MY UNCLE WAS MY HERO

Satchidananda Murthy Damaraju

Translated by Nidadavolu Malathi

For the first time I lighted up a cigarette after the drama rehearsals behind school along with my friend Krishna. I drew two puffs and was choked. Then I turned the burning side of the long cigarette in to my palm, making sure it not to burn myself in the process, and pushed my fist into my pant pocket, and walked in, swinging my other hand stylishly. Desperate as I was, I did walked in but only after I took one more puff, coughed one more time and pulled myself together.? I still could not throw away the cigarette. I put it out and stuffed it in my pocket, hoping to use it the next day. Finally I stepped into the front yard.

?

My uncle babai was sitting in a chair on the raised front porch noticed from over the other end of the yard. He yelled, "You idiot, are you smoking cigarettes?"

"Oh, no. Why would I do that?" I returned question for question.

"Hey boy! Don't you ever think you can bluff your babai. Let me smell your mouth."

He smelled my mouth, checked my pockets and pulled out the cigarette butt from my side pocket. He held it to my face and asked, "Didn't you smoke a cigarette?"

"Yes, I smoked," I admitted.

"You're barely ten-years old. What are you thinking, smoking cigarettes?"

"Only two months short, isn't it? Even otherwise, drama actors are allowed to smoke, I was told.

"Who told you that?"

"Krishna."

"The fellow who's playing the nakula role?"

"Yes."

"I'll flag both of you, throw you both out from the play. Let him dig his own grave. I'm concerned only about you. Your character, sahadeva, lasts five minutes on the stage, not even two poems to sing in that role. Aren't you ashamed to think that that makes you eligible for smoking cigarettes? Hum, cigarettes."

His chiding always would make me laugh but not be angry or cry. That's because he'd always give me money after he was done chiding and tell me to go, buy something for myself.

"Listen to me, I'm telling you again. You must not smoke cigarettes or beedies."

"Okay."

"If you don't listen and stop smoking, this is going to reach your dad. And he'll teach you with a rod. After that you'll cry and that makes me sad."

"Okay, okay, okay, alright?"

"Go, wash your face and come here, sleep on the little cot next to me. Don't go near your mother or father."?????

I followed his instructions like a good kid.

***

In my village all the people call babai a young zamindar. The reason being he owned several strips of farmland, a huge mansion in Eluru, and also he acquired two villages from the senior zamindar in our town.

Here is how it happened. A wealthy distant relative of ours had pursuaded my grandfather to let him adopt babai and succeeded. After the relative had passed away, babai returned to our house. Occasionaly he used to go to the viallge and check his property. My father had been very supportive to him. And I was the eldest son of the eldest son of my grandfather and thus was entitled to unusual attention from everybody in our house. As for babai's love for me, no question. He used to carry me around all the time. I had been much closer to babai than to my father.

Music was the love of life for babai. He got a music teacher, let him stay in his house, and learned to play veena and harmonium. My father learned to play tabla from the same teacher.

Babai enjoyed stage plays. He rounded up a few friends and started a drama troupe to present episodes from puranas. There was a Siva temple in our village. Each year we used to have festivities celebrating Siva's birth on sivaratri day. In those festivities, the drama presented by babai stood out as a specialty. The previous year, our troupe presented the fight between Rama and Anjaneya. This year, we were going to present kurukshetram, the Great Epic War. In that play, babai would play Krishna and I the role of Sahadeva.

***

One day, aunt Meenakshi called me and put a piece of sesame ball. She was daughter of babai's maternal uncle once removed. She said, "Is your babai in town, or did he go to the city? I didn't see him recently."

"He's here in town, busy with the play Kurukshetram. Me too."

"I heard it too, playing kurukshetram. Who's playing Draupadi?"

"The lady teacher in our school."

"Why that teacher. I'll play the role if your babai is willing."

I told babai what aunt Meenakshi had said. "She is young and unmarried. If she takes the stage now, she will never get married."

I told the same to aunt Meenakshi. "You, Satti babu, You tell your babai that I'll not marry anybody else but him."

I told the same to my babai. Babai smacked me lightly and walked away, without saying a word.

***

It was time for rehearsal. Krishna and I ran to the theater. We both were aware that babai would be very upset if I were late.

Babai cleared his throat and told us, "Today we're going to rehearse the second scene in pandavodyogam. Are all the players here? Let's take the roll call. Where's Dharmaraju?"

"Yes, sir. Here, I brought munugulu."

"Bhimudu?"

"Here, chakkidaalu."

"Arjanudu?"

"puutharekulu, sir."

"So we have sweet, very good. Nakuludu, what did you bring?"

"Brought pakodi sir."

"You Sahadevudu?"

"vada sir.'

"All right. Here we are, presenting a play in all seriousness. Each one of you should take your role seriously, which means no babai or such thing. Okay, draupadi, what about you?"

"I am ready with my tea sir."

Babai explained the program for that evening, "Today we are going to keep working until each on of you got your part right. Those you are not participating in today's scene -- that's Dryodhana, Karna, Bhishma, Drona, and Aswatthama -- will pretend to be the audience and advise us as needed. Teacher will serve food during the interval. Come on, let's start."

Babai started with his poem, naa taramuna kaaka unnanu (If not in my lifetime). Dharmaraju sang his poem, "tammula biddalanchu madi dalpadu, putrulatona gude ..." (he wouldn't even consider that [we are] his younger brother's children, he colluded with his sons ...). Babai nodded as he was pleased but did not like Draupadi's dialogues.

He said, "Amma Draupadi, You have prose lines which is not much of a help. You need to say it as if you mean it to make it appealing." He then changed his voice to sound like a female voice and showed how to render the lines and acted it out too. Eventually, our teacher got a handle on it. Next, it was Arjuna's turn with his poem, "cheli, chuttambu, mahanubhavudu, krupaasindhudu, manyundu ... [friend, relative, a great man, kind-hearted, respected ... ].

"Arjuna, that's lyric, don't distort it like you're drunk. Have you forgotten the tune?" babai gave him a jolt. Arjunudu pulled himself up, recalled the tune babai had set earlier and rendered it beautifully.

Bhimudu started his poem, bakunin jampiti, ruupu maapiti hidimbaa sodarun ...".

"Sir, Bhima, you started in the raag Kannada and finished it Kambhoji. What's that all about?" Babai said and sang it himself in the raag Kannada, and then had Bhima repeat after him until he got it.

Babai gave me Nakula and me only one poem each since we were kids. We both got our lines well. Babai warned us that we should do better in the next rehearsals. We both thanked our stars that babai did not lash us on our performance. Finally the rehearsals ended. The audience said that the play turned out fine. Teacher madam distributed snacks.?

Babai said, "There is only two more weeks to Sivaratri day. Tomorrow we'll be getting the tinsel-covered wardrobe for all of you. I am sure you all are going to glow on the stage. Remember to read your poems even more beautifully. Tomorrow we're going to rehearse the rayabaram [Conciliation] scene. He gave ten rupees each to the adults and five to the childen per custom and let us go.

***

While the drama rehearsals were at the peak, a professional swimmer came to our village. He challenged us, "I bet one thousand rupees that no one in this village can catch me before I reached the other shore." Nobody had the guts to come forward. Babai stared at all of us. There was no sign of anybody take the challenge. So babai accepted it himself.

The entire village came to watch the contest. Both babai and the pro stood on this side of the lake. The specialized swimmer slapped on the palm of babai and jumped into the lake, and started swimming with unusual speed. Babai waited until the swimmer went about fifty yards and then went into the waters. Before the swimmer reached the middle of the lake, babai caught up with him, seized his hair, pushed his head down and pulled it out of the water three times. The swimmer struggled for breath, and folded his hands above his head despearately. Babai felt sorry for him, dragged to the shore and let him go. People on the shore were ecstatic, clapped and lifted babai on their shoulders in joy. The swimmer fell on babai's feet. Babai gave him one hundred rupees and told him to disappear, never to show his face in our village again. The swimmer ran away, counting his blessings for being alive. Babai came to be known as an expert swimmer and brawny.

***

It was lunch time at my school. I was playing the marbles with other children. Suddenly from nowhere aunt Meenakshi showed up. She pulled me to a side and said in a husky voice, "Orey, Satti babu, a bridegroom and his party from a neighbor village are coming to see me today. You tell babai to take me away to another place and marry me. If he doesn't marry me, my marriage with this bridegroom will happen for sure. Or else, I will have to jump into a ditch or a well."

"Babai has been chewing out for not saying my only poem in the play. No way I can repeat all that dialogue you've just said. Jot it down in a piece of paper and I'll give it to him. Beyond that, keep in my mind there is always god and the bus service."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I don't know. Babai always says that and so I did too. That's it."

I gave aunt Meenakshi's letter to babai. He was annoyed. He said, "Orey, don't you ever bring this kind of slips to me again."

"Why not?"

"She knows from our childhood that I will not marry her. That's why."

"Why don't you marry her? Doesn't grandma say over and again that, 'she is agreeable, marry her.'"

Babai yelled at me, "She looks like a monkey. Stop your chitchat, go and practice your lines."

***

? Rehearsals continued in full swing. We all memorized our lines and poems perfectly. Babai patted my back and said that I also got my poem superbly. We all were waiting for the Sivaratri festival and our tinsel-covered outfits; we all were anxious to present our play.

Finally the Sivaratri day arrived. Coconuts were breaking at the dhvajasthambham [the flagpole in front of the temple]. The area was resounding with the mantras and pujas from inside the temple through mikes. Some devotees in wet clothes were circumambulating around the temple. A few others were rolling around by way of fulfilling their vows. On one side some devotees were engrossed in bhajans. Children were pulling their parents towards the new sweet-meat stores, recently opened.

The news about our kurukshetram drama reached the neighbor villages and people started pouring in in huge numbers. They believed that they could accomplish both--paying their respects to the god and enjoying the play too.

The stage, specially raised for the purpose of the play, dazzled with colorful electric lights by the time the sun set. By nine, the opening song, parabrahma, parameswara, was sung from behind the curtain and the bedroom scene followed right away. Babai's rendering of ever popular poems, ekkadinundi raaka [wherefrom you're coming] and ?baavaa, eppudu vacchiteevu [bava, when did you arrive?] were immensely appreciated by the audience. Arjuna dragged his poem one furlong [one eighth of a mile], and Duryodhana dragged his twice as long. By the time the curtain was dropped clapping hit the skies. In the second scene, our teacher madam as Draupadi also gave axcellent performance. At twelve, the raayabaaram scene was up. Duryodhanudu, Karnudu, and Aswatthama sang their poems and delivered the dialogues as if they were competing with each other. The audience kept shouting "once more" for babai's rendering of poems, chelliyo chellako, and jendaapai kapiraaju. In all the play was a grand success. All the important people in the village came on to the stage one by one and honored babai with the traditional award of "one hundred and sixteen rupees". Babai also expressed his pleasure, introduced each one of us to the audience and turned over the money he had received to the Siva temple. We all went home with pleasure and remembering babai's comment that next time the play would be gayopakhyaanam.

***

Aunt Meenakshi got married and went away. Grandma created a fiery scene. She said, "You know the saying, an aged? bachelor is? like an? overgrown okra--both are equally useless. Even Meenakshi got married and gone. Whom do you think you can find."

Babai liked a girl from a neighboring village, Raja Rao's daughter, and married her. They both, my babai and his wife, my pinni, were made for each other, a perfect couple.

As soon as he set up a house in the city, he took me under his wing and admitted me in the city high school. They both invited several other needy students from our village and helped them to obtain education. All those who had received received support from babai and pinni succeeded in getting good education and good life.?

Babai passed away before I finished my studies and settled in life. My babai, who stood by me through out my childhood, gave me indelible childhood memories, was gone without receiving anything from me. The lives of some people are meant to be so, I suppose, only to share it with others'.

***

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(May 2006)