TWO WITNESSES

(Short-Story)

R. VISWANATHA SASTRY

(Translated from Telugu by N. V. R. SESHAGIRI RAO)

The Judge was surprised, almost stupefied.

“She is my wife. I married her in the presence of Agni, the Lord of the Sacred Fire. She must come back to me. She should live with me,” says the man. That’s his contention. He is the petitioner.

He is dark, thin and tall. He has a ruffled and untidy crop of dark hair. He has a dark, thin, long line of moustache. He is strong and in his middle age. He has a dark face which seemed never to have been lit by a smile. The colour of his shirt defies description. His pyjamas are dirty beyond description.

“I haven’t married him. I am not his wife. I don’t know who he is. I needn’t go to him. I will not go, not I,” says the woman. That’s her answer. She is the respondent in the case.

She is short, stout and fair. Her face is youthful and attractive. She has curly tresses. Her sari is white and her blouse black. The mandaara flower in her knot of hair is of deep red. She is beautiful, but haughtily so.

The petitioner and the respondent are on either side of the court-hall, facing each other as though with daggers drawn. Away from them and at one end of the hall sat the Judge on a high chair, not unlike a scarecrow set on high.

If the Judge regrets one thing in his life it is his marriage. He cannot think of his wife without getting a pain in the neck. He concluded, long ago, that he would have been better off without his better-half. His considered opinion is that the wife of the species is deadlier than the male. Given the wife such as he has, none can escape from that sort of conclusion. No wonder the Judge is stupefied to find the petitioner inviting trouble on his head by asking for the wife. The Judge asked him, “Why do you want her when she doesn’t want you?”

“She must come to me, Sir, because she is, my wife; because, I married her in the presence of Lord Agni, Sir, Agni, the Lord of the Sacred Fire,” says the petitioner.

The Judge is annoyed. “When she doesn’t want you, why should you bother about her at all?”

At this, the petitioner burst into a shout. “If I am not to bother, who else should bother? I spent money on her and I married her. I tied the ‘tali’ in the presence of witnesses, and in the presence of that sacred witness, Agni. And now she gives me this trouble. If my dear wife refuses to live with me, should Your Honour bother about it and not I ? That slut, of a woman has the guts to say.....”

The petitioner would have gone on shouting but for the reprimands of the bench clerk, who thought it was high time to intervene. He asked the petitioner to shut up. Where did the petitioner think he was? In a court of law or in his gutter or garret or wherever he might have come from?

The petitioner’s advocate who had been till then sitting and enjoying the fun came to a little and said to the petitioner, “Please shut up.”

The court peon shouted in the verandah. “Silence, silence”. The petitioner paused for a moment and was about to say something, but the respondent started saying, “Sir, are you listening how he calls me a slut? Who are you, scoundrel? Whom do you call a slut? See if I don’t have your tongue pulled out...” (Scoundrel and other words are not addressed to the court. They refer to the petitioner.)

“Stop, please,” cried the puzzled bench clerk.

“If you are a man, tell him to stop. Now you are shouting at a woman! Where were you when that fellow was making sluts of all women? You had better keep quiet, you big manly man!” cried back the respondent to the bench clerk.

The Judge was very much pleased with the word of abuse uttered by the petitioner. Till today not even once has the Judge abused his wife.

Meanwhile the respondent’s advocate stood up suddenly and said, “This is atrocious, simply atrocious! It is not proper that the court should keep quiet in this manner. What impudence to scold a woman in the presence of so many and in the presence of the Judge? The court should not tolerate this sort of impudence. The court should…” He was continuing when the respondent interrupted him abruptly and looking daggers at him said, “Why were you sitting mum when the fellow was abusing me? Have you now grown wiser?” This was her comment on the advocate’s ability and intelligence.

The other advocates did not take offence. Moreover they were pleased with the incident. The sight of an advocate being slighted by a client immensely pleased the Judge. The advocates’ clerks and the litigant public present were enjoying the fun.

On the whole, all except the respondent and her advocate enjoyed themselves. The respondent didn’t like the way the audience reacted. She was evidently displeased with their attitude and said, “How you laugh, all of you? Do you laugh in the same way if your own womenfolk are scolded in public? What use is laughing? If there is a man among you, please teach the impudent fellow a lesson. I shall be pleased with your manliness and I too shall join you in your laughter.” She rebuked all of them, provoked them and challenged them.

Not a single soul in the court came forward to teach the impudent fellow a lesson and thereby prove his manliness in that way. Instead they admonished her.

She started crying. The court hall resounded with her wails. The Judge was very much puzzled. The advocates were not perplexed. The disorder in the court pleased the advocates’ clerks.

“Under these circumstances I pray for an adjournment,” said the advocate for the respondent.

“I oppose the adjournment,” said the advocate for the petitioner.

“Adjournment is granted,” announced the Judge.

The Judge adjourned the case for the day and sighed a sigh of relief. The judge knows that frequent adjournments which cost the clients a lot force them into a compromise. He hoped a compromise might be arrived at in this case. But the petitioner, made as was of stern stuff, stuck to the court to get back his wife. Clients, advocates, their clerks, witnesses, well wishers and supporters others attended the court a number of times. After a number of adjournments, the case finally came up for hearing.

The petitioner went into the witness box, took the oath and gave evidence.

The petitioner married the respondent in the presence of Agni, the Lord of Fire. The marriage was performed in accordance with religious and scriptural rites. Many attended the wedding, blessed the couple and felt happy. He made a gift of a lot of jewellery to the bride but he was not going to raise that issue now. He didn’t accept any dowry. He and the respondent lived together happily as man and wife for sometime in the house of Mr. So-and-so. Afterwards the respondent deserted him without any justifiable reason and went away. She should come to him. That was his case.

The petitioner’s evidence on the whole had no loopholes. He answered all the intriguing and indirect questions in the cross examination sharply, briefly and evasively and earned the praise of many.

Then came the evidence of the priest who deposed that he had solemnised the marriage; of Witnesses of status saying that they had attended the marriage and nuptial night; and of the landlord who spoke to the fact that the petitioner and the respondent had lived in his house. None of them hesitated. Not one of them faltered or fumbled for words.

After the evidence for the petitioner was over, the respondent went into the witness box. She deposed that neither in the presence of any of the petitioner’s witnesses, nor in the presence of any God or devil did her marriage take place with the petitioner or any other person. She was not married at all. She didn’t know the petitioner. Except in this case she didn’t ever see him before. She never lived with him. She was kept by Mr. So-and-so, a merchant.

The other defence witnesses deposed that the respondent had been known to them since her childhood. She never married anybody. She had no need to marry at all. Since she came of age, that is, for the last three years, she had been kept by Mr. So-and-so, a merchant. The respondent who had been happy under the care and support of the merchant would never need to marry a fit-for nothing fellow like the petitioner. She conceived during her liaison with the merchant. She recently gave birth to a son. Such was the trend of the evidence on behalf of respondent.

Then why didn’t the respondent produce Mr. So-and-so, the merchant, as her witness?

It seems that the merchant went to the United Kingdom. He would proceed to the States. It was not known when he would be back. The respondent, it seems, was not possessed of sufficient funds to have him examined on commission. So without waiting for the merchant to return, the court heard the case, recorded evidence and heard arguments. Sometime later the judgment was delivered. The following were the salient features of the lengthy judgment pronounced by the court: “The facts of the case are, the petitioner has laid the action alleging that the respondent is his wife, that she deserted him without any reason one month before the filing of the petition, and that she should come and live with him and for a declaration that the respondent is his wife and to direct her to come to him.

“The respondent’s defence is that she hasn’t married the petitioner or anybody else, that she has been unmarried till today, that she doesn’t know the petitioner at all and that she need not go to him.

“The issues for decision are whether marriage took place between the petitioner and the respondent. If the marriage took place, has the respondent deserted the petitioner without any just cause? To what relief is the petitioner entitled?

“Coming to the evidence adduced, many witnesses besides the petitioner have deposed that the petitioner married the respondent. One witness has spoken firmly that the petitioner and respondent lived in his house. The second witness deposed that he had acted as a priest both at the time of the marriage and on the nuptial night.

“The respondent has deposed in her evidence that she is unmarried. Her witnesses also have deposed to the same effect. It has been put forward by the defence that even prior to the alleged marriage took place, the respondent had been kept by somebody. The person who had kept her didn’t come forward as a witness. There is unimpeachable evidence on behalf of the petitioner to prove the positive fact that marriage took place. About the negative fact that the marriage didn’t take place, there is no clinching evidence. The respondent’s witnesses wouldn’t be with her all the twenty-four hours to see if she has married or not married in a temple any night. Moreover, while there are so many women in the world why would the petitioner say that he had married this particular respondent unless he had, in fact, married her? On a careful examination of the evidence on record, it seems to me that the petitioner and respondent are married in accordance with the scriptural rites. The respondent has not been able to prove satisfactorily why she has deserted the petitioner, her husband.

“Hence I find that the marriage tie subsists between the petitioner and the respondent. Accordingly it is declared that the petitioner and respondent are man and wife, married according to the scriptures. It is further decreed that the respondent should forthwith go to the petitioner and live with him.

“Parties to bear their costs.”

That was the judgment. When she came to know of the judgment, the respondent abused the court, the petitioner, God and society in the most Vulgar language.

After the case was over the petitioner wrote a letter to Mr. So-and-so, the merchant. “…The case is over. It has been decreed that I have married her and that she should come and live with me. Please tell me who can oppose me successfully. You’ll have no more trouble from her. I shall...”

Nobody knows where the petitioner has gone afterwards. The respondent wailed loudly over the result of the case.

Mr. So-and-so, the merchant, has not come to say that she has been kept by him; nor has the God of fire come to say that the marriage didn’t take place in his presence. If only they had come!

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