“This inspector here says that Balaji is a terrorist,” Charvi told Kokila. “They want to arrest him. Do you know where he is?”
Kokila shrugged. “He usually goes to the printing press in the day. He should be back at four o’clock or so. But you must be mistaken, Inspector Garu. Balaji is a nice young man, not a terrorist.”
Padma and Meena peeked from the temple room and followed the proceedings carefully.
“We could be harboring a terrorist,” Padma whispered to Meena.
“I always thought Balaji was suspicious,” Meena agreed.
Charvi didn’t subscribe to Padma and Meena’s point of view and she let the inspector know it.
“Just because he sometimes says that he supports the Eelam doesn’t mean he’s a terrorist,” Charvi said. “The boy is a good boy and this is a free country, isn’t it?”
“These are heightened circumstances, Amma Charvi,” the inspector said politely. “Are you sure he isn’t here? Because the printing press is shut down and the owner, Murugan Murthy, is also missing.”
Kokila looked around helplessly. “We can go look for him if you like but—”
“Do you mind if my men and I have a look inside?” the inspector asked, and started to gesture at the two khaki-clad men who were accompanying him. “If you could show us his room . . . Amma Charvi, I mean no disrespect but you have to understand, a political leader was assassinated. We have to take all measures to catch the culprits.”
Kokila was followed by the three policemen as she walked toward Balaji and Karuna’s room.
Karuna opened the door when Kokila knocked. Her eyes were red, as if she had been crying and her hair was slightly mussed.
“Is he in?” The inspector pushed Kokila aside and faced Karuna.
Karuna shook her head like a nervous deer but even Kokila could see Balaji hiding under the bed from where she stood.
They handcuffed Balaji and all but dragged him out of Tella Meda while he screamed that he was innocent and had done nothing.
“What will happen to him, Charvi Amma?” Karuna asked as she wept uncontrollably.
Charvi leaned on the walking stick she had recently purchased to help with the arthritis that plagued her aching knees. “I’ll make some phone calls. Vishnu Mohan is a good friend of the police inspector; he will let us know what is going on. Don’t worry. It’s just a mistake and it will all get sorted out.”
But there was no news for almost two weeks. Karuna went to the police station every day with Puttamma and Kokila and every day they were told that Balaji had been transferred to a prison in Visakhapatnam and he was still being questioned regarding his affiliation with the LTTE.
Dr. Vishnu Mohan couldn’t prevail upon his friendship with the police inspector because the matter was of grave importance and no favors were being granted. A new crack special investigation team had been established to find the killers of Rajiv Gandhi and the leader of the team was a man named D. R. Kartekeyan from the CBI, who was leaning very heavily on local police to find LTTE supporters and obtain information regarding the assassination.
“What does that poor boy know? Why would they take my boy away?” Puttamma cried almost all day, not eating or sleeping properly. She was staying with Karuna in Tella Meda and was afraid that the police had killed her only child.
Every time Kokila listened to Puttamma cry she held on to Karthik tighter. She could understand Puttamma’s pain and she wished she could do something to assuage it.
“People die in police custody all the time,” Puttamma lamented. “Oh, Kokila Amma, do you think they killed my boy?”
All the women at Tella Meda tried to console Puttamma but they all knew her fears were legitimate and that until Balaji came back home no one would know what happened to him. And there was also a chance that he would never come home. People routinely disappeared all the time and the police were so powerful, they could do anything.
Two weeks after they arrested Balaji, Dr. Vishnu Mohan and his wife, Saraswati, came to Tella Meda with bad news.
“They have found the press owner, Murugan Murthy, and he is up to his neck in this LTTE business,” Dr. Vishnu Mohan said. “They have confirmed his association.”
“What about Balaji? He’s just a little boy,” Puttamma said.
Dr. Vishnu Mohan shrugged. “I don’t know where he is; no one tells me. What I know is that Murugan Murthy is a staunch LTTE supporter and has donated money to them and also prints LTTE pamphlets in his printing press. Balaji could be involved, the police think.”
“He wouldn’t kill anyone, my little boy,” Puttamma said. “He’s a gentle boy. Why would they think he killed Rajiv Gandhi? That woman, she killed him by wearing a bomb.”
Dr. Vishnu Mohan sighed. “But a lot of people planned it and they think that Balaji and Murugan Murthy could be those who helped the people who planned it.”
Puttamma shook her head violently. “If my son knew what they were going to do, he’d come and tell me and I would have told the police. He tells me everything. He’s a good boy, Doctor Garu. You talk to the police and see if they’ll let my boy come home.”
A few days later, in some small town near Bangalore, those who had plotted to kill Rajiv Gandhi were found. They had killed themselves by swallowing cyanide, knowing that capture was imminent. It had been less than two months since the assassination and the country applauded the efforts of the CBI and the local police in Bangalore.
Puttamma’s son was still missing and the police still wouldn’t say where he was. Just because the killers were caught didn’t mean that the police were going to slacken their stance on the LTTE. Supporters of the organization were considered enemies of India and Indians and they were to be weeded out and thrown in jail or killed.
“Poor Puttamma,” Kokila said when more than a month had passed since Balaji’s arrest. Puttamma slept with great difficulty, crying all day and eating nothing. Kokila tried to care for her but no one could console Puttamma. Even Karuna, Balaji’s young wife, seemed to be dealing with the loss better than her mother-in-law.
“If they took my child away I’d go mad too,” Chetana said. “You keep thinking you’re safe and then they come and arrest you and that’s it.”
“Maybe he’s guilty,” Meena suggested as she helped Chetana string jasmine flowers into a garland for the temple room.
“Yes, maybe Balaji was as involved as Murugan Murthy,” Padma said.
“Shut up, both of you,” Chetana said angrily. “Better not say this in front of Puttamma. And you both need to learn to not give your opinion about everything. Girls should know when to keep quiet. Talkative little girls like you are not very attractive. No one will marry you if you don’t learn to behave yourselves.”
“But we don’t want to get married,” Meena announced. “We’re going to both become doctors and open a big clinic and make a lot of money.”
Chetana smacked her hand against her forehead. “This is my karma. One daughter marries too early and my second daughter doesn’t want to marry. Nice. Don’t marry, just be smart-mouthed, but be so someplace else, not in front of me.”
“My mother says that we should speak our mind. That’s the only way our country can progress: if women stand shoulder to shoulder to men and say what’s in their hearts,” Padma said stoically.
“Then get on inside the kitchen and irritate Sushila,” Chetana suggested, and Meena and Padma left in a huff.
“Is Chetana Auntie angry?” Karthik asked, looking up from the toy cars he was chasing around the courtyard.
“Yes,” Chetana said, and grabbed him in a big hug. She kissed him all over his face while he tried to wiggle away. “I’m very, very angry and you watch out. I’ll tickle you if I get any angrier.”
Karthik squealed with laughter and escaped to hide behind Kokila. “Where is Karthik?” he said, and Chetana rose quietly to grab him as he burst into fresh peals of laughter at being caught and tickled.
From the other end of the courtyard, n
ear Balaji’s room, Kokila saw Puttamma watching them with tear-filled eyes.
Balaji came home the next day, all by himself. He had lost weight and was about half the size he used to be. His clothes were filthy, as if he had lived in them for a whole month. There were bruises around his eyes and on his hands. He was dehydrated and starved.
Charvi gasped when she saw him as he stumbled into the temple room during her morning puja.
“Oh my God, what have they done to you?” she cried, and then called for help.
Balaji didn’t talk much about his arrest or about where he had been taken. He just said that they had interrogated him and then had let him go because Murugan Murthy had cleared him of any association with LTTE. Murugan Murthy himself had managed to get released with the help of some politician friends of his.
Balaji had always been a quiet boy but he had seemed content with his life. But a month in jail had killed the contentment within him. It was as if all the joy had been sucked out from him and there was nothing left inside that could feel happiness. He remained like that for months. His wife tried Ayurvedic herbal medicines, homeopathy, and even witchcraft, hoping to bring her husband back from his silence and lack of animation, but nothing worked.
Dr. Vishnu Mohan found out that Balaji had been tortured for information regarding the LTTE while in custody. The Bheemunipatnam police inspector wasn’t even apologetic that Balaji had been unjustly tortured and put in prison for a month. Sometimes innocent bystanders got hurt, he told Dr. Vishnu Mohan when the doctor complained about the situation. He wasn’t sorry because if he had to do it again with the proof he had, he wouldn’t change anything.
Three months after Balaji returned from prison, Bhanu had a baby boy. Just two days after she delivered, Balaji committed suicide by jumping off one of the many cliffs in Bheemunipatnam. Karuna, widowed at the age of nineteen, continued to stay in Tella Meda. Puttamma, heartbroken, left Bheemunipatnam and went back to her village near Kavali. No one at Tella Meda ever heard from her again.
1992 12 March 1992. A devastating wave of car-bomb explosions killed an estimated three hundred people and injured hundreds more in the large western Indian port city of Bombay. The first blast ripped through the city’s stock exchange building, and minutes later a dozen slightly less powerful explosions rocked the bustling city center.
8 December 1992. Today, amid worldwide protest against the demolition of the Babri Masjid, a mosque in Ayodhya, Lal Kishenchand Advani, Musli Monohar Joshi, Ashok Singhal, and other Bharatiya Janata Party figures were arrested for leading the mob that destroyed the mosque on December 3, 1992. In response to the Ayodhya demolition, several temples were burned in Pakistan and Britain by Muslims.
Catastrophe Is Coming
Charvi woke up on the morning of her fiftieth birthday with bitterness coating her mouth. She had been waiting for this morning, it seemed for years, and dreading it.
Fifty years, she thought, shocked as she looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was now completely white, and had been for a while; her skin was loose around her mouth, wrinkled around her eyes, and blotched with light brown marks. Her eyes, the eyes she had always been proud of, light brown eyes, different from others, had lost their luster as well. Her skin wasn’t milky white anymore, it had darkened. The process had been gradual, so gradual that she hadn’t noticed it until now.
It wasn’t like she woke up this morning and saw youth far behind her, but it was a difficult morning because Tella Meda was going to celebrate its guru’s fiftieth birthday and Charvi knew there was nothing to celebrate.
What had she achieved in fifty years?
Until a day ago she had been able to fool herself that she had Tella Meda; if nothing else, she had made a home for the discarded women of the world and children who had nowhere to go. She had devotees and friends, people who looked after her and respected her. Now she had to tell them that they might have to leave Tella Meda, that they all would have to find a new home.
The letter had looked innocuous and Charvi didn’t pay much attention as she read through the initial pleasantries. It had been so long since Srikant Somayajula or anyone from his family had contacted anyone at Tella Meda that Charvi had all but forgotten that the house with the white roof that glittered as though studded with diamonds in moonlight didn’t belong to her. The letter was plain enough, written by Srikant Somayajula’s eldest son, Kedarnath. He informed Charvi that his father had passed away, peacefully in his sleep, two weeks ago. Kedarnath and his two younger brothers had decided to sell Tella Meda as many development companies had approached them about the land and the house. The idea was to tear down Tella Meda and construct luxury flats with a view over the Bay of Bengal.
He was candid in the letter, saying that he respected his father’s desire to leave the house as it was so that it could be used as an ashram, but he and his brothers wanted to sell. The house and land, in today’s market, would sell for three lakhs of rupees. Charvi had six months to vacate the property. They were sorry that they were asking this of Charvi but they hoped Charvi would understand their situation and appreciate that she and her flock had been allowed to live free of rent in Tella Meda for almost thirty-five years now, since 1957. As an afterthought, Kedarnath added that he would try and help them find a new house but also mentioned that since he knew no one in the Bheemunipatnam area, he wasn’t sure how much help he could be.
Charvi had not talked about the letter to anyone. She was shell-shocked.
Tella Meda was home and now they would have to leave it. Where would they go? She knew she had to talk to Kokila so that they could find other accommodations. She flirted with the idea of asking some wealthy devotee for the three lakhs of rupees that would help them buy the house but she didn’t know how to ask for money. That was always something Kokila did.
And it wasn’t as though devotees were flocking to her door as they used to some years ago. Her luster had faded and the numbers of those who came to Tella Meda every Sunday had thinned. Some Sundays in the past few years no one would come, except for the beggars and the homeless looking for a free meal.
It was an insult, cause for alarm, and Charvi had felt both. But she had curbed the emotions and hidden them under apathy. She was a guru, she thought. If no one needed her, that wasn’t her fault.
And she would have continued as before, pretending to be a guru even though she doubted her godliness and spirituality every day, if that letter had never arrived. Now she had to confront her future and the futures of all those who lived in Tella Meda. Where would Kokila go? What about Chetana and Meena? What about Karuna, Sushila, and Padma? What about Shanthi? What about all those who came once a year for solace? Could any other house match the opulence and character of Tella Meda?
It was imperative to talk with Kokila. They had to either find a new home, find three lakhs of rupees, or convince Kedarnath to continue to let them stay in Tella Meda as his father had. Charvi wished she didn’t have to deal with such materialistic things; she wished she didn’t have to worry about finances and the like. She wished she hadn’t received the letter. She wished Kokila had and then she wouldn’t have to think about what to do.
Charvi looked at her reflection in the mirror and closed her eyes, appalled at the old woman staring back at her. How had the years flown by? And why had they gone by without even a whisper?
When she opened her eyes again her reflection was replaced by an image of a large tidal wave, a tsunami, rising high and crashing onto Tella Meda. The vision lasted for short seconds but Charvi almost fell off the chair in front of her dressing table. Catastrophe was coming, she thought in fear. A tsunami would crash down on Tella Meda and destroy all that was within. Panic rose within her and she gasped for breath, afraid of her own reflection, the world and her vision that swirled around her. She clutched at her face, wanting to scratch her eyes out, and then she started to cry. Catastrophe was coming. Big catastrophe, she realized, and she knew she had to tell everyone so that they could be sa
ved.
Charvi meditated for a few minutes, hoping to gain control. By the time she finished her bath and was ready for the morning puja where everyone was waiting to wish her a happy and prosperous birthday, she was her usual calm and stoic self.
Not for the first time since she’d left, Charvi missed Subhadra. She got letters regularly from her erstwhile cook and caretaker and it was obvious that Subhadra and Chandra were enjoying Chandra’s children’s hospitality. They spent their time in devotions to Lord Venkateshwara Swami and cooking elaborate meals for Chandra’s children and grandchildren.
Usually on Charvi’s birthday, Subhadra would give her a bath in the morning, wash her hair with rita, and put a decorative bindi on her forehead. Since Subhadra had left no one else volunteered and Charvi decided she wouldn’t be comfortable with someone else’s attentions either. Tella Meda seemed to be slipping away through her fingers. Kokila was running it now. No one asked Charvi how things should be done; everyone went to Kokila. It was Kokila who decided that new toilet bowls were required, not Charvi. It was Kokila who had the west wall repaired because rainwater was seeping in and no one asked Charvi if it should be done or not. After Balaji committed suicide, Kokila decided that it would be best to lay down stones in the garden to reduce garden work. Charvi had been consulted but even then Charvi knew that Kokila was telling her what would be done, not asking for her permission. The new gardener, some man from the basti, had not been introduced to her.
Since Puttamma had left, Karuna had taken over cleaning the rooms and the bathrooms and sweeping the courtyard. She washed the dishes after every meal and even spent some time in the evenings pressing Charvi’s legs, which hurt more and more since the onset of arthritis some years ago.
A table and a chair had been introduced in the verandah, next to the knee-high dining table, so that Charvi wouldn’t have to sit on the floor during meals.
Song of the Cuckoo Bird Page 32