Su. Venugopal’s சொல்ல முடிந்தது opens with a man on his deathbed and ends with a request for permission to mourn that death. Between these two moments lie thirty-five years of silence – and within that silence, a slow, unexamined moral failure.
Raguram is forty-nine. He has worked at the same mill for decades, married, raised children, lived an unremarkable life. News of his uncle Dharmaraj’s grave illness pulls him back to a single afternoon when he was fourteen – the day he discovered his mother, Varadhammal, sleeping with Dharmaraj and beat her bloody in the street before the village. The story moves between that afternoon and the present, and what emerges is not a tale of redemption, but a portrait of emotional paralysis.
Raguram storms home from school after being humiliated by his teacher for not owning a geometry box. Varadhammal promises to get him one. She goes to Dharmaraj’s shop – and the story lets us understand, without spelling it out, that the box will cost her more than money. When Raguram goes to the shop looking for her and finds them together in the back, his rage is total. He drags her into the street by her hair. He kicks her. He beats her as she struggles to hold her blouse closed, as she tries to keep her sari from slipping. She does not fight back. She absorbs every blow as if she believes she deserves them.
மகன்தரும் அடிகளை தலைகுனிந்தபடி வாங்கிக்கொண்டே தான் இருந்தாள். அவன் ஆசைதீர அடிக்கட்டும் என்பது மாதிரியும், அவன் அடிக்கிற அடியில் அப்படியே செத்துபோய்விட வேண்டும் என்பது மாதிரியும் தரையில் கிடந்தாள். அவளால் நிமிர்ந்து அமர முடியவில்லை. முடியை வசமாக சுழற்றிப் பிடித்திருக்கிறான். பிடறிப் பக்கமும் காதுபக்கமும் தோல்பிய்ந்து வந்துவிடும்போல சுல்லென வலி பிடுங்குகிறது. கூட்டம் கூடக்கூட, அவள், வந்து நிற்பவர்களின் கால்களைக்கூடப் பார்க்கவில்லை. ரகுராம் கூட்டம் கூடக்கூட இன்னும் வேகத்தைக் காட்டினான். கெட்ட வார்த்தைகள் ஆக்ரோசத்தோடு குதிக்க தோள்பட்டை, தலை, முகம் என்று அடிவிழுந்தது. சம்பந்தமில்லாத ஒருவன் அம்மாவை அப்படிப் பண்ணியதை அவனால் தாங்கமுடியவில்லை. “ஏன்டி, நாதாரி மவளே, ஒனக்கு… ஆம்பள கேக்குதா… நாயே” தடுப்பவர்களை முறுகி மண்டையில் அடிக்கக் கத்தினான்.
The village gathers. Some women murmur protests – “that’s enough,” “she’s still your mother” – but no one intervenes. Afterwards, the affair is discussed with a mix of judgment and resignation. This is village life. These things happen. The scandal is not the act, but that it became visible.
Varadhammal was thirty-one at the time, single, raising her son alone. Before this day, Su.Venugopal tells us that she was full of laughter. She would narrate stories so funny she couldn’t finish them, laughing until tears streamed down her face.
பள்ளிக்குப் போய்வந்த இரவுகளில் சிரிக்கச் சிரிக்க கதைகள் சொல்லுவாள். சொல்லிக்கொண்டே கெக்கெக்க என்று கூடவே ஓங்கி சிரிப்பாள். அம்மாவாள் அந்தக் கதையை முழுமையாகச் சொல்ல முடியாமல் சிரிப்பு திரும்பத் திரும்ப வந்து அடைக்கும். சொல்ல முடியாமல் சிரிப்போடு கண்ணீர்கூட வந்துவிடும்.
After the beating, her laughter stops. She never takes another lover. For the next thirty-five years, she works relentlessly – agricultural labor, leaving before dawn, returning after dark. The village eventually forgets the incident. Her redemption is earned not through justice, but through silence, persistence and endurance.
வெயில் என்றாலும் சரி, மழை என்றாலும் சரி, குளிர் என்றாலும் சரி அவள் பாட்டுக்கு வேலைக்குப் போகிறாள். வேலை வேலை வேலை. வேலை தவிர வாழ்க்கையில் வேறொன்றும் இல்லை. யாருடனும் வில்லங்கமில்லை. எவரிடமும் ஒரு நொட்டை சொல் பெற்றதில்லை. வேலைக்குச் செல்பவர்களிடத்தில் அம்மாவிற்குப் புதிய பெயர் உருவாகி அதுவும் பழசாகி வருகிறது. ‘நல்லமனுஷி.’ அம்மாவிற்கு அப்படியொன்று நடந்தது என்பதைக்கூட ஊர் மறந்தே போய்விட்டது.
But the village’s double standard is clear. After the incident, Dharmaraj’s life continues uninterrupted. He is respected and walks with his head held high. Raguram’s life moves on too. He drops out of school, runs away to a nearby town, washes dishes, returns after a year, and finds work at the mill. He builds a life – but not the life his mother sacrificed for. Her surrender of joy, intimacy, and companionship was meant to secure his future. He repays her with decades of silence.
When uncle Dharmaraj is on his deathbed, Raguram tells his friend Murugesan that he feels uneasy about what he did 35 years ago.
“முருகேசு. நான் அன்னக்கி ரொம்ப கேவலமா நடந்துக்கிட்டேன்னு தோணுடா. நானே அம்மாவ தெருவில இழுத்துப்போட்டு அசிங்கப்படுத்திட்டேன். தெரியாம போயிருக்க வேண்டியது. நான்தான் ஊருக்கே அம்பலப்படுத்திட்டேன். அப்படியெல்லாம் செஞ்சிருக்கக் கூடாதுன்னு அடிக்கடி தோணுதுடா.”
“டேய் எனக்கெல்லாம் மறந்தே போச்சுடா.”
“நான் மறக்கலையே.”
தோளை அணைத்து “நமக்கும் வயசு ஆயிருச்சில்ல. நல்லதுடா. நீ இப்படி நெனைக்கிறது எவ்வளவு பெரிய விஷயம்.”
“இதெல்லாம் அந்த வயசில தோணலையேடா.”
“தோணியிருந்தா நீ அப்பவே மகான் ஆயிருப்பயே.”
This is what counts as growth in the masculine economy of this world: acknowledging wrongdoing to a friend, not to the person harmed. The bar is so low it is in the basement.
The moral center of the story is not Raguram, but Varadhammal. When Dharmaraj dies, she asks her son:
“ஏம்பா. அந்த எழவு வீட்டில போயி ஒரு பாட்டம் அழுதிட்டு வந்திரட்டுமா?”
The question is astonishing. She asks permission – from the son who beat her, destroyed her relationship, and never apologized – to mourn the man she gave up for him. Even now, she manages his emotions, makes herself smaller, shields him from discomfort.
Raguram replies, “சரிம்மா, போயிட்டு வா.” Nothing more. Just permission, as though she needed it, as though he had any right to grant or withhold it. The story shows her walking away, skeletal fingers pressed together, moving slowly. At sixty-six, worn down by labor, she remains what she has always been: someone who absorbs pain without passing it on.
Later, two women discuss another affair – a married woman with three children. One expresses shock; the other shrugs, calling it a “new taste.” Affairs are understood as ordinary. What is condemned is exposure. Raguram’s violence is tolerated because it is framed as the defense of honor, even though he is a child and she is his mother. The women watch but do not intervene. The men are absent altogether.
Thirty-five years later, little has changed. Murugesan can say “nobody even remembers” because the village has simply moved on to newer scandals. The structure remains intact.
The story could have ended with reconciliation. A confession. Forgiveness. Tears. Healing. That ending would be comforting – and false.
Instead, Su. Venugopal shows us something harder: some forms of violence create permanent distance; some silences never lift. Raguram’s failure is not his fourteen-year-old rage. He was a child, acting from betrayal and culturally learned shame. His true failure is the thirty-five years that followed – the sustained cowardice of never meaningfully opening to his mother, never saying: I’m sorry. I was wrong. I destroyed something precious to you. All he could manage to say, the titular சொல்ல முடிந்தது, was “சரிம்மா, போயிட்டு வா.”
The story does not forgive him. It simply shows us who he is: a man who thinks about his mistakes but does nothing about them, who recognizes his mother’s sacrifice but cannot honor it with honesty, who lives his adult life in emotional hiding. And it shows us who the mother is: someone whose compassion asks for nothing in return – not even acknowledgment, which should not be mistaken for weakness. It is a choice she makes again and again: to love her son despite everything, to protect him even from the consequences of his own cruelty, to ask permission to mourn because she knows even her grief might burden him. What does it take for Raguram to recognize this boundless compassion?
Transverse 