Story of Every Village

Story of Every Village (Telugu)

 Allam Rajayya

(Photo is only indicative)

Before the story…

He met me only casually …. Since met, we started talking…. my anxiousness is to draw the material I want from everyone I met … he is like a mine worker striking work for a month – I followed him only because he is like that… yes, he is in fact on strike… in this country even usual things cannot be achieved except after a strike… it is wrong to imagine a strike can achieve anything… Trade Unions would not go further… it is all digging Ramayanam up again… so, it is better to get into the story directly… why me mediating then…

Story before You

Fear to go to the village I was born in and grew up… (He is returning from the same village…) one needs a strong heart to see directly poverty, squalor, uneven streets, straw screens on both sides, dilapidated huts behind them, in those huts lives of lowly corpses like people fighting with scarce life… Sir… Follow me if you have such bold heart… If say no, Salutation to you… Another salute to your story…People all lacking heart to withstand the sight of the wretched condition of the village don’t go there… if at all you go, naked exploitation dancing unabashed would be visible… Poverty would be seen…

Our village is not in Africa. People there did not wage unending wars like in Vietnam. Our village is not among forests of Srikakulam. There was no famine in that village. It keeps raining every year. Tanks get filled. Every lean ox that can move legs gets into the mud. Every being with a belly struggles in the fields. Rice fields there yield thirty bags per acre. Maize there growing like wild bushes show up cubit length cobs. All kinds of grain are grown there.

Even then Sir! Ninety nine bellies in every hundred living there, would not get filled. Not even one hut has a new thatching in roof. There wouldn’t be enough cloth on the person… Didn’t you understand Sir! That is an Indian village where eighty of hundred Indians live… that then is our village…

Even if ninety nine stomachs growl? Grain on carts goes to where it has to go. In the village entire authority even without leaving a place to poke a pin does not rest with that ninety nine says Patwari Gourayya…

“It is the doing of your earlier lives to work as coolies”, proclaimed Dora the Lord.

If you go on digging it is all pot shards only…

Leaving that village like burial ground where I was born and turned wise many like me under unavoidable situations went onto the country… life convicts in dues with the mud huts – bearing burden of loans remain there only.

Sir!.. Not that I am enjoying heavenly comforts… I need not relate to you about the lives of mine workers… I am eking out with every day an accident at the place looting my rupee of labor and throw a ten paise coin to me… what I could achieve is… to be able to fill belly…

Unable to kill the possessiveness of the village where I was born and grew up, longing to see my people who lived along with us in that poverty and hunger, I went to our village…

In the Village….

Washerwoman went away after her daily trip. Moon got on to the Tamarind tree. In the pale moon light our village is like a fainted bile disease patient. My grandmother digging up old memories was crying incessant narrating something.

Our father squatting on the floor spitting again and again – was looking at western stars above the hut. I know that the anguish in his heart is twisting and turning.

In this same rock strewn front yard we three brothers used to mash gruel and Gaduka (A course preparation) in an aluminum vessel and slurp even while kicking and fighting. Our grandmother with her stomach touching the back bone, sitting in that same place would scold us. Our father throwing the brushing twig that he put in mouth in the morning only at night – washing face right once in the dusk – would sit at the same place now he is sitting…

Where is Enkatigadu, my younger brother who established unions on the piles of hungry lives, revolting on the hunger and the world? Hunger alone as the world and eating whatever comes his way, living with Kali, where other younger brother Peeardu?

My uncle was composing lelle folk songs and was cursing…

“You Concubine – did you not cook food… neck is broken carrying the mud pallet all through the day… Where is food, your mother…?... he was shouting… shouting himself hoarse…?

From where does the food come? You booze to the neck and come… beg for the money me and the boys earned, you put it on the horns of that toddy supplier… may your pyre burn… born for our downfall… my aunt was giving back equally…

My uncle was hurling unmentionable words…

It appears uncle’s son Rayadu hit his father.

“Oh you son of a whore – Did you grow so much to hit me? May the elder Madiga lift your wife?”… my uncle turned onto the son.

Unable to do anything else and like showing ire upon aunt on the pot it looks he hit aunt. She picked up wailing.

“Your home, mother… hell it is….” Our Rayadu must have sprinted to the Arrack place. Now him, in which thicket tumbles after vomiting all he drank? Hard it is… to tell… from the vessel in front of whose home he would drink after throat gets parched.

“Wouldn’t you die… it’s enough if it gets dark – you get possessions. That is what Sambha… what if not drink? My father shouted.

“Oh Great man you have come. Patel – to give us lesson. To teach us knowledge and mind – like you stitching the mouth up, ask us to remain biting moustaches. – If so concerned can’t you lend a measure of Jowar? Am I not your brother? Are you not elder brother donkey? “My uncle shouted back.

My father’s mouth was shut up. Since I have come my mother hiding in her pallu brought a measure of rice on borrow and return basis… my father has also seen her bringing thus after going round many homes.

Unable to settle on the tamarind trees barrenka birds were making noise al of a sudden… even if I open mouth thinking of saying something – stopped looking at the moon glowing pale – my aunt was wailing with her unceasing raga… however many kicks her skeletal body sustained?

For a long time my mother did not talk… her eyes were stupefied… she was wandering in many places. My father opened mouth to ask me something…

But meanwhile hubbub… like jackal attacked the ram group, like cat jumped onto the basket of chicks – shootings and wailings all at once – suddenly we all got up and went into the village…

A hut in the village…

That’s our Mallu mama’s hut…

By the time we went there were many people collected before the hut. Women drawing their noses up and down – pressing their eyes – were saying a word each… some either unable to talk, or voice choked due to the grief, were making sounds “Ccho… Ccho…” some more were cursing Linga, elder son of Mallu mama nonstop. Few more went limp and sat down with blank looks.

See, making way among people in such condition I went a little further… first of all my eyes went blind with darkness on seeing what was there… a pool of fresh blood … our Mallu mama in the middle of that puddle. From among his long hair blood was dripping even then… that head was taken into lap by Gattu Mallavva…. Whites of the eyes were seen from the depressions that were eyes once… man has slipped from consciousness long back. Looking at all that it appeared he would pass away at any moment.

From wherever he has com, Narsu mama, - came like a typhoon – like a cart on the gravel, he came weeping with the upper cloth held to the face. Asking all the others move away, making the heart brave, crouching next he gazed into his younger brother’s face…. Somebody handed water over. He sprinkled water on the face and wiped with his turban cloth… someone handed a n old blouse to him… he tied it tight to the head after applying the flint stone wool first… taking the head from Gatla Mallavva’s lap rested it on his own thigh. Fanned with the turban cloth.

“If there is some gruel, get it fast” Narsu mama.

None made any noise – they all looked at each other stupefied.

“Oh! You! Snake eyed linga… would you kill the old fellow just like that – run you son of a mom – run and get some gruel… what is there on my face… Bhagavatam or what? Eh.. You..! Son of divine beauty! Making himself your father and mother and taking all the troubles has he not reared you? – Today there is a wife that came to you… now to you wife is jaggery and father appears like a demon… Tut….may your birth burn off… with a tree tall son being… that bloke – your Avva… your mother, may her throat be cut where water is lacking… she just pining for food eloped with lame Poshigadu… - leaving a growing up boy – your father – turned into a tree among trees, a cattle among cattle,- turning blood into liquid- thinking of the condition of the boys if he gets another wife – thought pros and cons, killing all the desires raised you isn’t it? If anyone listens they would also learn. Since he looked after keeping his stomach empty, you son, you did like hitting with chappal. You parted property with him only… Oh You! He has not put you among people blaming for what you did. If four people get to know it is like four worlds are listening, he just for himself earned handful and looked after the younger son.” Narsu mama was blabbering without an end or reason.

Lingayya was sitting lost.

“Is there gruel or what? Just for that gruel all this came to pass. – I am yet to consume…” Sayamma ran fast…

Narsu mama grabbed the gruel vessel and held it to Mallu mama’s mouth… eyes that were moving till then stopped moving.  Gruel that went into the mouth came out and dripped on the cheeks…

Narsu mama scratched his bushy heard. .. Thick lips trembled… hit forehead with the right hand… that means he is holding the grief that is gushing forth.

Malliga – Eh You Mallanna- look this way brother – I have come! Narsimmanna I am… You… “ Narsu mama was calling in Mallu mama’s ears.

Mallu mama was gulping.. was struggling to tell something… but… without telling anything…

Narsu mama broke like an old pot…

“Life escaped through the eyes. Close eyelids” someone said…

That night…

Mid night passed… foxes at the edge of the stream were hooting… maybe in the fallow lands under the hill a bird was calling once in a while… owl on the tamarind tree was shuddering… for all of us in our village sleep lacking there was a corpse in mid village… those wailing continued to do so. Some of them were narrating from birth to death of Mallu Mama…

Dead Mallu Mama was laid on a kambal in the front yard. From foot to the face an old Dhoti was spread… those expected were still at machans and fields… if all of them join here laying him in sticks from forest and burning only… then Mallu mama lean and bent, always doing something in haste, - keep walking and looking back thinking would not be seen again… such a tall man who walked away bent, without answering when the baniya beat splitting skin just for dropping the water drawing metal pot, would not take beatings again…

Before the hut tuniki splinters were burning – for embers – they were crackling…

Our cousin Lingayya as if someone tied him tight was squatting on the soil near the partition. Was crying like someone was stifling him wild. His brother Bondigadu still short of ten years was sleeping without any feelings near the mortar on the ground. Tear trails on his sucked off cheeks were dried. His stomach was drawn in. Narsu mama with downcast looks was shedding tears… maybe the days of his living together with the brother are coming to mind. Madhunakka, wife of Lingayya with hair let loose was sitting at the head of the dead man and was wailing. Behind her Lingu bava’s son, the ailing boy with crooked legs was asleep in the dirt… right in the sleep he was calling mother and asking for gruel.

My father and mother were also sitting at Mallu mama’s feet. Our grandmother was wailing in sing song style calling “ Annago Annaga”

Rayakka right in the middle of the yard standing erect was telling something gesticulating …

“He was alright even by the dusk time – old man’s body for the last three days was ailing – he was not getting up from the cot at all… Old son of a widow, was ready for famine and good crop. Somehow he would bear… that little boy Bondigadu, how can he bear… then let there be corpse in his house, the Dora for everything he was there. Avva, whatever time his wife is born, would not give alms even to a cat, all the day made him graze the calves – early in the morning made him haul dried dung cakes for boiling milk – then if she gives a morsel of left overs or something like that… she wouldn’t do that… boy when refused to go saying he cannot do the work, cajoling him he was sending every day. He then there however many forest fruits he eats what would they amount to- today the lad unable to bear hunger started raising ruckus. Old man who went saying would ask for advance payment came with blackened face. At dusk he came to me and asked if a little gruel is there… me after going and working here there brought a measure of grain and just then was putting the grinding wheel before. After cooking I shall give at night, I said. Old man went away drawing feet. By the time he came to his front yard it looks both the kids were fighting… Rayakka stopped narrating and scratched head vigorously.

Sina Poashakka sitting at the tamarind tree trunk picked up.

Isn’t that kid with crooked legs there? Lingulu’s son… it looks Madini just then gave gruel in a vessel. From wherever he came the other boy came running like a bullet… thus came running and Bondigadu caught hold of the vessel like hawk… may his valor go to dogs… lame kid also caught hold of his leg… Bondigadu simply fell down on the kid… hot gruel fell upon both of them… lame kid went bonkers. Bondigadu for a glance looked like a thief. Licked what fell on the hands… with rage from this and that side he caught hold of lame boy’s neck.. Lame kid was struggling and started shaking limbs with life leaving now or then… Madunu and I jumped there at a time. She tried to free them with all the strength but would they let go? When I caught his arm he bit me hard… young boy’s eyeballs protruded… Madunu pushed Bondi with her arms on his chest… that boy leaving the kid aside charged onto Madunu like a hungry lion… tore her saree to shards. Bad boy he is tore her blouse too. On the chest and hands he bit flesh pieces off. It is just then Lingulu who went to dig soil came back with the basket on head and measuring scale in hands…

He was as such hungry. All the day he carried mud in hot sun. Looking at semi naked wife and brother charging on to her like a hero, he went mad… he hit brother with the scale in the hand… he beat Bondu blue and black. And the boy with crooked legs not even heeding to what passed was licking gruel that fell on the floor. He picked the boy up.

Mallanna sitting by the erect wooden shaft, whatever he thought, who knows! He came out in a hurry. After coming.

“Aye, you! Your son, one who is born yesterday or day before became lovable. I have brought you two up like my two eyes avoiding even a thorn in your soles, isn’t it? Now you have grown wings. A wife has come. You separated me and the boy. My body lost strength. For three days while the boy and I were looking with hunger you were feeding the kid. You, son of a whore! You who witnessed brother and father dying of hunger, how could you lay hands on his person? May your wife….” Unable to bear anymore old fellow let his tongue loose.

Your servant I am – Lingadu was so angry… he hurried and picked up the stick fixed for the wall. “As such brother was famine struck. With each beating he tumbled like a small bird… life that was renaming got mixed with Ganga… would he be seen again?” she finished and blew nose…

You may narrate Sastras and puranas tomorrow. Would the dead man return? He wouldn’t… is it a job of sweeping to empty the matter, just like that Mali Patel would smell the track and would appear as the day breaks. He is as such a splitting type. Of a kind who binds the dead buffalos and milk them… that we are running around for good and bad he is already cut up with us with his stomach boiling… he would think we are caught conveniently and start probing how death occurred… he would make the hut to be sold off in the name of fines and compensations. From wherever he came Durgayya Tata came pushing his walking stick and started making haste.

His thoughts

My mind went numb. Master that is my place of birth. After witnessing such relatives of mine – near our card board huts labor colony – coal stoves hissing and emitting noisy smoke – dog like fights at the toddy shop and arrack depot – debauchery indulged unable to earn enough to eat – color water tea in hotel.. lenders and their Henchmen collecting like house flies near coal pits on the salary day – masters who squeeze out blood drop by drop – all of them…are all dancing before me… not just them… sharp whiskers Dora who employed me with him when I was a boy – Mali Patel who usurped all our lands in the name of loans – baniya who came with just a cloth on the head and then built pandals all over – they are also showing their sharp fangs, nails, eyes like fire pits ugly and cruel – are jumping around me..

I treaded like a beast that was terrified. Sound of feet in my steps. Breath in my breathing – a feeling that life in me is being followed by life outside… the two are my brothers..

Men making merry exploiting trouble of our limbs, and their rule, their police, papers, their pen rods as long they exist Oh brother, our lives are just like this. Where would you fritter off? Like the Bunyan tree with their roots entangled everywhere those sons of whores are only are there. One -working like dead - eat whatever he gives, die turning into ants and mosquitos alone. Our fathers and grandfathers died like that only. Another – we have to make out this or that only while still alive. What if you live or die these lives of cesspools. Even if one naught one hands join together cannot pull out his single hair. What is to loose apart my whores shit. What is there worse than this? We don’t have livelihoods unless we pick and throw them out.” Thus my younger brothers taught the daily wage workers and made their eyes open… and the village took him for sacrifice… sons of whores drank well and challenged beating the thighs “Who can face us”.. Elder brother out of vengeance when ran, they put a tag of Naxalite in his neck and put him behind bars permanently. He is growing old there itself. When I was chased… from behind…

My steps were full of anger. Younger brother was continuing his tirade “If you sit thinking it is our fate hunger deaths alone would be our last fate…”

Fighting for land – for food – my cousin Somulu – hawk eyed Jaggulu – calf legs Ailadu – when villages chased did not like me end up in cola pits… they are collecting wood and raising fire in the forests. When the village itself turns into a beast bushes and trees alone are the protection isn’t it!

His queries…

He stopped narrating and sat quiet for a while. Started throwing pebbles lost in thoughts. Then he looked at me most intently. Not just anger but also wetness was seen in his eyes…

Bondigadu who for three days with hunger around – dragged the gruel from his brother’s son – and fought with sister-in-law – Lingayya who manhandled his own brother – Our Mallu Mama who intervened unable to bear love for the child, for what did he die?.. Sir, why did these pople fight each other? My aunt wailing on being beaten by uncle – our Rayadu drunk and hurling in dust – Mallu mama’s wife who eloped just for the sake of food leaving husband and children behind – my mother crying reminded of my younger brothers – lame legged kid son of Lingu Bava – which country do they belong Sir? ..why are they fighting among themselves and dying?

Blood relation – brothers – bonds, likings all before what did they surrender?

Sir, my younger brother tried answering and the well-heeled of the village killed him. Second one was incarcerated and silenced. Chased those who proclaimed these as facts again and again…

He at once got up and walked away without even looking at me.

Closing…

After all who is our main enemy?

Arunatara June 78 – November 78

I sincerely hope the author wouldn't mind my posting my translation of his story here.