KUTUMBA RAO
The Job
T
o
WORK
in the Saraswati Publishing Company has been
Ill)'
desire for four years. You mustn't think that
1'~11
begging for food
in the streets . I bring home a hundred and fifty rupees a month
from the bookstore, even though I regularly nod off
to
sleep there.
My
wife, children, and I eat a full meal and a snack every day so we are not
completely starving. Every day we walk to a beach that is a mile away,
and, like Zamindars, enjoy the coasta l scenery and breeze. When the
vendors shove their baskets in our faces, we look away and sometimes,
if necessary, warn our children about the vendors with a glare. When we
feel that familiar discomfort in our stomachs, we get up and leave for
home, eat a small snack, and fall as leep without disturbing the contents
of our stomachs.
You mustn't think that I'm finding fault with the bookstore job. Not
at all. It's an exce ll ent job. Besides that, it's the Patalum Branch shop.
Well-to-do people come in only once in a while. Except on the days
when school or college is open, there's not much work. Sometimes,
somebody comes to buy a book of
slokas
or prose, then leaves. After–
wards we sit and chat with each other.
Some people are crazy about going
to
see entertainment-movies,
plays, concerts from time to time, exhib ition s every so often, circuses
.... Why do we need these things? They're such a waste of money. In
the city, there's a lot of things to do without spending a penny. Go to the
park and look at the trees. Walk along the road and you see beautiful
houses with lovely gardens in front. In what movie will you see that?
You could spend months thinking about how much fun it would be
to
live in some of those houses. When I go a lon e in the evening and stand
near "Dare House," it's like watching an English movie. Buses come,
buses go, the people, the electr ic trains traveling far distances ... what
hustle and bustle. How many races of people! How many types of cloth–
ing! How many hairstyles! I'm not talking about the people who go to
the temple at Tirupati and shave their heads; I'm talking about ladies.
Have you ever seen this spectac le? A few years ago, we used to criticize
movies-that they show houses, clothes, and styles that can't be found
