Rising Heat

Of Memories and Displacement

Young Selvan's life is no longer the same. His family's ancestral land has been sold in order to make way for the construction of a housing colony. Now the verdant landscape of his childhood has been denuded, while Selvan and his family are compelled to move to much smaller lodgings. 

In the ensuing years, as the pressures of their situation simmer to a boil, Selvan observes his family undergo dramatic shifts in their fortunes as greed and jealousy threaten to overshadow their lives.

The excerpt below explores the heaviness of displacement through young Selvan's eyes. 

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They had removed all the roofing and the substructures. Next, they would raze these lonely walls floating in solitude. Amma used to stuff everything on the shelves in the western wall. The eastern wall was quite deep and hosted all the things the boys had. Here sat the little money boxes got from a stall at the temple chariot festival. The box that looked like an orange was always his. Annan had the one that looked like a mango. It was quite ugly-looking, with a tip that stuck out like the beak of a parrot. He never felt like putting money in that one. These collection boxes were filled bit by agonizing bit—for collecting neem seeds or for digging out groundnuts and such. The Karattur chariot festival was celebrated every year in the Tamil month of Maasi, between February and March, and celebrations went on the whole month. They would hire a cart to go to the festival. Their relatives would give the children some money to buy something for themselves from the stalls there. Thatha, Aaya, Appuchi, Atthai . . . all of them. That was when these boxes were full of money. Amma also gave them money once a week on Thursdays to spend in the market. Annan would buy himself something or the other to eat and spend it all. The boy's money would go directly into the box. And the money he collected was used up at the time school reopened, to buy books and notebooks.

Memories of incidents were spread across the walls. Every spot evoked images that filled his heart. At the earthen hearth that lay wrecked, dishonest actions were uncovered. Amma had terrified Annan as she held both his hands, threatening to pile burning charcoal on them. Annan had apparently taken money without anyone's knowledge. If he had taken the money, the charcoal would burn him; if he hadn't, the sizzling coal would have no effect. With sweat pouring over his entire face, Annan had admitted to taking the money. Amma had tanned his hide that day. The noise of the crows interrupted his reverie. They had begun to settle on the tamarind trees. These birds that used to brush their wings against the vadhanaram trees in the goat farm as they flew by appeared like little dots. Apparently, there was a goat farm there a long time ago. But now, only a plaque that commemorated Kamarajar's inauguration of that goat farm still remained. It would soon get dark here. Amma would look for him. He should leave now. When he returned from school, he had come here straight without informing her, furiously determined to somehow get hold of that dog at least today. His mother would have assumed that he was playing somewhere. But where could he play now? There had been so many games to play in the forest. When he joined with the children of the farm workers, they kicked up so much dust in the air—enough to wonder if the late afternoon sky got its colour from the red soil. They played with no heed to the dimming skies.

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Rising Heat is the first-ever English translation of celebrated Tamil writer, Perumal Murugan's debut novel, published in 1991 when he was just 25. It poses powerful and still-relevant questions about the human cost of relentless urbanization in the name of progress.