O God! Give me a Loaf of Bread

(Short story)

Dr. R. BHARADWAJA

(Translated from Telugu by Dr. V. V. L. Narasimha Rao)

India became independent, three years after Anjamma was born. The country’s independence and Anjamma’s birth are to some extent inter-related.

Anjamma was the daughter of Narasa Reddy. In those days, Reddy was not considered to be a freedom-fighter of repute. In fact, it was great on his part if he wore Khadi in an environment he was moving in. It was still greater if he compelled his neighbours to wear Khadi. It was still further great if be participated in meetings and delivered lectures, defying the police. All these are great from our point of view; but they were all crimes from the point of view of the then Government. Shouldn’t a criminal receive the punishment? Reddy also received it.

Narasa Reddy and Raja Bahadur Pingali Venkatrama Reddy have very distant relationship. Relatives of the former met the latter and had negotiations with him. Venkatrama Reddy would neither deny his relationship with Narasa Reddy nor could he forget his own troubles involved in it. Left to ourselves, we do not know what Venkatrama Reddy did. But it is a fact that the Nizam Police instantaneously released Narasa Reddy.

In the year 1944 the Hyderabad State politics were in great confusion. Freedom-fighters like Burgula Ramakrishna Rao, Madapati Hanumanta Rao, Mandumula Narasinga Rao, K. V. Ranga Reddy, Ravi Narayana Reddy and Maqdoom Mohiddin were fighting with the Government directly and when direct fight was not possible, they were fighting indirectly. The political affairs were going on in the disguise of Library Movement and Andhra Maha Sabha. Exactly at that time, Anjamma was born.

Had Narasa Reddy been still alive, it is doubtful whether at would certainly become a minister. But there must have been ample opportunities for him to make money with both the hands. Yet people who intimately know him say that Reddy lacked certain qualities of minting money that way. Even in those days he spent quite a good lot of his own property for the common good of the people. But those who participated in the freedom fight along with him, have now happily settled in life, either by securing a high place or by receiving valuable presentations or by collecting party funds immediately after they assumed charge of their so-called job. They did all the necessary good to themselves and to their kith and kin. But it is a great blunder to think that Narasa Reddy would have done all these nasty things if he were still alive.

When the fight between the freedom-fighters and the razakars was taking a very serious turn in the Nizam State, Kasim Razvi entered the scene. Throughout the state the razakars rose up and rushed in, like heaps of termites. The freedom-fighters and the razakars had direct fight with one another. During the fights Narasa Reddy was killed and Anjamma was just four years old then.

Ellamma, the widow of late Narasa Reddy, was somehow maintaining her family with the meagre income on the little remainder of the land that came to her lot, after everything was lost.

In addition to Anjamma, Ellamma had three more children. Owing to political enmity, Reddy’s rivals put his widow to all sorts of troubles.

In those days, cultivable lands might probably have neither pattas, nor documents, nor registrations. If at all there were, Ellamma might have been ignorant of all these litigations. The sum and substance of this was that the little land under the widow’s cultivation was a land which Narasa Reddy sold out long long ago. Ellamma cried and howled that it was unjust. But it was beyond her capacity to prove that what was unjust was evidently unjust. The result was, that Ellamma’s family was dragged on to the pavements.

While narrating the story, Anjamma doubtfully put a question to me, “My good son, it will take years and years if I am to relate the rest of the story. You may listen to it leisurely ...Well, ... my son, may I know why you are so curious about knowing all this?”

Having come to know of the reason for my curiosity, Anjamma shed tears. “All these days, there were none who came to me and asked for these details” she continued.

Anjamma was married. Her husband, Venku Reddy, was a worker in the Commission-agents’ shops near Mo-Azam Jahi fmit market of Hyderabad. His duty was to unload the goods from the lorries and verify the items. He was regularly attending to all his duties. For a period of seven or eight years it went on very well for the maintenance of the family. One day a drunken lorry-driver recklessly drove the vehicle when Venku Reddy was run over and crushed under its wheels. On his way to Government hospital, he breathed his last.

“God took away my husband, leaving three sons behind. My brothers’ earnings were just hand-to-mouth. What could I do, my son? I wanted to die; but couldn’t do so as I couldn’t leave the kids.” Anjamma wailed bitterly.

Philanthropic people raised contributions and gave her a four-wheeled cycle-cart which she showed to me. She was selling onions, tamarind, chillis and vegetables kept on the movable cart. She said there was no fixed income in that line. And further more, credit sale was inevitable. If she tried to collect money from the debtors, they would either misappropriate or embezzle or at least pick up quarrel with her. She found it impossible to deal with them and finally gave it up.

Anjamma was unfortunate. Troubles and difficulties again clustered around her. Her children, unable to withstand hunger, became addicts to stealing and pilfering. Exactly at that time, she could find a new livelihood which she is still continuing. In the beginning, there were not even a handful of people who used to get their midday meal-carriers through her.

“Now I could get up to twenty-two people. My two elderly sons go about the houses to fetch the bags and tiffin vessels. I myself collect a few from the houses on my way. If the meal-carriers are not delivered in time, hungry sires get angry. Pretending to be hurrying up in getting the carriers ready, the housewives at their residence will be delaying. Be in rain or flood, sun or severe cold I never shirk from my duty. To be on the safe side, I got my eldest son also trained in this line. Remuneration depends on the distance, my son. It ranges from Rs. 5 to Rs. 10. After the sires eat and go, I collect the food-remnants in a piece of cloth and feed my beloved sons.”

“This small rented house ... Rupees thirty per month! I regularly pay. No education, nothing of that sort to my children. My son, come leisurely, after some time. I shall tell you all in detail.” Anjamma pushed forward, inadvertently, her cartload of meal-carriers.

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