Vita et Laura

Vita Sackville West is better known as Virginia Woolf’s lover and the inspiration for Woolf’s playful novel on gender, Orlando. But she was a well known novelist in her time and the love of her life was not Woolf, but a volatile socialite, Violet Trefusis. Or was the love of her life really her husband, Harold? Portrait of a Marriage, based on her son’s book, essentially deals with the Vita-Violet-Harold triangle and comes to no conclusion. Or maybe I dozed off because it is one of those dull, stodgy British teleserials of which I have had my fill. But it did boast a very good performance from Janet McTeer as Vita which partially salvaged the film. Her portrayal is neither butch nor feminine (clearly Violet is the delicious feminine in their relationship). Instead it’s truly androgynous and suggestive of the sexual slipperiness of the Bloomsbury crowd, many of who were in heterosexual marriages while conducting a range of relationships. The androgynous quality of the performance is somewhat similar to that of Tilda Swinton’s portrayal of Orlando though McTeer is clearly portraying a real person while Swinton’s strangeness fits the mythical Orlando like the proverbial glove. Orlando itself is a singular visual concoction with terrific visuals in which Violet appears as the temperamental Russian princess, Sasha. The fictional tale, which is much more than the Vita-Violet/Orlando-Sasha tale, is far superior to the real one which is perhaps of moderate interest only to those who follow the private lives of writers. Maybe it could have been redeemed by Sackville-West’s travels to Persia, her novels, the literary milieu of the time and the like but as it stands, it wasn’t very interesting.

I haven’t seen too many films of late, perhaps that accounted for my finding Portrait of a Marriage uninteresting. But I did see Little Jerusalem on SBS yesterday and while I am still a little undecided on how I feel about it, it held my attention. Karin Albou, who also directed The Wedding Song, often focuses on the Jewish and Muslim communities of North Africa.  Little Jerusalem is largely concentrated on the Tunisian Orthodox Jewish community in France and the tugs and pulls of the larger world, in particular and surprisingly the philosophical world, on its heroine, Laura. But most of all, like The Wedding Song, it brings out the sensual and tactile elements of female life and the tender, prickly nature of feminine relationships. Albou’s films are not flawless but they do have a mesmerising quality about them.

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Nest week, I hope to be able to continue the granddad’s Savitri series.

Australian Etsy

A pictorial post today.

I haven’t shopped much on Etsy but I do have a browse around once in awhile. Its rise and rise is astonishing and instructive in part because it’s a marketplace where women are the primary sellers and buyers. Sure it has strayed from its handmade pledge, perhaps much of it is driven by college educated women and much dross can be found on it. But that it came about at all I think provides plenty of material for a sociological and business analysis. At times, its overwhelming femininity can get far too twee but it can be a wonderful mirror of the myriad creative interests and abilities of women today. Today a few pictures from a couple of Australian etsyers.

Top Left: Spontaneous, unstructured clothes from Rawhemline; Top Right: Sweet jewellery pieces from michvanetta; Bottom Left: Delicate Photography from Waytoblue and Bottom Right: abstract artwork from gretchenmist - this one was example is "Native Garden Stripes".

Rajamadam Agraharam

Ending this week with what I think is an anecdote.  The story of Savithri as an adult is partially written but I will not be posting it until the story has advanced a bit more. So a break over the next week or so.

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The street in which I lived was called Rajamadam Agraharam. Most of the residents were Telegu Brahmins eking out a living. Among them three or four were family priests for non-brahmins, two cooks, a marriage broker, a cattle broker and a primary school teacher. There was one professional 'corpse carrier'. Among the Tamils, each house had an educated, unemployed boy. Each house had a man or woman with an elephantoid leg. My uncle who bought a house was also unemployed though he had a B.A. in history. All these are a prelude to my account of an incident.

 My neighbour was a Telegu man in his forties He was a bachelor. He had lost his parents and was living alone. He lived on the income from letting out two portions of the house. When I was there, his younger sister and her daughter came to live with him.  The sister, who was aged about 35, had lost her husband and her in-laws refused to keep her.  The daughter was sixteen, well past the marriageable age. With little means at her disposal, the lady had no choice  but to get her daughter married to her brother, such marriages being permissible in the community. Youth's call could not be ignored and the girl  developed friendship with one of the unemployed boys. This boy had a vacant house in his charge and this house was convenient for their meetings. One day a man climbed a coconut tree to pluck coconuts in the adjoining house and was able to see them together in the house. Instead of leaving them alone, he made a hue and cry.

Nothing came of it. The boy continued living there, so did the girl. The only casualty was their romance. Everyone had something to hide, yet the taboos continued till the late forties.

Flight and Return

Last post for this week re the Savithri story. In today's post, Savithri leaves behind her childhood.

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Savithri’s school years were uneventful. Though her high spirits found acceptance with the students, it did not always please her teachers. In her studies she remained above average, whatever that may mean. But she excelled in sports and brought the school many trophies from the annual inter-school sports meets. If nothing else, this met with her teachers’ approval. When she reached her final year, thoughts of her future entered her mind and she fixed on continuing her studies in a college. But there was no college in Mannargudi and the nearest college was in a town 25 miles away. Her mother was against it, Manu was indifferent. Savithri of course had her way. She joined the college. As there were only half a dozen girls in the college, there was no separate women's hostel. She and three girls rented a house.

Savithri had a chance to establish her reputation during the first week of the college itself. Four boys used to sit at a particular spot through which the girls had to pass on their way to the college and tease the girls. When Savithri noticed this, she decided to put an end to it. One day when the girls passed by, the boys cat-called as usual. Out flung cowdung balls from the hands of the girls. The boys were thrown into confusion and so precoccupied with removing the dung from their person, they forgot to retaliate. In addition, they became a subject for jest on the part of the other students. The matter was thus satisfactorily resolved.

Four years of Savithri’s life passed with the usual round of studies and adventures. One incident stood out for her boldness. One day a girl complained that a middle aged lecturer passed lewd remarks whenever he saw her. Savithri felt this needed immediate action. Savithri went to the lecturer and coquettishly said that the girls liked him and his lectures and they would like to invite him for tea at their house. The lecturer was delighted and arrived in his best dress at the girls' house. Savithri cordially received him and seated him in the hall. She offered him tea and eatables. Just when he was eating, the rest of the girls entered the room, poured a few pails of rubbish on his head and sang, “Venkiah has become young and needs a bride! Any takers, Any takers?!” Venkiah became a laughing stock even for the faculty.

Savithri’s last university examinations were approaching and she was deep in preparation. One morning she got a telegram. Manu had died in his sleep the previous night. Manu was in his late forties and did not have any known health problems, the news was therefore more shocking. Savithri was a lark since her birth, always flying and singing. She had no knowledge of the harder and darker side of life . She felt that she should be near her mother immediately and hastened to Mannargudi.

Savithri

Today we leave behind Manu and read about his daughter Savithri who is the central protagonist of the Grandad's unfinished novel/novella.

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Manu’s short stint in jail had removed any desire to contribute to social upliftment. Money had never been a problem. He took to a new life of travel to holy places and meditation.

Manu had three daughters, the last of whom was named Savithri. There was a belief that when a baby girl was named Savithri, the subsequent offspring would be a boy.

The Savithri of legend who lent her name to Manu’s daughter had been a princess, the only child of a king who longed for a son. Out in the forest one day, having left her bodyguards behind, she chanced upon Sathyavan, a prince in exile. Savithri, never shy, suggested marriage. Sathyavan then revealed the curse that would make him die young. This did not deter Savithri and soon the two were married. The appointed hour of death arrived. The story of how Savithri obtained three boons from Yama, thus restoring her husband’s kingdom and life are well known. The little known second boon granted many sons to her father. This boon had been the source of the belief that a son would follow a daughter named Savithri.

There were no further additions to Manu’s brood.

Savithri was all of two when Manu went to prison and she had vague memories of Manu getting into a van and her mother crying. When Manu returned from the prison, his spiritual life dictated a certain detachment from the family. Her two sisters had married early, this left her the only child in a very large house. She was lively, full of pranks, a carefree bird. In the family orchard, she spurned the mangoes plucked by the caretaker. Instead she climbed the trees, ate the mangoes off them, while a worried caretaker hovered beneath. This then was Savithri.

Savithri had another advantage, the education denied to her sisters. A Scottish Mission had started a girls' high school in the town. Brahmin parents, pressured to marry their girls before puberty, would rarely send their girls to school. Few spared a thought for a girl’s education, inheritance or even polygamy. Many a girl paid a heavy price for this dharma, though it was commonly attributed to fate and little changed.

The first Brahmin girl who went to this school was the daughter of a vaccinator who had come to Mannargudi on transfer. Slowly but steadily other girls joined. Perhaps a newly introduced law also helped. In 1933, the Indian Legislative Assembly enacted a law popularly known as Sarda Act which laid down the miniumum age of marriage at thirteen for girls. This law was effective in states directly under the British crown. The beneficiary was Savithri and she joined the school.

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Picture source here.

A Grain of Salt

Today's post touches on a turning point in Indian history. And Manu has another change of heart.

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In 1930, Gandhi waged the first sathyagraha on the issue of salt. The British government had levied a small tax on common salt. Gandhiji argued that salt was a gift from the sea involving little capital or manpower for production. Besides it was a necessity for poor and rich. Gandhi found it immoral to levy a tax on salt and demanded its abolition. The Government did not agree. Therefore the sathyagraha.

The methodology was like this: Gandhi appointed Sardars in various regions. It was their duty to select a sathyagrahi for each venue. The sathyagrahi selected would send a notice to the District Magistrate indicating the exact date, time and location when the law would be broken. On that day the sathyagrahi should carry with him a small earthenware pot, one gallon of sea water and a few sticks of firewood. He had to boil the water till a residue of black salt appeared. As the sathyagrahi had given notice, an Indian police sub-inspector would be present and wait till the residue was formed. Then he would smash the pot and arrest the sathyagrahi for manufacturing salt illegally. The Indian Magistrates usually sentenced the sathyagrahis to six months simple imprisonment. In keeping with our culture, this too would turn into a festive occasion. On the appointed day the sathyagrahi would be taken in a procession from his house to the venue. He would be heavily garlanded on the way and the air would resound with cries of Jais! from the processions. A large crowd would therefore always be present when a sathyagrahi broke the salt law.

The local Sardar selected Manu as the sathyagrahi for Mannargudi. Expectedly he was arrested. In prison the mercurial Manu had another transformation. The authorities exercised great caution in selecting books for the prison library. The result was a library largely stocked with philosophical material. Manu read many books, the monthlies of the Ramakrishna Mission, Divine Life Society and the like. He felt that he had for long been on the wrong course. The purpose of his life shifted from social service to “moksha”.

During his prison time, several events took place. Gandhi as a sathyagrahi selected the seaside village of Dandi for breaking the salt law. This village had extensive salt pans owned by the government. There was a salt inspector to collect tax from traders who took salt from there. Gandhi decided to march on foot from his ashram at Ahmedabad to the venue, a distance of 100 miles. When Gandhi marched, thousands followed him - men, women, children, the old, the severely disabled. When he reached Dandi, a mass of humanity was with him. As they entered the salt pans, a lathi charge by the police resulted. Yet the people pressed on. Many arrests were made. But Dandi was the culmination of a sathyagraha which ended with the abolition of the salt tax.

When Manu was released, even the embers of this sathyagraha war did not remain. Nobody met him at the gate. He, along with many others like him, were lost in the multitude of India's population.

Manu

This week's story is a work in progress. It’s less a story and more an outline of a novel, each post can perhaps be developed into a larger chapter. It may well reach completion or stand as a work abandoned. Whatever be the outcome, we commence the journey today.

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Manu Sharma, in passing I note an uncommon name for a Tamil Brahmin, was a native of Mannargudi. This town was a taluk headquarter in Thanjavur district and like many men of his class he was a gentleman of leisure. His forefathers had left him a house, a few acres of wet land and a big mango orchard. These provided him enough income to have a comfortable life. Gentlemen like him spent their days in such useful pursuits like playing cards in the afternoons, often with stakes, and attending drama and music performances in the night. Revelries often went on till the early morning but we shall not dwell on the nature of these. Manu on the other hand found no joy in this life. He was an idealist and itched to do something for the society he lived in. The problem was he did not know the what and how of such an activity.

It was the early twenties. Around this time, a British missionary of a new religion -communism - came to India. He preached the gospel of Marx and some sensitive, educated youngsters got converted. One such youngster was Ramamurthy from Mannargudi. On his return from baptism, he ordained himself a priest and started preaching. When Manu heard him, he felt an immediate opportunity to address his disaffection and decided to take the communist path. The immediate effect was that Manu removed his sacred thread and gave up religious rites. But Ramamurthy was a mere preacher and none of his beliefs were put into practice. The result was that Manu remained disaffected and frustrated.

Much at the same time an Indian barrister named M.K. Gandhi returned to India. Even before his arrival his fame had reached the country. This fame rested on his experimentation with a new form of warfare he called “sathyagraha” which had met with partial success. This war was unique as it dispensed with arms. Indians are notorious for conferring honorary titles on all and sundry. They duly conferred the title of “Mahatma” on Mr. Gandhi. On his arrival in India, Gandhi began his war against the injustices he perceived in the Hindu religion. This included service to the depressed, exploited sections of society he called Harijans. Influenced by Gandhi, a few middle aged followers started the Harijan Sewa Sangh. The Sangh's work in Tamil Nadu was entrusted to a lawyer from Madurai. This gentleman immediately started a program to allow Harijans into Hindu temples. Disillusioned by communism, Manu felt a renewed opportunity to do good and joined this group. To prove his commitment to the cause, he got his eldest daughter married to a Harijan boy of his acquaintance. The family was unhappy with his decision; the daughter herself resented the marriage and her new life in a Harijan “cheri”. The Harijan boy too was uneasy in the presence of his Brahmin relatives. But the marriage born of Manu’s idealism could not be undone.

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PS: I wanted to reconfirm a few facts in this story and one of the first documents of my google search was “Satyagraha in South Africa” by Gandhi. I have just begun reading it and it promises to be a lucid, interesting read.  Also, picture source here.

The Headmaster

The last piece of this week is a one-off light hearted anecdote and quite humorous. It's a peek into a 1930s school room (even a retro revival would not cause a girl to be named Mangaiyarkarasi these days!) and yet  captures the timeless nature of the school experience.  Next week I will post a new story.

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When I was in the last year of my high school, the headmaster of my school was one Mr. Pakoda Iyengar. His real name was Sreenivasa Iyengar. The latter name went out of circulation and the new name crept in. What happened was that one day he was eating pakodas in his room. Absentmindedly he put a piece of pakoda in his coat pocket. When he came to the classroom and put his hand in the coat pocket to fetch a chalk piece, out came the pakoda. He was renamed on that very day and the name stuck. The townspeople would blink if anybody asked for Sreenivasa Iyengar but Pakoda was universally recognised.

Pakoda was a very dark man with a big head topped by an oversized turban. He habitually sported a naamam on his forehead with a yellow streak in the centre. He wore a black closed coat, which I think was never sent to the washers ever since it was stitched. He was supposed to be a strict headmaster but I found his strictness was restricted to meek students like me, who were in a majority. The troublemakers he left alone.

He had a novel way of exemplary punishment. He had put a long bench in the central hall and erring students were made to stand on the bench for at least an hour so that all the students and teachers could see them. His style however was to send any boy who he considered as erring to stand on the bench without an enquiry. The result was that a majority of the students had stood on the bench at one time or another. In due course it became more of a joke than a punishment. I myself had stood on this bench. One day two students created a ruckus in the class when the teacher was away. Krishnamoorthy Rao and I, who were conscientious students, went to the headmaster to report this. On seeing us, Pakoda immediately sent both of us to stand on the bench. Poor Krishna cried like a baby. Another incident I recall is of a student who was asked by the teacher to fetch something from the teacher's room. He met Pakoda on the staircase and the next minute the boy was standing on the bench.

At the fag end of the year, an amusing incident happened. There was only one girl in my class and she had a long name, Mangaiyarkarasi. She was given a separate desk near the entrance. She used to come in a bullock cart with screens on both sides, obviously to keep her away from other's view but really it was other way around. In my class there was a boy Janakiram, a handsome Naidu boy, jovial, lively and very popular. Janaki “pataoed” Mangai and they met secretly. Somehow the matter reached the ears of Pakoda. We students were agog to see the sight of both of them standing on the bench. Pakoda was clever enough to know that Janaki was capable of turning the occasion festive. So for the first time he decided to call both of them to his room for an enquiry. The rest of us students were all worried that they would be expelled. What transpired was as follows. Pakoda asked Mangai whether she knew Janaki. She hung her head and said in a feeble voice, “Yes”. Then Janaki was asked whether he knew Mangai. He said no. Pakoda asked Janaki, “how come she knows you and you don't know her?” Janaki coolly replied, “Sir, it is very simple. I am a popular boy and every student knows me. Therefore there is nothing strange in Mangai knowing my name. But that does not mean I know each student who knows me. I swear I don’t know this girl.” Pakoda, defeated, had to send them back with a mild warning.

Thankfully at the end of the term Pakoda retired from service!

Inscrutable Heart

The Kokila & Raghu story ends today. I get the feeling that our man Raghu, so shy at 16 has developed into a bit of a sly flirt! And I came away with the thought - are the hearts of men inscrutable or simply prone to self-deception?

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A girl called Kokila had once loved me. Fate had led us to each other twice but we had parted on each occasion and life had continued. In the years that followed, the ups and downs of life kept me occupied and though I did think of her now and then, I paid little thought to the idea of meeting Koki again.

By the eighties, life had settled down to an even routine of sorts. My children were grown, the vagaries of my career had led me to be an educator, a job which gave me satisfaction. Around 1985 I took a course and one of the students was from Chidabaram. I casually asked him whether he knew Kokila Teacher. His enthusiasm was immediate. Everyone in Chidambaram knows Kokila Teacher, he exclaimed! From him I gathered that Koki had retired on a handsome pension on account of her service to the school since its inception. She had been much awarded and she was in committees connected with primary education. And she had an adopted son. This piqued my curiosity but our state of non-communication remained.

Then in 1990, I went to Pondicherry. Suddenly a thought crossed my mind, why not go and meet Koki?

Koki was in the same rooms I had previously visited. To me she retained the freshness and grace of my memories. Even the few white hairs added to her charm. She was pleased that I had come to see her.

“Koki! You are still the same old Koki I met when we were in our teens”.

(with her bewitching smile) “Raghu, what change did you expect?”

(blushing a little) “I expected you to be unchanged. I heard you had retired. How is retirement?”

“I am still busy but have the freedom to work on text books as I had always wanted. What about you? I hope there are enough grand children to fill your retired life!"

“There are but I am still busy with my work. It's a coincidence that I started teaching when you left off, only I teach adults.”

(an odd smile on her face) “At least we are one in our old age!”

Curiously this time she enquired about my family. In turn I asked her about her adopted son. She told me the boy’s father was a cook in a village temple. When the boy finished his primary education, his father had refused to educate him further as he could not afford it. The boy took the only course left to him and ran away from home. Koki met him near her school, begging for food. She then adopted him, a small repayment of the debt she herself owed to the couple who took her in as a runaway.

Koki then called the boy. Once introduced, he did the requisite prostration. I asked him his name. Raghu, he replied. Then added, that is what Amma calls me but my real name is Tiruvengadam. I looked at Koki but she didn't betray any emotion. She briefly explained that she felt his name was too long and she had picked a short name at random, really any name would have done. Her explanation did not convince me but I left it at that.

A strange relationship exists between us. I had never thought of Koki as my love. Her own passions appeared to have cooled with the years. And yet she had a son called Raghu. I could not help feeling that I was still in her heart. But this I would never know for sure.

For a woman's heart is inscrutable.

Kokila Teacher

In keeping with the Three Times themes, I had intially reworked this post so it was "stand alone" but it took away from the spirit of it. So my night's labours unrewarded, back to the linear and the tale as it was.  Also the tale is perhaps more "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter" with today's post being Autumn. I also feel a deconstruction of Kokila as a representation of Indian womanhood coming on, but I shall desist!

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I had once known a girl called Kokila but it appeared that fate had so arranged that I would never meet her again.

In 1952, my sister was living in Chidambaram. I had gone there on a casual visit and one evening we went to the temple. It took me a few minutes to recognise her but there was Koki, unchanged and as pretty as before. My sister, who too hadn’t met her in many years, hugged her and as is wont with old friends they fell in step and exchanged the details of their life over their years. Then she turned to me and spoke in an unchanged manner. I coloured and stammered, all too conscious of our past.

It so happened that she was working as a primary school teacher and she invited us to her rooms which were close by. Coffee was served and after some chit-chat, my sister ever the diplomat, quietly slipped out to talk to the other tenants. Koki and I were alone in the room.

"When I heard you had run away from home, I was devastated. I felt I was responsible for it. Why did you do it?"

"Raghu you were not responsible. When I met you....that meeting brought a change in me. I wanted to be with you, I had imaginary conversations with you, I felt you were mine for ever. My husband on the other hand rarely visited, he was a stranger. I thought of my future with him as an indifferent wife. Thousands of such indifferent wives exist, they rear children and grand children, some have affairs. But the idea revolted me and perhaps my nascent education emboldened me. My parents, loving though they were, were too bound by social mores and injunctions; they could not accept my refusal of my husband. I was in great turmoil and very lonely. Yet strangely you never came in my thoughts. It was your sister and the solace offered by her friendship that I deeply missed. Events then overtook me and I had no choice but to leave home”.

"Did you not think of the scandal and the pain to your parents?"

It turned out that Kokila - though regretful of the pain to her parents - was unbothered by the scandal. Initially she had lost contact with her parents but relations had been re-established. Her father was now retired and her parents lived at Srirangam. Their relatives and friends lived close by, she visited when she could. In spite of the attendant scandal, her fleeing home had eventually been uneventful. Ruefully she added, "Perhaps Lord Balaji alone was on my side." She had caught the bazaar (passenger) train in the early hours of the morning for Mayavaram. At Mayavaram she went immediately to the Perumal temple to take the lord's blessings for her new life. After a dip in the temple's tank, she had entered the temple. There she met an elderly Ayyangar couple. She herself being an Ayyangar, they had taken her into their care. There had of course been trouble when she told them the real cause of her fleeing but the Mami had finally placated her husband and so she had stayed. The Ayyangar was a retired headmaster and it was through him that her career as a school teacher had started.

"So Raghu, I stand before you as an honourable woman with my head high. I am now Kokila teacher to many parents and children. My life is peaceful."

I was amazed at her achievements and her life. I then asked about her husband. He it appeared had faded from her life; it was as if he had never existed.

As before, we parted. Mischievously I asked, “Do you still love me?” She smiled as if to say, “Don’t be silly”. It was her turn to say no and her refusal had the great elegance mine never had. My sister then returned and we made our farewells and in parting, I slipped my address in her hand.

I did not receive a single letter from her.

Pic source here.