Milk (originally titled ‘Palu’ in Telugu) by B.S. Ramulu was first published in Andhrajyothy Weekly in January 1985.
Translated into English by Rajeshwar Mittapalli.

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Rain, incessant rain.

Mud. Everywhere, just mud.

Raindrops. shooting raindrops.

Damp, cold.

Cold damp.

The entire atmosphere felt like kasukku, kisukku, kisukku, kasukku, like unshakable grief, like ceaseless rain.

Layer upon layer, wave after wave, it rose and fell, cooling everything.

The roofs of the huts, swollen and sagging from the endless downpour, looked like faces that had been worn out from weeping.

It was neither darkness nor light.

After crying and crying until the heart felt lighter, there was a sense of numbness, neither sorrow nor joy, just a lifeless indifference.

Was it morning or evening? It was impossible to tell.

For three days, it had been drizzling like this.

That small world had come to a halt, except for the daily routine.

No one had gone to the fields. No one had taken the cattle to graze. No work had been done. Drizzle. Only drizzle.

Everything was green. That hut was green. Green like tear-soaked eyes. Cold like the winter. Damp and dreary.

The mist seemed to be filling the parched heart of Mother Earth with moisture.

Green, only greenery everywhere.

Wherever you looked, the earth was green.

The earth, which had given birth to nature’s greenery from its very core.

Like the body of a woman in the postnatal—raw, so green.

The hut, it was damp—of leaking rain water.

Soaked all around.

Like mental torture. Like a bloodless murder. Damp and cold.

The mind felt like it was full of mud, just mud.

In the hut, on the string cot, the clothes were piled in one corner.

Gangaposham lay shivering in another corner, wrapped in a half-soaked blanket.

In the middle, a feverish infant slept.

On the other side, their mother, Ellavva, struggled to blow on the soaked firewood in the hearth.

“I’ll make maize popcorn, but start attending school at least this year, I beg you,” pleaded the mother, Ellavva, to Gangaposham, blowing on the fire.

“Neeyavva! I won’t go,” said Gangaposham, pulling the blanket tighter and rocking himself stubbornly.

“Why not?”

“The Master will beat me.”

“If you study well, why would he beat you, child?”

“Neeyavva! When am I supposed to study? At home, there’s this work. At the Master’s place, there are the chores. At school, there’s the teachers’ work. When will I ever study?”

“What work do you do for the teachers at school?”

“They see me work at our house and at the Master’s house, don’t they? And when I go to school, they give me more such work and then shove me about. I won’t go.”

“If you study, you’ll get a good job!” she coaxed, thinking about her husband who was working somewhere far away, leaving her behind after she had recently given birth to a child. 

“I don’t want a job.”

“Then what’ll you do?”

“I’ll carry my younger brother, I’ll play with my younger brother. While you work from dawn to  dusk at the Master’s house, who’ll look after my brother?”

“My son,” she said, joyfully fondling him with both hands and kissing his forehead. She cracked her knuckles against her temples. And then—

“When you grow up, what’ll you do? What work will you find to live by?”

“I’ll work like father.”

“Your father works at the Master’s factory. I’m working here at the Master’s house. Both of us working together barely fills our stomachs. When you grow up and get married, what’ll you give your wife? What’ll you do for us?”

“Neeyavva! I won’t get married.”

“That’s my boy,” she said again, kissing him once more.

“Uff… Uff…” she puffed as she sifted the maize in the frying pot, which had a side opening.

“You should study! You need to get a good job.”

“But if I go to school, who’ll take care of my little brother?”

In the frying pot, the maize was crackling. The hotter it got, the larger the maize puffed up like flowers, and she kept blowing on the fire. Then she stopped.

“My little brother will stay with me.”

Gangaposham emptied the water from the plate filled with water that dripped from the roof and came back to sit again.

He took some of the popcorn from the pan and started chewing one piece at a time.

“You’ll be working at the Master’s house, so who’ll play with the little one?” he asked, reminding her of his absence.

“If I’m working at the Master’s house, do you stay home to play with your younger brother instead of attending school?”

“Of course! What else?”

“Son, what’s become of our lives!”

A deep sigh.

“No respite from work, no income either! How can I keep you from studying just for the sake of my work as a charwoman? I’ll manage somehow, but will you go to school at least this year?”

“Then who’ll take care of the house if you go to work?”

Another sigh. 

A glance around the hut.

Collapsing walls.

Peeling mud.

Broken walls.

Leaf roof.

A leaking hut.

Silk cotton wooden doors.

Calling it a house would be a stretch—it was better described as a pigsty.

Rats, cats, and dogs—entering and exiting at will.

Another sigh.

She at one place.

Her husband at another.

Thoughts in one place.

Bodies elsewhere.

Loneliness.

Separation.

How far they had to travel, just for a handful of rice!

How many people they had to distance themselves from!

How many affections, how many comforts they had had to give up! The sound of Gangaposham crunching the popcorn echoed, as if trying to ward off the cold and hunger.

Somewhere, a lizard chirped, “kitch, kitch.”

In reply to the lizard, Ellavva muttered, “Chochhocho.”

Just for the sake of saying it, she asked him to go to school. But if he actually went, would she be able to cope with the work at home? With affection, tenderness, and love, she said it hoping that it would turn out well. But would this life go the way she imagined?

Poverty, which didn’t even allow her to raise one son properly.

Why is life so burdensome?

Another sigh. A deep breath.

“All right then, if I go to school, will you give me a glass of milk every day?”

Gangaposham gently rocked his little brother, who was tossing and turning on the bed.

“Where will I get the milk from, my child?”

She took a couple of pieces of popcorn from the pan and popped them into her mouth.

She continued stirring the maize in the frying pot.

“Aren’t there three buffaloes at the Master’s house? Don’t you milk them? Give me a glass of milk every day, and I’ll go to school.”

Yes—the milk.

She milked every day.

Milk that didn’t belong to her or her family.

The Master’s milk.

“Oh no! That’s not ours. It belongs to the Master’s family, child! Don’t even think about it—we’ll be cursed with blindness!”

She glanced nervously around.

She worried that someone might have overheard her son’s words.

“But you give a full bowl of milk to the Master’s son every day, don’t you?”

Yes, it was true.

She gave him milk to drink.

She would even pretend as though she were terribly upset if he didn’t drink.

One drop.

Just one drop.

“If you drink, it’s fine,” she would swear.

Except for the colostrum that the Master’s wife set aside the morning after a buffalo calved.

Exhaustion. A sigh filled with exhaustion, as if she didn’t even believe her own words—exhaustion.

But to her son, who was openly asking for it, she said, “But those... those are the Master’s buffaloes, son.”

“Have you heard this song? ‘The village is ours. This street is ours. The buffaloes are ours, the buffalo’s milk is ours. What’s a dora, and what’s his lordship?” He sang as if reciting a rhyme, not incoherently.

She was startled.

“Sing softly! What if someone hears?” She looked around again, annoyed.

In case anyone overheard, to avoid trouble, she said, “These people are the Master’s family. They aren’t doras, child!” 

“Boremla Lachigadu’s mother takes care of someone else’s buffaloes, and they share the milk equally with the owners. So why don’t we get half the milk too?”

Ellavva looked around nervously again.

But it was true.

There was no difference between her family and the others when it came to taking care of the buffaloes.

“It’s because they take the milk as payment. We don’t have that right. We’re just workers in their house. They give us a wage instead.”

“How much do they pay you?”

“Thirty a month. And some left-over food.”

“Neeyavva, from morning till night, you do all that work. You cut the grass, you milk the buffaloes, you clean the dishes. And they pay you just thirty! Neeyavva! Quit the job.”

It had been so long since they had the time to speak openly.

Endless work. Work with no rest.

Seeing the love her son had for her, during this rare moment of respite, she felt choked up. The popcorn she was chewing seemed to go down the wrong way. She gave a dry cough, and managed to control it.

She poured the popcorn into the pan and, while adding more corn to the frying pot, asked cheerfully, “So, will you go to school?” 

“I’ll go, but you must do as I say.”

“What’s that?”

“The Master’s buffaloes should be tethered in our yard. Half the milk should go to us, and half to them. You can stay home selling the milk and forget about going to the Master’s house. I won’t go there either. From now on, the teachers won’t assign me any work. Like the Master’s son, I’ll drink the milk and go to school regularly.”

It was true!

“No! Don’t talk like that, our eyes will get cursed.”

“Why not? You’ve been taking full care of the Master’s buffaloes. Since the buffaloes are in their yard, they’re getting everything. If we tie them in our yard, wouldn’t we get half the milk?”

Wonder.

In his innocence, everything he said was true.

When the generation changes, so does the strength.

It was also surprising that this idea hadn’t occurred to her until now.

For work, and for the result of work.

Close similarities and wide differences between labour exploitation and labour partnership.

All these days, her ossified mind hadn’t grasped it—

Unexpectedly.

In innocence.

The truth, like pearls, had slipped from her son’s mouth—

Surprising.

The calm acceptance of reality.

“The big people don’t enter into partnership, child! If not me, they’ll hire someone else for a wage.”

“Nobody should work for a wage.”

“Who will listen, child? Aren’t there so many like us who don’t even have a square meal a day? Still, if it had been as you said, it would have been nice.”

The baby shifted again on the bed. Gangaposham was rocking it.

Ellavva was blowing on the hearth again.

“Your father told me this when he came the other day. Some people over there, singing songs like the ones you just sang, gathered all the farm workers together and called a strike demanding a rise in wages. They say the wages have been raised, too. It would be good if someone like that came to our village as well and united everyone.”

It began.

Thoughts began in Ellavva’s mind too.

It began,

The crying began.

She dashed to the cot and picked up the infant who had been crying.

The baby’s body was trembling.

He had a fever.

For three days, just like the mizzling rain, the fever hadn’t left him.

There were no medicines.

There were no medicines available in that village.

There was no doctor.

No doctor was available in that village.

A compounder, who ran a private practice in the neighbouring village, used to come every day.

For the past three days, it hadn’t been possible to even place a foot in the mud outside. The compounder hadn’t been coming from the neighbouring village on his bicycle. The big stream had overflowed, and the mud road across the stream had been washed away by the floodwaters. Since yesterday, Tummalakunta tank had been overflowing. The hills and ravines were all rushing with water.

The ponds and tanks were all full. Everywhere you looked, there was water. All the roads leading to the village were submerged. Holding the baby on her hip, she thought of going to the compounder in the neighbouring village, but it was impossible! How could she? What could be done?

Ellavva forgot about her elder son, and now worried about the little one.

But who could she send word with? The Master’s house had a phone. Should she ask them once again?

Oh dear, is it possible? She sighed helplessly.

The thought of the phone, then the Master, and then all the work in the Master’s house suddenly jolted her.

“Ayyo, it’s already time. They might be angry,” she wondered, rocking the infant gently.

She laid the baby down on the cot and put her breast to his mouth. Without latching any milk, the baby fell asleep again.

Her breasts throbbed, swollen with unrelieved milk.

For three days, the baby hadn’t nursed, and the milk accumulated, making her breasts ache. Even though she didn’t want it, the milk kept streaming out, soaking her blouse. Her body, aching from the unrelieved pressure, twisted and turned as if in a fever.

Tears welled up in her eyes from the pain.

She wiped her eyes with the edge of her sari.

She wiped the soaked blouse with the same edge. It was milk—

Her milk—motherly love, her milk—

Suffering like that was her lot—

Working through the pain was her lot—

Working was her share—

That was her lot!

That was her share.

*         *          *

The Master at home, the Master in the chair, the Master by the phone.

Annoyance.

Worst annoyance.

Annoyance because the phone wasn’t working.

When the phone worked—it felt as if his blood was circulating.

As if his factory was right in front of the house.

As if his factory was running, connected to him.

As if it was flowing through his very blood.

As if his blood were coursing.

For three days, there had been mizzling rain.

It seemed the phoneline was down.

The phone seemed to be dead.

It felt as if his factory had stopped, as if his blood circulation had halted, and he started battling within himself.

He clenched his fists.

The darkness within the light had grown.

The light within the darkness had faded.

Ellavva had done her work for the day.

She had done so much work.

She worked while drenched.

She was drenched while she worked.

She shivered in the cold, wet air.

She went into the cattle shed. She milked two buffaloes. She placed the full milk containers in the house and returned with another container.

It was a cow.

It was like a mother.

The cow knows only how to give milk, not to deceive.

It sat to the side in the mire, facing the electric bulb.

Tear streaks ran down its face.

It was a tile house.

It didn’t look like the roof had leaked.

Yet, the streaks—

Like rainwater flowing in streams, those tear streaks.

There was dullness in its eyes.

It had a white discharge in its eyes.

There were lines of redness in its eyes.

It was from the cow crying endlessly. 

“Hey,” she called, trying to stir the cow.

It didn’t rise; it lay there, exhausted.

She hit it with a straw of maize.

No matter what she did, the cow didn’t rise to its feet.

She mixed cattle feed and bran, brought it, and placed it in front of the cow.

Still, it didn’t get up.

She bent down and grabbed its tail, trying to lift it.

The cow, unable to rise, swished its tail.

The tail struck her on the chest.

Ellavva’s heart jolted.

She collapsed, setting the pail down in front of her.

The cow’s eyes were filled with streaming tears.

It was like the sudden sobbing of an infant.

The infant had a fever.

Three days of fever, and not a single drop of milk had been nursed.

The accumulated milk caused pain and numbness in her breasts.

The milk caused pain and seemed to curdle.

Like blood spurting from a wound caused by a sharp piece of glass, the milk soaked her blouse.

Her head spun with grief.

Tears swirled in her eyes.

This cow—herself.

Its calf—her baby.

She couldn’t make it rise.

She couldn’t even use more force to get it up on its feet.

Yesterday’s scene replayed before her eyes.

*         *          *

The calf.

Plump, tender, shining white like milk—the calf.

The calf that had been alive just a couple of days ago.

During the three days of continuous drizzle, it had been in a daze since the afternoon of the day before yesterday and breathed its last as dawn broke yesterday.

What kind of illness was it? Enterotoxaemia—a sudden illness! Gone in a flash!

From the day before yesterday, water had been trickling from its nostrils, and it had coughed a few times—that was all.

By morning, it had turned into a stiff carcass.

Before the cow’s eyes, its life, its very image, was writhing.

How much must the mother’s heart have suffered?

A living human being, a being with a voice can cry.

But how can a creature with life but no voice cry?

Who could it tell?

Turned to stone.

Its heart.

Melted to become a lake.

The same scene.

The scene that had shattered her own heart—a mother’s heart.

The sight of the cow gently licking its dead calf, as if checking with its tongue whether there was still any breath left.

The sight of tears flowing like streams.

That was affection.

That was fondness.

It was a melody of silence that words couldn’t capture.

It was a silent cry that language couldn’t express.

It was a mother’s heart.

It was the heart of a mother for voiceless creatures.

The sight of it thrashing its legs, gasping, as if calling out “Amba.”

The sight of it pulling at the tether to which it was tied, straining its neck—tears trickling down.

The sight of it knocking over the bucket of feed with its mouth—something it would otherwise eagerly drink from every day.

*         *          *

Tears swirled in Ellavva’s eyes.

A mother’s heart stirred.

It came to her mind then.

How much was her baby crying?

A mother’s heart sensed something was wrong.

No.

It couldn’t be.

Her son couldn’t die, like the calf.

She had to go.

She had to check on her baby.

She turned back.

She stood at a distance, looking at the Master.

Yesterday’s scene.

The same!

She thought it would be good if a call were made to the doctor.

Unable to tell the Master, she approached his wife.

That look while she dialled someone—

A look that conveyed, ‘How dare you ask for this phone?’

It was pride.

It was anger.

It was irritation.

It was a subtle smile that surpassed all of those.

“The doctor doesn’t have a phone,” she said, looking at her.

That scene replayed before Ellavva’s eyes, and in fear, she turned back.

The Master’s wife whispered in his ear. Ellavva stood far away, watching to see what the Master would say.

The Master’s wife moved closer.

“Even today, the cow isn’t allowing its udder to be touched. Let it go.”

He heard.

He furrowed his eyebrows.

He felt as if the sky had broken and fallen on him. 

“Hasn’t she milked the cow since yesterday?”

That was the surprise.

It was irritation.

It was an order.

It was a smile that surpassed them all.

“Yes. Since yesterday, it’s been nothing but constant shedding of tears. Leave it. The milk we have is enough. It’s been drizzling all the time, hasn’t it? No one’s coming to buy milk. The milk van too hasn’t been coming because the road is damaged! Let it be for today.”

“So, just because there’s leftover milk and the milk van hasn’t been coming, should we stop milking the cow?” the Master wanted to know. “If you don’t milk the cow today, will it the cow allow to be milked tomorrow? You must milk it, or else it’ll lose the habit. After that, It’ll stop giving milk altogether. Don’t let it lose the habit, don’t let it stop giving milk.”

Ellavva said, “I’m your slave, but knowing well, how can I milk it? Since yesterday, it hasn’t touched its feed. It hasn’t eaten any grass. It hasn’t stood up since the calf died. It hasn’t let its udder be touched. It’s grief-stricken after the calf’s death. What can I do? What can your slave do?”

“You’ve got to do whatever it takes to make sure it doesn’t lose the habit,” he said, with a surprising gentleness in his voice.

“I sent someone on a motorcycle to fetch the veterinarian, but the calf didn’t survive. Do you think I’m not sad? If it had lived, wouldn’t it have been worth two thousand as a bullock? Its death—isn’t that a loss for me too? But sitting here crying over it won’t bring it back, will it? “What’s gone won’t return, but if we leave the cow to its grief, it will stop giving the milk it can still yield. Come on, let’s go milk it.”

The Master rose from his chair.

Ellavva, having no other option, picked up the pail again and walked to the shed.

The Master hit the cow hard four or five times with a goad.

“Amba! Amba!” the cow mooed.

The cow stood up.

It stood there like a statue.

As the Master beat the cow, Ellavva stood there trembling, watching in anguish.

The Master’s wife closed her eyes.

The Master’s task was done.

Ellavva milked the cow with great reluctance.

The Master was exhausted.

Even that small effort had worn him out.

Shivering—

His heart longed for warmth.

He washed his feet and hands with warm water and sat back down in the chair.

The lady of the house understood what was on the Master’s mind.

She sent a glass of thick, boiled milk with Ellavva.

Cold—

Drizzle—

Ellavva, drenched in the rain, wished for the warmth that had escaped from her body to flow into her stomach. The Master’s warm milk in the glass touched her hands.

The Master took the glass of milk from her hands.

The warmth that had reached Ellavva’s hands slipped away.

Having worked endlessly, all her strength was drained.

The milk that could have given her strength, was now in the Master’s hands.

Leaning against the wall.

With fatigue.

With expectation.

In reflection—

An unfading, gentle smile.

Soft lips, oozing sugar drops, golden words.

His forehead shone with a radiance of compassion, incapable of harming even an ant—

That was the Master.

Not a schoolteacher.

Not a village accountant either.

Not even a sarpanch.

The Master belonged to the Reserved.

If the village were a school, he would be the headmaster.

If the village were a kingdom, he would be the king.

That was why the public phone was installed at his house.

The post office was also in his house.

There was no separate room for the post office.

It was just a box in the verandah, locked up when they came and went.

But the phone—it was inside the house.

No one would go there.

No one could go.

It was so far.

It was a distance separating the classes.

The Master was a king, the king of some distant pipe factory.

If that factory were Delhi, then he was the son of this village mother, who was the king of Delhi.

That was why, even though he owned three two-storey buildings in the district headquarters, he rented out all but four rooms to various offices.

He was—

Simple, modest,

Like a jasmine flower,

Wearing a khaddar shirt,

A man of great virtue.

He had principles.

He was committed to vegetarianism.

He never touched non-veg food.

The Master followed the faith of the Father of the Nation.

A strict vegetarian.

Milk—

Milk, as superior as a mother’s milk.

Just as the tiger, impressed by a promise kept, spared a cow’s life and swore never to eat meat again, he drank that cow’s milk every day with singular devotion.

How much love did he have for the calf?

To the tiger over there and to the Master here!!

As soon as it caught a cold, he called and sent a motorcycle to fetch the vet.

How fortune was that dead calf!

Even her own infant hadn’t been that fortunate!

Such love!

A butcher’s love, unknown until the moment of slaughter.

The Master, who once wouldn’t stop shouting, ‘Hey, you son of a bitch!’ had now completely changed.

Embracing the faith of the Father of the Nation, he had torn out and discarded the claws that once lashed out with “Are! Go away!”

That very shoot, now blossomed.

Just his enquiring, “Have you eaten? Are you well?” filled the entire village with joy.

Yet, there was fear.

One look from the Master—just one look—and fear would grip them.

That look—meditative, serene, sharp, and filled with smiles and love.

Like the tiger moved by the sight of the cow.

As if he had given up meat entirely.

The Master was drinking milk.

Sip after sip, he drank—

The milk from the cow lying in its own waste.

The milk from the udder.

The milk from Ellavva’s breast.

The milk soaking her blouse.

Her blood turned to milk.

Her muscles, her husband’s muscles.

The muscles of so many others—

Melted into pieces, like snow,

The milk in the glass—

Her strength, her blood,

The strength of so many others, the blood of so many others—

Dissolved and boiled into white milk.

Red blood—

White milk—

All of it became the Master’s ‘share.’

Her blouse soaked with milk—

Her blood turned to milk—

For three days, the milk that had been swelling up unnursed—

She herself was the milk.

Her husband was milk.

Her son, too, was like milk. The product of all that fell to the Master’s ‘share.’

All the hard work fell to their share.

Yes.

The ratio should remain balanced.

Even if her husband died,

Even if she died, or the baby died!

Yes.

The equation should not be upset.

They mustn’t stop work.

There mustn’t be a full meal to fill the belly.

That’s it!

That’s the Master!

No.

It shouldn’t happen like that.

She jolted.

Her heart pounded as though the baby were sobbing uncontrollably.

Her mind intuited something evil.

This must be faced.

She came a long while ago.

Should she stay still?

She gathered her courage.

Without washing the dirty glass, without saying a word, she hurried away.

She rushed home and pressed the sleeping baby to her bosom.

His body was burning with fever.

Outside, the rain.

Inside, a rain of tears.

It was all the same—rain.

No.

It was milk.

It was milk all over nature.

And all of it—blood-milk.

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About B.S. Ramulu

B.S. Ramulu (b. 1949) is a renowned social philosopher and prolific writer, celebrated for his contributions to Telugu literature and thought. With over 21 novels and story collections, along with countless social, political, and philosophical writings, Ramulu’s work has gained widespread recognition. He is the Founder and President of the Andhra Pradesh Writers, Artists, and Intellectuals United Forum. His acclaimed short story collection Palu (Milk) forms part of the Master’s syllabus at Andhra and Kakatiya Universities. Ramulu’s fictional works have been the subject of extensive academic research. Five M.Phil degrees and two Ph.Ds have been awarded so far to literary researchers on the basis of his works. Several more scholars are currently working on his books. He regularly mentors young writers through workshops and at the flagship Vishala Sahitya Academy. He also served as the first Chairman of the Telangana State BC Commission from 2016 to 2022.