“Here girl, my heart’s beautiful- little key just for you!”, Keshavan Nair said to himself, as he put the key to his room in Saramma’s lap before going to the bank the next morning. When Keshavan Nair came back in the evening Saramma returned him the key. He took the previous days magazine and climbed up the stairs, unlocked his room, pulled up a chair to the door and sat looking at the magazine. The happiness in the victory to be! Victory even before the battle started! The intelligent male is like this! When Saramma finds out the form of her prospective job… she’ll tear him apart? Keshavan Nair thought about it and laughed. Thought and thought and laughed. He was sitting like this when Saramma came up climbing very slowly. Although he knew that Saramma was eager to talk about the job he didn’t show anything and asked in his usual manner:
“So, what all is the news Saramma?”
“Oh, nothing.” Saramma smiled in her usual manner and asked: “Has anything been stolen from your room?”
Of course it has! Haven’t you stolen me absolutely completely dearest? Thief girl!
Keshavan Nair in a soft low-key manner said:
“I’ve not examined it.”
“Then, examine.”
Keshavan Nair didn’t say anything. He acted like a person reading an interesting magazine and thought about his hearts sundara surabila rahasyam, which he was going to tell Saramma. It was going to jump out of that huge scent-bottle, his heart, with a ‘Boom!’: Sundara surabila hridaya rahasyam! Saramma leaned on the window-sill and looked at the glossiness of Keshavan Nair’s centrally parted curly hair and the redness of his slowly moving eyeballs and the rising and falling of his chest, one by one and asked quietly with deep humility:
“You didn’t say anything about that job?”
“But, I don’t think you’ll enjoy it very much Saramma!”
Saramma said:
“If its because the salary is low- that doesn’t matter. I’ll accept it. I’m a burden to everybody here. I’m tired of this life. To tell the truth, do you know, sometimes what all I feel like doing?”
“What all do you feel like doing? Let’s hear.”
“Oh, always making fun! I’m serious. All because of being born a woman... I’ll accept any kind of job.”
“Saramma can you do any kitchen-work?”
Saramma was surprised.
“Why do you ask?”
“Just a question.”
Saramma said:
“Ok, then I can. I can prepare rice and curry. I can prepare snacks. I can make tea. I can make coffee. I can make cocoa. I can make ovaltine…”
“In short if given a measure of rice you can cook and serve…”
“…Why, do you have any intention of keeping me as a cook somewhere?”
“Chheey! Of course not. I just asked. Educated girls usually don’t have any knowledge of kitchen related things. Their bodies and dresses cannot bear soot and smoke. They know how to dress up and put powder and spray perfume and redden lips and set their hair in some one hundred and sixty five ways! They also know how to sit meditating for hours in front of the mirror. Then all made up and dressed up and with their dunkudu sack-“
“Dunkudu sack?”
“Hand-bag.”
“Oh!”
“Then they roam around like that with their dunkudu sack! She’s a lady… I just asked to find if respected Saramma is a lady like that!”
“Oh, I’m not respected or anything! I don’t have a dunkudu sack either!”
“But what do they carry around in that Saramma?”
“An itsy-bitsy mirror, an itsy-bitsy powder box, an itsy-bitsy comb.”
“Does it have any premalekhanams?”
“Premalekhanams?”
“Yes; They must be saving the ones they get by the hour there. When it’s full by the evening they’d transfer it all to a big trunk!”
“I don’t know all that. I’ve not seen any premalekhanams either. What is the job that you have seen for me?”
Liar-Girl! Great grandmother of a liar-girl!
Keshavan Nair said:
“Saramma, that… You’ll not like that job!”
“Aiyyo. I’ll like it! I’ll like it!! I’ll like it!!!”
“Are you sure?”
“A thousand times sure!”
“Ok then…” Keshavan Nair hesitated. How can one say it?
“Saramma you won’t enjoy it!”
“Aiyyo, didn’t I say, I’ll enjoy it!”
“But if you find later that you regret the decision?”
“No! I’ll bear any regret or any sacrifice! Do you know a secret? This is before you came to stay here. Last year one after the other there were three marriage proposals for me. All three times I was happy. Not because of the thought of marital life with a person I’d not seen or heard; but because of the thought that I’d escape this hell. All three didn’t work out. In our community nobody would marry and take me away without a dowry! ...Father and step-mother say that it’s all my fault! Every slight thing is my fault! If there is no rain in this land – It’s my fault. To escape this place I looked for jobs in a large number of places. But only for me there’s no vacancy anywhere!”
“There’s a vacancy!”
“Where?”
“I’ll tell you. What is this thing you called dowry?”
“The bribe given to the man for the safe-keeping of the woman.”
“I don’t understand!”
“Ok, suppose someone is marrying me and taking me away…”
“Right, suppose me!”
“Oh!… After I’ve been married and taken away… Isn’t money needed for my fooding and dressing up and oil-bathing and powder and spray and scent-bottle and child-bearing and funeral? Only if I pay in advance am I married and taken away!”
“That must be because nobody is in love with you Saramma! If somebody was in love...?”
“Oh, even then the dowry has to be given. Didn’t I say it’s our communities custom!”
Keshavan Nair felt very happy about this dowry business. Styleful business!
“If this kind of thing had not been! Dear god!
Saramma said:
“I hate this dowry business intensely!”
Keshavan Nair said:
“I love this dowry business!”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you. This dowry custom is there in the Namboodiri community also.”
Saramma said:
“In the Muslim community too.”
Keshavan Nair said:
“The people who are burdened by dowry should marry people from other communities who are ready for marriage without dowry.”
“Hmm?… Nice innovation!”
“Yes, Nair with Christian and Christian with a Nair and Musalman with a Nair and a Namboodiri and Ezhavan and Christian…”
“Can I interrupt and ask a question?”
“Ask. Not one, ask one hundred questions. Happily this here Keshavan Nair shall give the answers!”
“Ok then, could you tell me what is this job you have seen for me?
“Oh,… but you’ll reject it Saramma!
“Didn’t I say– I wont ever ever reject it!”
“Ok that…”, Keshavan Nair opened the cap of that big scent bottle his heart with a Thapp and let the sundara surabila rahasyam out:
“Saramma, the way I love you deeply, you also love me back deeply. That’s the important job I’ve got for you Saramma!”
Well, well what a job!
Saramma started a bit. Only for a moment. Actually, there was a rush of blood to her face and her eyes half-closed. But also, beautiful-smiling she stood; Maayaamohini!!
Kesavan Nairs hearts fetters broke. He said: “I’ve loved you a long time Saramma. More than myself. More than my heart. More than my life. More than my country. More than…”
She laughed; A new color rose to her cheeks; Her eyes sparkled more.
Keshavan Nair asked:
“Saramma, what do you say about the new job?”
Saramma with a soft smile quietly, very quietly said:
“The job seems Ok! What’s the salary you’ve decided?”
“Salary?”. Oh looking for a quarrel is it? War! Very well then. It’s the hot blood of brave warriors that flows through my veins… If it’s war then let it be war! Fight what else... Victory or death! Inquilaab! Sindaabad!… Proudly Keshavan Nair asked:
“What salary do you want?”
“You decide it!”
As a result of very deep thought Keshavan Nair decided:
“Twenty rupees!”
Saramma said:
“It’s too little!”
“But it’s not possible to increase it by even one bit. Small bank. Small salary. Understand? If I work nine hours per day thirty days and after giving the rent to your father and the hotelwala money for food and the dhobi for laundry and I drastically reduce all expenditure, that is more or less starve, then the money I save is what I plan to give you. Is there any problem with your job? You only have to love me sitting or lying or walking? Think about it.”
Saramma said:
“The job is a bitter one! Sir only works nine hours out of twenty-four. Isn’t fifteen hours total rest? And my job!…Not a moment’s rest. Night and day, eating and sleeping- I have to think of you- isn’t that right?… when Keshavan Nair cries I should cry, laughs I should laugh, eats I should not eat, sleeps I should stay awake and love Keshavan Nair!” Saramma looked at Keshavan Nair as if she’d drunk a very bitter medicine. Then she asked:
“So the job you’ve given me is it permanent or temporary?”
“Permanent! Forever! Eternal!”
Saramma was comforted, she said:
“Oh, good! So even when respected Keshavan Nair is ‘deem’ I have this job, right?”
“What’s that?”
“If sir dies, I still have the job, isn’t that right?”
“Without any doubt! Even if I beautifully pass away into the unknown, sweetly beautifully Saramma should love me!”
Saramma had a doubt:
“When thou are dead and buried then who’ll pay the salary?”
Keshavan Nair kept quiet. What to say?
Keshavan Nair’s silence made Saramma laugh. Teasingly she said:
“Even if the head is full of moonlight, this job has a catch like that. Who gives the salary after thou art dead?”
What can one say? Keshavan Nair thought hard. In the end a half-way solution. He smiled.
“What if we make dying a double affair?”
“Oho, naked exhibition of selfishness? I should also kill myself when you die?”
“Are you making fun of me Saramma?”
“Never. Is stating facts making fun? Oh… But am I not a woman? Even if the skull cracks open can one see the brain matter? The heads of women are of course filled with moonlight only!”
“Forgive me, Saramma. I don’t have intelligence or wisdom or beauty like you.”
“There, now you are the one who’s teasing poor old me.”
“I can never never tease my Saramma.”
“Oh, keep teasing.”
Some nerve inside Keshavan Nair burst:
“Will I tease my Soul-mate? Will I tease my jeeviteswari? Will I tease my own heart? Will I tease my aatma? Will I tease my goddess? Will I…”
Saramma in between said:
“Stop a moment will you? Something I want to ask!”
“Ask. Bring forth.”
“Am I soul-mate?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Since long ago.”
“How much long ago?”
“Lots of more and more long ago.”
“Then this news, why didn’t you say it before?”
“Didn’t I tell you- everyday I think of it; everyday I write a premalekhanam to Saramma.”
“And then?”
“Tear it away!”
“So its like that is it?”
“Yes.”
“So in short, now I am thy soul-mate!”
“Yes.”
“If it’s like that- you’ll do whatever I ask you. Right?”
Keshavan Nair became garrulous: “Do whatever you ask. Anybody to be killed, I’ll kill. Oceans to swim across, I’ll swim. Mountains to be leaped over, I’ll leap. I’m ready to even die for you Saramma!”
She said:
“Right now it’s not necessary to die and show- right now stand on your head- let’s see!”
“Really truly stand on my head?”
“Oh! ‘Really truly’ there’s that word in between eh?”
“No!” Keshavan Nair got up happily.
“Will sheershasanam do? I can show you mayurasanam too!”
“Right now sheershasanam will do.”
“Right! Here goes!”
He took off his shirt and put it on a chair. Then tied his mundu up half, spread a cloth, stood on his head on the floor, his feet firmly straight!
She looked happily at his toes, then remarked:
“First class! styleful!”
Keshavan Nair upside down asked:
“Do you love me, Saramma?”
Saramma was silent.
Keshavan Nair asked again:
“Do you accept the madhura sundara love-work?”
Silently, secretly Saramma went down the stairs and from the bottom shouted up:
“With madhura sundaram I’ll tell you tomorrow!”
“So, what all is the news Saramma?”
“Oh, nothing.” Saramma smiled in her usual manner and asked: “Has anything been stolen from your room?”
Of course it has! Haven’t you stolen me absolutely completely dearest? Thief girl!
Keshavan Nair in a soft low-key manner said:
“I’ve not examined it.”
“Then, examine.”
Keshavan Nair didn’t say anything. He acted like a person reading an interesting magazine and thought about his hearts sundara surabila rahasyam, which he was going to tell Saramma. It was going to jump out of that huge scent-bottle, his heart, with a ‘Boom!’: Sundara surabila hridaya rahasyam! Saramma leaned on the window-sill and looked at the glossiness of Keshavan Nair’s centrally parted curly hair and the redness of his slowly moving eyeballs and the rising and falling of his chest, one by one and asked quietly with deep humility:
“You didn’t say anything about that job?”
“But, I don’t think you’ll enjoy it very much Saramma!”
Saramma said:
“If its because the salary is low- that doesn’t matter. I’ll accept it. I’m a burden to everybody here. I’m tired of this life. To tell the truth, do you know, sometimes what all I feel like doing?”
“What all do you feel like doing? Let’s hear.”
“Oh, always making fun! I’m serious. All because of being born a woman... I’ll accept any kind of job.”
“Saramma can you do any kitchen-work?”
Saramma was surprised.
“Why do you ask?”
“Just a question.”
Saramma said:
“Ok, then I can. I can prepare rice and curry. I can prepare snacks. I can make tea. I can make coffee. I can make cocoa. I can make ovaltine…”
“In short if given a measure of rice you can cook and serve…”
“…Why, do you have any intention of keeping me as a cook somewhere?”
“Chheey! Of course not. I just asked. Educated girls usually don’t have any knowledge of kitchen related things. Their bodies and dresses cannot bear soot and smoke. They know how to dress up and put powder and spray perfume and redden lips and set their hair in some one hundred and sixty five ways! They also know how to sit meditating for hours in front of the mirror. Then all made up and dressed up and with their dunkudu sack-“
“Dunkudu sack?”
“Hand-bag.”
“Oh!”
“Then they roam around like that with their dunkudu sack! She’s a lady… I just asked to find if respected Saramma is a lady like that!”
“Oh, I’m not respected or anything! I don’t have a dunkudu sack either!”
“But what do they carry around in that Saramma?”
“An itsy-bitsy mirror, an itsy-bitsy powder box, an itsy-bitsy comb.”
“Does it have any premalekhanams?”
“Premalekhanams?”
“Yes; They must be saving the ones they get by the hour there. When it’s full by the evening they’d transfer it all to a big trunk!”
“I don’t know all that. I’ve not seen any premalekhanams either. What is the job that you have seen for me?”
Liar-Girl! Great grandmother of a liar-girl!
Keshavan Nair said:
“Saramma, that… You’ll not like that job!”
“Aiyyo. I’ll like it! I’ll like it!! I’ll like it!!!”
“Are you sure?”
“A thousand times sure!”
“Ok then…” Keshavan Nair hesitated. How can one say it?
“Saramma you won’t enjoy it!”
“Aiyyo, didn’t I say, I’ll enjoy it!”
“But if you find later that you regret the decision?”
“No! I’ll bear any regret or any sacrifice! Do you know a secret? This is before you came to stay here. Last year one after the other there were three marriage proposals for me. All three times I was happy. Not because of the thought of marital life with a person I’d not seen or heard; but because of the thought that I’d escape this hell. All three didn’t work out. In our community nobody would marry and take me away without a dowry! ...Father and step-mother say that it’s all my fault! Every slight thing is my fault! If there is no rain in this land – It’s my fault. To escape this place I looked for jobs in a large number of places. But only for me there’s no vacancy anywhere!”
“There’s a vacancy!”
“Where?”
“I’ll tell you. What is this thing you called dowry?”
“The bribe given to the man for the safe-keeping of the woman.”
“I don’t understand!”
“Ok, suppose someone is marrying me and taking me away…”
“Right, suppose me!”
“Oh!… After I’ve been married and taken away… Isn’t money needed for my fooding and dressing up and oil-bathing and powder and spray and scent-bottle and child-bearing and funeral? Only if I pay in advance am I married and taken away!”
“That must be because nobody is in love with you Saramma! If somebody was in love...?”
“Oh, even then the dowry has to be given. Didn’t I say it’s our communities custom!”
Keshavan Nair felt very happy about this dowry business. Styleful business!
“If this kind of thing had not been! Dear god!
Saramma said:
“I hate this dowry business intensely!”
Keshavan Nair said:
“I love this dowry business!”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you. This dowry custom is there in the Namboodiri community also.”
Saramma said:
“In the Muslim community too.”
Keshavan Nair said:
“The people who are burdened by dowry should marry people from other communities who are ready for marriage without dowry.”
“Hmm?… Nice innovation!”
“Yes, Nair with Christian and Christian with a Nair and Musalman with a Nair and a Namboodiri and Ezhavan and Christian…”
“Can I interrupt and ask a question?”
“Ask. Not one, ask one hundred questions. Happily this here Keshavan Nair shall give the answers!”
“Ok then, could you tell me what is this job you have seen for me?
“Oh,… but you’ll reject it Saramma!
“Didn’t I say– I wont ever ever reject it!”
“Ok that…”, Keshavan Nair opened the cap of that big scent bottle his heart with a Thapp and let the sundara surabila rahasyam out:
“Saramma, the way I love you deeply, you also love me back deeply. That’s the important job I’ve got for you Saramma!”
Well, well what a job!
Saramma started a bit. Only for a moment. Actually, there was a rush of blood to her face and her eyes half-closed. But also, beautiful-smiling she stood; Maayaamohini!!
Kesavan Nairs hearts fetters broke. He said: “I’ve loved you a long time Saramma. More than myself. More than my heart. More than my life. More than my country. More than…”
She laughed; A new color rose to her cheeks; Her eyes sparkled more.
Keshavan Nair asked:
“Saramma, what do you say about the new job?”
Saramma with a soft smile quietly, very quietly said:
“The job seems Ok! What’s the salary you’ve decided?”
“Salary?”. Oh looking for a quarrel is it? War! Very well then. It’s the hot blood of brave warriors that flows through my veins… If it’s war then let it be war! Fight what else... Victory or death! Inquilaab! Sindaabad!… Proudly Keshavan Nair asked:
“What salary do you want?”
“You decide it!”
As a result of very deep thought Keshavan Nair decided:
“Twenty rupees!”
Saramma said:
“It’s too little!”
“But it’s not possible to increase it by even one bit. Small bank. Small salary. Understand? If I work nine hours per day thirty days and after giving the rent to your father and the hotelwala money for food and the dhobi for laundry and I drastically reduce all expenditure, that is more or less starve, then the money I save is what I plan to give you. Is there any problem with your job? You only have to love me sitting or lying or walking? Think about it.”
Saramma said:
“The job is a bitter one! Sir only works nine hours out of twenty-four. Isn’t fifteen hours total rest? And my job!…Not a moment’s rest. Night and day, eating and sleeping- I have to think of you- isn’t that right?… when Keshavan Nair cries I should cry, laughs I should laugh, eats I should not eat, sleeps I should stay awake and love Keshavan Nair!” Saramma looked at Keshavan Nair as if she’d drunk a very bitter medicine. Then she asked:
“So the job you’ve given me is it permanent or temporary?”
“Permanent! Forever! Eternal!”
Saramma was comforted, she said:
“Oh, good! So even when respected Keshavan Nair is ‘deem’ I have this job, right?”
“What’s that?”
“If sir dies, I still have the job, isn’t that right?”
“Without any doubt! Even if I beautifully pass away into the unknown, sweetly beautifully Saramma should love me!”
Saramma had a doubt:
“When thou are dead and buried then who’ll pay the salary?”
Keshavan Nair kept quiet. What to say?
Keshavan Nair’s silence made Saramma laugh. Teasingly she said:
“Even if the head is full of moonlight, this job has a catch like that. Who gives the salary after thou art dead?”
What can one say? Keshavan Nair thought hard. In the end a half-way solution. He smiled.
“What if we make dying a double affair?”
“Oho, naked exhibition of selfishness? I should also kill myself when you die?”
“Are you making fun of me Saramma?”
“Never. Is stating facts making fun? Oh… But am I not a woman? Even if the skull cracks open can one see the brain matter? The heads of women are of course filled with moonlight only!”
“Forgive me, Saramma. I don’t have intelligence or wisdom or beauty like you.”
“There, now you are the one who’s teasing poor old me.”
“I can never never tease my Saramma.”
“Oh, keep teasing.”
Some nerve inside Keshavan Nair burst:
“Will I tease my Soul-mate? Will I tease my jeeviteswari? Will I tease my own heart? Will I tease my aatma? Will I tease my goddess? Will I…”
Saramma in between said:
“Stop a moment will you? Something I want to ask!”
“Ask. Bring forth.”
“Am I soul-mate?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Since long ago.”
“How much long ago?”
“Lots of more and more long ago.”
“Then this news, why didn’t you say it before?”
“Didn’t I tell you- everyday I think of it; everyday I write a premalekhanam to Saramma.”
“And then?”
“Tear it away!”
“So its like that is it?”
“Yes.”
“So in short, now I am thy soul-mate!”
“Yes.”
“If it’s like that- you’ll do whatever I ask you. Right?”
Keshavan Nair became garrulous: “Do whatever you ask. Anybody to be killed, I’ll kill. Oceans to swim across, I’ll swim. Mountains to be leaped over, I’ll leap. I’m ready to even die for you Saramma!”
She said:
“Right now it’s not necessary to die and show- right now stand on your head- let’s see!”
“Really truly stand on my head?”
“Oh! ‘Really truly’ there’s that word in between eh?”
“No!” Keshavan Nair got up happily.
“Will sheershasanam do? I can show you mayurasanam too!”
“Right now sheershasanam will do.”
“Right! Here goes!”
He took off his shirt and put it on a chair. Then tied his mundu up half, spread a cloth, stood on his head on the floor, his feet firmly straight!
She looked happily at his toes, then remarked:
“First class! styleful!”
Keshavan Nair upside down asked:
“Do you love me, Saramma?”
Saramma was silent.
Keshavan Nair asked again:
“Do you accept the madhura sundara love-work?”
Silently, secretly Saramma went down the stairs and from the bottom shouted up:
“With madhura sundaram I’ll tell you tomorrow!”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.