From the book: The Salt of The Earth
Author: Jayanti Naik
Translator: Augusto Pinto
“B HATKARNI!! O, Bhatkarni!!! Fil’mine Mana!!!” She was washing some rice in a clay bowl to make
some gruel and was putting it one fistful at a time into the pot that was on the fireplace, but when she heard this cry Fil’mine Mana’s hand stopped moving.
‘Who’s calling out Bhatkarni to me – is it Xaviér? I think it’s his voice… Yes it must be Xaviér – he’s the only one who still calls me Bhatkarni no matter how much I tell him not to. I wonder why he’s come. Joaquina must have sent some mackerel curry. I was just saying the other day I hope she sends some…’
The thought of the mackerel curry made Fil’mine Mana’s mouth water. She hurriedly poured the remaining rice from the clay bowl into the pot and after stirring it with a coconut shell ladle and covering the pot with a wooden lid, she got up, clutching the wall for support and went to the corner where she had left her stick. Taking it in her hand she slowly walked from the kitchen to the front door.
“Xaviér, I’m opening the door, please wait a second… Why has Joaquina made you go through all this trouble? If you had sent me word I would have come to your place myself, would I not…?”
Hands trembling, she pulled aside the creaking, antiquated sliding bar of the door and making a karr karr sound the two sides of the door opened.
“How much did they cost today? The mackerels… ?” The question that Fil’mine was going to ask got stuck in her throat and she got flustered when she realised that Xaviér had come along with an unknown man.
“Who?… This gentleman?… What’s the matter Xaviér?”
“Nothing’s the matter Bhatkarni – don’t get frightened for nothing!… This person here – he’s a Panchayat officer.”
“Panchayat officer?!…”
“Yes. Didn’t my son tell you that a person from the Panchayat would come with money for you?… Regarding that form – don’t you remember?… The form that he filled for you applying for the old age pension from the government.”
“Oh! Oh! That!!. . . Has he come with it? Come… Come Sir… Come sit inside….”
On realising that the person in front of her was a government official, Fil’mine had become nervous and made some futile attempts to cover her blouse which was torn at the shoulder with the end of her tattered sari.
“It’s alright Mai – let’s not go inside. We’ll sit here in the balcão.” So saying he went to sit on the stone sopo seats in the verandah, when she said, “Wait Baba, wait! Let me clean the sopo. There’s dust everywhere,” and she went to clean the sopo holding on to the stick for support. Xaviér nudged her to step aside: “Leave it to me Bhatkarni, I’ll clean it for Baba.”
Xaviér took his hand-towel which was on his shoulder and dusted and wiped the balcão sopo.
“It’s okay. Xaviér-daad – why are you taking all this trouble?” the panchayat official said and sat down. Fil’mine Mana also sat a little further away on the stone seat. However Xaviér remained standing. The panchayat secretary opened his briefcase, and took out a form and a twenty paisa revenue stamp. He took his pen out of his pocket and filled the form then wet the revenue stamp on his tongue and affixed it on the form. Then taking the form he stood up and went to Fil’mine Mana and handing her the pen said, “Mai there’s a stamp on this form: you have to sign on the stamp please.”
Every move of the panchayat secretary was being carefully scrutinised by Fil’mine Mana – but when he uttered these words she was stunned! Her countenance changed – and she reacted as if an old and deep wound which had only superficially healed had been scratched open and blubbery blood was oozing out of it.
“Baba, if I were able to write my signature would I have reached this state? Would I have been reduced to accepting alms from the government?” Tears began to well up in Fil’mine Mana’s eyes.
As it is old age had made her body frail, but now the memory of the moments when life had cheated her, made her tremble even more. The panchayat secretary was perplexed for he had absolutely no idea what he had said wrong. Xaviér was also in a dither for he didn’t know whether or not to explain to the panchayat secretary what the cause was for Fil’mine Mana’s tears. Before he could decide however, Fil’mine Mana herself solved Xaviér’s dilemma. Regaining her composure she began to narrate her story to the panchayat secretary about how one mistake in life resulted in the punishment for which she had to pay this heavy penalty.
Fil’mine Mana was the wife of Kistod Bhatkar, the biggest landlord of the village owning crores worth of property. Everyday ten to fifteen labourers were employed in his house. He had no shortage of guests or well-wishers. But Fil’mine Mana was well aware that each of these well-wishers had his eyes trained as sharply on his property as a chicken farmer has his eyes skinned out for his hens. However she didn’t know how to explain this to her husband: for one thing he was a simple, guileless and unassuming person and, for another, even though she had been married to him for well nigh forty years, she had never learned how to assume authority in this house for the reason that forty years earlier she had been a servant in this very same house – a fact that she had never forgotten.
“Bhatkara!” She called out to him. On hearing Fil’mine Mana’s voice Kistod Bhatkar who was sitting on an easy chair in the balcony lifted up his head, “What is it, Fil’mine?”
“Bhatkara… I… Do you know what I was thinking?… Why don’t we find a nice boy?… You know we… We could adopt him as our own?…” Hesitantly, Fil’mine Mana told him what was on her mind.
For a brief while Kistod Bhatkar was silent, but then, slowly enunciating his words one at a time he gave her his opinion in a measured voice, “Look Fil’mine, you know very well that I don’t want to adopt a child. There are so many people who will look after us when we grow old. Besides I have so much property that when I die you will lack nothing!” Listening to his last few words Fil’mine’s eyes grew wide,
“Bhatkara, I… I didn’t say it for that reason… I… I sometimes feel alone in the house… that’s why…”
“Why would you feel alone in the house? Bai is there to help you, isn’t it? And her three children are always coming and going, and besides my dear, there is someone or the other always visiting.”
He further explained to his wife, “Look Fil’mine, if we adopt someone else’s child, he will be somebody else’s blood. Howcan such a child have any love for us? Instead Bai’s children are our own blood relatives. They will be our succour in our old age.”
On hearing her husband’s words Fil’mine Mana looked downcast, and noticing this her husband tried to change the subject.
“Fil’mine, we’ve been married for forty years now and yet my dear you still call me Bhatkar! I’m your husband not your landlord! My ears are yearning for the day they’ll hear your lips utter my name, dear!… Go on Fil’mine, say it – at least today say Kistod! Today… just once! Come on now – see – there’s no one around…”
Even though she had heard her husband’s pleas Fil’mine Mana acted deaf and remained mired in her own thoughts. Some six months after this incident took place, Kistod Bhatkar passed away and Fil’mine Mana’s world came crashing around her feet.
When she finally managed to lift her head out of the haze of grief that her husband’s death had brought over her, she noticed that Bai, Kistod Bhatkar’s younger sister had begun to be very good to her. It appeared to Fil’mine Mana that the anger her sister-in-law had borne against her for falling in love with her brother and marrying had disappeared. Bai’s elder son Dominic who was a doctor had begun to pay her a lot of attention and began to see to her every need and worry. Seeing this Philumina felt, ‘I think that even my own flesh and blood son wouldn’t have taken care of me like this. I unnecessarily feared that there would be nobody to take care of me in my old age. Anyway, thank God, Bhatkara himself must have told him that he should do this after he died.’
But even as Fil’mine Mana had begun to savor her happiness, she had to return to live in her old ancestral broken down house within a year of Bhatkar’s passing. Bai’s love had vanished in a flash and Dominic’s loving care flew off with the breeze.
One day Dominic got Fil’mine Mana to put her thumb-print on some papers on the pretext that it was needed to collect Kistod Bhatkar’s life insurance money. Fil’mine Mana took him at his word and with great faith she put her thumb-print on the papers he placed before her. Dominic took full advantage of Philumina’s innocence and saw that all her properties, her house, her money and her valuables were transferred to his name. In all this his advisor was none other than his mother, Bai who through guile and manipulation got her revenge on Fil’mine Mana.
Fil’mine Mana was cast to the four winds and she found it difficult to even manage the fistful of rice she needed to survive for the day. Her husband was dead, she had no children, no other relatives and besides she had grown old. In addition to all that had happened, her limbs had begun to get arthritic. To allay the hunger in her belly her only option was to beg for a living.
In this pitiful state one person came to her aid – Xaviér – who once upon a time was a labourer in Fil’mine Mana’s household. He would keep aside food from his own kitchen and bring it for Fil’mine Mana. Now his son, who was a government servant, had managed to do the paperwork to enable her to get a social security scheme pension for Fil’mine Mana.
…As she was telling the story of her life, Fil’mine Mana had slipped into narrating it in the past tense. Now she came to her senses and her cloudy cataract afflicted eyes filled up with tears which began to stream down her sunken cheeks. Seeing Bhatkarni weeping Xaviér’s eyes also began to well up with tears.
The panchayat secretary was totally stunned: the act of having to bear witness to a living example of how a Bhatkarni could be turned into a beggar had left him completely dumbfounded. Left speechless he just opened his briefcase and from it he took out and counted sixty rupees which he placed in Fil’mine Mana’s hand and with leaden footsteps made his way back to his office.
