By Monica Bakre
Suguna stumbled on a stone jutting out of the gravel path that she was hurriedly walking on towards the rear door of the estate bungalow. It was unusual for a nimble footed 18-year-old to waver on this familiar path, actually. It was 4:45pm and the Amma of the ‘Bungalow’ was there at the top most stair, her three-month old infant in her arms.
“What happened, Suguna? Why had you rushed off? All well at home?”, asked Amma anxiously.
“I had not kept the house key in its usual place. My father was looking for it. So, I went to tell him where it was.”, replied Suguna, as she slid sideways into the house. About an hour or so later, her evening chores in the house were done. Saying her usual customary ‘bye-bye’s to the infant, Suguna left for the labour quarters where she lived.
Exactly an hour later, a heart-rending shriek was heard in the dusk hour (it was summer) at the rear door of the bungalow.
“My daughter is dead…oh, what do I do? My daughter is dead…”, an elderly male voice pierced the stillness about the estate bungalow. The family came rushing out! Amma raced to the door, hurriedly handing the baby over to the young lad who used to help her in minding the infant. Her husband, the owner of the estate, and referred to as Saavkaar by the labour force kept his machine tools (his hobby) away and came to the door.
At the foot of the stairs stood Poovayya, Suguna’s father. He was in his late forties, had a problem with drinking, but did his estate work well during the day. Right now, he looked dishevelled, and was sobbing, the anger and sadness for whatever it was that had happened, palpable in his yells.
“What ever happened? She was fine just some time back! She left at about 6pm”, shouted out Amma, her voice quivering with terror.
“Saavkaar Ayya…Suguna has run away…eloped…can you believe it? My daughter has eloped…she is now dead for me…I have lost face…what do I do, Ayya…?”, implored Poovayya to Saavkaar, the pleading in his voice bringing tears to Amma’s eyes.
“Eloped? Are you sure? With whom?”, Saavkaar asked.
“With that useless Ramayya…I never thought he would do this…my young daughter, Ayya…he lured her…”
Swinging into quick action, Saavkaar summoned all male members of his labour staff, made quick detailed enquires, and finalised the plan.
Groups of the labourers were to intercept all buses that had left the remote plantation area in the last 2-3 hours. They were to somehow bring the eloped duo back.
By 10pm, Suguna and Ramayya were brought back to the labour quarters. They had been found having tea at one of the stalls where their bus had stopped enroute to Mangalore. Saavkaar had already given strict instructions that the duo not be harmed, however angry the parents may be.
“No physical harm is to come to them. I will look into the matter tomorrow morning”, he had promised.
During the next week, Saavkaar, Amma, and the infant travelled to Mangalore along with some helpers. They went and got Suguna and Ramayya’s marriage registered there, and Amma gave the bride a zari saree, a mangalsutra and two gold bangles.
Suguna’s entire family boycotted the marriage, in fact, refused to accept it. And when they learnt that Ramayya and Suguna would live and work as a couple in the same estate, they resigned their lucrative plantation jobs at the estate, and left the village.
“I can’t show my face to my community now, Ayya…you have been good to me. My child has let me down…I can’t stay here anymore…” explained Poovayya, as he left sobbing, with his aged mother, wife, and three younger children.
This was 27 years ago!
Today, Suguna, now in her forties, was getting ready to leave for Bangalore. She was slightly grey, had put on some weight, had worked along with her husband, Ramayya, all these years at the same estate, had borne a son and a daughter, and was right now in the process of adorning her hair with a jasmine ‘gajra’, her usual adornment for formal outings.
The rest of the family had already gathered outside in the common area of the labour quarters. Ramayya, his elder brother, one of his elder sisters, and a teenaged grandson of one of the sisters were to travel in an SUV together. They had a Bangalore address tucked carefully in Ramayya’s wallet.
“We must create a good impression. Let’s hire a car”, had been Suguna’s suggestion.
The big happening was that her daughter, Ratna, twenty years of age, had fixed up her own marriage with a man who worked in an office close to her place of employment in a home in Bangalore. Ratna had been poor in her studies in her village school. She had dropped out of school, had whiled away her time at home thereafter, and had hence been sent to do household chores at the Bangalore home of an estate owner, for an enviable salary about a year back. She had informed her parents on the phone that Sinu, the man she was in love with, was young, handsome, and hard working.
The man she had brought home last month and introduced her parents to, however, looked elderly.
“Are you sure he is only thirty? He is bald and his face is wrinkled”, had observed one of Ramayya’s sisters, who had voluntarily taken up the portfolio of scrutiny of the prospective bridegroom!
“It’s the tension in the city, Chinna…you won’t know…. For us, its cushy on the estate…do you know how difficult it is for people working in big cities? Tension of work causes wrinkles…you won’t know.”, had been Ramayya’s ‘wise’ reply.
“Chinnamma, he owns a house in Bangalore! He also owns a security agency there. What more do we want?” had reiterated Suguna, not being able to believe her good fortune in having got such a wonderful proposal for her daughter.
The prospective bride, Ratna, was also understandably thrilled to have met Sinu, who loved her dearly. He had promised an exciting life full of fun and leisure after marriage to her, assuring her that his income was more than enough for the two of them. He had already bought many things that she liked in the mall that they had visited recently.
Today, Ratna, on brief leave from her Bangalore job, had stayed back with her brother in the labour quarters while the elders set out to Bangalore to meet Sinu’s people. It was to be a surprise visit, this being a suggestion from Ramayya’s elder brother. Ratna had been told that they were making a temple trip close by.
The SUV reached Bangalore by late afternoon, and Ramayya fished out the address and handed it to the driver with a sense of exaggerated importance.
Winding through broad, busy roads that progressively became narrow lanes, the vehicle finally stopped in one that had small houses in neat rows. Stretching their limbs after the long journey, the family asked around for the address. It was that of a lodge!
Panic tearing through them, the men in the group raced up to the second floor of the lodge and pounded on the door of the so called ‘flat number’ given to them by Sinu.
The door opened, and out emerged Sinu, in a lungi and vest. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw this gaudily dressed party of familiar looking people! Oh, they were Ratna’s people, he suddenly recalled.
His room was bare, save for a cot, a TV, and a chair. The toilet was obviously common to all residents of the lodge.
So furious was Ramayya when he saw this, that he had to be controlled by his elder brother as he lunged to grab Sinu at his vest.
“One minute…is this where you live?”, asked the elder brother.
“Uh…yes…”, replied Sinu.
“And what about your ‘own house’?”
“I had lied because I wanted to marry Ratna.” Sinu had no alternative but to blurt out the truth.
After detailed questioning, with the principle of ‘strength in numbers’ being their strong point at this stage, Ratna’s family managed to wring out the complete truth from Sinu. It conclusively emerged that he had effectively deceived Ratna and her gullible family with false credentials.
Not wasting a minute, Ramayya’s elder brother issued an earth-shaking threat to Sinu to keep away from Ratna henceforth. He then proceeded to command Suguna to call up Ratna right then, and inform her that she would not be marrying Sinu, and that she would now live and work on the estate. She would not step out without his permission and go anywhere.
“She can forget Bangalore, this Sinu, and everything here…”, he thundered, as a dazed Suguna punched the number on her mobile.
The next day…in the evening at about 7pm, two heart-wrenching wails were heard at the rear of the estate bungalow.
“Ayya…my daughter is dead…what do I do…Ratna has run away…Ayya…she is dead for me…I am totally destroyed…” wailed Ramayya to the younger Saavkaar, who was a strapping young man now, in active charge of the estate.
As an aging Amma emerged from inside the house with the older Saavkaar, Suguna let out a loud wail…
“Look at the blow Fate has dealt me, Amma…What have I done, Amma…to deserve this…?”
About the Author: Monica Bakre is a qualified counselor/psychologist, with interest in reading, writing, cooking, music, and pets. She describes herself as an observant, absorbing, thinking, speculating, and sensitive individual.