The Violin

THE VIOLIN
(Short Story)

CHAGANTI SOMAYAJULU

(Translated from the original Telugu by “SRIVINCHI”

Rajyam was not conscious. Per­haps she was not in this world. Ven­katappayya was aghast as he looked into her face intently and piercingly. Her lips quivering, she seemed to be trying to say a word or two but the voice failed her.

“Rajyam, Rajyam,” he was anxiously calling her but she did not respond. No, she was not in this world at all! She was moving in the open skies humming the melodies of Thodi Raga – was what he could imagine.

Children were engaged in their play over the verandah of the house. “What a nuisance you are! Can’t you ever keep silent?” His voice was at its top adding to the annoyance he showed. If only the boys were any­where nearer, he would decidedly slap them well.

“Oh, my lord, what makes you thunder over the childern?” asked Rajyam awakened by his loud voice. A frown on her face, she looked at him in all irritation.

“How do you feel now, first tell me that.”

“Why did you shout at the boys?”

“That doesn’t matter, first tell me about your health.”
“I’m all right, nothing hap­pened to me.”

“All the time you were not responding to my inquiries.” 

“I didn’t notice. Were you talking to me?”

“Yes, I was worried beyond a limit.”

“Was that so?” Rajyam smiled pulling courage out of all her weak­ness. Eyes, projecting out as an owl, the upper layer of teeth made a grue­some scene.” I went into deep sleep. That was all.” She again smiled to soothe the situation.

“Thank God! That was that!” Venkatappayya felt greatly relieved.

Rajyam was just then convalesc­ing after a period of typhoid. It was only a week that she regained nor­malcy. That wretched typhoid sapped all her energy. These three weeks she was resembling only a corpse. She had a relapse too. All a hell of time. The days passed on horribly but unevent­fully. She got from the hospital after the second run. Yet Venkatappayya was not free from his own nerv­ous psyche: Any moment, it was his guess, she would arrive at the vanish­ing point.

“ I’m all right now, able to digest what I eat, having good and sound sleep. There is nothing to worry. After all this sickness could not be normal overnight. I must gradually slowly recover, You have a fancy for worrying over trifling matters.”

A look at Rajyam would make one wonder how life was still pulsating in that body with not a gram of flesh under the drying skin.

“When you didn’t respond to my calls, I was very much upset,” said Venkatappayya. All these weeks it had become an unhappy routine for him. Looking at the sleep-covered reclining body, he would often wonder if she was alive at all. It had been a great exercise each time to make sure she was alive.

“I was musing, that’s all. Moving to this place did us good. I was feeling reassured,” said Rajyam.

“Yes, I too reckon that factor. There is, decidedly, some added com­fort. The rent, of course, is a bit high for us.”

“I’m equally worried on that point,” she said.

“Don’t worry. Comfort is more important, not money,” assured Venkatappayya.

Earlier they were living in an old uninhabitable house, for a considera­tion of lower rent. All the family members were unwell. Rajyam narrowly escaped the death trap. Wife at hospital and with no domestic help, he had to take care of all chores by himself. Boys needed extra care, run­ning round the hospital, medical shops, domestic duties of the kitchen – all this made him quail.

It was the luck and fortune of the husband and boys that saved her from the untoward, considering the severe attacks of the typhoid.

Now they leased to themselves a tiny portion of a new-built house. This has two rooms and a verandah. Oppo­site there was a nice looking palace. Lot of space around the houses here. Gardens were blooming all around.

“You don’t bother about the money. We shall manage. It was great enough you regained normalcy,” he assured her.

“We can’t be complacent that way, you must have spent a lot over my medicines and tonics. I wonder how you managed to secure the needed money. We have to think of it leisurely and replan our working.”

“Don’t allow your mind to get filled with all sorts of thoughts. Take good care of yourself. That’s all for the present. As the doctor said, eat well drink ovaltine as many times as you can, consume the fruits all by your­self, need not share with the boys ever – take good rest all the time.”

“Yes, yes. It’s all that I’am doing in the present. What else? You labour in the kitchen and I relax, like a queen here! You must have run into debts for the money you spent. No other go for us.”

“Don’t bother about that, Rajyam. You relax and let your mind not get into money-matters.”

“When these thoughts come up the surface, he too was upset. The wages and advances – all exhausted. Had to get hold of an extra two hundred bucks. Doctors didn’t pester for money. But the treatment costed a lot. A government hospital, for that matter. Even then....

“I shall not think at all. We shall look into that later. I can manage, when I’m up.”

Venkatappayya slipped out of the room to end this current of thoughts. He refreshed himself and prepared to go out to bazaar. When he entered the room again, Rajyam was not appearing all right. Dusk was descending into the room. The evening twilight was brightening her face. Looking at her pointedly, now he didn’t feel that bad. Perhaps she was remi­niscing; her face was blissful enough.

It was years since he noticed her so abundantly happy. First year of their married life, she was an embodi­ment of activity and gleam. It was in the second year that she added the third member to the family. Life became all different. Six years of united living made her a mother of three children. Moving with the ebbs and tides of life she somehow got adjusted to that.

Her lips were a bit apart now and the head was tilting to a side. Venkatappayya had an instant laugh. That grew into a whooping cough. This brought her to normal senses letting go the musing part.

“What made you laugh?” She demanded of her husband.

“Once again you keep your lips apart and tilt your head. Then muse. I shall tell you why I laugh.”

“Oh, you mean that? Don’t you hear the music from the other house?”

He woke up to the music waves only then.

“So you were lost in music. Was that so? Surely, you are a violinist, aren’t you?”

The waves now brought into the room the Kamavardhani Raga. A fra­grant smell accompanied that.

“You boys, a music concert is going on. Come in and listen.” he alerted the children. Boys jumped out paying all attention to that. “Thought this house is all light. Perhaps I have this migrain here,” he added.

“Get a native medicine sonti,” she said, as he felt a thrash of the mind and a burning sensation all over the body.

“Why do you need to go out now; why can’t we have an early sup­per,” she inquired.

“I have been whiling away the time. The sins have to be paid , can’t be postponed any further.”

“Oh, you too have been sinning?”

“Life didn’t spare me.”

The boys were following music intently and perhaps enjoying that bounty.

The innocent minds of children do get absorbed in music very easily. If they be initiated into the Jnana of the music, their lives will become blissful and significant.

“Oh, you are the mother’s sons. Music must have appealed to you,” saying Venkatappayya moved off.

Rajyam leisurely and laboriously got up and switched on the tube-light. It filled the room with bright light. These lights too gleam well in these good houses. It was in that old house, dilapidated – that Rajyam’s musical recourse slowly died down to insignifi­cance. Her violin box collected dust. The bow got blown and relegated to the dust-bin. Music departed from her life making it very insipid and pun­gent. Now that the waves of music travelled to her unexpectedly, the atmosphere made her feel more enli­vened and inspired. Joy and pleasure appeared to pick up meaning once again.

After all, Rajyam’s life was not that lamentable though it lacked the spark. Six years ago, a party arrived at her parents’ place and Venkatap­payya was a part of that group. It was a bridal interview. One in the group wanted her to sing. Her father was spending a lot on her music lessons all those years and now the time appro­priate dawned that she should display her musical talent.

She took up a song m Thodi Raga but it began with an “apasruti”. Tala did not come to grips. She was all conscious of her mistakes and was flabbergasted at her helplessness. At the finish of the song, tears rolled out of her eyes. But the bridal interview party seemed very appreciative of her capacities. What does an innocent bride like Rajyam know about the grace of the Telugus in not discrimi­nating Sruti-Apasruti. Laya-Avalaya! “Your son-in-law need not run after a job,” said one of the party and Rajyam had only to laugh silently at the gross ignorance.

Venkatappayya did marry Rajyam developing a liking for her with all his heart. His name was boorish but he was not. Andhra Varsity had already conferred an arts degree upon him and he was one of the many LDCs of the composite Madras state drawing a salary of Rupees Seventy-two a month.

When Rajyam started her mar­ried life, she had occasions to sing for the pleasure of her neighbours. Her husband never interfered with her musical touches and she had to open no tune to him. Entering the family way, she had no leisure to practise the repetitive lessons. All that receded into the past.

Boys made loud noises as part of their play and this arrested her atten­tion. She called them . Two boys, five and four in age, came running in.

“Is your younger brother sleep­ing?

“Yes, snoring too.” 
“Will your screaming not disturb his sleep?”

The elder one gave out a mis­chievous laugh but both put on faces of guilt.

“That girl over there is singing marvelously well. Why don’t you hear silently?”

They followed her suggestion.

Rajyam was a talented mother.

That girl started Swara-Kalpana. Swaras were swelling like water springs. Sometimes fierce like the falls too. She came to the top-pitch in Gandhara and produced Swaras.

It was very rejuvenating for Rajyam. Happiness proper in life is possible only through music. One may not sing, but appreciation of music will add glory to life, no doubt, she thought.

Perhaps an younger brother of the girl came on the scene and added a Swara in his own wild way. At that the girl got annoyed, stopped her prac­tice and said, “You stupid ass, don’t want to learn music, but are always ready to spoil my mood.”

“My Swara-kalpana was all right,” retorted the boy.
“Let father come, we can de­cide.”

The boy came out with another long Swara-Kalpana. By theory it was all right, but the Apasruti was marring the effect.

In congenial envron even the bricks of the wall will recite music – mused Rajyam.

“Let father return. Then we shall settle account,” so saying she put a stop to the sitting.
Rajyam was not pleased with the way it all ended.

The girl was rendering Kritis all known to Rajyam. She felt herself to be in heaven fora time. The elder son inquired why the girl stopped singing.

“Because the boy there mis­played.” ­
“How was she singing, mother?”

“She had received lessons, practised well.”
“Do you also know how to sing?”
“Yes. I do, shall I teach you too?”

“No, boys don’t sing.”

“No boy, boys do sing. Shall I teach you?”       
“Yes.”

“I shall, after a time.” Rajyam again reclined on the floor bed. “My dear boy, please massage my legs.”

The elder boy instantly followed her instruction. The second son said, “Shall I massasge the arms?” and without waiting forher reply started pressing her arms and hands.

Rajyam was musing over a Kriti in Raga Kalyani. She was not able to remember things in their right se­quence.
“No, your singing is not good. That girl over there did it well.”   

“I have forgotten all my notes,” said Rajyam.

Just then a thumping sound was heard fromthe other room as though a plate had fallen down on the ground.

“Was it a dog? Please go and see.” Both the boys rushed towards the other room.

“No, not a dog, mother, it was only a cat,” the boys reported .

“Thank god, you should always keep the doors closed.”

“You wanted us to go out and listen to the music.”

“Even then, while moving out, you should keep them closed,” she very patiently instructed them.
Venkatappayya returned from his evening walk.

“The moonlight and the right fragrance fromover there are very hi­larious,” he said.
“Oh, you have come so soon?”
“Finished the job I went out after.”

“Did you pay for the sins?”
“Yes, partly.”
“Perhaps you let yourself loose recently.”
“No, no, not that.”
“Your way of talking made me feel that.”

“No, no.”

“I’m sorry then.”

Venkatappayya took out a packet he had secured within his upper cloth till then.

“Let me see what it is.”

“I shall show you.”

The packet contained a saree, heavily bordered with Zari. There was also a matching blouse-piece in silk. The saree that a commoner and a Maharani would equally like to own.

“You purchased this now?”

“Yes. Glad I did that before the money got all exhausted.”
“Where did you obtain the money for this?”
“Rajyam, you will not pardon me if you know that.”

“What did you do? my....

“Please don’t get upset, promise me you will not get annoyed of that.” He projected his right hand towards her. She received his wavering hand coolly and closed it by her own right hand.

“Why do you look so upset? What did you do? Hope you have not stolen the money from somewhere.” said Rajyam.

“Much heinous to that. When you had the typhoid relapse I lost all hopes. A friend who visited gave me the advice instantly and I acceded to that.”

“What was that?”

“You did not hear the whole truth as yet. He took it out to the bazaar and sold it away for rupees two hundred and fifty!

“I never dreamt that it would fetch that much. Thought it was damned old. But understand old ones are in demand and are costlier.”

Rajyam by now understood what he was struggling to suggest. She looked around the corners of the room.

“No. You needn’t do that now, Rajyam.”
“So, it had moved out.” She very deeply and heavily sighed.

“I know you will be upset, Rajyam. What I did was brutal, no second opinion.” Venkatappyya had, put on the face of a culprit.

Watching how her husband’s mind got overworked on this, she swallowed her pain instantly but with great effort..

“You haven’t done anything wrong. Why do you call it a sin? Any householder in your place would do the same. You have not put it to sinful use. There was acute need for money and so, you did that.”

“We have only sons and no daughters. I thought we may not need that any further.”

“Don’t bother. Let it go! My voice got stuck up long . My violin – will it save me after all? That’s all. I am blessed to the extent I deserve. My mother – The Violin – has vanished. Even while vanishing she was not graceless. She bestowed upon me her motherly blessing. She gave me a lease of fresh life; presented me a saree and a silk blouse-piece.”

Rajyam’s eyes could no longer contain the tears as she muttered these feeble words. She had not yet spread the saree for a full look of it.

Venkatappayya unfolding the furls of the saree gracefully placed it around her neck and most apologeti­cally said. “This would serve you for life.”

“Yes, my dear. This shall be a sweet memory.” said Rajyam.