Accountant Sitarama Rao

The fact was he had fallen in love with Indira, a girl studying in Gurukul? No way but to marry her. She wouldn’t let him touch her until they marry. Moreover, her father was a police official.

And Sitarama Rao thought the evil in marriage wouldn’t taint him if he gain complete freedom to his wife and took care not to have children.

“Her life is hers, mine is mine, and in between bouts of pleasure…” he told himself.

But nothing went the way he had hoped. Within a year nappies becomes scares. His wife scarred picking particles of earth in rice. A girl was born to him. What he suffered on that day is known only to God above end the Earth below.

As his wife was in labour, he cursed himself and cried, “I am responsible for all her suffering; I am a devil, sinner!” The killer-machine was taking control of him, he realised, but what was the use? Two kids and three miscarriages in five years.

He became a puppet in life’s hands. Things turned out to be totally different. He could not avoid taking up a job.
His father-in-law found him a clerk job in a big firm, and urged the Manger, “My son-in-law …rather peculiar. Please keep an eye on him.”

He told Sitarama Rao, “Atleast from now on be careful. Vist the Manager’s house once in a while. It is always good to call on one’s boss.”

Sitarama Rao ashamed to have to seek his father-in-law’s help to support himself. How small he must seem in his father-in-law’s eyes eyes! What would his wife think about him?

Friends started teasing and laughing at him. One or two even asked him, "Is this the new meaning you were to give to marriage?” Some others said, “You’ve kept your word… You haven’t become a slave to marriage. You have become a slave to your father-in-law.”

He was angry with his father-in-law, and was obsessed with him. If his father-in-had not been there, his daughter would not have come into being. And if his daughter had not been there, Sirarama Rao would not be married. If he had not been married, he would not have had all these troubles.

For a moment, the world seemed to be full of fathers-in-law. Unseen, they were running this world. He could not carry on with his job.

One day, instead of writing accounts in the accounts book, he drew this figure in the margin-

The Manager discovered it and flew into a rage. “What’s this?” he demanded.

“Father-in-law,” Sitarama Rao grinned.

“Whose father-in-law?”

“Does your father-in-law also look like this? Hee, hee, hee... Not any particular father-in-law. Everybody’s father-in-law. Father-in-law who gives his daughter in marriage. Look, his head is big…eyes small…hands thin…nose is large…hee, hee, hee ...” Sitarama Rao said, pointing out the caricature to the Manager.

He lost his job that very day. The Manager had already been annoyed with him: his daughter had to go to the station to catch a train and he had asked Sitarama Rao to fetch a jutka for her. Sitarama Rao had countered, “Me? Fetch a jutka? And that too, for your daughter?”

The Manager had not forgotten this and dismissed Sitarama Rao forthwith. When he came to know that he had been dismissed, Sitarama Rao went to the Manager. The Manager was stiff imagining that Sitarama Rao had come to beg for his job.

“Where’s my Father-in-law’s picture?”

“Why?”

“I’ll put in the whiskers, police whiskers ...” Sitarama Rao started clapping and jumping about.

The Manager did not know what to do, and looked nonplussed.

“Did your daughter get a jutka?”
“…”

As the Manager kept staring, Sitarama Rao got more excited.

“Send your daughter to your son-in-law. The son-in-law will make your daughter pregnant and send her back to you. After that baby is born you send her back to your son-in-law. He will make her pregnant again and send her to you.

And again after the delivery you send her back to him. He will send her to you, you send her to him, and he will send her to you ... Isn’t this what you do?” He put a finger on his nose, roared with laughter and left.

If anyone asked him how he had lost his job, he replied,“My father-in-law had me dismissed.”

He did not try for a job again. He was angry not only with his father-in-law, but with the whole world. People he had earlier helped already stopped coming to him or even greeting him.

And they had started railing at him for not organising the temple celebrations, for not making arrangements for free meals in the choultry. “As long as he had, he spent left and right.

Now he suffers,” they jeered. “Of course, he spent. Spent for whom? For us? He spent for his own glory, for praise from all!”

From the English translation ‘The Bungler’