisure coming to an end.
With that newfound joy, due to the habit of work having been severed, you could stumble.
At a time when we were expecting that joy and that disorientation to arrive, today, tomorrow, any day now, one afternoon when we had finished our tiffin and were relishing the mouth-feel of betel leaves and tobacco leaves, he arrived.
"What do you want, my man?1" asked Mr. Sharma. Once upon a time, Sharma was a man who could only be seen in Western attire. Trousers. He'd worked as a police sub-inspector. Having written and published skits and stories, he'd earned a name for himself and in the studio's story section, he'd become a somebody. In the golden old days, he'd taken our boss on his motorcycle pillion to scout locations for exterior shots. Now he had become used to wearing dhotis and chewing tobacco. If he stood up, his shoulder blades descending in a squarish manner below his neck were the only indicators that at one time, this was a man whose body had been shaped by exercise.
It was a small room. A few ancient tables, both small and big. Sitting behind the big table, Mr. Sharma presided as the judge and jury for that room by unspoken consensus. Apart from the chairs we were sitting in, there was one extra. All of ours were different sorts of ancient chairs. For most of the chairs, one leg was shorter than the rest. Whoever sat in them, they would lurch to one side, dropping the pit out of their stomach, startling them into thinking they were falling. The man who arrived stood grabbing hold of the back of the empty chair.
"What do you want, my man?" asked Mr. Sharma.
"Saturday, I had come home, sir,2" he said.
"Saturday, I wasn't even in town," said Mr.Sharma.
"I came right in the morning, sir. You too were repairing an umbrella."
"Oh you is it... Velayudham, no?"
"No, sir. Khadar. Tagarboit Khadar."
"You had come, you say?"
"Yes sir. Vellai said, 'Go see his excellency3 at his house.'"
"Who Vellai?"
"Vellai, sir. Agent Vellai."
Now it looked like Sharma was beginning to understand. The man named Vellai was the one in our studio who, when we needed to shoot large crowds, would gather men and women in the hundreds and bring them to us. Apart from standing as a crowd, nothing was needed from them in terms of acting. For each person, a day's meal would come to 2 rupees on paper, though Vellai would take 1 rupee for himself.
"Right now we aren't shooting any crowd scenes, though" said Sharma.
"I know, sir. He said you would give me some role if I met you," he said.
"Who said?"
"That's what, sir. Vellai said. Vellai sir."
Sharma looked at us. The both of us looked at that man. Short, he was. At one time, he must have had a well-built body. Now, the bones in his shoulder-blades were jutting out. His sagging jaws made it look like his dark cheeks were stretched thin and stuck over them. The men that Vellai brought were all more or less like this. If the film Ramarajya was shot, the citizens who appeared with Rama on screen would all be people in their sunset years.
"I'll send word through Vellai," said Sharma. We leaned back. The interview was over.
He said, "Okay sir." Then, with a timid voice he said, "Even if you're able to find something for me right away... that would be okay too, sir."
"My man, we haven't started any shooting yet. Crowd scenes, in any case, are only shot in the end."
"Not about that, sir. Give me some role, please."
"What role can we give you? There, that's the casting assistant. Give him all your details before leaving."
I was the casting assistant. Like the man who had turned up, I had noted down the name, age, height, address of thousands of people. From those notes, when we needed them, if we sent out letters to four people, three would return undelivered because the resident had moved away. After that, it was all up to Vellai.
But he didn't turn toward me. He was firm in his conviction that among the three of us, Sharma was the most important man.
"Only if you put in a word, something will happen sir..." he said.
"Do you know to swim?" asked Sharma.
"Swimming?" repeated the man. Then, he mumbled, "Little little, I know sir..."
"Knowing a little is not enough. We might have to take a scene where a man dives from a height into a river and swims his way through. You... won't do that."
"I know Tagarboit sir. My name itself is Tagarboit Khadar."
"What is that? Tagarbot?"
"Tagarboit, sir. Tagar, you know?"
Now all of us paid attention. None of us understood what he was saying.
He said, "Puli sir, puli, puli fight.4"
"Oh, tiger fight, huh? Tiger fight. Do you fight with tigers?"
"No, sir. I put pulivesham5. Tiger costume. That's what they call Tagarboit, isn't it?"
"Oh, you're someone who masquerades as a tiger, is it? A tiger artist, why do we need those for cinema, my man. Tiger costume... Okay, okay. Let Vellai come. If any chance turns up, I'll send word for sure."
"I do Tagarboit very well, sir. It'll look like a tiger for real."
"If I wanted a tiger for real, we could get a tiger for real, right?"
"No, sir. What I do is the real thing. Will you take a look now?"
"Unh-huh. Not necessary..."
"Just take a look, sir. Where would his excellency have seen something like this, just like a real tiger?"
"Why, for every Muharram and Ramzan, aren't there so many on the street doing this tiger getup?"
"Ours is different, sir. It's just like a real tiger."
From somewhere, he produced a tiger's head. Only then did we notice that he had brought a cloth bag with him. Tiger's head as in, just the outer skin of a tiger's head. Slipping that over his head in less than a second, he stretched it taut over the contours of his face. His eyes shone through his face that had transformed into a tiger's. He looked round the room for a second, running his eyes here and there.
"Bravo," said Sharma.
We could not tear our eyes away from the man. With a stretch of his arms, he relaxed his body. Just like that, crouching on his four legs, he rotated his head looking here and there.
"Bravo," Sharma said again.
Raising his back alone, like a cat, he arched his body and trembled. Then, he opened his mouth. We flinched. We had never heard a tiger roar before like that, at such proximity, with such ferocity. Roaring like a tiger once again, he quivered, only at the rear. In the same breath, he leaped four-legged on to the empty chair in the room and landed on it. The chair wobbled, clattering. I exclaimed "Ayyo!"6 Springing with his four legs once again, he pounced on my table. In the blink of an eye, he had pounced on Sharma's table. On Sharma's table too, there were scattered in a clutter several papers, books, bunches of betel leaves, haphazardly. His four legs didn't disturb a single one of them. Crouching on Sharma's table, he looked at Sharma and produced a blood-curdling roar, once again. From there, he leaped directly upward. We all shouted, "Oh!"
It was an ancient building. On the wall, at a height of about ten feet, there was a ledge cut into the wall, just a couple of fingerspans in width. Just a little above that ledge, on an adjacent wall, there was a single-barred window that served as a ventilator. A thick layer of filth, grime, and dust had accumulated on it. Leaping clear over our heads with his four legs, he fit himself into that alcove barely two fingerspans wide. Then, holding on to the ventilator bar, he growled again, like a tiger.
"Careful, oh careful!" yelled Sharma. At that height, the ceiling fan was whirring like a ghoul right in front of his face. His face and the blades of that fan were separated by mere inches.
From that great height, he leapt back onto the chair. He heaved himself off the chair and landed on the floor. We were too stunned to speak. From the beastly mask, his eyes shone as tigers' eyes. Once more, the beast parted its jaws and roared. The next instant, his body relaxed and sagged. He stood up on two legs.
Even Sharma couldn't say Bravo this time. The man removed the beastly mask. We had no words. He was the one who turned into his old self first.
"I'll definitely find something for you," said Sharma. His voice had changed, immensely. The man brought his hands together and bowed, as if in prayer.
"Where are you staying?" asked Sharma. Saying "Meersaagipettai," the man7 mentioned a door number and a lane. I noted it down. Hesitating a little, he said, "But, I don't know how many days I'll be there."
"Why?" asked Sharma.
He started to say "No sir..." and abruptly fell at Sharma's feet.
"Get up, get up Khadar," stuttered Sharma. We had all stood up. The man too stood up and wiped his eyes. "My missus has told me not to show up anywhere near our house," he said. The same man had, a few minutes earlier, been a tiger.
"It's been months since I earned anything. How can I blame her? Four children. All of them wee little ones." He was sobbing now.
Something struck Sharma and he asked, "Did you eat today?"
"No, sir," said the man. Not just that day. It had been many days since he had eaten; and it wasn't necessary to ask, to know.
Sharma's hand reached into his pocket. We too began rummaging in our pockets. Putting all the change together, there were about two rupees between the three of us. "Here, take this to the canteen first and eat well," he said.
"I don't want it, sir," the man said.
"What do you mean, don't want? Go eat, first," said Sharma.
"Please get me some role, your excellency," he said through sobs.
I had never seen Sharma lose his temper like that. "How can you refuse money that's being handed to you, huh? If you refuse money, how will money come to you? Even if it's just one cowrie8, it's Lakshmi, how will Lakshmi find her way to you?9 Go, take this and eat first!" he barked.
His weeping ceased and he accepted the money. Sharma said in a gentle tone, "Roles, jobs... These aren't in my hands, my man. For you, I'll do what I can. Go, first get something into that belly," and then looking at me, he said "Just go along with this guy to the canteen and get him something to eat." I stood up at once.
"No sir, I'll go eat. I'll go eat," the man said. Then he folded his hands again, looking at us, and left. For a while, none of us spoke. Sharma, without being aware of it himself, broke the silence with a loud tone. "What do we do for this guy? If the film they're shooting is a kings-and-queens type story..."
But he didn't sit idle. Two weeks later, when the story circle got together, he pitched a scene in which the hero sneaks into the enemy's fortress wearing a tiger's disguise, and he got it okayed. In the tiger disguise portions, Khadar could act as the hero's "dupe." We could get him at least a hundred rupees.
I sent a letter to Khadar. Four days later, as usual, the letter returned. The resident wasn't living at that house.
Sharma, taking Vellai along with him, searched for Khadar. We too enquired in all the places we could think of. And all the places we wouldn't usually ask. The filming date drew closer for the scene in which the hero sneaked into his enemy's fortress. Khadar was nowhere to be found.
Even if he had been found, it wouldn't have been of much use. In a movie released in that month, the same hero had acted in a movie where he had danced to folk music hoisting a kavadi10 onto his shoulders. That movie had drawn a crowd across Tamil Nadu11 that was unmanageable. In the movie we were shooting, it was decided that the hero would do something similar. He would do karagam12 this time.
Thanks: Kaalamum Aindhu Kuzhandhaigalum, Time and the five children (1973). This is the original version.
If you liked this, consider subscribing.
Whenever I say “My man,” the literal suffix used in tamil is “pa.” Sort of an affectionate/patronising suffix used by a superior towards a subordinate. Or an elder towards someone younger.
He doesn’t say “Sir” literally. In Tamil, and in other languages, there are ways of denoting respect to the speaker using singular and plural forms. It’s called the T-V distinction. Tu/Vous in French, Nee/Neenga in Tamil, Tum/Aap in Hindi, and You/Thou in English (outdated). There’s currently no way to show this respectful tone in English without sounding like I’m Shakespeare’s grandfather, so I’ll just use Sir instead.
He says “Ayya” in the original – which means something like “Master” or “Lord.” But the tone is more like “Your honor” or “Your majesty.”
Puli is Tamil for tiger.
An art form that involves a stylized dance performance in a tiger costume, usually performed around festive times, and at carnivals.
My gosh!
I keep saying “The man” – in the original, it’s sufficient to say “avan,” the singular pronoun for him to differentiate him while “avar”, the plural pronoun is used for Sharma. Using his name would be alright but it would give it a different feel.
Salli is the literal term used here. It doesn’t mean cowrie shell, it means a very small amount of money, but since cowrie shells were used as money, I used that here.
Lakshmi is the Hindu Goddess of money. Her presence is supposed to bestow wealth.
Kavadi is a bamboo prop hoisted onto shoulders in a dance, associated with a pilgrimage or religious practice.
Tamil Nadu is one of the two Southernmost states of India (the other being Kerala). The story is set in Chennai, then Madras, the capital city of Tamil Nadu.