Song of the Cuckoo Bird

by Amulya Malladi

  “Shut up,” Charvi said, rising from the chair she was seated on. “I’ll give the money to Subhadra like I used to, but not to you, never to you.”

  “I maintain the finances of Tella Meda. That’s why we have a maid now, that’s why we have food every day. Subhadra, as wonderful as she is, is not capable of managing money. But if you feel more comfortable giving her the money to give to me, that will be all right as well,” Kokila said in an alarmingly calm voice. Her insides were on fire; she didn’t know how she would get past this. Charvi knew. Who else knew? Did everyone know? And did everyone think she was whoring herself with Ramanandam?

  “I’ll give the money to Subhadra,” Charvi said serenely. “Make sure Chandra is comfortable. Thank you for talking to Subhadra and convincing her to speak with her sister. I wasn’t successful in doing so and I’m pleased that you were. They are talking again and it’s wonderful to see family united like this. Isn’t it?”

  The change in Charvi’s tone of voice and words was jarring. Kokila left Charvi’s room confused and feeling just a little battered.

  The next day Chandra left Tella Meda after extracting a promise from Subhadra that she would attend Chandra’s daughter’s wedding in two months in Warrangal. Subhadra waved her sister away with tears in her eyes. She hugged her several times before she let her get into the cycle rickshaw waiting to take her to the bus station.

  “All my life I turned her away from me but she forgave me and kept coming back,” Subhadra said to Kokila. “Without you I wouldn’t have spoken with her.”

  “Yes, you would have,” Kokila assured her. “It might’ve taken you longer but you don’t have a mean heart, Subhadra.”

  Subhadra sniffled and wiped her wet eyes with her sari. “I have a confession.”

  Kokila nodded, knowing what the confession would be. Subhadra had promised she wouldn’t tell anyone about Ramanandam and her relationship, but Kokila knew that Subhadra didn’t think of Charvi as just anyone. A goddess was meant to be confessed to and told the truth to.

  “I know,” Kokila said. “I understand.”

  Subhadra smiled. “You have a pure and clean heart, Kokila.”

  Kokila wasn’t sure if her heart was all that pure or clean. In a way she did forgive Subhadra but she also knew that she would never completely trust Subhadra again. For all her goodness, Subhadra couldn’t help how she felt about Charvi. Her loyalty to Charvi was beyond corruption.

  “She already guessed and I just confirmed it. She already knew,” Subhadra said in explanation. “She had an argument with Sastri Garu yesterday afternoon when you went to the beach with Manasa. He was very upset.”

  Kokila smiled vaguely. She hadn’t seen Ramanandam almost all day, which was not unusual, especially since Chetana had started staying in Kokila’s room again. And Kokila had been too tired to seek Ramanandam out in his room the night before.

  But as soon as she could, she hurried to Ramanandam’s room to make sure he was all right. The opinion of his godlike daughter mattered immensely to Ramanandam. He was as much devotee as father. And now as Charvi grew older he was becoming more of a devotee than a father.

  Ramanandam was sleeping, his arm covering his eyes, his body stretched tightly on the bed. He never rested, Kokila thought with a smile. He was always tense, always aware of the world around him. He woke up as soon as she came closer to his bed and let his arm slide away.

  He didn’t smile.

  “How are you feeling?” Kokila asked.

  Ramanandam shrugged and sat up on the bed. “Did she talk with you as well?”

  Kokila nodded.

  “She said some harsh words to me,” Ramanandam said tightly. “Those words made me realize how cruel I’m being to you.”

  Kokila’s heart started beating fast. Was it going to end today? Was it going to end because of Charvi?

  “She told me that I shouldn’t think of myself as the queen of Tella Meda because of us,” Kokila said, and Ramanandam snorted.

  “Queens don’t work as hard as you do,” he said, and the compliment soothed Kokila. But he still hadn’t said anything to make her believe that their relationship was over or would have to be even more clandestine or maybe . . . maybe he would marry her? Would he? That possibility made her heart leap with joy.

  “What are we going to do?” Kokila asked as she moistened her lips.

  “Nothing has to change. Of course, if you have any issues . . .”

  Kokila stared at him, her disappointment evident even as she tried to hide it behind a bright smile. “No, I have no issues.”

  “I can’t give you more,” Ramanandam said in frustration. “Why do you keep asking me to?”

  “I have never asked anything of you,” Kokila said quietly.

  “Your silence, your face . . . I know what you want but I can’t give it, do you understand?” Ramanandam demanded.

  “Yes,” Kokila whispered, and left the bitter old man alone in his tired room to ponder his life and its failures some more.

  The next week, Kokila felt immensely guilty for the argument she’d had with Ramanandam. He came down with a high fever and vomited several times. Dr. Vishnu Mohan said that it was a viral fever and “it will go away in either seven days or a week.” He used to always joke about viral fevers like that. No matter what you did, he would say, the virus is going to stay as long as it has to.

  Their argument was quickly forgotten in the light of Ramanandam’s illness. He once again started calling her his little tigress and confessed his love for her and she let him. However, Kokila felt that her role as his lover had already changed. His health had been deteriorating from the day she came to the ashram. She was his nurse now and she played that role with as much devotion as she had her previous one of lover.

  Charvi didn’t mention Kokila’s relationship with Ramanandam again; no one mentioned it but everyone at Tella Meda knew. Renuka hadn’t said anything but from her actions it was obvious she didn’t approve.

  “My Bhanu won’t stay here any longer than she has to,” Renuka said, glaring at Kokila one afternoon. “I’ll get her married to some nice boy as soon as she is old enough and get her out of here. Look at your life. Chee-chee, young girls like you ruin your own lives. You have no one to blame.”

  Kokila didn’t take affront. Renuka was entitled. The woman wore white, shaved her head in deference to her widowhood—how would she understand what it meant to be reckless enough to fall in love with an older man and consummate that love without marriage?

  Chetana was amused. “You left your husband and you’re stuck with an old man. My husband left me and I’m stuck with a young baby. It’s destiny, Kokila, we were never meant to leave Tella Meda.”

  Ananta Devi left behind a thick envelope filled with money after her and Manasa’s two-week stay at Tella Meda.

  Kokila was sad to see the mother and daughter go. Despite her treatment of Manasa, Ananta Devi was actually a good woman, a good wife, trying to make her husband happy at any cost. She was prepared to do anything to get pregnant again and give birth to a male child.

  It was a funny thing, Kokila thought, that pundits and people talked about love, devotion, respect, and obedience as being the cornerstones of a good marriage. No one said that the ability to have sex and give birth to male children were the most important things. Yet Subhadra had left her husband because she was unable to copulate with him, Chetana’s husband had not come back to her because she didn’t provide a male child that would have appeased his parents, and Ananta Devi was going from one guru to the other hoping to conceive. From where Kokila stood, it didn’t appear as if love and devotion even mattered.

  “Will you write letters to me?” Manasa asked Kokila before she left. “I’ll write long letters to you.”

  “If you write to me, I will definitely respond,” Kokila said. “But even if you don’t write, I will write to you.”

  “Ottu?” Manasa demanded.

  Kokila nodded. “Promise.”

 
Manasa’s letter came three months after she and her mother left Tella Meda.

  Dear Kokila,

  We are all doing well here and I hope this letter finds you in the best of health and spirits. Amma is visiting Kanyakumari until the end of the month. I couldn’t go as my teacher said that I shouldn’t miss school anymore. I didn’t want to go anyway.

  My father is very happy these days. He even plays with me and talks to me. He takes me to the store and buys me soft drinks and Cadbury chocolate bars. One day he even bought me a whole box of Cadbury Gems. He seems so happy now that Amma is gone and I secretly wish that Amma never comes back so that Nanna will always be this happy and always, always love me.

  I hear the servants talk about him getting married again. He keeps bringing this woman to the house. She eats with us but sleeps in the guest house. But I see my father go there at night after he thinks I am sleeping. The woman’s name is Mallika and she is very pretty. She talks to me nicely and even combs my hair. Yesterday she took me to the bazaar and bought me three dresses. I like Mallika very much but I don’t think Amma is going to be happy about her being here. But whenever I talk to her about my mother, Mallika asks me not to worry as Amma will be gone for a while now.

  Amma writes short letters and says that she will be back soon but doesn’t say when. I’m very concerned, but I’m also happy to spend this time with Mallika.

  I miss you and Puttamma very much. Please give my regards to Charvi Auntie, Subhadra Auntie, Renuka Auntie, Narayan Garu Uncle, and Ramanandam Uncle. I miss playing with Bhanu, but Mallika says that there might be a new baby in our house as well and I can play with him.

  Please write to me and come and see me in Hyderabad.

  Love,

  Manasa

  The letters came in a timely fashion in the beginning and Kokila responded promptly to each. But as Manasa grew up and her memories of Tella Meda faded, the letters stopped coming. It was something Kokila had learned to accept. You could make friends with guests but it never lasted, even with regulars. Tella Meda stayed fresh right after a visit and faded away into oblivion soon after.

  1975 25 June 1975. President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signed the declaration of Emergency rule in India. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi announced that emergency rule would be implemented as early as the next day.

  28 June 1975. As a response to antigovernment demonstrations, the Indian government imposed the toughest press censorship since independence.

  The Lepers

  Ravi came back to Chetana and Tella Meda when Bhanu was a year and a half old. His planned marriage to his cousin, Anuradha, had fallen through when she eloped with a boyfriend from a lower caste. Apparently, it was her affair with the lower-caste boyfriend that had prompted Ravi’s aunt—Anuradha’s mother—to accept Ravi as a son-in-law even though he was already married.

  Ravi had stopped going to college, not that he ever really began, as he became involved with a Baba who provided him and his friends with inferior quality LSD and ganja. There were several Babas around the university who in the name of Rama and Krishna sold drugs to students. It was a common enough pastime and all of Ravi’s friends from college indulged as he did. Manikyam and her husband were devastated, though. They had been sure that Ravi would put himself on the straight-and-narrow path as soon as he left the detrimental influence of Chetana behind. They cut off his allowance and threatened his independence. But Ravi started stealing money, first from home and then from his father’s clinic. When Manikyam and Dr. Nageshwar Rao discovered the theft, they declared that Ravi had crossed too many lines.

  Manikyam thought that if Ravi left Visakhapatnam and went back to Tella Meda, away from that fraudulent and dangerous Baba, he would start living a clean life. But even more than that, it was Ravi’s influence on his younger brother, Prasad, that prompted Manikyam and her husband to shove Ravi out of their home.

  Prasad started smoking ganja because of Ravi and then started drinking heavily as well. Dr. Nageshwar Rao knew that it was time to remove the bad apple from the basket before it completely ruined the good one.

  Ravi had nowhere else to go, so he went back to Tella Meda, where he had a wife and a child.

  The years had been difficult for Chetana. She hated Renuka with a passion because Bhanu preferred to be with that old widow rather than with her own mother. In an effort to reinvent herself, Chetana started learning how to be a tailor. In the town two women, sisters, Jaya and Sheela, ran a small tailor shop. The women were not considered to be “right,” as they ran a side business from their bedroom, the room next to where the tailor shop was. But Chetana needed money and sewing was one thing she could do, so she worked with the sisters.

  Ravi went back to his old life very quickly at Tella Meda. Manikyam continued to send money to Ravi without her husband’s knowledge. Ravi continued to waste it. This time Chetana didn’t seem to care what he did as long as he gave her half of the money Manikyam sent. They both spent most of their time outside Tella Meda.

  “I work,” Chetana snapped at Kokila when she asked where Chetana was all day. “I make money as a tailor. And here.” She threw a few rupee notes and paisas on the floor. “Our rent for this month.”

  “Just give it to Subhadra,” Kokila told her, eyeing the money with distaste.

  Was it true? Were the rumors floating around Bheemunipatnam about her friend real? Was Chetana also turning into a prostitute like her mother? Jaya and Sheela, the owners of the tailor shop, were known to be women who engaged in licentious activities with wealthy men. Their clientele was considered to be varied, including the inspector of Bheemunipatnam, a few politicians, and some other men who came from all over the region. They had loud parties in their house with foreign alcohol and Kokila wondered if Chetana was drinking as well.

  “We all know you’re the one in charge, so why should I give money to Subhadra? Maybe I should’ve hardened Ramanandam’s lingam, and then I’d have been the woman of the house,” Chetana said with a sly smile. “You’re not lucky, Kokila, but you’re very smart, I’ll give you that.”

  Every time Kokila tried to speak with Chetana, the conversation ended with Chetana being angry and resentful. Confused by her friend’s behavior, Kokila finally gave up. The relationship that had bound them together for years, through good times and bad, was breaking. Kokila tried to look back and see when it all had begun. Was it before Chetana’s marriage? After? Was it when Bhanu was born? Or had their friendship been sloughing off even before?

  Subhadra tried to explain to Kokila that Chetana was behaving like this because she was sad and depressed. Her life had not turned out the way she had envisioned and what it was now was painful and embarrassing to her. If she was lashing out at everyone, it was a sign that she needed help. But Subhadra had always supported Chetana, through all her shortcomings, all her mistakes, and Kokila paid little heed to what she had to say.

  The beautiful walls of Tella Meda seemed to want to strangle Kokila; her sense of suffocation at being inside was so intense. With Chetana gone from her life, it was as if a limb had been cut off and the loneliness threatened to drive her mad. Ramanandam was always sick now and she was tired of taking care of him. A part of Kokila wondered if the reason he was so interested in having a relationship with her was because he knew he needed a nurse.

  Ramanandam was having some heart and lung problems. He was getting more and more frustrated because he couldn’t move around as freely as he used to. On some days he would get tired easily, would be breathless just after a short walk. But some days he would be normal, as if the sixty-four years of his life had not taken their toll. He looked frail and continued to lose weight, regardless of how much food Kokila was able to coax into him. He didn’t sleep and his only lifeline, his writing, he confessed, was also becoming more and more incoherent.

  His demands on Kokila’s time sapped her energy. He wanted so much from her. He wanted her to stay with him all night and stay up with him when he couldn’t sleep. He wanted her to listen t
o him talk about his glory days and he wanted her to not express an opinion or tell him about her life, which was moving at a completely different pace than his. The situation had become so bad that Kokila made excuses to not be with him. She loved him but his sickness and neediness were throttling her.

  It was when Kokila was all but ready to jump into the well in the backyard that she met Dr. Shankar Gurunathan. He was well known in Bheemunipatnam: the son of a wealthy Brahmin, he had given it all up to take care of leprosy patients camped in a small area just outside Bheemunipatnam.

  A small clinic stood by the huts where the lepers lived and it was in this hospital that Dr. Shankar Gurunathan worked for the greater good of the people. The hospital was essentially two rooms and a verandah. The patients waited in the verandah and Shankar examined them in one room. If the case was very serious, Shankar would put them in one of the five beds available in the second room.

  He was not just the doctor who doled out medication for the lepers, he was also their grief counselor, their messiah, their confidant, their father, their son, and anything else they needed him to be. He was always short on help and during every visit to Tella Meda he would ask Charvi if there was anyone she could think of who would like to join his cause. Charvi would politely assure him that she would definitely ask around but she never did. Despite Charvi’s godliness and belief that all people were made equal, she found lepers repulsive. When Subhadra once wondered if she should help Shankar, Charvi ordered her to not even think about it.

  “Leprosy is very contagious. If you want to help, send them some food but don’t go there yourself. What if you get it? What will you do then?” Charvi said.

  Maybe it was because Charvi was so against it, maybe it was because Kokila was feeling more and more stifled inside Tella Meda and its routine, but whatever the cause, Kokila volunteered her services to Shankar during one of his Sunday visits to Tella Meda.

  “Are you sure? It is a very contagious disease,” Shankar warned her, as he did all his helpers. Most never lasted more than a few months. “You will always have to wear gloves and a mask when you work with the patients. The risk is very high.”