These days the auspicious time for celebrating marriages is being fixed in the morning hours. This arrangement creates no problems for anyone. Bathing can be finished at home and lunch could be eaten immediately after the muhurtha, the auspicious time, and leave for home. Conversation takes place only till the lunch is eaten. Later the marriage pandal is empty.

As the marriage was that of the daughter of the elder brother by relationship, the acquaintance with old relatives could be renewed. So we woke up early, finished our bath, got ready quickly and boarded the bus. The journey on the smooth black-topped road was pleasant. In olden days there was no good road for the village from any side. In earlier days by the time we reached the village holding the little finger of grandmother, walking fast, which looked like running, at least one toe of the feet had to be treated with turmeric paste. Our bare feet got bruised by the pebbles and rough stones.

That village was my grandmother’s birth place. All my memories of the village days are connected with that place situated about four kilometers from Jagtial. Now that village is the second stage on the route that passes through Chilavkoduru and Dharmaram to Peddapalli on the way to Godavari Khani.

As the bus passed the Lakshmipuram cross roads I remembered that the people of the village complained that they would lose their sites and lands if the Peddapalli road was laid in that route. So the road passed through Jaapthapuram. From then on Jaapthapuram enjoyed wealth and prosperity. Lakshmipuram has been thrown into a corner. The villagers now curse themselves for not permitting the road to pass through their village.

In my case also it happened so. The Jaapthapuram people refused my alliance with them. They had their reasons. There was no open space before our house, no backyard behind the house. There was no land, no site or garden for us. We eat what we buy in that session or on that day. If the alliance made with a family that depended on agriculture there will be enough to eat for the whole year. There would be no need to buy everything. With this plea my grandmother’s brothers by relationship refused to make me their son-in-law. 

My mother and grandmother asked them to give their daughter in marriage to me but returned humiliated. “Will we give our daughter to a boy who is studying? How will he live and what work will he do? Even if you offer dowry to us, we will not take your boy as our son-in-law,” they said. Now after twenty five years they feel sorry for not finalising our alliance then. Now my relatives curse themselves taking into account my small job and the happiness I enjoy.

My wife does not feel the pain and sorrow my uncles and aunts feel. She behaves in the opposite way.

“Ah! What did you have before marrying me? I was given in marriage into a hapless family. This house made fortune only after I set foot in it. I am a fortunate person. If you had married in the house of your uncles and aunts you would have lived in poverty like them. You got your job only after you married me. You have grown into a handsome man by eating what I cooked tastily for you. How did you look like at the time you came to see me for the marriage alliance? You were like a dried up stick and a skeleton without flesh and blood. Take a look at your photograph in the album taken then for your hall-ticket. You will recollect how you looked before marrying me” she taunts me.

How will anyone look before marriage? They only think of higher studies for the tomorrow and entertain ideals and ambitions. How do you think my wife looked like before marrying me? She was skin and bones because of meagre eating. She looked as though she was bedridden for a month and was just recovering. But she does not agree with that fact. 

“If I had not been beautiful how did you like me and marry me?” she asks. She boasts that my own house, my education, children and our growth was all because of her and she says the credit goes to her for our prosperity.

I might have said during one of our quarrels that my uncles and aunts were very good looking. Yet she started on the journey without saying “Is that so! They will all be there for the wedding. I will see how good looking they are”. 

May be because of my changing places as part of my official duties, or because our old relatives were confined to village life or migrations or because of non-cooperation by my wife, for some such reason visits and return visits among our relatives did not take place  over the years. Now this marriage provided an opportunity to renew contacts.

The bridegroom worked in the Bhivandi textile mill. The bride was my elder cousin brother’s daughter. She stopped her studies by seventh class and settled down as a beedi worker. My brother also had worked in Bombay and Bhivandi for twenty years in the textile mills. This alliance was settled as a result of such contacts. At present my brother had been looking after his fields and lands.

When my cousin brother’s father passed away I could not go to offer my condolences. I thought that the relationship between us had come to an end with my absence there. But he gave me the wedding card and requested me again and again to attend the marriage. I thought I should not lose the opportunity of reviving the old contacts and relationships. I told my wife also the same thing.

There was another reason which I did not tell her. She entertained proudly an idea that she had a large battalion of relatives and that I did not have relatives at all. As a matter of fact we too have a large number of relatives. But if the ladies of the house do not co-operate, it will not take a long time to break and disintegrate relationships.

My mother used to quarrel with my wife saying that because of her our relatives distanced themselves from us. I felt that the complaint was true. But my mother was not the mother of my wife to get her to accept the truth. The mother is the mother-in-law. The woman who is not a mother cannot become a mother-in-law. But the love and affection a mother provides by that relationship is of a different nature. The reaction a mother-in-law provokes is different. My wife could see only the mother-in-law in my mother. Even my mother could not see her daughters in her daughters-in-law. She treated them as daughters-in-law. No one knows when and where this mother-daughter-in-law syndrome started. The dispute has finally come to the stage when the mother says ‘yes’ and the daughter-in-law says ‘no’ to whatever that is suggested.

My wife used to pick up a quarrel with me saying “did I at any time answer back your mother? Did I fight with your old relatives? Why do you accuse me every now and then?” 

“Should there be a quarrel to keep relatives at a distance? If we don’t go to their houses when invited by them for festivals and other occasions, relationships get broken automatically. Whenever someone asked us to visit them, you said that your legs were aching or your finger was troubling you and stayed away at home. If everything was well you said that no one was known to you there. If we visit people a few times there is an opportunity to know everyone. Do you mean to say you know my son before you married him? How did you get merged with him? In the same way we can get to know people.” That was mother’s argument.

“They are all new and unknown to me. You better go with your mother,” my wife used to say whenever there was an invitation. She never bothered to listen to my telling her that going with mother was not the same as going with wife and children. Having thus distanced me from my relatives, my wife taunting me that I had no relatives was a cruel indictment.

“When we were young children, we used to stay in the house of the present family where the wedding is taking place, calling them affectionately, “pedanaanna”, “peddamma,”*  I said looking at her.

I closed my eyes and remembered my boyhood days as the scenes of those days flashed in my mind. Even as I was observing him my father’s elder brother late Ramachandram by relationship representing three generations grew up into an old man. The houses which were beautiful looking then grew into dilapidated houses, without white washing or repairs, without people to live in them, moss growing on the walls, the plaster peeling off, finally resulting in the relations with that house being broken and lost. When I used to go there alone the new daughter-in-law and son-in-law of that house used to retreat into a shell. In this manner the later generations were unknown to me and our acquaintance got dimmed. I myself do not remember properly the relationships. I do not know which girl is the daughter-in-law of which family and house. My wife does not have any inquisitiveness to know who is who. My children do not understand the nature of relationships though I repeat it many times. The relationships which are not in daily use and the relationships which have no immediate use and need are being forgotten by the children. Thus in our generation the relationships of village life and the connections are getting lost. This development made me sigh in despair. Now some of my relations instead of calling me “brother-in-law”, “uncle” etc. simply calls me with the new relationship tag “sir” pronouns like saar. Why does this happen so?

The cousin who is celebrating his daughter’s marriage now was born a week before I was born and so he became my elder brother. But during younger days we called each other familiarly, 'arei', 'orai', After I grew up though I gave up calling him ‘arei’ he continued to call me ‘orei’, exercising his authority over me as a senior. Even in our boyhood days he would say to me, “arie, I am your elder brother. Do you know? You have to obey me. You are an ignorant fellow and do not know much”, and boss over me.

As a matter of fact I do not know much about agriculture, villages, crops, cattle and the like. It was he who gave me knowledge about them all. It was he who introduced me to backyards, canals, gardens and the palmyra trees etc. But he did not fare well at studies and in education. So he gave up studying and started doing cultivation. He got married when he was fifteen. His relations tried their best to get the bride from their family. But my brother refused flatly the alliance. The girl who was to have been given in marriage to him got angry and did not talk to him for many days. When my mother asked for the same girl for me the girl twisted her mouth rejecting me on her father’s advice.

At twenty he became the father of two children. He is now celebrating his second daughter’s marriage. As his responsibilities increased in his twentieth year itself he handed over the charge of agriculture and went in search of work in textile mills. So when I was still a student he had become a father of children and an earning member.

By the time he became a father a change came about in his behaviour. He started looking down on me as a kid saying that I knew nothing about family and family life. He used to lecture on life’s philosophy and Bhivandi life and made me feel very small. He who boasted of so much knowledge stopped the studies of his first daughter in her fifth class. He allowed his second daughter to study only up to the seventh class. He could not think of a groom who had studied beyond the tenth class.

The growth of my elder brother culminated when I settled down in my job with my wife and children. The morning that dawns early sets the first thing in the evening. He started feeling the burden of the family, children and their marriages and his life turned into that of a bullock at the grinding mill.

In olden days five or six elder brothers of father used to run sesame (gingelly) oil mills. It was at that time the oil mills came into existence. In the place of gingelly oil groundnut oil came into use. In the beginning when the groundnut oil was used boils appeared all over the body. Heads reeled and people suffered from bilious vomiting. Gingelly oil had a good taste and a pleasant smell. Now it was considered bitter and the ground nut oil is taken to be good in taste and pleasant in smell. Tastes and attitudes do not remain the same always. Time brings about changes.

With the introduction of milled oils those who lived a princely life with grinding mills had to find new professions. They had given up their caste profession of weaving cloth long time ago. They had no idea of doing business and did not have knowledge of other things. About ten of them went to Bombay to work as textile mill workers. In those days textile mill workers were far better off than Govt. Teachers or clerks.

Time never stays static. My father’s elder brothers thought that if they resigned jobs in the Bombay textile mills they would get provident fund and with that amount they planned to buy lands. They resigned and with the money bought some land. One of my uncles who had no land or cattle resigned his job in the mills and with that money established two power looms. Now he is the owner of fifty power looms. The elder brothers of my father had no forethought. They thought only of agriculture. They had great love for the place where they lived. They had freedom as agriculturists where as they did not enjoy freedom as mill workers. Though they returned from mill work, they had to think of it again later. In Bhivandi there were no labour laws or protection except wages.

My Cousin brother surprisingly preferred Bhivandi unlike the elder brothers of my father. I do not know what happened to his intelligence. He got caught in the drudge like the bullock of the grinding mill. Perhaps it is difficult to come out of a way of life when one gets used to it. He should know what pleasure there was in spending twenty years alone in Bhivandi while his wife looked after cultivation in the village. Now he has become a great devotee. He smears his forehead with huge religious marks, wears the sacred thread, performs poojas and the like. Whatever it is, as I have been living in the town for some years my cousin brother could give me the wedding invitation. He asked me to attend the wedding without fail out of the love he has for me since our boyhood.

I wonder how the sisters-in-law are now with whom I had spent time in a jolly manner as a boy. Saraswathi used to go up trees first like a monkey before me and climb mango trees, tamarind trees and other trees. She used to run dashing like an arrow. Along with her, three other sisters-in-law, my elder cousin brothers and I used to play in streams, on the platforms constructed in fields to watch the crop, under them, in the backyards of houses, walk and run together. We ate, exchanging the eats from our mouths, calling the process by many typical names. What games we played! What thefts we committed in the backyards of houses! I felt immensely happy when my grandmother said she would ask Saraswathi’s parents to give her in marriage to me and how much I was insulted and humiliated by them!

By the time we got off the bus and started walking, the sun was beating down on us severely. My wife was murmuring that her make-up was getting spoiled because of the heat and sweat. I could not hear her properly in the sound of wedding music and the blaring loud-speakers.

The marriage was to take place in a narrow space in front of the main door. The pandal was erected with fresh palmyra leaves and the area was glowing forth in all its glory. It was also crowded. Many invitees had to stand outside the pandal. My wife walked towards the place where there were women. I stood in the sun along with others. I was greeting and talking to those whom I could recognize. Those who recognized me talked to me. Some addressed me as brother-in-law, some as elder brother, some as younger brother, some as father’s elder brother, some as father's younger brother, some as son-in-law and some as son. They reminded me and also themselves of the childhood days. The children were lost in their worlds.

“When he got such a huge tent erected for dining why didn’t he get two more tents erected at the marriage pandal? Why should he be so stingy while spending so much? Should you not attend to it, brother-in-law?” asked Lakshmirajam addressing me.

“You are there to tell him, being the son-in-law of the house,” I smiled.

“Everything was lost and gone after the father-in-law passed away. Will this brother-in-law heed my words? Don’t you know the mentality of your elder brother. He will not heed anyone’s advice,” said Lakshmirajam.

“You should have sent the message through my sister,” I replied.

“Will he listen to her? ‘What do you know sister, you better keep quiet. I am here to look into all these things,’ he said to her who is a mother of three children,” replied Lakshmirajam wiping the sweat off his brow, covering his head with a towel.

Everyone was waiting eagerly for the auspicious moment when the sacred and sanctified rice is to be sprinkled on the heads of the bride and the bridegroom, the heat being unbearable and the hunger great. They were eager to rush into the tent where lunch would be served. If the volunteers had not erected the thick cloth wall there, half of the invitees would have rushed into the tent which was erected in the yard beside the house. We were not able to see what was going on in the marriage pandal.

“At least a few chairs should have been placed here. As all are standing nothing is being seen,” I said to Lakshmirajam, to start a conversation.

“If tents cannot be procured, he will get chairs”, Lakshmirajam laughed. Someone brought the sanctified rice saying “namaskaram sir”, to me.

I took some quantify of it and asked Lakshmirajam who he was. “He is your elder brother’s brother-in-law” replied Lakshmirajam. I could not recognize him.

I could not identify many who had come there. When I felt they were the old relatives I was introducing myself to them as so and so mother’s son, as the grandmother’s grandson and greeting them with folded lands. Many of them were in a doubtful state of mind like me regarding relationship. If the son was a known person his wife was a stranger. In this manner I could not locate relationship with nearly half of the old relatives. Somebody said the auspicious moment had arrived and the cumin seeds (Jeelakarra in Telugu) and jagery paste had been mutually placed on the heads by the bride and bridegroom. There was pushing among the guests. After some minutes there was the announcement that the sanctified rice should be sprinkled on the newly married couple to bless them. Later guests walked into the tent where lunch was served.

With the advent of the video new problems have cropped up. In earlier days it was enough if some gift was given or if the elders were met at some time during the wedding. Now the video records when guests came, where they stood etc. So I walked with the guests in a line and got shot by the video. My brother who was thanking those that attended the wedding hugged me affectionately. The old blood relationship tingled my body. I greeted my brother’s wife and told my wife that she was her younger sister. In olden days there were no ‘namaskarams’ among relations. People used to talk to each other with smiles. Now the other person has to be invariably greeted with a namaskar, to be considered as having spoken to the person. The ladies held their hands affectionately and I walked towards the lunch tent.

The tent was crowded. There too the introductions and small talk continued and it was two O’ clock by the time I finished the wedding meal. The old and new relations started leaving and getting their gifts entered in a note book. The members of the bridegroom’s party were involved in a heated discussion. When the priest was showing to the bride and bridegroom the Arundhati star in the sky at two in the afternoon I could not but laugh. The branch of a tree by the side of the pole of the pandal also registered its smile along with me by swinging.

The priest got completed the ritual of spreading the cotton seeds in the hot sun. Though three generations passed after stopping the practice of weaving cloth, the wooden shaft to which the yarn winds as weaving goes on was shining resplendent with turmeric and kunkum. This wooden shaft acts as the wooden seat for the bride and bridegroom to sit upon.

In villages also wedding dinners were being prepared as in cities. But my brother’s love for chilli powder had not yet abated. The curries were hot indeed. Our tongues and mouth began to burn because of the combination of chillies and dalda. Drinking water resulted only in filling the stomach without mitigating the burning sensation. We were feeling sleepy as our stomachs were full.

“Why don’t you stay on till the ritual of handling over the girl to the groom’s party? You can go after the night meal. Autos and buses are available late in the night also”, said my mother’s elder sister affectionately. She whispered “there are five goat heads and the legs. Two pots of toddy has been ordered for. Stay away," she requested.

“I too want to stay. I thought I could meet old relatives in the evening by which time the crowds would have left.”

“Take rest for a while,” she said and asked her grandson to take me to the house of Suresh.

The lady of the house offered water in a pot to wash our feet. Me and my wife washed our feet, drank cool water and sat on the cot.

I could not recognize the lady. But I have my system. I introduced myself and introduced my wife. She too had returned from the wedding dinner. Her mouth too was burning. She looked at me and my wife laughing happily and asked, “Didn’t you recognize me?”

I did not recognize her. But her calling me ‘baawa’, brother-in-law made me feel happy. My wife looked at me with a strange expression. How many ideas were hidden in that expression! Jealousy, doubt, suspicion, who was that woman? any love affair of the past? etc.

“I am Saravva. Saraswathi. When your grandmother came to ask me for you, my father drove you away. Do you remember? I am that Saraswathi.”

I tried to recollect the facial features and looked at her keenly. Was she the same Saraswathi whom I saw when I was very young? Now the naughtiness of those days was not seen in her. With her age and the experience she had gained, she now looked elderly and dignified.

The way she talked also had changed.

“Abba! How we met unexpectedly after so many years!” I exclaimed surprised.

“I recognized you at the marriage pandal itself. I asked aunty whether you were not Ramulu bava.”

“It is more than twenty years since we met. How is it you were not seen at any functions of our relatives?” 

“I was at Bhivandi and Surat with your brother for some time. We all came down here three years ago. I came to our parts to get my children educated like you, bava” she said smiling mischievously. I saw in her naughty smile the experience she had gained in life.

“Is this your relative whom you wanted to marry?” asked my wife and eyed Saraswathi with looks that approved her beauty and dignity. My wife evidently didn’t like Saraswathi who was more beautiful and dignified than herself. She would have certainly felt happy if Saraswathi had been a little dark and simple looking.

“Yes, akka, he said he would marry me and none else” said Saraswathi, calling my wife, elder sister.

We talked and recollected old days as my wife and children observed us. Saraswathi introduced her children to us. Her daughter had come of marriageable age. I asked her about her daughter.

“There was a proposal from Bhivandi. But I don’t like the Bhivandi match. We didn’t prosper by going to Bhivandi. I will educate my daughter like your son and make her an engineer or a teacher”. She turned to her daughter “your elder brother is studying engineering. You too should secure a seat in engineering,” she said looking at her daughter. 

She made sharbat with lime juice and gave it to us all.

“My father confined me to this meagre life without forethought. If my marriage was celebrated with you I too would have been happy like my sister. My life took this shape for having got me married very young. If I was about twenty and had some knowledge of things, I would have married you. My father got me married when I was fifteen and washed his hands,” said Saraswathi sadly.

“Nothing has gone wrong in your life sister,” consoled my wife.

“There’s a lot of happiness in living together, difficulties or joy. What kind of a life is it if the man goes far away and stays here only for fifteen days a year, year after year? Such a life shouldn’t be wished even for the enemy. We have many desires. We may feel like talking about our problems. There is no one to whom they can be explained. All people don’t react alike if a woman lives alone. I couldn’t live in the house of my mother-in-law. So I rented a house in my mother’s place and am living here”, said Saraswathi looking at me. Though Saraswathi’s individuality and personality had matured, she had not lost the verve of the younger days. She was the same dashing type.

She turned to me again. “Father thought you would never prosper but you have prospered. We who thought we had won in life’s struggle have fallen behind. What can be the reason for it, baawa?” she asked.

“Saraswathi! Those who could feel the pulse of the society and its development fared well. Those who couldn’t, lagged behind.” I told her.

“With the money earned we did not invest in establishing four power looms there. Instead we diverted the money to agriculture preferring our place but it didn’t help us and our lives have no identity of any sort”, sighed Saraswathi.

“As a matter of fact I too have not prospered catching up the growth in life. As father passed away early in my life I could not go in for higher studies and so became a clerk. My classmates who pursued studies without a break became High Court Judges, University Professors, Ministers and doctors in America. I had to stop my studies as the hard earnings of my mother could not help me.”

“You say that one should catch up with modern development. Many modern methods have been introduced in agriculture. We are following them. Textile mills also denote development. Yet why did we lag behind?”

“Whether it is the field of workers or the field of white collar jobs, if the employees have the power of dealing with the employers unitedly, demanding a share in the profits, the wages of the employees will be on the beneficial side. In olden days agriculture and cultivation were the main props for the life of man. As I did not have that support your father refused to give you to me in marriage. Now agriculture is losing its importance and money power. The textile mills of the yesteryears had a strong earnings base and the wages were attractive. The small investors came out of the mill and they are now the textile mill owners in Sholapur and Bhivandi. Now that opportunity has also been lost. The electronic and computer fields hold the sway now. The early employees of these fields have become millionaires.”

“Whatever you say, baawa! Our grandparents, father and others of our village have lived with faith in agriculture but they have not prospered. If we believe in agriculture and depend on it, of course, there is no problem for food. But animals also eat something and live. You people are enjoying luxuries on the taxes the government lays on us indiscriminately, whereas we are leading mediocre lives. It looks as though the government is there to provide you a happy life; the government which exists to help us, poor agriculturists. That’s the reason why you look so chubby, good looking and handsome. Your children are studying higher classes and forging ahead.”

Though these words were directed towards me by Saraswathi, my wife frowned as though she was referred to.

“If every citizen speaks out like you frankly, the government cannot remain idle as now. The government employees also do not behave as they behave now. They will think about the people in all earnestness”, I replied.

As we were called to be present at the ritual of handing the bride over to the groom’s party, we all left after freshening ourselves. I was moved to tears when my brother’s daughter fell at our feet asking us to bless her though we had not taken up any responsibility in the celebration of the marriage. The relationships between and among people remind us of the responsibilities one has to bear for others along with the rights one demands from the others. My conscience questioned me what I did towards the growth and improvement of these old relatives bound by the bonds of relationships.

We were requested to eat our meal in the night but my wife was keen on leaving immediately. I guessed that my wife was jealous of Saraswathi leading a life of dignity and enjoyed a fully developed personality even in her poverty. ‘One should possess the quality of giving encouragement and offering a helping hand to those who have fallen behind in their growth and prosperity compared to our development but why exhibit jealousy?’ I thought. Later I put it to her in words.

“Did you have an affair with Saraswathi before your marriage with me?” asked my wife in reply.

I felt like laughing at her question. I also felt bad when she asked me that question specially when we were married happily for so many years. “Did you also have affairs with your uncles and other relatives? Why do you suspect me in that manner?” I asked. With that she changed her strategy. Next day she went away to her mother’s place.

Original Telugu published in Vipula Monthly Magazine, August 1999
 

Critical Review of the above story by Dr. Kolahalam Ram Kishore

In his short story “Relations”, B. S. Ramulu narrates incidents from his own life. It is not merely storytelling. Through this story, he presents his childhood, family relationships, and the social, economic, and cultural life of his people. He speaks about beliefs, migration in search of livelihood, how marriage alliances are arranged, how elders think differently from the younger generation, often ignoring individual tastes and preferences—especially how parents of girls think. He also brings out how important education, employment, social identity, and status are in life.

No, not just that. Holding his grandmother’s little finger, the way he walks swiftly along the narrow village paths of those days...he takes the readers along with him into that “story,” which is nothing but real life itself.

Childhood relationships, friendships, kinship ties, everyday quarrels between husband and wife in every household, taunts between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, a wife distancing her husband’s relatives while glorifying her own parental family, the belief that a mother-in-law’s house prospers merely because of the daughter-in-law’s presence, a wife suspecting her husband over his childhood friendships with women, jealousy over his conversations ... especially when a woman addresses him as “Bava” (brother-in-law)...the unspoken emotions in a wife’s mind revealed through her irritation, facial expressions, sarcastic remarks, and gestures, and the husband sensing her mental state and her suspicions about him... all these aspects of relationships, love, and rural life are presented so naturally that it feels like watching a film unfold before our eyes, with real-life characters and dialogues, in the story “Relations.”

There is no artificiality anywhere...no unnecessary descriptions, no grand director-style setups like those of " Bahu Bali " Rajamouli, no gimmicks, no glitter or glamour.

Whatever B. S. Ramulu writes about comes from his own life, experiences, and emotions. No, rather, it feels as if he has secretly entered our everyday lives—our homes, our villages...and recorded our lives and family histories with a hidden video camera. Truly, within such a short story, he distills the essence of an entire lifetime of human experience and presents life itself before our eyes.

Though this is Ramulu’s story, it becomes your story, my story, and the story of all of us. Broadly speaking, the lives of men and women are the same. Husband-wife relationships are the same. Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships are the same. Family relationships and everyday conversations between spouses in every household are the same. Ramulu’s “Relations” proves this truth.

Through this story, he realistically portrays family relationships in an Indian rural life...village atmosphere, marriages, occupations, beliefs, food habits, meat consumption, fondness for toddy...and the entire social, economic, and cultural life in its true form.