Is Savithri wrong? (ஆற்றாமை) by Ku.Pa. Rajagopalan

This is an English Translation of "ஆற்றாமை", A short story written by Ku.Pa. Raja Gopalan. 

Translated from Tamil by Saravanan Karmegam  

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“Please have a seat. You may leave after sometime. Why are you in a hurry?” Savithri told as she was rolling on her bed. 

“No...It’s time up for him to come. If only I start heating up the water now for making coffee, I'd be able to serve it right on his arrival” Kamala said, rose. 

“It's easy making it? Isn't it? How long would it take to prepare a simple coffee? You can very well leave after he came. Sit down. It has been tough for me to while away my time. You know!” 

That time, Raghavan reached there, called out to his wife “Kamala”. 

“Haven't I just told you a moment ago? See he has come now” Kamala told her, ran towards her room. Savithri lifted her head, glanced at them while still lying on the bed. Raghavan entered the house, smiled at his wife. “You are too early." Kamala said, followed him. Even though their room was at a brief distance away, it wasn't lying too far off a safe distance for anyone to receive the sound of some random conversation. The young couple, sometimes, would not realise the presence of neighbourhood.

"What's this! What a childish play it is. Leave me. Someone might come”- Kamala's words filled with delight fell into Savithri's ears, half inaudibly though. The air of pleasure that sprang up from their room reached Savithri, and made her stifled.

As the pain of carnal craving engulfed her mind and body, she grew restive lying on the bed on her stomach. Savithri’s husband was working in the army somewhere in North India. He stayed with her for only three days after their marriage was consummated, that too because of some ritualistic obligations, and then immediately left her on an emergency duty. It had been two years since he left. She received letters from him regularly. But he didn’t come to meet her. The people around would start chewing upon the couple's personal affairs, if Shanti Muhoortham was not arranged for them. In order to keep their mouth shut, the parents of the couples arranged a First Night for them. After that, nothing would be considered wrong, no matter how long the man was separated from his wife. And no one would open their mouth to critique it. But, it was the very Shanti Muhoortham that had been tormenting Savithri as the God of Death. While she could succeed taming her mind like earlier, her body refused to budge on its demands. It instigated the tamed mind too. Her body couldn't forget the sexual pleasure it had received during those three days of their being together. It bawled, fully exasperated. 

Savithri was a woman gifted with a fully endowed physique. Her body was effusively voluptuous with youthfulness. She was unable to take on the incessant craving of her body. ‘Look at this Kamala! Does she have to jump like this if she has nice time with her husband? What is the need of boasting about their intimacy to me? I am staying here like a destitute. What is the need of romping in front of me? She is doing it deliberately. It appears that she is doing all these just to make me feel the pain of watching her happiness. All the time she has been talking what her husband told her. Is it something marvellous or what? She seems to be the one who gave birth to her husband. Doesn’t she? She does have all the reasons to walk upside down anyway. Doesn’t she? She is proud of her happy life with her husband after seeing another women of her age dying in loneliness. If it occurs, even a bit, in her heart that I am living in such a deplorable condition or I would feel pathetic about myself- will she behave like this? If only personally affected, she could feel my pain. With her heart full of grouches, Savithri was lying on the bed. “Adiye! Can’t you bring some water from the tap? Have coffee” her mother came to her.

“You get all done in such a manner. Don’t you? You gave me birth only for such things. I will do it. First, get out of my sight”. She yelled at her mother.

“Coffee is here. I got to go there, that street. I don’t know whether I would come back tonight?”

“What are you going to do by coming here? Please stay only at your brother’s home”

“Be safe with the door locked…”

“I know…I Know…you get lost.”

Her mother adjusted her linen sari, applied Viboothi on forehead, left for that street. The coffee kept near Savithri became cold. Yet, the heat in her heart didn’t get diminished. Once her husband left for office, Kamala came to meet Savithri. “Ammami! Had your coffee?” Savithri looked at her spitefully, told her. “It has become cold. That is why not drinking it”

“May I bring you coffee? I have kept in the flask for him as he needs it in the evening. You have it now. I will make it later for him”

“No…I don’t need it as I have chest burns”

“I asked him if we could go for a movie. He said tomorrow. You can also accompany us Ammami”

“It won’t look good. When you guys go out together for having fun, what is need of me in between…”

“You always tease me Ammami!” Kamala told her shyly.

Kamala’s delight sounded a poisonous potion for Savithri.

“What Ammami! You don’t look well. Are you alright?”

“Nothing happened to me. Nothing. I am alright.”

“He brought a novel ‘Karukiya Mottu’ (Burnt buds). Can we read it together?” she went in, came with a book and sat beside her. The cover of the book carried a picture. Kamala showed that picture to Savithri shyly with an innocent grin on her face.- A man is sitting on a chair, delved into a deep thought. The book from his hand is found lying on the floor. His wife is standing behind him with a smile without his knowledge. “What could be its meaning, Ammami?” Kamala asked Savithri.

“The husband is thinking about something very seriously. Without understanding that it is an inappropriate time, she comes to him, smiling foolishly”  

The gleeful grin, hither to, found in Kamala’s face disappeared. “Is that so?” she asked her.

“What else then will it be?” Savithri told her with an uncouth smile.

“I don’t think that way, Ammami!”

“Then, how will that be?”

“It means….that is….the husband is reading the book thinking about her. As he forgets himself, the book falls off his hands. She doesn't come there for long. At last…..”

“I know what would be that thing ‘at last’. Don’t I?”

“Can I continue reading it?”

“You can.”

Kamala was reading that book for a long time. How much of it went inside Savithri’s ears, she only knew. Suddenly Kamala remembered, “O! God! It is already late. Forgot the time as I kept reading. I need to go”, Kamala left Savithri only at five in the evening.

Savithri didn’t get up. The house keeping maid came. “I can clean the house myself. You may leave now” she told the maid. Flower selling woman came. “I don’t want flowers today” she told her too. It was getting dusk. It had been so long since the darkness set in. She couldn't bear the night long mirth Kamala and Raghavan were orchestrating in their room. 'They don’t even think about their neighbours. Do they?' She got up and switched on the electric light irritably. Came again to the bed and lay down there.

“I have kept your meals ready. Please come soon” Kamala called him.

“Why this early? After having food, then we…..”

“I feel sleepy today” Kamala told him.

“You do feel sleepy. Don’t you?” Raghavan teased her.

Savithri heard all they were talking teasingly. Kamala came to the doorway, threw the banana leaf out and locked the grill door and hall door. As she happened to see the opposite hall while returning, she saw Savithri half asleep as if she was semi-conscious in the inner hall. “Ammami! Is your dinner over?”she asked Savithri.

“Yes. It’s over”

Kamala went inside and locked the door from inside. The house was having a roof like marriage halls. There were families staying on both sides. There were doors for inner halls and outer halls of the houses. It was only eight in the night. Even the bustling of the town had not yet receded. But the sound from kamala’s house had stopped. Only Savithri found herself immobile on the bed.

“Raghavan”, a low voice was heard at the doorway. Savithri was quite first. As it seemed that she might have become curious about something, she opened the outer hall door, slowly and went near to the Veranda. A young man of Raghavan’s age was standing there. “Is Raghavan there? Is he there?”

“Yes…he is there” Savithri replied. She opened the grill door and turned back. The young man came to the outer hall and stood hesitantly. Savithri lowered her voice and told him, “Knock that outer hall door”, gesturing to him.

The young man stood a while, hesitantly.

“Just give it a plain knock. He will open” She told him with a sort of crooked pleasure she had drawn, went to her room and eagerly awaited the events that were to follow.

The young man knocked the door again, slowly, called out “Raghavan”

A minute later, the door opened. “Who is that?”- a roaring question came out.

“It’s me”

“What does it mean it’s me? Who's that?” Raghavan opened the door furiously, looked up outside, sitting inside.

“It’s me…Seenu from Madurai.”

“O! Please come in…” seemingly irritated with confusions thrown over his mind, Raghavan left the door opened, entered the outer hall and took Seenu with him to the doorway. For flash of a second, Seenu could see something inside. The electric light was kept on. He saw Kamala lying on the cot just opposite to the doorway with her dress partly removed, jumping out and running towards the wall within a fraction of a second Raghavan opened the door and left that place. Savithri could see her further clearly. A bunch of flowers was hanging from Kamala’s head. A heavy fragrance of jasmine and incense were wafting through their room. She could not continue looking at that room which bore the semblance of a privacy that had been torn open. The light which was resembling solitude, standing striped off its cloths, dazzled her eyes. She closed the door without making noise. Suddenly she was overwhelmed by a sorrow and a deep self-pity. “What a sin I have committed! Don’t know if it is the sin I have committed nor the sin of separating anyone, I have been cursed to lead this wretched life. Aiyo”

The two hearts which were grasping each other with an irresistible passion had got now shattered and thrown away afar as fragments.

Controlling her welled up tears from falling down, Kamala with massive anger, adjusted her dress, put off the light and lay on the bed. Raghavan came inside after sending off Seenu. He climbed on to the cot and tried coaxing Kamala again, slowly. She pushed his hands away violently. “It would have been better, had you kept the other door also open. Wouldn’t it?” she yelled at him. 

“O! Sorry. I forgot to close it, Kamala”

“How will you remember that? Will you?”

“Why are you making unnecessary fuss out of nothing?”

“Nothing…is it nothing? All my dignity is gone at once.”

Raghavan got annoyed at the developments that had happened. Irked, he asked her “How much is it gone?”

“Enough of it!. Will you please shut up? Don’t you remember there are neighbours around us?” she also retorted in the same tone.

These words of hers also fell into Savithri’s ears.

She lay on her stomach and started weeping with heavy bouts of breaths. “This sinner deserves any damn punishment. Doesn’t she?’ she was cursing herself.

She heard Kamala clearing her nose.

“You demon! You are satisfied now. Aren't you?” Savithri asked herself aloud.

                                                     ***End**