Song of the Cuckoo Bird: A Novel (25 page)

Charvi raised her eyebrows in shock. Shankar was always polite and humble, and no one spoke to Charvi like this. If Kokila hadn’t been feeling so numb inside, she would’ve taken pleasure in the words Shankar dispatched to Charvi.

“You’re supposed to be a
guru,
a goddess with a big heart, and yet you shun a woman for doing good? She was only trying to help the needy. Kokila, if you want to leave Tella Meda, you can come and stay with me,” Shankar said.

A hush fell. Kokila ran his words through her mind over and over again to ascertain that they had meant what she thought they had the first time she heard them.

“And how would that look?” Charvi demanded, her tone still polite, but there was anger and bitterness. “A young woman staying alone with a single man? And already Kokila has quite a reputation, what with—”

“That’s enough, Charvi Amma.” Ramanandam’s voice pierced through Kokila’s numbness. She hadn’t even seen him standing outside her door listening to what was going on within. “Shankar, thank you so much for coming here. We will always be indebted to you. Charvi did what she thought was best for the people who live in Tella Meda and . . . we’re very happy to hear that Kokila doesn’t have leprosy.”

Shankar ignored him and turned to Kokila. “I don’t care what people say. My offer will always be open. You can come anytime and live with me.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Ramanandam said, his eyes darting toward Kokila.

They were all looking at her, Kokila realized. She had to say something to let them know what her decision was. She had to let them know if she was staying or leaving.

“I need some time to think about this,” Kokila said, a quiver in her voice. “Shankar, thank you.”

“Let me know when you have decided,” Shankar said, and left without saying good-bye to Charvi or Ramanandam. He never came back to Tella Meda again.

“I did what I thought I had to do,” Charvi said to Kokila. “And I’m sorry that your feelings were hurt. I would very much like it if you would stay at Tella Meda.”

After Charvi left, Ramanandam came inside her room and closed the door behind him. Kokila sank onto the bed and looked out of the window into the backyard, her heart hammering against her ribs. This had seemed like a prison just a day ago. This room had been suffocating. Now she was free again. She wouldn’t have to live in some slum while her body disintegrated.

“How are you feeling?” Ramanandam asked.

Kokila barely noticed his presence. What she had been through had been tragic, almost akin to death, albeit emotional, and now she had a fresh perspective on life. Ramanandam was not going to be part of this new life she planned to lead.

“Healthy,” Kokila said.

“I’m relieved that you are well,” Ramanandam said, and approached her, his feet moving silently against the tiled floor. “I have missed you.”

Kokila understood why he was here, knew what he wanted from her.

“You can’t go live with Shankar. There will be too much talk and—”

“Just like there is talk about you and me?” Kokila asked. “You didn’t seem to care much about the talk when it was you and me, yet now you worry about that same talk if it was about Shankar and me. Why?”

Ramanandam shook his head. He took her hands in his. “I love you.”

“No,” Kokila said with absolute certainty. “If you loved me, you would have been here with me regardless of my health. That is true love, where you can be with someone no matter how bad the situation is. You have never loved anyone except yourself. You disguise your selfishness with talk of independence but you don’t fool me anymore. I stayed in this
ashram
because this was the only real home I ever had and because . . . because of Vidura. I’m not going to stay because of you now.”

“You can’t just go live with some—”

Kokila raised her hand to silence Ramanandam. “I’m not going to live with Shankar. But I’m staying here not for you but for myself.” It was true, she couldn’t go with Shankar. The scandal of it would be unbearable without the protection of Tella Meda. And Shankar had not asked her to marry him; how could she go then?

“What are you saying?” Ramanandam asked.

“You and I cannot be the way we used to be,” Kokila said calmly. “It was perverse then, but because I loved you, I could bear it. Now I don’t love you and I know that you don’t love me. Whatever we share now would just be lust and that would be even more perverse . . . it would be monstrous.”

Ramanandam searched for words. This was his Kokila, he thought in shock, who was calling his relationship with her a perverse thing, something she recoiled from now.

“What will you do?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Kokila said, but for once she was not afraid of the future. She would find a way, she told herself, to make a real life. And it would be a good life, she vowed.

Ramanandam left her room silently. So ended the relationship Kokila had always in some corner of her mind known was wrong.

1978
1978
. Dr. G. P. Talwar, founder and director of the National Institute of Immunology in India, started research on the mycobacterium W vaccine, which he believed would play an important role in the eventual eradication of leprosy.

The
Pilgrims

C
hetana was pregnant again. Bhanu, who was now four years old, was very excited about having a baby brother. She would talk to Chetana’s rounded belly and constantly asked when the baby would come out.

Having lost Bhanu to Renuka, Chetana was certain that this new baby would be hers. She would take care of this baby and never let him cry and never ignore him the way she had Bhanu. Bhanu might call Chetana Amma but it was Renuka who was the real mother. Bhanu slept with Renuka, ate with her, and was bathed by her. Chetana was not involved in Bhanu’s life in any real way. It had bothered Chetana a lot more before she got pregnant again. Now she focused on this new baby growing in her belly, confident that she would do right by him.

Ravi started writing letters to his mother again, telling her about the new baby, the impending
seemantham,
and how wonderful it would be if Chetana could have the new baby in Visakhapatnam in his childhood home.

This time Manikyam responded to the letters politely but without enthusiasm. She did start sending extra money to Ravi and Chetana. This time she didn’t make the mistake of saying she would come to the
seemantham
or even suggest her husband would consider bringing the prostitute’s spawn inside his home.

The news was not as disappointing this time to Chetana as it had been the last. Chetana had come to terms with Dr. Nageshwar Rao never accepting her marriage to Ravi and she had also come to terms with living in Tella Meda for the rest of her life.

The coconut trees swaying in the wind, the smell of the bay, the chatter of Puttamma, Ravi’s philandering—everything was wrapped within a dull polyethylene bag. If Chetana didn’t bother herself with the facts of her life, then how would it matter what the facts were?

Chetana watched Kokila carefully these days but didn’t approach her. It had been three years since everyone had tried to drive her out of Tella Meda, afraid she might have leprosy, and even now, the bitterness of that clung to Kokila.

Chetana wanted—she could feel the want ram against her heart— she wanted so much to be friends with Kokila again, get back to a time when it was not all so complicated, when life was not a constant struggle, but each time she made an effort, Kokila, the changed Kokila, rebuffed her.

And Kokila had changed. Everyone talked about it.

“She isn’t sleeping with him anymore,” Renuka whispered to Chetana when once Ramanandam tried to talk to Kokila but she walked past him as if he didn’t exist.

“Good for her,” Chetana had retorted, not wanting to gossip about her old friend, though just a year or so ago, she wouldn’t have been able to resist the opportunity.

“It seems she blames him for her leprosy,” Renuka continued, unperturbed by Chetana’s lack of interest.

“She didn’t have leprosy, it was a rash,” Chetana muttered.

“I think she doesn’t want to sleep with him because he has cancer,” Renuka said confidently. “A man has sickness like that and women like Kokila leave them. My husband had cancer and I nursed the man till he died.”

“Amma, you are a great wife and a great woman, okay? Are you sure your husband died of cancer and not because you nagged him to death?” Chetana said sarcastically. “And Sastri Garu was diagnosed with cancer last year; Kokila cut off ties with him long before that.”

“Three years ago, they stopped being together. I have been counting,” Renuka said. “I tell you, Kokila is a weak woman to do what she is doing. No matter what you say. Leaving that poor man when he has cancer and needs . . .”

“He isn’t her husband, okay?” Chetana interrupted a little angrily. “And, old woman, don’t you have anything better to do than sit next to my ear and blabber?”

But it was not just Renuka with her malicious talk who discussed Kokila; Subhadra did too, albeit out of concern. Kokila had stopped going to the leprosy clinic, to everyone’s relief, but had started a new career that kept her out of Tella Meda for a good part of the day. After the rash incident Kokila couldn’t get herself to go back. Part of it was fear and part of it was also that she had gotten weary of seeing the lepers every day.

“Poor girl, she just goes to that typing school all day. She never sits with us and eats anymore. You should talk to her, Chetana,” Subhadra would coax even though she knew that Kokila was completely unreachable. Subhadra had tried to get through to Kokila with apologies, food, everything, but hadn’t succeeded.

Charvi had also tried to talk to Kokila but nothing came out of it. Ravi was the only one who was unconcerned.

“If she seems to hate us all so much, why doesn’t she leave?” he would demand even as everyone would shush him. Guilt was heavy among those in Tella Meda who had tried to throw Kokila out when they were convinced she had leprosy. Even Renuka, who usually seemed to be untouched by regret, was tormented by her actions. They had been justified, she would tell herself and others, she had been protecting Bhanu, but it was no balm for the guilt.

Ramanandam watched Kokila with haunted eyes. At night he ached for her, during the day he wished for their old conversations. As his health failed, he found that Kokila had been not just his lover and muse but also his nurse. No one in the
ashram
paid much attention to him or his ill health now. Except for Subhadra, who would check on him once in a while, no one came to him to talk, to help.

The old days were indeed gone. Now those who came to Tella Meda came for Charvi. Ramanandam’s writing was long forgotten. His old friends were dead or dying, like him. Vineetha Raghavan had written to him when she found out he had cancer and they had resumed some communications, but it was formal, unsatisfying, useless. Vineetha didn’t care for him any more than he did for her. The only woman who had truly cared was now as if made of wood.

Kokila wasn’t unaware of the speculation, the concern, the malice, or the ache of a lost relationship, but she didn’t let any of it bother her. If she felt the impulse to go check on Ramanandam when she heard him cough, she curbed it. If she felt curiosity burst within her when Subhadra discussed Ramanandam’s cancer and his condition in a hushed voice, she stifled it. Ramanandam had nothing to do with her.

He is a dying man,
she would argue with herself,
a dying man who is
alone.
But a strong force within Kokila believed Ramanandam’s illness and loneliness to be divine punishment. She had given herself to an older man, completely and faithfully, yet he had not stood by her during her time of need. This was Lord Vishnu’s justice and Kokila felt she shouldn’t interfere with divinity.

Once she stopped going to the leprosy clinic, Kokila learned how to type and then became a teacher in the Telugu typing school. The hours were from ten in the morning until two in the afternoon. It was a good job that paid enough to cover her expenses at Tella Meda. It also gave her the opportunity to step out of the oppressive
ashram.
At Tella Meda she still managed the finances, more easily than she had before because no one argued with her anymore. If she told someone their rent was due, the rent would be made available or a clear excuse was given. The lengthy lectures on how Kokila should be less of a mercenary had stopped. Even Charvi gave the devotee money she wanted to part with to Kokila and not to Subhadra.

But it wasn’t easy to hold on to the anger she felt for everyone, especially Subhadra, who constantly tried to make peace. It was petty, Kokila knew, but becoming the old Kokila again, who could talk to everyone and be part of the Tella Meda family, seemed like a defeat. She didn’t know what she was winning by staying aloof but she couldn’t fathom changing. Not yet. Anger that had bubbled within her initially had settled down to a steady stream of slowly fading hurt but there was resistance to becoming too close to anyone at Tella Meda again. It was self-preservation.