Onto the Stage: Slighted Souls and Other Stage and Radio Plays
By BS Murthy
()
About this ebook
A compendium of the author’s Indian stage and radio plays:
"Slighted Souls" is a poignant love story set in rural Telangana, beset with feudal exploitation of the downtrodden dalits. Besides forcing the dalits to toil in the fields as bonded labor without impunity, the land owning doras had no qualms in reducing the womenfolk of this ilk as sex slaves in the gadis.
"Men at work on Women at work" is a tragic-comic episode depicting the fallout of sexual harassment at the workplace in the Indian urban setting with its traditional cultural underpinnings.
"Castle of Despair", built on the slippery ground of man's innate urge for one-upmanship, portrays its facade of falsity on the grand stage of human tragedy.
The radio play, "Love on Hold", lends voice to the felt anxieties of a man and a woman as their old flame gets rekindled and the dilemmas of possession faced by the couple in a conservative cultural background.
BS Murthy
BS Murthy is an Indian novelist, playwright, short story, non-fiction 'n articles writer, translator, a 'little' thinker and a budding philosopher in ‘Addendum to Evolution: Origins of the World by Eastern Speculative Philosophy’ that was originally published in The Examined Life On-Line Philosophy Journal, Vol. 05 Issue 18, Summer 2004.Born on 27 Aug 1948 and schooled in letter-writing, by 1983, he started articulating his managerial ideas, in thirty-odd published articles. However, in Oct 1994, he began penning Benign Flame: Saga of Love with the ‘novel art' and continued his fictional endeavors in ‘plot and character’ driven novels, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life and Crossing the Mirage: Passing through youth.Then entering the arena of non-fiction with a ‘novel’ narrative in Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife, possibly a new genre, he ventured into the zone of translations for versifying the Sanskrit epics, Vyasa’s Bhagvad-Gita (Treatise of self-help) and Valmiki’s Sundara Kãnda (Hanuman’s Odyssey) in contemporary English idiom.Later, ascending Onto the Stage with Slight Souls and other stage and radio plays, he returned to fictional form with Glaring Shadow - A stream of consciousness novel and Prey on the Prowl - A Crime Novel to finally reach the short story horizon with Stories Varied - A Book of Short Stories.Then, as a prodigal son, he returned to his mother tongue, Telugu, the Italian of the East, to craft the short story తప్పటడుగులు (Missteps) only to step into the arena of Indian English Writing with Of No Avail: Web of Wedlock.While his fiction had emanated from his conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all his body of work was borne out of his passion for writing, matched only by his love for language, which is in the public domain in umpteen ebook sites.Some of his published articles on management issues, general insurance topics, literary matters, and political affairs in The Hindu, The Economic Times, The Financial Express. The Purchase, The Insurance Times, Triveni , Boloji.com at https://independent.academia.edu/BulusuSMurthyHe, a graduate mechanical engineer from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, India, is a Hyderabad-based Insurance Surveyor and Loss Assessor since 1986.He takes keen interest in politics of the day, has an ear for Carnatic and Hindustani classical music and had been a passionate Bridge player.He's is married, to a housewife, with two sons, the elder one a PhD in Finance and the younger a Master in Engineering.-----------------------------------------My ‘Novel’ Account of Human PossibilityWhenever I look at my body of multi-genre work in English, the underlying human possibility intrigues me no end, and why not for my mother tongue Telugu, touted as the Italian of the East, has no linguistic connection with it whatsoever.To start with, I was born into a land-owning family in Kothalanka, a remote Indian village, of Andhra Pradesh to be precise that is after the British had folded their colonial tents from the sub-continent, but much before the rural education mechanism was geared up therein. It was thus the circumstances of my birth enabled me to escape from the tiresome chores of primary schooling till I had a nine-year fill of an unbridled childhood, embellished by village plays and enriched by grandma’s tales, made all the more appealing by her uncanny storytelling ability. Added to that, as my great great maternal grandfather happened to be a poet laureate at the court of a princeling of yore, maybe their genes together strived to infuse their muses in me their progeny.However, as the English plants that Lord Macaulay planted in the Hindustani soil hadn’t taken roots in the hinterland till then, it’s the native tongues that held the sway in the best part of that ancient land. No wonder then, well into my secondary schooling, leave alone constructing an English sentence, whenever I had to read one, I used to be afflicted by an unceasing stammer. Maybe, it was at the behest of the unseen hand of human possibility, or owing to his foresight, and /or both that, in time, my father had shifted our family base to the cosmopolitan town of Kakinada to admit me into Class X at the McLaren High School. And with that began my affair with the English language, facilitated by Chinnababu, my classmate, which, courtesy Abbimavayya, my maternal uncle, found fruition in the continental fiction, in translation, however to the detriment of my mechanical engineering education to the chagrin of my vexed father.Nevertheless, even as the Penguin classics imbibed in me the love for language that is besides broadening my outlook of life, my nature enabled me to explore the possibilities of youth. That’s not all, all through; it was as if destiny tended to afford my life to examine its intrigues while fiction enabled me to handle its vicissitudes with fortitude that stood me in good stead throughout. Besides, in those days of yore, as letter-writing was in vogue, I was wont to embellish my missives to friends and the loved-ones with the insights the former induced and the emotions the latter stirred in me. So to say, all those letters that my latter-day novels carry owe more to my ingrained habit than to the narrative need of my muse.Providentially, when I was thirty-three, my eyes and mind seemed to have combined to explore the effect of the led on the leader, and when the resultant ‘Organizational ethos and good Leadership’ was published in The Hindu; I experienced the inexplicable thrill of seeing one’s name in print. Enthused thus by the fortuitous development, I began to articulate my views on general, and materials management, general insurance, politics, and, not to speak of, life and literature in over a score of published articles. But fiction writing was nowhere near my pen and the thought of becoming a novelist was beyond my horizon for Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Emily Zola, Gustav Flaubert et al (I hadn’t read Marcel Proust and Robert Musil by then) were, and are, my literary deities, and how dare I, their devotee, to envision myself in the sanctum sanctorum of the novel.All the same, when I was forty-four, having been fascinated by the manuscript of a satirical novella penned by one Bhibhas Sen, an Adman, with whom I had been on the same intellectual page for the past four years then, it occurred to me, ‘when he could, I can for sure’. It was as if Sen had driven away the ghosts of those literary greats that came to shadow my muse but as life would have it, it was another matter that not wanting to foul his work, as he hadn’t obliged the willing publisher to pad it up to a ‘publishable size’, that manuscript remained in the literary limbo.So, with my muse thus unshackled, I set to work on the skeletal idea of Pardonables, the working title of Benign Flame, with the conviction that for fiction to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil, not the hotchpotch of the local and foreign caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, the then norm of the Indian Writing in English. Yet, it took me a full fortnight to make the narrative flowing with the opening – ‘That winter night in the mid-seventies, the Janata Express was racing rhythmically on its tracks towards the coast of Andhra Pradesh. As its headlight pierced the darkness of the fertile plains, the driver honked the horn as though to awake the sleepy environs to the spectacle of the speeding train.’However, from then on, it was as though a ‘novel’ chemistry had developed between my muse and the mood of its characters that shaped its fictional course, and soon I came to believe that I had something exceptional to offer to the world of letters, nay the world itself. So, not wanting to die till I gave it to it, I tended to go to lengths to preserve my life that was till I delivered it in nine months with a ‘top of the world’ feeling at that. Then, when one Spencer Critchley, an American critic, thought that – “It’s a refreshing surprise to discover that the story will not trace a fall into disaster for Roopa, given that many writers might have habitually followed that course with a wife who strays into extramarital affairs” – I felt vindicated about my unique contribution. Just the same, as there were no takers to it among the Indian publishers and the Western agents, I was left with no heart to bring my pen to any more paper (those were the pre-keyboard days) though my head was swirling with many a novel idea, triggered by my examined life lived in an eventful manner.Nevertheless, sometime later, that was after I happened to browse through a published book; I had resumed writing, owing altogether to a holistic reason: while it was the quality of Sen’s unpublished work that set me on a fictional course from which I was derailed by the publishers’ apathy, strangely, it was the paucity of any literary worth in that published book that spurred me back onto the novel track to pursue the pleasure of writing for its own sake. It’s thus; I could reach the literary stations of - Crossing the Mirage and Jewel-less Crown that was before my pen, in the wake of the hotly debated but poorly analyzed post-Godhra communal riots, took a non-fictional turn with the Puppets of Faith.Thereafter, as if wanting me to lend my literary hand to other genres, my muse heralded me into the arena of translation, ushered me onto the unknown stage, put me on a stream of consciousness, took me to crime scenes, dragged me into the by-lanes of short stories, and driven me into the novella fold. However, as a prodigal son, I took to my first steps into the Telugu short story field with my ‘Missteps’ తప్పటడుగులు.Whatever, it was Michael Hart, the founder of the Project Gutenberg, who first lent his e-hand to my books ever in search of readers. But who would have thought that life held such literary possibilities in the English language for a rustic Telugu lad reared in the rural Andhra, even in the post-colonial India? So, the possibilities of life are indeed novel and seemingly my life has crystallized itself in my body of work before death could dissipate it.My body of work of ten free eBooks, in varied genres, is in the public domain: https://g.co/kgs/iA9zkd
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Onto the Stage - BS Murthy
Onto the Stage
‘Slighted Souls’ and other stage and radio plays
BS Murthy
ISBN 81-901911-5-2
Copyright © 2014 BS Murthy
Cover with Mohan’s water color painting
F-9, Nandini Mansion, 1-10-234,
Ashok Nagar, Hyderabad – 500 020
Other books by BS Murthy -
Benign Flame – Saga of Love
Jewel-less Crown - Saga of Life
Crossing the Mirage – Passing through youth
Glaring Shadow - A stream of consciousness novel
Prey on the Prowl (A Crime Novel)
Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife
Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of self – help (A translation in verse)
Sundara Kãnda - Hanuman’s Odyssey (A translation in verse)
Stage Plays
Stages play 1- Slighted Souls
Stage play 2 - Men at work on Women at work
Stages play 3- Castle of Despair
Radio Play
Radio play 1 - A Love on Hold
Dedicated with boundless gratitude
to the peerless Chatla Sreeramulu,
the director–actor of Telugu theatre,
who had opened the wide windows to the grand stage
the sneaking view of which enabled me to shape these plays
Stage play 1
Slighted Souls
Dramatis Personae in this political stage play
On one side
Muthyal Rao, Dora of Rampur.
Papa Rao, Police Patel.
Rami Reddy, Patwari.
Papi Reddy, landlord.
Shaukar Suryam, moneylender
Veeraiah, Head Constable,
Venkataswamy, MLA,
Mallesam Goud, ex-MLA.
Narsi Reddy, son of Rami Reddy,
Henchmen, Police Constables,
Capt. Kapoor, Home Guards/Greyhounds
Of the other side on this side
Anasuya, Yadagiri’s wife,
Saailu, Anasuya’s brother,
On the other side
Yellaiah, a peasant.
Mallamma, Yellaiah’s wife.
Narsimma, Yellaiah’s son,
Sarakka, Yellaiah’s daughter,
Maisamma, Mallamma’s mother.
Yadagiri, Maisamma’s son,
Renuka, Yadagiri’s daughter,
Maisaiah, a peasant,
Lachamma, Maisaiah’s wife,
Madanna, head of a naxal dalam,
Mallanna, Madanna’s confidant,
Srisailam, Narsimma’s friend,
Nirmala, victim of Narsi Reddy,
Annalu, and onlookers,
And on neither side is Raja, the six-year old grandson of the I.G of A. P. Police.
Scene – 1
Voice Over: Under the British Raj in India, the self-indulging Nizams of Hyderabad abdicated the administration of their vast principality to doralu, the village heads, letting them turn the areas under their domain into their personal fiefdoms. While the successive Nizams were obsessed with building palaces and acquiring jewelry, the village heads succeeded in ushering in an oppressive era of tyrannical order. Acting as loose cannon from their palatial houses called gadis, the doralu succeeded in foisting an inimical feudal order upon the downtrodden dalits. Besides making these dalits toil for them as cheap labor without impunity, the doralu had no qualms in making vassals out of the hapless women folk. What with the police patels and the revenue patwaris in nexus with the landed gentry and the moneyed shaukars making a common cause with the doralu in their unabated exploitation, their sub-human condition ensured that the dalits were distressed economically, degraded socially and debased morally. Ironically, lending the privileged few the muscle power to perpetrate the inimical social order were their henchmen from the other backward classes. Moreover, given the British political pragmatism of an indifference to the Indian caste conundrum the downtrodden dalits had nowhere to run for cover.
Though the merger of their province with the Union of India brought the curtains down on the Nizams’ two-hundred year misrule, the exploitation of the rural dalits by the dora-patel-patwari nexus continued unabated. And that led to the formation of 'communes' as part of a peasant movement in July 1948 under the Telangana Struggle that didn’t take off any way. On the other hand as the seeds of egalitarianism began to take roots in the urban Indian soil, in time, these slighted souls
too began to envision the dawn of an equitable era for them. However, the nascent upward mobility of the downtrodden was at odds with the vested interests of the feudal order, and to nip the dalit moral assertiveness in the bud, the ‘axis of evil’ saw to it that such were brutalized to make an example of them.
Slighted Souls
scripts the life of the downtrodden of Rampur nearly a decade after the famous but failed peasant struggle of Telangana. Making cohorts with Muthyal Rao the dora in oppressing its dalits are Papa Rao the Police Patel, Rami Reddy the Patwari, Papi Reddy the landlord, and Shaukar Suryam the moneylender. Beginning with the life and times of Yellaiah and his wife Mallamma this play unfolds the urge of the deprived to unyoke themselves, and the desperation of the privileged to rein in them.
[Curtains up: Mallamma sits in front of her thatched hut in the dalit mohalla weaving a bamboo basket. Enter: Yellaiah, and seeing him, she goes into the hut to fetch some water for him, and he takes over the work.]
Mallamma [Back with a glass of water]: Why make a mess of it maava.
Yellaiah [Taking over the glass]: Take it I’m giving them their due.
Mallamma: I wonder how they’re harming you.
Yellaiah [Having empted the glass]: Aren’t they harsh on my darling’s delicate hands?
Mallamma [Taking back the glass]: I’m glad you’re still fond of your old woman.
Yellaiah: Who said you’re old dear. I’m ever scared that some dora or a patel might grab my Malli.
Mallamma [Taking the bamboo work]: You know it would never be the case.
Yellaiah: Well but still.
Mallamma: Leave alone the patels and the patwaris, would the dora ever forget that incident in a hurry? Besides, I’m behind the bamboo curtain, am I not?
Yellaiah: Well who can forget that potential tragedy turned farce? [He laughs heartily]. But still it hurts to let you toil day and night.
Mallamma: So be it, till our Narsimma becomes a big officer. Till then, the fact that you care keeps it going.
Yellaiah: Where is Sarakka?
Mallamma: Wonder why she hasn’t turned up yet.
Yellaiah [Making a move to get up]: Why not I better check up at her school.
Mallamma [Holding him back]: Isn’t it enough that you’ve been toiling like a mule all day long.
Yellaiah: Why their lot is any day better dear. They are well-fed by peddollu and attended by doctors. See, they’ve doctors to look after them but we’ve to put with the quacks. I hear even their lives are insured these days.
Mallamma: Well, mules have a price tag on them, but what about us. Don’t dalits come cheaper by the dozen?
[Enter: Maisaiah on his way in a hurry.]
Yellaiah: O Maisaiah, where are you running to now?
Maisaiah: Running around on Shaukar’s errands, oh, how I’ve forgot about memsaab. She said she has some work for me before he returned from Warangal.
[Exit: Maisaiah.]
Yellaiah: Why, their women too boss over our men, don’t they? How I wish our Narsimma won’t have to put up with all that.
Mallamma: Why should he as Pantulayya says he’s bright. He feels the same way about our Sarakka, and Renuka. But I think Renuka is better than both.
Yellaiah: Don’t I know you’re always partial towards your brother’s daughter.
Mallamma: It’s as if I’m a stepmother to your kids.
Yellaiah: Why get hurt dear, I was just joking. But still our kids are hot heads while she carries a clear head? If not for you, wouldn’t they have become rebels by now?
Mallamma: Whatever, once he sets his mind; Narsimma is not the one to waver. And Sarakka too is developing the same traits, isn’t she?
Yellaiah: Well, how you’ve been drumming him not to get distracted from his studies.
Mallamma: Why not? You know how we’re undone by being an anpad. I want all three of them to be well educated. I’ve been hoping that an educated Renuka makes an ideal wife for our Narsimma. But sadly vadina seems to have developed second thoughts about giving her to him.
Yellaiah: Don’t I see Anasuya is rooting for Saailu, her good for nothing brother. Well, we can only hope that your brother Yadagiri puts his foot down for once.
Mallamma: But can he do that? Anyway, there is still a long way to go. Let’s see what the future has in store for them.
Yellaiah: What a wretched life ours is Malli? We don’t even have a say in our own affairs. It’s Papi Reddy Patel who’s behind all this. And don’t I see his game plan?
Mallamma: Don’t they say woman is woman’s enemy. Let’s hope Renuka’s fate prevails over vadina’s whims.
Yellaiah: How I wish that happens.
Mallamma: I’m quite hopeful, more so as times are changing.
Yellaiah: Wish I’ve your strength of belief Malli.
Mallamma: Maava, if you want change, you’ve got to dream about it.
Yellaiah: How’re we to dream Malli, when life itself is a nightmare? Oh, how the peddollu have reduced us.
[Enter Sarakka with a slate and a few school books, and collapses in front of them.]
Yellaiah: Malli quick, fetch some water for Sarakka.
[Even as Mallamma brings in some water, Yellaiah takes Sarakka in his lap. After the mother sprinkles some water on her, the girl gets up and greedily drinks from the tumbler.]
Mallamma: What happened to you my child?
Sarakka: I felt thirsty on the way amma. But they didn’t allow me to drink from their well.
Yellaiah: They refuse water to a thirsty child! Oh, how lowly are these peddollu.
Mallamma: Well, their well is full of frogs, yet they think it gets polluted if we drink from it. What an irony?
Yellaiah: Why, being a frog in the well is better than the bane of being a dalit.
Mallamma: Oh, why did God make it so inhuman for us?
Yellaiah: And see their gall; they say its God’s own will. Isn’t it like rubbing salt on our wounds?
Mallamma: He must be a cruel God to say that. But did He say that?
Sarakka: We’re dearer to God, that’s why Gandhiji said we’re harijan. We’ve that lesson in our class.
Yellaiah: If only Gandhiji lived long enough to make it true for us.
Sarakka: Maastaaru says God helps only those who help themselves.
Mallamma: Who knows another mahatma might be waiting in the wings to pick up the threads?
Yellaiah: Having made us anguthachaps all along, mercifully, they’re letting our children study these days.
Mallamma: Well, grudgingly. Whatever, it’s going to be the turning point for us.
[Enter a tired Narsimma with his schoolbag]
Yellaiah: How our poor Narsimma has to walk all those miles. If only we’ve a high school here.
Mallamma: Why’re you so dull my boy?
Narsimma: I couldn’t go to school amma.
Yellaiah: Why what’s the matter?
Narsimma: I was crossing the gadi and the dorasani held me. As their Maali fell ill, she made me work all day in the garden.
Mallamma: Why, when it’s julum on us, the dorasanlu score no less.
Narsimma: And all the while she was yelling, Narsiga, Narsiga, Narsiga. It’s as if she can’t get my name right.
Yellaiah: Well, they think we’re not entitled to our name even.
Mallamma to Narsimma: Bear all that for now my boy. Once you’re a B.A., all will call you Narsimma.
Yellaiah to Mallamma: I’ll sell my shirt to make him a B.A., and it’s my word to you.
[There is a commotion outside, and Sarakka exits.]
Sarakka [Reenters]: Maisaiah mama is being carried on a cart. Shaukar Saab is also there.
Yellaiah: Let me find out what’s the matter.
Mallamma: I’ll also come. Lachamma might need me.
[Exit: Yellaiah and Mallamma leaving Narsimma and Sarakka. Curtains down.]
Scene – 2
[Curtains up: Maisaiah’s body ‘in drawer’ laid in front of his hut in the dalit mohalla. Lachamma, his wife wails over it. Shaukar Suryam and two of his henchmen with sticks stand aside. Enter Yellaiah and Mallamma anxiously. ]
Yellaiah: Dandaalu Shaukar Saab.
[Yellaiah goes over to Maisaiah and sees he’s dead.]
Yellaiah: Shaukar Saab, how’s that Maisaiah died in his drawer?
Shaukar Suryam: Yera Yelliga, are you questioning me?
Yellaiah: Is it possible Shaukar Saab. But what it means to die in one’s drawer?
Shaukar Suryam: Yedava Naayala stole my money. It’s only to make him open his mouth, he was stripped and beaten. But sadly for me, he died before coughing up.
Mallamma: Shaukar Saab, we’re poor but we’re no thieves.
Shaukar Suryam: That will be known now. [He turns to his henchmen.] Go in and see.
[The two go into the hut as directed.]
Mallamma: Shaukar Saab, there aren’t any attics in our huts to hide booty.
Shaukar Suryam: O, Mallamma, mind your own business or else.
Yellaiah: Don’t mind her words Shaukar Saab.
[Thrown out of the hut by the search party, some dented and unkempt aluminum vessels fall all over the place. In the end, as his henchmen appear with a cloth bundle, Shaukar Suryam is delighted, and the gathering is stunned. He eagerly unfolds the bundle and finds a plastic kiddy bank that he expectantly opens. But disappointed at finding only some small change, he throws the plastic on the floor, however, after pocketing the money. Lachamma takes the empty box, and wails inconsolably.]
Mallamma: Now what do you say Shaukar Saab? Why didn’t you make sure he really stole? Oh, how you’ve killed an innocent man.
Shaukar Suryam: I suspect he was at it all along. Naayaala might’ve hidden it somewhere.
Lachamma: Oh, he was saving for his child in my womb but couldn’t save his own life. As I’m penniless, his child would be posthumous.
Shaukar Suryam: Don’t worry Lachhi. Aren’t you good enough to find a mate in double quick time? Do you think I’ll let you down in the meantime?
[Enter Papa Rao Patel in mufti and Head Constable Veeraiah in vardi.]
Shaukar Suryam: Randi Veeraiah garu, but sorry for the bother.
Veeraiah: Isn’t it my duty Shaukar Saab.
Papa Rao to Veeraiah: Mori Saab, don’t think Shaukar Saab won’t how know risky it is for you?
Shaukar Suryam: Don’t I know Papa Rao Patel that I’ve to provide an ‘all risks cover’ for Veeraiah garu.
Veeraiah: [Goes near Maisaiah’s body.] What happened to this fellow?
Papa Rao: Poor fellow died of snake bite Mori Saab.
Shaukar Suryam: If Veeraiah garu clears the air, they can cremate the body.
Lachamma: Mori Saab, please listen to me.
Papa Rao: Didn’t you hear what Shaukar Saab has said? What is left for you to add?
Mallamma: Mori Saab, she’s his wife after all, and you’ve got to take her statement, won’t you?
Veeraiah: Keep your mouth shut or else I’ll drag you to the Police Naaka, and book you under the Brothel Act. You dirty bitch, what do you think of yourself?
Shaukar Suryam: Pardon her Veeraiah garu. After all, it hurts to lose one of their own. Now let’s go about the panchanama.
[Exit: Shaukar Suryam with his henchmen and Veeraiah.]
[Enter: Yadagiri, Mallamma’s brother. After condoling Lachamma, he whispers into Mallamma’s ear. In turn Mallamma whispers into Yellaiah’s ear.]
[Exit: All three of them. Curtains down.]
Scene – 3
[Curtains up: Maisamma on a stool besides two wooden chairs and Renuka on a mat in the hall of a kacha building in the dalit mohalla.]
Renuka: Why all this fuss naanamma?
Maisamma: Because our Renu has matured.
Renuka: So what.
Maisamma: Well, it’s the day that begins your nights.
Renuka: What do you mean by that?
[Maisamma whispers into Renuka’s ears.]
Renuka: But isn’t amma against baava.
Maisamma: Sadly she’s rooting for Saailu. Say you don’t want to wed any till you pass Matric, and we’ll see later.
Renuka: But why is naayana afraid of amma?
Maisamma: Well, how long can it be hidden from you. Your mother is hand in glove with that cruel Papi Reddy, and