Ubhaya SankaTa

Many people have helped in writing. Especially when I started writing short stories, these people have practically supplied the whole story! Sometimes a theme. That was generally enough for me to weave a story!

Earlier I was thinking that short story is difficult to write and novel is easy!

So, I did not try to write short stories (in the real sense). I was writing what is known as mini stories which will have a surprising ending, typically O. Henry-ish!

The first inspiration is Mrs. Lakshmi, my younger sister’s mother in law. She was a Carnatic classical singer as well as a story writer in Tamil.

I can read Tamil. May be I won’t be able to understand some of the verbs.

Her daughter, Ms. Bhanumati  narrated a story one day. I believe Mrs. Lakshmi wanted to write that, but did not.

She told the story in a funny style.  After some days, I gave the story my own style. The story is quite different. The old man, who keeps on calling his wife for everything and the wife comes running to him. Alas, one day she passes away. The old man is too lonely. He comes to stay in his son’s house. The son has two small kids and a nice wife. Now the target of the old man is the daughter in law. She has to run to him at his beck and call. She gets tired of this. The old man is good. But his calls leave her practically at loss. She tells her hubby that though she likes his father, her time is being unnecessarily being wasted.

At that time, the son’s friend’s father comes to stay with them. This other old man is so talkative and boring that the earlier old man forgets his talkativeness. He even offers help to his daughter in law in taking kids to school etc.,

The first old man gets tired of the second old man’s nonstop talks and one day he is feeling so low that he tries to tell his son about that, but could not bring himself to that.

After a few days the second old man goes off and the first old man heaves a sigh of relief. There is a twist here.

The second old man is a drama actor hired by the son to make his father feel that there are other things in life to enjoy. He takes this step and ensures that both his father and his wife do not know the truth, as he loves them both!

The story was published in a famous monthly  Mayura. It was in 1993 I think. In 1997, I shifted my house to Jayanagar from  West of Chord Road.  A TV producer came in search of me via the magazine, my old house! He did a 2 episode telefilm based on my story.  The same was aired in DD 9 of those days!

The story is called Ubhaya SankaTa.

In fact, I translated one of Mrs. Lakshmi’s stories called ‘Two letters’ – a very poignant family story. Let me tell you about that some other time!