House of Cards (9 page)

After a few days, Shankar and Lakshmi went to Arsikere and boarded the Kittur Express at night. The next day, they reached Hubli at dawn. They planned to return by bus the same night. Krishna was waiting for them at the Hubli railway station. He would drive them to Aladahalli as planned—it was only an hour away.

But when Lakshmi and Shankar got off the train, Shankar changed the plan. He did not like the idea of going directly to Aladahalli. He said, ‘First, we’ll go to Ajanta Hotel and have a bath and eat breakfast. Then we’ll leave for Aladahalli.’

Krishna found this impromptu change of plans a little strange but kept quiet and nodded his head. At the hotel, Shankar pretended to offer to pay the bill but did not refuse when Krishna insisted on paying.

Due to this delay, Krishna, Shankar and Lakshmi reached Aladahalli only at 11 a.m. Rukuma and Bheemanna welcomed them wholeheartedly. They were genuinely happy. Soon, Mridula also joined them. She was wearing a simple white sari with a green blouse and looked absolutely radiant and beautiful even without lipstick or make-up. She reminded Lakshmi of a fragrant white-jasmine creeper. Lakshmi was immediately envious of her natural beauty. She started measuring Mridula’s family’s financial status by the gold that they were wearing; she was disappointed. Mridula was wearing minimal jewellery—a gold chain, gold earrings and four gold bangles. Her mother was also wearing similar jewellery in addition to her mangalsutra. Lakshmi did not understand why these women were not showing off their jewellery.

She recalled her engagement day. She had gone to her neighbour Subbaiah Shetty’s house to get some gold-plated ornaments even though Ratnamma was dead against it. Lakshmi had adorned herself with the ornaments from top to bottom to
impress her in-laws. She had been wrong. Shankar’s sister Vimla was clever enough to realize that the ornaments were fake. She had sarcastically remarked, ‘Oh, these ornaments are available in Chickpet for a hundred and fifty rupees. My daughter Usha bought them for her college dance programme.’

Lakshmi heard Bheemanna’s voice asking them to follow him outside the house. Bheemanna took Shankar and Lakshmi for a walk around the village. They were uncomfortable with his local Kannada. They had never heard such a version of Kannada before. Bheemanna, however, talked to them easily and kept the conversation going. Whenever Bheemanna met someone during their walk, he would say, ‘This is Mr Shankar Rao. His brother-in-law is a doctor in Bombay. They have come here for marriage negotiations.’

Shankar found his openness very insensitive. He gathered that Bheemanna was an important man in the village. He had enough money in the bank and owned a lot of land. But Shankar did not understand why Bheemanna was giving away his beautiful daughter to a handicapped man. He became jealous. In his marriage, Shankar had only got a beautiful wife, but Sanjay was lucky enough to have found a good girl and a rich father-in-law. However, Shankar was disappointed when he saw Bheemanna’s ill-equipped house. He thought of his house in Belur that had all the modern appliances—though most of them were bought on instalments. Almost 70 per cent of Shankar’s salary was spent in repaying these loans. By the time one was paid off, Lakshmi thought of something else to buy. Her demands were never-ending. She was always competing with the members of her ladies’ club. These days, she was insisting that he take a new loan and buy a second-hand car. Shankar thought, ‘If I had money like Bheemanna, I would have bought a Mercedes-Benz and a three-storey building in Hubli.’

He pitied Bheemanna for not enjoying life’s luxuries. But one thing was apparent—Sanjay had made quite a catch.

Rukuma went inside the kitchen to finish the preparations for lunch. Mridula started talking to Lakshmi: ‘Can I call you “Sister”? You are older than me.’

Lakshmi found it strange and foolish. Even after many years of marriage, she didn’t consider herself to be a part of her husband’s family. She had never called her sisters-in-law ‘Sister’. She saw them as competitors. Her mother had never advised her on what to expect from her in-laws or how to behave with them. She had suffered humiliation, encountered jealousy and shrewdness in the joint family. She had learnt how to survive through her own experiences.

Lakshmi pitied Mridula because she had never seen the real world where you rarely come across genuine love and affection. She smartly said, ‘Sure, Mridula, you can call me Akka.’

Then, she asked her, ‘Mridula, where did you meet Sanjay for the first time?’

As expected, Mridula did not hide anything and told her the whole story in detail.

By then, it was time for lunch. There were around fifty guests and hardly anyone was related to Bheemanna’s family. The only relatives were Rukuma’s brother Satyabodha, his wife and their two children. Sarla was still unemployed and Satish was a lecturer at Hubli College after having completed his master’s in mathematics. The four young cousins were around the same age and very close. Lakshmi found it most unusual that there was no competition among the cousins.

By the time lunch ended, the shrewd couple realized that they would be given whatever they asked for. When they sat down to talk after lunch, there was no negotiation at all. Shankar was very clever in putting across his demands; Sanjay had already requested them not to talk about money. So he said, ‘We don’t need money, nor are we interested in it. But we want a grand wedding. You can give Sanjay whatever is usually given to the groom.’

Bheemanna did not understand the words ‘whatever is usually given to the groom’. So he said, ‘Please explain. I don’t understand.’

‘Oh! It is our custom that the boy gets suits, silver vessels for the entire kitchen, a silver puja set, saris for all the women and shirts and trousers for all the men, a gold chain, a watch, a ring …’ Shankar’s voice trailed off.

Bheemanna quietly said, ‘That’s not a problem.’

Rukuma wanted to ask, ‘And what will you give Mridula, your daughter-in-law?’ But she was scared to ask this question in front of Bheemanna.

Shankar added, ‘We would all like to come for the wedding in a luxury bus and you must take care of it.’

‘We don’t know how to arrange this. That is left to you. You can hire the bus and we will pay for it.’

Bheemanna ended the conversation. That same night, Lakshmi and Shankar left Aladahalli happily.

The people of Aladahalli were quite disappointed with Mridula’s informal engagement to a doctor from Bombay. Each function in the village gathered at least three hundred people and a lot of importance was given to the menu to make the guests happy. In contrast, Mridula’s in-laws were very unusual. Only two of them had come and they had not even taken a second serving.

Sarla and Satish had stayed back because they had a holiday the next day. Satish and Mridula were friendly. They had grown up together and during his childhood, Satish had spent all his vacations in the village. Satish teased Mridula, ‘You were already a half veterinary doctor and with your first-aid training, you are now a half lady doctor. By marrying an intelligent doctor like Sanjay, you are on your way to becoming a full-fledged doctor.’

Mridula blushed and smiled.

There was a special dhobi ghat on the side of the lake. The day after the guests left, Sarla insisted that she wanted to wash her clothes there. Mridula agreed. She knew that Sarla wanted to play in the water. There was great joy in washing clothes at the big lake. With one foot firmly resting on a big boulder, the clothes were thrashed on the rock with force, which sprayed the water about everywhere. It was very different from washing clothes under a tap in a city home.

Mridula and Sarla walked to the lake. When they reached the shore, Mridula started soaking all the clothes. Sarla forgot everything and played in the water a short distance away. Suddenly, Mridula found something in the pocket of one of the trousers. She put her hand in the pocket and took out a wallet—it was Satish’s. Abruptly, she heard a shout and looked around. She saw Satish running towards her. He was some distance away and she could not hear what he was saying. Her attention wandered back to the wallet. She was worried that the money inside would get wet, so she opened it. She found money and a small photograph stashed in a corner. She was happy to have found something to tease Satish about. When she pulled out the picture, however, she was shocked to see a photo of herself from her old college ID. She didn’t know what to do. She was not expecting this. She had always thought of Satish as a good cousin. Things may have been different if she had known about his feelings earlier, but now she could only think of Sanjay. Her devotion was to him alone. She turned her back to the approaching Satish and hid the photo.

Soon, Satish reached her. ‘Hey, is my wallet here? I left it in my pants when I gave them for a wash. There’s an important paper in it.’

Mridula snapped, ‘If the paper is that important, then you shouldn’t have forgotten your wallet! Here, take your pants.’

Satish took his wallet out quietly and walked away. He turned back to look at Mridula but she pretended to continue
washing the clothes. He mulled over the things left unsaid and left the ghat, deep in thought.

9

Partners

By the time Sanjay and Mridula got married, Sanjay had quit his job in Bombay.

Before the wedding, Mridula told Sanjay, ‘Why don’t you find a job in Bangalore? It’ll be easier for us to settle there. At the end of the day, language matters. We both belong to the same region. I have seen a newspaper advertisement for a temporary government job at Bangalore Victoria Hospital. I hope you’ll think about my suggestion.’

Sanjay agreed. He was not too fond of Bombay either. He had obtained enough experience there and knew that it was expensive to get a decent apartment to live in. Moreover, Mridula would have to leave her job, which she absolutely loved. She wouldn’t be allowed to take a transfer out of state and go to Bombay. However, if he found a job in Bangalore, she could take a transfer there. Besides, he was confident that he would get a postgraduate seat in Bangalore. So Mridula and Sanjay decided to make Bangalore their home.

Sanjay got the job at Victoria Hospital and asked Mridula to join him there after marriage. When Mridula came to Bangalore for the first time, she saw a new world. She had spent most of her life in Aladahalli and found life in Bangalore tough. It was hard for her to understand the local version of Kannada, which was mostly mixed with English. Sanjay and Mridula wanted to
stay near the hospital but could not afford the high rent. They looked around and decided to rent a house in Yelahanka. It was far from the city but the rent was affordable.

Mridula took a transfer to a government school in Yelahanka but she found a lot of difference between Aladahalli High School and Yelahanka High School.

Aladahalli High School was very famous and students came from surrounding villages to study there. The school was not just a building. It had a huge playground and an open-air theatre. It had its own kitchen garden which was under Mridula’s supervision when she was working there. It was compulsory for all the children to work in the garden for at least two hours every week. The vegetables grown there were used for cooking and the children were given a midday meal with the help of the villagers and without government aid. Obedience was important in the school. So students were polite and listened sincerely to the teachers. It was like a big joint family and it was a joy for Mridula to be a teacher in the school.

But Yelahanka High School was very different. It was not the only school in the area. When the students had a choice of schools, the best often chose not to study in a government one. The English-medium private schools were popular even though they were more expensive. The teachers’ attitudes were also different. In a big city like Bangalore, some teachers gave private tuitions at home while others had a small business on the side and were more interested in running the business than in teaching. Most of them did not consider the earnings from teaching to be their main source of livelihood. They thought of it just as an appetizer to the main course. So there was no personal connection between the teachers and the students.

Still, the situation was not that bad. Some teachers like Principal Muniyappa were like Mridula. They considered teaching to be a pious profession and taught the children
passionately. Principal Muniyappa was from Kolar and was a warm-hearted person. He also stayed in Yelahanka with his family. On Mridula’s first day at the school, he affectionately told her, ‘Mridula madam, please don’t be nervous. You have two years of good teaching experience. We have four Kannada-medium sections and one English-medium section in this school. Feel free to choose any class and language that you feel comfortable with.’

These small words of encouragement were enough for Mridula to work efficiently.

Soon, Mridula and Sanjay settled into a comfortable routine. Mridula got up early in the morning, cooked and gave Sanjay breakfast. He carried a lunch dabba to the hospital and returned home at night. After Sanjay left, Mridula went to school; she cleaned the house in the evenings. She was left with no time for herself. If there was an emergency or night duty at the hospital, Sanjay stayed back there. Since they did not have a telephone or a vehicle, Sanjay would call up Muniyappa’s house and leave a message for Mridula. Their twenty-year-old son Arun would cycle over to Mridula and Sanjay’s house to pass on the message to her, irrespective of the time of day. He was a nice and intelligent boy, studying engineering and majoring in computer science.