Flower Show

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Pati, Patni Aur Woh - Dancing in Tandem

The case of Raja, Radha and Kaushalya Reddy is a perfect one of a neatly resolved love triangle where the Woh became Patni No. 2, to the acceptance and satisfaction of all the three.

Raja married his first cousin Radha in 1959 when he was 11 and she, 5. They belonged to a small village in Andhra Pradesh. They shared not only a roof but a passion for Kuchipudi dance. They went to Hyderabad in 1965 and learnt the nuances of the dance from Guru Vedantam Prahlad Sharma. Then they moved to Delhi where Raja received training in choreography.

The village belle that she was, Radha felt homesick in the large metropolis of Delhi. To cheer her up, her 4-year old younger sister Kaushalya joined her.

In 1979, during a performance tour of South East Asia, Kaushalya was made the head of the orchestra. The adulation that Raja and Radha received stirred something in Kaushalya. She felt that a seed of love for her brother-in-law had got itself planted in her heart.

Their next tour was in Mexico. A female fan of Raja, who had gone crazy about him, invited the three to her home. She had pasted a life-size photo of Raja on the ceiling! And lo and behold, she insisted that Raja marry her!!! And wait to know what happened next.This was a catalyst and the subterranean feeling in Kaushalya's heart surged to the surface. The same night, Kaushalya, then 15, declared her desire to marry Raja. The seed had sprouted and had fully bloomed.

Radha deeply loved her sister and her sister’s happiness was her happiness. However, Radha laid down one condition: only she could play Raja’s lover on stage. This has been respected by the other two.

Raja has two daughters, Yamini and Bhavna, one each from the two sisters. And both the children have inherited the talent of their parents and taken to Kuchpudi.

Kaushalya still calls Raja as bawa (brother-in-law).

Raja says that they have their differences but when they get together to dance, everything dissolves.

(I am a great admirer of Raja, Radha and Kaushalya. The above information is sourced from a feature in a recent issue of The Times of India.)

TAIL PIECE

In Telugu community, it is common for first cousins to marry each other. Also, it is not uncommon for a young man to marry his elder sister’s daughter, when the age-difference is not much.

When I was posted in Visakhapatnam, we had a neighbour who referred to her husband as Mamu (maternal uncle). We were intrigued by this till we came to know that he was indeed her mother's brother.

POST SCRIPT 

On the 11th July, 2018, I had the good fortune of watching the couple and Yamini perform at Rabindra Mandap, Bhubaneswar,  as a part of Shrestha Bharat Samskruti Samagam, organised by central Sangeet Natak Akademi. It was a dream come true for me as I had longed to watch them perform on stage, that too, with Yamini! I was told that Raja is in his 80s but is as agile as a 25-year old!

Adding to my pleasure, there was Kaushalya in the group providing music for the dance-recitation!

The Clever Crow

Most of us would have read in our childhood, the story of the thirsty crow who saw a pot half filled with water, collected small pebbles, threw them into the pot and, when the water-level had risen sufficiently, drank it to quench its thirst and flew away merrily. This was to show that crows are intelligent and clever.

I was witness to an intelligent act of another crow. It was 2006 or 2007 when I was working at Kolkata.

It was early morning and I was on my usual walk. I saw a crow flying, with a biscuit in its beak. It sat down and tried to eat it by pecking at it. But the biscuit was relatively hard and so the crow could not break it. The crow picked the biscuit and dropped it several times, perhaps hoping that this would break it. No, it did not break and the crow must have been disappointed.

I felt sorry for it and sympathized with it. :(((((((((((

It appeared like an interesting scene and I stopped to watch.

The crow did not give up. It looked around, presumably to survey the area and find out a way to eat the biscuit.

I continued watching it more intently, wondering what the bird’s next move would be.

A few moments later, the crow picked up the biscuit and hopped to the nearby drain. It dropped the biscuit on water at the edge of the drain. It waited for a few moments more. When the biscuit had become wet and soft, the crow fished it out of the water, hopped to a dry area, put down the biscuit and started pecking at it and enjoying the delicious meal. :)))))))))))))

After it had put the last remnant of the biscuit into its stomach, like its sibling in the story, the crow flew away merrily.

I was really amazed by the show of such intelligence by this common bird. I instantly agreed with the theme of story, which till then I had considered as a mere fiction.

As the saying goes, seeing is believing.

Doesn’t the derisive word ‘bird-brained’ need a make-over?

The Flower Show 2