A true story of unrequited love.

“A mighty pain to love it is,
And 'tis a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.”

Half a century back, in the sleepy town of Ananthapuri, a beautiful woman arrived to teach in a girls’ school. Chellamma was fair, young and fond of dance and music. It was on a fateful morning when out of curiosity, she followed her students to the school gate to watch a procession of cars on the road, her eyes fell on him first. After that, she saw him many times; in the temple, riding in his car and as chief guest for many school functions. She looked at him with awe and her heart fluttered for him. Whenever he was to come, she started dressing up for him. Sandal paste adorned her forehead and jasmine garlands, her long and beautiful hair. Her gold bangles and necklaces added more glow to her beauty. For every school function, when he was present, she always stood in a place where his glance easily fell. Chellamma was blissfully unaware of her surroundings then. A smile or a casual nod from him sent shivers down her body. She, like Echo, pined for a word from her deity but his eyes never stopped to gaze at her ravishing beauty.

When she was invited by her colleague, Bhanumati, to act in a play being performed as part of a state celebration, she readily complied. This was her chance to get noticed by her man as she knew he would definitely be the chief guest. Mesmerized and in her own world, Chellamma performed on stage only for her lover’s eyes. After the play ended, the actors were lauded and as customary honoured by the chief guest by giving Kasavu Pudava, a traditional garment with a golden border. As she accepted the Kasuvu Pudava, her hands brushed against his and she stood there entranced. She had been offered a Pudava by her man. Though it was a small gesture of kindness and appreciation, to a love smitten young woman, this was above her dreams. In Chellamma’s mind, that simple token of appreciation became the wedding garment from her husband. To her, by accepting the Pudava from him, she had become his wife. Blind love wiped out all saneness left in her.

                   She now considered it her duty to be near him. He lived in a place inaccessible to her but he came everyday to worship in Sri Padmanabha Swami Temple. Decked like a bride, she waited with bated breath in the temple for her Swami to notice her. She waited day after day but Sri Padmanabha Swami too had closed his eyes on her and one day she was thrown out of the temple by the soldiers. This was a shock to her tender mind. She stopped going inside the temple from then on but waited outside the temple at the time of her man’s arrival every day. She would stand there for him to see her and the rest of the day would wander inside the fort. Every year during the annual procession from the temple, she would be there among the crowd, trying to catch a glimpse of her man in the middle of the procession.   

Her gold bangles and necklaces were lost with time but she made them up with glass bangles and bead necklaces. Even if she was reduced to a mendicant, how could she stop dressing up for her husband? Children ran behind her, calling her ‘Sundari Chellamma’. Men made shy glances at her while women looked at her in amusement. Unaware of all this Chellamma wandered along the streets around the temple, her only intention being to be on time in front of the temple for her man to see.

Sundari Chellamma, for more than four decades loitered on the streets inside the fort of Ananthapuri. The man, she was insanely in love with, never saw her. Chellamma had fallen in love irrevocably, once and for all. She lived in her imaginary world with the man she had chosen. Wearing gaudy ornaments and carrying a dirty cloth sack on her back she lived her long life on the streets, lost in love.

Chellamma’s hero was none other than the then Maharaja of Travancore, Sri Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma. The story started somewhere in the nineteen forties and ended with Chellamma’s death sometime in  late nineties. The elderly and middle aged people born and brought up around Sri Padmanabha Swami temple would still remember her vividly. Any overdecked female would always remind them of the name, ‘Sundari Chellamma’.