by Sudha Murty
Alex had explained the politics at work, ‘Sanjay, there are three units in the gynaecology department. They are headed by Dr Jog, Dr Parekh and Dr Bhosale. Dr Parekh is good but he owns his own nursing home. So he is more concerned about that. Dr Bhosale is a local person related to a minister. So he is constantly busy. The best is Dr Jog. He is impartial, knowledgeable and a great teacher. Also, he is from your state. You will feel more comfortable with him. Though we talk about equal opportunity for everyone, practically, in our country, it is community, language and connections that are important. I recommend Dr Jog. But the decision is yours.’
So Sanjay had joined Dr Jog. But Dr Jog never talked to Sanjay in Kannada and treated him impartially. However, Sanjay spoke in Kannada to patients who knew the language to make them feel at home. That was how Dr Jog found out that Sanjay was also from Karnataka. But it made no difference to him. He was more impressed with Sanjay’s sincerity at work.
Sanjay’s thoughts wandered back to Mridula and he thought about her reaction, ‘Maybe she’s making fun of my letter in front of her friends. I have spent almost three years in Bombay now. It is time—I must either do my post-graduation in Bombay or return to Bangalore.’
Finally, he slept.
6
A Second Chance
November and December were the best months of the year in Aladahalli. There were no lashing rains and no windy, hot days. The sky was clear and the weather pleasant. The full-moon day was celebrated with great joy and all relatives and friends came together for a moonlit dinner at the side of the lake or in the mango grove. The entire dinner consisted of special items that were white in colour, such as curd rice, sugary desserts, white chiroti, kheer and jowar roti.
Bheemanna celebrated this festival annually and this year was no different. All his friends had come from different villages. Rukuma’s relatives were also joining in. Champa Bai was like family to Bheemanna and her relatives were also invited. Bheemanna had hired a cook from Hubli and told him, ‘We’re not maharajas or gods. We’re mere mortals and can’t give expensive gifts to everyone. But we can give them excellent food, cooked with love. Please use a lot of home-made ghee, jaggery and fruits. Whoever joins us for this dinner must remember the food and the company until the Purnima festival comes around again next year.’
After the Maharashtra trip, Mridula had become unusually quiet at home. For the first time in her life, someone had written a love letter to her. Initially, she was shocked. But once she had finished reading the letter, she began to like Sanjay even more. A wedding was an important milestone and she couldn’t take the decision on her own. Her parents would have a major say in this. She decided to tell her parents. Bheemanna had not noticed that Mridula was quiet and preoccupied. He was too busy preparing for the festival. Rukuma attributed Mridula’s quietness to her brief sickness and tiredness from the trip. She wanted to talk to her but there were too many guests at home and they were keeping her busy. Rukuma’s brother Satyabodha had also come with his wife and children, Sarla and Satish. Satish was not Satyabodha’s biological son but his wife’s distant cousin who had lost both his parents; Satyabodha and his wife had adopted him as their own.
On the day of the festival, all the guests left for the lake with the cooked food. Bheemanna told them that he and his family would join them shortly. Rukuma had almost finished cleaning the kitchen. Now, only the four of them remained in the house. Mridula thought, ‘This is the best time to tell my parents about the letter.’
Bheemanna was sitting on the swing and urging his wife to hurry up. Mridula quietly brought the letter and gave it to Bheemanna. Then she went and stood behind a wooden pillar. Bheemanna read the letter and was surprised. He immediately called out to his wife, ‘What’s your opinion about that doctor from Bombay?’
Hearing Bheemanna’s urgent tone and unexpected question, Rukuma stopped what she was doing and came outside. ‘Why do you want to know? And why now?’
Bheemanna said softly, ‘Because he has written a letter to our Mridula telling her that he wants to marry her.’
By now, Krishna had also come outside. Rukuma replied, ‘We have met him just once and we don’t know anything about him or his background.’
‘Don’t worry. He belongs to our community. You already know that he’s a doctor. Now, tell me what you think.’
‘How can I give my opinion in such a short time?’
‘Well, take your time. Ah, I forgot to tell you one thing.’ Bheemanna told Rukuma about Sanjay’s handicap.
Rukuma looked disturbed. ‘I think we shouldn’t pursue this matter. Our Mridula can get a better boy.’
Mridula went inside the house. She wanted her parents to discuss this freely. Krishna followed her; he wanted to know more about Sanjay. ‘Mridula, you didn’t tell me about Sanjay!’
‘Brother, I never thought of him in that way.’ She told him what had happened between Sanjay and her.
Meanwhile, Bheemanna said to his wife, ‘If everything else is favourable, then his arm shouldn’t be the reason to stop the marriage. The boy is handsome and intelligent. We can find out more details from Chandrakant. But let’s do that only if Mridula agrees.’
Rukuma was still hesitant. ‘What’s the hurry? If I tell my brother, he’ll get her a better alliance.’
‘Your brother is unable to find a match for his own daughter. So forget about it. The boy is decent and that’s why he has written a letter. But if Mridula says “no”, then there is nothing more to be done.’
Bheemanna called out to Mridula. She entered the veranda like a shy bride. She knew why they were calling her. Bheemanna said, ‘Mridula, don’t think that we don’t have the capacity to find you another boy. We aren’t insisting that you marry this boy because it reduces our tension. I believe that we should give our daughter to a boy only if he is good and we shouldn’t worry about how rich he is. This is your decision. Please feel free and tell us what you think.’
Without even lifting her head, Mridula replied slowly, ‘If Sanjay met with an accident that left him handicapped after we got married, then you wouldn’t hold that against him. So I don’t have any objection to the alliance if both of you are okay with it.’
Surprised at Mridula’s quick and decisive response, Bheemanna and Rukuma looked at each other.
7
Generation Gap
Tirumakudalu Narasipura was a famous pilgrimage town near Mysore and was popularly known as T. Narasipura. There were small shops in front of the Narasimha temple in the town. One of them was Ratnamma’s. She was a fifty-eight-year-old widow whose house was right behind her small shop. She sold flowers, incense, camphor, bananas, coconuts and other puja items. Some pilgrims wanted to take a dip in the river Kaveri since they considered it very auspicious. So Ratnamma also kept plastic mugs, soaps and low-quality towels for them. There were many such shops on the same street. Still, all of them managed to make a small profit.
Business was at its peak in May because of the cart festival, a day before Buddha Purnima. This day was also known as Narasimha Chaturthi. Devotees came from different parts of the country to T. Narasipura on this day and there were extra buses from Mysore too. On other days, the crowd was minimal. Usually, only devotees from Mysore visited the place. But they didn’t buy anything from the shops. They got their fruits and coconuts from home and went directly to the temple. So most shop owners had an added income during this time.
Ratnamma had a lucrative moneylending business. She was shrewd and, at times, ruthless. When she lent money, she charged an extremely high interest rate. People frequently commented, ‘Ratnamma is a hard-hearted lady.’
But she did not get upset. She calmly justified her stand: ‘Am I not giving them money when they need it? They know the terms. Why should they get upset when I ask them to return it? Why was Karna of the Mahabharata called great? Because he gave away money and things to everybody. If I start lending money with a low interest rate, there will be a big queue in front of my hous
e. And if I stop asking people to return the money, then they will either take very long or they may not even return it. My business will go down the drain. People will always talk. If they want free money, then I am not the right person to approach.’
Nobody ever knew what Ratnamma was thinking, but she could find out someone else’s secret very quickly. She never got upset or raised her voice. Her entire world was money and she kept an account of everything. She never offered tea to her customers either. Recently, the people at T. Narasipura had seen a spike in bad moneylenders. Ratnamma seemed better than most these days.
Even though Ratnamma did not leave her shop and go anywhere, she knew the ins and outs of the entire village. Her argument was that people could talk of philosophy only after they had achieved considerable success in life. She said that people who came to listen to discourses on philosophy never practised it.
One day, Lakshmi called her mother and said, ‘Shankar has been transferred to Belur. I want to come and see you.’
Ratnamma did not close the shop even for a day, so it was Lakshmi who always came to meet her mother. This time, there was a special reason for her visit. Sanjay had sent Lakshmi Mridula’s photo and had informed her about his upcoming wedding. Lakshmi wanted to discuss this with her mother.
A few days later, Lakshmi arrived with her son, Anil. When the topic of Sanjay’s marriage came up, Lakshmi got upset—but her mother was cool. Lakshmi said harshly, ‘Amma, whatever you may say, Sanjay has brought disgrace on us.’
Lakshmi had taken after her father and was much more talkative than Sanjay. Ratnamma was silent at her comment. Lakshmi continued, ‘I told everyone in my in-laws’ house that Sanjay will marry a doctor and open a nursing home. This girl Mridula is just a teacher in a government high school. Now, I look like a fool.’
‘Why did you say that? He never said anything like that to me. Did he tell you that?’
‘No, he didn’t. There’s a reason why I said that. My husband’s sister Vimla told me that she wanted Sanjay to marry her daughter Usha. I don’t like Vimla. But I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and said that Sanjay will only marry a doctor. They will laugh at me now. We don’t know anything about this girl or where she’s from. We have never even visited Aladahalli. Why is Sanjay getting married to a girl from there?’
Ratnamma was not perturbed. ‘Why are you upset? The girl is nice looking and Sanjay is educated. He must have met her and thought about it before making this decision. You are increasing your blood pressure by getting upset.’
Sanjay had never talked about marriage to his mother. In fact, there were many parents whose daughters were of marriageable age and they kept dropping hints to Ratnamma. Sethurao in T. Narasipura owned a lot of land and had a good moneylending business too. He had indirectly asked Ratnamma once or twice about her son. Another time, there was a female doctor from Mysore who had asked her about Sanjay and suggested that they could open a nursing home together if they got married. But Ratnamma had not replied. Ratnamma thought, ‘When daughters grow up, they become good friends to mothers but when young boys grow up, they become strangers. Lakshmi doesn’t understand that. Maybe she will when her son, Anil, comes of age.’
In fact, Ratnamma had not seen Sanjay for almost a year. Once, he had said to her, ‘Amma, I’ll send you more money. You work too much. You can close the shop.’
At the time, Ratnamma had thought to herself, ‘It really isn’t too much work for me, but the truth is that he doesn’t want me to run a small shop. He must think that it is below his dignity. But I don’t worry about such false status symbols.’
A customer walked in and interrupted her thoughts. He asked the price of a towel and a mug. Then he started negotiating with her: ‘Oh! That is very expensive. It is much cheaper in Mysore Devaraja Market.’
Lakshmi channelized the anger at her brother towards the customer and said, ‘Then you should have bought it from there. Why did you come here?’
Fortunately, the customer was a little deaf. Ratnamma became alert. She knew the fundamental rule: the customer is God. Wisely, she told Lakshmi, ‘Take the child inside and cook for the afternoon.’
Lakshmi gave her mother a dirty look and went away.
Ratnamma started convincing the customer: ‘Yes, things are much cheaper in Mysore. We buy goods from there, load them in a bus and pay for the bus and a coolie. We also take money from a moneylender to invest in our shop. We don’t have much choice. They may look similar to Devaraja Market in colour but you may not have checked the quality. One has to pay a price for good quality. Please see the quality of the towels and the mugs and buy them only if you are convinced that they are good.’
The customer changed his mind after listening to her. Ratnamma completed the transaction and thought, ‘It is difficult to understand customers. Everyone has a different personality. I have to understand them as I talk to them. How will Lakshmi realize that? Her husband, Shankar, is a bank clerk and gets his salary regularly whether he works or not. But my life is full of ups and downs. How can Lakshmi appreciate the importance of money, customers and business when she sits at home all day?’
Ratnamma heard Anil crying and was immediately annoyed. With all the comforts, Lakshmi couldn’t look after even one child.
She remembered her past.
With a husband like Narasinga Rao and two small children, life had not been easy. Her husband did not have common sense. Though he was good at prescribing medicines to his patients, he was extremely bad when it came to charging them for it. When she insisted that he ask his patients to pay so that she could get some money to run the household, he would say, ‘How can I ask my patients for money? It is Lord Dhanvantari’s gift to me. When patients are cured, they give me money themselves. But if I insist that they pay, this gift will disappear.’
Though the people in the village were uneducated, they were street-smart. When they were ill, the patients and his relatives came and touched Narasinga Rao’s feet and cried, ‘You are God to us. Please save the patient.’
But once the patients were cured, they avoided him. Ratnamma wondered how she would run the house in this town with two small children. That was the time when she decided to look after the fields and open her own business. She remembered how they had struggled for Lakshmi’s marriage. Her eyes automatically went to Lakshmi and Shankar’s wedding picture on the wall.
Lakshmi was a very beautiful girl. Even today, after having a child, she looked the same. But beauty alone cannot fetch a good groom for a poor man’s daughter. Many people took help from Narasinga Rao. But when her husband went with Lakshmi’s horoscope and picture to their houses in hope for an alliance, they gave him a glass of water and sweet-talked him. Later, they told him that the horoscopes did not match. Ratnamma’s impractical husband believed them but she knew that the real reason was not horoscopes but their lack of money.
After a lot of disappointments, Ratnamma herself had set out to search for a groom for her daughter. Shankar was a distant relative. But there was an age difference of ten years between Lakshmi and him. Fortunately, he did not have parents who would demand a lot of dowry. So, Ratnamma had begged Shankar and he had agreed to get married to Lakshmi. But Narasinga Rao was unhappy. He argued, ‘This is not a good match, Ratna. Shankar is greedy and aggressive. He is quarrelsome and cunning too. I don’t like his family either.’
But Ratnamma had not cared and Lakshmi had got married to Shankar.
Ratnamma was sweating in the hot summer. She wiped her face with her sari’s pallu. There were no customers in her shop and she knew from experience that nobody would come for a few hours. She was about to close the shop for lunch when she saw Mada coming from a distance.
Her thoughts went back to her husband again. ‘If all men are like Narasinga Rao, the wife’s life is difficult,’ she said to herself. ‘Men should be aggressive and that is essential for success. Lakshmi talks but she is not courageous. It is good that she has an aggressive husband. However, Sanjay is
like me. He talks less but is more courageous.’
By this time, Mada had reached her shop. He had been working with her in the fields for a long time. He said, ‘Lakshmi Amma has asked me to plant a tree in the backyard. Which one should I plant? When Panditji was alive, he liked neem trees. Should I plant one in your backyard?’
Ratnamma smiled and replied, ‘No, Mada. Plant a champak tree.’
‘How much should I dig, Amma?’
‘The soil is quite rocky at the bottom. Keep digging until you reach the rocks.’
Mada went off to start digging. Almost immediately, the bells in the main temple started ringing, indicating that it was lunchtime. Ratnamma folded her hands in respect to Narasimha. She did this from habit and not because of devotion. Then she went inside her house for lunch.
Lakshmi was laying places for two people and Anil was sleeping on a mat on the floor. The house was small. It had a room to keep a safe locker, a hall big enough for thirty people, a small bedroom and a kitchen and a dining room. There was no puja room. Ratnamma’s logic was that God was everywhere and there was no need for a separate room to worship in. She kept some idols in the kitchen cupboard.
After Sanjay son had started earning, he sent money home regularly. Lakshmi insisted on modifying the mud floors in the house to cement floors. Ratnamma did not like making the expense. She said, ‘Why did you waste hard-earned money on this? Had we used the same money in the moneylending business, we would have earned something.’