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Articles: Literature | Chillara Devullu
- Dr. Rajeshwar Mittapalli
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Tayaru, you have loved me dearly. I am grateful to you for that. I can’t tell you why, but love for you doesn’t spring in me […]. I’m not concerned with your wealth. I can’t profess false love for you […]. I may not love you as a wife, but I can certainly love you in a different way. In this very village somebody has made me her brother and another her uncle. I’m making you my sister. Sister, don’t forget me.
These words move not just Tayaru to tears but even the hardened Karanam so that he is compelled to comment: “Pantulu, you are not made to live in these bad times.”
Vanaja loves Pani for different reasons. It is he who for the first time treats her as a human being, deserving dignity, and appreciates her beauty and accomplishments. She sees in him a soul-mate and immensely likes the regard he has for her in spite of her inferior status and promptly interprets it as his love for her. She hopes to free herself from the sexual slavery and socially elevate herself by getting married to him. However, half way through the novel she realizes that her love for him is destined to be a failure. Having lost her virginity long ago and having offered her body for the sexual gratification of many visitors to Reddy’s mini-castle, she thinks she has no right to be the wife of Pani. She therefore sublimates her sexual desire and turns it into sisterly love for him.
Although the situation is somewhat contrived, Pani readily accepts the changed love equation. Vanaja’s hopes are momentarily revived when Reddy, in an effort to preempt love between Pani and Manjari, proposes that Vanaja should marry him. This time she wants to marry Pani only to free herself from slavery and bondage, but would like to continue to be his sister in private. However, she soon learns about the feelings of Pani and Manjari for each other and promptly gives up the hope of marrying him. She finally finds solace in the feeling that she after all means a lot to Pani.
Manjari is introduced in person rather late in the novel. She is romantically inclined and like the heroine of a typical romance she lives in the world of dreams and faints at the slightest provocation. But her frequent fainting episodes speak volumes for her helplessness. Apart from herself she cannot admit her love for Pani to anybody. She is aware of the terrible consequences of a love affair between her and Pani, a non-native and one who does not belong to her own caste.
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