She walks gaily past the village wells and nears the Kamadeva temple. There is still a lamp burning inside. So Annaiah is not yet asleep. Good. She runs softly, soundlessly to the entrance. And stops. She can hear voices. The voice of Chenni. Inside the temple, with Annaiah. What is Chenni doing here at this time of the night?

Thimmakka listens intently. She hears his soft lover-like voice, the voice from her own dreams, which is saying, ‘Take this bunch of swetasanchari and suryavamsi buds, Chenni. I have gathered them for you all of today. You weave these now into a garland, finish it before dawn. Here, take it.’

She hears Chenni, as if making a vow, ‘I will weave your garland before dawn. I will observe all the rules, I promise. I will undertake the penance.’

Annaiah’s voice says, ‘Come here every full-moon night. You have to do this seven times. Only with the seventh garland will Kamadeva be satisfied.’

Thimmakka’s heart is aflame. There could be only one reason why Annaiah was asking Chenni to weave garlands for him. The whole village knows what it means. She now remembers with absolute clarity the insults Annaiah heaped on her when she went to him. He was waiting for Chenni and she had gone instead. The anchor of her childhood and her youth has come loose. She has loved the wrong man.

Thimmakka returns to Ramappa’s house, consumed by rage, certain about only one thing. Annaiah and Chenni have made a fool of her. She wants revenge. Thimmakka tells Ramappa that his marriage to Bangari is out of the question. ‘I will jump into the well if you do that and the entire village will hold you responsible,’ she threatens.

‘What about the child?’ he asks.

‘You want the child? We will tell everyone that I am pregnant. The three of us can go on a pilgrimage, which I will get a dream about. Bangari can deliver the baby and we will bring it back. You and I can look after it as our child. Bangari can also live here. All right?’

Ramappa and Bangari have to bend to Thimmakka’s plan. They disappear from the village and come back a few months later with baby Chandrashekara who is, Thimmakka says, her son. The village women, looking at Thimmakka’s trim figure and Bangari’s puffed-up one, draw their own conclusions. No one says anything, however, while Bangari quietly accepts her lot and lives with them.

14. The Birth of Parvati

14

THE BIRTH OF PARVATI

handrashekara, affectionately called Chandru, is about a year old, Nagegowda’s son Krishnegowda is three, and her own sons Rajegowda and Sundru are five and three years old when Chenni becomes pregnant again. Puttaswamegowda goes about his work with a distracted air.