Gowda’s Malli

BY MASTI VENKATESA IYENGAR

(Rendered from his verse tale in KANNADA)

I

The Great Ninth Day was gone and the festival of lights had passed, and the clouds had done pouring and begun to desist. Cold was creeping up and, in the temple, under moonlight, worship was being offered of the hundred thousand lamps.

Watching the full grown Ragi crop in the field was Malli, the Beda girl of eighteen summers. To see if the harvest was ready came there the Gowda, his eyes delighting in the plenty of the yield.

It had indeed grown abundance and the ears were bursting with grain. Sesame and cowpea shone in flower and looked like the coloured sari of the goddess of Earth, the berm with its full grown grass making the border.

The Gowda felt uplifted by the plenitude of the harvest but depressed the next moment to think of the wife he had lost. Why had death taken away from days of such plenty a woman who had wearied through three ears of bad harvest?

At the thought of that life which had been happy with his own and had now ceased to be, the Gowda’s eyes became moist and he turned to look at the distant horizon. But who was this young woman standing in front of him, so handsome, so full of grace?

It was young Malli watching the field. Daughter was she?–no,–sister to Venkata, the left-handed watchman of his village. Goodness! What a beauty the young creature was, and where ever did she learn this manner of standing?

The Gowda’s wife had not been dead for fifteen days when the elders and the juniors and the whole household had together said: “Why should the Gowda be mateless in youth? We shall bring another to be wife to him.”

“No”, the Gowda had said. The wife he had lost touched his hand when both were young. She had been the companion of all his days and lighted his life with her own. Was it being decent to the memory of such a wife to think of her as dead so soon as she had passed out of view?

“Son”, said the mother, “you need a woman to offer you water for hand and feet.” Possibly: but may a man for the sake of water for hand and feet bring, even when old and bent double, woman after woman to play wife to him?

And, besides, the house was full of older women; a new arrival would be amidst a crowd of them: mother-in-law, sisters-in law, elder and younger, and other relations. Would it be sensible to bring to a home of snakes, purely to satisfy one’s personal need, a helpless mouse of an innocent young woman?

Our mind is like a pot and desire as a hole in it. Self-control stopping indulgence is like to a little wet clay. The look of a young woman standing gracefully in front of one pierces through the clay to see how well it has stopped the leak.

The Gowda was in the middle years of life; he had talked of himself as old merely to object to a second marriage; besides, in the days immediately succeeding the death of a wife he has loved, any one feels this distaste to talk of a second woman.

Not that when the few days are over, he will feel low desire coming up in his mind. But, if a desirable object come before the eye, he feels attracted: for that is the manner to which our Maker has fashioned us.

Malli, that same moment, was conscious that the Gowda was resting his eyes upon her, and it seemed to her that she ought to say something. So she made a little movement and spoke to him.

“Brother Venkatanna, Sir, was saying that you were not well. Are you now better, that you have come to the field, or are you still indisposed?”

It was true that the Gowda had been ill for some days. The women of the village had gossiped and decided that his disease was want of a woman. Pilii communicating the diagnosis to Madi and Madi to Lakkam Gowditi.

Malli by birth was a ‘Beda’ which in the people’s tongue means also ‘not wanted’. Of her, however, it could have no such meaning. All that was true of her was that she was woman and, in the excellence of her womanliness, her caste slunk out of sight.

If you will not let in desire, shut the door of your mind with a bang and keep it bolted. If you look behind and before, or leave a chink and ask what and how, the thin lure of a woman’s smile passes through the chink and enters your heart.

The grace of Malli’s stance and the winsome smile she smiled made entry into our Gowda’s heart; they scattered from within it the gloom that had gathered there, and aroused a desire for playful talk.

“A man of character who had refused to take a second wife”, you say “did the Gowda come to this ignominious end? How clever is fate!” We who can tell what will stop the horned stag in its flight, whether a tiger a tangle of prickly bush?

To the innocent young beauty standing in his presence and starting a conversation like a sapient grown-up, the Gowda replied smiling, the talk of the women of the village coming to his mind:

“Not much is wrong with me today. Yet to be quite well, they say, I need a strange medicinal plant. Who is to bring it and where should he bring it from?”

“What plant do they suggest, asked the simple Malli. “Oh”, said the Gowda, “they speak of a cluster of dark lightning: its crown like a serpent’s hood and a half-moon just beneath; and then there are stars and champak and a ripe red fruit.

“A man should hold the cluster to his breast and press the crown to his nose, touch the moon and stars with his cheek and lip, and taste of the ripe red fruit, three times a day. Without this, it seems, he cannot get well.”

“What great matter is this?” said Malli. “What should a Gowda lack? Why not get the medicine? I wonder what rare plant it is and where it is to be found. Shall I ask my brother, Sir, to look for it for you?”

“The medicine, without doubt, is wonderful, but it can be found everywhere. Yet for the most part it is like a serpent or a moon or a star, and is not to be touched; and if one is rash and touches it, he runs great risk.”

“Is the plant to be found everywhere?” asked Malli, “Do you find it here?” “Yes”, said the Gowda. “Oh”, said Malli, “will you not show it to me? I would not mind the risk and would touch it and put it to your lips.” She was very anxious, you see, to save the Gowda.

The Gowda’s heart was touched by Malli’s eager anxiety to save his life. Having started from mere playfulness, his mind had now travelled to the point of wondering whether indeed she could be his companion.

Two birds of the woods had come flying from somewhere and settled on a tree on the margin of the field. Seated together on one branch of the, tree, they were delighting each the other by presence and company.

Earth was smiling to look at Sky and, looking on earth, Sky’s face was brightening; and in spite of the growing chill, the light that filled the empyrean clothed the world with a glamour that was strange and new.

The gloom which had filled the heart of the Gowda when he left home had some how disappeared now and a deep content had taken its place. What is there to equal the smile of a young woman you can love in the power to brighten life?

As Malli’s manner of standing and the suggestion of a smile on her handsome young face impressed themselves more and more on his mind, the Gowda knew not what further he should say to the maiden, entangled in the sense of debt which the male feels in the presence of the female.

The Gowda had seen the world and become knowing; Malli was the very self of innocence. The Gowda’s knowingness enabled him to look after himself; Malli, on her side, was defenceless. How should a girl who was that moment stepping on the threshold of life understand the second meanings that this man and elder concealed with his words? Malli noticed that the headman of her village was silent, and feared that perhaps she had given him offence. Like a child which has lost its way in the twilight, she said in obvious fear: “Sir, have I offended you?”

Having said to the simple girl things which, quite clearly, were not too proper and not knowing how he should slide out of the talk, the Gowda was vexed with himself. Yet with the vexation there was, deeper down in his being, joy in the beauty of the figure that was posed before him.

About then there came near the field, in her search for a place from which she might steal some tender cowpea, the woman Pilli. Even from the distance her comprehending eye took in this group of two, Gowda and Malli, talking.

Pilli knew the exquisite taste of soup made of tender cowpea. Yet seeing the manner of these two, her woman’s heart desired the still more exquisite pleasure of understanding what it meant. She, therefore, slipped behind a tree to watch what they would do.

How is this taste more exquisite? you ask. Aging womanhood to which man’s company has become mere memory blossoms again in the heart to see youth and mate in play: like the eye of a fox when it sees fowl.

The Gowda saw this woman concealing herself behind a tree and feared lest she spread a story that the head of the village had ruined the sister of the watchman. This, he thought to himself, is a mischievous woman from whom no one is safe.

Pilli was not a bad woman; yet no one in the village risked becoming the subject of her wagging tongue. They said that she mixed with a ten that she saw a hundred that she did not see, and measured it out in gossip which made it worse in the telling.

“Ask your brother, young sister, to arrange reaping tomorrow or the day after”, the Gowda said to Malli, pretending to conclude what he had been saying. Saving his face by this camouflage, he turned to go home.

That the Gowda left suddenly because he had seen Pilli, young Malli did not know. She thought that there was something wrong in what she had said and that she had displeased him. This fear grew apace in her innocent heart.

“What shall I do to make amends to the Headman? Shall I tell my brother?” she asked herself and thought. As she stood there in this anxiety, Pilli walked up to her, the goddess who was to bring to fruition the interest that these two felt in each other.

“What, oh Malli”, said the elder woman, “you are a clever one to have caught the Gowda. Six months ago my poor boy asked you and you refused. The unfortunate fellow, strong in youth, swallowed his spit and submitted to disappointment.

“How does it matter if you are meant to be a Basavi? * You are handsome and you are clever. What would you get of clothing or ornament if you covered with your skirt a young fellow who makes his living by alms? If you offer yourself to a rich man he will adorn your empty wrist with bangles made of gold.

“However much he gave, what could the poor youth give except stale food and rags and a body half nude? If you smile at the Gowda, you have the guarantee of meals of rice and ghee and saries with borders in silk.

“The sport of an elderly man is healthy like twice-boiled rice, or pancake made of flour that has stayed for some time. An old cloth is pleasanter to use than a new one: it is worn and is soft to the feel.”

Into the young ears of Malli which deserved to hear something better, Pilli poured these words, chill and bitter with the wisdom of her world: like the rain of Jyeshtha putting its drops into an oyster open for the rain of Swathi. Malli half understood and half failed to understand.

How should a young and innocent mind follow the double meanings of practised age? Malli was a Basavi true enough. Narasa had previously invited her to belong to him. She had not felt inclined and had therefore refused, and the young man had given up thinking of her.

But what was this that Pilli was telling her now? Could the Gowda wish to have her? What a thing to dream! So she thought and yet the very moment her mind broke into sprouts, asking half a dozen questions: “Can he want me? Shall I make him? Would he take me?” and the rest.

As hope and wish thus chased each other in a circle in her heart, the crooked wisdom of Pilli’s words found no lodgment in the mind of the young woman. Can oblique words of sophistication touch the pure heart of innocent youth?

“Sister,” said Malli, concealing the questions that ran in her mind, “did my refusal of brother Narasa cause you pain?” Thus do people act when they are walking in a lane and find a serpent crawling in from the other side.

“Sister” and “brother” acted like spell and charm, and Pilli became mollified and even benignant. The thought arose in her mind and took clear shape that moment, that she should bring together in love the Gowda and this young woman.

For, surely, there is wisdom in helping to bring about a thing that in any case is going to happen and thus winning a name as friend. There is not merely cleverness but even goodness in it, Make the oblation of water at sunrise and see how the Sun comes over the horizon and climbs!

“If you did not want Narasa”, said Pilli, “it was no matter, Win the Gowda’s heart now and earn comfort for yourself and for all who belong to you. What did the Gowda say? I know: he has fallen for you. The deer’s hoof is caught in the crevice in the rock.”

The elder woman was merely surmising something. Surmising nothing, the younger woman said: “Sister, the Gowda was talking of a remedy for his fever.” “Oh”, said Pilii, laughing aloud; “I knew he was,”

“And it is of that remedy that I was speaking too.” With this she made the younger woman repeat what the Headman had said and, having heard, told her: “Go in the middle of the night to the Gowda and take hold of his feet but once, and he is your devoted servant from that moment.”

Pilli enforced her advice with many a detail. Talk of moon and star and serpent’s hood and ripe red fruit was familiar to her. To those who have heard the folk story of the loves of Usha or Kalavati, of Brinda or Damayanti such simile and metaphor are as diaphanous veils.

Listening to what the elder woman was telling her, Malli wondered as comprehension grew. She realised that the Gowda had talked to her play fully, and experienced keen joy. That he should have played hide and seek with her in words was, she could see, no small matter.

Talking to Malli, the older woman gathered some tender cowpea from the plants round about her, and started homeward saying with a smile: “Do not forget me when you have become the heart’s beloved of the Head-man.”

Malli sat on and turned things over in her mind and decided that she would fill the want in the life of the Gowda. It did not occur to her that she would fill a want in her own life. This indeed is the odd manner in which a woman’s mind works.

Since the day that the fever had left him, the Gowda, as the season was growing cold, had been sleeping within a room. He went to bed as usual that night, but was unable to sleep. Why? He thought a little and understood that Malli’s smartness and beauty had disturbed his being.

Into the court-yard of the house the light of the moon poured bright and full. It made the room so bright that you saw without a light. The Gowda was deeply vexed: “What a worthless fellow am I to forget the dead wife and think of this young creature?”

The bright light of the moon disturbed a bird-couple asleep on a peepul tree outside and they raised a clamour, fancying it was day. Realising, however, that it was yet night they stopped calling and resumed their rest.

The Gowda turned on his side. Who was it standing before him? Did the thought in the heart take a form without? “Who is it?”, said the Gowda. “It’s I”, said Young Malli. It was the same figure, and in the same stance, and the voice was the same, sweet as honey.

“Why did you come here?”, asked the Gowda. “I am a Basavi”, said Malli in a low tone. It was not strictly answer to question. Yet the word Basavi delivered the Gowda from an awkward corner.

From his place on the bed he rested his eyes on Malli and surrendered his heart to the illusion roused by the full light of the moon. Presently he stretched his arms as if the woman before him was the wife he had lost, and, as Malli gave herself, accepted her and kissed her.

(To be concluded)

* A girl, not necessarily of the caste of dancing girls, dedicated to be a Devadasi.

Back