Andallu and the Onions
I. V. S. Atchyutavalli
Andallu stood before the mirror, tucked a bunch of roses in her long braid and finished it
with the gold bells at the end of the braid. She saw herself in the mirror and was taken by
her own beauty. She did not notice her husband Lakshmanacharyulu coming in nor the
plantain leaf packet in his hand.
Lakshmanam watched his wife’s fascination with her beauty. He coughed faintly.
Andallu twitched, turned around, and opened her eyes bigger. “Oh, you! How long you’ve
been standing there,” she said in a dragging tone as she laid the coffee flask on the table.
“What does it matter how long I’ve been here? Long enough to hurt my legs. You’re not
going to break your love of your first husband for my sake anyways,” he said somberly.
Andallu shuddered. “Go away, you and your comments,” she said, looking scared.
“Don’t worry beautiful! I meant that full-length mirror fastened to the dresser your first
husband, nothing else. Tell me, aren’t I next to him? Aren’t you dressing up only in his
presence—you wear a new sari, flowers in your hair, dot on your forehead and put on the
eye make up—all that only for him, isn’t it? You don’t even look at me without his consent.”
“That’s enough, that’s cute though. You’re turning into a poet,” she said, smiling.
“Haven’t our teachers (predecessors) stated that the poet sees what the sun cannot see?
Am I not a poet? My namesake, Lakshmana kavi, translated the famous poems of
Bhartruhari and stopped there. I would’ve written poetry inculcating all the three rasas—the
sensuous, the liberating, and the devotional, you said,” he said, smiling.
Andallu looked at the packet on the table casually and asked, “What’s that?”
“Things you like very much, Devi!” he said, teasingly.
“Things I like very much?” she said, warily.
There was a reason for Andallu to be apprehensive. Here is the reason—this was her first
pregnancy, five months along. She was a beautiful woman to start with. On top of it, with the
pregnancy and the morning sickness, she became more skinny and delicate, looking like a
kasiratnam vine.
Lakshmanam loved her abundantly. She was his first cousin and now pregnant too. He was
the only son to his parents. In the first year of their marriage he was going to have a son,
and thereby continue the pedigree. He had written to his mother and mother-in-law as soon
as he had the news. Andallu had said, “Don’t” but he did not listen. Anyway, that was all past.
Just the day before, Andallu had bored and gone to her neighbor Subhadra’s house. At the
time, Subhadra had been frying potato cuts and onion slivers. Andallu’s mouth watered not
for the dark brown potato fries but for the onion slivers that glowed gorgeously in the steel
pan.
Subhadra went on talking this and that and asking questions in between. None of the words
entered Andallu’s ears. All her attention was focused on the onion slivers. She was
imagining the onions in her mouth, and even tasted each drop of the sweet juice
scrumptiously; she felt the taste of hot pepper also a bit though.
“Five months along, I suppose. Your mother is not here yet, how come? First pregnancy!
You should be craving for this and that. If she is here, she is sure to make them for you; she
will know what appeals to your tongue, you know. Let’s admit it. You’re a loner by nature.
You know what they say—youth style is like splinter flames—neither steady nor lasting. If
you feel like eating something, let me know … chutney or curry … whatever you want I’ll
make it for you. You’re no different from my own younger sister. Anyway, you are still young,
why bother about traditions? These men … they run to the hotels and eat all kinds of junk
and nobody says nothing. And at home, they go at it, isn’t that sweet?” said Subhadra
warmly.
At once, Andallu felt like saying, “Please, akka, let me have the curry, just a little” but
stopped. Cha, how can I ask? She told herself. Subhadra would announce it to the entire
town. “I might as well buy the ingredients and make the curry for myself,” she told herself
and returned home, shackling her thoughts in her heart.
Now, her husband said the packet contained something she wanted. She thought it might be
onions; she was worried that he might have found out about her craving for onions. The
reason for her fear was Andallu had the habit of talking in her sleep. Sometime back, she
had wished for a red gold-threaded sari and that night in her dream, she had said, “I wish I
could wear a red gold-threaded sari and go to the movies with you.” The next morning, soon
after he woke, he went to the store and bought a red gold-threaded sari. At that time also,
she had asked as always, what the packed had contained. He had responded the same
way, “Something you always wanted.” She had opened the packet and was surprised to see
the red sari. He had explained to her later about her talk in her sleep.
Now Andallu thought that she might have talked in her sleep again. She could not reach the
leaf packet and open it. She was scared that she might find a pesarattu or onions in it. No
matter how much her heart was craving for it, how much her husband loved her, she did not
have the courage to ask him for something that would flout the family traditions. She looked
at him with hesitation and embarrassment.
“Come on, open it and see,” he said teasingly.
That frightened her even more.
“Ah, Andi,
Oh, Andi,
Open and see Andi,
See and take Andi.”
Lakshmanam kept humming and started unwinding the thread around the packet.
Andallu was frightened and felt sick in the stomach. She ran into the backyard, threw up,
washed and returned. She sat down in a chair, wiping her face with a towel.
Lakshmanam brought a spoonful of maadi fruit juice. Then he said, “You’ve not opened the
packet yourself” and opened it himself. It was a bunch of swarna sampenga flowers. Quite
taken by their aroma, Andallu, said ha! and took a deep breath.
The next day, after her husband left for work, Andallu bought onions and garlic from the
vegetable vendor. She packed them carefully in a newspaper and hid them amidst the stack
of her saris. She planned to fry potatoes and onions and eat in the evening. The evening
came and she strarted to cut them into pieces, got them ready to fry.
Suddenly, Lakshmanam appeared out of nowhere like a villian of the piece.
“Andi, I booked tickets for the movie Navarang. Quick, get dressed. We can eat later, after
we came home,” he said.
Andallu, who was planning to make the onion curry and eat before he had shown up, was
dumbstruck. He did not tell her about the movie in advance. Anyway, she quickly threw the
onion and potato pieces in to a dish, washed her hands first with cow dung, after that with
soap and returned. Poor thing, there was no pleasure of watching the movie for her on that
day.
The next day, she told her this is not way to go about it. She started making pakora as soon
as her husband left for work. She put the frying pan on the stove, poured oil and turned the
heat on. Then she mixed besan flour with hot pepper powder and salt; started chopping
ginger, green chillies, onion finely. Just in that very moment, her neighbor Vimalamma
pushed the door open and walked in. She laid the sitting plank down, settled on it calmly
and asked, “What are you doing, pregnant woman? What are you making for snack?
Bajji?”
Andallu hesitated for a moment; then told herself, “She came. So what? I felt like eating, so I
will have it.” But again she hesitated saying, “Uh, wouldn’t she announce it to the entire
town?” By nature, Andallu was a scared woman. In one quick move, she threw away the
onion pieces, cut green plantain and made bajji, avoiding the use of onions.
Vimalamma gave her a couple of mysorepak pieces, “Here, eat.”
Andallu put several pieces of bajji on a steel plate and gave them to Vimalamma, “Here, give
them to your kids.”
By the time this event ended … the maid came … then the cooking supper … Lakshmanam
arrived ... The day was over with the usual routine. All night through Andallu dreamt about
onion fries and pakora.
The next morning, ever since she woke up, she waited for her husband to leave for office.
As soon as he left, she shut the doors tight and ground mung beans, chopped ginger,
green peppers and onions finely and made pesarattu … almost. Before she poured the
dough on the grill to make pesarattu, somebody started banging on the door. Whoever
could be? Nearly in tears, she sighed, trashed the onions out the back door, scrubbed her
hands with dirt until the smell was gone and then opened the door.
Her mother-in-law Ragavamma and sister-in-law Thayaru were standing in front of her.
Andallu’s face turned pale.
“What are you doing, Vadina? Looks like, you shut the door after my brother left and started
making all your favorite dishes to eat?” Thayaru said, teasingly.
“Sure looks like she is eating, ha! ha! Andallu! You are so skinny, why? Looks like you lost
lot of weight. If you are too shy to ask me, why didn’t you write to your mother, you silly,”
Ragavamma said, putting her arm round Andallu’s shoulders lovingly.
After that, the next few days went by wildly—with things like bathing, eating, Ragavamma
making dosa with the dough Andallu had prepared, distributing the sweets she brought—
sweets like minapasunne, ariselu, and fruits like chakrakeli—to neighbors, and so on. They
stayed until Andallu was seven months along.
During those two months, every time Lakshmanam was ready to go to the store, Andallu’s
face showed signs of restlessnes as if she wanted to say something. He tried to coax her
into telling him but she never let it out. He was uncomfortable with it but could do nothing
about it.
Towards the end of her seventh month, her mother Ravanjamma and sister-in-law Alivelu
came to bring her home for delivery. For about four days, the house buzzed with relatives
and festivities and special dishes. Yet there was no sign of the pregnant woman getting her
craving satisfied. To whom she could tell and what could she tell? Suppose, she had told
somebody? Wouldn’t that be ridiculous, regardless they were her relatives? She thought of
telling her mother or vadina. Her heart would push forward but her tongue would pull back.
Attha garu said to her mother, “Hey, vadina, talk to your daughter and find out what she
wants. I made several dishes but she relished none. You are the mother, you should know. If
she tells what she wants, I can make it for her. As far as I’m concerned, I have one daughter-
in-law and that’s her. At this age, I am not happy unless I make her favorite dishes and feed
her.”
“Ha, ha ha!” Ragavamma laughed noisily and turned to her daughter, “Yes, Andi, why don’t
you tell us what you want—the two bits (smacks) mom lets you have, as they say?”
“Come on, vadina, say it. If you don’t speak now, later the baby will have puss in the ear.
Before a pregnant woman turns mom, people like us are supposed to fulfill all the cravings,”
said Alivelu, laughing.
“Is that true, I mean the puss in baby’s ear?” said Andallu, looking pensive; her face and
eyes became taut.
“Why are you asking? Why? Tell us in case your heart is craving for fish soup or
something? You know the saying—they’re all super Vaishnavites yet the crab basket
vanished. Ha, ha,” Alivelu went on laughing.
Mother and vadina told Andallu to pack for the travel.
Andallu shook her head shyly and said, “Wait for a few more days.”
Tayaru and Alivelu broke into a big laugh. “We know. We know the whole story. After we all
left, your heart is yearning to go to the movies and walks with my brother, isn’t that right?
That is the plan you two cooked up, isn’t that right,” they teased her noisily.
Andallu pouted, featured a posture of anger, went into the backyard and sat down.
“No, vadina, don’t sit outside in the open yard at twilight time (supposedly the time for
demons to wander). It’s okay with us if you are angry but you don’t have to sit outside,” said
Alivelu, tucking a bunch of chrysanthemum flowers in Andallu’s braid and stroking her
cheeks fondly.
The following day, the house was totally quiet. Andallu was getting back into her routine
slowly, the routine she had lost touch with in the past two months.
Lakshmanam sat on the door frame and kept watching her ample look, the drooping
shyness in her eyes, and the cheeks that glowed with blush off and on for no reason.
Well-cooked pieces of onions were glistening and spreading heartening aroma around for
Andallu. She looked at her husband with salivating tongue.
“What is it, Andi? You look strange, why?” Lakshmanam asked.
“Nothing. What do you suggest for side dish?” she said. In that moment, she wished with all
her heart that her husband would bring onions and garlic, make a heap of them in front of
her, and tell her, “Here, make soup with a few onions, fry few more onions and potato cubes,
save some to make pesarattu in the evening, make pakora with a few in the afternoon, fry
bits of garlic and toss ‘em into the lentil chutney and bits of fried onion in gongura chutney;
also, add a few fried bits of telakapindi (a by-product in sesame oil production) and hot
pepper powder.”
Lakshmanam laughed and said, “What good it is what I want nowadays? You do whatever
you feel like having.”
After he finished eating, Lakshmanam got ready to leave for his office. He called Andallu to
find a handkerchief for him.
“Look in the chest of drawers. I am wearing the madi sari. I will not change until after I am
done eating,” she said.
He went into the bedroom and tossed all the clothes in the chest up and down. Suddenly, a
paper packet fell on the floor. He opened it and found onions. Although he was surprised at
first, walked into the kitchen slowly. “Andi, the kerchief smells of something,” he said with
adorable smile.
“What smell? Maybe the scent bottles. Two days back at the festivities, I distributed scent
bottles and stowed away the remaining two bottles in the chest. What’s the matter? Aren’t
they good? They called it Rehana or Nurjahan or something, I don’t know for sure,” she
said, eating dinner with her head down.
“Um, would’ve been nice if it is the scent. This smell is something else,” he said, pretending
to be thinking.
Andallu understood. Feeling hurt, she looked into his mocking eyes pitiably.
“Couldn’t you tell me that? Don’t I deserve that much of a chance to satisfy your wishes?” he
said affectionately.
Later in the evening, on his way home from work, he went straight to the hotel.
“Do you have onion pesarattu?”
“We’ll have them only in the morning, Sir,” the server said.
“How about pakora?”
“We have cashew pakora.”
“Let it be. How about sambar to go with idli?” Lakshmanam asked, annoyed.
“No Sir. Today’s sambar has drum sticks,” the server said, a little surprised at
Lakshmanacharyulu’s love of onions.
“To hell with the idiot face! … Stupid town, stupid, stupid town. Of course, what else ca we
expect after driving away all the Tamil friends out of state? Ha, the town is huge yet only one
hotel in th entire town!” Lakshmanam expressed his brother love for Tamilians by cursing no
one in particular.
Next morning, he went to the hotel soon after he woke.
“Come, Sir, come. Be the first to eat, fresh, super fresh pesarattu awash with onions,” server
said, went in and returned with four pesarattus with extra onions.
Lakshmanam carefully wrapped them in his kerchief and rushed home.
“Andi, Andi, come quick,” he called her joyously.
Andallu came in, impressed by her husband’s affection and concern for her wishes,
devotion and attention towards her. Her eyes were wet. She started unwind the thread
around the packet.
“Hey, girl, what are you doing?” her brother Venkatacharyulu called and walked in.
Andallu was baffled—was not sure whether she should be happy to see the brother she had
not seen for a while or should be sorry that her heart’s desire remained unfulfilled.
“Hey girl, I’ve been advised that today is an auspicious day. Sastrulu told mother that
moodham (adverse days per lunar calendar) sets in soon. She asked me to bring you home
today. Bava! Don’t lose heart over the separation. I’ll send my baby sister back to you along
with your son in the third month after the boy was born, I promise,” Venkatacharyulu said.
Andallu looked at her husband, disheartened.
She was dejected as she tossed the packet she was about to open out the window.
Lakshamanam watched her action pitiably and said, “All right. Write to me regularly.”
After arriving in her hometown, life became even more stressful for her. The place was a
rural community to the core. With whom she could share wish? Hers was the family of gurus
in that village. As her pregnancy advanced, her fear that the baby might get puss in his ear
was greater than her desire to eat onions. Regardless her eyes were open or shut she was
seeing a beautiful baby boy like jack-fruit and his ears wet with puss! That became the only
vision in her mind’s eye constantly! She was responsible for it, right? How could that be
resolved? She suffered inexplicable pain at heart. Lakshmanam kept writing letters regularly
and asking, “How are you? Has your desire been fulfilled yet?” What could say in reply? She
however did not tell him about the puss in the baby’s ear, and that’s better. Had he known,
he would have made her eat onions regardless how many people protested. He was intrepid
always. As she recalled her husband’s range of capabilities, she got goose bumps all over.
It was vaikunta ekadasi day (special holiday for Hindus). Ramanjamma and Alivelu fasted on
that day per tradition. Since Andallu reached full term, Alivelu cooked food for Andallu and
her brother Venakatacharyulu.
In the evening, Venkatacharyulu said to his mother, “Amma, I am taking the cart to Palem.
The movie Bhakta Ambarisha is playing in town I believe. Do you want to come?”
Andallu was elated by brother’s mention of the movie; it was like finding something that had
been lost for a while. “Yes, amma, you should go. You’ll be back before eleven anyways,”
She said eagerly.
“Yes, attha, you go. I’ll stay with Andallu,” Alivelu said. She thought it was her her duty as
the daughter-in-law in the family.
“No, you both should go. Just go. You’ll be gone only for a few hours. House is not going to
collapse, right? Without me here, you two would have taken turns to go. But now I am here, I
will keep an eye on the house. You go and enjoy,” Andallu pursuaded them with great effort
and sent away. After they left, she closed the front door and went to neighbor Sastrulu’s
house through the back door.
At Sastrulu’s house, bamma garu invited her lovingly. “Come dear, come. Sit down,” she
said, busy peeling onions.
“What are you doing, bamma garu? Where is Raji, isn’t she home?” Andallu asked.
“Why would she be here? As soon as your brother brought the cart, she jumped in and sat
in it to go to the movies,” she said and then added kindly, “Who knows when God offers you
comfort?”
“What are making for supper?” asked Andallu casually.
“Here, I’m going to deliver saligramams (special stone intended for worship) into the soup,”
she said, pointing to the onions in her hand.
Something on the stove made a hissing noise.
“You sit here. I think the rice is boiling over. I’ll remove the excess water and be back,” said
baamma garu and went into the kitchen.
Andallu grabbed a few pieces of onions, hid them in her sari palloo and said to bamma garu
in the kitchen, “Bamma garu, my back is hurting. I’m going home to lie down,” and left quickly.
“Wait, I’ll give you coconut sweet balls,” bamma’s words disappeared into the thin air.
Andallu took a bit of thick tamarind juice in a pan, added a little jaggary, onion pieces, green
chili pieces, salt and turmeric and put it on the stove and sat there fanning the flame. While
it started simmering, she held her two hands over the dish as if to catch the flavor in her
palms, brought them to her nose and enjoyed the aroma, swallowing the water in her mouth.
She was thinking—let the simmer first and then cool down and then she would eat to to her
heart’s content!
Under the patio, the parijatham buds were blossoming one after another. The almond tree in
the backyard shook its leaves as if it understood the circumstances and her situation. In that
breezy evening, potato and onion fry, pesarattu, pakora, and lentil chutney were hovering
around in steel plates in front of her eyes. Andallu suddenly curled up; something in her
stomach hurt. She felt like throwing up. After a while, she understood the problem.
Quickly she took the hot dish from the stove, emptied it in the swamp, ditched the dish in the
mire of the almond tree, and lay back on the jute-rope cot. She called bamma garu for help.
That evening, Ramanjamma garu and Alivelu returned from the movies and found a blue-
collar midwife Veeramma giving bath to a baby boy, the size of a plump juicy mango fruit and
bamma garu tying a piece of cloth around the waist of the new-mother per custom.
Alivelu was overwhelmed as she watched her new-born nephew. Andallu, with eyelids
wavering lightly and she bubbling with the joy of a new mother, said to Alivelu, “Vadina,
check baby’s ear; is puss oozing from it?”
The words, spoken in a weak voice got lost in the resounding voice of Ramanjamma. She
was asking, “Where is the metal dish, Andallu?” The voice sounded like a bell. Alivelu could
not hear Andallu’s question.
Lakshmanam received the telegram from his brother-in-law. At once, he rushed all his
colleagues to the hotel and put an order with the server for onion pesarattu and pakora.
“Lakshmanam, you’re celebrating your son’s birth, you should feed us sweets, not this hot
stuff and scorch our tongues. Come, bring us sweets,” his friends said.
“First you finish these items. We’ll have sweets too,” Lakshmanam said, overwhelmed like
the sea on a full moon day.
They could not figure out why Lakshmanam ordered those items; yet, it was lunch time and
they all were starving. So, they started eating.
Lakshmanam could see vaguely the satisfied face of Andallu and the baby; he smiled to
himself contentedly.
(Thanks to P. Satyavathi for sending me a copy of the story upon my request.)
Translated by Nidadavolu Malathi