Either this is a simple straightforward story… or a masterly creation composed of complex strands, and its apparent simplicity is deceptive. Different readers may find different take-aways from this slim novella…but all will find it memorable.
The spotlight stays on a single street in Madras, hardly ever venturing outside its bounds. But this setting provides a sufficient variety of characters to make the scenarios come alive in the reader’s imagination. The starring role in the story belongs to Water. It is the protagonist even when it is off-stage, in fact, even more when it is off-stage. No water in the taps; wells and tanks have run dry, and a bumbling city Corporation adds to the citizens’ woes by creating more chaos while digging the street to repair water pipes that have run dry anyway.
Jamuna and Chaya are sisters and residents of the street, as are Teacher Amma, the landlady, and assorted other characters. They navigate their way through the water drought according to their individual sensibilities. Teacher Amma bears the brunt of an abusive husband and a cheerless home, and yet has the empathy to offer Jamuna a shoulder to cry on when Chaya says she can’t take it anymore and moves out to a hostel.
The landlady encounters Jamuna’s locked door which is opened only after threats. A looped rope lies on the bed. What was Jamuna planning? The landlady wants to take no chances with depressed tenants. Jamuna has to beg to be allowed to stay.
The trench on the street, dug by the Corporation ostensibly to repair the water pipes, has cut the electric cables to the street lights. In the shifting shadows around dusk time, many people and vehicles have come to grief in the trench.
In an interesting vignette that has the hallmark of the author, the couple living in the house next door to Jamuna’s wake up in the night to the sound of a rainstorm. Their immediate thought is to rush to collect rainwater from the run-off pipes. With tin and umbrella the man sets out. His patience extends only halfway through the chore. His long-suffering wife, who has to bear the full brunt of their water-starved existence, gets soaked to the skin to fetch a couple of tins of precious water for the house.
In another cameo, an irate electricity officer berates a house owner for sending a written complaint directly to the Minister about the dead street lights, instead of telephoning the substation. ‘Telephoning? I came in person several times. Only my letter to the Minister has brought you here now.’ An all too familiar scene, played out on the street.
As the story proceeds, we as readers begin to smell the mud on the street; we begin to skirt around the trench; we wait for the sound of the hand pump which summons up visions of water gushing from a pipe; we join the people who gather and jostle around the precious, muddy water with their assorted vessels. Meanwhile, everyone manages to get through their days with just enough water for tea, if not a bath.
Water arrives on the street at last. Muddy, smelling of sewage at first, but…there is hope….
The denouement, in line with the rest of the novella, unrolls like a film reel. The reader’s first reaction is that the story ends rather abruptly. And then comes the realization that everything that needs to be said has been said. More would be akin to gilding the lily.
In translating this story, Lakshmi Holmström has tuned her tanpura to blend perfectly with the shruti of the author, preserving the cadence and tone of the original work and giving readers a smooth and pleasurable reading experience.
Malini Seshadri is a freelance writer, editor and translator. She has co-authored the textbook series Living in Harmony (2004) for schools, as well as Reading and Reality and A Window to Your World for undergraduate courses.