The Daily Sauce

(One-Act Play)

(Recreated from the author’s original short story in Tamil*)

CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY

SEKHAR
SIVU
PARVATI,       Sekhar’s wife
RAJI,               Sivu’s wife
GYANAM,      Sivu’s mother
(Servant)          Boy

The Setting: The stage is divided into two halves, right and left, in the middle by a partition with a communicating door - the two halves being two rooms with interiors visible to the audience. The left is a drawing room with a sofa set, a central table, a small rack of books and a cupboard of clothes. The right is a bed-room with a bed, bed-light, and side-table.

The setup is the same for both scenes.

SCENE 1: SIVU’S HOUSE

The left (drawing) room is vacant. In the right (bed) room SIVU, aged thirty-two, convalescing from a fever, is lying on the bed. On the side-table are some medicine bottles, glasses, tray and towel. He rolls in the bed twice, sits up, takes an empty glass from the sidetable in his hands, looks into it, puts it and calls, “Mother!” and again, “Mother!” GY ANAM, a woman in her sixties, simply dressed in white, without kunkum (vermilion mark) on her forehead or ornament on her body, enters from the right side of the stage.

Gyanam: Yes, Sivu.

Sivu: Mother, some water to drink. (Gyanam pours some water from a bottle into a glass.)
Sivu: I’m sweating. Drenched. Terrible thirsty.

Gyanam: (handing the glass to Sivu and feeling his forehead) Yes, a lot of sweating. Doesn’t feel hot. Your fever has left you.

Sivu: (Drinking some water and handing the glass to Gyanam) Where is Raji?

Gyanam: She has gone to the temple.

Sivu: (smiling) That’s your therapeutics.

Gyanam: My what?

Sivu: Therapeutics.

Gyanam: Talk to me simply.

Sivu: Therapeutics - treatment.

Gyanam: You and your big words and new-fangled ideas!

Sivu: Your treatment has been effective. I’m getting over the fever.

Gyanam: Whenever your father got fever, I used to go to the temple to pray, even if there were doctors to see him. I used to get sacred ash from the temple and smear a little on his forehead and put a little in his mouth. I used to do it every day when he was sick, and he invariably used to get well. The poor man died when I was sick and couldn’t go to the temple. They took him to hospital, and the doctors gave him no end of medicines and injections. If people take you to hospital, it means you are going to die. I used to make all the medicines at home myself for your father. When they took him to hospital and gave him medicines and injections, he died. God bless him!

(She stops talking and wipes her eyes with the loose end of her sari. Raji enters the drawing room from the left side of the stage. She is about thirty. She has a vermilion mark on a small circle of sacred ash in the centre of her forehead, and she carries a basket of offerings–coconut, plantains, betel leaves and flowers–from the temple.)

Gyanam: I hear steps. I think Raji has returned from the temple.

(Raji walks through the communicating door to the (right) bed-room, and places the basket on the side-table.)

Sivu: You’re early from the temple today, Raji.

Raji: (taking out from the basket a small paper packet and handing it to Gyanam) Yes, I started early.

(Gyanam opens the packet, and taking some sacred ash from it, smears it on Sivu’s forehead and puts some into his mouth.)

Sivu: Yes, you must have started quite early.

Gyanam: Utter Siva’s name first. Say “Siva” when you swallow the ash. After that you may start talking.

Sivu: Namas-sivaaya.

Gyanam: That’s right.

Sivu: Ah yes, you came early because you’ve to attend the annual function of the ladies’ club.

Raji: Yes, I’ve to dress up. Parvati will be here any time now. I’ve to hurry.

(Raji goes to the left room, opens the clothes cupboard. takes some dresses and saris from it and scrutinizes them. In the right room Sivu lies down on the bed and settles to sleep while Gyanam sits in a chair and starts counting beads, muttering a few first audible Sivas. The door bell rings.)

Raji: It must be Parvati. (Loudly) The door is open.

Parvati enters from the left side of the stage. She is a young woman of twenty-eight. She is attractive. She betrays some nervous tension.)

Raji: Hallo, Parvati, you’re early.

Parvati: Yes.

Raji: You don’t look well. Got flu or something?

Parvati: No, I’m fine.

Raji: You don’t look so. And you’re not dressed in your usual top style. Not like one who is going to attend a function. Something is weighing on you.

Parvati: I shall tell you. After you’ve changed. No, I think I shall tell you now.

Raji: Out with it.

Parvati: I’m not attending the function...I’ve changed my mind.

Raji: Funny. They’ll miss you. I shall miss you. But why on earth have you changed your mind?

Parvati: I’m going to attend Chidambara Bhagavatar’s kaalakshepam*.
Raji: Kaalakshepam?

Parvati: Yes, on the later life of Rama.

Raji: Funny, What’s the matter with you?

Parvati: (laughs) I shall tell you.

Raji: Start off.

Parvati: Will you come with me?

(Raji stares at her. Parvati looks at Raji enigmatically. A momentary silence.)

Raji: Well, you are funny. What happened?

Parvati: I shall tell you. On the way to your house I saw a poster announcing the kaalakshepam, and it occurred to me that it would be as well to attend it. If you’re coming with me, we shall start straightaway. The performance is at five-thirty. There’s just time for us to start.

Raji: You haven’t told me what Happened.

Parvati: I shall. But are you coming with me?

Raji: I’ve to think.

Parvati:  I shall tell you if you’ll come with me.

Raji: That settles it.

Parvati: (excitedly) Which way?

Raji: Which way? Of course, I shall come with you.

Parvati: You’re wonderful. Raji. (A pause) I wish men are as accommodating.

Raji: Did you quarrel with Sekhar?

Parvati: Yes,  I did.

Raji: Tell me.

Parvati: They worry us for their sport.

Raji: Forget them. Tell me about your husband.

Parvati: I wanted to forget him for a while. That’s why I came here.

Raji: That’s also why you’re going to the kaalakshepam.

Parvati: That’s also why I’m not attending the ladies’ function.

Raji: That’s self-defeating. The loss is yours.

Parvati: I want to teach him a lesson.

Raji: The Gandhian way?

Parvati: No.

Raji: Our way the women’s way.

Parvati: I suppose so. I did not give any thought to the way. I acted just as it occurred to me.

Raji: Well, tell me.

Parvati: You know the Kaanchipuramsari which we saw at Sumangali’s?

Raji: The one, pale sky-blue, with a fine floral design, broad border and catching work-up?

Parvati: Yes. I wanted him to buy that for me. Today, for the ladies’ function.

Raji: It’s a shame that we’ve to be asking our husbands for each and everything.

Parvati: It’s a shame, and it was an emergency for me. I had no sari to wear for the function. Just imagine!

Raji: O dear!

Parvati: I had to dance attendance on him. It was just so much fun to him. Since the day before yesterday I’ve been asking him to buy it. And he does nothing but sit and smile. What’s one to do with a man like him? I went to the extent of saying that I would go to my mother’s house. And he said that if I did, I had better make sure to ask her to get the sari for me, since otherwise, he says, I might have to start the story over again on my return.

Raji: Did you tell him you needed it for the function?

Parvati: Of course, I did.

Raji: What a horrid man!

Parvati: You are telling me!

Raji: And so you walked over here?

Parvati: When he was starting for his office, I told him I would be going to your house and not attending the function.

Raji: How did he take it?

Parvati: (laughs) Ludicrous. He started begging me to go with him to the shop and buy the sari.

Raji: Well, he could get it himself and give you. He knows the shop and the sari.

Parvati: Yes, he offered to do that. But I told him that I would have none of it. And then he started asking me to go to the shop with him.

Raji: I suppose it was to make sure that you would not refuse the sari after he had bought it.

Parvati: How silly! To ask me to go to the shop with him after I had refused to have the sari! And when I refused to go with him, he offered to go by himself and buy the sari.

Raji: What next?

Parvati: I told him I would not be attending the annual day function. And then he asked me whether we could go to a picture in the evening.
Raji: He got it all right!

Parvati: Luckily he mentioned Bhagya Chakra. I told him I don’t know Hindi and could not care for the picture less.

Raji: I suppose he then left the choice to you.

Parvati: That’s right. But I didn’t budge. (A pause. Looks at the clock on the wall.) It’s quarter to five now. He said he would be from the office early. Probably he is at home now.

Raji: You told him you would be coming here?

Parvati: I did. He will have to make coffee for himself today. For once!

Raji: Good for him!

Gyanam: (from the next room) Raji!

Raji: Yes, mother!

Gyanam: Get some coffee for Sivu. He wants it. He is weak after the sweating.

Raji: Yes, mother, I’ve it ready.

(Raji leaves the room at the extreme left of the stage. The door bell rings.)

Parvati: Who is that?

Voice: (from outside) Me, mistress. Kariappan.

Parvati: Oh, you’ve come here!

(Raji returns with a cup of coffee on a plate.)

Parvati: My servant boy has come here! Extraordinary!

Raji: Some message? I shall open the door.

(She places the coffee plate on the central table, goes behind the screen and returns with Kariappan, a boy of twelve. While he stands respectfully at the left of the stage Raji takes the coffee plate to the bed room. While Parvati is talking with the boy, Raji hands the plate to Gyanam and returns to the drawing room. And while the talk goes on in the drawing room, Sivu in other room sips the coffee and afterwards lies down in the bed, and Gyanam starts counting beads.)

Parvati: Hey, what’s the matter?

Boy: Master returned home from office. He is ill and he sent me to fetch you.

(A short silence.)

Raji: (who has by this time returned from the bed room) Well, this is a new turn.

Parvati: (turning to Raji in a dignified and determined manner) What do you say?

Raji: I suppose you’ve to go home.

Parvati: (indifferently) You’re coming with me?

Raji: What do you mean?

Parvati: I’m going to the kaalakshepam.

Raji: What’s wrong with you?
Parvati: I’ll tell you presently. Let us now go to the performance.

Raji: What will you tell the boy?

Parvati: He’ll go home and see if it is necessary to fetch a doctor.

Raji: Parvati, I don’t understand you. Surely you must return home now, musn’t you? I shall speak frankly. I won’t agree to go with you to the performance. I won’t be a party to keep you away from your husband. He’s alone in the house. I at least have my mother-in-law with me.

Parvati: Well, well, wait a minute. Here, boy, go home and ask master whether he wants a doctor to be sent for. Go home, and be quick about it.

Boy: Yes, madam. (Exit boy.)

Parvati:  (turning to Raji). Now then, what do you say? Are you coming with me to the performance? Will you? Please.

Raji: I don’t understand you, Parvati.

Parvati: You understand me well enough. Come, let’s go.

Raji: I don’t understand.

Parvati: How silly! He’s playing a ruse to make me return home.

Raji: Are you sure?

Parvati: Yes. And when I go home, he will start the whole story again. And it will end in my going either to the ladies’ function or to the cinema. I shall not be taken in so easily.

Raji: You’re clever.

Parvati: Thank you. Let’s go to the performance.

Raji: Yes. (A pause) The later story of Rama.

Parvati: Yes. (A pause)

Raji: Valmiki’s epic and Kalidasa’s poem.

Parvati: And Bhavabhuti’s play. Yes, let’s go.

Raji: Yes, let us.

(Exeunt. Curtain.)

SCENE 2: SEKHAR’S HOUSE

(The same scene as before. The right (bed-) room is dimly lit by a bed-lamp. The bed is occupied by Sekhar who is apparently sleeping. On the side-table are a time-piece a torch and a jug of water. The left (drawing) room is dark. Parvati and Raji enter the room from the left side of the stage. As they enter, Parvati puts on the switch and the room is lighted.)

Parvati: Sekhar has gone to bed.

Raji: It’s late–past nine.

(Parvati walks to the door between the rooms and peeps into the right room.)

Parvati: He is asleep.

Raji: He may be having fever.

Parvati: I shall have a look.

(She walks to the bed room, stands by the bed and watches Sekhar’s face for a while. She is about to feel his forehead when she draws her hand. She returns to the drawing room.)

Parvati: He is asleep.

Raji: Does he have fever?

Parvati: He does not look like having fever.

(A short silence.)

Parvati: I did not feel his forehead to see whether he has fever. I did not want to wake him. I shall do that after you leave. Now I want to talk with you...I must talk with you.

Raji: Yes.

Parvati: Thank you for coming here with me from the per­formance. So kind of you.

Raji: Why, you are behaving like a child. You are behaving oddly. You miss the ladies’ function, you make me miss it also, you go to the kaalakshepam, you drag me also to it, and then you come away abruptly from the kaalakshepamin the middle, and pull me also away from it.

Parvati: Not in the middle. Towards the end.

Raji: All right. You walk out of the performance before it is over and you ask me to come with you to your house. By God, you’re upset. I don’t know why anybody should be so upset for whatever reason.

Parvati: I’m upset, I suppose.

Raji: You suppose? Calm yourself, Parvati.

(A pause.)

Parvati: I shall tell you, Raji. Err... err... You’re attentive to your husband in spite of your tall talk against men.

Raji: Am I? How did you discover that?

Parvati: Of course, you’ve always been that way. Who will go to the temple every day to pray for a husband’s re­covery from a minor illness just because an old woman takes it into her head that you must do it?

Raji: Oh, she is insufferable. She will not let me rest if I didn’t do that. Fortunately you don’t have a mother-in-law.

Parvati: I think I am not half as good as you.

Raji: (laughs) When did you discover that?

Parvati: When I was getting up to leave the performance.

Raji: How was that?

Parvati: When my servant came with the message you said that I must return home. You said, may be my husband was really having fever. I brushed that possibility aside.

Raji: It turns out, I think, that you are right.

Parvati: But how was one to know beforehand?

Raji: But, Parvati, an over-concern with any matter is really agnaana, as our elders say, a spiritual immaturity. It betokens weakness to give way to weak thoughts. Men take advantage of our weakness, and then we find ourselves deceived.

Parvati: Even after knowing the deception, Sita forgave Rama. Yes...But I did like the mild dignified rebuke that she gave him through Lakshmana – that delicately poised utterance of Kalidasa’s verse that Chidambara Bhagavatar quoted.

Raji: Yes, even when she found herself banished to the forest unawares.

Parvati: And when she was with child.

Raji: It was nothing short of a deception that Rama practised on her when he sent her to the forest with Lakshmana.

Parvati: And she forgave it all...It sounds absurd!

Raji: Vivekananda said grandiloquently, “India, remember that thy ideal of womanhood is Sita and Savitri!” How is one to remember what, has not been in one’s mind at all!

Parvati: It seems to me that he takes things for granted and then talks grand and high...Isn’t it striking though that Chidambra Bhagavatar quoted verse and authority from Mahabharata to show what an ideal wife Draupadi was with five husbands! It will be impossible for us to do the daily household chores with patience and sweetness as she did. It will be easier to be a Sita than a Draupadi!

Raji: We shall talk about that after listening to Chidambara Bhagavatar’s next performance. It is getting late for me. Good night. Cheer up!

Parvati: Wait a minute.

(Parvati takes a small case of kunkum(vermilion) from a table and extends it to Raji. Raji takes a pinch of it and applies it on her forehead.)

Raji: Good night.

(Raji leaves the room by the left of the stage.)

Parvati: Sekhar is asleep. I’m feeling bright and alert. Let me read something.

(She picks up a book from the rack and settles in a sofa and starts reading.)

Sekhar: (from the bedroom, turning in his bed) Hallo! Who is there? Parvati!

(Parvati remains silent.)

Sekhar: Parvati!

(Parvati remains silent. Sekhar gets up from the bed and walks to the drawing room through the communicating door. He is a young man of about thirty.)

Sekhar: (as he enters the drawing room) Oh! Parvati! You’re ?

Parvati: I didn’t want to wake you from your sleep.

(Silence.)

Parvati: Especially as you’re having fever.

(Silence.)

Sekhar: I called you. You didn’t hear me?

Parvati: I didn’t hear you.

Sekhar: I see.

Parvati: That is about as true as your saying that you’re having fever.

Sekhar: (Grins) A good hit! (Laughs) Parvati, just wait.

(He goes to the bed room, picks up a sari from under the pillow and returns to the drawing room. As he comes through the communicating door he holds up the sari.)

Parvati: (Her pleased, excited face belies her talk.) Ah, who asked you to buy it?

(Silence for a while. Sekhar comes towards her with the sari in his hand.)

Sekhar: You liked it.

Parvati: Men are deceivers ever!

(They embrace each other. The sari falls on the floor between them. Curtain.)

* A musical discourse with exposition and elaboration, usually on a theme from the epics or mythological texts.