Song of the Cuckoo Bird: A Novel (34 page)

Sometimes when he was drunk he would wonder what he was doing in Bheemunipatnam, drinking and whoring about. He would wonder why he couldn’t just go home and then he would drink some more because he’d remember that his father had kicked him out and that since he’d married that bitch Chetana, his life had gone down the drain like bad toddy.

All he could do to keep himself sane was to drink and when he was drunk, a whore made him happy, especially since Chetana hadn’t allowed him to touch her for over two years now. And now he had the means to get toddy and a whore. Sometimes good luck just fell into your lap.

Ravi didn’t come home that night and Chetana didn’t get the opportunity to kick him out. She made a bundle of his clothes ready to throw out after him. The television was set up on a Friday and he didn’t come on Saturday and neither did he come back on Sunday.

Though the television was turned on every evening from 7 PM after
bhajan
to 11 PM when the television station went off the air, it was Sunday evening everyone was looking forward to. Even
bhajan
had been postponed to 9 PM, after the movie, instead of at 6:30 after dinner. The movie with the superstar Krishna and famous actress Sri Devi would start at 5 PM and end at 9. There would be a small break for Telugu news for half an hour at 7:30 PM. That was when dinner was planned.

Charvi agreed with the new timing. She didn’t watch many movies and rarely went to the cinema but even she couldn’t stand up against the enthusiasm of the women of Tella Meda.

“Now let’s hope the electricity doesn’t go off,” Subhadra said during lunch. For the first time she was not interested in the devotees and guests at Tella Meda.

“Our own television! It’s so nice not to ask that Saraswati if we can come and watch this movie or that,” Renuka said. “The fuss she made when I wanted to see ANR in
Sudigundalu
.”

“And when they showed
Missamma,
she made all sorts of excuses,” Subhadra said angrily and with some satisfaction. Savitri was her favorite actress and
Missamma
her favorite movie.

“She behaves as if we’re not good enough,” Chetana commented. “We’re good enough to eat with and gossip with but if we need something she turns her nose up. It’s just Charvi whom she has any respect for.”

“I never liked her much. She’s so snobbish,” Rambha Devi said, earning snickers from everyone.

“People living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” Shanthi whispered to Kokila, who pursed her lips to stop from laughing.

But the electricity went out at 4 PM. Bhanu stood by a light switch, turning it on and off, on and off, hoping that by some miracle the electricity would come back on if she played enough with the switch.

“It’s not summer anymore, so why do they still keep taking the current off?” she moaned. In the summer months, the electricity was turned off for several hours a day to save it. But even during the rest of the year, the electricity was never stable and it occasionally went off due to some malfunction or the other.

“Just leave that switch on. If the current comes back we’ll know,” Renuka told her.

They were all waiting in the TV room, anxious.

Kokila, who had shown little interest so far in the whole television melee, also was disappointed. What if the power didn’t come back on? And after they’d done so much to get that television.

Puttamma came running to Tella Meda at quarter to five. Her breath was coming in short gasps and her
sari
was almost undone in her haste to get there.

“The current is gone,” Subhadra said as Puttamma came huffing into the TV room. “So you didn’t miss anything.”

Puttamma shook her head and then looked at Kokila. “Amma . . .”

Kokila, who was sitting in a corner with Shanthi, walked up to Puttamma. She had to lean over to listen to what Puttamma had to say. She looked at Puttamma in disbelief.

“What? No current all night? Is that it?” Renuka asked. “What did you find out, Puttamma?”

“Oh, why is it that they should take the current off today?” Bhanu demanded, and so as not to be left out, Meena pouted as well. “I like Krishna so much and now we won’t be able to see the movie.”

“Chetana,” Kokila said, ignoring everyone else. “Come with me.”

“What happened now? I don’t want to miss the beginning of the movie,” Chetana said on a long sigh. “Did some more money go missing? I can give the last two bangles but that’s it. I don’t have any—”

Kokila took Chetana’s hand and led her into the temple room. “Puttamma just saw . . . Ravi is dead, Chetana,” Kokila said bluntly, not sure how one should say something like this.

“Dead? Dead?” Chetana said, staring at Puttamma. When Puttamma nodded, Chetana nodded as well. “Completely dead?” she asked, just in case her question was misunderstood.

“Simhan got some bad toddy yesterday night and ten people died at the
kallu
compound,” Puttamma said.

“Oh,” Chetana managed to say despite the big lump that had appeared in her throat all of a sudden. She didn’t know how to react. There was so much shock along with relief and surprise.

Now there would be a funeral. She had to let Manikyam know. And the body, that would have to be brought to Tella Meda. Or would Manikyam want the funeral in Visakhapatnam? No, no, here would be better. It was closer to where his body was. His father or brother would have to do the last rites. After all, Ravi had no sons, at least none she knew about.

“Where is he?” Chetana asked.

Puttamma looked uncomfortable and shrugged. “We can get him here and . . .”

“Oh, Puttamma, just tell me where he is,” Chetana said, suddenly feeling very weary.

“At Champa’s. He had money and she has a new girl. He died in her room. She’s still screaming because he went into convulsions, vomited all over her. They want to get rid of the body right now. The police are looking into it as well. They’ve arrested Simhan for selling bad toddy, but you know how it is. He’ll be out by sundown, selling more toddy from his shop,” Puttamma said, the words rolling out of her mouth at full speed.

“Hmm,” Chetana said, and then looked at Kokila. “What now?”

“I’ll tell Charvi and then go to Vishnu Garu’s house and phone Manikyam, or do you want to do that? Ah . . . Subhadra can—” Kokila stopped speaking and held Chetana close as her face suddenly crumpled.

“I’m a widow now,” Chetana mumbled, and started to cry. “I was hardly ever a wife and now I’m a widow. Oh, Kokila, it isn’t fair.”

Puttamma looked at the two women with misery in her eyes. All the time she had cursed that Ravi to hell and blamed Chetana for his shortcomings and now that he was in hell, it was just sad. He had given no one any happiness in his life and even in his death his wife wasn’t able to find joy. If her first husband had died on her, Puttamma would have celebrated. Instead the son of a whore had stolen her money and jewelry to run away with the neighbor’s wife.

“Better to be a widow, Chetana Amma, than the wife of a bad, bad man,” Puttamma said. Most people didn’t think so but Puttamma had lived long enough and had spent enough time with no-good men that she didn’t believe in the societal custom of putting up with a husband no matter how bad he was. If she had been married to Ravi, she would’ve beaten him and thrown him out of her life long time ago.

Chetana looked up from Kokila’s shoulder at Puttamma, amusement in her eyes at the remark. “And he was a terribly bad man, wasn’t he?”

“Oh yes,” Puttamma said sincerely. “He was the worst.”

“It would be so easy, wouldn’t it, if we could all be as practical as Puttamma,” Chetana said sadly.

“You have to learn to be practical to survive,” Puttamma said.

“I have to tell the girls,” Chetana said, and stepped away from Kokila. “You’ll take care of the—” Chetana looked up at the ceiling fan in the temple room as it whirred to a start. “The current is back.”

On cue, music from the TV followed. Applause and cheers from everyone in the TV room filtered into the temple room.

Puttamma rushed into the TV room and demanded that the television be turned off. At the curses everyone hurled at her for speaking loudly as the initial music of the movie began she said Tella Meda was in mourning and that it wasn’t proper to watch movies when a woman had lost her husband.

Dr. Nageshwar Rao performed the last rites. His younger son, Prasad, stood by his brother’s dead body wearing a white
kurta
and
lungi,
with breath that smelled of whiskey. He didn’t indulge in toddy. Rich men’s sons who married according to parental wishes didn’t have to drink toddy, he had discovered. He could sit in his own home with his friends and drink foreign whiskey, peg after peg, without worrying about how to pay for it. He didn’t quite see his brother’s death in the light his father hoped he would. Prasad didn’t believe that alcohol killed Ravi. It was
bad
alcohol and that whore’s daughter Ravi had married that killed Ravi. Prasad’s wife, Sita, didn’t live with him anymore because when she did, she brought the house down every time he got drunk. And every time she nagged him he felt like he had to slap her around and then she would start crying and the misery would go on all night.

One night he beat her so much that there were huge bruises all over her face. In the morning when the alcohol wore off he was apologetic but she didn’t want any apologies. She packed her suitcases and left.
Good riddance,
Prasad thought. Now his father-in-law was crying about divorce and as far as Prasad was concerned that was all right too. But Sita always came back because his mother always went to Srikakulam to bring her back. She would lure her back with new diamond jewelry, expensive
saris,
and whatnot. Prasad didn’t care all that much where she was, but he was happiest when his wife went to visit her parents.

Marital sex had turned out to be a dud as well. At least his brother was lucky in that department, Prasad thought as he stood by his brother’s pyre, imagining his brother’s wife without her clothes. Oh yes, Chetana had nice lush breasts and even after two children, her waist was slim and her hips just wide enough to make a man want to hold her in between his legs. Why on earth had his brother been visiting whores when he had such a delicious piece at home? He understood why his father kept a fancy piece on the side. He just had to look at his mother to figure that out.

Prasad had seen his father’s mistress several times in the market, in his father’s clinic, in his father’s car, other places. It wasn’t like his father was discreet about her or anything. Her name was Menaka. People said that was her “movie” name and no one knew her real name. Menaka was not from Andhra but from north India. No one was sure where. She had bright, fair skin and an even and smooth face, unlike Manikyam’s pockmarked visage. Her hair was always tied in a neat little bun with flowers decorating it. She wore high heels under silk
saris
that Dr. Nageshwar Rao bought for her and she always wore makeup and perfume.

Dr. Nageshwar Rao might not have been loyal to his wife but he had been loyal to Menaka. Since he met her on the set of a Telugu movie fifteen years ago, he had not slept with his wife or any other woman. Menaka had worked in films as an extra for a while but the roles soon dried up and so did her interest. With Dr. Nageshwar Rao paying her keep she didn’t have the need to work for a living.

Prasad had never spoken with Menaka and never spoken about her either. Everyone in his family pretended she didn’t exist and his father pretended Manikyam didn’t exist; it was a perfect setup. Prasad had hoped for a setup like that for himself: a wife at home to keep house and raise the children and a whore on the side who was dynamite in bed. But his wife kept running away to her parents and he found that he couldn’t quite support a mistress in style without a solid income. Money trickled down very slowly from his father.

Back at Tella Meda, where the third-day
puja
for Ravi was in full swing, Prasad wondered if now with Ravi dead Chetana might be available for an easy lay. Who would it hurt? And it wasn’t like she was washed in milk. She was a prostitute’s daughter, and she had been married to Ravi. How high could her standards be?

Prasad’s first mistake was to make a pass at Chetana. His second was to make a second pass when Chetana ignored the first one.

“You son of a whore, you bastard, you think you can come and talk to me like that?” Chetana demanded, standing in the center of the courtyard, wet clothes needing to be hung on the clothesline still in her hand.

They had made her a widow the day before by breaking her bangles, wiping the
kumkum
from her forehead, and cutting five locks of her hair. She had refused to shave her hair completely off, as Renuka would have liked. The experience had left her jittery and uneasy. The future seemed bleak and in the middle of all of this she had to deal with her dead husband’s brother’s misbehavior?

“Didn’t you teach your sons anything?” Chetana yelled in the direction of Manikyam, who sat at the knee-high table in the back verandah with Subhadra, Renuka, and Lavanya.

“What? What are you talking about, you crazy woman?” Manikyam demanded, though Chetana knew what she was talking about. She had seen the look in Prasad’s eyes. Just because she didn’t say anything about her son’s bad habits didn’t mean she didn’t know about them. He had set his eyes on his dead brother’s wife. Only Lord Venkateshwara Swami could cleanse the boy’s sins now.

“This son of yours—”

“What? Now you’re blaming me for something?” Prasad demanded, aware that if he didn’t defend himself before the accusation was made, he would be in trouble.

“Yes, I am, you dirty-minded son of a whore,” Chetana said loudly. “You think you can come here and talk about my breasts and my hips? These breasts nurtured your brother’s children and you should show them some respect.”

Subhadra clamped a hand on her mouth, shocked at what Chetana was saying, what she was claiming Prasad had said to her. Chetana was a new widow and already the vultures were circling. Men would never leave her in peace anymore. A young, beautiful widow like that, everyone would try to snatch a piece of her away. And a young widow living in Tella Meda . . . Subhadra shook her head at that thought. Already people looked down upon them for living in an
ashram.
Poor Chetana—they would tear her apart for also being a widow.