Savithri's Special Room and Other Stories by Manu Bhattathiri

Author:Manu Bhattathiri
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

In the week following that particular conference by the riverside, Karuthupuzha was treated to a rare and amusing event. Lineman Chacko, the bad-tempered and unforgiving old man with very few friends, came sliding down an electric pole near his house to catch hold of the black dwarf orphan Rappai and beat him black and blue. Chacko usually had a bird’s-eye view of the town and its inhabitants from atop electric poles, and he had caught the orphan loitering around his house and finally reaching up to peep in through the window of the room Acchu slept in. Not particularly favoured by the idea of a dwarf orphan romancing his only daughter, the lineman had decided that this was a case for a beating. Rappai had taken a little of what came, and then howled and fled. The first to laugh were the line of crows sitting on the high-voltage line above the house.

Later that day, George Kutty sat behind a desk in the town library before a huge book that he seemed much moved by. In his mind was bitter disappointment at the failure of his first love letter. The whole thing obviously wouldn’t work. That Chacko was a barbarian.

‘You heard?’ Mustafa whispered, appearing suddenly by his side.

‘Yes,’ George Kutty whispered back, his face clouded with misery. A love letter sent in the hands of a black dwarf orphan was the most adventurous thing he had ever done.

‘You can’t give up now,’ Mustafa said with concealed glee. ‘The orphan knows. Moreover, love needs to be strong.’

George Kutty simply got up, returned the book to the shelf, and walked away. For days after that, he preferred to be left alone. He sat on a boulder by the river at noon, watching its sparkling white water turn black as the hills slowly cast their shadows on it. The slither of water was strangely silent. It would not giggle when someone suffered.

George Kutty’s delicate mind was blowing out of proportion the failure of Rappai’s mission. For nights he imagined he heard the winds carry her song. He ate little, slept not at all, and thought a lot.

He told himself there was no need to give up his love. It wasn’t as though Chacko had got hold of the letter from Rappai’s pocket. The good orphan had said nothing, he was sure.

But then he told himself his love wouldn’t work out, in any case. He would never find employment, as anyone could see he hated all kinds of jobs this little town could offer. If he went to the city in search of work, he would go out of Acchu’s sight and right out of her mind. It wouldn’t work.

At the same time, Chacko’s interest in the tabla-player in her music troupe only proved he knew nothing about his daughter. Acchu wasn’t shallow. She would never agree to marry a young man just because he had a job, belonged to the same community, and his father was good at negotiating the dowry. Surely, Acchu

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