On Anantha Chaturdashi, I took the kaayi holige I had made and set out for the old-age home. My husband dropped me there and said, “Come back by auto when you’re done.”
I went to my friend’s room, gave her the holige and was about to leave.
My friend asked, “Did you make the chakli you brought the other day?”
“Why? Did you think I don’t know how to make it?” I laughed and took leave of her.
Perhaps she had recognised her daughter-in-law’s hand in it. But then, one has to let go of a little pride to ask such a question.
Before leaving, I had got into the habit of taking a round of the place, waving at people I had met earlier, speaking to a few others, and then heading home.
As I was walking around, one of the residents whom I had met before stopped me for a chat.
Both husband and wife were staying there.
She said, “Come, let’s sit on this stone bench in the garden. The next time you come, we may not be here. Do you have some time? Can we talk?”
“Oh, I’ve finished all my work before coming here,” I said and sat down.
She said, “You keep coming here often, don’t you? Why don’t you convince your friend to go back home? Her son and daughter-in-law don’t come here either. She doesn’t like that. But from the way she talks, I feel she wants to go back home.”
I said, “They’re ready to take her back. Let her say it herself. If it’s difficult for her to tell them, she can tell me, can’t she? But her pride won’t allow it. Only if she herself says it can we assume she has realised things. Otherwise, this drama will keep repeating itself. This isn’t the first time. They would pacify her and apologise even when they were not at fault. This used to happen often. Her friends and relatives would also advise and support them. This time, because she is in an old-age home, I’m hoping there might be some change.”
“That’s true. What you’re saying is right,” she said.
Then she continued,
“You come here to meet your friend. Many people come here to visit someone or the other. But leave alone talking to us, they behave as though they would have to pay rent even to smile. That’s why I felt like talking to you before I leave. Perhaps they’re worried that we might complain about our families, or that they may end up asking us personal questions. Whatever the reason, they come and go with serious faces. They are even afraid to speak to our family members. Maybe they fear they might be asked to take us back home.”
She laughed as she said it.
I didn’t know what to say.
“I have a habit of poking my nose into everything. You could call it an inborn trait,” I said with a laugh.
She smiled and said, “I want to tell you my story. He’s asleep anyway. He won’t wake up for another two hours. It must be the effect of the medicines. I’ve told them to ring the bell beside him if he wakes up. We can go then.”
“Oh! Is that so? What happened to him? Isn’t he well? The first time I came here, he seemed perfectly fine. What happened?” I asked.
“He was doing well. A few days ago, perhaps his blood pressure shot up. He fell while going for his morning walk. He injured his hip in the fall. We don’t know if he’ll remain like this permanently. Even if he recovers, he may never recover fully.
That’s why our son and daughter-in-law are coming to take us back in a couple of days.
It’s been nearly three years since we came here.
I too want to go back. Now we can spend our days peacefully with our son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren, without any problems.
I felt like sharing that happiness with you.”
I was surprised.
Why had they left such a happy home and come here in the first place?
Now, more than the pain of his fractured hip, she seemed happy about being reunited with everyone.
I felt awkward asking.
They were not people I knew very closely. There wasn’t that kind of intimacy between us. In fact, today was the first time we had spoken at such length.
So I made that silence my own and sat quietly.
Perhaps she noticed the surprise on my face.
“You must be wondering about all this, aren’t you?” she asked.
My husband often tells me,
“You wear your feelings on your face before you even speak. You never stop to think how the other person might feel. Why don’t you try being a little more composed instead of displaying every emotion on your face?”
But as the saying goes, “One’s nature doesn’t leave even after climbing the funeral pyre.”
In my case, it feels more appropriate to say that it didn’t leave even after climbing down from it.
So I simply sat there, looking at her face.
She began her story.
“Our grandmother desperately wanted a male heir for the family line. After six daughters were born, Kumar Kantheerava was finally born. Her wish was fulfilled.
But for our father, who earned a living as a priest, along with the responsibility of a family of nine came the worry of marrying off daughters who were coming of age.
While I was still in the tenth standard, my husband-to-be’s family, who were from a neighbouring village, saw me and came forward with a marriage proposal. They even offered to bear all the wedding expenses.
I, however, wanted to study, get a job, stand beside my father, and educate my younger brother.
But here too, our grandmother’s wish and stubbornness won.
The thought that my brother would be educated as much as he wished was enough to make my mother happy.
My husband’s family was wealthy and respectable. It was a large joint family with four brothers. He was the youngest son. They owned a large textile shop and also a grocery store.
What more could one ask for?
Everything was good.
Except for one thing.
He had a weakness for women.
I never allowed it to go too far. If needed, his brothers would also intervene.
The reputation of that wealthy family was carefully preserved under layers of currency notes.
Within six months of my marriage, the fact that they had borne all the wedding expenses and helped my parents financially became clear to me.
All my sisters-in-law came from well-off families.
I alone was the daughter-in-law from a poor household.
My husband would be perfectly normal during the day, but he became a different person at night.
That was the problem.
I stayed by his side all the time. I was always careful that he didn’t even look at other women.
After marriage, I never once went alone to my parents’ house. If we went in the morning, we returned by evening.
We had only one son. He studied what he liked, got a good job in the city, and got married.
By the time he had been married for six years, the family property had been divided and the textile shop had come to our share.
Even at the shop, my husband would cast his eye on the women who worked there.
So after finishing all the housework every morning, I would sit at the shop.
Then, around the time I turned fifty, all the usual problems that many women face began—stomach pain, fatigue, discomfort, back pain and other ailments.
Finally, I even had to undergo a hysterectomy.
All these years, I had spent my life making sure my husband didn’t stray towards another woman.
Now my own health became my biggest problem.
Because of my illness, we moved in with our son.
We handed over the shop to my husband’s nephew and came to stay with him.
Though he was only a nephew, he sent us a good amount every month as our share from the business.
And then the real problem began.
The husband who had held my hand all these years seemed to think that the wife who had given him comfort and companionship was no longer a woman.
It had been eight months since we had come to live with our son.
Just then, my son had to go abroad for six months for training.
After he left, my husband took responsibility for dropping the children at school, buying vegetables and bringing home whatever was needed.
My daughter-in-law respected and admired her father-in-law very much.
Sometimes the three of us would go out together in the car.
But often, my husband would find some excuse to keep me from coming along.
He would take only my daughter-in-law with him.
Buying her clothes, bringing vegetables she liked, getting her sweets…
Watching all this, I began to sense something.
After all, I had thirty-five years of experience.
But could I tell my daughter-in-law such things about her father-in-law?
If you spit at the sky, it falls back on your own face.
If it had been one of the girls at the shop, I could have dismissed her or made some other arrangement.
But what could I do now?
My mind was in complete turmoil.”
“When my father-in-law passed away, a donation had been made in his memory to this ashram—enough to build a room here. We used to receive invitations to the annual function held there.
At just that time, that invitation felt as though God Himself had sent it to show me a way.
That very night, I called my son and told him what I wanted. He asked all kinds of questions—couldn’t I go after he returned, did I really have to go, was my daughter-in-law troubling me, were the grandchildren giving me any trouble, and many other reasons that might make me want to leave.
It was none of those.
‘I simply feel like going. I feel like spending time with people of my own age,’ I told him.
After reassuring my daughter-in-law too, we came here.
Convincing my husband, however, was very difficult.
‘People go to such places only when they have no one, or when the atmosphere at home is not good. Everything is fine with us. We have no problems. Why should we go?’ was his question.
Could I tell him the truth?
That everything being fine was exactly my problem?
So I said gently, ‘You donated so much money in my father-in-law’s name. Isn’t it our duty to see whether it is being put to proper use? We have been busy with business all these years and never had the time to pay attention to such things.’
That is how I convinced him.
After living with him for so many years, I knew exactly how to persuade him on any matter.”
She paused and smiled.
“Knew him? I could have earned a doctorate in the subject.”
I asked, “You have told me all this. Won’t it be embarrassing for you if I tell someone else?”
She laughed.
“I have never told anyone any of this till now. So no one knows who we are. Besides, because we are always together, people know us as a pair of lovebirds. If you ever write this as a story, people will simply think you’ve used our names for one of your stories.
I felt I had to tell someone about my pain.
And somehow, it felt right to tell it to a stranger like you.”
Somewhat hesitantly, I said,
“Please don’t misunderstand me. You and I are strangers, so I don’t have to worry about offending you. Do you think your husband behaved that way with girls and women because of something from his childhood?”
“Nothing like that,” she said.
“It is more like an inheritance passed down through generations. They say his great-grandfather was like this too. Whether it was the maidservants or anyone else, he apparently had no sense of shame. A large part of his share of the family property was spent on women. That same trait seems to have come down through the bloodline.
I was the sacrificial goat.
And my life…
It’s like the saying—the forest calls me to come, the village asks me to go.”
I don’t know what other questions might have arisen in my mind after that.
Just then, an elderly gentleman came up to us.
“Amma, do you recognise me?” he asked.
As I looked at him and folded my hands in greeting, the lady who had been speaking to me turned to him and said,
“Bhattre, let me talk for a little while and then I’ll go to my room. Your sowkaru will wake up soon, alright?”
He walked a little distance away and busied himself cleaning around the plants.
She turned back to me and said,
“Thank you for listening so patiently to my story.”
I replied,
“Instead of thanking me, help me a little financially. Sponsor a student in our gurukula. Let that be the reward you give me for my patience.
And one more thing—this will be our last meeting.
The story you told me may reach other people’s ears only as a story. Your name and your village will never come out.
Let us remain strangers to each other, just as we were before.
Only your address, I will pass on to the concerned people.”
Saying so, I bent down and touched her feet.
When I rose after offering my pranams, it seemed as though tears that had been held back for years shimmered in her eyes.
But there was also a look of peace on her face.
To my request, she simply said,
“Astu.”
After she left, the elderly gentleman who had come earlier asked me again,
“Amma, have you recognised me now?”
I tried to place him.
In the photo album of my mind, there are different folders—scenes from nature, animals and birds, flowers, and people.
Most of them remain clear.
Only the pictures of people are often blurred.
I struggle the most with remembering faces.
As I turned the pages of that mental album, trying to place him, he asked again,
“Have you remembered who I am?”
“Yes… you seem familiar somehow. But I can’t remember properly,” I said, feeling embarrassed.
“The gentleman who dropped you here—isn’t he your husband? That’s how I recognised you. Even though I had seen you here several times, I had never connected it before.
Does he come to take you back as well?” he asked.
“No. He says he doesn’t have the time. I’ll go back by auto,” I replied.
“In that case, will you ask him to meet me once?
Just tell him Hedigé Bhattaru asked for him.
Let’s see if that helps him recognise me,” he said with a laugh.
“Now I remember,” I said. “Alright, I’ll definitely tell him.
The auto I called has arrived. I’ll take your leave now.”
Saying that, I left.
Veena Shanbhogue
Translation and Preservation by Sumanth Shanbhogue for Shanbhogue Publications
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