Introduction: Letter to Sai
A.S. Vasantha Kumari
My dearest companion,
The second of March last year marked thirty years since we decided to share our lives together. I dont know if you remember it, but you called me from jail that very day. In that short phone call, neither was I in a position to remind you, nor were you in a condition to remember it. When it comes to the struggle for survival, reminiscing about birthdays and wedding anniversaries isnt possible. Both of us were so desperate to share so much information in those few seconds we got at the mercy of the state, but the phone call would always end abruptly before the words could come out of our lips. In these seven years, you were forbidden to read or write in Telugu, our mother tongue. You must only have imagined how much more agonising this was for me. I am not well-versed in English and can only write in this language. Even now, I doubt if this Telugu letter will reach you. I cannot believe that this letter carrying my heartfelt feelings will ever reach your hands. Even then, if only in a futile attempt to comfort myself, I write these words to you with the warmth of the language that my mother taught me as a child.
Before our marriage, we used to write numerous letters spanning multiple pages to each other. Those were the letters of love in our youth. They were filled with tons of sweetness, love and hope. Those unforgettable letters served as the friendly breeze that filled our days with untold excitement, brought irresistible laughter to our lips, courage to the mind, joy and light to our eyes. But in our chitter-chatter, I remember, we didnt just talk about our individual selves, we wanted to share this sense of joy, friendship, and companionship with others in the society. In those letters where we dreamt about an egalitarian society, where there is no discrimination between castes and religions, no inequalities between the rich and the poor, hate had no place at all.
Today, even though my heart is in disarray and my words are in shambles, I will gather all my strength to write this letter. Sai, do you remember? When we met for the first time in our tenth grade, you were having trouble solving a few questions in Maths. I was the one who taught you how to solve these problems. In turn, you used to teach me English grammar. After that, our friendship was strengthened by literature and reading books. It was very difficult for us in our adolescence to stay apart without seeing each other for even four days! And look at how things are now; we have to stay apart from each other, with countless obstacles and hundreds of miles blocking our meetings, for who knows how long. And that too is only because they arrested you in a false case on 9th May 2014, and a judgment that went against the institution of law was delivered on 7th March 2017, in the Gadchiroli Sessions Court where the Defenses arguments werent even consideredsentencing you to a life term in prison. I can see no end to this injustice.
I suddenly recall your words from a letter I received on the seventh of March last year:
Today marks the completion of four years since my sentencing. I have been stuck in this anda cell for four years!! Never imagined this would be the case. No one in our family expected this to happen. This verdict is a mockery of our judicial system. Every single day felt like it was spanning across a century.
As your health deteriorates in the jail, my head feels like its going to burst with anxiety. The occasional phone call that I would get from the lawyers would make my heart start palpitating. What are these circumstances that we are being forced to face? For how long do we have to suffer like this?
Since your childhood, you have faced many hardships in your life. The backwater village that you were born in only consisted of wide fields and less than twenty huts. The concept of a polio vaccine did not even exist and you lost your ability to walk at the tender age of five. From such a place, you still were able to get the district first position in tenth grade. This is no small achievement. In a small hut with a coconut thatched roof, you used to study under the kerosene lamp. After completing your graduation, you worked hard to earn a seat in the M.A. English literature programme in Hyderabad Central University. Until that moment you never stepped out of Amalapuram or the East Godavari district. You travelled on a train for the first time when you went to Hyderabad and did you not witness a new world in front of your eyes there? A vast university campus, a well-stocked library and countless discussions with fellow students. You were in Hyderabad and I was in Amalapuram, but despite the distance we never felt lonely because of the letters we wrote to each other.
Even though we were stuck in a small town in remote Andhra till graduation, our thoughts and feelings could escape narrow-minded confines and we could dream of lofty ideals only because of literature. We loved reading Tagore, Premchand, Periyar, Sarath, Chalam, Srisri, Koku, Kara, Ranganayakamma and works of many other authors with great dedication. After coming to Hyderabad, the working class, students and womens movements during that time played a great role in putting our ideals into practice.
People often ask me why I chose you as my life partner. My answer has always been the same. In this patriarchal society where women are constantly oppressed and treated as second-class citizens, you have always tried to go against that thinking. You defend womens rights, their freedom of expression and treat them with great respect and dignity. You recognise that women play one of the most crucial roles when it comes to social progress and the development of society and have never underestimated us. It is precisely because of this that I wished to have you as my partner and sought companionship from you, hoping it would last more than a lifetime. Many of our friends tell us that ours is an example of true and pure love. We loved each other freely, happily, and securely. At the same time, we could share intimate affection, friendship and love with many others. But now, the times are so rigid and murky that the word love has been enlisted as a crime. A section of Indian society is cruelly persecuting the act of love and separating couples based on their external convictions. Hatred with its poisonous fangs is stimulating violence everywhere.
Many people think that you have been using the wheelchair since your childhood. But that is not the case at all. Till 2008 you did not have a wheelchair and you used to move yourself only by the force of your hands, covering your palms with Hawai chappals and crawling forward. The college where you taught did have a wheelchair but our house was too narrow and small for one. People are often shocked to know that this is how you travelled throughout the country and visited many remote areas, bearing your bodys weight on your shoulders.
After the completion of your M.A. from Hyderabad University you joined CIEFL, to pursue your Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching English (PGDTE) in 1991. This was the year we started our life journey together after registering our marriage on 3rd March. We did not believe in having a grand or traditional wedding celebration and just organised a small get-together to celebrate and inform our closest friends of our marriage. Can you believe it Sai, the total cost of this event was less than 600 rupees!
