Translated by Saravanan Karmegam |
As usual, Rathna Bai wrote a letter in English to her bosom
friend Ambujam Srinivasan, who was residing in Delhi. She concluded the last
paragraph of the letter with these words: ‘If you see this silk sari, you will
snatch it away from my hands, hold it on your chest, and jump elated; it is
mine...aiyo...it is for me.’ No doubt about it at all. Without any qualms, I
could address the person as a true artiste who has made it by blending Ratha’s
beauty and Kannan’s flute music. The one who knows how to strew this array of
dreams with the mixture of colours must be an artiste anyway’. When she posted
the letter, Rathna Bai could not surmise that the letter had contained the
seeds of problems as well. Ambu wrote in her reply, “Rathna… Your English! ...
How many times have I wondered! Became spellbound, not being able to express
what I felt! We had studied together. Hadn’t we? But from where did you get
this language? Are letters fit to be memorised? I do it. Sometimes, he repeats
the remaining half. When I feel the elegance of your language, I can feel
Bharatha Natyam coming through the mind. I am also a college teacher… That too
in English. The very thought of it makes me ashamed…. It is alright… What sort
of spectacular is there in that sari? Get one like that for me too. Two for my
colleagues too. When I went to them to show your letter to make them feel
inferior—don’t be afraid; I did not show the complete letter, only some
portions—this request came from them. Unnecessary trouble for you.”
Having completed reading that letter, Rathna Bai murmured
within herself, “Yes… it is a trouble. She remembered and brought forth before
her eyes Ambujam’s well-built body and her reflex behaviour of frequently
adjusting the edges of her spectacles with the tips of her left-hand fingers
and muttered, “My dear Ambu! It is a bigger trouble than I think”. “It is a
complicated trap… it is a complicated trap,” her mouth mumbled in English.
Milton had gone missing. Such disappearances occur these days
after every meal!
Not yet even attained the age of seventeen! Within this age,
this habit! Adding to the woes, a small shop has also come nearby. “ It is ok…
From where does the money come? It seems that he must have stolen it from his
father. When father could steal it from mother, then what could be wrong in
that? Rosy and Mary had gone for tailoring class. Both of them were not good at
studies. Despite being daughters of Rathna Bai teacher, the reputation they
could earn at school was nothing but insults for being poor in studies. Both
the elder sister and the younger sister were failing consecutively each year.
“Shame …shame,” Rathna Bai muttered. “Are they my children? No…not at all. They
are Jonson’s children. Daughters of a hunter. Children of a man who plucks out
the aching tooth painfully without making it numb with an injection! His
ever-permanent reddened eyes with the colour of blood! His hulking hands! His
dark hair on his chest and hands is like the one that grows on bears! O…God!
Why do you ingest such a loath into my mind?” Rathna Bai helplessly prattled.
“How did I become this unlucky? Mother used to say it was all because of the
people’s jealousy in their belly!”
She was told that when her mother, Meera Bai, took her out
along with her, every man and woman who happened to see her would burn with
jealousy in their belly, and Rathna Bai’s beauty had induced an intolerable
feeling of jealousy in them. This was how Meera Bai used to argue.
“How long could I linger to write a reply to Ambu? One more
letter has come. “Have you forgotten me, Rathna…? Isn’t it a holiday? Is it? Or
any misunderstanding?”
Rathna Bai got up and went upstairs. An old man was sitting
on the floor on the terrace. Bald-headed. He was wrapping his neck, encircling
his cheek with a dirty towel. His constricted, recessed eyes were sunk in the
swelling of cheeks. The face was totally red in colour. When Rathna Bai
appeared in front of him, he showed the door, which was kept closed upstairs,
and signalled, ‘Please tell him to attend.” Rathna Bai’s face burst with anger.
She knocked at the door so gently with the tip of her fingers. The door was not
opened. She forcefully pushed it, opened it, and entered. Jonson was lying
there on the floor utterly untidy with his lungi open, head
on the big iron wheels of the tooth-filing machine near the chair, which was
used for patients to sit. “What a disgust! Are you not ashamed of it?” Rathna
Bai was yelling at him. “I will kick you with my leg,” she shouted. A mild
mumbling came out. “I need some money. It is urgent. I could return it in ten
to fifteen days or so,” she told. The same mild mumbling rose again. “I have
come to you seeking help from you. I have become mad. Aren’t I? Have you ever
moved even your little finger for my sake?” she was speaking in English. It
looked as if one character in a drama was animating. It appeared to Rathna Bai
that the old man had gotten up from his place and was standing behind the door.
“Why should it appear to me that such a thing had happened behind the closed
door? Was it because more senses are working to their limits? Or was it because
of the arrogance of imagination? Have all my astuteness, gentleness, elegance,
and divine playfulness been plundered by boorishness? She went to the door and
opened it, imagining that if the old man was standing at the door, her actions
would be to turn partly, and if he was not standing there, all the things would
remain unchanged. The old man was found sitting in the same place.
Rathna Bai entered again and shouted in a high pitch, “Do the
things I say fall in your ears? The same mild mumbling rose again. Once
the face turned a bit, the saliva was seen flowing at the corner of his mouth.
“Just an animal… Animal…worse than an animal,” her mouth mumbled. She opened a
small wall-embedded shelf, took out two tablets from a bottle, and came to the
old man. “Swallow this and sit here.” Telling him this, she came down through
the stairs.
Rathna Bai thought about what would happen if she could
finish off everything at once now itself. Her mind was filled with the thought
of writing a letter to Ambu today itself and how she should form appropriate
words for appropriate situations. Closing the entrance door, Rathna Bai came
inside. She closed the staircase door as well, which connected upstairs with
the hall. Now, it became fully dark. She switched on the light. Lathered the
soap in both hands and removed her bangles. She looked at her face in the
mirror, pushed the gray hair inside, pulled black strands out, and threw them
above her head. “The time sits on the horse and attacks me,” she talked to
herself in English. “Do you know that I was an extremely beautiful woman
twenty-five years ago?” she asked as if she was addressing a court. She kept
the bangles in a handbag, came to the street, and walked.
Twenty-five years ago, Rathna Bai walking along with her
mother in the street was actually a very important event in the lives of young
men of that time. Getting disappointed after waiting to see her and seeing her
unexpectedly without waiting for her had been important news in the world of
young men. Meera Bai would be walking along with Rathna Bai without a gap
between them, with the face brimming with pride as if telling how her paragon
was looking and at the same time with the face full of worries as if telling
how she was going to save her treasure from all of them. Very often, she used
to tell the people that some doctors and engineers had sent their proposal to
marry her daughter, and it was she who was not yet made up in her mind to take
a decision in this regard. Whether it was true or not, no one knew.
Nevertheless, Rathna Bai received so many love letters by post. Rathna Bai’s
mother used to receive them from the postman. She would open them and read it.
Being happy, she would keep them in her custody privately. In our village, many
young men from well-to-do families had written love letters to her. Since it
was widespread news that Rathna Bai had a strong penchant for the English
language, everyone tried their best to write those love letters, inserting all
possible hard vocabulary they were aware of, and appended along with it some
English poems they knew. Meera Bai Teacher was calculating relentlessly in her
mind which selection could be a brilliantly prudent one among all those boys
who had written love letters. This had grown into a serious problem in her mind
without the knowledge of her daughter. However, as the days passed by, the
enormity of this problem had started decreasing. The reason behind it was many
of the boys who wrote love letters to Rathna Bai had either gotten married to
their uncle’s daughter or aunt’s daughter or any other girl from relatives
arranged by their parents after their studies and got settled either in Bombay
or Calcutta. If Meera Bai happened to see any one of those boys returning to
our village along with their wives during vacation, she used to tell Rathna Bai
that night, “The son of that Peacock House owner was going with his wife. I saw
that. It would have been better had he married a Black monkey”. “Shameless
fellow,” she would spew out irritation. “Mother! It is his wife. It is none of
our business to be concerned about how she looks. I don’t like gossips,” Rathna
Bai would tell her.
“Only because of your short wits did no one come forward to
marry you.” - Her mother would burst out in anger.
“It is not your problem. It is mine”—Rathna Bai would reply
in English.
Rathna Bai could not pursue English in M.A. like many of her
close friends. “What is the use of us studying this? It should be you who must
have studied further,” her friends used to tell her.
“Why are you getting bothered by the shouts of creditors?
They would shout, You should study. I will take care of your education, Meera
Bai, the teacher, said. Stubbornly, she pursued a B.A. and became a teacher.
‘The day I could not study M.A. was actually the beginning of
my tragedy.’ Rathna Bai had to utter this English sentence many times later.
Now her face had started showing the signs that she was aging. Unable to bear
with the queries from her known friends, ‘Have you found any match?’, Meera Bai
Teacher reduced the frequency of venturing out. Now she could feel that those
queries had a mild sarcasm in them. “Hasn’t any doctor become lucky yet?” her
colleagues were asking Meera Bai. “You have made my marriage a social
consciousness. It is the biggest harm you have done to me,” Rathna Bai told her
mother.
“These days I am unable to understand what you talk about.
You talk like a stranger”, Meera Bai Teacher told her.
When Rathna Bai went to school every day, she used to see
Jonson on the way. He used to stand in front of the dental hospital happily,
putting on his lungi. When she was going to her school in the morning, he could
be found trying to start his old model small car. Four or five children would
be pushing it from behind. Once the car started, all the children would open
the car door and get into it, falling on each other. The car would take a round
and stop in front of the hospital. “That deed—the simplicity found in it—the
way those poor children treated you with affection—I loved you for all these.”
Rathna Bai told this to Jonson in English on the night of the day their
marriage took place. “Your English is more beautiful than you,” Jonson told
her.
Within weeks, Rathna Bai could understand that it was impossible
to share her life with Jonson any more. He drank liquor every day. Whenever he
had the opportunity, he went out with his friends for hunting. Rathna Bai was
so sure that sentiments like wife and house did not find a place in his blood.
“I am a scoundrel. You can’t control me. If you are an aristocratic lady, you
go and stay with your mother,” Jonson would shout at her under
intoxication.
“I have been cheated as I thought that you were a simple
person. How life gets so horrible!” Rathna Bai would say.
“I hate your English,” Jonson would shout.
She received unexpected news from the bank on that day. They
will give credit on gold mortgages only on Wednesdays. Rathna Bai went to the
cloth store. She thought of selecting some silk sarees and giving a small token
amount as an advance so that she could come again to collect those sarees after
paying off the remaining amount once she got the money from the bank. When the
sales boys came in front of her, she told them, “I need that same type of saree
that I purchased that day.” She was feeling guilty. She talked to herself, “O
God! Why am I talking like this? Have my senses gone awry? The sales boys
looked perplexed. They came one by one and looked at her closely. “Who gave
that saree on that day?” the shop owner’s tenor changed. Ratna Bai thought to
herself in English, ‘How can they display the saree that I have not purchased?
Punishing them beyond this point won’t be in good taste for a lady like me’ and
told them, “Please show some good quality varieties.” ‘ I have lost my senses.
Have I started believing imagination as real? The boys went inside the room to
bring silk sarees. “Truly speaking, I shouldn’t have written like that. That
too, my dear Ambu,” Rathna Bai was speaking to herself. I happened to read that
English poem inadvertently. It was a wonderful poem. Every word of it resembled
a gemstone fixed in a diamond stud. Some of the words in it had caused an
inexplicable spell in Rathna Bai. It appeared to her that if she described a
silk garment by using those words, the description would be marvellous. She
could not control herself from immediately writing about that description on
that day and at that time itself to Ambu. “It is a dangerous trap anyway,”
Rathna Bai muttered. “That said, why am I saying that I had purchased a saree,
which actually I had not? Why? Rathna…tell…why?” Rathna Bai was asking it
herself. They displayed the sarees at the counter. “Which one to be selected?
Ambu... which one do you like? Which ones do your friends like? Will my
selection make your friends say, ‘your friend is a genius in English. We do
accept. But in the selection of sarees, she is still a poor wit?’ Or will they
say that her taste in English has deeply reflected in the selection of sarees
too? If I want them to speak the latter sentence, which saree do I have to
select? Why do English words come to me fantastically today? Has the time
arrived to write a lengthy letter to Ambu?’ Rathna Bai selected three sarees.
She gave a small token amount as an advance to the shop owner and told him she
would come on Wednesday morning to give the remaining amount to pick up the
sarees. She left the shop.
That night, Rathna Bai wrote a lengthy letter to Ambu. She
wrote in the last paragraph, ‘I have sent the sarees. For you and your friends.
I have even imagined that you and your friends are standing in front of the
college (its outer wall was erected with stones). Let me tell you one thing. I
would get badly angry if you sent the money for your sarees. All you have to
give me is only your photograph in that saree. Do not become skinny with the
guilt that your friend has incurred loss because of you. Here, the children
keep on failing anyway. There is no dearth of toothache too.’ Rathna Bai kept
reading her letter seven or eight times. She liked it very much. “Language is a
wonder. O God! Thank you so much,” she said. “Or else nothing is left for me,”
she uttered. She stood in front of the mirror once again and read that letter
with a tiny nuanced expression.
Rathna Bai no longer remembered that she had to go to the
bank on Wednesday morning.
*** End ***
