Only Story: No reflection. A Grandmother's Tale of Early 1900s

This novella was written by R. K. Narayan, one of the first Indian authors to write in the English language. The Novella is approximately 100 pages in length. I found it so amusing that I wrote a short version of around seven pages for kids many years ago.

Before beginning the story, I must describe the period in which it takes place. The events occur around the time before and after 1857 in British India. The setting is a village in Tamil Nadu near Kumbakonam.

To appreciate the story, it is important to understand the life of people during that time. There were no trains or buses for transportation. There were no telephones, no postal system for communication, and no common language spoken across India like English or Hindi today. There were no proper roads or highways.

The story is a narrated biography of the writer’s great-grandmother, as told by the writer’s grandmother.

The story begins when the writer’s great-grandmother was seven years old. Her name was Bala. She was married to a ten-year-old boy named Viswa. In those days, child marriage was common.

Although married, the boy and the girl could meet only occasionally during family visits. They hardly talked, as both were shy. In one such meeting, Bala noticed a black patch under Viswa’s ear.

She asked him whether it hurt. Viswa replied that it did not, and that the mark was believed to bring good luck.

Bala asked, “How lucky? Will you become a king?”Viswa said, “Yes, that is what they say.”

Their conversation ended as it was time for Viswa to return home.

Over time, Viswa developed an interest in Bala and wanted to meet her more often. He found a new way to talk to her by placing a few bricks behind the boundary wall at the back of Bala’s house, where she washed clothes and drew water from the well. Viswa stood on the bricks and peeped over the wall to speak with Bala.

A few months later, Viswa told Bala that he was leaving with some pilgrims for “Pandaripura.”

Bala asked, “When will you come back?”

He simply said, “Later,” and disappeared from behind the wall as he saw Bala’s mother coming out.

About a month passed, and Viswa did not return to meet Bala at the back of her house.

Bala became worried and sad. With tears in her eyes, she told her mother that Viswa was gone. Bala’s parents went to Viswa’s house to look for him, but Viswa’s parents said they thought he was at Bala’s house.

At this point, both families realized that Viswa had been missing for a month.

They searched everywhere—friends, relatives, the priest, the schoolteacher—yet no one knew where Viswa had gone.

Time passed, and months turned into years. Bala was now eighteen.

Villagers often asked her about her husband, Viswa. Answering them was painful. She frequently heard comments and taunts. People would say, “Here goes the widow—her husband is dead, but she pretends to be a Sumangali.” These remarks tormented Bala.

One day, the village priest visited Bala’s mother and advised her not to allow Bala into the village temple. Villagers were objecting because a widow was not permitted to enter the temple; they claimed it would disturb its sanctity.

Bala overheard the conversation. The constant humiliation from villagers, added to the priest’s insult, was too much for her. She rushed out in anger, insisting that her husband was not dead and that she would not rest until she found him. She packed her bag, took her jewellery, and left home in a rage, saying she would return only with her husband.

Bala’s mother tried to stop her, but could not. Bala had gone.

She joined a group of pilgrims and asked for directions to “Pandaripura,” the only word she remembered Viswa mentioning before vanishing behind the wall eleven years earlier.

After much struggle and hardship, she reached Poona in about a year. She survived on food given at temples or by doing odd jobs in households.

She continued searching for her husband, whom she had last seen twelve years ago.

After several years of an unsuccessful search in and around Poona, one day, while she sat depressed outside a temple, an old woman noticed her. The woman asked who she was, where she had come from, and why she was there.

Bala did not understand the old woman’s language. Instead, she broke down and wept, explaining in Tamil that she had been searching for her husband for years. She had suffered a great deal during her journey. The old woman, unable to understand Tamil, still recognized Bala’s distress.

A crowd gathered. Someone in the crowd recognized Bala’s language and shouted “Madraasi!” He said he knew a man familiar with that language who had come to Poona many years earlier. The old woman brought Bala to this man so he could help her.

Bala was taken to the gate of a large building. She sat at the arch-shaped entrance, unsure of what to do. In the evening, she saw a man with a thick moustache reaching his earlobes, riding a horse and entering the building. He barely noticed Bala.

The next morning, the same man rode out again, giving her only a brief glance. That evening, the same routine occurred. Eventually, he sent servants to remove Bala from the gate where she had been sitting for two days.

Bala refused to move without meeting the man. When they tried to force her away, she became fierce, and the servants left her alone. At this point, the moustached man came out and ordered the servants to go away. The old woman’s name was Surma. She spoke to Bala in broken Tamil. Bala told her she wanted shelter and work, as she was poor, distressed, and had lost her way on pilgrimage.

Bala was shrewd enough not to reveal the real reason for her journey.

Surma, who was kind-hearted, kept Bala in her home. Bala helped by cooking and managing household tasks.

Days and months passed. Bala still could not confirm whether the moustached man was her husband. He bore no resemblance to the ten-year-old boy she had seen thirteen years earlier, peeping over the wall.

One day, when the man returned home after bathing in a temple pond, his moustache was down, and Bala could see the black patch beneath his earlobe. Now it was certain—this man was her husband, Viswa.

A few days later, when Surma and other women went to attend a bhajan in the city temple, Bala seized the opportunity to confront Viswa. She entered his room while he was reading.

She reminded him of everything: their marriage, their village, his visits to her house in Tamil Nadu, their conversations over the wall, and finally the black patch below his ear.

At first, the moustached man tried to dismiss her, pretending not to remember. But after continuous pleading from Bala, he relented. Viswa, now a wealthy and respected man, became anxious. He confessed that he had married Surma and could not leave her.

Viswa had taken over the business of precious stones and gems from Surma’s father. He was well established and even consulted by the Maratha king. The old prediction about the lucky black patch had nearly come true.

The following months were filled with worry and gloom for Viswa, who was torn between two wives—one who had come to claim him after many years, and the other who knew nothing about his past.

Viswa’s health began to decline due to stress and despair.

Bala formulated a plan. She persuaded Surma to undertake a journey with her husband to a temple in South India. Bala said that prayers and offerings at the Gunasekaran Temple would cure Viswa. Naturally, Bala wanted to accompany them.

So all three began their journey to the Gunasekaran Temple in Tamil Nadu. It was a journey of more than a thousand kilometres, made with a troop of servants, sepoys, cooks, and attendants. The men travelled on horseback, and the women were carried in palanquins.

After almost a year, they reached a city—today’s Bengaluru.

The next part of the story is left to the reader's imagination, how he/she wants the story to progress, how the three characters of story will reconcile or fight it out. What fate has in store for Bala, Surma and Viswa. And remember the period is around 1857.

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