The God of Small Things - Get a Free Blog

for what he, Vellya Paapen, had done to him. The boat (that Estha
sat on and Rahel found) was tethered to the tree stump next to the
steep path that led through the marsh to the abandoned rubber
estate. He had seen it there. Every night. Rocking on the water.
Empty. Waiting for the lovers to return. For hours it waited.
Sometimes they only emerged through the long grass at dawn.
Vellya Paapen had seen them with his own eye. Others had seen
them too. The whole village knew. It was only a matter of time
before Mammachi found out. So Vellya Paapen had come to tell
Mammachi himself. As a Paravan and a man with mortgaged body
parts, he considered it his duty.
The lovers. Sprung from his loins and hers. His son and her
daughter. They had made the unthinkable thinkable and the
impossible really happen.
Vellya Paapen kept talking. Weeping. Retching. Moving his
mouth. Mammachi couldn‟t hear what he was saying. The sound of
the rain grew louder and exploded in her head. She didn‟t hear
herself shouting.
Suddenly the blind old woman in her rickrack dressing gown
and with her thin gray hair plaited into a rat‟s tail stepped forward
and pushed Vellya Paapen with all her strength. He stumbled
backwards down the kitchen steps and lay sprawled in the wet
mud. He was taken– completely by surprise. Part of the taboo of
being an Untouchable was expecting not to be touched. At least not
in these circumstances. Of being locked into a physically
impregnable cocoon.
Baby Kochamma, walking past the kitchen, heard the
commotion. She found Mammachi spitting into the rain, THOO!
THOO! THOO!, and Vellya Paapen lying in the slush, wet,
weeping, groveling. Offering to kill his son. To tear him limb from
limb.
Mammachi was shouting, “Drunken dog! Drunken Paravan
liar!” Over the din Kochu Maria shouted Vellya Paapen‟s story to
Baby Kochamma. Baby Kochamma recognized at once the
immense potential of the situation, but immediately anointed her