Tribal Wisdom

Todas are an indigenous pastoral tribe inhabiting the Nilgiri Hills in Southern India. Their customs are of great interest to sociologists, and to those who study human sexual behaviour. The tribe is not becoming extinct, but the customs for which they are famous are disappearing. Have these people found the key to perfect peace and harmony, or are they primitive people who need to be brought into the mainstream? The reader has to judge for himself.

She was short and plump. Her face was round with large eyes and finely shaped nose. Her skin was a yellow tinged light brown of her tribe, the Todas of the Nilgiri Hills of southern India. Her sparse hair she stretched taut and tied it in twin pigtails. Her eyes sparkled with mischief, but drooping mouth ends and furrowed chin was a picture of misery. There was total disconnection between the happy twinkle in the eyes and sadness of the face. The round face, the pasty yellow colour and the sparse hair suggested a plastic doll.

"What's your name?" asked Rohan.

"Bommai," she said. Bommai is the Tamil word for doll.

"Can you prepare breakfast?" She nodded.

"Go ahead."

"What would you have?" Her voice was so soft that she was hardly audible.

"Anything you fancy. No, I'll tell you what I want. Uppuma with scrambled eggs and coffee."

"I can make only tea."

"No coffee. I'll teach you."

As she was frying semolina for uppuma she boiled water in a kettle and called him. He taught her how to make filter coffee. Rohan ate the uppuma with relish for it was excellent. The chauffeur had the car ready; Rohan left for the factory.

It was the chauffeur who had arranged for the cook. Rohan was engineer in a factory in Coimbatore in South India. He was a bachelor with sufficient means to have a house of his own and most comforts except proper food to eat at appropriate times. The food from the local mess was awful. His chauffeur took pity on him and suggested that he employ a cook.

"I know a girl who like me is a Toda from the Ooty hills," he said one day. "She is an excellent cook."

"I will try her," said Rohan. Three days later the cook presented herself before her new master.

She was, as her sponsor had promised, an excellent cook. Her vegetable dishes were outstanding, and though a vegetarian like all Toda people, she prepared very tasty meat dishes. She was a good housekeeper too. In his bachelor establishment there was little to do, but she seemed to be always busy pottering about the kitchen and dining room. She used her key to let herself into the house at daybreak, gave him breakfast and prepared and packed his lunch. She left soon after he left for office and came again at four in the evening to prepare supper. She left after he had had is supper, which was at about seven. Rohan did not notice her sufficiently in the first week to form any impression, but when he did he started liking her. There was something about her gentle nature that provoked affection. Her eyes continued to sparkle but the face remained sad. Rohan found it tantalising. He could see a smile hiding at the corners of her lips, but he did not know how to get it out.

Gradually the liking for her turned to love. She became an object of his sexual fantasies. He wanted her. Rohan was not for a one-night-stand sort of affair. All the relationships he has had so far had been with women with whom he had been on terms of friendship. He thought he would befriend her and see where it leads. She was about the right age, about twenty, not unattractive, and clean. Rohan was a stickler for physical cleanliness and Bommai was up to par. She wore freshly laundered clothes; her teeth sparkled like marble, and there was no garlic smell in her breath. A faint trace of onions he was prepared to overlook. Her nails she cut and she washed her hands frequently. On the morning on the second week of her stay he started a conversation while he was having his breakfast. He had breakfast seven and left for factory at half past nine. He thus had ample time for a chat with his doll.

"You like this place or your hills," he asked. Pat came the reply.

"Hills," she said.

"Because it is hot here?"

"No."

"Then why?"

"The people," she said.

"The people are good enough, are they not?"

"They are, but I do not like this 'my thing' of plains people."

"My thing? What's that?"

"My house, my garden, my rose plant, my rose, my vessels, my umbrella and so on."

"What's wrong?"

"Everything is wrong about that kind of attitude. If it was raining and I had an umbrella and someone asked for it we hill people will give it immediately. In our village they can come and take it without asking. But here they will not give."

"You are harping on umbrellas. Did anyone refuse an umbrella?"

"Yes, 'Why don't you buy one for yourself,' that woman told me. We are not like that in our hills '"

"Everything is for everybody?"

"Yes. When my father is not using his cycle other would take it by right. If I have a nice dress other girls can take it when I am not wearing it."

"When you are not sleeping can someone use your bed?

"Certainly."

"Interesting. Suppose a man is not using his wife?" Bommai did not render a verbal reply to this question. She laughed and laughed till she had to sit down.

"You are funny," she said. When she was composed again Rohan noted that the angle of her mouth was no longer drooping. He had broken the smile barrier. The eye-face disconnection was gone. He hoped it would stay. Even if the smile goes back into hiding Rohan now knew the formula to get it out.

For the next three mornings Bommai and he spent a lot of time conversing. It was mostly Bommai who in a singsong voice continued an incessant chatter. Rohan as able to understand only part of it for her Tamil dialect was not easy to follow, and like children she was constantly referring to events he did not know. But one theme continued to recur—her dream of going back to the hills for good.

"To be so eager go back you must be having a boy friend there," said Rohan teasingly.

"I have a man whom I like very much."

"What type of man?"

"He is tall and handsome."

"Like movie stars." She clucked. She did not think much of movie stars.

"Better."

"But does he like you."

"I don't know. One time he acts as if he likes me, but at the times I am not so sure."

"Why not ask him."

"I am going to, as soon as I get the next chance."

"When will you get to meet him?"

"I meet him every day."

"How is that possible if he is in the hills?"

"I did not say he is in the hills. He is here in Coimbatore."

"Where?"

"In this street."

"Which house?"

"This house." She looked into his eyes. Rohan went up to her and gathering her in his arms he kissed her, and she responded.

"I like you too," he said. They kissed again.

"Later," she said as she broke away. She got up to clear the table and cook his lunch and pack it in a carrier. He went for his bath. When he came out with towel round his waist she brought him his cup of coffee. He took the cup and placed it on a table. He hugged her, kissed her, and fondled her. She responded eagerly.

"We have time, can you come up to the bedroom?"

"Not today or two more days," she said. Rohan understood.

The third morning after breakfast Rohan leant back on the chair and watched her clear the table.

"Why that funny smile," she said.

"The smile of a man on the morning of the promised day."

"What day."

"The day I am going to sleep with you."

"Sleep?" she asked, "sleep?" and went into her now familiar laughter routine. Rohan grinned. He was feeling extremely foolish. Then he also smiled. He could appreciate the joke.

Suddenly she became serious.

"Do I smell of smoke?" She did for they used wood fire.

"I'll take a bath before I come to, to...sleep," she said and grinned.

"You must wear a sari," he said.

"But I don't have a sari." She wore skirt and top of hill women.

"I have."

"You? That must be what you got for your girl. I can't use it."

"True, I got it for my girl."

"Where is she?"

"Here, in this street, in this house, you."

She hugged him, and they kissed fiercely. He opened his wardrobe and pulled out a sari and gave it to her. She took it and passed her hand over it and made cooing noises. He took out a cake of soap and a packet and handed it to her. She unwrapped the packet. It was a razor. She pouted her lips and ran her fingers over her smooth cheeks. And then she blushed for the first time, turned, and ran into the kitchen.

When she came in she was wearing his sari. Rohan did not have the thought to include a blouse. That did not seem to bother Bommai. She just wore the sari and covered her bare chest with the pallav. He gave her no skirt either with the result that she had to keep one hand on her waist to hold the sari up. Her bareback was enticingly lovely. He hugged and when they parted the pallav had fallen off. She had a beautiful pair of breasts with just amount of sag to enhance their beauty. He touched the pleats of the sari and it slipped down. And there she stood naked and smiling without any self-consciousness at all.

"Look," she said as she trusted her hips forwards and pointed to her pussy. She parted her legs and bent backwards. The effect was delightfully inelegant. He dropped down on his knees to check. She had done a perfect job with the razor. He parted the inner lips; she had worked there too. He ran his lower lip along the inner lip and then the clit hood, and then he parted the clit hood with his fingers and touched the clit with the tip of his tongue.

He was hungry for it was weeks since he had sex. He was not in any mood for lingering on foreplay He carried her to the bed and got on top and entered her. It did not take him long to ejaculate. She responded but Rohan was not sure she had an orgasm.

The next morning he heard a soft voice calling him from close by. This was a new experience. He usually got up on his own. He opened his eyes. It took him some time to register the image in front of him. When he did it was quite stunning. Bommai was totally naked. She was crouching, facing him on the cot with knees and hips fully flexed and hand on her knees. She spread her thighs to display her smooth pussy. The fleshy outer lips and the delicate inner lips leading to the clit hood, and the clit itself peeping from inside its hood were a lovely sight.

Rohan crawled towards the pussy and with neck stretched. He went for clit; he touched it with his lower lip. Bommai responded by sliding closer with thighs spread out a bit more. Soon she was on her back and Rohan was licking and Bommai's lower half was vibrating. She then had prolonged orgasm and Rohan took her clit, now well protruded from its hood, between his lips. She moaned and then she screamed softly. 'Come on top,' she said and Rohan did so. His first coincided with her first, and then she had many. They lay in a tight embrace till it was bright day. Early morning sex became a routine; Rohan was quite convinced that that was the time for sex and not at the tired end of the day.

But even in Eden there was a serpent, and one was here too, hiding in the bushes. The chauffeur who drove his company car, the man who introduced Bommai into his household, was a young man named Vidoo. Rohan often saw him in earnest conversation with Bommai. He did not mind her talking to him, but the body language did not indicate a casual conversation. There was more. The chauffeur apparently had veins of humour running inside his stodgy exterior for he brought out the tinkling laughter of Bommai more often then he, Rohan, himself was able to do. Rohan liked this laughter and it annoyed him greatly to find his girl expending it on his chauffeur. And then came the thought—was he having a sex with her? Master and driver sharing the same woman? A horrible situation that was utterly unpalatable to a plainsman. But to confront her would be awkward. If it were not true he would appear small in her eyes, and if it was true, and she admitted that it was, then he would be compelled to cease relationship with her. That was unthinkable. He racked his brains and finally decided to tackle her.

He did that the next morning after breakfast. Rohan should have anticipated Bommai's response. She laughed herself into a state of collapse. Then she got up and hugged him and called him her little bird and kissed him all over his face and then she got into another fit of laughter. Rohan grinned sheepishly. For the rest of the morning amidst her chores she would take time off to laugh. But it had its effect. Rohan did not see the two together again. Then came better news: Vidoo's request for transfer back to the hills came through. His firm posted him to the factory in Ooty. But soon Rohan was to know that it was very bad news.

It was a week after the driver had left that Bommai one morning gave him the first of the many shocks she would deliver that day.

"I have to leave for Ooty," she said.

"To see your family?"

"To stay there."

"How long?"

"For good. To be with my husband."

"Husband?"

"Didn't you know I was married?" Of course he knew she was no virgin. Toda women lose their virginity in a ritualised ceremony before their wedding. But he had not thought of her as married. He was not comfortable hearing that.

"Where is he, in the hills?"

"Now yes, but he was here till recently." She hesitated and then said, " Vidoo." She expected him to be shocked and he was. There were so many things to comment on, but the administrator viewed it from his office angle.

"But, but Vidoo; he was taken into the job because he was a bachelor."

"For the job he told a lie. But you need not feel bad. We are of the Toda tribe. Our women are allowed to have many men." Rohan of course knew of Toda custom that permitted married women to have sexual relationship with many men of the tribe, and even sex with men of other tribes.

"Did Vidoo know that we were friends?"

"Of course he did. I have had men after we were married, and some before that too."

"What men?"

"Uncles and cousins. They can have me by right and they do. Vidoo has many too. You plain people cannot understand these things."

"But the children?"

"The husband will take them as his children."

"No problem?"

"Of course not. Don't your people accept adopted children as your own even though the parents are unknown."

"True, we do."

"And don't you love them as if they are your own?"

"Yes, we do."

'But why not one woman have sex with one man alone?"

"Women, like men, want to have sex with other men."

"You mean Toda women?"

"All women. Your women included."

"You mean that when I marry my wife would want to have sex with other men?"

"Certainly. Not during the honeymoon, certainly not then," she laughed, "but later when she gets bored with the same thing happening every night." Bommai spoke with vehemence.

"You seem to have no doubt at all."

"I am certain that it would be so. You ask her when the time comes. Of course she must get the proper chance. Most of your women do not, and making virtue out of a necessity they lay claim to being dharmapatinis. Of course they indulge in the next best thing without any inhibition whatever."

"What's that next best?"

"Fantasising about men. When she is having sex with you she will be thinking of her dream man. You of course you would be, at the same moment, thinking of another woman. This is what you plains people claim with pride as a virtuous life style."

"Yes, there is truth in what you say. But do you like to have sex with many men."

"Do you like to have sex with many women."

"I do."

"Same with me, and it is the same with any woman. Do you find all women the same?"

"No each woman is different."

"Same with men. Each man has his style. You won't like to eat uppuma every morning. It's like that. In your culture it is difficult, and all the problems men and women of the plains have are owing to sexual frustration."

"So?"

"You plainsmen must allow your wives some liberties as Vidoo did."

"What did Vidoo do?"

"I saw you once in the market and told Vidoo that you are a handsome man. That is why he brought me here to cook for you."

"He did, did he?"

"Yes. If your wife sees something in the shop and says she likes it won't you get it for her?"

"But this is different."

"How?"

"It is a question and love and respect."

"You mean I will disrespect and cease to love a man who thinks so much of my happiness."

"You may get pregnant."

"Vidoo wants me to."

"Get pregnant by me?"

"Yes. Our people do not do well in school. Your child may be different because you are so well educated. He may become an engineer too. It will be good for our community." Rohan's head was reeling.

"I just cannot understand you attitudes."

"Why can't you? You people do that too."

"Do what? Get another man to produce a child for you?"

"Precisely. If a man can't have babies he takes another man's juice, and the doctor puts it into his wife with a glass syringe and then she has babies and the man calls it his baby and loves that baby."

"Yes therapeutic insemination. What you say is true."

"Only one difference. You use glass syringe and we use rubber syringe." She then pulled down his lungi and took hold of his penis. "This rubber syringe," she screamed and laughed till tears rolled down her cheeks. When she was composed again she came to him and hugged him.

"Darling, please do not use that rubber thing you wear over your organ anymore. I will be here in Coimbatore till you fill me with your baby."

Rohan looked intently at his doll. Her request was something he can easily grant.

"Yes," he said, and she whooped.

Now that Vidoo was away Bommai could spend the night with Rohan. Without the distasteful condom the girl enjoyed the union, and Rohan too found her inside delightfully soft.

"How old were you when you had it first time?" he asked.

"Eighteen."

"Who?"

"A man selected by our priest."

"Relative?"

"No. He has to be a stranger. I do not know how the priest selects but he does."

"Did you not feel fearful of the stranger?"

"Where is the fear when you have a long tradition behind the ceremony and full community support."

"When were you married?"

"Soon after, but there was time for me to have sex with other men. Uncles mostly."

"Then you were married."

"Yes."

"Do you have a special feeling for your husband?"

"I do. I love him deeply and he loves me too. You people of the plains will never understand. For you ownership is all that matters."

"When do your uncles and cousins make love to you."

"You mean have sex? Whenever possible For example when an uncle who works in Mysore comes home he has to have me one day. There are many like that."

"Do you like them?"

"Of course I do. One uncle I like very much. He likes me too. You may be surprised that this uncle and Vidoo are great friends."

"Won't your husband want his child to be his without a doubt?"

"Why? It is my child, and I bore it for him. That is all that matters. But the neighbour's child may be my husband's, and that baby's grandfather might be my father, and so on. That makes for closeness of the community. We are not just relatives. We are much more than that."

"Interesting, but I do not think I can really comprehend such a situation."

"You can't. But at least you can understand that our culture makes for peaceful living. We do not kill to eat. We do not even have violence in play. Wrestling, boxing and such sports are not part of our culture. There is no reason to have enemies. The two things that make for unpleasantness in your society, property and women we have eliminated. That makes for peaceful living. I am totally unable to understand why our culture should be considered primitive, and your culture of meanness and violence must be considered civilised." Rohan nodded unsurely.