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The Village Drunk

Long before Goa was liberated, my village was under the Portuguese rule. Things were very much different then. People never worried much about their future. That was the time when people were truly ‘susegad’ or so people from that era claim. Somewhere during this era in my village, when my grandparents were much younger there lived a man named Vittal.

 Vittal was a simple man with only one setback. His whole universe revolved around a whisky glass and the finest toddy that the local bartender had to offer. Many people drank alcohol in the village, but only Vittal really knew how to drink it. The elite of the village called him the ‘bêbado’ of the village. If you are one of those Goans’  who ever wondered as to how the term ‘pinga master’ came into existence, then it is this man’s son who should be credited. No one knew what Vittal’s profession was. It is said, he once claimed he was a teacher to one of his fellow drunks. Of course no one believed it. Whenever any teacher asked Vittal’s son in school was his father’s profession, he would stand with his head held high and say ‘he’s a Pinga Master’.  Once, there was a situation where Vittal’s son was given his report card and asked to get his father’s signature or face dire consequences. The boy went home in deep thought trying to figure out how to make his father sign a sheet when he was too drunk to even stand. Finally on reaching home, he had a brilliant idea! He took his ink pot and smeared it on sleeping Vittal’s big toe generously and then applied his report card to the big toe, thus getting the toe print as a signature. Of course, the next day the poor boy had to face the music of the teachers cane because he refused to believe that the print was his fathers but rather believed that it was some pet monkey or some other creature of that sort.

Vittal followed the same routine all the year round; rain or shine it did not matter to him. Nothing kept him away from his bottle of toddy and the coconut tree, under which he would sit. He would get up in the morning, beat his wife to cough up some money that she had earned and go to the nearest bar to order toddy. At sunset he would come home drunk, beat his wife up again and go to sleep like a log. His routine was so regular that one could conduct a study as to how drunks find their way home with the accuracy of a migratory bird and yet have no control over their actions, on him. He would return home at the same time with so much precision that you could set your watch when you heard the howling of his wife at home, because that is when you would know she was thrashed with a broomstick. Her howling was so characteristic that guests at the village guest house would often inquire with the manager asking if there were wolves in the area and he would politely put their fears at bay saying ‘No madam, it’s merely the village drunk hammering his wife with a broom stick.’
One may ask why his wife never ran away from him. Vittal was a drunken man. In fact he was so drunk that even when sober he would sway like an underwater sea weed that moves with each wave of water. It was as if he had no bones. Moving back and forth and sideways all the time, like some toy. Sometimes I wondered if he, himself wondered why he moved so much involuntarily. But in spite of this he was strong, very strong. His wife always tried to run away from his clutches but he would hold her with his iron clasps and beat her with this trusty broom stick like how a child gets beaten. Once she managed to free herself from his hold and ran out of the house. When she had run some distance she stopped and turned around to make sure she was far away from the threat of her husband. But when she turned there he was, running really fast like some cannibalistic tribal yelling something gibberish with his eyes wide and his broomstick over his head like a spear. They spent over half an hour running around the whole village chasing each other like cat and mouse. Soon the children were seen sitting in the doorsteps of their homes watching the fun. Eventually Vittal got tired and slept off in the middle of the street itself. He was a man with a sort of obsessive disorder and when he woke up and returned home the first thing he did was beat his wife and sleep again.
Eventually vittal’s wife had enough of it, she decided that she would tolerate this nonsense no more. That’s it! ‘The next time he comes home it will be me beating him with that infernal broom stick’ she said to herself.

That night when Vittal came home from the bar, he began searching for the broom but could not find it. He asked his wife where the broom stick was in slurred speech.
‘Right where it needs to be’ she told him tightening the folds of her sari.
‘Women don’t make me angry! Hand it over!’ He began to yell. Before Vittal could comprehend the situation out of nowhere the broom came and landed straight on his face.

‘WHAT IS THE MENANING OF THIS?! , Vittal yelled at her.

‘YOU DRINK TODDY ALL DAY AND SIT UNDER THAT COCONUT TREE DOING NOTHING AND YOU HAVE THE ADUCAITY TO COME AND ASK ME THE MEANING OF THIS?!’  Said the woman.

 The broom kept coming down on him repeatedly. Taste your own medicine you filthy drunk! I slog all day, what do you do?’ The woman kept yelling and hitting him.
The whole neighborhood was perplexed. For the first time it was the drunk yelling. The husband had become a mouse. Quietly he went to bed nursing his sore wounds. The kids of the neighborhood could be seen peeing into the house to see how the situation was now in favor of the woman of the household. Vittal’s rule in his hut had ended. Now it was his wife’s turn.


   THE END

By Raghuvir Keni

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