Shielding Her Modesty
“Another day, another billboard,” said Muruga as he climbed down from his perch high above the
busy street. Even at this height, the non-stop din of Madras traffic rang in his ears. The wooden
ladder wobbled as he placed one callused foot after the other and made his way down to the
pavement. His foot slipped past a missing rung, and he swayed while his toes searched for the
next.
On the pavement, Muruga unwound his makeshift turban, shook it out with a sharp snap, and tied
it around his waist. It really was his lungi – his sarong. He couldn’t risk having it slip down from his
waist while he was intent on his artwork one hundred feet above the ground. It wasn’t a misplaced
sense of modesty, he did wear a faded pair of shorts under it that held his pack of beedis and
tobacco pouch. But, if it slipped, there was no point in climbing down to retrieve it. It would have
long disappeared from the pavement, almost snatched in mid-air by pavement vendors. It would
be tied snug around a vendor’s waist and there would be no use arguing with him. The miscreant
would swear on his mother, father, his unborn children, Amma - as they called her who ruled the
State - the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, and even the Prime Minister of India, that the lungi
belonged to him.
“Report to the Arts College site,” the foreman said as he paid the daily wages. Muruga’s interest
perked up. The Arts College site was a prime location and always had choice assignments. Dare
he hope – a cinema billboard with a voluptuous heroine or maybe a painting of Amma? Amma
was a three-day job, for sure. Even though painting her sari was a simple job, she wore only dark
shades in single colors, it was the richly embroidered shawls draped over her expansive
shoulders that took a lot of detailing. Also, her expression had to be serene and benevolent, or
the foreman would risk the wrath of Amma’s henchman. The foreman always understood the
strain on a painter with an Amma job and sent up an extra cup of tea. Daily wages and two cups
of tea were the terms of Muruga’s contract with the foreman. A third cup of tea was a silent
acknowledgement of the stress of the job.
Muruga walked toward the bus stop thinking about the promise behind the foreman’s words.
Even though there was a bus shelter, Muruga knew that he had to stand a few feet ahead of the
shelter. If he was lucky, the bus driver would slow down and he would grab the door rail and run
alongside the bus before leaping onto an already packed footboard. Only the brave of heart
could do this and the other footboard travelers would acknowledge his expertise by allowing him
to squeeze his body into the limited space. Muruga liked riding the bus this way. The exhaust
fumes didn’t bother him, in his line of work he was used to petrol and diesel fumes. Far better
than sitting inside the bus packed like sardines among sweating bodies.
When the bus reached the turn near his home, Muruga slid off the footboard in one practiced
move, unmindful of the blare of car horns, ran alongside the bus for a few steps to slow down the
momentum, and slipped into the throng on the pavement. Experience had taught him to look for
lurking khaki-clad policemen before making this unscheduled exit from the bus. Who knew where
and when the bus would stop next and how far he would have to walk back?
He stopped to buy a pack of beedis at the pavement stall, when he heard a familiar nasal voice in
the milling throng around him. He ducked behind the newspapers strung like a garland across the
stall, so that most people stood with their heads tilted to the side to read the headlines without
buying the newspaper. He looked toward the voice and saw his sister hurrying her two brats in
the opposite direction. Away from the single room tenement that Muruga shared with her, her
children and – when he bothered to show up – that good-for-nothing, his sister’s husband. And
that meant – Muruga hastened his pace - Kala, his new bride, was alone at home. They had only
been married for three months. He had brought her directly from her village into the single room
tenement and all attempts to lure his new bride away from the brood were always thwarted by his
sister. All their outings had been in the company of his sister and her pesky children. Now Muruga
wasted no time. He didn’t care where his sister had gone; this was a god given chance to get his
wife to himself.
Kala was preparing wicks for the oil lamp when Muruga entered the house. He took the wicks
from her and urged her to hurry. They hastened down the narrow, uneven cement steps, and
walked toward the main road. They were close to the bus stop when he heard his sister’s voice.
“Muruga, Muruga,” she called. He couldn’t see her, but she made her way through the crush of
bodies to his side. How could his sister, who couldn’t see the snot running from the nose of her
very own offspring, manage to spot Muruga in this crowd? Muruga escaped – by lying that they
were going to the temple, God forgive his lying tongue – and he took Kala to the beach.
While walking on the sand, Muruga managed to let his hand brush lightly across Kala’s as if by
accident. Instead of looking at him, his new bride glanced around quickly to see if anyone else
saw this intimate gesture. Then she held her hand stiff by her side, while he swung his, brushing
it against hers with every step. Emboldened by her silent approval, he took her hand at the
crossroads, as if to pull her back from oncoming traffic and did not let go even after they had
crossed the street. They walked slowly, looking at displays in pavement stores. Kala pointed at a
blue and yellow checked lungi spread like an unfurled fan hanging from the awning in one store.
“Why don’t you buy that for yourself?” she asked.
“Why? My old one isn’t torn yet.” Muruga was practical. “And I still have the one your father gave
me at our wedding.”
“I like blue and you like yellow. When you wear that lungi, it will be like we are intertwined,” she
finished, breathless.
Startled by this bold innuendo – almost like in the movies – Muruga bought the lungi in dumb
delight.
This romantic interlude loosened Muruga’s tongue. “Come, I’ll take you to my work spot,” he said
and hailed a cycle-rickshaw, never mind that his work spot was high above the streets and moved
from day to day. He showed her the billboards as the rickshaw meandered through the streets.
“See, there’s the board I painted today.”
That morning Muruga had drawn the short straw and been assigned to one of the boring boards,
a billboard for a computer training school – several lines of A-B-C-D and 1-2-3 as he called them:
JAVA, J2EE, .NET, XML, UML. How many things could one computer do? Training school
billboards were monotonous. At least, a painting job for coaching classes for entrance exams to
foreign universities had an exotic touch to it. Those boards often had a picture of an airplane with
a dollar sign trailing it, disappearing into the clear blue sky – CALCUTTA TO CALIFORNIA,
MADRAS TO MASSACHUSETTS, HYDERABAD TO HARVARD, ONE STOP SHOP TO M.I.T.
Computer training billboards drew no crowds at all. No one glanced up at the lone figure perched
high above the streaming traffic. Muruga doubted they would stop for him even if he missed his
footing and fell into the swarming traffic. The motorcycles, scooters, cars, and buses would
probably swerve around his inert body and drive on. This was the nature of his job.
“You never told me about the dangers of your job,” his wife said. “I thought boards were put up
after you painted them.”
“No one realizes how much thought and preparation go into each billboard,” Muruga said. First
the white-out painter climbed up and slathered white paint over the previous advertisement. Then
the drawing master marked lines on the picture proportionate to the size of the board, climbing up
and dividing the board into square sections and drawing the outline from the picture he had in
hand.
“My job comes next,” Muruga said. He painted colors within the outline. Sometimes the foreman
told him what colors to use – something about company logos that he did not understand. At
other times, they let him use his imagination. Those were the jobs he liked best.
“You know to read English?” Kala sounded impressed.
Muruga couldn’t read. The drawing master drew the outline of text on the board, and he knew
which A-B-C-D came after which A-B-C-D and even knew where to put the 1-2-3. After all, the
drawing master had gone to school and was seventh class (failed).
“I stay close to the drawing master and laud his artistic skills in hope of getting plum assignments,
especially ones with -“ Muruga bit his tongue and swallowed the next words “half-naked women.”
What would have happened if he had let his tongue run on - “And then I can let my hands wander
all over the unpainted parts of the female anatomy while people gather on the pavement below,
admiring my art as I clothe her with soft sweeps of my paintbrush.” The unexpected outing had
turned his brain to cotton. Luckily Kala was gazing at a giant billboard of amma, the Chief Minister.
“I like doing amma paintings,” Muruga said.
“Yes, such a great honor,” his wife said.
“Yes, that too, I suppose. But I like it because it takes three days to complete her billboard.”
Three days in which the foreman could not replace him with another painter, three days in which
Muruga was assured of daily wages and an extra cup of tea.
“But after that you can say that you painted amma,” Kala said.
“That’s nothing. Tomorrow is a big day for me. I have to go to the Arts College site. Maybe a big
job, a cinema star. I’ll wear the new lungi.”
The rickshaw pulled up at the tenement. Muruga helped Kala down from the hard imitation leather
seat. “My, my, a rickshaw to return from the temple,” his sister said.
The next morning Kala handed him the lungi, neatly folded. “I kept it under my pillow so that it
looks ironed,” she told Muruga. He draped the lungi around his waist and set off for the Arts
College site, aware of his wife’s eyes following him until he was out of sight. The foreman pointed
to the billboard. The drawing master had drawn the outline of a woman, almond-shaped eyes with
long curved lashes, a classic nose, and lips the shape of a warrior’s bow. Long wavy tresses for
the hair, too. And the body – Siva, Siva, the body – Muruga couldn’t wait to unleash his creative
juices on that body.
He told the foreman it was a two-day job. “Too many curves, saar,” he said, while the other
painters exchanged leery grins. The foreman grunted and waved him away. Muruga positioned
the ladder against the billboard. Solemnly he untied his lungi, folded it and tied it as a turban
around his head. He placed his right foot on the first rung of the ladder and climbed up.
All morning he lavished attention on the face and hair – if the figure had life, and the paint were
warm oil, then Muruga was an experienced masseur giving her a head massage. He picked a
bright yellow paint, almost as yellow as the color in his lungi, for hair and a cobalt blue paint for
the eyes. With great care he worked yellow paint into the long wavy tresses, willing it to resemble
willowy blondes he had seen on television in display windows of electronic retail stores. Next his
brush invited a seductive glance into those blue almond-shaped eyes. “Just like an American,” he
said. But the foreman sent up a stern message through Raja, the little urchin who brought his
morning tea. Raja was light-footed and nimble. He held a glass of tea in one hand, while he used
the other hand to grasp the rungs. He handed the glass to Muruga and stayed, leaning on the
ladder. Muruga drank his tea, gave the glass back to Raja, and smoked a beedi.
“Enough with the American look. Make the eyes black. If you want to paint Americans, go to
America,” Raja said, imitating the foreman.
Muruga shook his head. He had never seen a blonde with black eyes on TV. It was the fashion to
look American. Everyone was either going to or coming from America. What would they say if they
saw a blonde without blue eyes in such a prominent spot? What would they think about the
billboard painters of Madras? But he had to obey the foreman or he would be relegated back to
the A-B-C-D boards. So he painted the eyes black, but he did not stem the creative flow when his
brush changed the classic nose to a pert, saucy nose. He proceeded onto the bow-shaped
mouth with the dedication of a plastic surgeon. When he was done, the mouth was a full-lipped,
luscious red with a prominent pout. He painted in smoky blue eye shadow and traces of blush on
the cheeks.
“First class, annai,” Raja said during the afternoon tea break. “After this you can become a make-
up artist for cinema heroines, instead of toiling under the hot sun.”
Pleased, Muruga shared his beedi with Raja.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would get his hands on that body.
The next morning, he was at his post early. He began ravishing her neck until he reached her
creamy white shoulders. After that it was easy, just skin color paint in wide sweeping brush
movements. Then he started on the cleavage. He placed his hand lovingly on the unpainted
breast while his brush caressed the dark valleys between the breasts. When Raja brought up his
morning tea and surveyed the work with a loud wolf whistle, Muruga’s heart swelled like the swell
of the breast above the tight-fitting choli. He did not waste time shooting the breeze with Raja
over a beedi, the bare skin beneath the choli called to him. He had journeyed from there to the
waist and was adorning the deep wells of her navel when lunch break rolled around.
Muruga walked across the road to Senthil’s Lunch Hotel and took a token. It was a busy time of
day, when the people who had ascended into musty, cavernous offices in the morning emerged
for a dose of harsh Madras sunlight and some sustenance. Senthil’s was known for its fast
service, seating patrons wherever there was an open chair, throwing strangers together to share
a table for their noonday meal. A couple in the heady throes of a romance might suddenly find a
harassed mother with a snot-nosed child seated in the empty chairs at the same table. Together
they would form an awkward group, the romantic couple suddenly self-conscious in the presence
of an audience, the mother oblivious to all but her own concerns, the child staring unblinkingly at
the couple.
Muruga decided to smoke his forgotten beedi while waiting his turn and settling down on his
haunches at the edge of the pavement in front of Senthil’s. Soon another painter sidled up to
him, and they smoked in companionable silence. Then the painter nudged him and pointed with a
wink across the road. At first Muruga thought it was an envious nod to the plum assignment he
had managed to get, but his gaze fixed on the crowd beneath the billboard. It must have started
out with a few urchins gathering under the billboard, gazing at the half-painted blonde apparition.
Then the crescendo of lusty catcalls and wolf whistles had attracted a swelling crowd of roadside
Romeos. “Annai, they are all lusting after your woman,” said the painter. Muruga was assailed by
a protective feeling so strong he rushed across the street, blind to the oncoming traffic and deaf
to the screech of cars and buses trying to avoid him.
“Have you told your family you won’t be coming home this evening, you madaya? Go and meet
your Creator by all means, but not from under the wheels of my bus!” the bus driver screamed at
him.
Muruga untied his blue and yellow checked lungi from around his waist, threw it over his shoulder
and climbed up to his woman in swift, decisive steps. He should have never left her here alone,
half dressed, and so close to the Arts College, too. Everyone knew college boys were starving
sex maniacs. Thank Heavens he was close by. God knows what they would have done to her if he
were not there to shield her modesty. He should have painted something over her tender lower
parts instead of leaving her here unprotected, to be ogled by these goondas. He wrapped his
lungi around her waist. It did not cover her ample proportions completely, but at least it kept her
intimate parts covered until he returned to clothe her, stroke by stroke, with his paint and brush.
There were boos and jeers from the crowd below, but he ignored them in dignified silence, made
his way down and back into Senthil’s Lunch Hotel. The proprietor patted him on his back and
acknowledged Muruga’s decency by seating him alone in a four-seat table.
Secure in the knowledge that his lungi was protecting his woman, Muruga lingered over his lunch.
But as he walked back to continue his work, he saw that the crowd around the billboard had
grown. The sea breeze flirted with the languid afternoon heat and Muruga’s lungi fluttered out
from the billboard in the breeze. The crowd sighed collectively and swayed closer to the billboard
to catch a glimpse of skin under the modest covering. Enraged, Muruga yelled at them and made
threatening gestures to disperse the crowd. “This is what is wrong with the youth today!” Muruga
spat the words out. “You drape a dress around a donkey, and they will run panting after the
donkey with their tongues hanging out of their heads.”
“Why do you care? Is she your mother or your sister?” Muruga heard the grumbling above the
wolf whistles. Then the miscreants walked away from Muruga’s scowl and the crowd thinned out.
Muruga collected his paint cans for the rest of his job. From waist down, his woman wore tight-
fitting shorts barely covering her delicate parts. He would need more skin-color paint to cover her
long, sinewy legs. But he would first shield her modesty by painting the shorts. He caressed her
unpainted delicate parts with his left hand as his imagination followed his brush through curved
mounds of her body.
At the end of his workday, Muruga brooded in the bus stop. He brooded on the footboard of the
bus. He brooded as he jumped off the bus, and forgot about the lurking khaki-clad policeman,
until he heard a shout behind him. He looked back and saw the policeman at the tea shop.
Muruga waded into the sea of bodies and ran all the way home. He had narrowly missed being
booked for jaywalking. He wasn’t jaywalking, he was jay-jumping-off-the-bus. Had amma ordered
the policemen to prefix every offense with her name, Jayalalitha? What would happen when she
lost the next election to her arch-enemy Karunanidhi? Could they still book him for jaywalking?
His wife looked pained when she saw splashes of paint on this new lungi. He removed his lungi
and gave it to her. He sat outside the tenement in his shorts, on his haunches, and brooded
while smoking a beedi.
When his wife went to the communal tap, he followed her. She used her tightly rationed quota of
water at the communal tap trying to wash the paint spots out of his lungi. Muruga’s sister
lamented that precious family supply of water was being sent quite literally down the drain.
“Never mind, I will walk to the next Kuppam and bring water for cooking,” his wife said.
Muruga brooded. The youth of today were a moral blemish on society. He shared his views with
his wife and told her how he had come to that conclusion.
“I had to hide her from lecherous glances of hundreds of men,” Muruga told his wife as he walked
with her to the next Kuppam for water. “If I had not covered her with my lungi – the one you
selected for me – their lecherous glances would have burned her skin.”
“I don’t know what I did in my last birth to deserve such a decent man like you as my husband.”
She gazed up at him, misty-eyed. Hefting a brightly colored pot on her head, she started on the
long walk to fetch more water.
*****
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