This is the story behind the movie 'Poo,' directed by Sasi, notable in Tamil cinema for its slice-of-life depiction. Adapting this twenty-five-year-old short story, Sasi has retained its essence, only adding to its beauty in writing his screenplay. Even today, it is heartwarming to read the vernacular dialect that this story is written in. '“If we want everyone to have a chance of experiencing the young morning sun, the mild breeze, or the music of the sea waves, writing stories is the only way,” says Thamizhchelvan, whose roots lie in Tirunelveli. He now lives in the town of Pattamadai, Tirunelveli.
The original story with the above preface is available online here on the Azhiya Sudargal blog.
Mariammal's mother could not help but be astonished. She simply could not understand why this donkey had suffered and trotted along all the way here in the sweltering sun.
"Yer’ husband ain't coming?' she asked, only to be aggressively gestured to wait by her daughter. With the same fervor, Mariamma pushed into the house and downed two mugs of water, glugging like a thirsty dog in the barren fields does when it finally reaches a watering pit. "Sss aathaadi!" Replenished, a reanimated Mariammal sat down and heaved a sigh of relief.
"Yer’ husband ain't coming?"
"Him... He said he'll be here in time for when we set the rice for the feast. If he comes now itself, he'll lose too much 'bizness it seems."
"Fine... Then you could have at least waited out this sun before leaving... Will some calamity strike if ye’ didn't run here like this in this torrid heat?"
"Fair enough... I hear machaan is celebrating this Pongal ‘ere?"
The mother understood everything now. Her daughter's machaan—her only younger brother's son Thangarasu—had returned from the town to partake in the day's Pongal festivities at the Kaliamman Temple. Having somehow sniffed this out, this donkey had run all the way back here, to its maiden home.
"Did you at least have some porridge for lunch before you left?" she asked, and the donkey replied, "No." The mother began pouring the porridge and asked her daughter to drink up.
As moments passed, the mother fully observed her daughter, and she saw the dried-up skin, blackened from time spent under the sun, and not a speck of gold on her ears or neck. The mother's eyes began swelling with tears at Mariammal's condition. From the days they were mere tots, everyone knew that Mariamma was her machaan Thangarasu's. Be it when the kids were playing cops and robbers or when they set out on expeditions into the jungle to gather cactus fruits, the two were inseparable. That it all ended in such a tragedy depressed the mother. There were so many visuals from her dreams for her daughter, now bygone and in vain.
Changing the topic, "Where’s anna?" asked Mariamma about her older brother. "I mean, if the both of ye’ are here, we have to feed ye’ meals of rice and curries. He's gone to the town to pick up some rice and pulses." Finished with her porridge, the daughter ran off again, now towards Cheeniyammal. It was Cheeniyammal who delivered the news of her machaan's arrival to Mari through the children who worked in the town, sticking strips on matchboxes. Ever since this news reached Mari, she was restless. She demanded that they leave to the village that very instant. But, her husband would neither budge himself nor let Mari leave—why should he leave to his in-laws' today for day-after-tomorrow's festival? Moreover, the frequency with which Mari ran back home to her mother's house did not sit right with him. After all, just because her village was right there, some three miles away, a wife can't simply go back to her mother's upon every whim and fancy. Actually, even her going away was somewhat tolerable. But certainly not if she stopped at his store first every time to load up on lentils and jaggery and this and that. Trying to run a business in a small town like this one was already a pain. And now, her demands to go to the temple festival only set his stomach on fire. But of course, it wasn't in his nature to blow his top at her. Like all the other times, he squirmed, rambled a bit in lament, and eventually sent her off with a long face.
Mari was unaffected by all of this. All she knew was if she wanted to go home, she would. Besides, her machaan was visiting—how could she not leave?
Mari grew up as if the very purpose of her birth was Thangarasu. The old ladies of the village still laugh about the hissy fit she threw in the fourth grade when Thangarasu's family began packing after his father was transferred to Pudukottai. She rolled around in the street in a frenzy, yelling that they must take her with them. For long after that, the ladies teased her about this, asking her, "Enna di, when is yer’ husband coming back?" And for her part, Mari never appraised these to be jokes. The child took them very seriously. When the other kids splashed about in the tank, Mari alone stayed away. Spending too much time in there would give you rashes, which would then ooze pus. And that would not be to the fancy of her city-educated machaan. Similarly, she avoided the porridge—she couldn't risk a belly. Eventually, the child that blathered to everyone about her machaan came of age. And now, the very thought of him made her shrink into a blush. Then those days too passed. The thought of Thangarasu grew in substance, now manifesting into feverish dreams of a life lived at his side. He filled her thoughts on her way to work to and from the town and while she was working the matchboxes.
If only her father didn't pass from a bout of diarrhea during the famine, she would matched her machaan's education. That alone, she kept worrying, was a missing qualification for their marriage. But that hesitation also disappeared when her machaan came to their house one day to invite them to his sister's wedding. Mari, watching through the crack in the door, observed the way he affectionately talked to her mother and brother without any newfound loftiness.
She gathered every piece of news she could about her machaan and locked them up in her heart. The years ran by, famine struck, her father passed, and even their sustenance was threatened, but throughout these, Mari held on to the thought of her machaan. Perhaps that is why, even when it became apparent that Thangarasu was not going to be hers, she couldn't transition to a clean hatred of him like her brother and mother did.
Like it was only yesterday, Mari clearly remembered that visit of her uncle and aunt. While she was expecting their visit to fix her marriage with Thangarasu, they arrived with invitations, having arranged Thangarasu’s marriage with another girl. And on top of this, rather than leaving in silence, her uncle instructed her brother, "Ye’ should be there a week early pa! Just like how you ensured Gomathi's wedding ran smoothly, we are depending on you to oversee all the work." As soon as Thangarasu's family left out of earshot, her brother jumped in anger at their mother. "Do they think I'm a bloody fool?" he yelled. "I sank my teeth into the work at Gomathi's wedding as Mari's brother, because that was the household my sister was going to live in! I thought, who else would come help if not for their bride's brother. But, what did I know that our uncle would be bloody seduced by a fatter dowry and marry Thangarasu outside the family? Does blood have no meaning?" He was enraged. But while the brother's anger escalated, the mother only driveled.
"Why are ye’ jumping da? Did you expect that educated and employed boy to marry a donkey who lives back and forth from the matchbox factory and stinks of chemicals? Why are ye’ cursing them for yer’ pipe dreams?" she blurted out. But while she maintained that indifference in front of her kids, she updated her dead husband and wailed to him that night. "Eii! My dear... My king! You abandoned me in this state... When you declared that as my cousin only you could marry me, you captured me... But did you capture me to leave me helpless like this ayya... 'Thambi, thambi!' I'd cry about my brother. I chased him like a loving dog... I raised him... My dear... I've been left alone on this earth..." Despite their sympathy, the ladies next door cursed her, because Mari's mother was wailing louder than someone crying over a corpse.
Eventually, the brother silenced the crying mother, "Are ye’ gonna' shut up or what? What do you want now?" Only the scolding managed to stop the mother's cries.
The next day, Mari's brother declared, "No one ‘ere will go to Thangarasu's wedding!" Without any discussion, Mari's mother agreed. "There's nothing between us and him," she agreed.
But, Mariamma did not react like the other two. She tried calming her family many times. When all that failed, in the end… "If none of ye go, ye'll find me dead!" With that attack, a compromise was struck, and her brother alone went to the wedding. Despite her many questions, he refused to say anything about what the wedding was like to the women. The only news was the confirmatory "it’s done."
Every day, while sticking matchboxes, Mariamma would dream about what her lovely machaan's wedding must have been like. "Wherever he is, let him be well," she'd pray for him with eyes full of tears and a trembling heart.
After Thangarasu's wedding, Mari's brother sprung into action. He fixed a groom from Mavilpatti for her who was related to them through their father. A boy who'd lived in Madras as a kid to work in the shop of a Nadar from Nagalapuram. And by selling off four sovereigns of Mari's gold jewelry, a shop was set up for the groom to run in Mavilpatti.
And after all this, when she heard that her machaan was in the village for the Pongal festival, Mari came running. How is he now? How is that akka, his wife? She wanted to see if her machaan and that akka were loving and happy.
But she didn't leave to their house as soon as she arrived. Thinking that they would be napping after lunch in the afternoon, she waited for the evening.
"Greetings, machaan!"
Her heart shuddered as she entered the house. Thangarasu's grandmother and wife were working the stove. Thangarasu's mother welcomed her affectionately. His wife was beautiful. Contrary to Mari's imagination, she wasn't decked out in jewelry at all. She must have removed them for relief, Mari assumed. She spoke fondly with Thangarasu's wife.
"Keep talking, I'll be back," Thangarasu's mother left to get something from the shop. Mariamma moved close to that akka and adoringly took her hands in her own. In a secretive but fond tone, "Sister... are you expecting?" she asked eagerly.
Instantly and with resentment, "Yea, that is the only thing that hasn't gone wrong!" the reply came. Mariamma couldn't bear this. Even though there was a hint of a teasing smile when Thangarasu's wife said that, the bitterness and heat in those words were unbearable and something she hadn't seen in all her days. Excusing herself to wash a pot, she escaped to the backyard for a moment of relief for her broken heart. Her machaan's voice emerged from the house.
"Is Mariamma gone?" he asked as he entered. "Had your kaapi, Jaanu?" And to his loving enquiry, "Ahahaha... Don't fall on your face with all this care," that akka dismissed. Despite her speaking in a soft voice, Mari felt like that softness couldn't suppress the tiredness and distaste in it.
Mari, who was listening to all this from outside, shivered, feverish with pain in her head. She left the pot she washed right there, slipped through the back of the house, and bolted home.
When her mother and brother began their inquiries, she excused herself saying her head hurt.
The puppy face of a schoolboy Thangarasu when he got caught by his worried uncle while the chap was out and about late, picking cactus fruits, haunted Mari's mind's eye. She downed more and more water with no effect on her heartburn. The information from Cheeniyammal that that akka was enduring torture from Thangarasu's mother because that akka’s family did not put up a satisfactory dowry and the hateful speech of that akka kept pestering Mari's head.
Above all else, the depth of the resentment Mari sensed in that akka's words was too much for her. When the villagers were off that night to place their Pongal offerings in front of the temple entrance, Mari alone was curled up at home. One by one, the reels played. Her childhood with him... about her mother... her brother... the suffering that they all seemed to share... about that akka. It was torture. Her heart erupted.
Later that night, Mari's husband arrived. Very eagerly, he spoke for long—that the last two days of business were great, that they sold thirty-two of the coconuts alone, that the puffed rice and chickpeas sold out such that he ended up having to turn away the last bunch of customers empty-handed. Suddenly he noticed her irreverent muteness. "Ei dog, here we're yelling away. What's it supposed to mean if ye’ sit like a stone?' he barked, shaking her head by her hair.
Instantly, as if her dam burst, Mari broke into tears. Panicked, he began profusely apologizing for grabbing her head, repeating again and again that it was his mistake. Her crying didn't stop. The yearning and gasping and outbursts and shivers only grew.
Thinking that it must have been something that he said, Mari’s husband sat by her and caressed her for a long time, in vain.