“Trirappa… rappa… rum

Laram… taram… taram.”

Venugopalam was combing his hair, singing each verse of his own composition at different pitches.

Suddenly, he stopped singing and dashed into the kitchen.

“Lalita!”

Lalita, who was at her puja, turned around.

“Come here, just a minute... it’s urgent.”

It took her five minutes to come.

She noticed the brightness in his eyes. She had also heard the music earlier. 

“What is it?” — she asked without opening her mouth.

“Good news, beauty! Good news! Today, your husband is receiving two hundred and forty rupees.”

“From where?”

“From their Exalted Highness the Government! After two years of delaying my increment, they have finally granted it.”

“Oh!”

“So, at this auspicious moment, I have decided to buy you something. What would you like?” Venu asked proudly, like Lord Vishnu appearing before a devotee. Opportunities to ask her like this were rare in their lives.

Lalita, like many wives, believed that life hadn’t been kind to her husband.

Now she noticed the joy in his eyes and words. Her heart filled with happiness, like a mother seeing her child play with a favourite toy.

“Yes, ask! A pair of gold bangles, a Dharmavaram silk saree, a trip to Mahabalipuram—whatever you want.”

“I don’t want anything. You yourself are my gift, when you heartily laugh without any worries.”

“Stop reading Vrata Ratnakaram.”

“I really don’t want anything.”

“That’s not right. I have decided to buy you something.”

“Then it’s up to you—bring whatever you like.”

“Look, such words annoy me. I’m asking you, as a person, what you want! How can I buy something of my choice without you telling me your likes and dislikes? Don’t you have a mind of your own? Don’t you have an opinion of your own? Aren’t you a person? What do you mean by leaving everything to me?... You are a human being, not my shadow. You better understand that,” Venugopalam said as he started hurriedly changing his clothes.

“I’m afraid, I really don’t know,” Lalita said as she began serving him food.

After finishing his meal, he left, and by nine-thirty, he was standing at the bus stand. Venugopalam was the seventy-sixth person in a queue of seventy-nine.

It was ten o’clock. Three buses came, two didn’t stop, and the queue struggled and shuffled for the one that did.

By the time the fourth bus came and half the crowd had thinned out, it was ten past ten. Venu’s office started at a quarter past ten.

After reaching the office, he should collect his cheque and send it to the bank. It was Saturday, and the bank wouldn’t give out money after twelve. Missing the money today would be disastrous. Venugopalam fidgeted like a man standing on hot coals. He turned to the bald man in a suit beside him, with whom he had been discussing the Cyprus issue, and abruptly changed the subject. “Ugh! Wretched buses and wretched people. If only I had a car, I wouldn’t have to deal with this nuisance. I could get to my destination at the time I want.”

The suit-clad bald man wiped his scalp with his handkerchief and said, “Phew.”

“What do you mean?” Venu’s eyes asked, aware that he had no money to hail the empty taxi passing by.

The s.c.b.m., oblivious to the taxi, continued, “Oh no, having a car is no use! Look at me. I have two cars. But what good are they? One is taken by my wife. The other, which is mine, my son drove into a lorry. So here I am, struggling in the queue. I can tell you, your faith in cars is a mere illusion. You think having a car means you can travel happily, comfortably and cheerfully, but that’s a huge misconception. If you have a car, so will all the other bothersome people. Then you need roads to drive on—roads filled with countless cars, trucks, buses, bicycles, pedestrians—and don’t forget the red lights. So, even with a car, you can’t escape this crowd and chaos,” he explained in great detail.

Yes, that seems true, Venu thought, and nodded his head. But deep inside, he felt as if there was a lump of clay.

Just then, something surprising happened.

An empty bus arrived and began swallowing up the queue.

*       *          *

In the office, the ceiling fan was whirring.

Venu, seated by the window, didn’t need the fan, but its draft still reached his desk, ruffling his papers. With the pleasant air blowing through the window, Venu couldn’t understand why the fan needed to be turned on. Earlier, when he had mentioned this, Gurnadam and Velumani had almost picked a fight. “We’re soaked in sweat. This is an office fan. Who are you to say we should turn it off? If you don’t need it, go sit on the veranda,” they had said.

Why don’t people recognize the other person as a human being?

The clock struck half-past eleven. It had been half an hour since he sent the peon, Razak, to the bank. He might return in another hour with his money.

“Mr. Venugopal!”

On hearing the steno’s voice, the man with that name sprang up in alarm. Being called by the steno meant that the big lord was summoning him.

Venugopalam went into the lord’s room and stood across from the vast, bed-size desk, close to the wall, with a mixture of fear and reverence. The table’s surface, which seemed like a reflection of another world, held an ivory telephone, two Parker pens on a glass plate, colored pencils, a small notebook of white papers, four exquisite paperweights, two trays, and an ashtray. The officer, who understood without appearing to notice that Venu had entered, was looking at the file in front of him, smoking his pipe, occasionally closing and opening his eyes while exhaling smoke. Venugopalam wondered if, in the officer’s eyes, he was a person or just another object in the room.

That doubt didn’t last long.

“Look here! What are you?”

It felt like being trampled by iron boots while he lay helplessly on the ground.

The voice spoke again.—“You are a clerk...”

You are a tiny cog in a large machine.

You are a tender leaf in a vast forest.

You are a comma in literature.

You are a drop of water in the great ocean.

You are a number in ten thousand lakh crores.

—“You are a clerk, not a director... and there is little chance you will ever become one.”

Laughter.

Laughter like the fangs of a demon, like the poisonous thorn in one’s heart, like zero-degree cold wind on a naked body.

“So, if you flag that rule and place the paper there, I can make a decision.”

Venugopalam, now understanding the essence of the matter, said, “There is a rule, sir, that generally grants permission to those who want to study in evening colleges. So, we’ve been granting it accordingly. I put the draft in to avoid sending the file around twice.”

“That’s exactly what you shouldn’t do. What if I decide not to grant this fellow permission?” The director leaned back, as if he had created a monumental problem, and glanced momentarily at the young man who was among those who pushed pens in his office. He scribbled something on the file, tossed it to the ground, took a deep drag from his pipe, and looked up. Realising that he was no longer visible to the officer, Venugopalam left the room.

His mind was in turmoil. Someone inside was asking him various questions, but he didn’t know what to say. He slumped in his chair, staring vacantly. The lump of clay stirred sluggishly.

At that moment, the North Star appeared in the form of Razak.

The voices within Venugopalam’s inner self seemed to have died down.

“Here you go, sir—all new notes!” Razak said, handing over two hundred and forty rupees.

“Keep this,” Venugopalam said, taking two hundred and thirty-nine rupees.

The notes went into his pocket.

A new strength, like a calcium gluconate injection, spread through him.

His spirit felt like that of the Director General’s mother’s husband.

Half an hour later, it was one o’clock. But Venugopalam couldn’t leave the office immediately. It was two by the time he finished his work in an orderly manner and stepped out. His friends, Gurnadam and two others, caught the scent of his money and began chanting slogans about a movie and tea party.

All right, they watched the matinée. It was six o’clock. Another three rupees were spent at the hotel. With that, the three friends took their leave, feeling as though the aim of their life had been fulfilled.

Venugopalam was left alone.

He felt pity for the crowd pushing and shoving around him. They appeared like mere legs without faces. What sort of crowd was this, and where were they rushing to—poor souls. They probably never thought about stopping to think, watching a film, or buying something for their loved ones—pity, indeed!

As Venu walked slowly, he suddenly realised that one of his chappals wasn’t cooperating with the corresponding foot. Upon inspection, he found that the right chappal had given way at a crucial spot. At another time, he might have been angry with the chappal—as angry as he had been with the director earlier that afternoon. But now, in this unusual state, he was in a position to discard the old chappals and buy new ones. This made him feel pity for the chappals. “My dear chappals! You have served me admirably for two and a half years. You endured my constant trampling. Perhaps once or twice you asked for some mending. After that, you behaved like good boys. But now, you must forgive me—we must part ways,” he thought.

Venugopalam stepped into the world of the fortunate, who, in the spacious hall, amidst walls of shoes, under blue lights, sat comfortably in fine chairs, looking through narrowed eyes at the salesmen trying new footwear on them.

After ten minutes, a shop assistant approached him. “Boots or sandals?” he asked.

“Chappals,” Venugopalam replied, asserting that he was a man and that he had his preference.

The shop assistant brought a pair of black chappals. They fit Venu’s feet, but he said, “I want something like this in brown.”

The assistant retrieved a box, which resembled a brick, from the wall of shoes. He fitted the chappals to Venu’s feet.

Venu stood up, took a few steps back and forth in the new chappals, but they didn’t feel right.

Feeling that his foot was slightly touching the ground, he bent down to check. Indeed, the chappals were an inch too short.

“No, these don’t fit.”

“This is size six, your size, sir.”

“Let’s try the next size up. Bring it over!”

“That might be too big, sir.”

“What’s your problem? My foot size is determined by my foot, not by the number on your box!”

The assistant went and returned with another pair.

The next size was too large, which annoyed Venu slightly.

“The first black ones were good, sir,” the assistant suggested.

“I don’t like black.”

“All right, please wait.” The assistant fetched another pair of brown chappals. 

The chappals fit Venu perfectly.

Thank goodness, thought the assistant.

But Venu said, “Oh no, I can’t stand these buckles and laces... this design is awful.”

The assistant’s patience was wearing thin. “What can we do, sir? Our shop has two hundred branches across the country. Our company sells fifty crore pairs of shoes every year. Given that, we can’t have fifty crore designs. We offer a few designs and colours, and you have to choose from them. If you want something that matches your taste, it’s difficult, sir,” he said.

It was an old ploy, repeated many times. Inside, gosh, it seemed that the lump of clay was beginning to take a shape... Venu stepped onto the road, still wearing his old chappals. He turned into an alley.

A poster reading “Hair oil used by lakhs” smiled at him from the wall.

Venugopalam walked as if someone was chasing him.

As soon as he realised he was walking like that, he stopped abruptly. He smiled and took a few slow steps.

“Sir! Give me your chappal—I’ll fix it.”

Who was this person who had not only noticed him but also understood the condition of his chappal and recognized his need? The moment he thought about it, he saw a cobbler sitting by the side.

Venu stopped, approached the cobbler, and took off his right chappal. The cobbler examined it and began stitching. As he stitched, he said, “Sir, this chappal is quite worn out. You should get a new pair made.”

“How much would new ones cost?”

The cobbler’s hope was kindled.

“I’ll use good quality leather and stitch them securely. They should last you two years, no matter how much you walk. Yes, for sure! It’ll be six rupees.”

“I want them in brown.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Listen, there should be a strap near the toes, and another wider strap a bit further back.”

“Okay, just as you say.”

“There should be a ring for the big toe, okay? And there should be no buckles or designs. They should be very simple.”

“All right lord, I’ll make them exactly as you describe. Check them after I’ve stitched them. If any changes are needed, I’ll make them. Pay me only when you’re fully satisfied,” said the cobbler, who had earned only a rupee and a couple of annas since morning that day.

Venugopalam felt as if he had entered a new world.

“Exactly as you describe.”

“Only when you’re fully satisfied.”

Ah! Wonderful!

And not…

—“Fifty crore pairs.”

— You have to choose one from them.” Yes, that was it… That lump of clay had not only come to life but had taken on the form of a demon. He was laughing, claiming to be civilization.

He was devouring a vast, solemn, full-bodied person. Good heavens!

“Sir, here’s the old chappal! Now, place your foot on this piece of cardboard, and I’ll take the measurement.”

Like Vamana on Bali’s head, Venugopalam placed his right foot on the cardboard. Somewhere within him, a small lamp seemed to be lit. “I must quickly go home and bring Lalita—I must buy her something she likes,” he thought.

The light grew larger and larger, dispelling the darkness.

The toothless demon, poor thing, stood with its head bowed.

“The new pair of chappals will be ready by this time tomorrow,” said the cobbler.

Placing his feet in his old chappals, Venu walked briskly. He emerged from the alley and walked onto the main road.

As he walked, he thought, “Hey! These old chappals are still fine. Even when the new ones are delivered tomorrow, there is no need to throw these away.”

Masses and a Man (titled ‘Mandee-Marokkadoo’ in Telugu) by Vakati Panduranga Rao was first published in Andhra Sachitra Vara Patrika (01-01-1965) and later included in the collection of short stories Aparajita in April 1968.

Translated into English by Rajeshwar Mittapalli.

Vakati Panduranga Rao (1934-1999) was a renowned Telugu short story writer and journalist. He gained popularity as the editor of Andhra Prabha weekly, where his editorials, written under the pseudonym ‘Mitra Vakyam,’ were widely acclaimed. Born in Madras, he worked with prominent publications such as Andhra Jyothi, Newstime, and AP Times, and also served as a lecturer in journalism at Potti Sriramulu Telugu University. His notable works include Mitravakyam, Diksuchi, and Cheta Venna Mudda. His short stories, which appeared in various periodicals, were collected in four books including Panduranga Rao Kathalu, Dvadasi, and Aparajita. Rao received prestigious honours, such as the Andhra Sahitya Akademi Award and the Telugu University Award, for his contributions to Telugu literature.