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| Ku. Pa. Rajagopalan |
This is an English Translation of "Atraamai", A short story written by Ku.Pa.Rajagopalan.
“Please sit down. You may leave after a while. Why are you in a hurry?” Savithri told as she rolled on her bed. “No...It’s time up for him to arrive in. If I start heating up the water now for making coffee, I can serve it right on his arrival” Kamala said, got up. “Isn’t it easy one? How much time would it take to prepare coffee? You can very well leave after his arrival. Sit down. I am unable to while away my time. You know!”
That time,
Raghavan reached there, called out to his wife “Kamala”. “I told you just a while ago. Didn't I ? See now he has come” Kamala told her, ran towards her room. Savithri lifted her
head, glanced at them , while still lying on the bed. Raghavan entered the house, smiled at
his wife. “The time has been up this shortly. Hasn’t it?” Kamala asked,
followed him. Even though their room was at a brief distance, it was not
located too far off a safe distance to receive the sound of an ordinary
conversation. The young couple, sometimes, do not realise the presence of
neighbourhood. Do they? “What is this! What a childish play it is. Leave me.
Someone might come”- words of Kamala's delight fell into Savithri's ears, half inaudibly though. When the air of pleasure that sprang up from their
room reached Savithri, it made her stifled.
As the pain of carnal craving engulfed, her mind and body
became restive and she laid on the bed on her stomach. Savithri’s husband was
working in the army somewhere in North India. Only due to the ritualistic
obligations, he stayed with her for three days after their marriage was
consummated and left on some emergency duty immediately. It had been two years
since he left. She received letters from him regularly. But he didn’t come. If
Shanti Muhoortham was not arranged for the couple, then it would
become the talk of the town. Just to keep their mouth shut, the parents of the
couples arranged a first night for them. After that, nothing would be
considered wrong, no matter how long the man was separated from his wife. And
no one would open their mouth to critique it. But, it was the very Shanti
Muhoortham that had been tormenting Savithri as the God of Death. She
was able to tame her mind like before. But her body refused to budge on its
demands. It instigated the tamed mind as well. It was unable to forget the
sexual pleasure it had got during those three days.
It bawled, fully exasperated. Savithri was a woman gifted
with fully endowed physique. Her body was effusively voluptuous with
youthfulness. She was unable to take on the incessant craving of her body.
‘Look at this Kamala! Does she have to jump like this if she has nice time with
her husband? What is the need of boasting about their intimacy to me? I am
staying here like a separated woman. What is the need of romping in front of
me? She is doing it deliberately. It appears that she is doing all these just
to make me feel the pain of seeing her happiness. All the time she is talking
what her husband had told her. Is it something marvellous or what? She seems to
be the one who gave birth to her husband. Doesn’t she? She does have all the
reasons to walk upside down. Doesn’t she? She is proud of her happy life with
her husband after seeing another women of her age dying in loneliness. Isn’t
she? If that occurs, even a bit, in her heart that I am living in such a
deplorable condition or I would feel pathetic about myself-will she feel like
this? If only personally affected, she could feel it. Couldn’t she? With her
heart full of grouches, Savithri was lying on the bed. “Eii….girl! Can’t you
bring water from the tap? Have coffee” her mother came to her.
“You get all done in such a manner. Don’t you? You gave
me birth only for that. I will do it. First, go away from here”. She told her
mother.
“Coffee is here. Let me go that street. I don’t know
whether I will be able to come tonight?”
“What are you going to do by coming here? Please stay only at
your brother’s home”
“Be safe with the door locked…”
“I know…I Know…you go.”
Her mother adjusted her linen saree, applied Viboothi on
forehead, left for that street. The coffee kept near Savithri became cold. The
heat in her heart didn’t get subsided. Once her husband left for office, Kamala
came to meet Savithri. “Ammami! Haven’t had your coffee?” Savithri looked at
her spitefully, told her. “It has become cold. That is why not drinking it”
“May I give it? I have kept in the flask for him as he
needs it in the evening. I will give it to you now. I will prepare it later”
“No…I don’t need it as I have chest burns”
“I asked him if we could go for a movie. He said
tomorrow. You can also accompany us Ammami”
“It won’t look good. Will it? When you guys go out
together for merry making, what is need of me in between…”
“You always tease me Ammami!” Kamala told her shyly.
Kamala’s delight seemed to be a poison for Savithri.
“What Ammami! You don’t look well. Are you alright?”
“Nothing happened to me. Didn’t it? Nothing. I am
alright.”
“He brought a novel ‘Karukiya Mottu’ (Burnt
buds). Can we read it together?” she went inside, came with a book and sat
beside her. The cover of the book carried a picture. Kamala showed that picture
to Savithri shyly with a grin on her face. A man is sitting on a chair, delved
into a deep thought. The book from his hand is found lying on the floor. His
wife is standing behind him with a smile without his knowledge. “What could be
its meaning, Ammami?” Kamala asked Savithri.
“The husband is thinking about something very seriously.
Without understanding that it is an inappropriate time, she comes to him,
smiling foolishly”
The gleeful grin, hither to, found in Kamala’s face
disappeared. “Is that so?” she asked her.
“What else then will it be?” Savithri told her with an
uncouth smile.
“I don’t think that way, Ammami!”
“Then, how will that be”
“It means….that is….the husband is reading the book
thinking about her. As he forgets himself, the book falls down from his hands.
She does not come for a long time. At last…..”
“I know what would be that thing ‘at last’. Don’t I?”
“Can I continue reading it?”
“You can. Can’t you?”
Kamala was reading that book for long time. How much of
it went inside Savithri’s ears, she only knew. Suddenly Kamala remembered, “O!
God! It is already late. Forgot the time as I kept reading. I need to go”,
Kamala left Savithri only at five in the evening.
Savithri didn’t get up. The house keeping maid came. “I
can clean the house myself. You may leave” she told her. Flower selling woman
came. “I don’t want flowers today” she told her too. It was getting dusk. It
had been so long since the darkness set in. She could not bear the night long
mirth Kamala and Raghavan were orchestrating in their room. They don’t even
think about their neighbours. Do they? She got up and switched on the electric
light irritably. Came again to the bed and lay down there.
“I have put the leaf. Please come soon” Kamala called
him.
“Why this early? After having food, then…..”
“I feel sleepy” Kamala told him.
“You feel sleepy. Don’t you?” Raghavan teased her.
Savithri heard all they were talking. Kamala came to the
entrance, threw the banana leaf out and locked the grill door and hall door. As
she happened to see the opposite hall while returning, she saw Savithri half
asleep as if she was semi-conscious in the inner hall. “Ammami! Is your dinner
over?”she asked Savithri.
“Yes. It’s over”
Kamala went inside and locked the door from inside. The
house was having roof like marriage hall. There were families on both sides.
There were doors for inner halls and outer halls of the houses. It was only
eight in the night. Even the bustling of the town had not yet subsided. But the
sound from kamala’s house had stopped. Only Savithri found herself immobile on
the bed.
“Raghavan”, a low voice was heard from the entrance. Savithri
kept quite first. Later she might have thought something, opened the outer hall
door slowly and went near to the Veranda. A young man of Raghavan’s age was
standing there. “Is Raghavan there? Is he there?”
“Yes…he is there” Savithri replied. She opened the grill
door and turned back. The young man came to the outer hall and stood
hesitatingly. Savithri told him in a lower voice, “Knock that outer hall door”,
she signalled him to do that.
The young man was standing, yet with hesitation.
“Just give a plain knock. He will open” She told him with
a sort of crooked happiness, went to her room and eagerly waited for the events
that were to follow.
The young man knocked the door again, slowly. “Raghavan”
A minute later, the door opened. “Who is that?”- a roaring
question came out.
“It’s me”
“What does it mean it’s me? Who is that?” Raghavan opened
the door furiously, looked up outside, sitting inside.
“It’s me…Seenu from Madurai.”
“O! Please come in…”seemingly irritated with confusions
thrown at his mind, Raghavan left the door opened, entered the outer hall and
took Seenu with him to the entrance. For a flash of a second, Seenu could see
something inside. The electric light was kept on. He saw Kamala lying on cot
just opposite to the entrance with her dress partly removed, jumping out and
running towards the wall, within a fraction of a second Raghavan opened the
door and left that place. Savithri could see her further clearly. A bunch of
flowers was hanging from Kamala’s head. A heavy fragrance of jasmine and
incense were coming out of their room. She could not continue looking at
that room which bore the semblance of an opened up privacy. The light which was
resembling solitude, standing striped off its cloths, dazzled her eyes. She
closed the door without making noise. Suddenly she was overwhelmed by a sorrow
and a deep self-pity. “What a sin I have committed! Don’t know the sin I have
committed nor the sin of separating anyone, I have been cursed to lead this
wretched life. Aiyo”
The two hearts which were grasping each other with an
irresistible passion had got now shattered and thrown at a distance as
fragments.
Controlling her swollen tears from falling down, Kamala
with massive anger, adjusted her dress, put off the light and lay on the bed.
Raghavan came inside after sending off Seenu. He climbed on to the cot and
tried touching Kamala slowly. She pushed his hands away violently. “It would
have been better, had you kept the other door also open. Wouldn’t it?”
“O! Sorry. I forgot to close it, Kamala”
“How will you remember that? Will you?”
“Why are you making unnecessary fuss out of nothing?”
“Nothing…is it nothing? All my dignity is gone at once.”
Raghavan got annoyed at the developments that had
happened. Irked, he asked her “How much is it gone?”
“Enough of it!. Will you please shut up? Don’t you
remember there are neighbours around us?” she also replied in the same tone.
This also fell into Savithri’s ears.
She lay on her stomach and started weeping with heavy
bouts of breaths. “This sinner deserves any damn punishment. Doesn’t she?’ she
was cursing herself.
She heard Kamala clearing her nose.
“You demon! You are satisfied now. Aren't you?” she asked herself
aloud.
***End***
Translated from Tamil” K Saravanan
Source: www.valaitamil.com
