Arundhati Roy - God of Small Things 2 lyrics

The God of Small Things- Pappachi's Moth Part 2 (70-72) Velutha wasn;t supposed to be a carpenter. He was called Velutha- which means White in Malayalam- because he was so black. His father, Vellya Paapen, was a Paravan. A toddy tapper. He had a gla** eye. He had beem shaping a block of granite with a hammer when a chip flew into his left eye and sliced right through it. As a young boy, Velutha would come with Vellya Paapen to the back entrance of the Ayemenem House to deliver the coconuts they had plucked from the compound. Pappachi would not allow Paravans into the house. Nobody would. They were not allowed to touch anything that Touchables touched. Caste Hindus and Caste Christians. Mammachi told Estha and Rahel that she could remember a time, in her girlhood, when Paravans were expected to crawl backwards with a broom, sweeping away their footprints so that Brahmins and Syrian Christians would not defile themselves by accidentally stepping into a Paravan's footprint. In Mammachi's time, Paravans, like other Untouchables, were not allowed to walk on public roads, not allowed to cover up their upper bodies, not allowed to carry umbrellas. They had to put their hands over their mouths when they spoke, to divert their polluted breath away form those whom they addressed. When the British came to Malabar, a number of Paravans, Pelayas and Pulayas (among them Velutha's grandfather, Kelan) converted to Christianity and joined the Anglican Church to escape the scourge of Untouchability. As added incentive they were given a little food and money. They were known as the Rice-Christians. It didn't take them long to realize they had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. They were made to have separate churches, with separate services, and separate priests. As a special favor they were even given their own separate Pariah Bishop. After Independence they found they were not entitled to any government benefits like job reservations or bank loans at low interest, because officially, on paper, they were Christians, and therefore caste-less. It was like having to sweep away your own footprints without a broom. Or worse, not being allowed to leave any footprints at all. It was Mammach, on vacation from Delhi and Imperial Entomology, who first noticed Velutha's remarkable facility with his hands. Velutha was around eleven then, about three years older than Ammu. He was like a magician. He could make intricate toys- tiny windmills, rattles, minute j**el boxes out of dried palm reedsl he could carve perfect boats out of tapioca stems and figurines on cashew nuts. He would bring them for Ammu, holding them out on his palm (as he had been taught) so she wouldn't have to touch him to take them. Though he was younger than she, he called her Ammukuttty- Little Ammu. Mammachi persuaded Vellya Paapen to send him to the Untouchables' School that her father-in-law Punnyan Kunju had founded. Velutha was fourteen when Johann Klein, a German carpenter from a carpenter's guild in Bavaria, came to Kottayam and spent three years with the Christian Mission Society, conducting a workshop with local carpenters. Every afternoon, after school, Velutha caught a bus to Kottayam where he worked with Klein till dusk. By the time he was sixteen, Velutha had finished high school and was an accomplished carpenter. He had his own set of carpentry tools and a distinctly German design sensibility. He built Mammachi a Bauhaus dining table with twelve dining chairs in rosewood and a traditional Bavarian chaise longue in lighter jackwood. For Baby Kochumma's annual nativity plays he made her a stack of wire-framed angels' wings that fitted onto Angel Gabriel to appear between, and a manger for Christ to be born in. When her graden cherub's silver arc dried up inexplicably, it was Dr. Velutha' who fixed its bladder for her. When Mammachi decided to enclose the back verandah, it was Velutha who designed and built the sliding-folding door that later became all the rage in Ayemenem. 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-a**embled 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 surface, 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 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 gla** eye. He hadn't worked off his debt yet, and though he knew he was 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. While these were qualities that were perfectably 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 sk**s. Vellya Paapen's good intentions quickly degenerated into nagging and bickering and a general air of unpleasantness between father and son. Much to his mother's dismay, Velutha began to avoid going home. He worked late. He caught fish in the the river and cooked it on an open fire. He slept outdoors, on the banks of the river. ... When he returned to Ayemenem after his years away from home, Velutha still had about him the same quickness. The sureness. And Vellya Paapen feared for him now more than ever. But this time he held his peace. He said nothing. At least not until the Terror that took hold of him. Not until he saw, night after night, a little boat rowed across the river. Not until he saw it return at dawn. Not until he saw what his Untouchable son had touched. More than touched. Entered. Loved. When the Terror took hold of him, Vellya Paapen went to Mammachi. He stared straight ahead with his mortgaged eye. He wept with his own. One checked glistened with tears. The other stayed dry. He shook his own head from side to side till Mammachi ordered him to stop. He trembled his own body like a man with malaria. Mammachi ordered him to stop it but he couldn't, because you cant order fear around. Not even a Paravan's. Vellya Paapen told Mammachi what he had seen. He asked for God's forgiveness for having spawned a monster. He offered to k** his son with his own bare hands. To destroy what he had created.