The pit kept growing deeper day by day. It was the only place nearby for muram soil. People had made steps down the side of the pit to get to the muram at the base. The steps went lower and lower as the muram was dug out. Some of the steps had collapsed; it was dangerous to climb down. Bhaira had been able to steady himself but he couldn’t hold on to the bedroll. It rolled away from him down the side of the pit, stopping just short of the water at the bottom. ‘Bolu,’ he shouted. ‘My bedroll has fallen into the pit. Help me, please. I’m entering the pit to see if I can get it out.’
‘Don’t go into the pit. We’re on our way to help you.’ That was Bolu’s voice.
‘Hold on. I’m coming too.’ That was Koona’s voice.
Bhaira had been out of practice in ignoring what people said to him. He resumed that practice now. He went down one step at a time. The shadow of branches played on the steps and disturbed estimation of depth, the way bifocal lenses disturb estimation of depth as a person descends a staircase.
He heard Binu’s voice. ‘This is Chhotu speaking. I’m with the group too.’
‘You are Binu,’ Bhaira said.
Chhotu knew the art of making other people seem to be present by imitating their voices. He didn’t know the art of making himself known to be present by using his own voice.
‘This is Chhotu speaking. I’m alone. There’s just me,’ he said in Bolu’s voice.
‘You are Bolu,’ Bhaira said.
‘I promise it’s me. I’m Chhotu,’ he said in Koona’s voice.
Bhaira was confused. Was it Chhotu teasing him or was it Koona? He glanced up and saw someone who resembled Chhotu.
Bhaira had gone down three steps by now. On the fourth his foot hit a corner, causing the step to collapse. He fell but was saved from serious harm by landing in the water below. He skinned his hands, that was all.
He looked around and felt less lonely on seeing the moon in the water. Then a cloud hid the moon, covering the water with a layer of white. Where did the moon go? Bhaira felt like crying. He could hear rustling nearby. The moon in the sky couldn’t have heard the rustling, but perhaps the moon in the water had. It stuck its head out from behind the layer of white. If it was the moon’s reflection below, the moon was the reflection’s moon above. It, too, slipped out from behind clouds.
Bhaira thought he saw a jackal at the rim of the pit. He imagined Chhotu had run to tell the others about his fall. Chhotu may have tried to find Bolu. Better if he didn’t let Bajrang Maharaj know. There was no way to climb back up. The step that collapsed had destroyed the two steps below it. He would have to spend the night in the pit. He was sorry not to have made it to the school.
His bedroll consisted of a thin rug and a bed sheet. His body wanted sleep, but fear kept him awake. An elephant could have dropped into the pit just as he had. If he wasn’t crushed by the falling elephant, he could scramble onto the elephant’s back and get out of the pit that way. But why would a wild elephant let him ride on its back? He’d be picked up by the trunk and dashed to pieces on the ground. A tame elephant would have wrapped its trunk around Bhaira and helped him up. Tame elephants are bright, too bright to fall into a pit. The elephant that fell in would have to be as stupid as Bhaira was.
He glanced up. The jackal was still there. Its eyes flashed, lit by the moon in the water. It circled the pit, seeking a safe route down.
Bhaira laid the rug next to the muram wall and wrapped the sheet around him. It was cold. He was being bitten by mosquitoes. He wanted to prop himself against the wall. He saw some rocks lying nearby and began to gather them for self-protection. The first large rock he picked up had three scorpions under it. They skittered away to new hiding places. He had never uncovered scorpions before.
A tiger roared. It roared so loud that chunks of muram adhering to the walls of the pit shook loose and tumbled into the water. The jackal scampered away. Perhaps Bajrang Maharaj had called out ‘BHAIRA!’ and the tiger roared back ‘BHAIRA!’ If Bhaira said ‘Father!’ would the tiger roar back ‘Father!’?
‘Father!’ Bhaira shouted. He heard a tiger cub growling from very near. A single chunk of muram shook loose and tumbled into the water.
Chhotu had rushed to the village to report that Bhaira had fallen in the pit. The village was empty. He ran towards the school. He saw the snack-maker walking ahead of him, a big flashlight in his hand. ‘Stop please and listen to me. Bhaira has fallen into the muram pit,’ Chhotu said to the snack-maker. He was out of breath. The voice he spoke in was Bhaira’s.
The snack-maker was not one to stop at anyone’s bidding. Besides, Bajrang Maharaj may have told him not to be diverted from his mission. The voice he heard confused him. ‘Bhaira?’ he asked. But the person before him was not Bhaira; it was just a small-sized boy. Out of his own worries for Bhaira he may have imagined it was Bhaira’s voice he heard. ‘I know about Bhaira,’ he said, resuming his brisk pace.
‘How did you find out?’ Chhotu asked in Bolu’s voice.
‘Who just spoke?’ the snack-maker was baffled. He could see only the small-sized boy who had asked him to stop. He didn’t want to answer the question posed to him, but in his confusion, blurted out ‘Bajrang Maharaj told me.’ Saying this, he broke into a run.
‘How did Bajrang Maharaj know?’ the snack-maker heard a girl’s voice asking him. It was Koona’s voice he heard but he didn’t know Koona. ‘Where did this little girl come from?’ he wondered. He looked back and saw only the small-sized boy. He pointed his flashlight at the boy’s face. It was a nice-looking face.
The flashlight beam caught Chhotu’s eyes. He was irritated. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked in Bajrang Maharaj’s voice. ‘Go and find Bhaira.’ Tigers began to roar as he spoke. They didn’t seem to be far away.
Ordinarily, the snack-maker would have hurried to safety when he heard tigers, but he had to obey Bajrang Maharaj’s instructions. He ran anxiously towards the muram pit. The flashlight in his hand cast a wobbly light. Whatever the light fell on seemed to be trembling—rocks, trees, an isolated hut, the wide earth. Had the beam of his flashlight reached the sky, the sky too would have quaked in fear.
They must all have reached the school at about the same time. It wasn’t as if the people who started out first stayed ahead all the way. Some fell behind. Those who were behind began to lead. It was only a half hour walk from the village to the school, but the children took small paths off and back to the main road as they walked, and some, like Koona and Bolu, took to the air to get to school.
Koona didn’t remember she had been flying. She was puzzled when other children talked about dreaming. ‘What is that?’ she would ask. She had never had a dream, or if she had, she didn’t remember having had one. If Binu said he had an interesting dream, Koona would say, ‘Let me see it too.’
‘How can I show you my dream?’ Binu would ask.
Bolu explained to Koona that people had to see their dreams by themselves. ‘I’m sure you dream. You just forget what you dreamt.’
‘I forget nothing,’ Koona said. ‘Guruji says I have a good memory. All of you get to dream and I never do,’ Koona said unhappily.
The cattle were tethered to trees at the edge of the school grounds. A cow had been tethered to a sapling. All the sapling was good for was the rope going slightly taut as the cow pulled. The tautness was sufficient to remind the cow it was tethered. It never pulled harder. The sapling wasn’t in danger of being uprooted.
Guruji wanted the old people and children to sleep inside the classrooms, and the young adults to sleep out on the verandah. He suggested bolting the classroom doors from the inside once everyone was settled in, but most doors didn’t have a functioning bolt. It was a wonder classroom doors had ever been fitted with bolts on the inside. What purpose did the builders imagine these bolts would serve? Could it be to identify latecomers who would need to wait outside for the door to be opened? Some students came early to prepare the day’s lessons. They would go to the watchman’s quarters to ask
him to let them into a classroom. He would unlock a couple of rooms for them. The classrooms sheltered them from rain and, in the summer, from the heat. In the winter, students liked to prepare for class in the sunlight on the verandah. Many children came early just to play in the school grounds. When the bell rang, everyone hastened to the assembly area for prayer. All the classroom windows opened inside. No one had heard of a classroom window latched on the outside.
There was usually a good reason for a student’s being late to school. The students didn’t find the school frightening, not even if they had to go there at night. The buzzing in the school sounded like a tree on which hundreds of patrangi birds were alighting for the night.
Chhotu was out of breath when he reached the school. He couldn’t tell who was who in all the coming and going. He noticed Bolu sitting in a cubbyhole with his hand on the topmost peg. Bolu seemed lost in thought.
‘Bolu!’ Chhotu shouted. ‘Bolu!’
No response.
‘Bolu!’ Chhotu decided to try Bolu’s voice. First, Bolu was lost in thought. Next, he wouldn’t recognize his own voice calling him. The only times he might have heard his name in his own voice would be when he was introducing himself to someone or when he was talking to himself.
Chhotu called out in Premu’s voice, then Koona’s, then Guruji’s. The noise died down when Guruji’s voice was heard. Bolu came to himself. He turned towards Guruji’s voice and saw Chhotu. Chhotu called him over in Premu’s voice. Dropping into Bolu’s voice again, he whispered in Bolu’s ear, ‘Bhaira has fallen into the muram pit and can’t climb out.’ He whispered the same piece of news in the ear of each of his friends, speaking to them in their own voices.
Because of all the commotion, the friends were able to leave the school without being observed. They were speeding to the pit; they hadn’t thought of asking permission to leave the school. Clouds covered the moon as the friends crossed the school grounds. They looked like blobs of fog. People at the school may not have noticed their departure, but the moon kept track of them. It emerged from behind clouds when they left the school and stayed with them, lighting their way, stopping where they stopped. Koona ran to keep up with the group. ‘If only we had brought the pony along!’ she said.
Bolu walked at the head of the group. He made up a hurry-along song:
Hurry, scurry, run along.
Keep pace with the running song.
Run together, reach together,
Each of us helping the other.
We will get there in a trice.
Running, flying, we’ll arrive.
Bolu was growing lighter and lighter. He was unaware that he had left the earth and begun to fly. His friends, too, thought he was running. A wind from the back favoured them all and helped them hurry.
The snack-maker from Bajrang Snack Shop ran as fast as his legs could carry him. He knew he had to get there soon, but he forgot where he was going. He ran past the muram pit before he remembered and trudged back. He thought he heard someone walking behind him, stepping cautiously to avoid making a sound. The snack-maker, too, began stepping cautiously, trying to minimize the crunching of leaves underfoot. He wanted to hear who or what it was that followed him. When the snack-maker took a step, the thing behind took a step. When he stopped, the thing behind stopped. It grew darker.
How was the snack-maker to know that Bolu and his friends had left the school and the moon was guiding them to the muram pit? The snack-maker took his hard plastic shoes off and began to step with utmost care. He heard two people behind him or else a creature with four legs. He prayed it was not a tiger.
The snack-maker’s feet were bare. He could feel the scrape of dry leaves. Whatever was behind him was closer now, almost noiseless on what must be padded feet. The snack-maker dared not turn around. He believed that if he looked back he would see a tiger.
If he kept on looking ahead, the creature behind him would not be a tiger.
The snack-maker had been working at the Bajrang Snack Shop for five years. Lately, he had begun to feel afraid for some reason, and wanted to run away. He left work with that intention one day and hid in the jungle. ‘I am safe from Bajrang Maharaj,’ he thought. Just then he had heard Bajrang Maharaj’s voice: ‘Be back before it gets dark.’ Tigers began to roar in response. A jackal heard the roaring and ran. The snack-maker couldn’t remember the way back to the snack shop. He decided to follow the path the jackal took to safety. The jackal ran under a rock behind the pygmy mountain. The snack-maker saw there were two caves under the rock. He wasn’t sure which one the jackal had entered. He ran into the one on the right. It was dim inside. He felt his way forward. He recalled that Bajrang Maharaj wanted him back before it got dark. It wasn’t that dark yet. There was more and more light as he went forward. Soon he found himself at an opening between two rock walls. A stone lay across the opening like a roof. A narrow path led outside. When he emerged he was surprised to find himself standing before the Bajrang Snack Shop.
A jackal looked down from a rock above him. It must have been commanded to guide him. Was it Bajrang Maharaj who had issued the command?
He bowed his head low, entered the kitchen, and busied himself at his tasks. He kept his head low for days. He would enter the village with his head bowed low, and leave with his head bowed low. He kept his head low when he went to sleep, though it is hard to discern such things in a sleeping form. He felt he could sleep peacefully only with his head bowed low. He liked unbroken sleep; he was terrified of waking up in the middle of the night. Bajrang Maharaj had told Bhaira to show the snack-maker where to sleep. Bhaira pointed out a corner of the open verandah as the snack-maker’s sleeping ‘quarters’.
The snack-maker remembered later that the scrunching of leaves in the forest sounded just like the tread of Bajrang Maharaj’s country shoes.
His sleep was disturbed one night. He woke up hearing the scrunch of Bajrang Maharaj’s country shoes. The sound got fainter, then disappeared. After a while he heard the scrunch of country shoes again. Bajrang Maharaj seemed to have returned to the snack shop and settled down on his chauki. Then it fell quiet, so quiet that the shoes, too, must have fallen asleep. Could it be that Bajrang Maharaj took his after-dinner stroll out in the forest but the scrunch of his shoes sounded like it came from the next room? Could it be that Bajrang Maharaj took his stroll in the forest and the scrunch of his shoes could be heard in the shop? Or could it be that he took his stroll in the shop but the scrunch of his shoes could be heard in the forest? Or could it be that Bajrang Maharaj strolled in the shop while the tiger paced in the forest at the same time, and sounds from shop and forest were simultaneous?
Another day, the snack-maker noticed a large black country shoe by the entrance to the shop. Where did the shoe come from? Where was its partner? The shoe looked old and wrinkled—too old to have belonged to Bajrang Maharaj. Was it an heirloom handed down from Bajrang Maharaj’s father? The sole was studded with hobnails. A tiger could be killed with one blow from this shoe. Not that anyone thought this or said this about the shoe.
Bajrang Maharaj had never been known to come out to the verandah. Could the shoe have walked over to the snack shop entrance on its own? Where would its partner have travelled to? Perhaps Bajrang Maharaj kept the shoe as a pet. ‘Here, shoey! Here, shoey!’ he would call, and the shoe would come with its tail wagging. The shoe had a tapered leather fold over the end, for convenience in carrying it around or hanging it on a nail in the wall. Shoe-sellers threaded shoes through the leather fold and went from door to door, many pairs of shoes dangling over their shoulders in front and back.
The snack-maker got busy; there were customers at the snack shop. One of the customers saw a shoe travelling across the threshold by itself. He heard the call ‘Here, shoey! here shoey!’ coming from within the room. The customer had just poured his tea in the saucer to cool it. He was ready to take a cautious first sip. The progress of the shoe across the verandah so amazed him that he drank his tea in the first sip
. He didn’t even know he had finished the tea. It would have been appropriate to say he had drunk his tea in one breath. Unfortunately, he had trouble taking the next breath. If his breathing hadn’t stopped momentarily, it would have been correct to say he was exhaling tea. Be that as it may, he mastered his dread, and left the shop, incredulous that he had seen what he had seen. People wouldn’t believe him if he told them.
Thereafter, he was doubly alert when he came in for tea. He would inspect the shoes by the verandah for signs of impulsiveness. Some customers placed their shoes below the verandah before washing hands and feet by the rock. They didn’t want to slip wet feet in their shoes for the small distance to the verandah.
One day, a customer couldn’t find his shoes. He imagined someone may have put on his shoes in error and left the shop. The earlier customer, who had seen the self-propelled shoe, observed what was going on. ‘Are your shoes missing?’ he asked the new customer.
‘Yes,’ the customer replied irritably.
‘How can they get lost all by themselves?’ the earlier customer asked, feigning amazement.
‘Why would they get lost by themselves? I’m the one who lost track of them.’ The new customer couldn’t understand the question posed to him. ‘What do you suggest I do?’
‘You shouldn’t have taken them off. When you have them on, shoes go where you go. Once you take them off, you are at their mercy. They have minds of their own. Your shoes must have walked off to some destination they favoured. How old were your shoes, did you say? Did you have time to tame them?’
‘They were new.’
‘That’s why. You mustn’t have had a chance to break them in. What are you thinking of doing now?’
‘I’ll have to buy another pair. But I won’t repeat my mistake. Either I’ll keep them on or stick them in my bag and pull the drawstring tight.’ The new customer set off in his bare feet, imagining as he walked that his shoes would turn up somehow. He thought they would meet him on his way home, first the right foot whose sole was a little worn, then the left foot. The left foot would be partly hidden by the side of the road. The right and left foot would both apologize, saying: ‘So sorry we had to leave. We didn’t know we would be away this long. Please forgive us and put us on again.’
Moonrise from the Green Grass Roof Page 6