FEAR OF DEATH
By Tangirala Meera Subrahmanyam
translated by Nidadavolu Malathi
“Sir, a paisa, please! help a lonely man, sir, please, be kind...”
The words sounded like a wake up call for Veerasamy. He was a little beside himself. The beggar was hoping and
praying that somebody would be kind to him today. He was rolling in the dust like a worm. The scene was ugly to
watch.
“Is it already time for you?” Veerasamy looked at him, sneering. The cot, with the jute ropes hanging loosely,
squeaked as if crushed under his weight. He pulled out the rolled tobacco leaf that was tucked in his lungi frills at
the waist. He bit the dried edge and spit it out, and lit up. He stood up the cot against the wall, and opened his little
store. Veerasamy stood up on the bench like the emperor Vikramaditya and yelled at the beggar again.
“What a headache! Get lost. You are screaming like a goat since dawn. Has anybody given you so much as a
penny?”
The beggar turned his only operable eye toward Veerasamy and stared at him. He looked as if asking him, “What
do you know about the aches of hunger?”
Veerasamy looked at him and felt sick in the pit of his stomach. The beggar was a horrible sight—his hair was like
dried straw for want of proper care, one of his eyes protruded forward while the other was totally covered by an
abscess, the two remaining teeth stuck out like fangs between his saggy and wrinkled cheeks, flies were pestering
incessantly on his two stumps of hands filled with puss and blood.
Veerasamy couldn’t stomach the sight. He pulled out one of bananas, half-rotten, from the bunch and threw at him.
The sun is heating up and temperature is rising. The traffic also has picked up. That road is the only artery leading
to the so-called new township in Anantapur. The railway tracks next to the road provide recourse to the students
who have failed exams and the young sisters who have been robbed of their innocence. The train also has the
reputation for running over those who had hopes to lead long and happy lives.
This is what happened.
One fine morning the government woke up and built an overpass at a very high price. Money was gone but there
was no noticeable change in the lives of the local populace. The number of deaths has not gone down. The middle
class people are exasperated for all the money they had to shell down for rickshaws and horse-carts in order to
get to the other side.
Veerasamy might have mentioned at least one hundred and one times why the government did not have the sense
to make the trains use the overpass rather than the people. Usually students stop by his shop for Charminar
cigarettes and watch the girls on the street. Veerasamy makes this comment to them all the time.
There are, of course, some people, who appreciated the construction of the overpass in their town. The students
who had nothing better to do and the beggars who found a home under the overpass appreciated the government
gesture. A majority of the town was excited that a strip mall would be built under the overpass. Ruining their
dreams, the space was quickly filled with the homeless who had no other place to sleep in and not a bite for their
hungry mouths. The crowd included beggars and handy men, smalltime woodworkers, a Muslim who sells peanuts,
and the crippled old woman who sells lentil vada [deep-fried snacks].
The one eyed beggar could nothing of the sorts and so was begging the passersby in heartrending appeals
Veerasamy sat there, driving away the flies that were swarming around the overripe bananas with his upper
garment. He lit up the end of the coconut straw rope hanging form the beam of the roof. The rope serves as a
match for his customers who buy cigarettes and beedies in his shop. He was watching the students pass by one
after another and told himself, ‘okay, time for school.’ A sluggish yawn filled his mouth.
In general, the women folks who teach at the women’s college and the children who go to school use that street.
That helps Veerasamy. He need not worry about not getting enough business.
A young student in tight pants saw three women at a distance and started singing roop thera mastaanaa pyaar
mere deevaanaa* and stood up as if posing for camera. It was not clear whether the three women were sisters or
they just colluded to look like that. They all were wearing the same kind of dress—black skirts and white half saris.
They had two braids, one hanging over the shoulder to the front, and a single hibiscus flower tucked in. One of
them looked at the student sideways and commented, “This has become a regular nuisance, God! I wish we had
another route to our college.” She could be pretending to address the beggar who was on his knees and begging
for a paisa. She pushed back the slipping half sari on her shoulder and moved forward. The Romeo [her nickname
for him] smiled and followed them.
Veerasamy shook off the ashes that gathered at the end of the coconut rope and lit his rolled tobacco again. The
beggar stopped as if tired of screaming. His wife picked up where he had left and started hollering in turn. Her
back was so slouched that her white hairs were nearly touching the ground. Yet she was strong enough to seat him
on a wheeled plank with chains and pull him to the main road. That is what she would do anytime she figures that
they would not earn a paisa in that place. She is also that kind of patiivrata [a woman devoted to her husband]
who depends on her husband, no matter what—whether his is disabled or in death throes.
She kept singing like a worn-out gramophone record in the same monotonous voice, “Please, ma’am, be kind to
the old man, ma’am, he has no limbs to walk, can’t do any work, ma’am...” The woman stopped a young man, well
dressed and on his way to teach a class full of gorgeous women. He was wearing a pair of new pants of synthetic
fiber his father-in-law had made for him.
“Shameless cheats. Too lazy to make an honest buck, why not? After all, we do have a female as the head of the
state. What else can we expect?” he said to the bald person next to him and walked away.
The bald man stopped at Veerasamy’s shop to buy betel nut powder.
“Probably it is time for the woman to show up,” Veerasamy commented as he counted the change and throwing
side glances at the railway tracks.
The woman he referred to could hardly balance herself on her high heels. She was five feet tall, and her hairdo
added another six inches to her height. She wore a single rose in her hair, and slid away slowly as if were dancing
on a marble floor. She resented the beggar that was pestering her for change and moved away quickly. She stole
a sly look at the bald head, and hastened to leave, swinging her vanity bag like a model.
It was getting dark. Veerasamy closed the store. The devoted wife of the old man picked up the 48 paise thrown in
front of her husband and scoffed at him, “You, useless jerk! I wish you were dead.”
Suddenly Veerasamy woke up to the heartrending cries of the old woman.
“Oh, my God! You’re alone leaving me alone? How could you? Why did you, so soon,” her harsh cries pierced
through his ears. Veerasamy opened his eyes wondering, “Is it already morning?”
Probably the old man couldn’t take the cold weather. Sometime in the middle of the night the life-breath that was
barely hanging by the thread left his mundane body. His wife broke into a fit of fierce sobs.
The young man in tight pants threw a quarter of a rupee at him and ran away from the scene. He even forgot his
Charminar cigarettes and didn’t care to wait for the beautiful girls. The three women looked around for him and in
stead found this frightening scene. They threw whatever change they could grab from their purses and ran away.
The young lecturer dropped one rupee in front of the corpse and walked away without thinking twice. He had no
idea if and to what extent Indira Gandhi was responsible for the old man’s death.
The bald man kept chewing betel nut as usual and lectured on Bhagavad Gita to Veerasamy. The dandy girl on
high heels was stunned to see the deadbody, threw one-half of a rupee and rushed out. Throwing impish looks at
the bald man was the last thing on her mind at the moment.
At the end of the day, the local municipality persons came and removed the body from the roadside. The old
woman broke out one more time, like the national anthem at the end of a movie.
Veerasamy kept looking at the old woman with a smile until she finished counting the day’s earnings and then
asked her, “How much?”
“My foot. How much? Hardly ten rupees and some change,” she replied, wiping her nose again.
“Not bad, not bad at all. The idiot is worth more after his death than when he was alive,” Veerasamy commented
and lay down the cot, getting ready to sleep.
Veerasamy fell asleep unaware of the old adage—that people fear death like children fear darkness.
(end)
(Original in Telugu entitled “bhayam”, published in Kamadhenu, 1 February 1972.)