The Vanished Violin

-Chaso

Rajyam completely lost consciousness and was completely oblivious of everything else. Venkatappayya felt his life flying away.

He looked keenly into his wife’s face.

Rajyam’s lips were trembling .She seemed to mumble something though the words were not audible.

‘Ose Rajyam!’ he called her anxiously.

She didn’t reply. She was lost to this world. She was roaming in the streets of the sky in the company of the Thodi raga.

The children were making noise in the veranda.

‘You little rascals! Stop that noise, will you?’ he rebuked them. He would have hit them had they been in his reach.

‘Abba! I was startled!’ Rajyam recovered herself and looking at her husband with a frown asked, ‘Why are you bursting out against them like a thunderbolt?’

‘Tell me how you feel now?’ he asked her anxiously.

‘Why did you rebuke them?’

‘Yes, I did. First, tell me how you feel.’

‘It’s all right. Why are you worried?’

‘Then did you respond when I called you?’

‘Did you call me?’

‘ Didn’t I?’

‘Is that so!’ Rajyam laughed. It was horrible to see her smiling face: her owl like eyes bulging out, the front teeth protruding forward made her face awesome.

‘I forgot myself,’ Rajyam laughed again.

‘Was that all,’ Venkatappayya said, relieved a bit.

Having had an attack of typhoid, Rajyam was on the edge of death but survived. Only for the past week she had been on a regimen of diet. Venkatappayya’s fear didn’t disappear. The cursed typhoid didn’t subside even after three weeks. It relapsed as if showing its might and caused him great distress for three more weeks. Though she was on a solid diet and had been brought home from hospital, Venkatappayya’s apprehension that she might die any moment remained at the back of his mind.

‘I am at ease now, able to digest what I eat and sleep well,’ Rajyam said, ‘Is it possible for me to become normal all of a sudden after such severe illness even if I wish to?’

It was a miracle that Rajyam could survive the disease. Completely emaciated she appeared skin and bones.

‘My heart lost a beat when I saw you abstracted,’ he said.

When he saw his sleeping wife, the doubt whether she was alive or not pestered him everyday but when her belly rose and fell, he was sure that she was alive and comforted himself---this had become usual with him.

‘I was lost in some thought. That’s all,’ Rajyam said, ‘I have no complaint of any sort. Since we have moved to this house, I feel happy.’

‘I too feel so, after moving to this house,’ he said, ‘I sense a new joy. Only the rent is a bit high.’

‘The rent causes worry,’ said Rajyam.

‘When our lives had not been safe, do we worry about rent?’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about anything.’

They used to live in an antiquated dungeon of a house in a narrow street, as the rent was low. As long as they lived there, all members in the family suffered from illness. Ultimately Rajyam’s life was in danger. He had no one to support. He suffered a lot when his wife was hospitalised. She survived, as her husband and children were lucky. Now they rented this house of two rooms and a veranda, which had been built recently. All the houses had spacious backyards and every one of them was a well-maintained garden.

‘Worthless money! Somehow we would manage .You are alive, that’s enough,’ he said.

‘No. That’s not the point,’ she said.’ You haven’t told me till now where you have raised a loan and how much you have spent for my disease. We have to think about that too.’

‘I told you not to raise that topic. First look after your health. Don’t be miserly. Drink as much ovaltine as you require. Eat all the fruits that are brought and don’t give any even to the children.’

‘That’s what I’m doing, am I not? Eating leisurely what you cook for me… Anyhow a loan is a loan, is it different for us in any way?’

‘ Didn’t I tell you not to refer to that? ’ He said. When it was raised he became nervous. In addition to his salary of two months, the expenditure exceeded two hundreds. Though the doctor treated like the celestial physician without charging a pie, all was spent on medicines. Though she was admitted in a General Hospital, the expenditure was burdensome for him.

‘All right, I won’t. Let’s settle everything leisurely. Managing everything is in our hands.’

‘Yes. You can do that way,’ Venkatappayya said and went in to the backyard. He didn’t like to continue the conversation. He washed himself, combed, put on his dress and started to go out into the street.

Rajyam was again transported to another world. Shadows were creeping into the room. The rays of the evening were falling on her face through the window and bathing her in golden hue.

Venkatappayya stood looking fixedly at her face. He was not afraid any more. He thought she might be enthralled, recollecting some memorable event of her childhood. A splendid joy seemed to dance on her face.

Venkatappayya hadn’t seen Rajyam so happy for the past few years. The first year when she came to live with him, she used to smile all day, bouncing with joy. Within a year, entrusting a child to her breast, life bade her cross the ocean of family life and reach the other shore. It was six years since she came to live with him, thus becoming the mother of three children and swimming the sea of domestic life.

Suddenly Rajyam opened her mouth and shook her head dropping it to a side. On seeing her, Venkatappayya burst into laughter. That laugh didn’t leave him for long like whooping cough. With that Rajyam came down to the earth from the fancy world of the celestial paths.

‘Why the mocking burst of laughter?’ she questioned her husband.

‘Come on. Let’s see again how you stretch your mouth open, bend the neck and shake your head,’ he said.

‘O you mean that,’ she said. ‘The girl from the house opposite is singing. Listen.’ He realized that the music was from the opposite house only after Rajyam drew his attention to it. Till then though there was some ringing in his ears, there was no need for him to know what it was.

‘I can hear music! That’s it,’ he said.’ Let me recollect: you were also a bit of a violinist in your childhood, weren’t you?’

The breeze blew into the room, heavily, tremulous with the singing of Kamavardini raga and intoxicated with the fragrance of the wood apple flowers.

‘Here you boys!’ he said. ‘A concert is going on here. Come and listen.’

Both his sons also went into the street, stood astonished listening to the song.

‘I thought it would be comfortable in this house. But it seems I can’t escape this migraine,’ he said.

‘Get yourself dry ginger,’ said Rajyam.

It pricked him. His body emitted fumes as if the ginger paste was applied to it.

‘ When it is getting dark, why do you go out into the street?’ she asked.’ Won’t you eat food early?’

‘ It gets late as I go on thinking,’ he said,’ I have to go now and do a good deed for redeeming my sin.’

‘Are you committing sins?’

‘We can’t get along without committing sins.’

Both the children were listening to the music attentively---perhaps it was melodious for them. The children’s hearts would be pure. Naturally music enthrals them. If they had a little knowledge of raga and tala in their childhood, music would be a cause for happiness throughout their lives.

‘ You are all the children of your mother. You inherited this sense of music from her, it seems,’ Venkatappayya walked into the street.

Rajyam got up slowly and switched on the tube light between the rafters. It glowed gradually and spread pearl-like light in the room. These electric lights wouldn’t be so charming in the old houses as in the houses built with cement. Like a bulb, covered with the threads of cobwebs under the eaves, which had glowed for a couple of days and blown, Rajyam’s music also ended. Her violin was thrown aside. The

bow was broken and it reached the dustbin. Though music left her life, the song of the girl from the opposite house gave her indefinable comfort and happiness.

Nothing untoward happened in Rajyam’s life. Everything went on properly.

Six years ago, a marriage party came to see Rajyam along with Venkatappayya. All of them asked her to sing a song. The music her father made her learn unnecessarily for the past four years had to be performed at this auspicious time.

She started singing shyly a keerthana in Thodi. As she began, a wrong note crept in, spoiling the rhythm. Her whole body shivered and the song ended in confusion. She broke into tears when the song was over.

But the elders who had come to settle the match appreciated her song. Those innocent brides didn’t know that these Telugu elders were ignorant of the difference between sruthi and apasruthi and the knowledge of raga and tala.

‘Your son-in-law need not do any job,’ said an elderly gentleman in the marriage party. Rajyam laughed within herself at their ignorance.

Venkatappayya heartily accepted to marry Rajyam. He was no fool. When they were engaged, even Rajyam thought she was fortunate. At the time of their marriage, Venkatappayya was one of the graduates from Andhra University and one of the Lower Division Clerks (LDC) employed by the State Government on a salary of

Rs 72/-

In the early days of their marriage, the neighbours thought Rajyam would sing well. In fact, she was forced to sing when she attended any perantam. Her husband never asked her to sing and she never sang.

When she was about to sing full throated, overcoming her shyness, she became pregnant, as if it were an emergency, and had to go to her parent’s. With that her womanliness acquired meaning.

The children started making noise in the veranda.

‘Why do you fight with each other? Come to me,’ she said.

Her sons, a five-year-old boy and a four-year-one, who were wrestling, came to their mother.

‘Is your brother sleeping?’ she asked.

‘Yes. He is snoring,’ said the elder boy.

‘If you make noise, won’t he wake up?’ she asked.

The elder boy gave a sly smile.

There was a repentant expression on their faces.

‘The girl in the opposite house is singing melodiously,’ she said. ‘Sit and listen to her.’

They sat quietly. Pacifying children not do mischief, making them heed to her convincing words, blowing the hearth with out getting smoke on to her face---all these Rajyam had learnt with ease.

The girl in the opposite house started singing out the notes. The musical notes flowed like streams, and roared like cataracts now and then. Raising her voice to a crescendo and keeping it at gandhara, she sang freely.

Rajyam got the strength of an elephant. Music was necessary in our day to day life for happiness and health. Even if one couldn’t sing it was enough to understand good music. That would do good.

Meanwhile like a small piece of stick in a sweet drink, a boy, probably her brother arrived.

‘ gi ma pa da ni oo za ga…’

‘sa ri sa ni pa da ni oo za ga …’ he sang at the top of his voice in wrong notes. The girl stopped her song and playing tambura.

‘You fool! You don’t practice to sing but you are ready to do mischief,’ she said.

‘Didn’t I give you the correct note?’ the boy asked.

‘Let father come. I’ll report this to him,’ said the girl.

Again the boy sang in the correct scale but in wrong sruthi.

If music were in the environment even the rafters would sing. There was nothing extraordinary in it.

‘Let father come you fool!’ the girl stopped her music. Rajyam was filled with wrath. That girl was singing the kritis in ragas that were familiar to her.

‘At least for some time I felt happy,’ Rajyam said.’ Now it is ended.’

‘Why doesn’t she continue?’ her elder son asked.

‘A mischievous boy like you came and interrupted. She became angry and stopped singing.’

‘How is she able to sing Amma?’

‘She has leant singing,’

‘Can you sing?’

‘Yes. I can. Shall I teach you?’

‘No, Men won’t sing.’

‘Yes. Men also sing. Shall I teach you?’

‘Alright. Teach me now.’

‘Not now. I’ll teach you later,’ saying so Rajyam lay in the middle of the room stretching her legs.

‘Ore peddodu! Massage my legs babu.’ She said.

The elder boy sat boxing her legs slowly.

‘ Amma! I’ll hit the hands,’ the second boy sat boxing hands.

Humming kalyani kriti to her self she lay down forgetting everything. The musical notes sung in the middle of the song became tangled like tousled hair.

‘You are not singing like that girl,’ said the elder boy.

‘I have forgotten everything.’ she said.

The lid of the vessel kept in the niche in the backyard fell making an awkward sound echoing in the four corners of the room.

‘Must be a dog. Chase it,’ Rajyam said.’ Might have spoiled the rice in the niche.’

Her sons rushed in.

‘It’s not a dog …Amma,’ the elder boy said. ‘A cat has thrown the lid over the rice bowl.’

‘It’s alright. We don’t need to cook again,’ Rajyam said,’ the food touched by the dog might also be eaten these days. Won’t you bolt the doors?’

‘You called us to listen to the music,’ the elder boy answered.

‘Yes, I did but you would have come after closing the doors. Do you understand?’ she said slowly.

Venkatappyya came back.

‘Moonlight in the backyard and fragrance of wood apple flowers are delightful,’ said Venkatappyya.

‘Why are you back so early?’ Rajyam asked him.

‘I have finished my work.’

‘Has your sin redeemed?’

‘To some extent.’

‘It seems you have gone some where these days.’

‘ Rama… Rama…’

‘Your talk seems to suggest that.’

‘Cha...’

‘I can’t utter those words.’

Venkatappyya hid some thing in his upper cloth that he kept under his arms-a round thing covered with paper.

‘What’s that?’

‘I’ll open and show it to you.’

Inside it there was a sari with an ornamental border of handbreadth wide and a piece of cloth for blouse. Every woman from a queen to a commoner would appreciate it.

‘Did you buy it?’

‘Yes. I did before I would spend all the money.’

‘Where did you get the money from?’

‘If I tell you, you won’t forgive me.’

‘What have you done?’

‘Put your hand in mine and promise me,’ he said and extended his trembling hand. Rajyam put her hand in his.

‘Why do you shiver so? What did you do? You haven’t stolen any thing?’

‘It’s worse than that. You had a relapse of typhoid. All my resources were dried up. A friend of mine came to our house and gave this advice the moment he saw it. I was dare enough to give it to him.’

‘You haven’t known it still. He took it with him and sold it for

Rs 250/- I never dreamt that it would fetch that much amount, I thought it was old. Only the old are valuable, it seems.’

Rajyam understood and looked at the four corners of the room.

‘You don’t need to look for it.’

‘Has it gone?’ She sighed deeply.

‘I know that it would be difficult for you. What I did was wrong,’ he looked like an offender. Sensing that her husband was hurt she suppressed her sorrow instantaneously.

‘You haven’t done any thing wrong. Any householder would do the same. You have done what has to be done. You haven’t spent it for your self?’

‘I dared as we have only male children.’

‘It’s alright. My voice has been stifled for a long time, how would the violin save me? Goddess Saraswathi blessed me only to that extent and now she has departed. While parting the mother has shown her generosity, she blessed me with life and gifted me a sari and a piece of cloth for blouse.’

Tears filled her eyes.

She didn’t even open the sari to look at.

‘Thinking that it would last for a long time, I bought it,’ Venkatappyya said and took the sari out, partly unfolded and covered it on Rajyam’s shoulders.

‘Let it remain as a memento,’ said Rajyam.

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Translated from Telugu by T. Sreenivasa Reddy