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The water is wild I cannot cross over Nor have I got strong wings to fly. Give me a boat That will carry two And we both shall row, My love and I. Old English Ballad It was at this time that Shueli met the fascinating Charulata. She was like a magnet to every theatre person, writer, and intellectual in that small town, and to many others from all over the world. Her small house, hidden like a tiny jewel in a cul-de-sac, was always filled with interesting people and lively conversation. .Shueli sensed that a deep loneliness and unhappiness underlay Charulata’s vivacious personality. Some months before, in the cinema where she and Paul had seen Ray’s film, Pather Panchali, she had seen a Kannada film based on a novel,c which had become a classic. It was about a Brahmin priest, a leader in his community, totally committed to tradition, and to dutifully caring for his bed-ridden wife.. In the village is a renegade Brahmin, who has flouted all traditions, eats meat, drinks alcohol, and keeps a low-caste mistress. When a plague strikes the village, killing the renegade, his mistress comes to plead with the devout priest for his cremation with all sacred rituals. The mistress falls before the priest, her long hair flowing over his feet She utters a single word: “Acharye” (Teacher or Learned One). Her silent appeal followed by that one word, it seemed to Shueli, was deeply eloquent, The devout Brahmin, lifting her up, is swept into the ecstasy of a relationship with the low-caste woman. The priest’s moral dilemma and suffering, lead him to a truer understanding of his responsibility, and the choice he must make, before he can truly claim moral authority. Charu had played the part of the low-caste woman. When Shueli met her, she wanted to express the admiration and excitement she had felt. “Charu, it was like a Greek Tragedy. One felt that the cleansing and purification of the Brahmin’s soul, and of the village, came through the suffering and self-knowledge he sought. In a way, you were like the Magdalene falling at Christ’s feet, Charu. One felt that the question was being asked: ‘Who among us is without sin?’” Charu and Shueli had so much in common, both sharing their passion for poetry and the theatre, that they decided to form a group. “Let’s call it Abhinaya, as that will stand for the traditional, as well as modern, understanding of expression in the theatre.” “Yes,” replied Charu. “Also for the way facial and bodily gesture can combine with language, to create a truer sense of meaning.” That’s how ‘Abhinaya’ took off. After the numbing claustrophobia of Kavipuram, Shueli felt she was breathing fresh air again. Even if there were many unpleasant scenes with her ambivalent husband, this was living, and she was not going to turn her back on it. Having a baby to think about, did somewhat complicate things, but it added to her joy and vitality. She took the baby with her everywhere, and Veroni was a faithful carer, when she had to be elsewhere. “Let’s stick to plays by Indians, or, since there aren’t many of those, let’s have the European ones which reflect, or relate to, our own reality. Definitely not English bedroom farce, even if that’s what gets easy audiences and quick ticket money,” Shueli said, with a vehement passion, fully shared by Charulata. “What shall we do next, Shueli?” Lorca, the Spanish playwright and poet, was Shueli’s favourite. She loved the story of Yerma, the childless woman. She knew, too well, that the anguish of the childless woman in India is as sharp as that of her Spanish sister. However, they chose another play, The House of Bernarda Alba, with all the repressed passions, longings and anger of women in strict and suppressed societies.. Women could still be killed, especially in small village communities, if they did not conform to the family’s rules, if they defied their fathers, brothers, or anyone in authority, if they dared to choose their own lover. They would watch, from behind barred windows, and bolted doors, the men sing and dance in the sunlight, enjoying the freedom and life denied to them. “Why, sometimes girls aren’t even able to go out of the house on their own. It’s so cruel, so oppressive. All the laws are made by men. Are women just the property of their men folk?” “Well, Bernarda Alba is a woman, the powerful matriarch, who harshly and rigidly suppresses her daughters, in the name of family honour. Of course, what she is doing is suppressing her own passionate nature, which has been warped and twisted by denial. Only one of her daughters is finally able to break away, and confront her mother. Shueli, I want you to act that part, the part of the daughter, Adela. And I shall be Bernarda Alba.”. ******** When Shueli told Paul about the role she had got, he exploded in fury. “What do you mean by neglecting your home and your family?” he raved. “Plays, plays, and all those intellectual friends of yours. You don’t bother about the way the house is run, or anything. Your mind is always there…” He ranted and raved, she feared he might even strike her. Or he might try to forbid her visits to Belapur. But he did something worse. Standing there, huge and intractable, with only a towel wrapped around his middle, as he had just come out of the shower, he yelled at her: “Do you remember that time, when you used to go over the moors to work in Sheffield? Well, that was when I used to sleep with Audrey, right there, on the operating table. How do you like that? You never guessed, did you? I could fool you any time…” Shueli could barely speak. Everything was sliding out of control, and she had lost the keys which might get the engine started again. A terrible sorrow and anger held her in its grip. When she did recover her faculty of speech, she could only moan: “I was so young then. Why did you drag me through all these years? Why didn’t you leave me free to make a new life for myself?” An immeasurable weight, a darkness like the grave, descended on Shueli. She felt a deep coldness and alienation from Paul. Later, when she talked of leaving him, he wept and begged her forgiveness: “I’ll be a far worse man, if you leave me. I’ll be lost..” The words fell on Shueli’s stone ears. ******* The next week, Shueli ran through the garden, into her friend Charu’s house. ‘Charu’ she called out, not quite able to see, in the shaded room. The young man sitting there, stood up, and taking her hand in both his hands, said “Shueli, I mean Mrs. Kuruvilla, - how wonderful to see you again!” He was still holding her hand as he started to tell her about what had brought him back to the South. Shueli was trembling when she finally pulled away her hand, and sat down. She felt as if she had been hit by a bolt of lightning! Charu came in, saying “Mitran, Shueli, - glad you’ve met. Shueli, Mitran could be a great help to us in getting Reviews and write-ups about our group, particularly our Bernarda Alba, in the press.” Shueli feared that the wild beating of her heart could be heard in the room. Mitran tried to talk normally, but as he looked across at her, he could not conceal how much he was drawn to her. Though she had tried to shut the memory out, her heart and mind had often gone back to the first meeting with Mitran, at Elvira’s house. She had recognised then, and knew now, that the world had changed for ever, for both of them, with that “first strange and fatal interview.” They tried to talk normally. Mitran talked about the ‘Emergency’ – the crushing law imposed by the Government of Mrs. Gandhi, which struck at the heart of civil liberties and freedom. Anyone could be arrested at any time. The evil forces of authoritarianism, which were sweeping across the country, could strike here too. “Nothing will ever be the same again. Overnight, we’ve been turned into a Police State. No. I’m not exaggerating. You can really feel it in the Capital, and we in the Press are most hard hit. Before, even if we had nothing, at least we could curse the Government. We could write what we thought, or from as eccentric or individualistic a viewpoint as we chose, we could draw cartoons – but now even that is being censored.” For Mitran, and many others all over the country, it was like a death sentence. For Shueli, her friendship with Charu, the feeling of connection she had with Mitran, helped her to survive not only the loneliness and alienation she felt in her personal life, but also this atmosphere of fear and paranoia sweeping the country. She did not know then, that this would be the last play she would do with Charu. That it would be Charu’s swan song. ******** Shueli and Mitran used to walk for hours by the sea, in the remote village they had discovered, not far from Belapur. Friends, lovers, they walked with their arms round one another. This was something she had always dreamed of, this free, sweet, happy relationship. They talked about their childhoods, their dreams, disappointments, fears. Once, he laughingly said: “Now I know all about your aunts, uncles and cousins!..” They collapsed, laughing. She had never known this sweet, spontaneous, uninhibited sharing with another. She said to him once “I had so many hurts and wounds, not only of the body, but also of the spirit. You have healed them all..” Boyishly embarrassed he may have been, but always willing to share every moment fully with her. There was a hut, and a small deserted temple here. Sun, sand and surf had worn away the figures in the temple. All that remained were a few headless bodies, a few monkey gods, and parts of an elephant. Sometimes they would run, the wind in their faces, the sand and surf stinging their bodies. He would pull her into the water, and then, spluttering, laughing, and holding on to each other, they would dry off in the shade near the temple, or on the warm sand. If a few fishing boats passed by, they never disturbed them. They had a picnic here, a few times, sitting on the steps of the old temple. They brought Kartik a few times. Mitran always called him “Our Kartik.” When the little boy was taken to Kerala for a short holiday with his grand-parents, Shueli found staying in Kavipuram, with Paul, even more tense and difficult. It was made easier by the fact that he was hardly ever at home. “Have work at the village Clinic. Won’t be back till tomorrow.” Or “If your play is coming up in a fortnight, may be best for you to stay over in Belapur.” Shueli barely heard him. She was wrapped in an enchanted world of her own. Too often, in the past, she had not grasped love at the crucial moment, had let happiness pass her by. “ Yes, Chinnamma Kocham. This time, I’m holding on. I’ve got life right in the palm of my hands, and I’m not letting go.” ****** While Shueli was experiencing her first taste of freedom and personal choice, the country was in the grip of a nameless fear and hysteria. “Anyone can be picked up, arrested and jailed. It’s already happened to some of my friends. I’m shelving my book for the present. Wait for more liberal times..” “But, - poor people have never really had any rights in our country, have they? They’re often picked up, interrogated, tortured, - die mysteriously in jails. Now, we’re all in this position.” “Yes,” said Mitran, “the State has complete authority. The individual, labelled an enemy of the State, has none. But, do you know, there are some people who’re actually happy with this state of affairs. There’s this chap, who’s always on about law, order and discipline, actually rejoicing in it! I heard him say: “What a difference this Emergency makes. Things are ever so much better these days. People don’t dare to try and cheat you now. No one dares to ask for a bribe!’ Someone else said: ‘You don’t hear people rubbishing the Government now. Everyone’s busy getting on with their own work ….If that fellow thinks he can cheat me on this deal, he’d better think twice. I’ll just have to report him, and he could be in serious trouble.’ Yes. All in the name of law and order. Something precious is slipping away, Shueli… our freedom, our right to think for ourselves.” Shueli remembered the evil, yellow fog that had covered the Capital before the Partition. And the horror that had followed. But this was different. There wasn’t the raw flame of ignited passions. This was more calculated, in a sense, more menacing. The gradual taking away of the ordinary, but most precious, human right, to make decisions, to criticise things – “It’s like standing on shifting sands – right under our feet, - and we barely noticed. Now we’re being swept away into dangerous currents. Maybe we’ll never get back ashore.” They had always taken it for granted that they could discuss things openly, say what they thought.. But, the very next day, drinking a cup of coffee in a small café in the city, Shueli was about to say something to the others present there, when she caught a warning gleam in Mitran’s eyes. “Walls have ears. Whatever you’re thinking, keep it to yourself, for the time being at least,” he warned her. “Is this the way to live? Suppressing one’s real thoughts and feelings? My marriage, too, has become a lie. Everything has become a lie.” Said Shueli despairingly, when they were on their own. Mitran pulled her to him, holding her tight, caressing her hair. “That I love you, and you me, that is the truth.” “Supposing we had never met?” “If I hadn’t met you, I’d have been searching for you all my life.” ******* c Samskara by U.R. Ananthamurthy, translated by A.K. Ramanujan.  Anna Sujatha Mathai grew up in St. Stephen's College Delhi, where her father was Head of the English Department. It was an idyllic childhood, reading wonderful books, hearing poetry, seeing plays. She and her sister spent many sunny days exploring The Ridge, unimaginable now! Sujatha started writing Short Stories and Essays for The TREASURE CHEST, an All-India Children's Magazine edited by an American Editor, and translated into many Indian languages. At 14 she was chosen by Treasure Chest to be their youngest Special Correspondent!
What she loved most was the Theatre. She was selected, at age 14, by the Shakespeare Society of St. Stephen's College, to be Viola in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Later, doing her B.A.{Honours} in English Literature at Miranda College, she won the College Drama Prize, and later, the Best Actress Award of the University of Delhi. Getting married at age 20, to a young surgeon, changed her life completely. In Edinburgh, she joined the University for a Post Graduate Course in Social Studies. She worked in that field for several years, in York, Sheffield, London. Leaving it all behind, coming back to small-town India, was traumatic for her. She used to write on scraps of paper, and throw them away. Her sister, in Bangalore, sent her a cutting in which American professor, Howard McCord of the Univ. of Seattle asked for poems by "avant-garde young Indian poets" for his Anthology. Her sister wrote "At the most, you'll lose a few stamps!" Prof McCord's warm response to her poems, made her start taking her writing more seriously! Her first poems were published in P. Lal's MODERN INDIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH. She continued to write, and, later, moving to Bangalore her dream of theatre was somewhat realised. She had roles in plays by Shaeffer, Ibsen, Sartre, Pinter, Tennessee Williams, Lorca and others. She was a co-founder,with friend Snehalata Reddy, of THE ABHINAYA POETRY/THEATRE GROUP. Her poems have been published in The Commonwealth Journal; Indian Literature; The Little Magazine; The Times of India; Dialogue India; Chelsea (New York); The London Magazine; The Poetry Review (London), Two Plus Two (Switzerland.), Contemporary Asian Poetry Ed. Agnes Lam, Hong Kong/Singapore: Post-Independence Poetry in English ed. by Arundhathi Subramaniam She was among 4 poets "show-cased" on the 50th Anniversary of the Sahitya Akademi. She was an Associate Editor of the prestigious Literary Journal, Two Plus Two,based in Lausanne, Switzerland. She has 5 collections of Poetry in English, and her poems have been translated into several Indian and European languages. She now lives in Delhi.
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