‘Will you spend the day with us, Guruji?’ a chorus of voices addressed him.
‘I won’t be able to. The teachers are meeting to prepare tests. We will test you on your vacation day too.’
‘I’ll spend the day counting fish in the pond,’ Binu said, though he knew it would be difficult to make a count of creatures that never stayed still.
‘We’ll play tag in the Devi temple,’ some students said. Bolu and Koona, leaning out of their individual cubbyholes, were among them. Koona spoke out loud. Bolu indicated his wish to play tag by raising his hand.
‘Did you say something?’ Guruji asked.
‘I want to play tag,’ Bolu said, forgetting he was in a cubbyhole. He had been quick to right his error by grasping a peg with his right hand, and waving his legs while he hung from the peg. No one but Koona noticed. She was vigilant on Bolu’s behalf, quick to warn him if there was danger.
She happened to be in Bolu’s classroom on this day; she had forgotten to bring her writing stick and wanted to borrow Bolu’s. It often happened that Koona’s writing stick found its way into Bolu’s bag, and Bolu’s writing stick into Koona’s bag. The sticks seemed to have minds of their own. They looked alike. The sticks themselves may have recognized differences in one another; it didn’t appear that Bolu and Koona recognized these differences. In any case, Koona wanted to borrow Bolu’s writing stick.
The students played tag. Bhaira couldn’t run fast but he was in the game. Bolu stood on a pile of sand at one end of the wrestling grounds. He was lost in thought. Koona was It. Bhaira ran from her towards where Bolu stood on the sand pile. But running on sand wasn’t easy. Koona was about to tag him when Bhaira pitched forward and collided with Bolu. Bolu stood lost in thought as before. Bhaira fell face forward. Bolu seemed unaffected by the contact with Bhaira. Bhaira received more bruises from colliding with Bolu than from hitting the ground. Koona and the other students helped Bhaira up. He was in tears. Bolu stood silent, lost in listening to birdsong coming from a maulsari tree. The singing bird was not visible.
Bhaira accused Bolu of pushing him. Koona and the others said that wasn’t true. Bhaira had deliberately run into Bolu. The fault was Bhaira’s.
‘Nothing happened to Bolu. I’m the one who got hurt,’ Bhaira sobbed.
‘Keep your sobbing low,’ Koona said. ‘You’ll get a smack if you start bawling. You are It now.’ She mimed raising her hand to slap him.
‘We will repeat the last round,’ Bhaira said. He was playing the crybaby game; he didn’t want to be It. At his plodding pace, he couldn’t hope to tag any of the other players.
Koona knew she could catch Bhaira any time she wanted to.
‘We’ll repeat the last round,’ Koona affirmed.
All the students, except Bhaira, went to where Bolu stood. Meanwhile, the bird had flown from the maulsari tree.
‘Do you have bruises, Bolu?’ Koona wondered.
‘No. What made Bhaira fall?’ Bolu walked up to Bhaira as he spoke.
‘Didn’t you get hurt from my running into you?’ Bhaira asked.
‘No.’
Bhaira seized Bolu’s hand. ‘Want to wrestle with me, Bolu?’
‘No. I don’t know how to wrestle,’ Bolu answered, walking away from Bhaira.
‘Afraid of me?’
‘No,’ Bolu said and took another step back.
‘It’s my turn to knock you down.’
Meanwhile, Bolu’s attention had been drawn to an insect with gold and purple stripes down its back. He was lost in contemplating the insect. Bhaira rushed at him and tried to knock him down. Bolu wasn’t affected by the attack. He didn’t move from his position. But Bhaira’s attack must have startled the insect; it scurried away towards a large rock. Koona began to sob. The other students grew frightened.
Bhaira walked away from Bolu. He wanted to build up speed before giving Bolu a shove. He couldn’t believe it was he who had fallen when the two of them collided. Koona went and stood next to Bolu.
Bhaira moved away a few more steps. Then he charged Bolu, like a baby buffalo not quite steady on its feet. Sweat ran down his face. The sand from his fall clung to his body. Koona didn’t understand why Bhaira was rushing towards them.
‘Out of the way, Koona,’ Bhaira shouted.
Koona stayed where she was.
‘Move away,’ Bolu said quietly, stepping forward so he stood in front of Koona.
Bhaira crashed against Bolu with full force. But Bolu had spotted the insect again. Light from the sun glinted on the insect’s gold and purple back. Bolu was absorbed in the vision. Bhaira knocked against him and fell beyond the sand.
The fall hurt.
Bolu hadn’t budged.
He lost track of the insect again.
He went over to Bhaira. ‘Why are you crying, Bhaira? What happened to you?’
‘As if you don’t know what happened.’
‘I don’t know anything,’ Bolu answered gently.
The other students gathered around. They had forgotten who started the trouble. They wanted to help Bhaira get up. But Bhaira hadn’t forgotten who started the trouble. He knew. ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’ he said to Bolu, groaning and smiling at the same time.
‘You didn’t hurt me.’
‘Give me your hand,’ Bhaira said. ‘I want to go home.’
Everyone pulled together to haul Bhaira up.
‘There’s a lot of vacation day left,’ Koona said, patting the dust off Bhaira’s clothes.
Bhaira had tears in his eyes. The group headed back to the village.
They hadn’t gone far when they noticed Bolu’s voice was missing. He never walked with them without talking or humming to himself.
‘Where’s Bolu?’ Bhaira asked.
The students looked around. They saw Bolu standing on the sand pile at the edge of the wrestling grounds.
‘Come along, Bolu,’ they shouted.
Bolu didn’t hear them. A young man passed by Koona on his way to physical exercise in the wrestling grounds. She spoke to him. ‘Bolu has fallen quiet, Brother,’ she said. ‘He isn’t talking. He won’t be able to go home unless he talks.’
The young man was new to the village. He didn’t know Bolu. ‘Do you need the child to be carried home? Please come with me and show me where his house is. I got to the village only last night.’ He wanted to add that he had lost his way and was lucky to discover an inhabited village. But he thought the additional detail might be unnecessary.
The children accompanied the young man to the wrestling grounds. Bolu stood still as before, except for the wind ruffling his hair. The young man was strong. His foot knocked against the weightlifting stone. He raised it above his shoulders like a goalie and flung it to one side. The children watched in amazement as the stone bounced along the ground before rolling to a stop some distance away.
‘Have you had a fight with someone? Are you hungry? Can I take you home?’ The young man tried to pick Bolu up the way a careful adult lifts a child. Bolu didn’t budge. The young man tried again, ready to lift a heavier weight this time. Bolu didn’t budge. The other children made a circle around them. The young man took a deep breath. He exerted the full strength of his muscles. Bolu stayed glued to the spot.
The young man thought Bolu’s legs might have sunk in the sand. He started to brush away the sand to free up Bolu’s feet. The young man seemed agitated. Bolu could see what was going on but he was also lost in thought. He wasn’t absent because he had vanished from the scene. He was absent because his mind was elsewhere. The young man began to pant from the effort to pry Bolu loose. He stepped away, eyes lowered from embarrassment over his failure. Bolu continued to stare ahead.
Bhaira smiled when the young man looked up again. He was glad to see someone else defeated by Bolu. Koona decided to run back to the village at this time. Bhaira saw her running and followed her. The young man did the same. Very soon the young man was at the head of the group. Who knows where Bhaira found the strengt
h to run? He held his cap in his hand. It had fallen off when he had collided with Bolu the first time.
Bolu wasn’t lost in thought when the students started running. ‘Run together, run together! All of us, let’s run together,’ he sang. ‘Double time is divine. Double time is sublime,’ he sang. Sometimes his feet touched the ground as he ran, sometimes he trod on air. He took one step on the ground, four in the air.
When he was travelling through air, he sang: ‘Fly along, fly along. Fly to keep up with my song.’ The patrangi bird flew with Bolu while he was in the air, adding its chirping to his song. It sat on a branch when Bolu ran on the ground, waiting to fly when he began to fly. The patrangi bird was careful to avoid Bolu’s streaming hair.
Running and flying in this way, Bolu caught up with his companions.
‘Double time is divine. Double time is sublime.’ Bhaira, who was lagging among the runners, heard Bolu’s song first. ‘It’s Bolu,’ he said. The others turned around and shouted ‘Yes, it’s Bolu!’
A group of people from the village approached them. Bolu’s mother was in the group, as were the old man and woman who lived in the hut with the grass-top roof. The Bajrang Snack Shop cook was in the group; Bajrang Maharaj must have sent him to find out about Bhaira. The entire village was present except Bajrang Maharaj, and even if he had been present, nobody would have been able to recognize him. Bolu’s mother looked worried. She had started a conversation with the young man. He must have told her about Bolu being stuck in the sand. The group wanted to pull Bolu out and bring him back to the village. Bolu’s mother remembered the time Bolu was too small to turn over on his side. She could pick him up if he cried, but if he lay quiet she couldn’t lift him. He would fall asleep on the floor. She would bend down to gather him in her arms and lay him on the bed. He was too heavy. ‘He is fast asleep. I shouldn’t disturb him,’ Bolu’s mother would think, and let him continue sleeping on the floor.
Mother and Bolu spotted one another. He took four steps in the air, the patrangi bird flying beside him, and reached his mother. ‘Mother!’ he cried. His mother picked him up and hugged him. He was light now, happy in her embrace.
‘I’m hungry,’ he said, kicking his feet as if he was throwing a tantrum.
‘Let’s get home first,’ she responded.
Bolu had grown heavier as he became quiet. ‘Sing the song of the forest air,’ his mother said.
Bolu sang:
The forest air makes a cozy swing,
The smell of wild flowers enters my dreams.
He heard the patrangi bird chirping as he sang. He was in his mother’s embrace but riding on air.
‘Let me help carry Bolu home,’ the very old man from the hut with the grass-top roof said to Bolu’s mother.
Respectfully, Bolu’s mother took the walking stick from the old man and set it down. Then she handed Bolu to him. The forest air had helped Bolu’s mother lift him.
The old man didn’t mind Bolu’s weight. He seemed capable of bearing the weight of all the childhood in the world.
‘Will you be able to handle his weight, Grandfather?’ Bolu’s mother asked.
‘Of course,’ the old man said in a voice that had travelled through human history from the first very old man.
They approached a house belonging to a very old woman. Bolu called her ‘Grandma’. She was standing in front of her house.
The old man felt Bolu growing heavier. He set him down.
At the same time, Bolu’s mother returned his walking stick to the old man.
‘Grandma! Grandma!’ Bolu cried as he leapt towards the old woman.
She was filled with motherly feeling. As Bolu hugged her, she ran her fingers through the curls in his hair.
Just then the wind picked up. Bolu disappeared from view. It happened in an instant. Bolu was right there but people were anxiously looking for him. ‘Where did he go?’ people wondered. Bolu knew that if he said he hadn’t gone anywhere he would have to move away. Had a feather from a khanjan bird flying overhead landed on his curly hair? But there was a strong wind that would have blown away anything caught in his hair. Could it be that a khanjan bird was directly overhead? He looked up and there it was. He wanted the others to see the bird.
He moved from under the bird and became visible. The wind continued to blow. A gust bearing the scent of jasmine came to him from the left. A gust bearing the scent of dense forest came to him from the right. The gusts became wings in his sides. He bowed his head and rose in the air.
When Koona glanced up, she thought she saw Bolu flying. She could hear him say whoosh! whoosh! as he beat his wings. He was happy. Sometimes he didn’t say whoosh! whoosh! and just glided along. At that moment, two khanjan birds flew over him. He disappeared from view. Koona heard Bolu say whoosh! whoosh! whoosh! loudly and beat his wings. He flew faster than the khanjan birds above him and became visible again.
Bolu was playing hide-and-seek. He would become visible when he moved out from under the khanjan birds. He would be lost to view when the birds flew over him. Four other khanjan birds had joined the first two. Bolu had to exert himself to fly away from under them. He lost track of time.
The people below continued talking about Bolu without realizing he was missing from the scene. Koona didn’t forget and scanned the sky for sight of him. She thought she caught a glimpse of him once or twice.
By this time, Bolu had flown many circles over the village. He wanted to alight on the grass-top roof. He slowed the beat of his wind-gust wings and began to descend. He could see people returning to the village. The old ones were not in the party; they must be walking slowly, leaning on their staffs. The people who were present below seemed pleased with gusts of fresh air. They liked the smell of jasmine and wild foliage.
The grass on the roof was tall. Bolu parted the dew-laden grass with his hands. He wanted to protect the wildflowers as he landed. He spotted a rectangle of bare thatch and made his way there.
It got dark. His shirt and shorts were damp. He ought to go home. But he would have to beat his wings to fly home. That would make him colder than he was. Birds must not be affected by cold in the same way. Otherwise they would never fly through cold air.
The moon should be rising about now, Bolu thought. It would rise from near where he was. He would be able to touch the moon with his hand.
He was not a bird; he was cold. He descended gently. He saw the moon rising from the grass-top roof just after he landed on the ground. It was a harvest moon.
Nobody had seen Bolu land. He had a way of merging into the background that made him hard to detect. Light from the moon spread beauty all around. A piece of the harvest moon rose in each person’s heart. It rose in Bolu’s heart as well.
A customer placed a rupee note and a fifty-paisa coin in Bajrang Maharaj’s left hand. Bajrang Maharaj transferred the coin to his right hand and dropped it into the cash box. The sound of a coin dropping among coins in the cash box was like the sound of rocks falling on coins at the bottom of the mountain.
The cash box rested adjacent to Bajrang Maharaj’s chauki. Cash box and chauki were the same height. If the customer lingered after making payment, he could hear his coin drop in the box. It sounded as if the coin fell a long way. Its echo came from deep below. The customer might pause, puzzled by the far-off echo. Bajrang Maharaj would hurry him out by asking softly, ‘Any reason you haven’t left yet?’ His softness sounded like a tiger’s roar. The customer would rush away.
If a tiger roared while Bajrang Maharaj was silent, people thought it was Bajrang Maharaj speaking. They understood all roaring as Bajrang Maharaj’s voice. If they didn’t hear a tiger’s roar for two or three days, they wondered why Bajrang Maharaj had grown quiet. People were also of the view that coins dropped into the cash box by Bajrang Maharaj travelled straight to the heap at the bottom of the mountain.
Sometimes a customer was careless and the coin dropped from his hand onto the floor. If the coin could not be found, the customer would rea
ch for another coin in his pocket. ‘Let it be,’ Bajrang Maharaj would say. ‘I found the coin.’ The customer would leave in such haste he would hear the answering roar of the tiger only after he was a good distance from the snack shop.
It is likely that Bajrang Maharaj was able to locate the coin dropped on the floor. In any case, the clinking sound made it appear that the coin had dropped right into the cash box. There were people around who were afraid of paying Bajrang Maharaj directly. They would give money to one of their companions or to the man serving tea to pay on their behalf.
Sometimes, the man serving tea would say no and quietly signal the guest to drop the payment on the floor. The guest would comply. If the sound of the coins dropping wasn’t loud, the guest would worry whether Bajrang Maharaj had heard the clink of payment. He would want to pick up the coin and drop it again. But Bajrang Maharaj would have located the coin while the guest was debating what to do next. By the time they looked down, guests were unable to find coins they had just dropped on the floor.
Nobody left without paying the bill. If people forgot and stepped out of the shop, they would turn around as soon as they remembered, climb up to the verandah and drop their payment on the floor. This procedure saved them from having to place the coins directly in Bajrang Maharaj’s hand. Sometimes, customers didn’t remember till long afterwards. If they remembered late in the evening or in their dream from which they awoke in the middle of the night, they would reach for their shirt hung on a hook. They would drop the requisite payment on their floor. Once they heard the ring of the coin on the floor they would turn over and go to sleep. If a neighbour heard the coin dropping, he understood this was late payment for tea and snacks at the Bajrang Snack Shop. If a coin dropped on the floor had no relation to payment owing to Bajrang Maharaj, the dropped coin could be spotted readily and picked up.
If a person couldn’t find his dropped coin, it didn’t mean that the coin had found its way to Bajrang Maharaj’s cash box. Somebody else would have found it and taken it dutifully to the old man and woman, reporting the location where he had found the coin. He might say he found the coin in the lane of mangoes, directly below the tree with the tart mangoes.
Moonrise from the Green Grass Roof Page 3