Song of the Cuckoo Bird: A Novel (30 page)

“Kokila,
you
should talk with the professor,” Subhadra suggested.

“Yes, Kokila,” Chetana teased. “You must, you must.”

“Unlike you gossipmongers, I like to mind my own business,” Kokila said smoothly, and left the kitchen, her new earrings swishing just a little as she walked with a bounce.

And she would have minded her own business if he had at least shown up for lunch. Just before they started serving, Manjunath came up to Kokila and said he wasn’t hungry and was going for a walk. There was such desolation in his expression that Kokila wanted to follow him out and ask what was wrong, how she could help. But she decided that it was none of her business and there were so many guests to take care of she didn’t have time for Manjunath and his problems. The Ugadi lunch was boisterous and happy, and Kokila vowed to not let Manjunath’s sorrow dampen her spirits.

It was a well-known fact that Dr. Manjunath Kaakateeya was a very bright man, teaching mathematics at Andhra University in Visakhapatnam. His oldest daughter had married recently while his youngest daughter had received top marks in the state medical entrance exam, EAMCET. She was studying to be a doctor in Osmania Medical College in Hyderabad.

When he had come to Tella Meda the previous summer, Manjunath had been gushing about his youngest daughter and how bright she was. Manjunath himself had studied in America on some kind of scholarship.

Charvi said that the Fulbright scholarship was given to exceptionally smart people and she was very flattered that an intelligent man such as Manjunath came to Tella Meda to find peace and solace.

“Vacation away from family,” he would say. “But I tell them that it is a holy vacation and after all I’m coming to your holy home, Charvi Amma.”

For his accomplishments, and the list was long, he was still very young. He had married young and had his first daughter when he was only twenty years old. He was considered a dynamic young professor who someday would become vice chancellor at Andhra University. The vice chancellor position was a political one but most people in the know had already decided that Dr. Manjunath Kaakateeya was the man for the job.

He respected Charvi. He sat with her during
bhajan
in the evening and he prayed with her in the morning. During the day, he spent time chatting with Narayan Garu and the women of the house. He went for long walks and came back with seashells and wildflowers for everyone. He helped with the cooking on Sundays and was always full of charming wit. An excellent human being, everyone said. When Manjunath visited, Dr. Vishnu Mohan, who lived two houses away, had his meals at Tella Meda. Even his wife, Saraswati, would spend more time than usual at the
ashram.
Such was Manjunath’s appeal. Everyone liked him and everyone knew him as a cheerful man who brightened the day, so it was especially noticeable when he came to Tella Meda without his humor and welcoming smile.

He sat in the temple room for hours, watching Charvi meditate or staring at the idol of Lord Venkateshwara Swami. His walks were getting longer and he would return with a heavier face than the one he left with.

“He didn’t eat lunch,” Kokila told Subhadra.

“The rumor is that he got some girl pregnant,” Renuka said, and both Kokila and Subhadra glared at her. “Saraswati said something about it. She talked to some friend of Doctor Garu’s at Andhra University and he said so. I’m not making up stories.”

Kokila sighed. “But you don’t even know if this is true. Why say things like this and ruin a man’s good name?”

Renuka sighed, big tears filling her eyes, as they always could on command. “Everyone blames me because I’m a widow. Maybe he did get a girl pregnant, why is that so hard to believe?”

“Because he’s a good man,” Subhadra snapped at Renuka. “Sometimes, Renuka, you just . . . You have a big mouth and one day it will hurt you. Now, why don’t you go out of my kitchen and leave me to cook dinner in peace.”

Renuka made a face and sighed a little before walking away. Having caused mischief, she had accomplished her mission, it appeared.

That evening, during
bhajan,
Saraswati confirmed the rumor.

“A young girl committed suicide,” Saraswati whispered to Subhadra and Kokila.

Chetana craned her neck as she was sitting behind Saraswati. “Really? How young? A student?” She was full of questions. Gossip was always welcome at Tella Meda.

Saraswati nodded. “Eighteen-year-old girl, they say. That’s how old his youngest daughter is. I thought he was a good man . . .
chee-chee,
now I find this out. It’s just not right that he’s here in the presence of Charvi.”

“I don’t believe it,” Kokila said, a little miffed that they all were turning against a man they had always been friendly with. “He seems to have too much integrity to do what you accuse him of. And who is this friend of yours in Visakhapatnam who told you this?”

Saraswati shook her head. “Not Visakhapatnam. Vishnu’s friend is a professor at the Regional Engineering College in Warrangal. Well, he used to be a professor there, ten years ago, but he still has good contacts and he heard this from a friend whose sister is married to a professor who works at Andhra University.”

Chetana laughed softly. “Looks like this story has been through so many mouths that there is probably more
masala
in the story than story.”

“No, no, it really happened,” Saraswati claimed, her voice rising above a whisper. Charvi didn’t say anything but paused in her singing and looked straight at Saraswati, who became quiet immediately.

After the
bhajan,
Saraswati profusely apologized to Charvi for speaking during her singing and was immediately forgiven, though Charvi did hold her hand up to silence Saraswati when she tried to implicate Kokila and Chetana as well.

Manjunath didn’t come for dinner that Ugadi night and neither did he show up for the special
bhajan
in the evening. He sat quietly in the backyard by the well, smoking cigarette after cigarette.

Subhadra saw him from her room’s window and asked Kokila to go find out what was wrong.

“I’m scared he’ll jump into the well,” Subhadra said truthfully. “Whatever he did, he did. What do we know? Just go and check on him and make sure he comes inside. That well doesn’t look deep but it is. You jump in, you die, not just end up with broken bones.”

Kokila wanted to tell Subhadra to go talk to him herself if she was so worried but she knew that Subhadra would never interfere in a stranger’s personal business quite so blatantly.

Kokila had always thought that Manjunath was a good-looking man. He was tall and broad-shouldered and looked more like a big construction worker than a Brahmin professor. The white and yellow cigarette looked small in his large hands. His spectacles had slid down his nose, his
kurta
was smudged with black streaks, and his dark pants had not been ironed before he wore them. There was a week’s worth of stubble on his face and his hair looked greasy and dirty, as if it hadn’t been washed in a while.

As soon as Manjunath saw Kokila, he politely dropped the cigarette on the grass and crushed it under his blue rubber slipper.

“I’m sorry I missed
bhajan,
” Manjunath said, his voice a little scratchy because of too much smoking and lack of sleep.

Kokila shook her head. “Don’t worry about it.” She knew she should say something else but didn’t quite know what to say. She barely knew this man. He came once a year for a week or two and during his stay he chatted with everyone and it wasn’t like when he talked with Kokila he spoke with any extra closeness.

“I’ll go to sleep then,” Manjunath said when he realized that Kokila wasn’t going to say anything more and the uncomfortable silence was not being broken.

“Okay,” Kokila managed, and watched him walk away.

She felt miserable. She should’ve said something, she knew, but what could she say?
You seem di ferent this time, Manjunath Garu? Any
problems in your life you want to share with everyone at Tella Meda?

She hoped that he’d talk to Charvi. She was the
guru
of the
ashram
and the one who could give advice and offer salvation. This wasn’t her problem, Kokila decided; she had many problems, but Professor Manjunath was not one of them.

That changed eventually.

It was during his third week in Tella Meda that Kokila saw him crying on the terrace in the night.

Subhadra and Kokila had left chilies to dry on the terrace and forgot to bring them down in the evening after the sun had set. Just before she went to sleep, Kokila remembered and rushed upstairs with a flashlight to bring the chilies to the kitchen. If left all night, they’d get wet again in the morning dew.

He was sitting in a corner, his head bent and hidden on his knees, his body shaking as small sobs escaped him.

Kokila wouldn’t have even noticed him in the dark. But as soon as she heard a sob, she turned the flashlight toward the sound. His head came up in shock.

“Manjunath Garu?” Kokila said as she looked curiously, wanting to make sure it was indeed him.
Is he crying?
she wondered with a little fear. Would she have to console him? Did she know how?

He cleared his throat and covered his face with the back of his hand to avoid inspection and the glare of the light. “Yes. I was just resting here,” he said in a clear voice.

“Oh,” Kokila said, and turned the light away from him. She quietly folded the muslin cloth on which the red chilies lay and packed it neatly so that she could carry them downstairs without dropping any chilies on the way.

Curiosity burned within her. She wanted to ask him why he had been crying. She wanted to ask him if she could help, though she couldn’t imagine how she could help. What would she say? And what if it was true that he had made some girl pregnant and she committed suicide? No, no, it was better not to get involved. She couldn’t help this man.

Kokila put the flashlight on top of the muslin. Holding the cloth with both hands, she started to walk toward the stairs.

“Please wear a sweater, it gets cold at night these days,” she said because she felt she had to say something.

“Thank you,” Manjunath said, but made no move to get up and go downstairs to get a sweater.

This is not my problem,
Kokila told herself repeatedly.
Whatever
that man did, it is his business and it is not for me to judge.
Those who looked at her relationship with Ramanandam from the outside probably also believed that it was morally wrong. Maybe Manjunath had been in love with that student. And maybe they had had sex. Sex wasn’t a bad thing. Sex was a basic human function, Ramanandam would always say. People could call it making love and all sorts of other things but sex was a base function. All animals had sex, just like people.

As Kokila put the chilies in the kitchen, her heart beat just a little faster.

Sex?

Oh my, she hadn’t thought of that for years now . . . almost three, four years. Even before Ramanandam died, sex had started to become an occasional thing, not like it had been in the beginning. The urgency was gone in the later years. And the heat had deserted them as well. But she remembered the first few times vividly. The feel of his body sliding into hers . . . Kokila shook her head to disperse the thoughts. They were shameful. They must be shameful.

Suddenly, all she could think about was Manjunath having sex with some young college girl. Their love must’ve been just as illicit as hers and Ramanandam’s had been. Her breasts tightened at the thought of Manjunath lying naked on top of some young girl. Maybe he had grunted and so had she. Maybe . . .

Kokila was mortified. Here she was, standing in the middle of the courtyard, in the middle of the night imagining some man naked and having sex with a girl. As she tried to clear her mind again, it struck her that Manjunath was not having sex with some young girl in her mind; he was having sex with her. She looked down at her feet, unable to move, deeply disturbed by her traitorous body. Where had this come from? She was a pious woman. Wasn’t she? She did
puja
in the morning, in the evening. How could this be happening to her? With Ramanandam it had been love. She wasn’t in love with Manjunath. Then why was she having these thoughts about him?

This was all Chetana’s fault. She kept saying Manjunath looked at her this way and that. It was Chetana who had put this in her head. She used to barely notice Manjunath during his visits. Now all she did was notice him. And why did Subhadra have to ask her to help him? Why couldn’t she have asked Charvi? Oh, what was she going to do?

Kokila sat on her bed and looked out of the window that opened into the courtyard and watched for Manjunath. He wasn’t coming down and it was getting colder. He could fall sick, she told herself. It was just noble and human of her to take a blanket for him. Or a shawl? Didn’t she have a nice shawl somewhere?

Kokila opened her Godrej cupboard and started to look for a flesh-colored shawl she had bought some years ago. It was not real wool, just some synthetic material, but it was warm enough. She smiled in triumph when she found it.

She looked at herself in the mirror on the Godrej cupboard before leaving her room to go up to the terrace again.

She didn’t take the flashlight this time, convinced that the moonlight would show her the way. She tried not to think that maybe she would look more attractive under the moonlight, that the creases age had given her face would be hidden by the gentle light of the moon. Maybe Manjunath would fall in lust with her as he had with that college student.
Maybe this is all just a big mistake,
she told herself even as she realized she couldn’t stop herself from going to him. This was attraction, she knew, even though she refused to acknowledge it. Maybe Chetana had fed the illusion of attraction but it had always been there, small and insignificant. Now it was springing to life because he was a broken man.