My mother Janaki Rani Turaga wrote a story called Agamya Gamyasthanam many many years ago. The story is born out of an idea of apprehension: the worst grief for a woman is to lose her father in childhood, husband in the prime of her life and her child in the twilight of her life. What happens if all three happen to the same woman? A woman Meenakshi is travelling by a city bus in Hyderabad, from Secunderabad station to Afzalgunj on rainy, dark evening. As the bus moves on, she recalls the various times in her life when she was hit by losses...of her father, her husband...and then her son. As memories leave her awash with tears, she stands up to get off the bus and the conductor says you have not reached your stop still. And she sits down again. What happens if all three happen to the same woman? Nothing! Nothing happens. The woman has to just wait for her stop. This is what the story ends with. Two things strike me about this story...apart from its literary quality. Agamya Gamyasthanam - The destination that really isnt. Amma was just 19 when she wrote this story. Even the legendary writer Palagummi Padmaraju had expressed astonishment that such a young girl could write such a profound story. And then, it was as though the story became her own. Her father passed away when she was just out of college. My father died when she still had the remnants of the joyous bride in her somewhere. And then the blow that felled her...losing Narender Revelli ...for all purposes her own son. Was the story a premonition? A self-prophecy?
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 08:34:28 +0000
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