‘Before money, authority, power, caste and selfishness love cannot hold its sway’ thought Kanthaiah again.

Kanthaiah wanted to catch a bus. He sat on the bench in the hut hotel opposite the Jagtial new bus station. While reading the paper he started glancing at the name plates of the buses that were going into the bus station. The buses he wanted to board were coming and going. But he did not move from his bench.

‘What is love? Where did all her love go? Everything else gets defeated before love,’ thought Kanthaiah. But it did not happen as he thought it would. His mind was in a turmoil with the internal conflict–whether what he felt was love or not. He changed his travel plans and sat in the nearby park for some time. The internal conflict continued in his mind. He wandered here and there for some time and turned towards home.

Chandramma, his mother, was waiting for him at home. He was away from the morning without eating food and was avoiding Saravva’s arrival time. For four days he kept wandering about. Chandramma recollected the past and wiped her tears with the pallu end of her saree.

“Saravva waited for you for a long time and left. She invited us for dinner tonight. 'I came five days ago. Kanthaiah did not care to meet me even once. If I come here he makes himself scarce. He does not come to my house. What sin have I committed that he moves about without seeing me’ she cried” informed his mother. 

Chandramma grew silent observing the change in his expression on his face. She stopped cutting the beedi leaves, put them aside and served food to her son. Kanthaiah ate a little, laid himself on the cot, pulled the blanket over him and closed his eyes.

~*~

“Saru!….. are you not responsible for my life taking this turn? Is not your selfishness a reason for my present condition? You are now making a name as an intellectual in the state. I am afraid to meet you now. You have changed a lot after your marriage. I am surprised how you could develop so much of self-confidence. The glow in your eyes makes me feel jittery. I feel like running away, far away from you. In a moment again I feel glad and elated at the way you have grown.

“Saru! Why did you become a part of my life? How did you acquire that enlightened look as though you had understood the whole world? After your marriage I find a dignity in your gait. City life has polished you. Your language changed. The colour of your sarees changed. I feel awkward if you wear pants and shirts. At such times I feel you are not my Saru. 

“Saru! Did you achieve this improvement because you are a woman? Was it possible because of your caste? Why didn’t I achieve the growth, the respect and the status which you could gain? How did you manage to acquire so much strength and a circle of people around you? Why don’t I have them? My mother continues to roll beedis. Your mother stopped rolling beedis and finds no time to offer cups of tea and plates of refreshments to guests.”

“Kanth! You get married first. You’ll then feel settled in life. Please save me from the discredit that I’ve been responsible for the sad plight in your life.” 

“Am I blaming you for nothing? Isn’t that the truth?”

There was an argument between the two. Saru toned down her attack. “Kanth! I agree with you. But it does not mean that you should live single. If you have any respect and love for me, for my own good, you should marry,” she appealed to him. Kanthiah realised after a while the correctness of her suggestion.

“If so Saru……. Find a bride for me. You know best what kind of bride I want. Find for me a wife that helps me grow like you after my marriage. But is it possible for me to reach your heights? After marriage our life may end up without any progress,” said Kanthaiah sadly.

“Kanth! You’ll know certain things as time progresses, some as you grow in age, some by experience and some after marriage. There is no possibility for bachelors to know certain things. After you marry you too will develop self-confidence coming of a feeling of self assurance and dignity. Then you will get rid of the fear you now have for me. The nature of life differs from person to person. I have a feeling that you and your wife will reach greater heights than us,” assured Saru.

“Saru… aren’t you unhappy that we missed marrying? How come, you speak with such balance!” Kanthaiah expressed his surprise.

“Kanth! Time heals wounds. Memories tickle the wounds. New experiences, new acquaintances, and a new life, create new awareness. They erase the old memories. If my husband and I are happy, it is because we are leading a new life. We have now bonds that fasten us together. When we remember the old bonds of love we feel sad. But the present is of greater consequence than memories. It can’t escape us. That is the reason why when the mind secures serenity and loneliness, our memories float on water which becomes clear when it is still. That’s why I try my best to create work so that my mind doesn’t get the feel of loneliness. A part of it is this Women’s Liberation Movement – what you call intellectualism.”

“That means you are erasing the memories of our love!”

“Kanth! Why do you cull meanings out of it? I fail to understand how I can convince you. I think you will understand some aspects if you marry. The life I lead now is the reality. I can’t but live in this real world as a wife, as an employee, as a mother and as a daughter-in-law. It’s then that our real life projects itself and our love, bonds and memories gradually recede into the background like a song, from sound into silence.”

“Saru…you have learnt many words. You have decided to forget me. Why do you take this devious course instead of stating it straight and clear?”

“Kanth! When I suggested that we should elope you couldn’t make bold to act. Mother, sister, this and that you talked of. Now you are freely accusing me. Do you know how pained I feel when you talk in this manner? I am now a married woman. Do you feel happy if I sit sobbing like a deity, like the goddess of sorrow? 

Women are like plants born somewhere and transplanted somewhere else. In the present social set up the feelings of love and sorrow of women are made to change from the real to the unreal, from the existing to the non-existing. There is no chance even to express pain and anguish in this society. 

With the advent of new experiences and new memories, the non-existing equalities are completely lost and disappear. But the impressions they leave on one’s mind remain. These impressions take shape as inner energy and influence the future, says Freud. And as for removing the impressions of the inner energy it’s possible only through practicing dhyana and reading Jiddu Krishna Murthy’s works.”

“That means you are in the act of removing the impressions of our love from your inner life force.”

“How cruelly you throw blame on me, Kanth! You have known me since my childhood when I didn’t know what shyness was. I also knew you. Are evidences necessary to establish how much I love you? Why talk of evidences? If I forget you three years after my marriage, is it called love? But my love for you is getting indistinct day by day, Kanth”, said Saru with tears.

“Kanth! I can’t be laughing and dancing freely now as in earlier days. I can’t visit your house frequently as before. If I do so the world will blame me. You know the problems. Because you are a man you expect me to be free with you as in olden days. Are you able to be free with me as before? Though you know that I have been in town you didn’t come. If I come to your house you are not available.”

“But then Saru! It is not to forget as you do. It is pain, remembering the past.”

“Kanth! It may be with pain. If you don’t fear that people would misunderstand you, why should you avoid me? You think ‘this Saru is not mine. She belongs to someone else’. That is the meaning. This fear and this love- we both possess. You are able to express your pain as you are not married. After you marry you too will not be able to express your pain. If you do so, your wife and the society will not admire you. You will be blamed. You will be treated with contempt.”

“If one marries, it is said, one gains the experience of seven years. But in your case you seem to have gained an experience of fifteen years. Your husband is seven years older than you are. By his association you became his equal. By marriage you gained an experience of seven years. 

“In this way, within three years an experience of fifteen years and an equal period of age have been gained by you. If I marry I gain an experience of seven years only. If my wife is seven years younger than me, my experience may be equal with hers and my age also will recede!…. You know why. It is impossible for me to get a girl who is equally educated for what I am worth.”

“If that would be the case, Kanth, you must pull your wife up in the same way. I rose by my education and status. You are one of those who were responsible for the growth of my individuality. Would I have grown to this level without you? You know that I love you most next to my mother. For another reason I will love you more than my mother.”

“Saru! If that is true what more do I want? Our bonds are not physical. They are bonds of the heart,” said Kanth overcome by emotion.

With those words of Kanthaiah, Saru also felt elated. Her sorrow and pain dissolved and she smiled happily and serenely.

“Abba! How long did you take to open the doors of my heart Kanth! How beautifully have you put it! The feelings of friendship and the bonds of love seen between brother and sister, two sisters, mother and children, two men and two women will also be seen between men and women. This has nothing to do with physical union. If you understand this, it is possible for us two, as before, to be the source of inspiration for each other for ever.”

“Saru! You have grown to heights I can’t reach! My poverty is obstructing me from growing. In your growth is hidden the unsought help of prestige secured through your caste. You know that my caste does not enjoy any status. 

For having been born a woman you gained some special privileges. You could find a husband who enjoys a higher status than you and your own level shot up suddenly. How is that possible for me, a man. The saying “whatever the status, the man is a woman’s vassal” has not been said for nothing. 

“If a fifty year old man turns his looks towards a twenty year old girl his value in her estimation is a zero. Women grow in this manner making zeroes of many intellectuals and elderly men with their self confidence. How can a man gain the same self-confidence, the man who marries a woman younger than himself?” 

“Kanth! There is some truth in what you say. But tens of thousands of poor women are suffering in prostitute homes. Women are being raped. You will not understand the dirty looks of men who consider women as mere sex symbols, however great they are, whatever position they hold and the inconvenience and torture the women experience in those looks. But I like your looks. How serene and pure are your looks! How loving and friendly they are! Those looks of yours give me self-confidence, that you are with me all the time constantly. If I achieve anything, your share is great in that achievement”.

“Saru! Your explanation apart, how can I achieve the prestige and respect you command? Fortune favoured you. You rose in stages. Yours is highway journey. If once you get into the track you move ahead fast. Mine is a foot path full of ruts and pits. By the time people overcome all obstacles they will get tired. They will drop down. They grow old. Very few reach the highway……. Saru…. We are the earth and you people grow like plants. When we get defeated you keep winning. Toil is our lot. Victory is yours. The path of those who should win got shrunk into a foot path.”

“Kanth! What’s this new tune? Tell me clearly what you want to tell me, please.”

“Saru…….. The educational facilities which you have been enjoying for sixty years were those you snatched away from us, preventing us from reaping them. If along with the Poona Pact made in 1932 for the Scheduled Castes by Ambedkar and Gandhi, the B.C. reservations also had been implemented how could you have had this superiority and the opportunities? I would have been enjoying higher status than your husband! Our marriage would have taken place!”

Saru was overcome by sorrow and anger all at once.

“You had no guts to take me away then. Why do you boast that you would carry the weight of history on your shoulders now? Should you dig up history simply because we couldn’t marry? 

Do not pass comments on history overcome by emotion, overcome by a selfish mental assessment….. please. But then I agree with you on one point. I could gain quick popularity because I was in the city close to people and the realities. 

As you didn’t have a strong representation in the media you couldn’t come into general circulation. Yet, it’s you who are propelling me now also. But I appeal to you not to ask me to wait here till your B.C. movement gains importance. I think I am not wrong in my wish.”

“It’s not like that Saru….. my desire is that you should set aside your individual development and selfishness and support and agitate for me and my people, not for your sake……that’s my demand.”

“Kanth! I have my limitations. One person cannot fulfil all demands. You do your work. I’ll be with you.”

“Saru! Under the mask of feminism you have made clear your dirty caste–oriented and selfish political thinking. What is the benefit for us if women occupy the places of men? Is it not your responsibility to give a helping hand and support those who do not possess the necessary encouragement? You want to forget the historical truths confining yourself to your selfish feminist advantages and want us to bear our sufferings.”

“Kanth! Each one of your words pierce my heart like sharp arrows. Have you found in me to-day my high birth and the leprosy called caste which you did not observe all these days? What words and expressions you use! When I suggested that we should elope you put me to torture like a coward. Now…... why don’t you kill me at one stroke instead of torturing me again…..?” Saru started crying as if her heart would break.

Kanthaiah did not know how to console her. He got angry at his inability to act properly at the right time. When he tried to drive home his point to her, she got a different meaning. On seeing her cry inconsolably, his emotion ebbed away quickly.

“Sorry, Saru! I have no intention to hurt you."

"You women enjoyed the fruits for sixty years which should have been tasted by the B.Cs…..The benefits for women have been treated as the main channels at the expense of B.Cs whose priorities have been converted into rivulets. Is this not a conspiracy to remain at the helm of affairs for another sixty years to come, under the guise of attributing authority for women? Saru! My problem is mine. Your problem is yours. I feel pained for not having been able to tell you clearly my problem. I don’t know to whom I should make my point clear.” 

Saravva wiped her tears and controlled her sorrow.

“Kanth! I am confident that we both can become one in the future. I will be happy if you win and I am defeated. If you are defeated and I win, we will bring about a constitutional amendment in the Parliament and in other forums for you to win. My path and your path are not different. The path of both of us is one and the same. Your place in my heart is made safe for all times.”

~*~

Three years passed in a trice. It was clear that Kanthaiah would lose and Saravva would win. Instead of congratulating Saravva, jealousy and hatred for Saravva overtook Kanthaiah. He was replying her letters. He was not going to the city though she invited him many times. Though she applied leave and went to his house Kanthaiah was avoiding meeting her by being away.

~*~

Kanthaiah was pained that Saravva did not become the daughter-in-law of his mother. Chandramma was also equally distressed that Saravva could not be her daughter-in-law. She had brought up the girl with great love. She had imagined that she would be her daughter-in-law. The close relationship between herself and Gowramma, Saravva’s mother, was of that nature, it was a relationship that ran through three decades.

~*~

Chandramma and Gouramma had come to Jagtial as the daughters-in-law when they were nine years old. During Gouramma’s marriage some misunderstandings arose and contacts with the relatives got snapped. This helped the mother-in-law of Chandramma and Gourwmma come close which developed the friendship of Chandramma and Gouramma. After they came of age their families became independent. Yet bonds of affections grew. 

They helped each other in their daily chores. They exchanged information about their husbands and their nature. They laughted at the details. Kanthaiah was born on full moon day in Karthika month. Saravva was born on Sivarathri festival day. When the two women were pregnant they had decided to make their children husband and wife if their plans materialised. In the fourth year of Saravva her father took a mistress and neglected his family. He went round places for ten years. Later he took another woman as his mistress. During her crises Chandramma was the main support to Gouramma. For them both Kanthaiah was the first son for all practical purposes.

~*~

Saravva and Kanthaiah studied in the same class in the same school. Kanthaiah played the childhood games of girls with Saravva. The other girls gave Kanthaiah the nick-name ‘bodakka among women’. They studied together in the light of an oil lamp. Schooling and college studies was also in the same place.

~*~

The waters of the Pochampad canal reached the dry lands where nothing could be cultivated. Gowramma converted the land into a fertile land with her hard work. Open sites became plots. The price of land increased. Sarala’s father bought a tractor with the money the bank offered, as it was satisfied with the fertile land. He traded in brick and sand. 

Kanthaiah’s father left for Bombay as the wages he earned as a weaver were too meagre. He returned home after a year and a half when the mill where he worked was closed down after a strike. He went round villages carrying clothes on his cycle, selling them. 

He thought that he should do something better, sold his property and poured the money into the hands of a broker to go to Arab countries. The broker deceived him. He died broken hearted. While Gouramma’s family prospered, Chandramma’s family faced disaster. 

Saravva’s father, who started staying at home turned into an evil force in his daughter’s life. Kanthaiah could not play the role of Lord Krishna. As a result Sarala could not become Rukmini* though she desired it. 

Chandramma resisted the love affairs of her son then. Now she started regretting her action.

~*~

Kanthaiah walked into the house as he did not find any one on the pial. Gouramma and three other women were busy preparing some eats for the festival occasion...

“Kanthu! Did you remember us after so many years?” asked Gouramma affectionately. She offered him a chair. She wiped a tear from her eye on seeing Kanthaiah who had thinned a great deal. 

Kanthaiah looked around. Though he walked in he could not come to ask about Saravva. His prestige came in the way. Such a behaviour of Kanthaiah was not new to Gouramma.

“Saravva went to your house. She has gone to invite you all for dinner. She might have stopped at some one’s house on the way. Be seated on the pial. The new books she has brought are in the shelf. Go through them in the meanwhile,” said Gouramma.

Kanthaiah looked at the contents of the books. They were books dealing with history, human relations, reforms and literature discussed from the point of view of feminism. Most of the books were in English. 

Kanthaiah was surprised. What great heights she had reached! All the highways were hers! He had no path to lead him. He felt very small. He thought of leaving the place, but could not go away. If he did not talk to her now, he would not be able to talk to her for a long time. Who knows when she would come again? 

He sat huddled in a chair and closed his eyes. In that humble posture he looked like a pup sitting huddled in a corner. He was agitated. The courage with which he started out faded in no time. He got up all of a sudden and stepped out and almost ran into Saravva.

Saravva’s elder daughter greeted him saying “namaste uncle”, extending her arms towards him. The child was very lovely looking, an exact replica of Saravva when she was that age. Kanthaiah lifted her up and kissed her.

Saravva accosted him with her greetings in a pleasant manner and stared into Kanthaiah’s eye, with a mischievous glint in her eye. Kanthaiah experienced the flow of some unknown energy passing through him making him feel light for a few seconds. Distances and misunderstandings got removed from him. They both remained speechless for a while. Kanthaiah’s fear for her disappeared. He noticed the change in the language used by Saravva in her words.

“Saru…… Do you know how happy I am to hear you talk in our village speech! I now feel that you are my old Saru.”

“Was I not your old Saru before, Kanth,” Saru said smiling.

“Saru…. you look very beautiful in this saree…… I do not know why you wear pants and shirts. They don’t sit well on you at all.”

“There! That’s what is called male thinking…..” smiled Saravva. She knew that Kanthaiah liked such a saree and so wore it purposefully. Without revealing the inborn curiosity of a woman she spoke again.

“But then Kanth! If I wear the saree like your mother and my mother in the old traditional way I will look more beautiful. Won’t I? You wear a dhoti and wrap a towel around your head and I will stuff chrysanthemum flowers in my hair. Then let us pose for a photograph. We then will look like a husband and wife pair of the previous birth. Don’t we? But do you know what my worry is, Kanth? Men who appreciate the saree saying it reflects Indian culture should themselves wear it for one or two days in a week and show their regard for it.” Saravva said smiling which pricked his ego.

“Saru! Industrialisation gave you modernity and culture. But it deprived our people of their traditional culture. Their lives ended with starving stomachs. Though Ambedkar showed the way for many people, Gandhism became the highway. But the path shown to B.Cs by Jyotiba Phoole, the guru of Gandhi and Ambedkar, stopped midway.”

“Kanth, Mahatma Phoole taught the alphabet to his wife and made her a teacher. Savithri Bai Phoole is our country’s first woman teacher. Why don’t you carry forward this ideal? Your wife Padma is not an illiterate. She has studied upto Intermediate. If you can’t shape her into what you want, how can you alter and mould the society? 

Padma left you without telling you. But then why did you not go to her and invite her back? If she thinks that she suffered in her life because of Saravva, who is to blame? Do you feel that people should think that way?”

Why did his mother send him by force to Gowramma’s house? Was it to make Saru talk as she did? But he took care not to express his misgivings and talked about other things. He tried to assert himself and his actions and told Saravva that there was no fault of his.

“By the by, Kanth! You and I are not children. However much you try to protect yourself, your heart knows the truth. You are giving importance to personal problems and are neglecting the aspects that help socially. I know that I am the cause for this situation. I suffer thinking of this. Though we are lost in an emotional struggle….. it is our love that makes us regard our ideals and feelings inspite of the decades that have gone by. 

One has to live life as a beautiful experience. With that inspiration one should grow in society as a writer, as an artist. You must love the society as much as you love me. It is not that I would be the only one behind your attempts. Now Padma is also ready to be with us in her ideals and thinking. You should now be prepared for some sacrifice.”

Kanthaiah realised there was some weight and truth in Saru’s words.

~*~

Another year passed.

Padma read the letter received from Saru with interest.

“Dear Padma,

Namaskaram. I received the copy of your paper’s first issue. I am happy you are the editor and Kanth, the manager. Congratulations. The paper has come out well. I am a little worried whether the editorial has been written keeping me in mind.

It is true that I did not suggest to you and Rajita that you should start a journal though I have been on the editorial board of a paper myself. I was pained at your idea that there was the ego of the upper classes in not suggesting that Scs and Bcs should start papers independently. I agree with you that in the suggestions the upper caste people make to BCs and SCs. the attempt to safeguard their own importance and authority is ingrained. So also in the suggestions of developed communities over the underdeveloped communities.

But Padma! my desire is that your individual and family life should be happy and prosper, there is no intention or exhibition of my authority over you. I have no other thought except love for you and Kanth. You are my people, a part of my life. How is it possible to exhert authority over myself? Though I feel that your social life should reach greater heights than ours, it was my mistake in not expressing it clearly.

Padma! I ardently wish and desire that our friendship should come out of the clouds of misunderstandings and proceed with love and regard for each other. The path shown by the Buddha through personal example that before love which is free and human, money, power and authority, selfishness, caste and religion are naught–this should be our ideal.

To spread our ideas among people our papers are the strong agents. We cannot take back the words that have been printed. So before going to print each word has to be thoroughly analysed with patience. I desire that your periodical magazine should come out regularly without a break and that many papers should get published from our area, I remain,

-    Your Saru.

After reading the letter Padma grew furious at Kanthaiah and whirled the letter towards him.

“Read how beautifully sister has written. Hereafter don’t write the editorials on my name. If you want to write an article write under a pen name of your choice. I’ll edit it and print it. See, how very pained she is. I’ll write the editorials in my language. By the by, I want to say ‘goodbye’ to your editorials which provoke caste feelings and convert friends into foes.”

Kanthaiah read the letter quickly with a smile. “Abbo! How much love you have for your sister! If you show the same amount of love in understanding things, it will not take much time to grow,” he said returning the letter to her. When he tried to kiss her hand she withdrew her hand looking sharply at him.

“What is this out of time romance of kisses forcing male superiority in the guise of love? Myself and Sarakka will together fight male superiority hereafter. We will prove that before selfless love authority, selfishness, caste, religion etc. are all empty words. O you great man! Please do not sacrifice human bonds for the sake of political advantage. This is the title I am going to give my editorial for the second issue.” 

Kanthaiah was crest fallen. He had thought of teasing and annoying Saru together with Padma. His idea took a beating. ‘From now on they will tease me together…’ thought Kantaiah and pulled a long face holding his head.

Original in Telugu published in Andhra Prabha Telugu Daily, June 1999.