by Adithi Rao
Once the shopping was over, the two women would walk home together in silence. They were not friends. Tayavva was not forthcoming. Maithili had asked her many times about Shankarnarayana’s parents, now dead; about Sushila, his younger sister, who was older than Maithili by a good fourteen years, and lived in Chithalli with her husband and children, working as a teacher in a school there. To all her queries, Tayavva had responded curtly and to the point, discouraging further curiosity.
Sushila had only visited them once since the wedding, and had seemed, to Maithili’s awe-struck mind, stern and forbidding. She hadn’t had much to say to her brother or her new sister-in-law and, after an hour of polite, meaningless conversation, had taken her leave. Shankarnarayana hadn’t appeared particularly sorry to see her go. If anything, he had looked relieved. Maithili, whose married elder sister visited her parents’ home four times a year, stayed a week each time, and was always sent off with gifts and tears and loving embraces, was shocked by the unemotional parting between her husband and his sister.
‘Barla hagendre, Anna?’ Shall I take your leave, Brother?
‘Aythu.’ Okay.
And that was all.
The only person Sushila seemed attached to in that house was Tayavva. That was understandable, of course. Tayavva had come to work for this household when Sushila was only eight years old, and she had practically raised her. Tayavva’s eyes had filled with tears when she heard that Sushila had arrived. She had hurried out of the kitchen and into the hall, and laid a hand against Sushila’s cheek. Sushila, still seated, had looked up into Tayavva’s face and smiled. Later, when Sushila had come into the kitchen to take leave of the servant, Maithili saw her quietly press some money into the older woman’s hand over her protests.
To Maithili, Sushila had been civil and nothing more.
A few days after the visit, Maithili went to the market as usual. She was picking out vegetables when she looked up and saw a woman buying some potatoes from the next vendor. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties and had a serene face that was appealing without actually being pretty. This caught Maithili’s attention. This, and the fact that the woman was watching her steadily.
Their eyes met and the woman smiled, and Maithili wondered how she had thought her to be plain. In fact, she was beautiful. Maithili felt Tayavva stiffen beside her and turned to see the servant drop her eyes uncomfortably. But the other woman’s smile was unwavering, it had gone all the way to her eyes and settled there as she looked at Tayavva with frank affection. Suddenly it dawned upon Maithili who this person was.
She could sense that Tayavva, squirming with discomfort beside her, wanted to leave immediately. But Maithili, usually so docile, had no intention of obliging. She walked across to join the other woman. Tayavva remained standing where she was.
‘How old are you?’ asked Lakshmi.
‘Twenty-one.’
‘Yaava uuru?’
‘Channapatna.’
‘The land of toys! Is it very beautiful?’ cried Lakshmi enthusiastically.
Maithili shook her head, crinkling her nose. ‘Very dusty. All cars travelling between Bangalore and Mysore kick dust onto my town as they pass.’
Lakshmi laughed at this unusual description. ‘Are the toys also dusty?’
Maithili grinned. ‘They are beautiful,’ she said softly, and a wave of homesickness washed over her as she remembered the rows of shops that lined the streets of Channapatna selling brightly coloured toys, and the numerous hands that sawed and hammered and painted them into existence. Whole families worked on them, the women hurrying through their household chores to join their menfolk in the woodsheds.
Here, in the marketplace in Rudrapura, far away from Channapatna, the two women looked into each other’s eyes and their smiles faded.
‘I’m …’ said Lakshmi, and broke off hesitantly.
‘Lakshmi Akka. I know,’ said Maithili.
They spoke nothing more for a few moments, then Lakshmi asked with concern, ‘Is … he good to you? You’re happy here?’
Maithili’s face fell. Tayavva, forgotten in the background, now stepped forward to assert herself before things went out of hand. ‘Come,’ she said firmly to Maithili, putting a hand on her arm. ‘It is getting late. Hogona.’
Maithili turned in confusion, having forgotten about the maid’s presence altogether. She heard what Tayavva was trying to convey to her beyond those words. But she decided that it was time for other words to be spoken now. Words between herself and Lakshmi, to be shared in private, without the disapproving (if well-meaning) presence of the family servant and her compelling loyalty to her master.
‘Neevu hogi, Tayavva. I will follow in a while.’
Tayavva glanced uncomfortably at Lakshmi. ‘You come too,’ she urged Maithili. ‘Banni.’
Maithili glanced at Lakshmi, who looked back at her in silence. Suddenly, taking a deep breath, the young girl turned to Tayavva and said with polite finality, ‘As soon as you get home, please start with the cooking or his lunch will not be ready on time.’
Caught on the back foot, Tayavva picked up the bag of vegetables and left. Once she was out of earshot, Maithili turned to Lakshmi and said with an edge of desperation in her voice, ‘Everything is so new, and the house is so big, Lakshmi Akka! He doesn’t speak much, and I never know what he’s thinking most of the time…’
‘I know. He’s like that,’ said Lakshmi, adding quickly, ‘but he’s a good person. You’ll get used to his ways soon.’
From the sheer relief of having someone to talk to, and a person who could instinctively understand what she was trying to say, Maithili’s composure cracked, and tears sprung to her eyes. ‘The house is lonely. There’s no one there. Didn’t you ever find it lonely when you … I mean…’ She broke off abruptly, embarrassed at her slip. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled looking down to press her sari pallu to her eyes and stem the flow of tears.
‘At first it was okay,’ said Lakshmi. ‘My in-la— I mean our in-l— that is his parents were there, and so was Sushila. It was never lonely. Sushi and I used to do all the housework together and then we’d go out shopping. Sometimes we’d even go to the cinema. She loves watching films.’ Lakshmi smiled at the memory and went on, ‘We used to go to Vishnu Talkies sometimes to watch the English films that were showing there.’
‘English?’ exclaimed Maithili, wide-eyed. ‘You watched English films? You can understand?’
‘Yes, of course,’ laughed Lakshmi. ‘I’m tenth class pass. I studied in Sacred Heart Girls’ Convent. English medium.’
‘Oh.’
‘Sushila got married three years after I did and went away to Chithalli,’ continued Lakshmi. ‘Atte – that is his mother – died two years later, and soon after that, his father also died. But by then, I was used to running the household by myself. I had Tayavva to help me, of course, and in those days, a woman called Chella used to come and clean the house. She was a good person, just like Tayavva. She’s with Sushi in Chithalli now. She moved there when Sushila had her children and needed help.’
‘Sushila Akka makes me nervous. She is so strict!’ said Maithili.
Lakshmi laughed. ‘Oh no, she isn’t at all! She’s a softy inside. She just pretends to be stern. It’s just her school teacher appearance; she does it to keep her students in order and I think she forgets to switch back to her normal self when she’s with other people now. I tease her about it often!’
‘You speak to her? Even now?’
‘She’s my friend,’ said Lakshmi simply. ‘We grew up together. The friendship remained even after the family fell apart.’
‘Then why didn’t she stop him from throwing you out of …’ burst out Maithili indignantly, then realized that she was overstepping her boundaries with this woman whom she barely knew. Once again embarrassed, she mumbled, ‘Sorry, I keep saying the wrong things…’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Lakshmi gently. ‘Sushila tried, Maithili. But her parents were both dead by then, an
d there was no one to back her. Besides, once he decides to do something, there is no stopping him. You know how short-tempered he is.’
Suddenly it made sense why neither Sushila nor any of Shankarnarayana’s relatives had attended the wedding. It was the only way they could show their disapproval. Maithili said, ‘I’m afraid of him when he shouts. And I never know what he’s thinking of or when he is going to get angry. Were you afraid of him too?’
Lakshmi suddenly smiled, as if at some memory.
‘What?’ asked Maithili quickly, ‘why are you smiling, Lakshmi Akka?’
Lakshmi shook her head, looking down.
‘Tell me why, no?’ the younger girl urged.
‘I …’ and Lakshmi laughed a little before going on, ‘I had a little trick to make him forget that anger.’
Maithili listened eagerly. The expression in her innocent eyes made Lakshmi feel like taking her hand. She resisted the urge, saying instead, ‘At first I was afraid of him too. Then I realized that his anger came in short bursts and went away very quickly if he was pacified. If he sees you are afraid of him, he will shout even louder. So I used to be very calm and listen to him quietly, then I would put my hand on his lips and smile at him, and the anger would leave him immediately and he would…’ She broke off abruptly with a faint blush.
‘What?’ asked Maithili curiously. ‘He would what?’
Lakshmi pulled herself together and said calmly, ‘He would become normal again.’
Maithili looked at her in confusion, sure that Lakshmi had been about to say something else. But the moment had passed, and Lakshmi was already talking about something different.
‘He loves reading. Do you read?’
Maithili shook her head. The thought of picking up a book had never occurred to her. She had been to school, of course – Kannada medium – and had read what was required by the curriculum. But she had never ventured beyond that. Nobody in her home read anything except for the newspaper, which her father and uncles took turns at every morning. But that had been the extent of it.
‘His favourite writers are Kuvempu and Putina. They write beautifully. Would you like to try reading one of their books?’ asked Lakshmi. Maithili looked doubtful.
‘That way, you will have something to do in your spare time, and it will give you something to talk about with him,’ urged Lakshmi gently. There was something about her affectionate manner that made Maithili say with sudden, almost heroic resolve, ‘Okay, I’ll try. You like to read?’
‘Very much!’ exclaimed Lakshmi warmly. ‘He introduced me to many books and we would always talk about it later, after we had both read it. I’ll bring you one. His favourite.’
‘Yes, please!’ said Maithili enthusiastically. ‘Will you bring it for me on Monday? I’ll come shopping at the same time as today. Can you meet me here, Lakshmi Akka?’
Lakshmi smiled and nodded. Touching Maithili’s arm in parting, she picked up her vegetable bag and went away. Maithili stood watching her, feeling happier than she had felt since her arrival in Rudrapura.
Meanwhile, Shankarnarayana was sitting in Vishwamohan Pandit’s office, listening to the lawyer’s account of what had taken place the previous day at the Sheshadri household.
‘Sheshadri Saab tried to stop her,’ the lawyer was saying, ‘but she signed the divorce papers without a word, without even reading them.’
There was a stunned silence. Then Shankara asked dazedly, ‘And alimony?’
‘She asked for nothing.’
When Shankara returned home that afternoon for lunch having signed the divorce petition, he found his book missing from where he had left it that morning. Without warning, his temper flared. Had he been even slightly in command of himself at that time, the intensity of his own outburst might have surprised him. As it was, he called for Maithili, and from the tone of his voice she knew there was trouble. She exchanged one terrified glance with Tayavva, who moved towards her in a protective if futile gesture. She patted Maithili’s arm reassuringly as the girl put down the ladle and hurried out of the kitchen. Her husband was standing in the bedroom, his legs slightly apart, arms folded across his chest. At the expression on his face, she quaked inside.
‘Where’s my book? I had left it on the dresser this morning and now it is not here.’ His voice was dangerously quiet, in the way that voices sometimes become just prior to an explosion.
Maithili’s eyes darted around the room quickly, hoping to spot it and produce it before matters became worse. She vaguely remembered seeing it when she had dusted the place two hours ago, but her mind had been preoccupied with the meeting at the marketplace and she could not recall where she had put it.
Nervously, she ventured, ‘I was dusting the room and…’
‘I don’t care what you were doing!’ erupted Shankarnarayana. ‘Everybody in this house knows that my things are never to be moved!’
‘It … I … it was looking messy so I arranged it…’
This was an unfortunate thing to say. The implication was more than Shankarnarayana’s present mood could bear. He took a step towards her and she involuntarily leaned away as he snarled, ‘Messy? Do you think I’m a messy man? When I keep something somewhere, it is for a purpose! Ask Tayav—’ Glaring at his wife, he raised his voice and shouted, ‘Tayavva! Ay Tayavva, ba illi!’
Maithili was now so agitated that she was almost crying. This was such a little issue and he was getting so unreasonably angry. Her wide, frightened eyes looked up into the lowering ones of her husband, and unbidden, Lakshmi’s advice given just that morning leapt to her mind. The fear receded and what followed in a flash was the lucid memory of putting the book on his bedside table. She took a deep breath and her whole body relaxed and straightened up. She reached out and placed a gentle hand across his lips. Surprise flared in his eyes. ‘It is there on your bedside table,’ she said softly.
Beneath her palm, she felt him relax. The anger left him and desire flared suddenly in his eyes. He turned his head and saw that his book was, indeed, right where she said it was, lying just a few feet away.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, unexpectedly. His arms came around her and he lowered his head to hers. Maithili gasped, stiffening for a moment at this unexpected shift in mood. Then her body went limp and she leaned into her husband as he kissed her slowly, thoroughly, in a way he had never done before.
The master and mistress of the house appeared at the lunch table a full hour-and-a-half later than usual. Tayavva had laid out the food and gone into the backyard to wash clothes.
As Maithili, a little overwhelmed by this unusual husband of hers, served food in his plate, she smiled a secret smile to herself. ‘So this is what Lakshmi Akka did not say this morning…’
When Maithili arrived at the market on Monday, Lakshmi had already made her purchases and was paying the vendor. Maithili had arranged to come alone, telling Tayavva that she wanted to try doing the shopping by herself. Tayavva had given her a resigned look and gone back to washing the breakfast utensils. She had been expecting this.
Now Maithili’s heart lifted when she saw the older woman. She went up from behind her and touched her shoulder. Lakshmi turned around and smiled.
‘Ondu nimisha, Maithili, I’ll just finish paying him.’ Then turning back to the vendor, she said, ‘Krishnappa, I owed you fifty paise from the last time, when I didn’t have change. Please add that to the total.’
‘Oonamma, maduttene,’ replied the vendor. He was an ageing man who treated Lakshmi with affectionate respect. Maithili stood watching while they completed the transaction. Krishnappa saw her and said, ‘She seems to be new here.’ Then a thought struck him and he said, ‘Is she …’ breaking off delicately. His eyes darted to Lakshmi and then came back to rest on Maithili, a slight frown creasing his brow. Maithili became awkward, sensing the subtle hostility emanating from the man. Well, she thought, what had she expected?
Lakshmi’s smile remained warm. ‘Yes, Krishnappa,’ she said, ‘she’s only just
arrived from Channapatna a few weeks ago. You know Channapatna, the place where they make those beautiful toys?’
‘Er, Channapatna, yes,’ said Krishnappa weakly, eyeing Lakshmi in mild disbelief. Then another customer came along and diverted his attention, and Lakshmi took Maithili’s arm and led her away.
‘Channagiddiya?’ Lakshmi asked.
Maithili nodded and smiled. ‘I’m very well.’ There was a new glow about her.
‘You are looking happy, touch wood! Not that pale-pale girl I saw the other day.’
‘Thanks to you!’ grinned Maithili.
‘Me? What did I do?’
‘That only. That little trick you shared with me …’ said Maithili softly, ducking her head and smiling in a mixture of merriment and shyness.
‘What trick?’ asked Lakshmi curiously.
Maithili kept her eyes down as she replied, ‘You told me, remember, that when he got angry you used to …’ She glanced up at the older woman and mimed putting out her hand, then turned very red.
‘You tried that?’ exclaimed Lakshmi. Maithili nodded.
‘And?’
Maithili started giggling and Lakshmi burst out laughing. They laughed together for a long time, like old friends do, like comrades.
Finally, Lakshmi asked softly, ‘He’s … good, no?’
Now Maithili pressed her pallu to her mouth as she giggled and nodded, her bright, kohl-lined eyes dancing from behind the silk. The two women looked at each other shyly, conspiratorially, the custodians of a shared knowledge.
Then Lakshmi remembered and fished into her shopping bag. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I have something for you.’ She handed Maithili a much-handled cloth-bound book, old, with dull gold lettering on the front cover. ‘It is his favourite. So I thought you could begin with it.’
Maithili examined the title. Then she flipped open the front cover and saw the name ‘Shankarnarayana’ inscribed there in her husband’s neat, orderly handwriting. The ink was faded, as if written a long time ago, and the image of him sitting at his desk, his customary fountain pen hovering over the page, leapt to her mind.
