A Role To Play.....
She was in her own world seated by the side of the window in a luxury bus bound for the city of Shirala. It was a night journey preferred by many busy people who want to avoid all risks during a long journey.
She had reserved her seat a week ago and was now travelling to Shirala from the capital city. In fact that was not her destination. She had to go to an interior village in the outskirts of the town.
The village was still in its early development- stage. It bore all the charm of Nature - hills, the long winding river and dense greenery in an oval enclosure.
No wonder the little place inspired several painters, musicians and such other artists. But the place was severed from the rest of the world in a strange way.
Transport and communication as ever are the fast means of integration and development.
But Neraluru , as it was called , was still a small village with lots of dreams but no development thereabout.
Nerelaru, enclosed some two hundred houses and around eight hundred resident villagers. Their main occupation was agriculture and farming.
The village had on its own adopted a kind of intelligent agriculture and co-operative farming, as result of which it had always been self - sufficient and well settled.
The deep calm river Surabhi always kept the villagers happy, healthy and smiling ; As they in turn cared for her sanity and purity and took extra care to keep her free from contamination and misuse. No one ever bathed or washed clothes and domestic animals in the flowing river or her vicinity.
Even on periodic festival days the river was always kept free from contamination.
Needless to say that this kind of scientific attitude worked like a taboo in the village routine life.
Ramana Pandit , commonly known as Pandit ji had a fairly large house built after the old country style with bricks, timber and tiles.
In the entrance to the house there was a large verandah in which sat the Pandit's innumerable visitors.
Pandit ji was popularly known for his great knowledge of traditional medicine and also his ability to cure diseases and disorders administering several herbs, roots and shoots and a kind of decoction which he himself took pains to prepare.
In fact people had come to call him the Lord of medicine and had complete faith in his words and treatment.
Pandit ji had his own method of treating those who needed his help for several corporeal ailments.
In fact his ancestors belonged to the same village and practised such a medical profession for generations.
Pandit's wife died early leaving behind a beautiful daughter ;and he never thought of remarriage, but choose to bring up his daughter in his own traditional way.
Shruthi as she was named, turned out to be brilliant and quick to learn everything to perfection.
When she passed out of the qualifying examination as a topper, the whole village pressurized the Pandit ji to send her to the reputed medical college in the capital city ,for her higher studies.
They hoped to have a brilliant prospective doctor for their village.
The reluctant father ultimately yielded to the several entreaties from both his daughter and the villagers.
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Shruthi arrived in the capital city and found it a little difficult to manage the life style in the beginning.
But soon the hostel inmates who also were girls from distant places ,made friends with her.
In the meantime Shruthi had visited her village only two times. On several occasions her father himself visited the city to meet her and know about her prospects.
In about a few months of her joining the college he had come to notice some subtle changes in her outlook and behaviour. She seemed to forget her village and her home. Even her father had come to be a distant person for her now.
This affected Pandit very much and gradually he became an introvert . On several occasions earlier he had tried to influence her to get married to some well placed and successful a person from among his distant relatives. She had firmly turned down all the proposals ; and he was disappointed on such occasions.
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During the second year of her medical pursuits she came across Vijay who projected himself as a film director, though his credentials were meagre and obscure.
It so happened that there was a public programme in the city hall.
Shruthi had gone there with her friends to watch a popular play. Somehow Vijay happened to see Shruthi. He lost no time to meet her.As some of her friends were already close to him.
Secretly he offered to take Shruthi as the heroine in his forth - coming mega - movie.
That was enough for her flight.
With other close friends she spent most of her time in the studio and forgot her main pursuit .She came to be declared as a 'drop -out '.
Months and years were spent but Shruthi never became a heroine. Her friends obscured, began to disappear one after the other.
After much begging and cringing , she was offered some minor roles which she reluctantly played. Those roles fetched her neither recognizable reputation nor financial status.
But she had decided to continue and be firm.
After a few weeks of anxious waiting and mental torture she was offered yet another role- that of a doctor coming out of the Emergency Care Unit to inform the leading lady in the scene that her father had yielded to his mortal illness and that she and her team could do nothing to save him.
Vijay the Director seemed to be unhappy about the performance of Shruthi .There were several takes for the shot. At last he shouted at her at the pitch of his voice and ordered her to get out of the place. Almost broken down and her eyes filled with tears, Shruthi left the studio never again to return .
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Nearly a decade had gone and everything seemed to have changed except the village Neraluru, it was just the same.
Children had grown older and the old ones still older who sat on the platform round the big banyan tree as usual to discuss all matters related to the village, and some times politics, religion and the like.
Pandit ji had died a few months ago and had now become a memory in the minds of the people. Sometimes they remembered him with reverence and feeling.
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Having thus been misled and disillusioned, Shruthi finally decided to return home and take her father's traditional profession. She had picked up fairly good knowledge about herbs and decoction. Her brief stay as a medico had created a certain nursing interest in her. That was how she boarded the bus and got down at Shirala.
To her surprise she found that the village was intact and people came forward to welcome her.
Her family house was now ready to receive patients and the ailing ones.
A couple of her old friends came forward to help her in her new endeavour.
The Pandit house found a new board displayed at the entrance reading " Nursing Centre ".
Shruthi who was all lost in the city ,found her reviving roots in the village; and she woke up the next day with a firm determination and some new infinite zeal as the villagers stood nearby beaming out gratitude and affection in their eyes.
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