Translation of Pattabaki

Pattabaki, a play by K Damodaran (1936)

Translation of scenes 13 and 14

Annotations

Amma- Mother

Ettan- Elder brother

Ettathi- Elder sister

Patta- Rent

Pattabaki- Rental Arrears

Scene 13

(Place: Prison. Time: Around eight in the morning. Kittuni, Mohammad and Narayanan Nambiar, a criminal prisoner, are sitting and twining coir fibres into a rope. A warden looks on as he inspects their work)

Warden (Sternly): Um, Twist faster. (Leaves)

Kittuni: I only have twelve days left to get out.

Muhammad: What do you plan to do after your release?

Kittuni: I am not sure about anything. I am wondering about what the situation at home would be right now. Amma would not have managed to pay the rental arrears! What all kinds of difficulties would they have faced because of my imprisonment!  I cannot bear to think about it.

Muhammad: The families of each and every prisoner here would be suffering like this! Several families would have perished and burnt into ashes!

Criminal Prisoner:  (with disdain) The revenge of the ruling classes! Not only the ones who have committed crimes, but women and children who have committed absolutely no crime are also harmed. They do not even have the burden of protecting the families of prisoners. My three year old child was sick with fever when I was arrested in the false case of insulting a rich man. My child died without getting any medicines.

Kittuni: Terrifying! The ruling system today is terrifying! It is difficult! It is unkind!

Criminal Prisoner: We, who work hard, starve. And they who do not work revel in comfort.

Kittuni: They seize and grab the fruit of our hard work in the name of Paatta and interest. Daylight robbery is occurring with the assistance of law. Even then, it becomes a crime if we draw a handful of grains from our own harvest. We will be caught and imprisoned. Didn’t I tell you under what helpless situation I committed the crime of stealing?

Criminal Prisoner: Yes! Hunger is a crime in today’s society. When we start organising against the ruthless attacks of capitalist masters and landlords, they take all forms of forms of bizarre actions. What kinds of nonsense and meaningless rumours do they spread around!

Kittuni: And, look at the pity of that lot for the helpless! When the owner slaps his workers, hit them with umbrellas till their head is drenched with blood and mercilessly kick them and stamp them into pulp, when they reduce our wages and starve us and make us rot in hell, those disciples of non-violence who don’t even move a finger start admonishing us for rightfully protesting for some relief from (against) starvation. When they are forced to act, these people openly help those daylight looters. They stand united to put us in prison. Wasn’t Mohammad here arrested for taking part in a strike?

Mohammad: In the pretence of maintaining peace and order, the police also assist these oppressing classes.

Kittuni: What is the solution to all of this?

Muhammad: In my opinion, there is only one solution to save ourselves from this oppression and torture. Today, all power and rights belong only to the rich. We, the workers, farmers and labourers should organise to protest and grab hold of that power and ruling state machinery.

Criminal prisoner: Is that such an easy task?

Mohammad: No, it is not easy. We should prepare ourselves to face all kinds of difficulty in order to snatch power from the hands of the capitalist ruling classes.

Criminal prisoner: Tell us what to do once we get out of prison.

Mohammad: To combat the ruthless attacks of factory owners and landlords, labour unions and farmer unions come up in every place. There should be protest demonstrations against capitalist ownership in each and every street of the city. Every corner of the village should become centres for protest against landlords and owners. The organised efforts of students, workers and the unemployed should spread like fire in every place. The oppressing classes should shudder after hearing the spirited call for revolution of the striking masses under the strong leadership of a politically and ideologically committed party. All of this is to be done first.

Kittuni: Such activities have already started by now. What is left to be done is to lead them in the right direction.

Mohammad: Always remember one thing in mind. The capitalist owners and their agents will use all possible means to crush and weaken the efforts of our organised activities. But we should be prepared to lead a liberation struggle against such forces if need comes.

Kittuni: Yes, we should move forward while fighting against all of this.

Mohammad: We won’t rest until we snatch power from the oppressing classes.

(Warden enters) Humm, sitting and professing rights! Where are the twined ropes? If this is the case, then each one of you will be put in single cells. Remember that.

Curtain

Scene 14

Place: Brothel. Time Five o’clock

Kittuni and Kunjimallu

Kittuni: Tell me, tell me the truth, how are you living here?

(Kunjimallu covers her face and weeps)

Kittuni: (more enraged) tell me the truth, how are you living here?

(Kunjimallu stands in silence)

Kittuni: So what I heard is true. My sister whose dignity I held most supreme to anything else, she herself- she herself- Chi! You are not my sister, prostitute.... I have never been insulted so badly...

Kunjimallu: Etta, I am a prostitute, I am a whore, I have sold my chastity, I have done all of this! But look at me. Even I know how to cry. Even my eyes fill with tears. Etta! ...

(Kittuni moves towards her)

Kittuni: Chi! Stay away from me. Know how to cry! Whores not only know how to smile, but also how to cry! I didn’t know that!

Kunjimallu: Etta, you can say anything. But please look at my face once.

Kittuni: I am not your brother! ....Whore who has sold herself!

Kunjimallu: Hai! I may be destined to suffer this as well. In this cruel society, where one is forced to sell her own body to feed hunger, in such a heartless society even the relation between a brother and sister does not stand. Let it be, this Kunjimallu, who has lost her mother to poverty and starvation, who has sold herself for her little brother, who is rebuked by her elder brother, this whore knows what to do next very well. But, you have to understand one thing. I did not commit this filthy act for myself.

Kittuni: (Staring directly at Kunjimallu): If not for you, then for whom?

..........

Kunjimallu: Etta, Amma did not die. That landlord, that cruel man, that beast killed her!

Kittuni: Yes, he killed her, that is what should be said. In the name of Pattabaki they threw us out of the home where we were born and raised; in the name of Pattabaki they snatched all our harvest from us; in the name of Pattabaki they left us to die without any means- it should be called a murder.

Kunjimallu: It is because of the cruelties of such landlords that people like us are forced to steal and prostitute ourselves.

Balan: Etta, look here, Ettathi stitched a shirt for me.

Kittuni: Yes, in this brutal and cruel society where several people are forced into starvation because of the ruthless attacks and oppression of landlord and their footmen, in such a society theft and prostitution are not sins! Kunjimallu, it is poverty that forces a man to steal. Poverty should end for theft and prostitution to end. And if poverty is to end, then today’s ruling classes should change.

Kunjimallu: It has to change, but how?

Kittuni: Kunjimallu, we have to avenge ourselves against such a society. We have to smash and rebuild the structures of this society.

Kunjimallu: Yes we have to take revenge! We have to smash and rebuild! But, how?

Kittuni: I will tell you how to do it. Come.

Curtain.