Moonrise from the Green Grass Roof

by Vinod Kumar Shukla

But Bajrang Maharaj had already smelled Bhaira’s presence. ‘Where did you disappear to?’ he shouted. The tiger in the forest roared back. Bhaira panicked. ‘One day I will disappear for good,’ he said in a low voice.

  An earthen stove was mounted under a roof cover just outside the shop. A wide verandah lay beyond, supplied with wooden benches and assorted tables. The tables were rickety. If you set down a teacup the table trembled the way hot tea in a cup trembles when you blow on it. By the time the legs of the table stabilized, the tea would have cooled enough to sip. If a plate of snacks lay steady on the table, and you picked up a piece, the plate would shift position. If you reached for a second piece absentmindedly, you would miss your mark.

  The benches were in the same rickety condition as the table. When you crossed your legs, you would slide down along the table to where your neighbour’s plate lay. Glasses of water were not brought to the table; they would have tipped over the instant they were set down. Instead, water was placed by the rock intended for stepping onto the verandah. Customers would drink water on their way up, and set down empty glasses by the rock. They would do the same thing when leaving the shop. Bajrang Maharaj kept a sharp eye on the movement of his customers.

  The verandah led to a small room. The dim light that entered the room seemed to apologize for being the little that was left over from the brightness outside. The room remained half-dark all day. A weak light bulb was turned on in the evening, chiefly to measure the extent of darkness in the room.

  The light bulb was not turned on so long as the neon tube in the verandah stayed lit. Sometimes the neon tube stayed lit all night. These nights the verandah seemed from a distance like suddenly glimpsed illumination, promising safety to travellers stumbling around in a dark forest. Whatever illumination appeared in the Bajrang Snack Shop seemed also to have stumbled in there from the darkness. It was transient electricity, ready to be on its way out soon.

  The rear of the snack shop faced south. For a short while after sunrise, a shaft of light penetrated the smoke rising from the freshly lit stove. The shaft of light signalled dawn. It was hard to tell—especially from the outside—where the shaft began and ended. The shaft of light seemed to be a clothesline to hang darkness on, after the darkness had been beaten clean.

  The room stayed dark on cloudy days.

  Bajrang Maharaj ran the snack shop from a low chauki by the door. He would recline on the chauki with his head propped against a pillow so he could keep the verandah in view. It was dim where his chauki was positioned. The pillow was thick with grime, just like the dhoti and bandi he wore. If a person ran his nails along the pillow the scratch marks stayed.

  The room with Bajrang Maharaj reclining by the door was a front for a cave. It was hard to discern how deep the cave extended. There may have been a wall at the far end. Or there may have been a tunnel, long and deep.

  The back of the snack shop abutted an undersized mountain. There were large rocks in the back and smaller boulders scattered around as far as the eye could see. The mountain may not have been small to begin with. Big boulders may have broken off over time, leaving behind the present rock structure that came to be known as the pygmy mountain.

  There was a hole near the top of the mountain. Cowherds would toss a stone in the hole to hear the stone travelling and hitting the bottom. The sound of its hitting the bottom could not be heard then and there. The journey down took a week. Seven days later—if one put one’s ear to the ground and concentrated hard—one heard a sound like a stone dropping on a heap of coins. A person didn’t have to return on the seventh day. The person could come back a month later, or a year later, or when they were old, and if they put their ear to the ground they would hear their stone landing on a pile of coins. Sooner than seven days, they would hear nothing. After seven days, a stone would continue falling until the person who had tossed it returned to listen.

  The mountain was not high but it was deep. The mouth of the hole was wide enough for a person to enter. Not that anyone was known to have jumped in. Nor had anyone been known to exit from the hole. Even ants had not been seen crawling out.

  After the Bajrang Snack Shop was built, people didn’t know which house would be erected next. The people who lived in that next house were unaware when their house had been constructed. Most people did not recall when it was that they came to live where they lived now. The question of which house was the second to come up in the village remained unresolved.

  The grass on the hut with the grass-top roof had grown luxuriantly for years. It did not wilt in the heat. When the wind blew, the grass bowed and provided an awning for the hut.

  At the summer solstice, the sun would rise directly through the green grass. Right now, the only things coming up through the grass were small yellow flowers.

  The villagers, and especially the schoolchildren, wondered why the Bajrang Snack Shop came to be when there was no settlement nearby. And, as far as people knew, the menu hadn’t changed. It was tea and snacks when the shop opened and tea and snacks now. The shop’s stove burned hard coal and its smoke could be seen from a great distance away. In fact, all the houses in the village burned hard coal. The reason was the coalfield nearby. The villagers would go up to the coalfield and scrape off as much coal as they needed.

  His father had told him, Bhaira said, that a squirrel was the shop’s first customer.

  ‘A squirrel?’

  ‘It came for snacks,’ Bolu guessed.

  ‘No,’ said Bhaira walking up to where Bolu stood with Binu, Premu and the girl, Koona. Koona was the youngest in the group. ‘The squirrel came for tea.’

  ‘Who was the second customer?’ Binu asked. He stood the farthest away from Bolu. He had decided to imitate Bolu’s style and spoke only while walking.

  ‘The second customer was an elephant,’ Bhaira said.

  ‘An elephant!’ Koona exclaimed.

  ‘Must have needed a giant teacup,’ Bolu said as he walked to where Koona stood. She took hold of his hand. ‘Please don’t say anything, Bolu. If you speak, you’ll move away from me.’

  ‘All right, I won’t say anything,’ Bolu said, and walked towards Premu as he spoke. Koona went and stood near Bolu again.

  ‘The size of a bucket?’ Premu wondered.

  ‘The same as the teacup for others,’ Bhaira said. ‘With room at the top. Father says not to fill a cup to the top. Tea from the cup shouldn’t spill into

  the saucer.’

  ‘Do tigers come to the Bajrang Snack Shop for tea?’ Koona asked while holding on to Bolu’s hand.

  ‘Why should a tiger bother? Even elephants are afraid of tigers. My father delivers the tea. He fills a kettle with four cups of tea and carries the kettle to the tiger’s den. The tiger sips tea in its den. My father is grumpy when he sets out, but always cheerful when he gets back.’ Bhaira walked as he spoke, the way Bolu walked. Everyone followed him to hear what he had to say. Koona slipped her hand out of Bolu’s and joined the group listening to Bhaira. Only Bolu stayed where he was.

  ‘He comes back alive. That’s what makes him cheerful,’ Bolu said walking towards Bhaira.

  Koona nudged Premu to one side so she could stand next to Bolu once more.

  ‘It must be true,’ she said.

  ‘Do you take tea?’ Binu asked Bhaira.

  ‘Father says I shouldn’t.’

  ‘How many cows does it take to supply milk for the tea?’ Premu inquired.

  ‘We aren’t cowherds. We don’t own cows.’

  ‘Where do you get milk from?’ Bolu asked.

  Koona held on to the edge of Bolu’s shirt and walked behind him. She stopped when Bolu paused.

  ‘My father milks wild buffaloes,’ Bhaira said a little too loudly.

  ‘What did you just say?’ Bolu asked turning to face Bhaira. Koona didn’t expect the sudden movement. She fell but picked herself up without crying.

  ‘Why would a wild buffalo let Bhaira’s father milk her?’ No one asked the question out loud t
hough they all thought it.

  Bhaira spoke on his own. ‘The wild buffalo complies because it knows the milk is for the tiger.’

  Some green grass sprouted on the ground not far from the hut with the grass-top roof. Both grasses were the same variety. It seemed as if the roof was beginning to sprout.

  The grass-top roof sprouts from mud on the ground.

  The mud walls grow from mud on the ground.

  Take care when you plant the windows and doors

  To name directions from the earth in the round.

  Nobody saw the grass-top hut being built. Nobody saw the grass-top hut sprouting from the ground. Whoever saw it first saw the hut as already present, just as pygmy mountain and wide sky were present.

  What people saw was already made

  Earth and sky and forests and birds

  Rivers and seas and the animal world.

  The building of sun was hidden from view

  Of rocks and trees and rainclouds too

  Of flowers and springtime and night and day.

  May nature’s blessings always stay.

  A very old man and a very old woman lived in the hut with the grass-top roof. Small wildflowers grew amid the grass.

  Once it grew dark, the moon moved out cautiously from the green grass roof. All the children knew where the moon lived. They could see the moon hiding behind the grass. The grass trembled and the air grew cold. The moonlight made the grass visible. People shivered partly from seeing the grass tremble, partly from the cold.

  The children imagined they could touch the moon once they got up on the roof. They imagined they could catch a rainbow there and bring it down to play with.

  At sunrise, the grass shone with coloured dewdrops. The new light was strung on blades of grass.

  The couple that inhabited the hut had lived there for ages. Their hut, like huts of old people who had lived their days and nights with grace, was the site of a daily festival of sunrise and sunset.

  The sun and the moon rose in beautifully different ways in every hut. The sun shone over the village like a diamond. The moon shone like topaz. Each new day was more beautiful than the last.

  During class, children were free to sit in the cubbyholes if they wished. Their faces dotted the walls of the classroom while school was in session. A few cubbyholes were big enough for students as large as Bhaira. Some children dangled their feet from the cubbyhole and rested textbooks on their knees. Other children tucked their legs beneath them and rested textbooks on their laps.

  The children would arrive at school freshly bathed, their hair combed neatly. The ones seated in the cubbies seemed to be ornaments brought in from home to beautify the classroom. Koona was too small to climb into a cubbyhole on her own; her friends would help her up. She always wanted to sit in the topmost cubbyhole.

  Pegs had been hammered into the walls. Students could hoist themselves up to the topmost cubbyhole holding on to these pegs. They were fearless climbers. Students did not fall out of cubbyholes, but sometimes a book or a writing stick slipped from a student’s hand. The children sitting on the floor would lean away to protect themselves, and the book or stick would fall without harming them. It may be that books, slates and writing sticks had become friends with gravity the way children thrown together during various activities become friends. Falling books, slates and sticks avoided children. They slowed down before they landed.

  Sometimes a stick broke into pieces. The children used those pieces or other pieces in their pockets to write with. Perhaps broken writing sticks climbed the wall like caterpillars and found their way first into cubbyholes, and then into book bags. The school bag was their nest. It could also be that pigeons carried broken pieces of writing stick or erasers in their beaks and set them in the cubbyholes. Pieces of sticks and erasers were found in pigeon nests as well. The pigeons must have saved these things for their own squabs.

  Bolu was the one who had initiated the practice of climbing into the cubbyholes. He started when Guruji was not around and continued when Guruji was present. His favourite cubbyhole was at the highest level, next to the transom. At this height, he was often out of Guruji’s view. When Guruji thought to ask him a question, he took into consideration the excitement Bolu would cause climbing down to the floor peg by peg while his classmates cheered. Students in other cubbyholes would shift to one side to make room for Bolu’s feet. The guruji from the adjacent classroom would come to find out what the commotion was. All the students from the adjacent classroom would follow him, Koona among them. She would clap her hands with joy. Koona would caution Bolu. ‘Use those other cubbyholes to

  climb down.’

  Guruji never saw Bolu descending. He would climb down behind where Guruji sat.

  Guruji asked Bolu one day, ‘How many days has it been since I posed a question to you?’

  ‘It’s been two days,’ Bolu said taking four steps towards Guruji. ‘No. I’m wrong. You asked me a question just now.’ The students standing around moved aside so Bolu could walk as he spoke.

  ‘When?’ Guruji said in surprise.

  ‘Isn’t “How many days has it been since I posed a question to you?” a question?’ Bolu asked respectfully.

  ‘I’ll ask you a question from the textbook tomorrow. Make sure to sit on the floor.’

  ‘Yes, Guruji,’ Bolu responded, moving back a couple of steps as he spoke.

  The transom adjacent to Bolu’s favourite cubbyhole opened to the roof.

  The opening was large; Bolu found it easy to climb out. The wind blowing through the transom blew his hair back. He could smell basil from Binu’s garden.

  Sometimes he could smell wild mint from the forest mixed in with the basil. At other times, there was just the dense smell of dense forest.

  It never surprised Bolu that swallows flew in and out through the transom. He thought of them as air—gusts of air made momentarily visible.

  Students often hung their book bags on the pegs in the wall. Sparrows perched on the pegs and on the bags. The noise of their chirping accompanied the recitation of lessons. If a student forgot to take his bag home over a long weekend, he would return to find a sparrow nest under construction on the top of the bag.

  As Bolu grew older, he discovered he had the sensation of floating as he walked and talked. While humming a song from the textbook he would sense himself borne along basil-scented air or wafted by air from the dense forest. At times, he was buoyed by the end of his mother’s sari. At other times, he flew alongside the patrangi bird.

  He recognized he was beginning to understand things. At an earlier time, he stood shoulder to shoulder with the student next to him. Now he stood higher than his fellow student. His feet were planted not on the ground, but in the air.

  During morning prayers at school, Bolu would get lost praying for knowledge to unite human beings. He was exempted from singing the national anthem but he moved his lips and sang the words in his mind. At such times of enforced stillness, he longed to fly like a bird.

  Bolu set out for the pygmy mountain one evening, humming to himself as he walked. The sun was about to set. From the top of the hill he could see vermillion colour spilling over the fields. He peered past the lip of the hole in the mountain. He thought he could make out milky light inside. Maybe the vermillion seeped in from somewhere below. He sniffed honey in the air. He could hear buzzing. Where could bees have made their hive? The hive wouldn’t have lasted if formed along the route of falling stones. He wanted his friends know where the hive was. He waited for bees setting out to gather pollen. He waited for bees returning. There wasn’t a bee in sight. Perhaps there was a thriving garden at the bottom of the hole and the bees didn’t need to travel up above.

  The pygmy mountain was easy to climb: it was the right height for children and the right height for adults.

  There was a small Devi temple where the village ended and the forest began. The temple building had been constructed recently but the statue of the deity was old. There was also
a beautiful pool adjacent to the temple, belonging to the same period as the statue. Stone steps ran around the pool to facilitate descent to the water. During the summer months, the pool was a popular drinking hole with antelope, deer, wild buffaloes and tigers.

  A variety of turtles and fish lived in the pool. When a thirsty tiger came to drink, its glance may have fallen on a fat fish swimming about. It may have wanted to seize the large fish in its jaws. When a hungry tiger lay supine, its paws waving in the air, it may have wanted to seize a large bird as it flew across the sky. The tiger’s desire for the airborne bird must be behind those statues of tigers with wings.

  There were wrestling grounds, too, adjacent to the temple, where wrestling matches were held. There was a large round stone on the grounds used for weightlifting. Bhaira had gained experience lifting stones while looking for scorpions. He would be walking along and spot a stone. He would lift the stone. No scorpion. Disappointed, he would hurl the stone a good distance away. He was able to lift the large round stone in the wrestling grounds confidently, but he couldn’t manage his own weight. Somebody would have to help him up.

  One day, Bolu picked up a small round stone from the pygmy hill and tapped it against a rock. The stone broke in two the way coconuts break into halves. The inside of the stone was studded with blue quartz. Bolu laid down the two halves of the stone dirt side up so the quartz would be concealed. He wanted to tell his friends about the location, but forgot to afterwards.

  It was a Tuesday. Guruji walked into the classroom. He announced that the lesson for the day was that there would be no lesson. The subject of the lesson was vacation day. He advised students to spend their vacation day well. When the class reassembled, he would ask them what they had done that day. They could spend the day alone, or spend the day with others as they did on a regular school day. They could use the day in their own home or gather in a classmate’s home. If they were away from home, they would need to return home at their usual time.