Song of the Cuckoo Bird

by Amulya Malladi

  Ramanandam searched for words. This was his Kokila, he thought in shock, who was calling his relationship with her a perverse thing, something she recoiled from now.

  “What will you do?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Kokila said, but for once she was not afraid of the future. She would find a way, she told herself, to make a real life. And it would be a good life, she vowed.

  Ramanandam left her room silently. So ended the relationship Kokila had always in some corner of her mind known was wrong.

  1978 1978. Dr. G. P. Talwar, founder and director of the National Institute of Immunology in India, started research on the mycobacterium W vaccine, which he believed would play an important role in the eventual eradication of leprosy.

  The Pilgrims

  Chetana was pregnant again. Bhanu, who was now four years old, was very excited about having a baby brother. She would talk to Chetana’s rounded belly and constantly asked when the baby would come out.

  Having lost Bhanu to Renuka, Chetana was certain that this new baby would be hers. She would take care of this baby and never let him cry and never ignore him the way she had Bhanu. Bhanu might call Chetana Amma but it was Renuka who was the real mother. Bhanu slept with Renuka, ate with her, and was bathed by her. Chetana was not involved in Bhanu’s life in any real way. It had bothered Chetana a lot more before she got pregnant again. Now she focused on this new baby growing in her belly, confident that she would do right by him.

  Ravi started writing letters to his mother again, telling her about the new baby, the impending seemantham, and how wonderful it would be if Chetana could have the new baby in Visakhapatnam in his childhood home.

  This time Manikyam responded to the letters politely but without enthusiasm. She did start sending extra money to Ravi and Chetana. This time she didn’t make the mistake of saying she would come to the seemantham or even suggest her husband would consider bringing the prostitute’s spawn inside his home.

  The news was not as disappointing this time to Chetana as it had been the last. Chetana had come to terms with Dr. Nageshwar Rao never accepting her marriage to Ravi and she had also come to terms with living in Tella Meda for the rest of her life.

  The coconut trees swaying in the wind, the smell of the bay, the chatter of Puttamma, Ravi’s philandering—everything was wrapped within a dull polyethylene bag. If Chetana didn’t bother herself with the facts of her life, then how would it matter what the facts were?

  Chetana watched Kokila carefully these days but didn’t approach her. It had been three years since everyone had tried to drive her out of Tella Meda, afraid she might have leprosy, and even now, the bitterness of that clung to Kokila.

  Chetana wanted—she could feel the want ram against her heart— she wanted so much to be friends with Kokila again, get back to a time when it was not all so complicated, when life was not a constant struggle, but each time she made an effort, Kokila, the changed Kokila, rebuffed her.

  And Kokila had changed. Everyone talked about it.

  “She isn’t sleeping with him anymore,” Renuka whispered to Chetana when once Ramanandam tried to talk to Kokila but she walked past him as if he didn’t exist.

  “Good for her,” Chetana had retorted, not wanting to gossip about her old friend, though just a year or so ago, she wouldn’t have been able to resist the opportunity.

  “It seems she blames him for her leprosy,” Renuka continued, unperturbed by Chetana’s lack of interest.

  “She didn’t have leprosy, it was a rash,” Chetana muttered.

  “I think she doesn’t want to sleep with him because he has cancer,” Renuka said confidently. “A man has sickness like that and women like Kokila leave them. My husband had cancer and I nursed the man till he died.”

  “Amma, you are a great wife and a great woman, okay? Are you sure your husband died of cancer and not because you nagged him to death?” Chetana said sarcastically. “And Sastri Garu was diagnosed with cancer last year; Kokila cut off ties with him long before that.”

  “Three years ago, they stopped being together. I have been counting,” Renuka said. “I tell you, Kokila is a weak woman to do what she is doing. No matter what you say. Leaving that poor man when he has cancer and needs . . .”

  “He isn’t her husband, okay?” Chetana interrupted a little angrily. “And, old woman, don’t you have anything better to do than sit next to my ear and blabber?”

  But it was not just Renuka with her malicious talk who discussed Kokila; Subhadra did too, albeit out of concern. Kokila had stopped going to the leprosy clinic, to everyone’s relief, but had started a new career that kept her out of Tella Meda for a good part of the day. After the rash incident Kokila couldn’t get herself to go back. Part of it was fear and part of it was also that she had gotten weary of seeing the lepers every day.

  “Poor girl, she just goes to that typing school all day. She never sits with us and eats anymore. You should talk to her, Chetana,” Subhadra would coax even though she knew that Kokila was completely unreachable. Subhadra had tried to get through to Kokila with apologies, food, everything, but hadn’t succeeded.

  Charvi had also tried to talk to Kokila but nothing came out of it. Ravi was the only one who was unconcerned.

  “If she seems to hate us all so much, why doesn’t she leave?” he would demand even as everyone would shush him. Guilt was heavy among those in Tella Meda who had tried to throw Kokila out when they were convinced she had leprosy. Even Renuka, who usually seemed to be untouched by regret, was tormented by her actions. They had been justified, she would tell herself and others, she had been protecting Bhanu, but it was no balm for the guilt.

  Ramanandam watched Kokila with haunted eyes. At night he ached for her, during the day he wished for their old conversations. As his health failed, he found that Kokila had been not just his lover and muse but also his nurse. No one in the ashram paid much attention to him or his ill health now. Except for Subhadra, who would check on him once in a while, no one came to him to talk, to help.

  The old days were indeed gone. Now those who came to Tella Meda came for Charvi. Ramanandam’s writing was long forgotten. His old friends were dead or dying, like him. Vineetha Raghavan had written to him when she found out he had cancer and they had resumed some communications, but it was formal, unsatisfying, useless. Vineetha didn’t care for him any more than he did for her. The only woman who had truly cared was now as if made of wood.

  Kokila wasn’t unaware of the speculation, the concern, the malice, or the ache of a lost relationship, but she didn’t let any of it bother her. If she felt the impulse to go check on Ramanandam when she heard him cough, she curbed it. If she felt curiosity burst within her when Subhadra discussed Ramanandam’s cancer and his condition in a hushed voice, she stifled it. Ramanandam had nothing to do with her.

  He is a dying man, she would argue with herself, a dying man who is alone. But a strong force within Kokila believed Ramanandam’s illness and loneliness to be divine punishment. She had given herself to an older man, completely and faithfully, yet he had not stood by her during her time of need. This was Lord Vishnu’s justice and Kokila felt she shouldn’t interfere with divinity.

  Once she stopped going to the leprosy clinic, Kokila learned how to type and then became a teacher in the Telugu typing school. The hours were from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon. It was a good job that paid enough to cover her expenses at Tella Meda. It also gave her the opportunity to step out of the oppressive ashram. At Tella Meda she still managed the finances, more easily than she had before because no one argued with her anymore. If she told someone their rent was due, the rent would be made available or a clear excuse was given. The lengthy lectures on how Kokila should be less of a mercenary had stopped. Even Charvi gave the devotee money she wanted to part with to Kokila and not to Subhadra.

  But it wasn’t easy to hold on to the anger she felt for everyone, especially Subhadra, who constantly tried to make peace. It was pet
ty, Kokila knew, but becoming the old Kokila again, who could talk to everyone and be part of the Tella Meda family, seemed like a defeat. She didn’t know what she was winning by staying aloof but she couldn’t fathom changing. Not yet. Anger that had bubbled within her initially had settled down to a steady stream of slowly fading hurt but there was resistance to becoming too close to anyone at Tella Meda again. It was self-preservation.

  “He is very sick,” Subhadra said to her while they hung washed colorful cotton saris on the clothesline. “Spat out blood yesterday. I saw it on his clothes. No one talks to him . . . and he only wants you anyway. Why don’t you just—”

  “Are these it? Are there any more clothes?” Kokila asked in a high-pitched voice, pretending Subhadra had not spoken. She could hardly stay calm in the face of blood, could she? Spat out blood? How much blood? What did that mean? How sick was he? Was he dying? When?

  “Come on, Kokila, don’t be like this,” Subhadra admonished softly. “He loves you . . .”

  “Subhadra,” Kokila warned.

  “What? I’m not afraid of you. You can bully everyone in Tella Meda, but not me,” Subhadra said. “He’s sick. Very sick. He’s dying, Kokila. There’s nothing left to fight over.”

  Kokila walked away from the courtyard into the temple room, her head throbbing because of the heat, the wetness of the clothes she had hung on the clothesline, and Subhadra’s words.

  What was she supposed to do?

  Kokila stared at the shining black and gold idol of Lord Venkateshwara Swami in the mahogany temple and folded her hands in prayer. Sometimes it is just easy to believe that there is a god watching over and guiding you, she thought. Sometimes it is easier to just let go.

  It was common for people to make requests of Lord Venkateshwara Swami and promise to visit his home in Tirupati, or offer money for the temple hundi, or offer the hair on their head, if their request came true. Kokila had never asked for anything but as she stood in the temple room that day, for the first time she asked for something. Guidance, a divine sign, a symbol, anything that would tell her what to do. And if the wish came true? She was thinking what she could promise if her wish came true when the letter arrived.

  The postman, Ramana Rao, had been delivering post to Tella Meda for over a decade now. He would come and sit down in the verandah and whoever was around would give him a glass of cold water from the earthen pot in the kitchen, along with tea or coffee and some snack. If there was no tea or snack available, there was always someone to talk with Ramana Rao and brighten his weary post-delivering day.

  “Many letters today, Post Garu?” Kokila asked as she brought cold water in a steel tumbler.

  Ramana Rao gulped down the water without touching the rim of the glass with his lips. He drank neatly, with not even a drop of water escaping down his throat.

  “How are you doing, Kokila Amma?” he asked as he set the steel tumbler down. “No typing school today?”

  Kokila shook her head. “They are closed on Saturdays.”

  “Very nice,” Ramana Rao said, nodding. “They say that in America people only work five days a week. Saturday is a holiday for everyone. That’s a good life, don’t you think? Two Sundays, one after the other.”

  “Post Garu, how are you?” Subhadra came out to the verandah with a cup of tea and some chakli she had made the day before. “If you can wait five minutes, Renuka is making fresh coconut ladoo. You can take some with you.”

  “So nice of you, Subhadra Amma. Since my Parvati died, this is the only place I get any homemade food,” Ramana Rao said as he bit into a chakli. This was the finest part of his day. Since so many people lived in Tella Meda, there was always post for someone or other and he always managed to get his chai-pani break with the nice women of the ashram. Once in a while he could see Charvi, making it even sweeter to come to Tella Meda.

  “What, Madhavan is not making good food anymore in that canteen of his?” Kokila asked.

  Ramana Rao sighed. “Too much water in the curds, the sambhar has no vegetables in it; the vegetables have too little vegetables in them and the pappu . . . always only tomato pappu. I told him, ‘Array, Madhavan, nice unripe mangoes out there, make some mango pappu.’ He says, ‘You buy the mangoes, old man, and I’ll make the pappu.’ What time has come? Kalyug, it is, Kokila Amma, it is a modern, evil time.”

  “You should come and eat with us on Sunday,” Subhadra offered yet again, as she always did.

  Ramana Rao shook his head as he got up to leave. “You are generous enough. I just come here for company and some chai.”

  Subhadra went inside to get some coconut ladoos for Ramana Rao, while he picked out the mail for Tella Meda.

  “Only one letter, it’s for Sastri Garu. How is he doing?” he asked.

  Kokila stared at the blue envelope and nodded. “Good . . . he’s good,” she said vaguely.

  “I heard he has cancer,” Ramana Rao said as he clucked his tongue. “The nurse at the hospital is a friend of the postmaster’s wife. She told him that Sastri Garu is very sick. No cure for such terrible diseases.”

  Kokila nodded, still looking at the envelope.

  “The letter will cheer him up,” Ramana Rao said. “Letters always cheer people up.”

  “You wait here for Subhadra, I’ll take this to him,” Kokila said without even looking at the postman.

  It was a sign, she decided as she walked through the temple room and then the courtyard to reach Ramanandam’s room. She flipped the letter around to see who the sender was and shook her head. She had never heard of the man before, but then she didn’t know most of the people who wrote to Ramanandam.

  Kokila knocked on the door, as she had been in the habit of doing when she and Ramanandam were seeing each other. Usually she didn’t wait for an answer but this time, conscious of the change in her relationship with Ramanandam, she waited for his invitation.

  When there was no response after the first knock, Kokila gingerly opened the door and peered in. He was lying on his bed and a smile curled her lips. She had seen him lying like this so many times, and she had loved him with all her heart. How could love that had been all-consuming wither away? True love, they said in songs and books, always, always stayed. Like the love Devdas felt for his Paro. Yet now when Kokila looked at Ramanandam, she felt the pinch of a forgotten relationship but not the engulfing feeling of love and ownership.

  “Ramanandam,” she called out softly, and walked toward him. He was lying serenely on his back, one hand thrown over his forehead, his eyes closed.

  “There’s a letter for you,” Kokila said, and contemplated whether to touch him and wake him or to just leave.

  She almost left, leaving the letter on the floor by his bed, but a slight dribble of saliva coursing down his chin made her look at him again.

  “Ramanandam,” she called out, this time louder than last time. “Ramanandam,” she called out again, more loudly.

  She pushed gently at the arm that lay on his forehead and it fell onto the bed.

  He wasn’t breathing, Kokila noticed for the first time.

  He wasn’t breathing.

  His chest wasn’t going up and down as it was supposed to. She held her hand against his nose and felt no rush of warm air. She put her hand on his chest and searched in panic for his heartbeat. There was nothing but silence. His body was quiet, no movement inside or out. She shook him but he didn’t wake.

  She backed a few steps away from Ramanandam, and when her heels touched the raised threshold, painted yellow and red to symbolize turmeric and kumkum, Kokila ran out of Ramanandam’s room into the courtyard.

  Chetana was watching her, her hand on her full belly. “What? Patched things up again?” she asked sarcastically. She was about to say more but caught herself when she saw Kokila’s stricken face. “Is everything okay? Did he do something? What did he do?” Instantly protective of her old friend, Chetana put her arms around Kokila, who slumped down onto the courtyard tiles, which were heated through by the
relentless sun.

  Chetana went on her knees and held Kokila, confused, unsure of what had happened. As the first sob rose from Kokila, the words poured out as well. “He’s dead,” she managed to say, and Chetana held her more tightly.

  They stayed there for a while, until Subhadra found them.

  Ramanandam had died of a heart attack in his sleep. Only those who had not sinned, had lived a pure life, died such easy deaths, Subhadra said.

  Tella Meda fell into mourning. Manikyam and her husband arrived and even though Charvi didn’t speak with either of them, she asked Kokila and Subhadra to be cordial on her behalf. Lavanya came, as always angry and suspicious of Charvi. But even she didn’t say what was in her heart because it was obvious to anyone who looked that Charvi was the most devastated.

  She sat in the temple room all day long lighting lamps as they died down and making cotton wicks from small cotton balls. She refused to eat or drink or see visitors. She sat quietly, all day, praying at times, weeping silently during others.

  “Vidura isn’t here,” she said to Kokila once. “He should be the one lighting his pyre.”

  It was the son’s duty to light his father’s funeral pyre. The father’s soul went to heaven, regardless of his sins on earth, if his son performed all the pujas, cut six locks of his hair, and set fire to his pyre. In the case where a son was lacking, a son-in-law would suffice, and if there was no son-in-law, the pyre would be lit by a nephew. But there was no guarantee then that the soul would go to heaven.

  “Poor Nanna, he died with a hole in his heart,” Charvi continued even though Kokila didn’t say anything. “Vidura never came back and my poor father . . .” She fell silent and then went back to staring at the black and gold idol of Lord Venkateshwara Swami in front of her.

  Kokila went about her life in Tella Meda as if nothing happened and she convinced herself that nothing had really happened. Renuka, Subhadra, and Chetana watched her carefully, concerned that she would have a nervous breakdown soon since she was holding herself so stoically, too stoically.