Kuttan Chettan’s Half-Truths
The year I turned seven, Appa decided that waking up early was a younger man’s job, and he was no longer one. He had his reasons—night shifts, aching back, a tiredness that clung to his voice even on Sundays.
So he hired Kuttan Chettan.
A wiry young man from the next lane, always smelling faintly of coconut oil and borrowed worry. His palms were rough, his voice sharp on some mornings and soft on others—like the sea on different days. He had a crooked smile that children trusted, and a heaviness in his eyes that adults somehow ignored.
Every morning at 7:40, he would knock on our gate.
“Varoo, moné,” he’d say.
Come, little one.
And he would hold my hand and begin the long walk to the bus stop.
Some days he told stories—big, loud stories that had no business fitting into the small lanes we walked through.
Stories about his old mother who still believed he was ten.
Stories about his sister, whose legs didn’t listen to her but whose laughter did.
Stories about the ten jobs he did every day—carrying sacks, washing vessels, cleaning fish, sweeping yards, running errands, delivering betel leaves, lifting crates, polishing shoes, climbing trees to pluck coconuts, and somehow still finding time to argue with everyone.
I believed every word.
At seven, belief came easily.
But there were mornings when his stories disappeared.
Days when he walked fast, pulling my hand a little harder than necessary.
Days when his silence felt like rainclouds waiting to burst.
Those were the days something was wrong at his home.
I didn’t know the details, but he wore his pain like a shirt that didn’t fit.
He snapped at me. He scolded me. He didn’t look me in the eye.
I wanted to complain to Appa.
But I never did.
Because I had seen his mother once—thin as an unrolled beedi leaf.
I had seen his sister—her eyes bright, her legs useless.
I had seen his house—leaning slightly to one side, like it was tired too.
If I complained, he would lose the job.
If he lost the job, something in that fragile house would break.
So I learned early the strange burden of childhood empathy—too young to name it, too old to ignore it.
The Return of Varghese
The year Varghese came back from Dubai, the entire village buzzed like a temple festival.
He was a large man with a gentle face, the kind who always seemed on the verge of apologizing for his size.
“Kutta ” he said on the first day, “I’m home for good.”
“Good for whom?” Kuttan Chettan muttered as we walked away.
But when he told me stories about Varghese, they were half-mocking and half-admiring.
“Big man, ah? But brain small,” he would whisper dramatically, as though gods might overhear.
“Arab owner made him carry everything. Big fridge—Varghese carried. AC unit—Varghese carried. Office table—Varghese carried. Even camel—if they asked, he would carry!”
I laughed every time.
And in my head, Varghese became a gentle giant who lifted continents for a living.
But one afternoon, Kuttan Chettan asked me something unusual.
“Do you think Varghese is rich?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
“He must be,” he insisted. “Ten years in Gulf. Where does he keep money? Gold? Dollars?”
It felt like a game.
We guessed.
We imagined secret boxes hidden under beds.
Children don’t understand the ways adults fall apart.
The Day the Police Came
Weeks passed.
One Friday, when the final bell rang, I looked for Kuttan Chettan at the bus stop. He wasn’t there. Instead, Appa waited on his old Bajaj scooter, tapping the handle impatiently.
“Where is Kuttan Chettan?” I asked, climbing on.
Appa didn’t answer.
We drove home slowly.
As we turned into our lane, we saw them—two police jeeps, lights off but presence loud enough to silence the birds.
Crowds gathered like ants on spilled sugar.
Appa tried to turn the scooter away, but I had already seen.
They were bringing out Kuttan Chettan, hands held behind him, not cuffed but restrained. He wasn’t fighting. He wasn’t crying.
He just looked small.
Smaller than I had ever seen him.
The village—his village—looked at him like they had never known him.
He lifted his head once and found me in the crowd.
Our eyes met for a second.
In that moment, all the stories he had told me collapsed into dust.
There was no drama in his expression.
Just shame.
And something else—something like regret that a child had to see him like this.
The police said it was for robbing Varghese’s house.
People whispered about missing gold.
About betrayal.
About how they should have known.
But no one asked what desperation does to a man who is holding up half a family by himself.
They took him away.
He didn’t look back.
Years Later
Time moved on.
The bus stop changed.
The village changed.
Varghese’s sons grew up.
Our lane grew smaller.
Only the memory remained—of a man who held my hand every morning and told stories that were half-truths, half-pleas for understanding.
The last time I returned home as an adult, I asked around.
“What happened to Kuttan Chettan?”
No one knew.
Or no one cared.
Which is worse, I still don’t know.
Sometimes I think of him —
his rough hands,
his uneven kindness,
his sudden cruelty,
his collapsing world,
the shame in his eyes as the police took him.
And I wonder if he ever forgave himself.
I know I did.
Because childhood remembers people not for their crimes,
but for the mornings they held your hand.
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