Authorship and Copyright Notice : Satya Sarada Kandula: All rights reserved. Feb 1991
Prologue :
It is over 3 weeks since I have completed my M.Tech. Programme, 3 weeks of re-organising my life, picking up old threads, burying some hatchets and organising my thoughts.
My two year old son is playing in the next room, drawing my attention to himself every once in two minutes. My father-in-law’s radio is airing songs in various languages, sequentially. A sparrow chirrups on the window-sill, a dog barks outside. The sounds of children playing in the afternoon sun occasionally drifts in. In this remote suburb of Bangalore there are no buses to drown the sound of their laughter. This area is untouched by the vagaries of the city water supply. Here it is easy to forget, to drift, to dream. Yet for the first time, I do not wish to forget, to leave behind, to close the door on unhappiness. I wish to understand, assimilate and live better.
The true beginning of my story is in some pre-historic dawn. I can only begin at a suitable middle, carry it some distance and leave it at another middle and call it the end.
Please Come Back :
Ramesh and I sat in the dark, side by side. Our was son asleep a few yards away on a mattress on the floor. I’d collapsed the bed so that my seven month old son wouldn’t crawl off and hurt himself.
Bitter angry tears welling up in my eyes.
“Come back with me Vennela,” he said, “I need you.” Blood rushed to my head. “You always needed me,” I thought, ‘To provide for you, to keep your house, to obey your orders, to take the blame. You needed my thrift to compensate your extravagance. My sacrifice so that you could be generous.”
And I thought, nearly bursting a blood vessel, “always it was me seeking you. – Ramesh, it’s months since you’ve written, are you OK? – I’m terribly sorry to disturb you., but can you speak to me for a while? – I need you, are you listening? – I miss you so much that it hurts like a physical wound.”
“When I was in love with you, darling,” I thought, “I wanted you to need me. At that time you asked me to define love.”
My eyes brimmed over. I thought of a walk with a friend, a few years ago…..
“I’m miserable”, I told him. “I’ve just landed a good job.”
“Tell me,” he said. “I shall either be able to provide for my child or to look after it. And the good Lord knows I want to look after it.”
“Won’t your husband provide for you and your child?” he asked.
“No!” My mind screamed then, “I have to provide for my husband.”
My thoughts surged on. “Ramesh, I need your support now, your shelter, your caring, not your dependence. I can’t support you anymore.”
Ramesh went on speaking, “You can take tuitions. There is an instrumentation company next door, you can work for them. You can help me manage my work. We can make a lot of money. Come back, Vennela!”
I thought of the polluted city. My meagre income., my husband’s unpredictable expenditure. Expensive Creches. My unhappiness with my job. Pressure from my in-laws. The very people who caused the problem in the first place with their requests for money. Money! My frustration with budgets that my husband didn’t respect and accounts he hated to supply. My husband’s struggle to make a name for himself – to be someone – to be an actor. Tireless. Relentless. I remembered my loneliness, friendless in an impersonal city. The money I’d saved for my baby – diverted by my in-laws. Money I’d saved, used by my in-laws to buy me gifts I did not want, at ceremonies I considered a waste. I remembered the days that we lived on one meal a day.
I looked at my darling baby – innocent, trusting, peacefully asleep.
“A no-win situation,” I thought, “but my responsibility is to the child that I’ve brought into this world. I must provide him a decent start in life. Education, decent healthy surroundings, a love of music and culture. A sense of responsibility and values and fun!”
“Come back, Vennela,” was what my husband said to me. “Let’s build a life together.”
And What was it that I said that day? I think I said, “Over my dead body!” Yup, that was what I said.
