Murugan
Murugan was born on December 15, 1985, in Kattangulathur, on the flat coastal plain south of Madras, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The area sat under India’s Congress-led central governments and Tamil Nadu’s shifting state politics, but the things that reached his street were concrete: ration rice, school uniforms, day-wage rates, and the rules of caste and reputation. His family spoke Tamil at home, with Murugan picking up a little Hindi later from men who came down for work. The house kept a small corner shrine: a framed picture of Mariamman and a cheap brass lamp, with flowers when they had them. The big religious days were the village temple festival and the nights of drumming and procession, when men tied red cloth to their wrists and promised offerings if a sickness lifted.
His mother, Ponni, died in the hours after childbirth. The story sat in the family like a fixed date. His father, Rangan, went back to labor quickly, because there was no choice. Meena, his older sister, was three years older and old enough to remember the smell of the boiled water and the women talking in the courtyard. When Murugan was small she fed him rice mashed with watery sambar and carried him on her hip while she tried to keep her own school attendance. Their maternal aunt Sellammal, who lived nearby, arrived often in the first years, bringing idlis wrapped in cloth, checking if the kerosene was finished, and telling Rangan when the children needed notebooks.
Murugan grew up small for his age, all collarbones and thin arms. At the government primary school he learned to write his name and to read short Tamil sentences, but he couldn’t keep up when the lessons piled up into steps. Teachers sent notes home; he lost them. He forgot to bring slates and pencils. When asked to copy a paragraph, he copied the first line again and again without noticing. At home, Meena would slap his hand away from the lamp if he played with it, then sit him down and point at letters until she had to run to fetch water. Rangan did not talk much. When he was angry, he used his hand.
By the time Murugan was twelve he spent more days running errands than studying. He carried tea in steel tumblers to men sitting under a neem tree, fetched cigarettes, and learned which shopkeeper would give a packet of biscuits on credit. He liked the noise of the road and the talk around the tea stall. He listened hard when men argued about film songs and cricket, and he remembered lines even when he couldn’t remember instructions. He avoided anything that required reading. If a bus destination board confused him, he followed someone else.
In his mid-teens he started going with older boys to drink, first cheap brandy in plastic cups behind a wall, then more openly at a liquor shop. He became loose-tongued after a few drinks, quick to laugh and then quick to pick at someone’s words. When sober he stayed quiet, watching, letting others talk. Meena complained to their aunt; their aunt complained to Rangan; Rangan shouted and then left for work before the anger could settle into anything lasting.
At eighteen Murugan moved into the commuting life that spread with the growing Chennai corridor after the 1990s. He got day work as a helper and then as a loader in godown areas around Chengalpattu and nearer the city, lifting sacks of rice, bundles of cardboard, and crates of soft drinks. The pay arrived in cash, sometimes late. He learned the schedule: morning tea at six, first lorries by seven, arguments over whose turn it was to lift, and evening queues at the cheap rice stall. When the 2004 tsunami hit the coast, it didn’t sweep through his inland room, but it shook the labor market. For months there were men talking about relief work and rebuilding, and trucks moved in odd patterns.
From eighteen to his mid-twenties he moved between sites: different godowns, different foremen, the same sore muscles at the end of the day. He got stronger, learned which contractors paid on time, and built a small reputation as someone who showed up—at least when he wasn’t drinking. He visited the village on festival days and handed his father money without much conversation. Rangan took it, said little, and went back to his own labor.
Shankar, a coworker who slept in the same shared room at times, made him laugh by imitating supervisors and film comedians. After shifts Murugan liked sitting on a low wall outside the godown, eating parotta with salna, watching buses and scooters go by. He laughed hard when he was in the mood but got irritated fast. If Shankar teased him too long, Murugan would snap and walk away.
At twenty-two, in 2007, he began seeing a young woman named Devi who worked at a small canteen near the bus stop where he caught his morning ride. She had a gap-toothed smile and teased him about his Tamil accent. They met in the evenings behind a half-built godown, talking and then not talking. He bought her a pair of cheap silver earrings from a market stall. When a neighbor spotted them together and word reached her mother, she told him it was over. Her family was looking to arrange a better match. Murugan didn’t argue. He took extra shifts and drank through the evenings until the sting faded.
The 2008–2009 slowdown tightened everything. Work became patchy, and the men around him argued more. Murugan could not follow the big economic talk, but he understood when wages came late and meals got smaller. In 2011 he married Lakshmi, from a nearby community. They set up in a rented room close to the labor areas, with a single fan and a steel trunk. Lakshmi kept the floor clean, kept a little shrine with a lemon and turmeric for protection, and took him to the Mariamman temple during the annual festival. He carried a pot of milk once as a vow, walking barefoot for part of the procession.
Sellammal died in 2012 after years of declining health. She had been the one who fed him idlis wrapped in cloth when he was small, the one who told Rangan when the children needed notebooks. Murugan stood at the funeral and felt nothing he could name.
Their first son, Arun, was born in 2013. Murugan felt satisfaction bringing home sweets for the naming and standing with the baby in the temple crowd while drums beat. He didn’t change diapers much. He did take the child outside in the evenings, bouncing him while eating roasted peanuts. A year later, in 2014, someone stole his phone and a small bundle of that week’s wages from his bag while he slept in a shared room near the godown. He cursed, shouted at the men around him, and then went quiet. He didn’t go to the police station. He borrowed money, bought a cheap replacement phone, and pretended he hadn’t been scared.
Heavy rain and the Chennai floods disrupted work in late 2015. Roads flooded, lorries stopped, and the places he depended on shut for days. Lakshmi was pregnant again and tired. Their second son, Karthik, was born in 2016. That year demonetization hit cash work hard. Murugan stood in bank lines he didn’t understand, holding notes that suddenly felt useless, watching men argue with guards. Work resumed, but payments got messier.
His drinking increased. He would promise Lakshmi he would come home early and then show up late, smelling of liquor, irritated if she asked about money. Shankar introduced him to Babu, a man who bought “extra” goods for cash. In 2016 and 2017, when wages were irregular and Murugan wanted money for drink and small pleasures, he took small items from the loading area—packaged goods that could be carried out without much notice—and sold them. It wasn’t one big theft; it was bits over weeks. When Mari, a supervisor, warned the workers about thefts and said the police would be called next time, Murugan stopped. He blamed others when Meena heard rumors and challenged him.
Lakshmi fell ill in 2017 with persistent fevers and weight loss. The government hospital diagnosed tuberculosis. She took medication but struggled to keep food down, and Murugan kept losing days to hangovers when she needed someone to take her to the clinic. She died in early 2018, coughing blood in the last weeks. The funeral costs landed hard. Murugan borrowed from coworkers and then from a local moneylender. Interest piled up quickly. He lived inside repayments: shifting to cheaper rooms, pawning small items, making excuses. When COVID-19 lockdowns began, day work collapsed. He couldn’t keep up with debt, and he argued with lenders at his door while his sons watched.
In 2021, back at the loading bay, a stack of rice sacks shifted and caught his lower leg against the concrete edge of the platform. He heard something crack before he felt it. Mari, the supervisor, sent him to the government hospital. For weeks after, Murugan limped between his room and the outpatient line, clutching a paper file and waiting for his number. The ankle healed crooked. Heavy lifting made it swell and ache. He drank arrack at night to get through to morning.
Rangan grew weaker in 2022. Diabetic complications and a stroke left him unsteady, unable to cook or wash himself. He moved into the room with Murugan and the boys—four people in a space meant for two. Murugan arranged clinic visits, bought tablets, helped his father bathe. Without Lakshmi, the childcare leaned on Meena, who lived nearby, and a neighbor named Selvi who watched the boys sometimes and reported everything to everyone. Murugan hated the gossip but accepted the help. Arun, serious for his age, learned to heat leftovers and keep his younger brother from wandering.
By late 2025 Murugan lives between work and obligations. He takes whatever loading jobs he can get, avoiding paperwork and letting others read notices and calculate. Some evenings he goes to the temple with a small offering—flowers and a coconut—more out of habit than calm. He still drinks, though he has stretches where he stays sober for a week, especially when his father’s condition worsens. He sits outside at dusk with tea, listening to other men’s talk, and then goes back to the room where his two sons do schoolwork on the floor while he counts crumpled notes and tries to plan the next day.