Song of the Cuckoo Bird

by Amulya Malladi

  “Since Ravi died. I gave Bhanu hers after she got married,” Kokila said, waiting for the storm to break. Chetana would not forgive her for this.

  “This will be enough for medical college,” Chetana said, vibrating now with a silent anger. “How dare you take money for my children? Why did you take it?”

  “Because we all need money and this wasn’t money for you but for Meena and Bhanu’s future,” Kokila said. “I know how you feel about Ravi’s parents and I understand if you’re angry with me but I couldn’t let you sacrifice Bhanu and Meena’s future because of your anger.”

  “I am angry,” Chetana said as tears filled her eyes and a half-hysterical laugh escaped her. “But I can’t even throw this passbook back at that bastard, can I? This is Meena’s future. She worked so hard to get that rank.”

  “Sometimes how you feel is not important. You have to kill your pride and do what is right,” Kokila said.

  “I’m surprised Bhanu hasn’t told me,” Chetana said.

  “She didn’t want Babu to know. She’s saving the money for a rainy day,” Kokila said. “Do you hate me for this?”

  Chetana slowly shook her head. “I’d do the same for Karthik.”

  Meena’s stellar performance in the EAMCET made her a celebrity in the small town for a few days. The local Bheemunipatnam newspaper did an article about where Meena had gone for EAMCET tutoring and how she had made the town proud. Chetana cut the article out of the paper and had it framed along with the newspaper clipping where Meena’s rank was highlighted next to her roll number.

  Since the pralayam incident the traffic to and from Tella Meda had increased immensely. Earlier Kokila had had to work hard at managing the Tella Meda finances, but now there was always some money left in the safe at the end of the month. Charvi was proud that she was being treated like a guru again and offered to help Meena financially if she needed it. After all, Meena was her grandniece, almost like her own granddaughter, since she’d known her from the day she was born.

  Padma refused even to come out of her room. It was a betrayal of immense proportions that Meena should have gotten such a good rank. Padma’s twelfth-class marks were quite good and she knew she could get into a good college in Visakhapatnam, where she could pursue a bachelor’s degree in science, specializing in genetics. It was a three-year course and after that, Padma thought, she would do a master’s in genetics as well. She would be able to get a job with a master’s degree, she was sure, or she could go to America. She would make something out of her life, she promised herself, even though she didn’t get a good rank in EAMCET.

  But Sushila was so disappointed that she said Padma would just have to go to the local college in Bheemunipatnam. How did it matter where she did her degree now? She would never be a doctor and that was all Sushila had ever wanted for Padma.

  Sushila went about her business at Tella Meda rigidly, ignoring talk about Meena’s rank and how she could choose the medical college she wanted to go to. Sushila’s heart was broken and she knew it wasn’t Meena’s fault but she couldn’t keep jealousy out of her voice when she spoke with Meena and Chetana. It was devastating that Padma, who was the one who had inspired Meena to study hard, would not become a doctor, while Meena, daughter of a woman like Chetana, would be donning the white coat and wearing a stethoscope around her neck.

  Manikyam heard the news of Meena’s EAMCET rank and arrived at Tella Meda with her checkbook, immensely proud of her granddaughter.

  “If Ravi hadn’t fallen into bad ways, he would’ve been just like his daughter,” she said to anyone who would listen.

  “Old lady, if your son hadn’t fallen into bad ways, he wouldn’t have died young, that’s all,” Chetana said angrily. “You still think he was worth something? I was his wife and I’m telling you he was a useless human being, good for nothing. Meena is the way she is because she got nothing from that loser son of yours.”

  Manikyam didn’t listen, she was too euphoric. Even Dr. Nageshwar Rao, who had spent a lifetime denying that Chetana was a real wife to his son and therefore denying that her children were legitimate, came to Tella Meda to make amends. Both his sons had amounted to nothing. Now that he was growing old and his clinic had grown in size and stature, he needed an heir. He didn’t want to give away his hard-earned clinic to his partner’s son, the only other doctor available. He wanted his blood to enjoy the fruits of his labor and continue his work into yet another generation.

  “Meena has proven she is my granddaughter,” he said to Chetana, who raised her eyebrows and laughed in his face as if he were telling a joke.

  “Chetana, please, you have to look at the practical side of things,” Manikyam said.

  “Where is she going to college? Not Gandhi in Hyderabad. It’s popular but she should go to Andhra University,” Dr. Nageshwar Rao said, choosing to ignore Chetana’s sarcastic laugh.

  “Yes, yes,” Manikyam agreed with her husband. “And she can stay in our house while she goes to college. She’ll get homemade food and someone to take care of her.”

  “And that lecher of a son of yours will be there,” Chetana said. “She can stay in a dormitory.”

  “Prasad is her uncle. He will also take care of her,” Manikyam said.

  “Just the way he suggested taking care of his brother’s widow?” Chetana demanded. “Your Prasad is a loser and another useless human being, just like Ravi. I’m not going to let my daughter stay in your house. She’ll stay in the dormitory. But if you like you can pay her bills, and she’s free to visit you whenever she can . . . if she wants to, that is.”

  Dr. Nageshwar Rao and Manikyam agreed to that immediately. Secretly they were relieved that Chetana was allowing them any contact with Meena.

  Meena, on the other hand, didn’t really care who was paying her college tuition and hostel expenses, as long as someone was. She couldn’t wait for August, when she could leave Tella Meda and start college.

  Her friendship with Padma had been ruined completely. Even Sushila, who had always been nice to her, didn’t speak with her. They were behaving as if it were her fault that Padma got a low EAMCET rank. Their conduct made her think that maybe she wouldn’t even come back during summer holidays. What would the point be? It saddened her and angered her that Padma was swallowed by jealousy.

  Bhanu was delighted with her sister’s success. She didn’t care so much about education and EAMCET ranks but was pleased that Meena was also getting out of Tella Meda.

  “Life is better out of that house,” she told her sister. They had never been friends but they had managed to forge a decent relationship after Bhanu married. Meena visited Bhanu in her home and even took care of her niece and nephew, now one and four years old.

  “I can’t wait to start college. Manikyam has brought all these salwar kameezes for me, you should see. There is this pattu-silk green and yellow one that’s just beautiful. She bought a ten-thousand- rupee sari and asked Shanthi to make the salwar kameez out of it,” Meena said excitedly. “And she gave me these as well.” She held up her wrists and Bhanu whistled softly.

  A few years ago she would have been envious of the gold bangles, but now Babu took such good care of her that she couldn’t work up jealousy. His business was thriving and they had built a nice house away from the studio, a Maruti car, and a full-time servant at home. She didn’t begrudge her sister the bangles or the expensive clothes.

  “Who would’ve thought Ambika’s granddaughter is going to become a doctor,” Bhanu said with an easy smile.

  “You know, Amma managed to do okay by the both of us, even living in Tella Meda,” Meena said, and waited for Bhanu to contradict her.

  “She did,” Bhanu said, surprising Meena. “What? I’m not some chit of a girl now, hating her. I still don’t understand why she didn’t love me as much as she loved you. But I had Renuka Atha and that wasn’t so bad. Amma’s here all the time now, trying to help out with Sunita and Shashank. But you know Amma— she can’t handle babies.”

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p; Meena laughed. “She handles them fine until they start crying.”

  Bhanu nodded. “I’m thinking of asking Renuka to come and live with me if she wants. Babu says it is okay but I don’t know. She’s so old now and . . .”

  “She’ll hate it here,” Meena said, and Bhanu nodded.

  “That’s what I thought. At Tella Meda she has company, people around her all the time to gossip and spend time with. Here, there’s just me. She’ll get bored. If she falls too sick, then I’ll ask her to come and stay with me,” Bhanu said.

  “You want to repay her for taking care of you when you were a baby,” Meena said, nodding in understanding.

  “I do. But you be careful out there and take good care of yourself, ” Bhanu said seriously to Meena. “Don’t ever sleep with any of the boys, okay? You sleep with them and it’s over. You keep your head and don’t fall in love, don’t sleep around, just focus on studies. And then if you see someone who you feel is the right one for you, then come to me and we’ll lay out a plan to land him.”

  “I’m not interested in boys,” Meena said frankly. “I’ve been so busy trying to get this rank that I don’t care about anything but becoming a doctor.”

  “Don’t take the bus from Visakhapatnam to here when you come home. Babu goes there all the time. Just telephone me and I’ll make sure he brings you with him in the car, okay?” Bhanu said.

  “I’m going to leave Tella Meda,” Meena said gleefully. “Can you believe it?”

  Bhanu laughed then. Yes, it was joyous that even though Chetana hadn’t been able to get out, both her daughters were successful.

  Meena thought hard about where to go to medical college. The options were enormous and her mother had assured her that with the money Dr. Nageshwar Rao had put in the bank for her and the fact that he was still rolling in rupees, expenses would not be a problem.

  Dr. Nageshwar Rao tried to convince Meena to go to Andhra University where he could keep an eye on her, where he had gone to medical college himself. But Meena wasn’t sure. If she was leaving Tella Meda, shouldn’t she leave completely?

  Chetana wanted to protest when Meena came out of her medical college interview at Andhra University saying that she had decided to go to Gandhi Medical College in Hyderabad. But Meena had already signed up and nothing could be done about it anymore.

  All the way back in Babu’s car, Chetana admonished Meena for choosing to go so far away.

  “Why Hyderabad? Do you know how many Muslims live there? Always riots and curfews and whatnot,” Chetana said.

  “Amma, Gandhi Medical College is not in a bad area and these riots and stuff happen only in the Charminar area where the Muslims are,” Meena said even though she had no idea where the riots really took place. She just hadn’t heard of students being killed and it must be safe in Hyderabad, she deduced, since GMC was the most sought-after medical college in all of Andhra Pradesh.

  In Bheemunipatnam the animosity that had been simmering for the past several years between Hindus and Muslims was almost unknown, but Chetana was aware that in Hyderabad dreadful things happened during riots. Just a few years ago when those Hindu politicians broke down the mosque in Ayodhya thousands of people had been killed in Hyderabad.

  And every year at the anniversary of the breaking of the mosque more people were killed. If that wasn’t bad enough, Chetana heard about curfews being imposed on Hyderabadis. It was a big city—how would Meena survive in a big city? She had lived her entire life in Bheemunipatnam. Chetana was afraid for her, but she knew she would be afraid for Meena no matter where she went. Tella Meda and Bheemunipatnam meant security. The rest of the world was unknown and therefore mired with problems she couldn’t envisage and protect Meena from.

  Bhanu couldn’t understand why Chetana would have any objection. “She got a very good rank. Why should you interfere with her success?” she demanded.

  “It’s not like there’s anything I can do now,” Chetana said angrily. “She already made the decision, the maharani, without telling anyone, just as you did when you wanted to marry Babu.”

  “Can we keep my marriage and life out of this?” Bhanu cried, and the conversation between Chetana and Bhanu deteriorated into an argument that no one could really win.

  Finally, Chetana stopped being angry about Meena making the decision to go to Hyderabad and hoped for the best for her daughter.

  “Just stay away from trouble,” Chetana warned Meena almost every day in the weeks before she left for Hyderabad. “Dormitories are not supposed to be the best places for girls to live. But we don’t know anyone there, so you will have to live in a dormitory.”

  Meena was thrilled to be living in a dormitory with other girls. In the brochure she received from Gandhi Medical College, there were pictures of the rooms showing two students sharing one room. There was a canteen in the dormitory where breakfast, lunch, tiffin, and dinner were served and the food was covered in the dormitory fee itself. The college was walking distance from the dormitory and most students found it convenient to live in the dormitory because they had more time for studies.

  Dr. Nageshwar Rao insisted on accompanying Meena to Hyderabad. Chetana wanted to protest that he did not need to do so but decided that he could take care of the administrative tasks better than she. And he had booked AC car seats for Meena and himself in the train from Visakhapatnam to Hyderabad. They would stay at some rich doctor friend’s house in Hyderabad. The doctor friend had assured Dr. Nageshwar Rao that he would keep an eye on Meena and help her out whenever she was in need.

  A brand-new black Maruti arrived to take Meena to Visakhapatnam, where she would stay with Dr. Nageshwar Rao and Manikyam for a day before leaving for Hyderabad the next day.

  Chetana thought of the irony of the situation. Ravi’s father had never allowed her to enter his house because she was the daughter of a prostitute, but now he was allowing the granddaughter of a prostitute and the daughter of a drunk and womanizer into his home. How desperate the times had become for Dr. Nageshwar Rao and his wife, she thought, that he was allowing this travesty. Both his sons had amounted to nothing and his only hope for a bright future for the family was Meena and to some extent Bhanu and her children. It pleased Chetana immensely that her archenemy and the man who ruined her life and Ravi’s had had to come to her on bended knee to ask if he could help her daughter.

  Everyone at Tella Meda bade Meena farewell with a mixture of sadness and joy and wished her the best, but it saddened Meena that both Sushila and Padma were curt with her.

  “I’m sorry that I’m going and you are not,” she told Padma, who pretended not to be too bothered that Meena was leaving while she was still at Tella Meda.

  “Amma is looking for a U.S. boy for me,” Padma said instead. “I’ll do what I want to do there after my degree here. And I will live in America.”

  Many girls were marrying the numerous Telugu boys working and living in America. Everyone was gushing about computer science and almost all engineering students seemed to be on their way to one place or the other in America. They would do their master’s in the United States, get jobs, and then come back to India to find themselves a wife.

  Sushila had already listed Padma with her photograph in numerous matchmaking agencies. Her requirements were quite simple: the boy had to be a Brahmin, living and working as an engineer in America, and under twenty-seven years of age. Padma was a beautiful, fair-skinned Brahmin girl and Sushila was certain that there would be someone out there who would be interested in her daughter. Every time Padma went to Madras to see relatives someone or another always suggested that she should become a model or a movie actress, not that Sushila would ever consider those kinds of lowly professions for her daughter. But her daughter’s good looks, to a certain extent, guaranteed a good match.

  “Maybe you can go to medical college in America,” Meena suggested brightly.

  “Who wants to study for years and years and years and get nowhere?” Padma said coldly. “Have you heard that ther
e are too many doctors in India and not enough jobs? I think I’m lucky to have not gotten into medical college. I’ll just finish my degree and go to America.”

  “Well, I hope everything works out for you,” Meena said, aware that years of friendship were being washed away by EAMCET ranks.

  “Why shouldn’t everything work out for me?” Padma demanded angrily. “Just because you got some fancy rank doesn’t mean things will work out for you. You could . . . well, you could fail your exams and things could go badly for you too. Maybe you just got lucky with your EAMCET rank. Medical college is very hard, you know.”

  Meena nodded. “And it will be harder because you won’t be there to study with me.”

  Meena never saw the tears in Padma’s eyes as she left. She hoped that in the coming years she and Padma would be able to renew their friendship, or at least get past the bitterness that lay between them, but she wasn’t too optimistic.

  1999 5 June 1999. The Indian Army released documents seized from three Pakistani soldiers to substantiate its claim that Pakistani forces were involved in the clash between India and Pakistan at Kargil in Kashmir province, claimed by both countries.

  30 June 1999. India reiterated that any peace talks with Pakistan would resume only after Pakistan’s unconditional withdrawal from Kargil. Meanwhile, the Indian Army continued to attack the Tiger Hill area and captured two positions in close proximity to Jubar.

  A Suitable Boy

  If Charvi had been against television, she was dead set against the newfangled contraption standing erect on several roofs: dish antennas. She had heard enough bad things about the foreign programs that came through the satellite to be certain that at Tella Meda there would be no kissing, groping, or half-naked women dancing on television.

  In the past few years small satellite television businesses had sprouted like mushrooms after monsoon. They purchased dish antennas along with licenses to distribute programming to a certain number of homes. Then cables would be run from the dish antennas to homes all around the neighborhood so that everyone could receive programming from all over the world. People watched CNN, BBC, MTV, Star TV, Zee TV, and everything else in between.