My mother’s maidservant is the heroine of a love story. Her husband is severely handicapped physically, with an enormous hump on his back. He is on and off work due to his disability; it makes walking a bit difficult for him. His face is ordinary as most such faces are, his smile makes him look grotesque and he is very short.


But she is a real beauty. Smiling liquid black eyes look out from a soot-black face whose only adornments are a small red bindi and a gold dot of a nose ring. Her beauty is ageless and I have had a number of discussions with my mother about her age. Petite and quick, she moves about like a young gazelle even after bearing three children. The most striking thing about her is the way she wears my mother’s old cotton sarees. She may be cleaning the toilet, but her saree would be perfectly starched and worn without a single wrinkle. Sleek raven-black hair tied to an elegant knot at the back, her carriage defies her humble upbringing and difficult life in the slums.


“I had always noticed him watching me,” she once said of her husband to my mother, “one day, he came up to me and said, ‘marry me’.” “He was shorter than me; then there was this fearful hump on his back. My friends would laugh at me if I married him. When he walked,” she went on, “his legs would go this way and that way. I told him to go and look in the mirror.” But he wouldn’t give up; he would lie in wait for her as she returned from her work, as she went to the temple or went to the well to get water. He always asked the same question, she always gave him the same answer.


One day, he came with a bottle of poison in his hands. “If you don’t marry me, I will eat the poison and die,” the ardent lover exclaimed, “my death will be on your head.” “What else could I do chechi (lady of the house)? I had to agree,” said she, her face scarlet.


“I left Madras and came to Kerala with him,” she went on, “It was difficult here for me, three small children and me a maidservant at many houses. He could not always find work in his condition. But he always helped me chechi,” her usually cheerful voice shook a little, “when I did housework outside, he made food for the family at home and looked after the little ones. He did drink, but never excessively and it only made him kinder to me. I and my little ones were never beaten, never neglected, never uncared for. We always felt we are his life. I have never regretted the day I said yes to him chechi.”


The last time I checked with my mother, the lovebirds and their children were leaving for a week-long vacation to the hill stations in and around Tamil Nadu. He had saved up for this treat over a long time (he is now a part-time watcher at a nearby building thanks to my father).

P.S. The title is taken from an old cup my father once used to drink his tea. The picture on the cup shows two smiling monkeys, their arms around each other with rain in the background. Underneath is written “love is… sunshine on a rainy day."

Impressum

Texte: Cover Illustration: Parvathy Mohan
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 30.12.2009

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Widmung:
Dedicated to prasanth (for loving me no matter what) achan, amma, kochu, chitta (my greatest fans :)) and the heroine of this story, Anandi.