A Cataract Surgery

I happened to come across a short story collection. It is a collection of translated short stories from various Indian languages into the English. I chanced upon reading a story by a Malayalee woman writer (since i just opened the book and found myself in the page of that story). The writer is a famous one in Kerala (I realised only after having spent sometime in searching for her in various web sites). She is Lalithambigai Antharjanam, a Namboodri Brahmin, who has contributed a lot to Malayalam Literature.

The protagonist of the story is a powerful politician who holds a very high post in the government of Kerala. As the story opens, the politician is found rather busy to sacrifice even his food. It is after four o'clock in the evening and he has not had his lunch yet. He is just back from a programme and is still to undergo the same ordeal of meetings and programmes. He is very tired and indisposed. He summons his secretary to cancel the appointments that he has given already. He sips coffee and is moved by the surging crowd outside his residence. He tells his secretary to send them in one by one. Time passes by quickly and he lags behind his schedule. As he is about to get over his vis-a-vis confabulation with the members of the public, who elected him out for the Assembly, the secretary whispers in his ear that an old lady has been waiting outside since morning to see him. The politician gets wild. He berates at his secretary for some time and then consents to his request.

The secretary ushers in an old woman, who is wearing only a cloth to cover herself, that is between an overall and a mini skirt. She comes with a boy of seven. The politician is highly irritated at the sight of the woman who is almost in rags. He shouts at the woman with the words of enquiry. To his repetitive interrogation, the old lady responds and uses a term that is only familiar with the close family circle of the politician. To his shock, he recognises her to be the Namboodri woman of his own village who helped him many a time in his childhood days. In fact, she is very much responsible for his education and his being a big-shot in society now. When this man as a politician and representative of a political party is fighting those people who own much in terms of cultivable land and property, here is a woman belonging to the very race that this man opposes, has spent her entire life in helping the poor. She lost all her property and her elder son is a cripple and she does not have money to educate her grandson. The purpose of her visit is to plead to her son-like protagonist to do something for the grandson.

The politician cancels all his appointments and chooses to spend the evening with the old woman. He learns from her that she did not stop her charity even in days of penury. Her wealth dwindled but not her intentions to serve the needy. The politician feels ashamed of himself as he is fighting the very race that has made him come up in his life. It dawns on him that not every landowner and rich and upper caste is cruel.