Mr. Anil Kumar and his story line

Mr. Anil Kumar KS, whom we call as Anil fondly. We shifted to Rajarajeshwarinagar in 1998, on 18^th May.

People who came for the house warming ceremony wondered where we have come and got stuck. It was the last house in Bangalore at that time!

I think, during 1999, Anil and family came to stay next door. Since we were only two families at that time, naturally, we became friends.

He is one of my avid readers and a critic too. After a few months, he started telling that he has some plots and why not I write stories based on some of his ideas.

This idea appealed to me and his ideas started flowing.

I wrote quite a good number of stories based on his narration. Though I told him that these are his stories, he used to say, ‘The idea is mine. But the way you have given it a shape is really nice’.

A woman, not very educated, promises her husband on his death bed, that she will make her son an engineer. The husband happily dies. The boy studies well. The mother provides him money for his educational needs. When he was old enough, he will ask what job she does. She is a tailor, she says.

The boy completes his engineering with flying colors. He does not find her at home. He has to deliver the news of his result to her just then. He finds her visiting card after a thorough search. He is surprised to find the card with his mother’s name and a landline number.

He will search for the address attached to the landline number using internet. He goes to that address...

The mother gets the sad news that her son is dead by suicide. The police suspect her to be the killer. The boy is killed by a knife. The finger prints on the knife are his mother’s.  But the police find that her fingers are bandaged that day due to some injury. She is let out on the benefit of doubt.

She comes home. The exhaust fan, which she had installed on the insistence of her son, is not working. The repairer comes. He finds a letter written on a thin sheet and hands it over to the mother.

She reads the letter. It is written by her son. He writes ‘Oh, mum! I can’t believe that you took so much of trouble to make me an engineer. It is almost like you stood in the hot sun and put me under your wings. You never let me know the harsh realities of life. I feel that the gift of education you have given me – I am not worthy of that. So, I am committing suicide. I cannot accept your gift’

She feels defeated. She did not have education. She was good looking. She decided to make money by being in the oldest profession in the world – prostitution.

When she finishes reading her son’s letter, she finds no interest in living any more. She collapses.

This story appeared in the magazine Mangala Weekly in Kannada. The story moved lot of people. The letters to the editor told that the writer is very cruel. Why should he kill the son? Why not make them ‘lived happily ever after’? I was stunned with the reactions the story got.

One person wrote a letter to my home, as the magazine had given my complete address. The letter abused me saying ‘How could you end the story like that? Have you undergone such a torture? You had no right to end the story like that etc.,’

I came to know that the people do react strongly to a story with a strong story line. In fact I had called the story ‘Maatru Chaaya’ meaning ‘in the shadow of mother’

I really thank Anil to have told me such a nice theme, though he says that I have totally given a new dimension to the story narrated by him in my own way.