The God of Small Things - Get a Free Blog

Velutha knew more about the machines in the factory than
anyone else.
When Chacko resigned his job in Madras and returned to
Ayemenem with a Bharat bottle-sealing machine, it was Velutha
who re-assembled it and set it up. It was Velutha who maintained
the new canning machine and the automatic pineapple slicer.
Velutha who oiled the water pump and the small diesel generator.
Velutha who built the aluminum sheet-lined, easy-to-clean cutting
surfaces, and the ground-level furnaces for boiling fruit.
Velutha‟s father, Vellya Paapen, however, was an Old-World
Paravan. He had seen the Crawling Backwards Days and his
gratitude to Mammachi and her family for all that they had done
for him was as wide and deep as a river in spate. When he had his
accident with the stone chip, Mammachi organized and paid for his
glass eye. He hadn‟t worked off his debt yet, and though he knew
he wasn‟t expected to, that he wouldn‟t ever be able to, he felt that
his eye was not his own. His gratitude widened his smile and bent
his back.
Vellya Paapen feared for his younger son. He couldn‟t say
what it was that frightened him. It was nothing that he had said. Or
done. It was not what he said, but the way he said it. Not what he
did, but the way he did it.
Perhaps it was just a lack of hesitation. An unwarranted
assurance. In the way he walked. The way he held his head. The
quiet way he offered suggestions without being asked. Or the quiet
way in which he disregarded suggestions without appearing to
rebel.
While these were qualities that were perfectly acceptable,
perhaps even desirable, in Touchables, Vellya Paapen thought that
in a Paravan they could (and would, and indeed, should) be
construed as insolence.
Vellya Paapen tried to caution Velutha. But since he couldn‟t
put his finger on what it was that bothered him, Velutha
misunderstood his muddled concern. To him it appeared as though
his father grudged him his brief training and his natural skills.