Free Tell A Thousand Lies by Rasana Atreya Page B

kurta and a stiffly starched pancha ; now, both these articles of clothing looked like they’d lost a bout with the frisky goat by the tea shack.
    A tallish young man, dressed in citified clothes of pants and shirt, followed him in.
    Lata bobbed her head from Headmaster garu to Ammamma, and back again.
    “Please,” Headmaster garu said, palms of his hands joined together. “I feel terrible for the trouble Pullamma is in. I am only trying to help.”
    “What trouble?” I said.
    No one paid attention to me.
    “God save me from the likes of you.” I could tell Ammamma’s heart wasn’t in the scolding. She raised her joined palms above her head. “Leave us alone to our misery. I don’t know why the Yedukondalavadu is testing us so.”
    For Ammamma, every setback in life was a test set by the Yedukondalavadu , that God residing on the Seven Hills of Tirupati .
    “Give me five minutes,” Headmaster garu begged. Pushing aside the rickety chair, he sank onto the straw mat on the floor. “Five minutes. That’s all I ask.” He leaned against the leg of the chair, and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palms.
    “Why should I?”
    “Remember Renuka ?”
    “I remember my husband and son-in-law, too, those non-men. What of it?”
    I shuddered and closed my eyes, trying not to think of Renuka pinni , not succeeding. Three or four years ago I’d watched Renuka pinni , childhood friend of my mother’s, run through the streets of our village – clothes torn, body full of welts – sobbing in terror as a frenzied mob pursued her. She fell at our doorstep, bleeding profusely, begging for shelter.
    Ammamma closed the gate on her, and leaned against it, tears rolling down her cheeks.
    “Why didn’t you help her?” Malli cried, as Lata and I cowered behind our older sister.
    Years later, Ammamma’s reply still had the power to haunt.
    “She went beyond our help when she became a witch,” she said of the loving woman who’d helped keep our mother’s memory alive.
    An hour later Renuka pinni was dead – stoned by the hysterical mob. Ammamma’s intervention might not have made any difference, but at least Pinni would have known we cared.
    Now Headmaster garu said, “Kondal Rao was behind that incident.”
    What was wrong with Headmaster garu ?
    Ammamma snorted.
    “It is true,” he insisted. “He planted the dead chicken, and the heap of kumkum at Renuka’s doorstep.”
    I was shocked. In my mind the red kumkum powder belonged on the foreheads of married women. To think this, combined with dead chicken, was a sign of witches...
    “But Shankar said his wife was behaving abnormally due to Renuka’s sorcery.”
    “And I’ll say the angle of your nose is causing my granddaughter to come only second in class, instead of her normal first.”
    Ammamma made a face.
    “Easy to blame Shankar’s wife’s running away on Renuka . But the fact is she ran away because of brutal beatings by her husband.”
    “But the villagers proved Renuka was a witch, didn’t they? When they demanded that she put her hand over fire as a test of purity?”
    “Which person do you know whose hand won’t burn when put on fire, hanh ?” He shook his head in despair. “That girl grew up with your daughters. How could you not believe in her innocence?”
    “What can I do if the devil possesses someone’s soul?”
    “Like it has possessed Pullamma’s?” he said softly.
    Oh no! I was possessed by the devil? I wasn’t a Goddess, after all? My heart started to thump. Ammamma had a scared look on her face for the briefest instant. Then she squared her shoulders, as if gearing for battle.
    Headmaster garu paused for a second before adding, “That’s what the villagers are beginning to say, you know. The ones who’re not convinced she’s a Goddess, that is.”
    “They don’t know what they’re talking about.” Ammamma dismissed an entire village with the toss of her head. “You haven’t said what this has got to do with my