The Invincible Moonsheen
Part – 10
(Telugu Original “Venutiragani Vennela” by Dr K.Geeta)
English Translation: V.Vijaya Kumar
(The previous story briefed)
Sameera comes to America to meet her mother’s friend Udayani who runs a helping organization for women, Sahaya. After meeting Udayani, Tanmay develops a good opinion of her. Four months pregnant Samira tells her decision about her divorce proposal and the consequences that lead to that circumstances. Then Udayini tells her Tanmay’s story and prompts her to make her own decision after listening to the story. Shekhar who saw Tanmay in a wedding ceremony shows interest in her and wrote a letter about his willingness to marry her. Tanmay who is a bit emotional develops an interest in Shekhar and they both come together. Elders accept their proposal and get married to Shekhar and Tanmay. They start their new journey of life in Visakhapatnam.
***
Tanmay couldn’t understand how she could sleep in such a way.
Even her head was soaked in sweat.
Getting into the room Shekhar said, “It takes some more time to adjust to the new environment” looking at her greasy face.
She laughed at him pleasantly and she said to herself, at last, I came to my dream City Visakhapatnam which I longed for all these days!
“Ah! Why is this mess everywhere?” Observing the luggage around the room, Shekhar cut a sorry figure.
Looking at the notebook and pen he said sarcastically, “Have you started your silly writings already?”
This guy knows only when he opens it what is there inside the book. Tanmay sighed.
When Tanmay was about to retort, he simply walked away saying, “Come on! get ready and refresh! I’ll come after meeting Uncle!”
He shouted aloud from the verandah, “Hey! come out and help Attaiah, we will have our meal here today!”
Tanmay gets ready wearing a cotton saree with small flowers and sindura thilakkam on her forehead and bangles on her hands. It is her longing desire to wear them in such a way! She came there wrapped her saree around her shoulders and stood there politely.
“Why is that grandma’s stature?” Shekhar laughed derisively.
Tanmay looked at Shekhar sharply. Shekhar couldn’t recognize it but his uncle Shiva’s eyes caught it.
“Hey man! Your wife gets it to heart!” He giggled.
Meanwhile, Hyma, his uncle’s wife, came behind Tanmay and took her well-braided plait into her hands, lifted it, and said, “Oh! It’s grand and seems original!”
Tanmay couldn’t understand why she expressed such wonderment.
Shekhar prompted Tanmay to clear off the dishes after the meal.
Shekhar’s grandfather said, “O Ammayi! We couldn’t come to your marriage because of my ill-health. As a token of your marriage gift, I will provide you with this room, charging no rent for six months. He plucked off his artificial set of teeth and kept it in a box.
Shekhar muttered, “Grandpa, Stove, and others…?”
“The old kerosene stove is there in the shed, You may use it,” He said magnanimously.
“I’ll eat there in the canteen tomorrow morning. You make your cooking arrangements and collect all these things.” Shekhar said with Tanmay.
Shekhar brought a mat and an old quilt that night.
Looking at Tanmay who was spreading the blanket on the mat by taking it out from her suitcase said scornfully, “What can we do!… After all, if your people have any common sense… they could have sent the cot and other appliances by this time at least! Haven’t they thought of how the new couple could sleep? He turned her to his side who was lying opposite.
“Shall we sleep upstairs? She proposed hopefully looking outside.
The night is brighter outside with the moonlight. The breeze is cool.
Shekhar gets ready with the mat and blankets wrapped around them. He said,”It’s horrible to think in this greasy atmosphere!”
“Who is that?” Somebody yelled from downstairs.
“Grandpa! It’s we, there is no fan, feeling sweaty there!” He shouted aloud back.
Tanmay felt happy as she got the opportunity to sleep upstairs.
“Rellu Poola panupu painaa
Jallu jallulugaa evaro challinaarammaa
Vennela challinaarammaa….”
Tanmay hummed Krishna Shastri gari’s song and went into rapturous joy. She desired to sing it aloud indeed. As she slept the whole evening, she isn’t sleepy. Watching Shekhar’s face who was asleep she spent some time.
Sourabhamu lela chimmu pushpa vrajambu?
Chandrikala nela vedajallu Chandamama?
Yela salilambu paaru? Gaadpela visaru?
Yela na hrudayembu preminchu ninnu?”
How handsome he is! How beautiful it would be if he had such a beautiful heart! Yes, he might have a beautiful heart certainly, she thought hopefully.
I’ll certainly make you change Shakku! It’ll change you, my sweetheart!”
She firmly said to herself. Shekhar is far better when compared to these people’s behavior.
***
She woke up early in the morning and decorated the front yard with white powder. applied yellow paste to the threshold and kept the vermillion dots.
Before Shekhar got up she made a sweet rice dish.
She recalled her grandma’s words, “Keep the house clean whenever you get into a new house and never forget to light up the house every day.”
She kept two hibiscus flowers on either side of the Buddha statue in the window. Everyone in the house wondered at her gesture.
Shekhar, while leaving the house, said, “Don’t forget to help Attaiah with her chores, totally immersed in books!” and fled.
She waited at the gate hoping that he would look her back from the corner of the street. Shekhar after turning the street corner came back on his bike.
Shekhar curtly said, frowning at Tanmay,” Don’t hang up at gates, such things will never be entertained by our ladies! Don’t come out from the curtains tomorrow onwards.” Then he sped away fast.
Tanmay’s eyes filled with tears. She walked briskly inside. She heard the giggle of his grandfather.
“Hello, Ammayi! Help Hyma first!” He called her aloud.
Shiva who entered the kitchen suddenly kicked Hyma from the back side.
Tanmay, who was pressing the chapatis, was shocked at this awkward gesture. He murmured some derogative joke with Hyma.
She laughed at the joke and said, “That’s my hubby’s call, don’t be confused. I’ll send him to the office and come back after finishing Hanuman Chalisa. Chop curry leaves after pressing that chapatis”
She felt uncomfortable there listening to those unpleasant words all the while helping them. She could not bear the attitude of those people and she thought that they are treating her like a country side lass. She felt something insulting in their attitude. She took leave from them at 11.00 am. on the excuse of cooking.
She felt something heavy in her heart. She looked into the mirror,” Why these tears?” She recalled Shekhar’s pricking words. She consoled herself and decided, “Perhaps he is such a kind of bloke, I just follow him! Loving him means loving everything of him!” Tanmay resolved herself.
She didn’t know when she dreamed about her life with him. Shekhar never behaved in such a rude way before. They never spent enough time to know each other or understand him. She hadn’t come across any such different character like this in the great romantic stories she read so far. She reminded Vanaja.
She looked for the book where she kept her address. She searched for it briskly. “Where it would be missed?” She could not recall it though she tried well.
Perhaps she might have forgotten at Shekhar’s house. She hadn’t any hope of keeping it carefully by those careless people. All those painful experiences started twitching her greatly.
“Oh, my anonymous friend! Save me! Save me from all these hardships” She wrote it and sat quietly for a long time.
She began to feel ravenous hunger at 2′ o clock. She washed her face and ate some sweet rice.
She collected some wooden blocks from the yard and arranged them like racks of bricks inside the room. She opened the luggage and kept everything neat and clean. She looked at her book racks and felt happy. Now she is relaxed mentally.
She went upstairs to dry up Shekhar’s dresses. The slab was full of dust and matted with dirt. She walked down and dried up the clothes on a wire and again she went up with a broom and started sweeping.
She could not complete the whole thing. After brooming one-fourth of it she recalled her house suddenly. She reminded her own Sannajaji creeper. Grandma, father, and mother reeled before her eyes. She thought of talking once with them.
“How it would be asking them for a call once? I would have asked Shekhar in the morning” She dropped the proposal suddenly.
Hyma called her from the door, “Oh Ammayi! Do you want any tea?”
Tanmay felt happy about her customary invitation. She went there.
Offering the tea glass she asked in a low voice, “Are you married Shekhar knowing everything about him?
Tanmay altogether trembled expecting something unpleasant and said weakly choking, “Which thing Aunty?”
“Umm…Why should I…” She wanted to skip it.
Tanmay couldn’t control her feelings and she was waiting for him counting the moments. I should ask. I must ask him straight away very strongly. Shekhar came after everyone finished dinner and was asleep.
“Haven’t you slept? I ate there itself” He was drunk and smelled of alcohol.
Before Tanmay wanted something to say, Shekhar muttered, “Shh…
My grandpa didn’t know that I drink. Those who unattended our reception insisted me to this party…Why do those looks? Go and set something for bed upstairs”
He straddled up to the upstairs fumbling and said, “They doubt us if we sleep separately, come up not making any fuss.”
***
Tanmay didn’t see the beach though it has already been one week since she came there. Men went to bring the provisions and vegetables. Evening Shekhar proposed the beach visit.
“Why do we go there to those filthy shores and fishy scented places! Let’s go to RK beach,” Shiva said.
Tanmay’s heartbeat suddenly rose thinking that anyone may discourage this proposal at any point. Three to four families joined them. The members from Shekhar’s mother’s side began to tease Tanmay.
“Why that mega-sized bindi spot?”
“Why does that saree wrap around her shoulders?”
Tanmay couldn’t speak anything unusual, she sat quietly on the edge of the auto looking outside vacant. The roads in the town are up and down and the town is great looking. When the auto took its last turn on the down street there appeared her dream sea with cascading gigantic waves. Her soul ran out from her body to the sea. She felt she had wings suddenly. A rapt of joy engulfed her and prompted them to jump into the sea.
When everyone was busy buying the frying corn after getting down from the auto, she was watching the sea quietly.
She went into her fantasy of her dreams, She fantasized that she was walking in the sands firmly gripping her hands with Shekhar, watching the waves in rapt.
Hundreds are flocked around and filled in the sand. The balloons, paper playthings, and varieties of food materials. The hubbub of the vicinity is altogether boisterous.
Shekhar suddenly said, “Have you seen the Kalika Temple on another side of the road?”
Tanmay who was in her dreamy world suddenly alerted and came to this world. “Shall we?” She replied enthusiastically.
“We just came to the beach enjoying ourselves, not to visit temples and shrines, we visit separately but for now don’t be drifted away in your dreams, keep with these people connected.” Shekhar curtly said.
Tanmay was imbursed in her fantasies, she didn’t pay any attention to his words. Her body only presented there, she simply laughed at him not caring what he intended.
“Since my previous birth, I was longing to meet you, my friend!
Let me enjoy these endless deep waters in joy
Wearing the fluffy foams let me faint with rapt every atom of my body”
Maybe it’s poetry, maybe not, words were flooded and whirled.
She pulled up her anklets and dashed the flooded tides.
Suddenly Shekhar rushed there and lifted her into the air, and everyone shouted hilariously. It was quite surprising to Tanmay as if the earth received its first hail. By that time Shekhar was thoroughly enjoying with those kith and kin and with those adolescent kids splashing water.
“Oh, man! If you do such acrobatics with your lanky wife who’s just like Ramana Reddy, she would never be controlled, ” Shekhar’s pinni commented, laughing with her plagued teeth out.
Shekhar suddenly get her down, “If ever you wanted to go water wear a Punjabi dress”
Meanwhile, two girls came to Tanmay calling, “Vadina, come on!” and grabbed her to the waters.
She felt very happy playing with the dashing waves and said to the girl nearby, “You know how much I love this sea?”
Tanmay looked up at the sky, and thought of shouting aloud, “I came to my dreamy town!”
Meanwhile, a sudden heavy wave dashed and knocked them down unexpectedly. Tanmay couldn’t control herself on her legs and the wave grabbed her back. Gradually she started sweeping away with the wave.
*****
(Continued next month)
A post graduate in English literature and language and in Economics. A few of my translations were published. I translated the poems of Dr. Andesri , Denchanala, Ayila Saida Chary and Urmila from Telugu to English. I write articles and reviews to magazines and news papers. To the field of poetry I am rather a new face.