Greatest Short Stories (5 page)

At last after an hour of torment as she lay drenched in a pool of blood and aus, she felt a boundless surging overwhelm her.

And, with a twitch of horror which faded into a mute triumph, the child came with a thin little cry, a dark bundle of tender, wrinkled flesh, a boy breathing softly but tingling with warm life.

Clutching him with eager, deft hands, she performed the services of the midwife on herself with the cool, assured touch which only the old dai, Kesari, in her native village, was known to bring to her task. And, what was most surprising, even to her, was the fact that having cut the naval strings which united her child to her with the rough end of the silver hansli round her neck, she emptied the basket in which she carried the food, donated the roti to the birds as a gift-offering, put her baby in it and strode forth towards the Ridge to go and break stones.

The darkness of the twilight sky was crumbling and the early morning sun had brightened the sky. But, as Parvati approached the pitch where she worked, the other stone breakers could not recognise her, because she looked different with the basket in her arms rather than on her head as she usually carried it. When, however, she came and laid the whining child at their feet, they were breathless with wonder. ‘A witch this Parvati!’ an old woman said. ‘to be sure, a demon!’ a man remarked.

‘To be sure!’ added Ramu, her husband coming towards the basket to have a look at his child.

‘The Goddess helped me in my travail,’ whispered Parvati.

‘I saw her in the clouds…’

The women left their work and rushed towards her, some open mouthed, some with prayers and incantations on her lips.

‘Stop all this
cain cain
, woman!.’ shouted her father-in-law as he came up from where he had been tarring the road to look at his grandchild. ‘Get away ’, he said with a bluff of rudeness.

‘It is no wonder that she had the little one all by herself. She is a peasant woman with strong loins like many other peasant woman of our parts, who have given birth to sons all by themselves, so that our race can be’ perpetuated and our land tilled for grain…’ And he picked up the whining baby from the basket like a practised hand and put the little shrieking one to his shoulder, saying with a gruff tenderness: ‘Come, come, my lion, my stalwart, don’t weep… come, it won’t be so bad. Come, my son, perhaps with your coming, our luck will turn…’

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From
The Tractor and the Corn Goddess and Other Storks.

4

A Village Idyll
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Splashes of red and orange mingle into an aura of burning gold and, in a flash, the sun rises over the rim of the village pond, resplendent.

Gauri comes treading on the pearls of dew on the tufts of grass by the ditch to fetch water, with a pitcher under her arm.

‘Oh, the fair one.

Oh, ripe like the juice of a sugarcane…’

Govind sighs, as he sits rubbing his clothes with soap on a slab of stone, ‘the glow produced by the brisk movement on his face ripens into crimson and his breath almost fails.

Gauri shyly draws the end of her dupatta over her head and dips her pitcher in the water, but as she leans forward, the tips of her brave breasts are silhouetted against the sky line.

‘May I be your sacrifice!’ Govind whispers the familiar ejaculation of heart-squanderers in the streets of Verka. And, as though the words are potent like a magic spell, the blood rushes down from his head to his heart and loins, the centres of storm in his peasant soul, ‘Oh the fair one! he hisses. And the hisses splutter into an embarrassed cough.

At that Gauri laughs even as her pitcher gurgles with a series of hysterical reverbertions.

And with that their love started. For, in the tickling of her throat and the saliva on his tongue was the meeting of long distances, of uneasy colloquies, of thumping hearts and reckless yearning.

She stood before him, her breasts heaving towards the morning, her senses sinuously touching the edge of demure restraint, her blood warming and melting and leaping like flames towards a ceiling in a conflagration.

He stared at the wonder of her, his body taut, his breath swelling and unswelling to the tune of his now frightened heart, his soul reaching out to some expression from the groin of endless silence. She seemed like some shimmering cloud image, veiled in sheaths of innocence, ‘Ha!’ … the exclamation escaped from his throat involuntarily. And he leapt towards her like a tiger towards a young doe.

With a shrill shriek she ran, leaving her pitcher where it stood at the edge of the pond. And, as she raced up the steep bank, her torso straining forward but her legs far behind, she knew she was defeated and burst into a smile.

Govind caught her and flung her on to a dune. She fought him back, digging her nails into him and kicking him with upraised knees. He swung her from side to side and pinned her arms to the earth and lay down on her.

‘Oh, Let me go,’ she said with tears in her eyes and laughter in her mouth. The colour on his face called to the radiance on cheeks. And, giddy-eyed, she relaxed, till his lips touched hers. And now she swayed as though her soul was in a delirium of giving.

‘Someone will see us,’ she whispered.

But, storm tossed, scampering, wriggling hard twitching with the concentration of nerves outstretched for months in desire for her, in a fierce felicity, he was intent on the dissolution of her energies, the melting of the snows of her virginity…

A little distance away, on the track leading to the rivulet, Lehna, the son of the Landlord, went twisting the tails of his bullocks, goading them to drag the manure cart quicker. Govind flapped his arms like a protective male bird covering his mate under his wings for Lehna was his rival. Gauri snuggled up to him like a cooing female bird. And thus they lay in the heat and the sweat, their voices rustling like the silks of Lahore and their faces glowing about the dune sands like two luminous wild flowers jutting out of the earth. The sun shone above their heads.

The sun shines, and the moon takes light from it, as also the stars. And on the earth, going round the sun, through the eternal movements, we possess in our spines all the planets, as well as a thirsty love and the desire to die in order to be reborn… And from the dying, and through the rebirth, there grow lotuses among the reeds, the flaming smiling pinks, pushed up in the quagmire by the vital spark that keeps things alive. In the fruits, flowers, foliages among the birds, beasts and humans, the same glorious urge prospers. And thee is creation.

Gauri smiles like the demure morning. Govind laughs like the temple drum. There is the voice of Siva in their curly throats. And in their bodies is the sinuous disunion of a broken moment between the lord of storms and his consort, Parvati. And in their touching is the burning of several planets, the extinction of worlds, the smothering of heavens, the dissolution of hells, and the springing of a serene pleasure, muted like a prayer in which we rest, sometimes as before a new miracle and sometimes, as before the juxtaposition of legs interwined in a ridiculous posture.

And thus begins a cycle.

Govind met Gauri in the lentil field on the first full moon night of autumn when every one was awake and merry. He lay with her in a hay barn on the eighth day of the new moon before winter, when people were feasting at night after fasting the whole day. And he took her on every moon-lit night in the winter. For, after the first flush of raw passion had expended itself under the sun, they began more and more to lend themselves to the mellow light of the moon. Govind wore clean clothes and Gauri always had flowers in her hair.

As Gauri went to meet Govind in the fields by the river on one eclipse night, however, her mother saw her. ‘Ah!’ she shrieked at the boy, ‘if you have spoiled my daughter, you must marry her… you wretch….’ And she shrieked at Govind’s mother for letting her son roam round like a bull. And Govind’s mother shrieked at Govind’s father for begetting a seducer. And Govind’s father shouted at Govind. To which the boy returned the simple answer: ‘Marry me to the girl.’

And then there was much toing and froing among the elders.

And at last, on an auspicious day, discovered in the scrolls of their fate, for a good commission by Pandit Badri Nath, the Brahmin priest, Govind and Gauri were married….

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From
The Tractor and the Corn Goddess and Other Stories.

5

Five Short Fables
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THE DOVE AND THE CROW

Gliding softly through the clouds like a sunray on a grey morning, the dove descended towards her nest in the banyan tree. In her beak were tightly held two grains gathered from a nearby field, and in her eyes was a liquid light, almost like a squint, from the concentration of her desire to get home for her eggs.

As she reached within sight of the tree, she inclined on her shoulder, to the left, opened her wings wide and embraced the air, as though she was about to settle on the firmament. Her eyes were intent and her heart felt the pull of home. The light of the day shone across her neck like a smile.

Before her now stood the taller branches of the banyan tree. Only a little while ago had she ascended into the air from the cluster of leaves on the edge of the biggest branches of the banyan. But, somehow, the leaves seemed different, they seemed to have been parted from above.

The concentration of the light in the dove’s eyes nearly tore the air, as she quickly wheeled and made an effort to dive into the pit for there was the sign, the sure sign, of the crow’s approach towards her nest. And this crow was the sworn enemy of her eggs, the vandal, the destroyer, who had twice before killed her young ones just before they had been born. He always came from the top of the tree because he knew that her husband, the He-dove slept near the base of the tree in a little nest on a cavity of the main trunk.

She tore through as though her second sight, and her mother love, had combined to make her the vehicle of flight itself. And what looked like a nose dive became a safe landing on the top of the tree.

She sat on a strong twig, folded her wings and tried to collect herself together. A thin gauze of confusion covered her and her body trembled in spite of her will to remain calm. From what secret source of energy arose the passion, she knew not, but in her nerves, from deep beneath her flesh, there arose tremors which disturbed the even flow of her breath and the usual peace of her presence.

She cooed.

Immediately she heard the caw caw of her enemy, the crow, from below.

The ugly eater of dirt had surely destroyed her eggs. She fluttered and cooed.

The crow caw-cawed and was heard to hop away. Collecting herself together, she peered into the pit below her and with the concentration of instinct, saw her nest. The two eggs she had been hatching lay, grey-white. Perhaps, they were safe. She had come in time.

There was no breath in her to wait. She darted to the branch on which, among the leaves, nestled her little home.

The crow cawed defiantly, even as he hopped a little way away from the branch.

Shivering through fear and trembling on the borders of hope, the mother dove walked to her nest. And, blind, but with her nerves taut, she spread her wings to feel the contours of her eggs beneath the warm down of her belly. Warm were the eggs beneath her safe, untouched. She had come in time, before the crow had attacked them. She cooed with satisfaction, with the instinct of the mother who finds her little ones safe after the agony of separation… She cooed deeply as she felt them near her flesh… She cooed again and spread her wings as though the little ones, still unhatched could listen…

The crow caw-cawed, even as he heard the dove coo. He wanted to frighten her, to bully her, as though to say: ‘Your eggs are safe now, but I can still get them if I like; I have a strong beak, to fight with and my claws are strong like a vulture’s.’

The mother dove cooed, this time a deep shriek of a coo, to call her husband, the sleepy lazy-bones, who had slept through the crisis, on the outpost in the cavity of the trunk of the banyan tree.

There was no answer.

She cooed again, more shrilly.

The crow caw-cawed to drown her soft voice.

She felt helpless. But the eggs were safe near the belly and she spread her wings wide and, looking this side and that, she sat, on the defensive, alert, equal to the fight, should he attack before the He-dove came.

The crow knew that he could not attack. He had lost his opportunity. Perhaps if the He-dove did not come he could overpower the mother dove and break her eggs, take her stock of grain and despoil her nest. Only, should the He-dove awake and call the other birds, together, his chance would be lost.

The dove cooed.

Stung by failure, craven and mad, the crow suddenly hopped nearer towards her to attack.

Fluttering, shrieking, cooing, with her wings spread wide, the grey mother dove stood on guard… And, nerved to resist, should the crow attack, she cooed defiantly, though a coo can never be a hoarse shout, as a caw can never be a whisper.

The little sparrows below heard the agonised coo of the mother dove. The He-dove awoke as the strange coo of mother dove fell into his ears. The little sparrows raised a hue and cry.

The mother dove cooed softly now, with assurance. The crow attacked her, picking at her wings in a desperate effort to avenge himself on her for her alertness. The dove fluttered wildly and beat of the attack, the white of her under-wings glistening like the light of danger before the cawing crow.

The He-dove flew up, followed by the sparrows. The crow caw-cawed and fled far to the end of the branch. The mother

dove cooed to the He-dove, half remonstrating, half satisfied that he had come after all. The sparrows chirped and mocked at the crow.

The He-dove was stung by the reproach of the mother dove, cooed deeply and proudly, and lifted his beak towards the crow. The crow rubbed his beak with his feathers to clean it of the blood he had on it.

The mother dove cooed with pain. The He-dove came and put his beak into her beak. The kiss gave the mother dove warmth and she cooed with love. The crow fled away at the sound of the love song, cawing bitter hatred in his mouth.

They say in the Punjab that the dove can resist the attack of the crow, her proverbial enemy, with cooing. For the cooing comes from the deep, deep love of the mother for its young ones, and the cawing of the crow, as well as its red-eyed anger, comes from the smoke and ashes of the hatred in his heart.

THE BUTTERFLY

Pink, purple, mauve, scarlet, emerald and gold are the sweet peas on the bed at the end of the garden. And it seems the butterflies are like flying flowers, as their wings have all these colours on them. But the gay impropriety with which they flit from the pollen of one stem to the other, makes them transitory moments against the flowers, which will still be there through the autumn. That is why I feel an irresistible desire to catch a butterfly.

I sit, book in hand, trying to read, but the edges of my further eyes are captivated by one yellow meteor, with black dots, which intersects the triangle of the green expanse before me, somersaults, darts lightly forward and descends like a helicopter on a purple sweet pea. She folds her wings, opens them, and then flits to another flower to gather a more tasty bit of juice.

My ears open to the delicate hum of the whole bed, which makes the silence alive. And I concentrate upon the miracle of how a little protoplasm with tongue, nose, ears and eyes, feeds upon the hearts of the flowers. The world drops like a husk from the scales of my eyes. But before my brain-eye awakes, over and above the further eyes, the yellow butterfly with black dots upon her wings, has gone towards a large, dark lover, prancing like Martha Graham alongside her partner, and tracing an intricate confusion upon the limitless lens of my forehead.

I would fold them both within my brain-eye and understand the magic of their connection. I would become Euclid and, like him reconstruct the whole sensitive life of these butterflies through triangles. But all I can see is the path as they chase each other.

As I follow their movements idly, the texture of the evening presses upon my eyelids, and the pair vanishes.

And then there rises a slight breeze, shaking the sweet peas gently. And I see a suspensory group of stalkless blossoms no other than the butterflies in mass flight.

Eagerly, I search for the yellow one with black spots upon her wings. The last rays of the sun make the mist like the fiery wisps of smile rising from a volcanic crater.

And, above the luminous pendants, I can see the yellow one, with dark spots, whom I would like to catch, flitting across the sun-warmed expanse.

Like Sindbad the sailor, waiting to go across the seas, I press my senses to the silence of expectation. The thickness of my fingers and the hardness of my body shame the nerve-ends and put me on edge. I cannot ever believe that a crude body may have, as an underlayer, a poet’s lean soul.

I evolve a strategy. My cupped fingers will enclose the yellow one with dark spots within my grasp without hurting its wings or damaging its colours. And then I will look at beauty and release it.

These and a countless tremors of my senses urge me on. Multiplying the repertory of her movements, up, down, athwart, a liquid flow, curl, eddy, flitting with nimble wings, seeking contact with the hearts of many petals, she eludes my grasp.

The emptiness pours like sand through my fingers. And yet I am lured on to the chase by a primitive instinct, charged with vibrant feeling, drunk on the odour of sweet peas. In the aimlessness of my gaze, I feel an utter fulfillment.

Swift lie the meteor which she had seemed at first sight, uplifted by the breeze a little, with quivering wings, she darts out of my hands before they have closed upon her.

The hurt of the frustrated love possesses me. I revert back to the state of the amoeba in me and seek consolation beyond the primeval senses. But the capacity for thought has already been subtracted by anger from my self-perfection. And now I feel I can write a poem, for the experience of a lost love can thrive best on regrets and anger.

They, say, that, after the brief moments of rest, where they sip honey in the hearts of flowers, the butterflies go from luxuriant gardens to die in barren fields…

THE GOLDEN COCKEREL

The sun comes out over a pale blue sky and warms the earth, scattering the winter mist.

The golden cockerel has already announced the dawn from his perch on the manure pit, where he has been looking for worms. There is a certain agitation in his voice as he cukrooncroos.

Above the frail clatter of brass pots and pans, rubbed against the soft ashes the old woman shouts.

‘Acha, acha, your mother-in-law is up and doing the chores!… Only your lazy wife has not opened her eyes…’

The cockerel cukrooncroos again.

‘Yay, she is resting, after laying the eggs! Go and eat the ashes elsewhere! Shaitan!’

Stretching his neck to the full height of his elastic head, lifting the red crest, the cockerel sniffs at the fertilising warmth of the sun. Then he cuckrooncroos, as though the heat is coursing down his body. And he repeats his call, standing with unsculptured limbs on top of the little hillock.

‘Go eat your masters or I will twist your ears!’ the old woman quakes. And then she coughs a wheezy, asthmatic cough before talking to herself. ‘Count them I must count the eggs before the children find them. They will break them.

And their father needs the strength…’

Far away, from above her, the sun bronzes her old face and makes it glisten. She feels the sap of youth in her body, as when she first came to this hut as a bride. She lifts the folds of her dupatta and hears it rustle against her breasts. But she lifts her gaze and sees the little chicks pecking at bits near the manure pit and capering behind their mother, the third hen.

The cockerel, who had been calling the faithful to prayer, has frozen into a statue. Then suddenly he leaps from the hillock and chases the third hen.

The hen shrieks and runs in an irregular movement, with uplifted feathers, head pushed forward and all her outer senses forbidding the approach of the suitor.

The cock breaks the fragile half steps of her panicky flight and grabs her neck. He makes for the doorway of the original female, the root from which heaven and earth spring.

With a shattering discordance of shrieks, she wards off his hold and spreads the confusion of her nerves into his body. His wings open and his feathers flutter, as though she is a cat attacking him in the dead haze of noon. And, for a moment, his eyes close, and he feels like a defeated murderer, full of avarice and anger.

The third hen has made good her escape.

The chicks follow her, startled but faithful to the mother, while she now stands as though to fold them under the shadow of her wings.

The sunlight steals over the soft grey dust of the early winter morning.

The cockerel rescues his equipoise and, as though he is the victor of the love fray, flashes up, with bright feathers outspread, on to the manure pit, and cuckrooncroos again.

The old woman stoops to gather the pots and pans and, clearing her throat again, says:

‘To be sure, you inhabit the throat of a God! Talky talk! Cocky Cock! Shame upon you! Your third wife ran away!’

Quivering in his entrails, at the compliments and insults, the cockerel sniffs the air like a peacock, lifts his neck agilely, stands on one foot, on the rubbish heap, cuckrooncrooing away as though to show off the purple cone of his crest against the sunlight…

THE PEACOCK

After the long wait of many gasping hours the rains have come. The eyes are filled with seven shades of green. And the children have put upon the swings.

Deep from within the fields, come the cries of the peacock calling to the peahens.

And there, beyond the grove over the well, a pair alights, But, contrary to the expectations aroused by the song of the male calling the female, it is the peahen who is hot on the trail of the peacock.

Turning to look and make sure that he is seen, gracefully lifting one foot forward and then the other, the male bird walks masterfully ahead.

Afraid that she may lose him if he flies off again, the female bird treads the earth meditatively like the Nayika, vigilant, with longing in her eyes.

And now, holding the female in his spell, speechless but sure of step, the peacock is bound up in a prolonged repose, sniffing at the air, and pecking at the odd bits of grain, and considering the female, as part of the landscape. Then, he senses the nearness of the female. And then arises in him a wave of desire, as in the heart of a prolific pigeon.