Raja Rao - Kanthapura

And when it is all over, Rangè Gowda says, ‘Moorthappa will be our president,’ and everybody says, ‘Of course, of course.’ Then Seenu turns towards Rangè Gowda and says, ‘And Rangè Gowda our super-president and protector,’ and everybody laughs, and Rangè Gowda says, ‘Protector! yes, protector of the village fowl!’ Then Seenu says, ‘Rangamma will be the third member,’ but Rangamma says, ‘No, no,’ and Moorthy says, ‘We need a woman in the committee for the Congress is for the weak and the lowly’; and then everybody says, ‘Rangamma, say yes!’ and Rangamma says, ‘Yes.’ And Moorthy then turns towards the Pariahs and says, ‘One among you!’ and then there is such a silence that a moving ant could be heard, and then Moorthy says, ‘Come, Rachanna, you have suffered much, and you shall be a member,’ and Rachanna says, ‘As you will, learned master!’ And then Moorthy says, ‘Seenu is our fifth member,’ and Rangè Gowda says, ‘Every Rama needs an Anjanayya, and he’s your fire-tailed Hanuman,’ and they all laugh, and so Moorthy and Rangè Gowda and Rangamma and Rachanna and Seenu become the Congress panchayat committee of Kanthapura.

And two days later Moorthy made a list of members and twenty-three were named, and five rupees and twelve annas were sent to the provisional Congress committee. And one morning everybody was told that in Rangamma’s blue paper was a picture of Moorthy. And everybody went to Rangamma and said, ‘Show it to me!’ and when Ranagmma gave them the paper, they looked this side and that, and when they came to the picture, they all exclaimed, ‘Oh, here he is — and so much like him too!’ And then they all said, ‘Our Moorthy is a great man, and they speak of him in the city and we shall work for him,’ and from then onward we all began to spin more and more, and more and more, and Moorthy sent bundles and bundles of yarn, and we got saris and bodice cloths and dhotis, and Moorthy said the Mahatma was very pleased. Maybe he would remember us!

When Bhatta heard of the Congress committee, he said to himself, ‘Now this is bad business,’ and seated on the veranda, he began to think and think, and the fair carts rolled by and the dust settled down, and the noise of the snoring cattle came from the byre, and the bats began to screech and screech, and from the Bebbur mound rose the wailings of the jackals, and even the moon plumped up above the Kenchamma hill, and still Bhatta sat on the veranda thinking. There must be an end to this chatter. If not, the very walls of Kanthapura would crackle and fall before the year was out. What with his fastings and his looks, Moorthy was holding sway over the hearts of the people. And even the Swami’s excommunication did nothing to stop it. Well, well, he said to himself, every squirrel has his day, and now for every Congress member the interest will go up to 18 and 20 per cent. And no kind words either — ah, my sons! — and no getting away from law courts. Pariah Lingayya has his big-bund field in mortgage, and if he does not pay up this harvest time, he will have not a rag-wide left. And there will be no accepting, ‘Just a week, master. Just a week more, say ten days, and this gold flower in guarantee. ’ None of that any more. Then there is Madanna’s coconut garden, and Pandit Venkateshia’s Bebbur-field, though with the Brahmins it’s not such easy business.

‘Well, well, every squirrel will have his day,’ repeated Bhatta to himself. ‘But Temple Rangappa is still with me, and Patwari Nanjundia and Schoolmaster Devarayya, and, of course, Rama Chetty and Subba Chetty. And they are all with me and the Swami, and against all this Pariah business. And there is Venkamma too.’ And at the thought of Venkamma an idea came into his head like a cart-light in the dark, an auspicious, happy idea, and he said, ‘I shall find a bridegroom for her daughter, and she will be always with us, and what with her tongue and her tail, she will set fire where we want.’ And at this Bhatta felt so happy that he began to search in his mind for this bridegroom and that bridegroom, and he said, there was Shanbhog Ramanna of Channèhalli, and Astrologer Seetharamiah of Rampur, and then of course there was Advocate Seenappa.

‘Seenappa,’ he repeated to himself, ‘he’s just lost his wife. And very soon, when I have to go and speak about the new harvests, he will speak about marriage, and I shall say there is a fine girl in Kanthapura, and he will say, “Is she ripe for marriage?” and I shall say, “She will come home in a few weeks’ time,” and that will do it, and Venkamma will be so happy to have an advocate for a son-in-law. “After all, Venkamma, what does it matter whether it is first marriage or a second marriage? What we ask is that your daughter will have enough to eat, and be blessed with many children, and perform all the rites, isn’t it? Seenappa is thirty-four, but you would say he is twenty-one if you saw him, and he has only three children, and one of them is soon to be married and will go away to her mother-in-law’s, and your daughter will have the two godlike children to live with. What do you say to that, Venkamma?” And Venkamma will answer, “Of course! Of course! Bhattarè, whatever you say will be done,” and Seenappa will be so happy; after all a mother-in-law in Kanthapura, and so near his wet lands too. and this Bhatta will himself perform the marriage, and the Swami will bless them.’

‘That is a fine idea,’ concluded Bhatta, and as he went in and groped for his bed, he felt such joy rise to his heart that he woke up his wife and said, ‘Come, don’t sleep!’, and when she muttered, ‘Oh, let me sleep,’ he said, ‘Oh, be a wife!’ and she said she was tired; but Bhatta said he was very happy and Venkamma’s daughter would be married to Advocate Seenappa, and she said, ‘And what does that matter to me?’ Meanwhile the child woke up, and when she had rocked it to sleep again, she slipped into his bed, and chattering fool that she was, she said he had never loved her as on that night.

And when the morning came, he rushed to the river and back, and then to Venkamma’s house; but there was no Venkamma yet, and he said he would come back, and he went home and was hardly seated for meditation than Venkamma arrives, important as a buffalo, and she says, ‘What is it, Bhattarè, that you honour us with your visit?’ and Bhatta says, ‘Oh, nothing at all. It is only about a horoscope I’ve in hand, and maybe it would go with Ranga’s.’ And Venkamma cries out, ‘Oh, Bhattarè, you will save my honour and the honour of my family, if you manage it,’ and Bhatta says, ‘Oh, never mind, Venkamma, after all every pious member of the community has duties towards every other, and if your daughter is not married in time, maybe nobody will marry my daughter either,’ and Venkamma is so happy that she begins to weep, and Bhatta’s wife comes and says, ‘Oh, don’t weep, Aunt. The will of the gods shall be done,’ and Venkamma rises up and says, ‘May Kenchamma bless you!’

And on her way back home she meets Rangamma, and looking away she spits behind her, and then she sees Temple Rangappa’s wife Lakshamma, and she says the marriage is for Sravan, and Lakshamma says, ‘Then we shall have laddu this year?’ and Venkamma says, ‘Laddu and pheni,’ and by the evening everybody in the village is saying, ‘Venkamma’s daughter, Ranga has at last found a husband, sister!’—’Where does he come from?’ asks Nose-scratching Nanjamma of Satamma. — ’Oh, it seems he is from a well-to-do family. May the goddess bless the girl. If not, what should we have seen before we closed our eyes?’—And people say, ‘Well, Venkamma is going to have a rich son-in-law,’—and Postmaster Suryanarayana’s wife Akkamma says, ‘My Putta will sing: “For what deed in my past life have you sought me in this, my lord?”’—and Satamma says, ‘Your Putta sings it so well, sister’—and Putta feels so pleased that she begins to hum the song to herself, twisting the wet sari, and everybody says, ‘Go on, Putta, go on!’ and she begins it, and they all leave the clothes on the stones and follow her, and when she stops, Ratna, who never could sing these songs, says as though only to her mother, ‘I shall sing them an English song,’ at which Satamma says, ‘Enough of this. Let our marriages at least be according to the ancient ways,’ and Subbamma and Chinnamma say they will put on the blue and broad-filagree Benares sari, and young Kamalamma says she will wear the Dharmawar sari in peacock blue, and Venkamma feels such esteem around her that she says to herself, ‘Ah, you widows, you will not even lick the remnant leaves in the dust-bin, you polluted widows. ’