 |
| Ambika Ananth |
A
story in translation from the Telugu1
Telugu
original by: Ambika Ananth | Trans. by: Atreya Sarma U
“Hello, is it the police station? I’m calling from Sanjiva
Reddy Colony. I’m hearing a lot of deafening screams from a bungalow on the
main road here. It appears that someone is being brutally beaten. Please rush
up.”
“What’s the house number?”
Rattling it, Vasanta hung up.
***
The speeding police jeep came to a screeching halt.
Swiftly the cops trooped out. Without trying to open the gate which could
create a grating noise, they silently climbed over the boundary wall and slid
into the courtyard. They were eager and anxious about what could be happening
inside the building. Their visages reflected a determination to jump into
action before anything untoward happened. Keeping quiet, they slunk around the
building, but they couldn’t hear any alarming sounds that had been complained
of over the phone. They wondered whether the murderer had finished his job and bolted
out. They began to peep inside through the windows.
One of the cops who was at the window of the rear side
of the building, whispered to his colleagues, “Shh! Come over here!”
They all peered inside.
The scene inside reminded them of a classical paint depicting
Rati and Manmatha, the celestial romantic pair. The pair in the bed were lost
in such a rapture that the unanticipated scene tickled all of them. The cops vied
with one another in bending over one another and crane their necks to steal a
glance at the titillating sight. The jostling impacted a potted plant on the
window-sill making it topple down all of a sudden. The crash startled the
couple out of their romantic realm, and they looked up toward the window with their
eyes widening in disbelief. The policemen hung their heads in a furtive shame. Shaking
his head gravely, the head constable toed toward the main road to enquire about
the phone call.
Red-faced, the gentleman of the house opened the door.
“Do you know you can be sued for defamation for invasively peeping into the
windows?” he shouted in a harsh voice. The sight of the crowd that thronged the
outside of the premises made his blood boil even more. The presence of the khaki
uniforms and red caps was a compulsive attraction for the people to swarm
around the area.
“We received a call complaining of shouts and screams smacking
of a murder or rape. It’s our duty to ascertain the facts in such cases, then
and there,” said the SI of Police.
“Nothing of the sort happened here. You can search the
house,” grunted the householder.
“Then who could have called us? Do you have any
enemies that wanted to play a prank on you like this?” queried the SI.
“Let me answer it, sir!” a voice was heard from
outside.
As the householder saw her opening the gate and step
into the premises, his eyes blazed. He started at her threateningly, and she reacted
with a defiant jerk of her head.
“I am Vasanta. And this man was my ex officer. This
building is not his own, it’s the office guest house. The woman inside is his
steno.
“Sir, as long as I worked in his office, he used to
harry me so much every day that I can’t recount all of it now. I got into the
job only to eke out my living with self-respect, but not to sell my body. No
matter how much I tried to dissuade him, he persisted in preying upon me with
his leering eyes day after day. As I didn’t yield to his wiles, he subjected to
me a lot of mental torture. He picturised me as an obscene creature and wrecked
every marriage proposal that I got. When it comes to a woman, the society laps
up every fabrication against her, though the concoctions are glaringly
unauthentic. The society brands me as a soiled dove, but hails this man as a
noble soul though he has converted the office guest house into his sporting
house.
“If any girl – who joins an office looking upon the
boss as a cool canopy, and upon the office as a salubrious ground – happens to
realise that the office is a snake-pit and the officer is a cobra, she should at
once let the cat out of the bag before the public.
“If I just babble it out in a run-of-the-mill manner,
who cares about it? Now on seeing the present situation, you may have understood
the gravity of the matter and the plight of the girl inside the guest house.
What I wish is, this man should for ever remember this lesson that I have
taught him before all of you, and at least from now on he should learn how to
respect the girls. And you’re a first-hand witness to this.
“I am not going to say ‘sorry’ on the plea that I had
disturbed you with my phone call. Wherever there is a stink in the society,
it’s only the police that have the power and ability to uproot it. That’s why,
I had to take this initiative...!”
And
a burst of handclaps rent the air!
Notes:
1. The title of the Telugu original story is ‘sabala’ (a woman of strong character). It is a part of the collection of 14 Telugu short stories titled ‘manchu mutyaalu’ (Snowy pearls), written by Ambika Ananth. Published by Srirasa Srikrishna Devaraya Rasajna Samakhya, Bengaluru (2005).
***
Ambika Ananth
Ambika Ananth (from Bengaluru) is a bi-lingual writer,
poet, journalist and a translator, who has 8 published works, both in English
and Telugu. A Founder Editor of the Muse India literary e-journal
she had served as its Chief Editor or Poetry Editor up to Issue 94 (Nov-Dec
2020).
A prolific translator, she has
co-translated Saint-Poet Annamacharya's Sankirtanas and Life-story, Nectar
Ocean of Annamacharya (TTD Publication, a book selected by the library
of University of California, Berkeley and the Library of Congress, USA);
co-translated Basaveshawara Vachanas entitled Basavanna Samagra
Vachanalu (Kannada to Telugu); translated pre-nineteenth century
Telugu lyrics into English, and also feministic poetry of Pakistan into
Telugu. Her English poetry has appeared in many anthologies and in Indian
Literature of Sahitya Akademi. Her Telugu short-story collection Manchu
Muthyalu (2005) is taken up for study for the MPhil Program of the
Telugu University.
She regularly contributes to Deccan Herald and
reviews books for Indian Literature and The Hindu. She is on
the Editorial Board of two Telugu literary journals – Chaitanya Kavita, and Basava
Patham – published from Bangalore.
Her most recent publications include – Ambrosia,
a rendering into English of 108 Annamacharaya Sankirtanas set to tune by
Sangita Kalanidhi Dr Nedunuri Krishna Murthy, and Violets and Wounds: A
Tapestry of Life – a compilation of creative writings, features and
essays. Her translation work has appeared in Dravidian Poem published
by Dravidian University. She is working on a translation project on Sri
Krishna Karnamritam along with Dr TV Subbarao, Emeritus Professor,
Bangalore University.
Ambika has a Master’s Degree in Education and a PG
Diploma in Journalism. She is a Life-member of the Poetry Society of India,
Dhvanyaloka of Mysore, and Lekhini of Hyderabad. Her other interests include
painting and Astrology.
Email: ambika.ananth@gmail.com
