The Chenchu Couple

BY CHINTA DIKSHITULU ¹

(I)

Lingadu was living in a bamboo hut beside a perennial stream in the forest of the Black Hills.

Lingadu was a Chenchu. He was young, dark-complexioned and good-looking. The hamlet of the Chenchus consisted of a number of round huts made entirely of bamboo splinters. The hut of Lingadu was at a distance from the hamlet. Lingadu had been married only recently. Eramma was his wife. The young couple chose to have nothing to do with the hamlet for the time being, and they built a hut for themselves by a mountain stream.

Their love-episode was similar to that of civilised people. Their mental experiences were identical.

In their childhood they swung by the hanging creepers entwined round the branches of trees. They went to the forest early in the morning to hunt a beast or a bird, make a feast over it and return in the evening. They also studied in the same school. Their teacher distributed sweets to them whenever they attended school. They went to school mainly to receive sweets and eat them sitting under a tree. The Chenchu pupils received free clothing too. They wore the cloths and absented themselves from school, in order to go a-hunting. By the time they left school, they learnt to identify the letters of the Telugu alphabet. They could not understand why their teacher was taking so much pains to teach them those crooked lines called letters. Like many in India, they perhaps wanted not education but food, not knowledge but clothing.

Eramma was at the threshold of youth. Lingadu's mind began to stray into dreamlands. One day Lingadu and Eramma wandered into the forest in search of honey- combs. They were searching among precipitous rocks under projecting ledges. At last they could discover one. Lingadu went up the hill and Eramma, standing at its foot, was watching him. Slowly and cautiously he crawled to the edge of a rock under which a tempting comb was visible. He poked at it with a bamboo stick. Being disturbed, the bees rose up buzzing and surrounded him on all sides. Lingadu could not bear their stings and he came down. Eramma was disappointed. They had been fasting the whole day and they were hungry. They hoped to feast on the comb filled with honey, but it was not to be.

Eramma tried to ‘smoke’ the comb, and for the purpose she was collecting dry faggots. She did not know that it was dangerous to light fires in the forest. But Lingadu knew. (On one occasion Karigadu had lost his arrow in the forest, and to get it he burnt the forest down to ashes. He got his arrow and got a few months too for his trouble.) He dissuaded her from lighting the fire and got up the hill again. Eramma followed him. Both reached the edge of the rock. Eramma held to the projection of a rock firmly and gave her other hand to Lingadu. He held her hand and crawled, crawled out into space till half his body was in the air. He bent down and with the other hand forcibly plucked out the comb. Eramma pulled him . They smiled at each other. They got the comb but their bodies were full of stings.

They smeared their bodies with some leaf-juice and sat under a tree beside a lake. The sun had set. The moon had arisen. The forest land was strewn with the moonlight-patches. The Tandra flowers were filling the forest with sweet scent. The birds reached their tree-houses and were making melody.

Eramma broke the comb into pieces and reached them to his lips. They ate up the comb and drank the lake-water to their fill. Under that tree, standing on the edge of the lake amidst the moonlight-patches, they gave themselves up to an embrace and kissed each other. The forest ‘scented’ sweeter, the birds sang merrier and. the moon shone brighter.

(2)

They wandered in the forest every day to satisfy their hunger with small game, honey-combs or ‘chenchu bulbs’. Thus passed some days. Though they failed to secure food for a day or two, they did not mind. Gradually they fell into line with the other Chenchus and laboured for their food.

Lingadu was felling the bamboos, splitting them and thus earning six annas a day. Eramma wandered in the forest from sunrise to sunset, to gather tamarind, soap nuts, ‘chara’ pulse, myrobalams and similar things for selling them to Government agents, at rates fixed by Government. Thus she too earned a few annas every day. With the money thus earned, they purchased food-stuffs and clothes for themselves, and iron tips for their arrows.

Formerly the Chenchus sold the forest produce to middlemen at very low prices. With a view to improve their position, the Government intervened and bought the produce themselves. But the Chenchus never improved. As before they had to suffer for want of plain food and clothing. Wild animals and wild men are born children of the bounteous forest. The animals perhaps have enough to eat, but the men have very little. Is Mother Nature partial, or are their fellowmen cruel? In the summer, they appeased their hunger with mangoes and milk. Cows and buffaloes were the sole property of the Chenchus. The Chenchu couple had ten cows.

Thus passed one year. One day Lingadu went into the forest to cut bamboos. He toiled hard and when he returned home in the evening, Eramma was not at home. It was time she returned and cooked food for them. Lingadu was very hungry. He wanted to know why she was detained and started in search of her. He took the path by which Eramma was accustomed to return. He saw her under a tree sitting on a bough that shot athwart, just a little above the ground. The bundle of things she had gathered that day was at some distance from her. Her upper cloth that should have covered her breast, dropped down and lay on the bough. In front of her there was a Chenchu sitting and handing something to her. She was gazing at him.

Lingadu was full of wrath. He drew the bow and was about to shoot an arrow at the Chenchu but restrained himself. He hung down his head and turned homewards. This restraint was perhaps unusual with the Chenchus but Lingadu, had his own misgivings. No doubt Lingadu was sincere in his love for his wife. But all the same suspicion crept into his mind. The smile on his face was blotted out forever.

Eramma came home late at night and cooked their food as usual. Lingadu would not speak to her. Every movement of her body provoked his suspicions. He took a little gruel, spread his cloth outside his hut and laid himself down on it. Eramma slept at the doorway of the hut.

As on that other night, the moon was shining and fragrance was wafting. But to Lingadu the world was wrapped in sorrow.

(3)

Time is a quick healer of mental wounds. Lingadu's mind regained its calm, but not its balance. It was the time when the Chenchus had no work. Everyone was intent on earning somehow his daily food.

One fine morning, the Chenchu couple started for the forest. Lingadu was holding the toils for catching animals and Eramma was carrying a basket. They walked on a little distance along a foot-path when they came upon bamboo thickets. The screeching of the insects was heard from within the bushes. At some distance could be seen Vultures hovering in the sky over a carcass left behind by a tiger overnight. The hillside was a thick mass of bamboo bushes.

They entered the thicket with some difficulty. At a spot where it was very dense, Lingadu spread his net. Eramma, meanwhile, secured from the topmost bamboo stalks a goodly quantity of rice. They sat in the shade of a bush and began to eat the rice. The sun was growing hotter.

Lingadu without accepting the rice from her hands cast a piercing glance at her, and fell to talking of Bayigadu, in whose company she had been found. Eramma began to show signs of restlessness. She could not answer his questions. But she took him into her embrace and thus consoled him. Lingadu was quiescent for sometime. He was pleased with Eramma for what she was saying and doing for love of him. He began to wonder if his suspicions were baseless. He conversed with her in a pleasant manner. They caught hold of the hare that ran into their toils, roasted it, ate it and set out for home.

He was a mild man though brave. It was not in his nature to pick up quarrels or rush into dangers. She admired all brave deeds. She could use the bow with skill. Her arrow seldom missed its aim. She was charmed with similar skill in others. She loved Lingadu but she admired other brave men too. Bayigadu was one of them. When Lingadu spoke to her about Bayigadu, she managed to satisfy him for the time being. But she was labouring under a grievance. Why should her lover suspect her? It was unnatural, she thought. Even though her conduct might seem suspicious, she could not see why Lingadu, of all men, should be so mean as to suspect her. She became indignant. She wanted to tease her husband further.

One day, the couple were returning home. On the way, she saw Bayigadu resting by a stone slab on which the big stag he had killed that day was lying. Lingadu also saw him. Eramma told him that she would return home with Bayigadu and she stayed behind. Lingadu hid himself behind a tree. He had with him only his toils, but not his bow and arrows, nor his sword. Bayigadu had his bow with him. Lingadu thought discretion was the better part of valour.

Eramma sat beside Bayigadu. He placed his hand on her shoulder, but she removed it. He engaged her in conversation and drew a smile from her lips. Lingadu observed that smile. She got up and took the bow and arrow of Bayigadu and hit at a bird concealed in the branches of a tree. He showed his admiration for her by lifting her up and embracing her. In deep anger, she flung him aside and started home. Darkness descended on the forest.

Lingadu saw that embrace. He lost his balance of mind and began to wander in the forest.

(4)

Why should this grief afflict him –a wanderer in the forest? He was not guilty of any indiscretion. Why should his heart ache while others had sinned? When his cows were fondled by strangers, did he grieve? –or when his bow and arrows were used by others? Why should he interfere with the freedom of others? But then, was he not, after all, an animal? And was not jealousy common to animals? So he felt he was justified in resenting such conduct. His heart sank deeper and deeper within him. That night, and in the depths of that forest, it is hard to say what thoughts agitated the mind of Lingadu.

The next morning, a Lambady woman, while wandering in the forest for dry wood, saw a strange corpse, hard to recognise, beside a stone. Near by were footprints of a tiger.

All through the night, Eramma lay awake in tense expectation of her husband. He never turned up. At early dawn, she went in search of him into the forest. Nowhere could his trace be found. She began to repent her naughty behaviour of the previous evening. Remorse and indignation filled the whole of her being.

Was she not innocent? Did she not love her husband? Her heart, which she surrendered at his feet that day near the lake, with the goddess of the forest as her witness, was never taken and given to others. Was he then justified in attaching blame to her? Was she really guilty? Could it be said that a woman did .not love her children, merely because she fondled others’ children? Is this sin? If so, why did this sin glow intensely in her heart, promising her new happiness? Ignorant of the laws of man, she indulged in all kinds of wild thoughts.

With such thoughts agitating her mind, questioning wild men that came across her way and dragged onwards by the cords of love, she wandered in the forest. The Lambady woman crossed her path. Eramma heard her story. The sun was vomiting fire from the mid-sky. The unknown corpse was at last recognised by the Chenchu woman.

The red rays of the setting sun that evening covered the corpse of a woman floating on the waters of the cavernous Krishna river. A fawn, come there to appease its thirst, began to gaze at it strangely with its big rolling eyes.

1 Translated from his own short-story in Telugu.