Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Translated from Telugu by Dr. Haribandi Lakshmi, EFL University
‘Don’t give it another thought madam! It’s indeed a good decision.’
Revathi smiled.
‘Thank you Anand. I too think so. I’ll have to face many personal problems with the transfer now. Moreover, the present offer doesn’t seem to be the one to be ignored. Since it deals only with sales, if marketing is done carefully, that would be enough…’
‘That’s what I’ve been telling you madam. It’s a good company. The returns will be very encouraging.’
Revathi nodded her head in agreement.
Anand rose to his feet.
‘Anyway, all the best madam! I’ll be meeting you again only next week. This week I’m going on a tour. I just can’t imagine the office without you. But you’ll have a bright future there.’ Saying so Anand took leave of her.
The paper weight that was spun by Revathi was spinning around on the table. The telex machine was a making a noise. The room had been familiar to her for eight years. It was a spacious, cool and cozy room, very convenient to work. She wouldn’t be sitting there alone writing the bills anymore. In a much bigger corporate office the whole administration would be under her control. Revathi’s lips spread with a smile. She stretched herself. Through the glass partition the packing division on the other side could be seen. Near a table in one corner Mrs. Rattamma, an elderly lady, was cutting the pad at a great speed. How quick her hands work! How agile the hands of a woman could be!
‘Yes! It’s a challenge to me!
Just as you acquire new blood and improve health when you donate blood, you improve your horizon as you interact with new people. It would be a real change.
Revathi pulled out the drawer, picked up her purse and locked it pushing it back. Leaving the keys on the table she came out. It was very pleasant outside. It looked as though it was going to rain. Revathi was highly excited.
The agony she had suffered for the past four days simply vanished. Now she needn’t go to another town taking the baby with her. Chandram, the baby and she could remain together. The cool breeze brushing her cheeks appeared to her as if it was sharing her happiness.
Her new job ……… with plenty of scope for quick promotions …… a good salary and a beautiful house…….
* * * * * *
‘Oh Lord! You didn’t tell this to everyone, did you?!
Revathi frowned.
‘Won’t they know if I don’t go to office tomorrow? Don’t I go there to resign?’
‘That’s what I say! Don’t entertain any such foolish ideas! Go to your office tomorrow as usual. Don’t think of anything else.’
‘May I ask you, why?’
‘Don’t ask me any further questions. You want to quit a good job and …….’
‘Good for whom? Do you think it’s a good thing for me to go to another town and live there all alone?’
Chandram’s face reddened with raze. He flung away the paper he held in his hand ……
‘I can’t answer you. You do whatever you like.’
‘Oh God! I don’t know what makes you so furious! If I decline the transfer, then I’ll have to forego my increment and remain in that cabin forever. This new job is also good, isn’t it?’
‘Stop it …… Do you think it is a good job? Instead of sitting in your room comfortably and doing your work without anybody’s interference, do you wish to rule the world? Will the heavens fall if you don’t get the increments and promotions?’
‘Did you not go on strike last year when your increment was stopped?’
‘That is different…. this is different……. We get satisfaction in this job. You needn’t step out of your office. You can lead a respectable life.’
‘Leading a respectable life to you means not having to interact with men. Am I right? There will not be any danger to my chastity, right?’
Chandram looked at Revathi with all hatredness…..
‘It seems that you have a desire to work with men! It’s a shame!’
The enraged Chandram rose to his feet hastily, put on his shirt and walked out slamming the door behind him. Revathi felt as if that bang hit her right on the heart. The noise startled the baby who was fast asleep in her cot and she let out a frightened cry. Revathi put her to sleep again. The child was eight months old. The fair and healthy baby, who had always resembled Chandram, for the first time appeared to Revathi as just a beautiful baby with no features of Chandram. ‘Everything depends on our own imagination.’
The baby was again fast asleep. Revathi using her feet slowly and gradually brought the rocking cradle to a halt so that the baby was not disturbed. Did she know how to do these things earlier? After the baby was born, as it grew it also learnt to recognise the touch of its mother and the careful nursing done by her. That made Revathi understand day by day what makes the baby happy and comfortable. That was not the only thing. There were so many other things that she had learnt. She transformed herself into a young lady under the supervision of her mother and grandmother. She stopped jumping and running. In their opinion Revathi was a well-behaved and dignified girl who climbed all the steps of college and university and made her parents proud by winning many medals.
She was the one who allowed Chandram to tie the marital knot by bowing her head and holding on to his little finger she entered the in-laws’ place. Since then, she had been living there without causing any problem to anybody. She learnt all these things from experience. She gained all this experience by following the divine principle, ‘Don’t hurt others’. But all the while she never felt hurt herself. On the contrary, she felt happy for making everyone else happy. She bowed down humbly to all those forces that controlled her without her knowledge.
She always sought comfort from the thought that she was a free bird and a working woman who had her own individuality. This was the inner faith that made her withstand everything. But when the reigns of this freedom started pulling her hard, she realised who really controlled her life, both her private as well as public life. The clock struck twelve. Mechanically Revathi’s legs led her towards the kitchen. The baby would be waking up. It was time to feed her. Her hands started working mechanically. In a bowl she mixed a little dal, rice and chopped carrots, potatoes and tomatoes and put the bowl in the pressure cooker. Taking out the coffee-filter she put some coffee powder into it and poured boiled water in it. The fine tuned ears of Revathi could sense the drip-drop of the coffee into the empty lower compartment. How nice it would be to have a cup of coffee now! The mind put forward the suggestion. Revathi at once kept the milk, sugar and the cup ready. Filter…. the life that is filtered for her …..the life that is made ready after it is boiled and cooled……someone is giving her a pure life, packed without any side effects and making sure that she does not go astray. Has she desired all this? Revathi shook her head twice.
No, she never wished for anything. In fact she never thought of anything. She was just living like that. Within the boundaries laid by someone she was very cautiously living. She was living the life that was designed by someone else. In this life there was no role of her nor could she take pride in it. Revathi did not feel like having filter-coffee. She smiled to herself while placing the lid on the milk pot….. ‘How mechanical life is! It is just like a programme that is fed into the computer without a single mistake. It is an accurate statistical report.’
She heard somebody calling from the window. She came to the drawing room. It was Vasu. All of them stopped knocking at the door and ringing the bell so as not to wake the baby from her sleep. The baby did not yet come under anybody’s control.
As she opened the door she asked him ‘How is she?’
Vasu flung his briefcase into the sofa irritatingly.
‘No, this match does not suit us’, said Vasu while taking off his shoes.
Revathi was surprised. Lalitha is such a nice girl who cannot be found fault with. She knew her right from her childhood. Her sister Rama was her classmate. Lalitha is a great beauty. She is a great singer and earning well too.
‘What is the matter Vasu? She is a beautiful girl. Moreover all her people like you too.’
Vasu looked at his sister-in-law embarrassingly.
‘That girl is very fast. She is always busy with her programmes and press meets. She is not like you. Though you are highly educated you are more like an ordinary house wife.’
Revathi was astonished.
‘It seems she was offered a job in Nrytya Kshetra. It was a very good offer indeed. But she did not like it. It was a perfect job with a specified number of working hours. One could be free after those hours….. Actually it seems she does not like to take up a regular job. She rather enjoys giving programmes. We do not like it….’
‘If she gives programmes what is our problem? There is a team manager. He has been there with her for a longtime. He takes care of everything. She need not do anything except designing the programme and practising it…..’
Vasu conveyed his disagreement with a shake of his head.
‘You know it. I want a peaceful life. You know the nature of my job too, don’t you? I am always busy going on tours. Al least the other person should be in a less demanding job to take care of the home’, said Vasu and went to the bathroom taking a towel.
Revathi slowly walked into her room.
On the table, a small slip was fluttering. It was the list she made last night – the list of provisions to be bought. It included everything right from safety pins to coffee powder. When she thought of how she had been tamed in the course of all those years she could not but laugh to herself.
‘You cannot go to the market. You are allergic to dust. You have no time for shopping. The transactions at the bank would be difficult for you. Don’t bother, you take rest. You can watch T.V. On Sunday do not fix up any programme. Do not think of visiting your friends. You can tidy up the house. You can starch your sarees. You can cook good food and take rest to catch up with the week long tiredness.’
But who takes rest in reality? Sunday is in fact more tiring than a working day with all the cleaning, cooking and looking after the children. This is the rest she gets! …… Did she know any other place except her office and home? Does she know anything else other than going to films and market riding pillion to Chandram?
Revathi threw the list in the dust bin. Chandram seemed to have come. She could hear his voice from the living room. Revathi went into the kitchen and wanted to switch on the rice-cooker. But she could not find the two-in-one plug. She looked for it on the shelf. The kitchen was neatly arranged. Everything was in its place. Everything was at hand, very convenient for cooking. Her mother would always say the kitchen looked the best in the entire house. Chandram liked the house to be spick and span. To have a single child, to laugh gently, to walk gracefully – these were the things Chandram liked.’ She always followed them. The qualities that were natural to her like – running to the door to pick up the newspaper in the morning, burst out laughing for every small joke, reacting extremely to every passion and pleasure – no longer existed. Her mother was pleasantly surprised. She said ‘how nice you have become!’…..Wrong, she should have said, ‘how nice you were tamed!’ How is she now? Revathi looked out through the window. There was a caterpillar crawling on the kidney-bean creeper as slowly, meekly and methodically as Chandram would like women to be. Every now and then it would lift its head up to look at itself. It was exactly the way she changed herself by constant monitoring. It was moving forward with all satisfaction exactly the way she did….. Revathi could not find the two-in-one plug - ‘It should be here itself. If it is found both the rice cooker and the grinder can be operated simultaneously. It is like how she has been used for both the office work and the household chores. She is a two-in-one or a three-in-one in Chandram’s hands. If she is made to put on a nighty she can be placed in the bed room. She will be useful for romance. If she is made to wear a cotton saree she cooks food and attends to all the domestic chores. If she is made to wear an ironed saree and helped into a cycle rickshaw she goes to office obediently and sitting in her cabin without being affected by any virus does her office work. And what more, she brings money too….’ Wow! At last Revathi could lay her hands on the plug. She threw it away to a corner and plugged in the grinder directly. The grinder started working with a deafening noise. Chandram’s sighs of irritation could be heard. He came to her.
‘Oh! You are here! Are you still angry with me dear?….’
He tried to make peace with her.
‘Why should I be angry with you?’ said Revathi trying to tidy up the spoons and ladles though it was not needed.
‘You know, I shouted at you for no reason. Please try to understand me….. It is all for your good, isn’t it?….. You can jolly well finish the work at home and reach the office by 10 O’ clock and be back at home by five punctually…’
‘But I have to undergo a lot of tension in the office. You know how hard I have to work! In the new job these problems are not there. I’ll have only field work and I will have many subordinates…..’ said Revathi looking at Chandram.
Chandram’s face again showed signs of anger.
‘You will be alone in those camps, conferences and hotels. You have to counsel people. It might set tongues wagging.
Revathi’s face became red. ‘What do they wag? Why do they do it? Vasu is doing a similar job as marketing officer for ten years now. He earns twenty thousand rupees a month. Isn’t everyone praising him?’
‘He is a man….’
Revathi flung away the spoons she had in her hand. Making a sharp noise the spoons fell all over the kitchen. She stood still for a moment to gain control over the shivering body. ‘An instrement…… a tool ……’ she flew into a fury. ‘She is not a tool. This has to be made clear. She has already delayed it for long. That’s all.’
‘I am going to take up my new job tomorrow….’
- - - - - - -
‘Don’t give it another thought madam! It’s indeed a good decision.’
Revathi smiled.
‘Thank you Anand. I too think so. I’ll have to face many personal problems with the transfer now. Moreover, the present offer doesn’t seem to be the one to be ignored. Since it deals only with sales, if marketing is done carefully, that would be enough…’
‘That’s what I’ve been telling you madam. It’s a good company. The returns will be very encouraging.’
Revathi nodded her head in agreement.
Anand rose to his feet.
‘Anyway, all the best madam! I’ll be meeting you again only next week. This week I’m going on a tour. I just can’t imagine the office without you. But you’ll have a bright future there.’ Saying so Anand took leave of her.
The paper weight that was spun by Revathi was spinning around on the table. The telex machine was a making a noise. The room had been familiar to her for eight years. It was a spacious, cool and cozy room, very convenient to work. She wouldn’t be sitting there alone writing the bills anymore. In a much bigger corporate office the whole administration would be under her control. Revathi’s lips spread with a smile. She stretched herself. Through the glass partition the packing division on the other side could be seen. Near a table in one corner Mrs. Rattamma, an elderly lady, was cutting the pad at a great speed. How quick her hands work! How agile the hands of a woman could be!
‘Yes! It’s a challenge to me!
Just as you acquire new blood and improve health when you donate blood, you improve your horizon as you interact with new people. It would be a real change.
Revathi pulled out the drawer, picked up her purse and locked it pushing it back. Leaving the keys on the table she came out. It was very pleasant outside. It looked as though it was going to rain. Revathi was highly excited.
The agony she had suffered for the past four days simply vanished. Now she needn’t go to another town taking the baby with her. Chandram, the baby and she could remain together. The cool breeze brushing her cheeks appeared to her as if it was sharing her happiness.
Her new job ……… with plenty of scope for quick promotions …… a good salary and a beautiful house…….
* * * * * *
‘Oh Lord! You didn’t tell this to everyone, did you?!
Revathi frowned.
‘Won’t they know if I don’t go to office tomorrow? Don’t I go there to resign?’
‘That’s what I say! Don’t entertain any such foolish ideas! Go to your office tomorrow as usual. Don’t think of anything else.’
‘May I ask you, why?’
‘Don’t ask me any further questions. You want to quit a good job and …….’
‘Good for whom? Do you think it’s a good thing for me to go to another town and live there all alone?’
Chandram’s face reddened with raze. He flung away the paper he held in his hand ……
‘I can’t answer you. You do whatever you like.’
‘Oh God! I don’t know what makes you so furious! If I decline the transfer, then I’ll have to forego my increment and remain in that cabin forever. This new job is also good, isn’t it?’
‘Stop it …… Do you think it is a good job? Instead of sitting in your room comfortably and doing your work without anybody’s interference, do you wish to rule the world? Will the heavens fall if you don’t get the increments and promotions?’
‘Did you not go on strike last year when your increment was stopped?’
‘That is different…. this is different……. We get satisfaction in this job. You needn’t step out of your office. You can lead a respectable life.’
‘Leading a respectable life to you means not having to interact with men. Am I right? There will not be any danger to my chastity, right?’
Chandram looked at Revathi with all hatredness…..
‘It seems that you have a desire to work with men! It’s a shame!’
The enraged Chandram rose to his feet hastily, put on his shirt and walked out slamming the door behind him. Revathi felt as if that bang hit her right on the heart. The noise startled the baby who was fast asleep in her cot and she let out a frightened cry. Revathi put her to sleep again. The child was eight months old. The fair and healthy baby, who had always resembled Chandram, for the first time appeared to Revathi as just a beautiful baby with no features of Chandram. ‘Everything depends on our own imagination.’
The baby was again fast asleep. Revathi using her feet slowly and gradually brought the rocking cradle to a halt so that the baby was not disturbed. Did she know how to do these things earlier? After the baby was born, as it grew it also learnt to recognise the touch of its mother and the careful nursing done by her. That made Revathi understand day by day what makes the baby happy and comfortable. That was not the only thing. There were so many other things that she had learnt. She transformed herself into a young lady under the supervision of her mother and grandmother. She stopped jumping and running. In their opinion Revathi was a well-behaved and dignified girl who climbed all the steps of college and university and made her parents proud by winning many medals.
She was the one who allowed Chandram to tie the marital knot by bowing her head and holding on to his little finger she entered the in-laws’ place. Since then, she had been living there without causing any problem to anybody. She learnt all these things from experience. She gained all this experience by following the divine principle, ‘Don’t hurt others’. But all the while she never felt hurt herself. On the contrary, she felt happy for making everyone else happy. She bowed down humbly to all those forces that controlled her without her knowledge.
She always sought comfort from the thought that she was a free bird and a working woman who had her own individuality. This was the inner faith that made her withstand everything. But when the reigns of this freedom started pulling her hard, she realised who really controlled her life, both her private as well as public life. The clock struck twelve. Mechanically Revathi’s legs led her towards the kitchen. The baby would be waking up. It was time to feed her. Her hands started working mechanically. In a bowl she mixed a little dal, rice and chopped carrots, potatoes and tomatoes and put the bowl in the pressure cooker. Taking out the coffee-filter she put some coffee powder into it and poured boiled water in it. The fine tuned ears of Revathi could sense the drip-drop of the coffee into the empty lower compartment. How nice it would be to have a cup of coffee now! The mind put forward the suggestion. Revathi at once kept the milk, sugar and the cup ready. Filter…. the life that is filtered for her …..the life that is made ready after it is boiled and cooled……someone is giving her a pure life, packed without any side effects and making sure that she does not go astray. Has she desired all this? Revathi shook her head twice.
No, she never wished for anything. In fact she never thought of anything. She was just living like that. Within the boundaries laid by someone she was very cautiously living. She was living the life that was designed by someone else. In this life there was no role of her nor could she take pride in it. Revathi did not feel like having filter-coffee. She smiled to herself while placing the lid on the milk pot….. ‘How mechanical life is! It is just like a programme that is fed into the computer without a single mistake. It is an accurate statistical report.’
She heard somebody calling from the window. She came to the drawing room. It was Vasu. All of them stopped knocking at the door and ringing the bell so as not to wake the baby from her sleep. The baby did not yet come under anybody’s control.
As she opened the door she asked him ‘How is she?’
Vasu flung his briefcase into the sofa irritatingly.
‘No, this match does not suit us’, said Vasu while taking off his shoes.
Revathi was surprised. Lalitha is such a nice girl who cannot be found fault with. She knew her right from her childhood. Her sister Rama was her classmate. Lalitha is a great beauty. She is a great singer and earning well too.
‘What is the matter Vasu? She is a beautiful girl. Moreover all her people like you too.’
Vasu looked at his sister-in-law embarrassingly.
‘That girl is very fast. She is always busy with her programmes and press meets. She is not like you. Though you are highly educated you are more like an ordinary house wife.’
Revathi was astonished.
‘It seems she was offered a job in Nrytya Kshetra. It was a very good offer indeed. But she did not like it. It was a perfect job with a specified number of working hours. One could be free after those hours….. Actually it seems she does not like to take up a regular job. She rather enjoys giving programmes. We do not like it….’
‘If she gives programmes what is our problem? There is a team manager. He has been there with her for a longtime. He takes care of everything. She need not do anything except designing the programme and practising it…..’
Vasu conveyed his disagreement with a shake of his head.
‘You know it. I want a peaceful life. You know the nature of my job too, don’t you? I am always busy going on tours. Al least the other person should be in a less demanding job to take care of the home’, said Vasu and went to the bathroom taking a towel.
Revathi slowly walked into her room.
On the table, a small slip was fluttering. It was the list she made last night – the list of provisions to be bought. It included everything right from safety pins to coffee powder. When she thought of how she had been tamed in the course of all those years she could not but laugh to herself.
‘You cannot go to the market. You are allergic to dust. You have no time for shopping. The transactions at the bank would be difficult for you. Don’t bother, you take rest. You can watch T.V. On Sunday do not fix up any programme. Do not think of visiting your friends. You can tidy up the house. You can starch your sarees. You can cook good food and take rest to catch up with the week long tiredness.’
But who takes rest in reality? Sunday is in fact more tiring than a working day with all the cleaning, cooking and looking after the children. This is the rest she gets! …… Did she know any other place except her office and home? Does she know anything else other than going to films and market riding pillion to Chandram?
Revathi threw the list in the dust bin. Chandram seemed to have come. She could hear his voice from the living room. Revathi went into the kitchen and wanted to switch on the rice-cooker. But she could not find the two-in-one plug. She looked for it on the shelf. The kitchen was neatly arranged. Everything was in its place. Everything was at hand, very convenient for cooking. Her mother would always say the kitchen looked the best in the entire house. Chandram liked the house to be spick and span. To have a single child, to laugh gently, to walk gracefully – these were the things Chandram liked.’ She always followed them. The qualities that were natural to her like – running to the door to pick up the newspaper in the morning, burst out laughing for every small joke, reacting extremely to every passion and pleasure – no longer existed. Her mother was pleasantly surprised. She said ‘how nice you have become!’…..Wrong, she should have said, ‘how nice you were tamed!’ How is she now? Revathi looked out through the window. There was a caterpillar crawling on the kidney-bean creeper as slowly, meekly and methodically as Chandram would like women to be. Every now and then it would lift its head up to look at itself. It was exactly the way she changed herself by constant monitoring. It was moving forward with all satisfaction exactly the way she did….. Revathi could not find the two-in-one plug - ‘It should be here itself. If it is found both the rice cooker and the grinder can be operated simultaneously. It is like how she has been used for both the office work and the household chores. She is a two-in-one or a three-in-one in Chandram’s hands. If she is made to put on a nighty she can be placed in the bed room. She will be useful for romance. If she is made to wear a cotton saree she cooks food and attends to all the domestic chores. If she is made to wear an ironed saree and helped into a cycle rickshaw she goes to office obediently and sitting in her cabin without being affected by any virus does her office work. And what more, she brings money too….’ Wow! At last Revathi could lay her hands on the plug. She threw it away to a corner and plugged in the grinder directly. The grinder started working with a deafening noise. Chandram’s sighs of irritation could be heard. He came to her.
‘Oh! You are here! Are you still angry with me dear?….’
He tried to make peace with her.
‘Why should I be angry with you?’ said Revathi trying to tidy up the spoons and ladles though it was not needed.
‘You know, I shouted at you for no reason. Please try to understand me….. It is all for your good, isn’t it?….. You can jolly well finish the work at home and reach the office by 10 O’ clock and be back at home by five punctually…’
‘But I have to undergo a lot of tension in the office. You know how hard I have to work! In the new job these problems are not there. I’ll have only field work and I will have many subordinates…..’ said Revathi looking at Chandram.
Chandram’s face again showed signs of anger.
‘You will be alone in those camps, conferences and hotels. You have to counsel people. It might set tongues wagging.
Revathi’s face became red. ‘What do they wag? Why do they do it? Vasu is doing a similar job as marketing officer for ten years now. He earns twenty thousand rupees a month. Isn’t everyone praising him?’
‘He is a man….’
Revathi flung away the spoons she had in her hand. Making a sharp noise the spoons fell all over the kitchen. She stood still for a moment to gain control over the shivering body. ‘An instrement…… a tool ……’ she flew into a fury. ‘She is not a tool. This has to be made clear. She has already delayed it for long. That’s all.’
‘I am going to take up my new job tomorrow….’
- - - - - - -
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