THE WAY OF ALL LIFE

By POTHUKU CHI SAMBASIVA RAO

(Translated by G. Satyamoorty from the original story in Telugu

called Brathukula Pathanam)

The bus was moving on the pitted road, rattling and jolting. Rousing himself from the languor which had come over him after oppressive thoughts, Cheynulu looked out of the window of the bus. He was nearing the village. He was on the edge of it. In the landscape that kept slipping back, he saw trees that had grown tall, and thatched huts and storeyed buildings that had newly sprung up, to change the scene on the roadside in the old familiar village.

It was fifteen years since Cheynulu left the village. His education, his job, his marriage, his home life, the ups and downs of his career and of his personal life: all these had made an unrecognizable entity of him. He could not be traced back to what he was when he belonged to this village.

“As in my life, so in my village there have been so many unthought-of changes,” thought Cheynulu.

The bus stopped at the market-place. There was much difference between its present appearance and his recollection of it as he knew it in childhood. A touring picture-house, located in a tent, was an addition to the scene. Two hotels with bamboo walls, turned brown with the dust of the road, reminded him of Sattemma, the lone vendor of pesaratlu, pan-cakes made of green gram. In his childhood there were no places in the village, which tempted people to eat outside the home. When he visited the village during his summer vacations, as a high school student studying elsewhere, he used to buy these pan-cakes from Sattemma. “Where is she now?”–he wondered. He remembered, with this moment’s relish, the hot delicious ware which the old woman supplied and which were his delight as a child.

Pallamma, his grandmother, lived and died in this village. He was an orphan, the son of her deceased daughter. He bore great love for his grandmother. She inspired respect too. He lived with her in this village till he joined a high school in a distant place. And then he visited her every vacation, every summer. He had a clear poignant picture in his mind of the house she lived in: the tiled house with low eaves, the water-tap fixed in the back-yard two years after his birth, the plantain trees (near the tap) which bore many fruit, the large trees beyond them which harboured frolicking monkeys and chirping parrots. After his grandmother’s death, her house was sold. Nothing of hers remained in this village. But he was visiting the village, less often, even after her death. In this village he had known not only the love of his own grandmother, but also the love of his grandmother’s younger sister, Gavaramma. And of his younger sister’s son. And of this younger sister’s daughter. This younger sister of his grandmother must be living still in this village. He was staying with her so often, after he had lost his own grandmother. She and her two younger children played so large a role in his otherwise barren childhood. He was now going to meet her. He had lost touch with her: oh, for so many years now. He was so selfish, and immersed in his immediate family circle, his wife and children, and in his career. And he knew full well that what he came seeking now was not primarily this old lady who loved him. It was a different kind of attachment to life which drove him to the haunts of his childhood. He had an educated and sophisticated wife. She died suddenly. In an accident. He was anxious to marry again. This time it had to be a not-so-educated and not-so-sophisticated wife. His old cousin, Venkanna, living in another place, had promised to find the very bride for him. He was stopping in this village on his way to this old cousin of his...

Even when he was coming back to his own grandmother every vacation, it was at his grandmother’s younger sister’s house that he was spending most of his time, playing many games with his young cousins, Gowri and Krishna, daughter and son of his grandmother’s younger sister. He called Gowri ‘aunt’, and Krishna ‘uncle’. He loved them, and could not keep away from them from his youngest years. He remembered the pranks of childhood. He remembered how Krishna and he used to take a swim in the village tank. A shiver of joy courses through his veins, when he remembered the old times. The old lady, their mother, used to tell him stories at night. She would give him sugar-candy and cloves. Her sugar-candy always tasted different, tasted sweeter, he could not tell why. The palm-leaves that covered her roof rendered the place cool and pleasant in summer. Country oranges grew in plenty in the back-yard. The jasmine in the front yard and the fresh vegetables in the back-yard had an aroma which came to his nostrils now in the very recollection.

He could see clearly how different and superior in kind was this innocent happiness which he knew as a child in the village, compared to the stifling atmosphere of a busy city, its crowded rooms and its machine-worked citizens, even taking into account his job and his status which left him little time for anything else. It was good, after all these clumsy years in Bombay, to come back to spend a few days here in this village with people who really loved him.

When he finally left the village fifteen years ago, his aunt was about to get married, and his uncle was about to join college. Now all must be well with them. And his grandmother’s younger sister must be living peacefully, with a sense of satisfaction. Her son, Krishna, had gone abroad. Rumour said he married abroad, but it could not be true. He must be living somewhere, away from this village, with a decent job and income. He must have provided well for his mother. Perhaps the old lady is living in a new tiled house now.

He quickened his pace towards the old lady’s house.

On either side, the houses, which once looked tall and big to his young eyes, now appeared dreadfully low, with drooping eaves, like old uncouth ladies bent with age welcoming him. The villagers who walked past him looked disapprovingly at his pants and coat and suitcase. He could recognize a few of them: the son of Gavarayya and the daughter of Durgayya looked grown up, while the father of Nagesam and the mother of Pitchayya changed a lot with the coming of grey hairs and sunken cheeks.

Cheynulu stopped to see the place where once stood his grandmother’s house. Now there was a beautiful bungalow in the place of the small tiled house. There was not a trace of the old familiar trees in the back-yard. The spot which for generations belonged to his mother’s family stood changed utterly in ownership and in appearance, but his thoughts and feelings stood rooted there!

He turned at the corner to go to the house of his grandmother’s younger sister, Gavaramma. Her house was two furlongs away, just behind the high bank of the village tank. The breeze from the tank, wafted across the trees skirting it, came soothingly, after the dust and the heat of his day. Dry leaves lay in a thick cluster all over the tank bund. Yes, beyond the bund was the house he sought.

He turned round and saw the house. He was shocked at the sight of what he once knew as entirely different. A dilapidated house, in which there could be no human habitation, was completely fallen in some places and about to fall in the rest. The orange tree stood bare not only of fruit but of leaf, like stagnant wood planted in the earth.

Where was his grandmother’s sister now? What was her dreadful story in this scene of desolation, in this ravage of time?

He was watching the ghostly sight. Soon he found that he was being observed closely by an old man who was evidently attracted by his standing like a statue in the pathway.

“Who are you, young man?”

The words helped Cheynulu to regain his equilibrium. He saw an old man with grey eye-brows, thick beard, a tuft of hair at the back of his head, and a body bent with age.

“I come from Bombay, sir,” replied Cheynulu.

“To see whom, my son?”

“An old lady called Gavaramma…I am the grandson of one Pallamma who belonged to this village.”

“Oh, Pallamma!...Are you her daughter’s son or her son’s son?”

“The daughter’s son, sir. My name is Cheynulu.”

“Well, well! Why don’t you say so?…Where do you live now?...What are you doing now?”

The questions were rolled into one, while the old man was clearing from his nose and fingers the wasted traces of the snuff he took.

I live in Bombay. I am employed there. I came to see my relations. To see my grandmother’s younger sister.”

“Poor old lady!”

The old man’s tone revealed not only pity for the lady, but approbation of Cheynulu’s interest in her.

The tone also created the fear in Cheynulu’s mind that his grandmother’s sister might be dead. She was nearly fifty-five when he last saw her. That was fifteen years ago. Death comes without a warning.

But why conjecture? He could ask the old man. He could face the answer.

“But, sir, does she not live in this village any longer?”

“Oh, she does. The more the pity. But she does not live here.”

The answer brought Cheynulu some composure, some sense of security, against the present, in the past.

He wanted to know where to find her. But he was first curious to know who this old man was.

“You haven’t told me who you are, sir.”

“Good God! You mean to say you haven’t recognized me all this time!...Don’t you remember me?..I am Bhimanna...you knew me quite well when you were a child.”

“Of course, I know you.”

There passed through his mind a vivid recollection of a middle-aged neighour of the old lady who used always to recite the name of God, sitting in the foreyard of his house which was next to the old lady’s. His songs in praise of God used to ring clear in the dawn. Now and then, in the afternoon and the evening, he would give a pinch of snuff to any passing schoolboy who was mischievously minded and asked for it. Cheynulu himself took it sometimes, and, like the others, mischievously sneezed right in the face of the old man, with the prompt apology, “But, grandfather, it was too strong for me!” “You monkeys and imps! Come to me again for snuff, and this time I’ll box your ears!”–the old man would grunt. He always was a dear!

“I am so glad to meet you, sir. You are the first one I meet, and talk to...And now, why is my grandmother’s sister’s house in this state?–And where is she?”

“That is a long lament! Who can predict one’s future? The Will of Fate Prevails,” muttered Bhimanna. “It could never be thought that she, to whom hundreds came for food, would have to beg for her own food one day.”

Cheynulu felt very unhappy to hear this. His anger was roused that all her relatives should have been indifferent to the old lady when her circumstances changed...But, then, he himself had not paused to know what her plight was, all these years. He too was centred in himself, in his own immediate little family, and had no leisure in the city to think of others.

Bhimanna was still talking. He interspersed his remorseful survey of the past with slight information about the old lady.

“She lives in Temple Street. She lives with the family of the Peketis. In their thatched out-house.”

Cheynulu could no longer wait to talk to the old man. He must go at once to meet the old lady. Bidding the old ran good-bye and promising to meet him again, Cheynulu rushed in the direction of Temple Street.

When he thought it should be was the house of the Peketis. He enquired of a boy who stood near the gate as to where the old lady lived. The boy led him by the side of a large house into the back-yard and to the out-house. The boy called out to a lady of about thirty years, and said, “Auntie, here is some one to see your mother.” The lady stared at Cheynulu unable to make out who he was or what the object of his visit could be. But Cheynulu knew better. Beneath the changes wrought by time, he recognized his childhood companion, his aunt, Gowri.

“Auntie!’ he called, in sheer happiness.

She was his aunt, Gowri, She recognized him now.

“Is it really Cheynulu? Is it really you?”

In her voice there was all that old affection.

“Come in, Cheynulu... Here is water for you. Wash your feet...and come in. Do,” she said, exultantly happy at the thought of meeting him after all these years.

He took off his chappal washed his feet and walked in behind her with his suit-case which he placed by the wall. He took off his coat, and squatted on the palm-leaf mat. He needed rest and time to collect his thoughts before having to bathe and change his clothes.

He was thinking of the old lady. He was reluctant to ask about her himself.

The residential portion was only two rooms. The one in which he now was contained only the mat, a low stool and an old trunk. The palm leaves of the roof were being continually disarranged by a strong wind. The floor held spots of sunlight falling in through holes in the roof.

“Here is water to drink. Where are you coming from, Cheynulu?”

“From Bombay.”

“Yes, we heard that you were in Bombay in a big job. And that you were getting a big salary. It was very nice of you to have thought of seeing mother and me.”

She was thinking of the past. And her heart beat faster.

He could no longer wait to ask.

“Where is your mother, my grandmother’s sister?”

Gowri’s look changed. The colour and the gleam left her face. She began to cry.

“Please don’t cry, auntie...Auntie, please...What has happened already has. Sorrow won’t change it. Don’t weep, auntie.”

Gowri muttered between sobs: “Never imagined that our lives would reach this low depth. Never.”

Even now he could not made out what the matter was. Not exactly. The poverty, yes. But, what more?…Where was her husband? Where was her brother?...At the same time he did not like to ask her, or to wound her feelings more by asking. The words, “our lives,” uttered in so heart-broken a way, conveyed to him the outlines of the unspoken rivalry, hers and her mother’s, calling to mind, in contrast thereto, her happy childhood filled with fun and frolic in his company.

Then she started filling on a few details.

“Mother’s property got exhausted. The house and site were auctioned to clear the debts. We had only the clothes we wore when we left the house. The Peketi gentleman bought it. We are living on the mercy of these folk.”

He did not quite understand. There was a good deal more which should have been told. She told but the last bit of their story. She would tell no more then.

He tried to change the topic, to give her relief.

“Have a bath, Cheynulu...Troubles are always at our door. I should not trouble you with our whole story all at once...I’ll keep the water ready for you to bathe...”

He took out his towel and a change to wear from his suit-case and went to bathe, and came back fresh after a bath.

It was noon-time. The sun was pouring heat. Gowri went inside the home of the Peketi folk. He walked into the other room and found a few sticks of fuel and a few empty vessels. There was no trace of rice or provisions or vegetables. Even at this late hour there was no sign of cooking in the house.

Here then was the daily ordeal which his people were facing. It made him unhappy. His eyes grew moist...His aunt must have gone borrow provisions to cook a meal for the unexpected guest.

Kantamma, the mistress of the Peketi home, learnt from Gowri that the grandson of Pallamma has come. It was not Gowramma’s request or a pure sense of hospitality which impelled Kantamma to invite Cheynulu to have food in their house. She had heard that he was faring well in life. It would be nice to put him under an obligation–for a meal.

“When did you arrive, young man? I saw you last long ago, when you were a little child like my son, Nani. How changed you are! Come, have your food with us...Poor old lady! I never dreamt that such a life awaited her.”

She pretended to a grief she little felt.

He looked at Gowri who put her gaze down. He understood her. He accepted Kantamma’s invitation.

When he returned after the meal, Gowri gave him a pillow so that he could lie down on the mat and rest for a while. Settling down on the mat, he asked her, “Where is your mother? Has she gone out? And why isn’t she back yet?”

Just then he heard a voice–a familiar voice–at the door. He sat up, then got up, and walked towards the door.

“Gowri, Gowri, take these bags. And this pumpkin is so heavy.”

There in the doorway with skin wrinkled and lying in folds on her bare bony structure, with a red scotched face and a gaunt tired look, stood Gavaramma, his grandmothers sister, Gowri’s mother. Gowri took the bags, and he took the pumpkin, to place them inside.

“Who is this?” the old lady asked “Has your husband come back?”

“This is Cheynulu, mother. He has come to see us.”

The old lady was hard of hearing.

“Who?…..Seshu?…asked the old lady.

“No, mother. This is Cheynulu. Cheynulu, the grandson of your sister, Pallamma,” Gowri shouted into her ears, louder than before.

“Is it so? Has Cheynulu really come?...He lives in Bombay, doesn’t he?….Where is he?….Where?”

There was limitless joy in her face.

Returning after leaving the pumpkin in the other room, Cheynulu went to the old lady, and said, “Here I am, granny. And how are you?”

She took him in her arms. He made her sit on the mat, and sat beside her. She fondled him with her hands and fingers, felt him all over, as if he were a baby or a pet dog or a pet cat. He could not control his tears.

“How are all of you?….How are your wife and children?….How many children have you?...Are you all right?”

“I am all right, granny.”

“When did you arrive from Bombay?”

“Today, granny. I am on my way to meet cousin Venkanna. I thought I should see you first.”

“I had myself a great desire to see you, Cheynulu. For a long time, indeed. So many times I said so. But how could I?..I am seeing you now…I cannot see or hear properly...You are here, and I am so happy...I am not the same as before. I cannot give you any comfort. I am in a miserable state myself, as you see.”

She was weeping. He held her hand to comfort her. She went on speaking.

“My son forsook me. Your uncle Krishna. He does not even write to me. My son-in-law disappeared, leaving my daughter Gowri here with me. And, my elder daughter-in-law! Most of my property was lost to meet her claim for maintenance...Now I am thrown on the street. With my daughter and grandson….

“Whoever could cheated me. All they wanted was my money when I had it. This is everybody’s fate...Look, I am making you unhappy. See what a wicked woman I am.”

And then the habit of her prosperous days came back to her.

“I brought rice and vegetables. We’ll make you a good meal. In no time at all...Gowri...”

Gowri then told her mother that Cheynulu had finished his meal with the Peketi family. She was very upset that it should have happened so.

“I have fallen so low that I cannot feed my grand-child when he comes to me after so many years!”

She was inconsolable.

“I am not a stranger, granny, why be formal?…I ate so often in your house before. And from your hand...Wasn’t it?...And I am what I am, what little I am, believe me, because of what you and my own grandmother, your sister, did to me when I was young. Can I ever forget that?”

Left alone, he thought of her misery. He began to speculate on her son’s selfishness. He must have returned from abroad. Where was he? And why was he not looking after his mother and his sister? Why was he allowing them to beg?

He fell asleep. When he woke up he found his aunt and granny sitting idly in the house. He was eager to know more of the events that led to their present condition.

He asked, “Auntie, where does Krishna live now?”

She then told Cheynulu all that happened. Her brother, Krishna, was sent to Madras by her mother for higher technical education. That led in its turn to his going abroad to England for still higher education. Almost all their lands got sold for his education. His last letter, received several years ago, brought the news that he was about to marry in England, and that he intended to settle down in America, where he had found a job. They had written to him to England. The village school teacher helped them to write to him. Not once, but several times. There was no reply. They did not know where he was. Not even whether he was married, or whether he was alive. He must be knowing where they were, but he never cares to write to them. Her mother would often say, “I thought my son would come back and prosper. He didn’t come back. But he will come back some day. He will earn and be rich, and allow us to be with him even if he has an English wife. God is preserving me so that I may see him and be looked after by him. My boy does not know my plight. He must be ill. He will cover soon and come back to me.” This was the old lady’s saga of hope, when she was not weeping, saying that her son must be dead not to think at all of his mother and sister.

And then Gowri told him how she herself got married, how her husband was persuaded to stay with them because they were then rich, and needed a man to look after the property, and to take care of them, and how her husband turned out to be a spendthrift and one who runs after women. He made her life so miserable. One day her mother abused him for his conduct. She called him a scamp and a scoundrel. That was the end. He left the next day. He said he was going out for a while. He never returned. Several years had passed since then. When her husband left her, her son was only a few months old.

Gowri was weeping.

“Where is your son?”

“He has gone to school. It is time for his return.”

In a corner, the old lady was mumbling something. She was saying that her son and son-in-law would return. She was saying that her daughter required her to be alive till then, to guide her. It was her fault, wasn’t it, she was asking, to have driven her son-in-law away. She must, therefore, protect the daughter till the son-in-law came back.

And now Gowri recounted to Cheynulu how they were ruined by her sister-in-law, the widow of her elder brother.

“You know my elder brother died soon after his marriage. You were here too for his marriage. His widow waited for many years, and pounced on us when we were in trouble. She demanded a share in the property. My mother gave her no answer, worried as she was already about my brother and my husband. And then came the law courts. And heavy expenditure. My sister-in-law won the case. She had to be paid by the sale of the house. The court sold it. It was bought quite cheaply by the Peketi gentleman. He asked us not to go about the courts again, and offered this out-house to live in for the rest of our days. Some other villagers give us rice and vegetables. But only when mother goes, and only after the sun is up. They don’t care much or respond when I go. I have more to tell about myself. And Venu is too young. That is why mother goes out every day, whether it is sun or rain. Mother refuses to let me go out as a paid cook in some household or other. In the beginning I tried. Then there was wild talk. And I stopped.”

“What miserable people!” thought Cheynulu.

There was a voice at the door, a young voice this time, and a child jumped into the house faster than the words he spoke.

“Mother, mother, I got a prize today. I stood first in my class.”

The boy came in, carrying books in a bag and a tiffin box, which he left in a corner, and he went straight to his mother, Gowri, and she hugged him and kissed him on the forehead. The boy saw the stranger who was smiling to him, but whose smile he could not return in his embarrassment.

“Who is this, mother?”

“Venu, he is your cousin. His name is Cheynulu.”

“How is he a cousin, mother?”

“Your grandmother had an elder sister. That sister had a daughter. Cheynulu is that daughter’s son.”

“What is your son’s name, auntie?” asked Cheynulu.

“Venu,” replied Gowri.

Cheynulu beckoned to Venu. Venu moved closer, and sat by the side of the suit-case. The boy was lean, and looked underfed. But there was a spark in the boy’s eye, and an air of graceful self-confidence about him, which fascinated Cheynulu.

“I didn’t know of you, and didn’t bring you anything from Bombay, my little man. Is there anything you particularly want? Tell me. I’ll send you when I go back.”

“No, sir. I do not want anything.” There was no hesitation about the answer. The boy was slow to be coaxed into familiarity.

“Please don’t say that, Venu. I am not a stranger, you know...Will you come with me for a walk, after you wash and change, and show me all the nice places that you know?”

“In this small village?”

“But why not?”

“Certainly, if you like.”

Cheynulu wanted to go to the hotel for a little coffee, and then to go round and meet the friends of his boyhood, if he could. He also wanted to watch the sunset from the tank bund, and to enjoy the cool breeze in the star-lit darkness.

He walked with Venu to the hotel which he saw earlier as soon as he got down from the bus. The other hotel looked no more appetising: the same flies raiding the customers, the same soiled benches, the same dirty tables and the same black soil of the fields and the same brown dust of the road blending with the furniture and the wares. The proprietor was himself serving the tables.

“Do you like coffee, Venu?”

“I used to when I was a child. I don’t any longer.”

“Why?”

“We cannot afford it now.”

His tiny little life had marked changes.

Cheynulu ordered for coffee for both, and for some thing sweet and something hot to eat before taking coffee. The boy protested that he could not eat so much, but ate it with relish.

Cheynulu asked the proprietor what his name was.

“Venkata Rao,” the man replied.

“Jiddu Venkata Rao?”

“Yes, but how do you know?”

Cheynulu explained. Venkata Rao’s family was one of the richest in the village at one time. His mother, it was then rumoured, had seven different sets of golden jewels to wear on the seven days of the week. On several important family occasions, they were throwing out feasts to the entire community. Cheynulu had attended some of the feasts. Their prosperity fell, in later years, but Cheynulu never knew that the family had reached the stage of vending food for a Living.

Venkata Rao found Cheynulu’s eye taking in the details of this miserable place. “This is my fate,” he said, responding to Cheynulu’s thoughts. “My father and mother spent their all and more, in ceremonies and feasts, for the salvation of their souls. Their souls are possibly saved, but we have been left with the beggar’s bowl and staff.”

“Where is your elder brother?–Suryanarayana, wasn’t he?”

“Yes. He lives by carrying water to the houses that need it...We are the fallen ones today. A new aristocracy of farmers and merchants has risen in the village, with the agriculture and trade in tobacco.

Cheynulu and Venu wandered about, meeting and talking to Cheynulu’s lost acquaintances. They reached the tank bund at sunset. There Cheynulu met many who recognized him or whom he could recognize. His arrival in the village was by now known to many. Even the women, young and old, who came to the village tank to carry water, looked at him knowingly or inquisitively and muttered words about him to themselves. Some of the older women put their brass pots down and talked to him.

Cheynulu and venu returned after dark.

“You haven’t brought your wife for us to see,” said Gowri, serving food on the leaf. It was an elaborate meal for a poverty-stricken household.

Cheynulu was silent.

“You should have brought her with you now. And the children too….Why do you stare like that at me, without answering me?” She was persistent. She wanted him to tell her what his wife looked like, and how happy he was with his wife.

“My wife died recently, Gowri. I am here in search of a bride, to look after my children and me.”

“How unfortunate!” Gowri noticed that Cheynulu did not appear sorry that his wife died.

“I am on my way to my cousin, Venkanna. He promised to find a suitable bride for me.”

“And I here putting questions to you!...What was the cause of your wife’s death?”

Nothing about his wife’s death seemed to upset him emotionally. His answer was clear and immediate. It was almost as if he was reporting an incident on the road which he observed as an unconcerned bystander.

“We have a small old car, which she and I drive. She was driving in haste to attend a meeting at the Women’s Club. She was the Secretary, She ran against a lorry. She was injured. She became unconscious at once. The car was smashed. She died in the hospital after two days.”

Gowri sensed that Cheynulu had ceased to love his wife long before she died. She wondered why.

“Poor woman! She must have been a very intelligent girl. In fact, so I heard,” she said.

“She was very intelligent. She liked company, and she was always away from home and children. She took a prominent part in small theatrical shows. She is missed by many friends. The children and I miss her now, but were missing her even before she died.”

“Who is looking after your children now?”

“A neighbour and his wife. Then as now.”

“And you want to marry a girl from the countryside?”

“Yes...The children need some one to look after them all the time.”

“We never heard of your troubles...How many children have you?”

“A Son and a daughter. He is nine and she is six.”

When the meal was over, he took the mat and the pillow to sleep in the open. But sleep he could not. He was thinking of his children. He was thinking of himself. He was thinking of these three discarded persons who were his nearest relations alive. He owed so much to the old lady. Gowri, his aunt, meant so much to him. He was thinking more of his children than of himself when he contemplated remarrying. They needed motherly love and care. But the motherliness need not be only his second wife’s. Seldom does such a scheme work. He himself had no illusions about women. He had seen one. And he had seen many. And it was no sacrifice if he chose not to tie himself up again. Even sacrifice was called for. Life was not just sex and family. His dead wife was perhaps right in not accepting imprisonment within walls of care. He should certainly bring up his children in an atmosphere of affection. Could not his grandmother’s sister, and his aunt Gowri create that atmosphere of domestic love to help his children to grow properly? Venu would be a very desirable companion for his children. Venu too needed a better atmosphere to thrive in. He was a very bright boy. Gowri and her mother could not be left in the village to beg for the rest of their lives. Venu needed help to be well educated. He could send them what little money he could spare. But it would be the same if he took them to Bombay, after giving up the idea of remarriage. Would Gowri and her mother agree to leave the village? Why shouldn’t they? if they did, it would solve both their problems. There would be a home for his children. There would be a home for these three destitutes. No, he should not marry again. He should make them agree to go with him to Bombay. This was logic. This was ethics. This was his duty ordained.

Sleep came to him late in the night.

He got up a little late the next day. He was worried that he forgot to buy coffee powder and sugar the previous day. But Gowri had already kept the coffee ready for him. She had borrowed the powder and sugar and milk from the Peketi household. He did not like their borrowing or begging.

“Today I’ll buy all the provisions we need, auntie. But I have something to suggest before going out to buy.

Gowri stood confused and speechless.

He was with the glass of coffee before him. It symbolised their love for him. It symbolised his love for them too. In fact, his duty towards them.

“Auntie, I like to take you all with me to Bombay. To live with me ever hereafter. I cannot leave you here like this. I cannot see you beg or starve...What do you say?...Don’t you like it?”

“Cheynulu, what could be better?...But it won’t work. We are lost. We are small folk. We cannot drag you down...I am grateful to you that you should think like this even for this passing moment.

The tears were trickling down her colourless cheeks.

“No, auntie, I mean it seriously. It is not a passing thought. I was thinking of it for hours last night. That is my decision. It is for you to accept or reject.

“We shall always be grateful to you Cheynulu.”

“Then tell granny!”

Gowri stood silent, hesitant.

“What is troubling you, auntie? Believe me, I am utterly sincere.”

“We know you, Cheynulu. You had always a generous heart.”

“I am not so sure, auntie.”

“What about your marrying again?”

“Ah, that?…I have given up the idea, auntie. There must be an end to that sort of worry…I, am not marrying again.”

He may decide to marry hereafter–she thought. What if he should? Her mother would die meanwhile. Her son would get some education meanwhile. She could fashion her life according to a future need, if she was thrown out by Cheynulu’s wife.

The old lady accepted the proposition more courageously and more promptly.

“How good you are, Cheynulu! Here I am who never took but gave; and I had to go begging. And at this age I have to be a burden to you. It is not for me, Cheynulu, my little grandson, that I beg and lie awake in, the night, and pray to God not to take me to Him so soon. It is Gowri’s plight that rends my heart. I have given her nothing but misery. Misery of all kinds.”

The old lady wept, and Gowri wept, and Venu, whose vacation had begun, stood watching silently, leaning by the wall.

“You have no more worries, granny,” assured Cheynulu, holding both her hands when she was trying to take him in her arms to caress him as when he was a mere child.”

The news spread in the village that the family was migrating to Bombay to live with Cheynulu. Even the man at the provisions store understood why Cheynulu was buying only two days’ need, and told Cheynulu so. Some said virtue was always rewarded, and that the old lady’s piety brought its own merit because the universe was ruled by a benevolent God. Kantamma, of the Peketis, was however a little disturbed that she could not any longer exert her patronage over these fallen people. She even envied Gowri for going to live hereafter in a big city like Bombay, when she herself was destined to live and die in a poor village.

Kantamma had her own plan, to break Cheynulu’s plan. She had a clever head. And she was one of the centres of village gossip.

Having completed the arrangements to take them all to Bombay and having even met Venu’s head-master to make sure about the prize and the transfer certificate being transmit1ed properly to Bombay, Cheynulu was taking rest on the tank bund when an old acquaintance accosted him, smiling viciously. “I hear that you decided not to marry again, but to take Gowri with you to Bombay,” said the acquaintance. Another, less known to him, walked up to him, and said, “Gowri was once very beautiful And she always refused to call herself a widow. Now she can go about with the red mark of marriage on her forehead without fear of comment, and be a really wedded wife, and she is also bound to regain her lost beauty.” The village belles who came to the tank to carry water started looking at him with mischievous eyes, and whispered naughty-sounding things amongst themselves, casting meaningful side-long glances at Cheynulu all the time.

Cheynulu was deeply hurt. It never occurred to him that people could be so wicked as to make innuendoes of this kind regarding his ‘auntie’ and himself.

It was a silent troubled meal that he took that night. He had a heavy heart. And it was to the old man, Bhimanna, that he carried his sorrow.

Bhimanna was singing hymns to God.

“Have a pinch of snuff, Cheynulu, before you leave for Bombay,” said the old man, in a light mood.

Cheynulu was in no mood for fun.

“I have come to you for advice, sir,” he said.

The old man heard Cheynulu. He then said, “Scandal is the delight of the wicked. He who sits in judgement over you is God, not Man. Do your duty as you see it in the clear light of God, and leave men and women alone. Society creates the weak, and crushes the weak. It cannot create the really strong or crush the really strong...I’ll tell you now about myself...My daughter eloped with the man she loved...”

“Your daughter, Durga?”

“Yes, she. I knew that she loved him. I wanted it to be otherwise. But I could not control her. She could not control herself. They call her a whore. They call me the father of a whore. They say my prayers and my songs to God are a pretence. I have no right to judge my daughter. But they think that they have a right to judge me. I do not say ‘No’ to them...I recognize the will of God. I bow only to Him…..Be good Cheynulu. Be strong…..And be not afraid.”

Next morning a bullock cart stood in front of the house of the Peketis. The old lady and Gowri and Venu got in. Cheynulu made his pranams to Kantamma and the rest, and then got into the cart himself.

At the market-place he posted a letter to his cousin, Venkanna, stating how he had changed his mind about remarrying, and how he was taking his old granny and her family with him to Bombay.

The bus rolled on with this happy load. Venu was actually singing and whistling the latest songs from the latest pictures of the screen. They soon left the landscape of the village behind. The bus was moving fast in the shade of the green leaves of the overhanging trees. The bus was also mercilessly crushing the dry dead leaves scattered on the road.

There was the fresh breeze of the morning playing on the faces of four new lives.

“Six, not four,” thought Cheynulu, remembering his own two children in Bombay awaiting his return.

He looked at the old lady and asked her, “Are you comfortable granny?”

She was deaf. She could not hear him. She did not answer him.

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