Published on 15 July 2021
With great excitement I opened “Ayyakoneru Gattu Kathalu” the latest collection of short stories by my favourite author Sri J.P.Sarma and as I was scanning the contents, my eye was held captive by the title “Innappa Mancham”(Iron bedstead). At that moment, I recalled the Burma Bed that had been an heirloom in our home for more than two generations. The Burma Bed was made of Burma teakwood and had been bought from a Burmese expatriate by my grandfather for the princely sum of ₹ 100 in the 1940s. This bed after having served my grandparents was used by my parents and passed on to me as the eldest child. It travelled from Madhya Pradesh to Maharashtra; to and from Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh thrice before finally settling down in A.P. where it was relocated to different parts of the same city as also different rooms in some houses. I was curious to know what he could have written about a bed and whether it was as seasoned a traveller as our beloved Burma Bed. I started reading it with great interest.
Iron Bedstead
(Translation of Innappa Mancham by J.P.Sarma)
In our house, there was an iron bedstead with a fascinating history!
The legs of the cot resembled an elephant’s legs; it had four bedposts with finial knobs at the top and a six by four feet frame. On its four legs, it resembled a small temple gopuram. To sum it up one could say that it was an emperor among the royal bedsteads one would find in a palace. That bedstead reclined, like a guarding lion, just inside the entrance to our house. To this day, one conundrum is unresolved - was my mother fond of it or did she hate it!
My mother used to grumble about the bed all the time, “What a glorious past! Using the wood from the teak tree that grew in your great-great-grandfather’s garden, this bedstead was crafted under his close personal supervision. The carpenter took two months to create this masterpiece. Your forefathers had a vast estate and a huge mansion with many rooms, in Jaggapuram. This bedstead was stationed in the main hall and there was no question of moving it anywhere else. The sleeping support was made of woven jute rope; a thick quilt was placed over it with a white khadi bedspread to make a comfortable soft bed to sleep on. Once your great grandfather took over the reins, the rope of the bed was replaced and the era of Niwar Avatar began. The Niwar used to sag and break with in a month of usage. Whenever the Niwar had to be tightened, though there were ten children in the house, not one would be found to help tighten the weave. The Niwar would keep stretching and sagging until a hammock formed in the centre of the bed. Finally, when one could no longer sleep on the bed, the elders would take a big needle to stitch up the Niwar and reweave it. Your grandfather got fed up of this rigmarole and so during his regime, your grandfather changed it into an iron bedstead. When it was your father’s turn, he brought this white elephant and tied it in our house.”
As a permanent solution the Niwar was replaced by iron Niwar. Thin strips of iron were woven to resemble the Niwar weaving and the ends were hammered in permanently on the bed frame. With that the nuisance of tightening the Niwar every fifteen days and replacing it once a month was solved. On that day it was renamed as the Iron bedstead. Births and breeding considered as blessings also occurred on the bedstead for two or more generations. All this saga of the bedstead was narrated by my grandmother during her life time as a special anecdote of the day.
My grandmother reminiscing said once, “One day, when my mother-in-law suddenly fell sick, it was on this bed that she was lain. When the doctor from the town expressed that end was near, she was shifted from the bed and laid on a mat on the hard floor. My husband was very angry to see his mother lying on the floor like that and created a scene. My father-in-law was enraged and asserted that the bed was only for births and breeding and not for death. ‘If anyone dies on that bed, no one sleep peacefully on it and if the death occurs at an inauspicious time, we would have to just give away that bed. Can we make another such bed? Tell your husband that he is not the only one to love his mother. Don’t we all love her?’ he remonstrated with me”.
When my grandfather crossed his 80th year, he shifted to our house in Vizainagaram and along with him came this throne of a bed. All the household things could be accommodated in one ox cart while an extra-large bullock cart was required to transport just this one bedstead. The bedstead would fit into any of the rooms in our house. So, it’s permanent position was in the front courtyard close to the wall separating our yard from the neighbour’s yard. As soon as we entered our house from the street, it was the bed which welcomed us. During summer, three or four children would sleep on a cotton bedsheet spread over the iron woven frame. Except at noon, the sunlight did not fall on it; it was everyone’s favourite study spot on holidays.
From the time it was set there, the bedstead was never unused or vacant. It was the sofa on which visitors to our home sat and chatted; the table on which cards were played; a stage for the talent shows of children during the Sivaratri nights and when wafers were made at home, a fine cloth would be spread over it and it became a sun drying rack. The woven iron strips would heat up during summer and cause a “Ouch” reaction (literally a cat on a hot tin roof) so we used to dowse it with a bucket of cold water before spreading the bedsheet to sleep on it.
In course of time, the bedstead appeared to be exhausted as its legs slowly lost their stamina. After my grandmother’s demise, the bedstead appeared to be pining for her. My mother got a carpenter to provide supports for the shaky legs.
It was surprising that though we had lived in that rented house for twenty-five years, we did not feel like changing either house or that bedstead. My sisters got married and settled elsewhere but when they returned home, it was on this bedstead that they sat and exchanged news. As an adolescent, who had just entered the exciting college after high school, I had no time to spare for the old bedstead.
It was the day before the Bhogi festival heralding the start of Sankranti, the harvest festival in South India. This is the day on which a bonfire is lit with wood, scraps and all household articles that are no longer useful to indicate change or transformation in life. The neighbourhood was resonating with the children’s ditty commonly chanted during this time.
Burning higher Bhogi bonfire!
We need Wood, Sire for the pyre!
If you give us wood, we’ll bless you,
If you don’t, karma will get you!
“Have we not travelled into the Age of Gas stoves? Where will we get firewood and kindling?” grumbled my mother as she gave the urchins the dried coconut fronds and other dried plant materials from our courtyard.
No on slept on the bedstead because it was winter and nights were colder. Early in the morning on my way to join the festivities around the Bhogi bonfire, as I crossed the front yard I was stuck by its desolation. The bed stead was missing! I ran to the bonfire at the end of our street. The bedstead was not there! After running through two or three streets, near Prabhat Theatre, I saw the iron strips near the bonfire. People were dancing gleefully around the fire; the bedstead had already burned down to ashes.
I was overcome with a deep sorrow that rose from my innards. Helplessly I picked up a handful of the ashes, unmindful of its heat, and started homewards. I remembered my childhood, when with my gang I had thoughtlessly plundered doors, tables and chairs at midnight– at that time I too had been gleeful then but now tears flowed down from my eyes.
Ayyakoneru seemed to chuckle and murmur as it rippled tranquilly, “It was I, who taught you to develop attachment with living as well as non-living things. “
“The bedstead has gone into eternal sleep,” I said to my mother awaiting my return. As is she had anticipated this, she said, “Very true! It has attained lotus feet!” as she wiped her tears and moved into the house. "
My eyes misted over as I read the last line of the story. Luckily for me the Burma Bed in our house did not suffer this fate. When I was relocating to Delhi and my daughter said that it was too big for her flat, I had to think of what to do with it with. My friend, who offered it a home, was herself moving to the U.S and I did not want to sell it as it was like a family member. I finally gave it to my Woman Friday Sudha, who now treasures it!
End Note :
Niwar ( newar, Niwar, nivar) is a kind of coarse cotton tape useful in forming the charpai' web. The charpai frame was lined with the Niwar to weave a web on which the bedding was made. Niwar was one of the products of the handloom industry that includes many tapes and strings. These products were partly manufactured in jails of the Punjab region during the 19th century.
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