At least wrinkles don't hurt (Graffiti: Gene Mora)
Wonder why that made it into a jokes list...It sounded like something serious to me. And it sounds wrong. Wrinkles *do* hurt. All the wrinkles that your experiences leave on your mind, on your face. Sometimes you try to separate the ones that hurt by calling them scars. But there's no teling when a harmless-feeling wrinkle turns into a scar, for no apparent reason.
BTW, Dinker's book is now available in stores...search for "Murmurs of the Dawn" on amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, etc..
Finished typing in the subtitles for 'Aap Ke Saath', a cheesy 80's movie...mom does most of the translation, I do the typing. So if you buy that movie and have a crib about the english subtitles, you know whom to blame :)
And now, beginning to see the real direction in which this book is heading. The old "Hopeful young man" versus "Cynical old woman" did seem a bit artificial to me... We're almost where I want to start writing again....And right after the fifth is where 'Quiet Diary' fits in. That is the story I want to elaborate on, the one I've wanted to write on all this time.
Has all this time passing helped me decide where that story goes? Cant say...it's only given me more pithy phrases to add to the core. But the suggestions I got from all the people who read it, atleast those that struck a chord, are what I'm trying to stem the tide of my own thoughts with.
Just so's I dont forget : here is the sequence as it stands : An Evening in Pune, Quiet Diary, Old man at Khajarana, Sadhu Baba who knows people are lost. We're already heading for the breakdown right there....
I was inspired by that "looking for Anna" wala chapter in "Under the net", by Iris Murdoch...Wouldnt call the book a classic (or maybe i didnt read it carefully enough). But that chapter is too, too good. Thats what stays in your mind after you're done with the book.
Trying to do something similar with this chapter...only it's much closer to my own experience. Would have preferred setting the story in Indore, but Pune seems a better setting for this sort of stuff somehow.
Chapter 4
"Your turn now," I say.
She is leaning back in her chair, eyes closed. Without changing position, she begins. "This story happened, perhaps..."
* * * *
By late summer, loadshedding would be in full force. A few shops around us had generators to light up their shops. The rest of us bought candles by the dozen from the mandai. Joshi saeb sold them for five paisa each to the lodgers. I think he made a bit of profit, too. None of the lodgers minded, since they were too caught up in their jobs and exams and packing and unpacking to go buy them from outside.
Akash was one of these. He'd looked around for cheaper board when he was new to the city. But his job in the factory took up too much time and he was soon too exhausted to search further. Whatever spare time he had he spent with the friends he'd made in the factory.
They generally liked him. He had the same tastes as them, he enjoyed the same sort of cheap desi daru they did, he shared his beedis and occasional cigarettes with them. He too never felt the need to change his job or move on to 'better things'. From experience they knew that those sorts soon started avoiding them. Akash of course didnt. Initially they had been bothered a bit by his seeming more intelligent than usual. But once he was caught up in the full time occupation of living he never had use for thinking too much and became more and more like them.
There was this time he came home only slightly drunk, and forgot that the candle in his room was almost finished. Halfway up the stairs he remembered...he patted his pocket to make sure he still had the matchbox. Since he was just going to sleep, that would be enough.
The room was pitch dark. It was later than usual, so the building was very quiet, too.
After he got into the room, he pulled out a match and lit it. He was looking for his change of clothes when -
Imagine what it feels like. You're alone in the pitch dark, expecting nothing but to go to sleep in a few minutes. You wave your match around your mostly empty room. You locate your old shirt. You blow out the match (you don't need it now) and are on the point of picking up the shirt when a hand grasps your shoulder .
Akash would have fainted if he hadnt been drunk. Instead, he said in a quavering voice," Who's that?"
A quiet, confident voice answered," Your conscience."
"Eh? What?"
"Your antaratmaa. Your inner voice. Your soul. Call me what you want."
Akash could either accept this without argument or go mad. He accepted it. Trying to calm his voice, he asked," What do you want?"
A chuckle. "Nothing much. I just thought I'd pay you a visit. Arent you excited?"
"Um...yes. I am." He tried to turn a little, to look around him.
"Do you want to see me?" the voice asked. "Then why dont you just light a match?"
Something in that voice - a hint of mockery, perhaps - gave Akash pause. He hesitantly said," No...no. I dont really want to see you. Not now."
The voice laughed, freely, like a child. Yet the tone made Akash shiver slightly.
"When, then? When do you want to see me?" It asked.
Akash tried to think of a safe enough time...a month? That seemed far enough to be safe. He felt that asking for more time than that would be dangerous. "One month?" He volunteered. "Can we meet in one month?"
The pressure on his shoulder eased. "One month? Why so long? Surely you cant be... afraid of me? Oh well, as you wish. I don't know how I'll be able to wait a whole month. But since you command it..."
The voice was fading all this time, and Akash wasn't sure if he actually heard the last few words, or if they were just echoes in his mind.
After a few minutes, Akash picked up the courage to light a match. The room was empty except for him.
He considered leaving the place. He could just go now to his native town. But he had the feeling that his conscience would have no trouble at all following him anywhere.
No, there was nothing to be done except get ready for it.
Akash's friends were quite disappointed with him in the days after that. He stopped talking to them. He spent more hours than ever in the factory, but he never seemed to have money when they wanted to buy a bottle and enjoy the evening. One of them saw him praying at a temple once. As if that wasn't enough, another saw him actually giving away his hard earned money to a home for orphaned brats near the factory. He'd turned into just the opposite of what he used to be. They wondered what had happened. Was he trying to snare some high class girl?
For Akash, the month went by in a daze. He kept trying harder and harder, making sure he left nothing unsavoury in his life. As the fateful evening approached, he felt the time he'd asked hadn't been enough. He wondered if he could get any more time. He'd worked in the factory all that day and was bone tired. He hoped he could go to his room and just fall asleep before anything happened. Wouldn't happen, of course.
Loadshedding time again, when he went back to the guest house. In a few weeks, the rains would be here and there would be electricity. For now, everything was dark, just like it had been a month ago. He'd bought a candle the day before, and he was prepared to face whatever it was he would see.
He unlocked his door with trembling fingers. He took two steps into the room. He turned around to close the door, and the voice said, "Hello."
"H-hello. Is that you?"
"Who else could it be. Are you ready?"
Akash mentally squared his shoulders. "Yes." He said as confidently as he could.
"Good! Go ahead, light your candle, then."
He struck the match, cupped it with both hands to make sure it lit properly. Touched it to the candle. Picked up the candle (the flame shivered ever so slightly in his hands), and walked toward the voice. The first thing he saw was a pair of brightly polished leather shoes. Somehow their neatness heartened him. He walked closer. The trousers were clean, ironed and new. The belt buckle gleamed faintly. The shirt was blue with the checks he remembered so well. It had been his favourite shirt in college. He couldn't make out the hands, they were in shadow. And he walked closer, close enough to see his conscience's face.
Suppose a child dies. Suppose that even after he's dead he somehow keeps growing. Suppose his face rots away but keeps growing, until he's old enough to live by himself in a guest house and work in a factory. Then his face would look, somewhat, like the apparition sitting on Akash's bed.
Just before the candle dropped from Akash's fingers, just before the room plunged back into darkness and he fell senseless, he heard the voice say, "Thanks for the new clothes..."
* * * *
I'm currently reading Kafka's The Castle right now. No doubt this is going to have an effect on the stuff I write, over the next week.
Chapter 3
Her eyes are lost; they still seem to be looking at the tiny figures scurrying off that faraway student's face.
"Joshi saeb called up the uncle... he had the address, and he asked one of the boys to go. They came in a few hours and took away Ankur... I don't know if he survived. Don't even know if he did well in the entrance exam."
I say,” That doesn’t make much sense – it’s all gloomy and there’s no main character or anything. Don’t you have any good stories?”
She seems to have been expecting this; she grins and says,” That’s how most real stories are – You wouldn’t even understand them unless you were a part of them. Like I was, who saw that boy every day for a month. I’ve seen thousands of students come and go, each had their tale to tell. Why do you think I remember this one?”
I think about it. There’s some truth to it – I am pretty sure I am going to remember this tale for a while. Not as well as she remembers it, of course. I’m only hearing it second hand.
The road seems to have grown a bit quieter. I look at my watch and start. “Oh, I’m late… I have to pick up my sister, her class must be over by now.”
She nods. “Go, then. It was fun talking.”
“I’d like to come again, if I’m not intruding.”
“Of course, come back. Come in the evenings, I don’t have too much work then.”
“I’d like to hear more next time.”
“You know it’s your turn… I’ll tell mine after that.”
I walk back the way I came, down the stairs, onto the road, and away from the old building. The yard is totally empty now, I see. The huts are closed, none even have kerosene lamps burning in them.
***
When I come back, a week has passed. But it could have been the same day, for all that has changed. I am there again at the same time, the labourers are again getting ready to pack up, she is again in the balcony. This time she seems to be by herself up there.
I wave at her. She looks down, and nods. “Wait!” she calls, and starts down.
In a few minutes, I am back in the chair I’d occupied last week. She has gone somewhere to get me some tea, and I am looking idly at the thinning traffic on the road.
“Here you are”, she says, walking up with two cups of tea, and handing me one before she sits down herself. “So… you thought my story was pointless, and today you’re going to tell me a good story that isn’t pointless…”
“Well… since you put it that way, I don’t know whether it’s good or not. All I know is that it made me happy to hear it.”
She is looking at me, waiting.
* * * *
He said to her,” I want to tell you a story.”
She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Only after we order. I’m starving.”
They sat in a coffee house, like most college students, not to eat but for company, to spend long hours feeling safe to talk. They were surrounded by others like them, who provide a backdrop of guffaws, arguments, constant comings and goings, and the occasional waiter replacing empty glasses of water.
The waiter asked them for their order. Both were regulars; both had come often enough with their friends to know the menu by heart. They each ordered their favourites : One Masala Dosa for him and one Idli Sambhar for her. Filter coffee after that. He’d have bought a pack of cigarettes too, but he was scared of ruining her impression of him.
He tried again after some idle chatter. “Want to hear the story now? You’ll like it.”
She said,”Do you write?”
“A little…” How could he say that he’s never thought up anything like this before… that if she asked him for more he wouldn’t have anything worth mentioning.
“Okay, so this is a science fiction sort of story. Our hero lived on a planet that was very similar to earth, except…”
The Idli Sambhar arrived. That never took any time, they always had the Idlis ready. He motioned for her to begin eating.
"As I was saying, the planet, and it's people were very similar to earth, except that their tongues were different from ours. They were made of mud."
He braced himself for a reaction from her. This sounded wierder than he'd thought. But she went on eating, nodding for him to go on.
"Now don't think this is very different from what we have. The whole purpose of a tongue is to reflect what's in your mind, isnt it? So if you have that wet shiny sort of mud, it reflects your mind out of your mouth pretty okay. So they didnt have any problems speaking.
"Now our hero wasnt entirely normal. In fact, he was considered below average. This was because of a birth defect, which happened to a very few people.
"His tongue was made of silver. Dont get the impression that it helped him somehow because silver is a precious metal. On the contrary. Think about it, you're a science student, you can get this. Mud is really soft, it can be formed into any shape. So you could reflect whatever part of your mind you want. If you want to reflect something in a different form from what it's like in your head, just shape your tongue to it. With practice, you could say whatever you want to, and it would come out in the form you wanted it to. Basic social skills. Smart people who understood reflection could make out the real shape in the mind, of course.
"But silver is a metal. It doesnt change shape all that easily. His tongue would be straight and undistorted all the time. It would reflect plainly what exactly was inside, all the time. He could never disguise it, tailor it, or even stop it from showing up, the moment he opened his mouth. As a result his talk had all the finesse of a two year old, who's only just learnt to angle his tongue correctly. Of course he was a social outcast, people tried to stay away from him because you never knew when he would say something stupid.
"He had his own little group of friends, most of whom had the same problem. One or two were normal people, who found it acceptable to know the real thoughts of their friends all the time. They got through school and most of college together. But he was always lonely for more company.
"One evening, our hero had a bright idea. ("That's why he is our hero, right?" she said, grinning) If the reason people stayed away from him was that he alone had this silver tongue, and they had mud tongues, why not just disguise his own? He went quickly to a medical shop and bought a jar of the good quality mud, the kind that didnt wear out very easily. Alone in his hostel room, he spread it evenly over his tongue. After a couple of tries, he thought it looked pretty good. It was difficult to tell it was a disguise. He tried talking, and he found that while he couldnt change his thoughts entirely, they did get muddled up a little. He could get mistaken for a normal guy who preferred to stay honest.
"He couldnt wait to try it out. His own friends of course knew him already, and they wouldnt approve, either. He went to a bar he'd never been earlier. The experiment was a success. He found people talking to him easily. The conversation went on well, as long as he didnt open up too much, kept on the shy act.
"As time went on, he did this more and more. When he left college and took up a job in a new city he kept his disguise on all the time. People liked his being generally honest and he did all right. Of course, the disguise put up a barrier against him opening up all his thoughts to anyone, so he began to get lonely in another way. Every once in a while he would meet his old, silver-tongued friends in out of the way places and talk to them freely. Somehow those conversations were more satisfying than all the others with normal people.
"Then, one day, he went to this variety entertainment programme. It was a popular one, which he'd been hearing of for some time. And in the middle of one of the items, he saw her.
"She wasn't one of the prettiest girls he'd ever seen, but there was just something about her face that set her apart from the others. He looked at her and forgot that he was in a hall with a thousand other people. Others looked at her, listened to her and laughed at her jokes, but he alone seemed to understand what she was really thinking.
"He wondered what it was about her that attracted him. Was it something she was saying? He looked closely at her mouth to catch every word.
"And then, he thought, he had it. From time to time, while she spoke, he caught a glint off her tongue. It could have been just a quirk of the lighting in the hall. But he thought it was because she'd had the same idea he had - her tongue was silver, just like his, and she'd disguised herself as a normal person. He decided he needed to meet her and find out for sure.
"After the show he would go up backstage and talk to her. There was only one way to persuade her to reveal the truth - he would have to tell her the truth about himself. And if she werent a silver tongue? He'd work that out if it happened..."
He stopped speaking, and picked up his spoon and fork. The Masala Dosa had arrived while he was telling his story. After taking the first bite, he looked up. She was still waiting for him to continue. At some point she’d forgotten about her food.
“Well? So what next?” she asked.
He looked calm (he hoped), but inside he was in turmoil. This was it, he thought. This is the point you’ve been hoping for. She even seems to be interested in your story.
“I don’t know,” he said.
She was less startled than expected. “So you don’t want to tell me right now, or you don’t know the ending at all?” she said softly.
He swallowed. “No, I don’t know the ending yet. Because I don’t know if you really are a silver tongue, yet.”
She laughed out loud at that. “You idiot,” she said,” You had to say this in the most roundabout way possible, didn’t you?”
He was too scared inside to say anything. He hadn’t expected her to see through him as easily as that. But…
“Let me think about it. I don’t really know if I am a ‘silver tongue’ or not. But you have a cute way of saying things, all right.”
So this is where I really decide who 'I' in the story is...And how he's different from the old woman. That'll be decided as I write...
God, I'm lonely for company...it's 12 midnight and I'm sitting here updating this diary. I wish I were talking to someone instead of typing.
So that kind of decides what I'm writing about in the next story.
If you'd come by in the summers in those times you wouldnt found a room here - the Law College used to be close by you know. They had their exams in July, and kids from all over the state would come to give those exams. Most of them stayed here for a few months before the exams...to study in relative peace.
The place really hummed in the evenings then...the boys played cricket over there where those labourers live now, chana-jor-garam and peanut sellers would park just out the gate, friends would come and go, and the occasional family would visit to boost their boy's morale and pass on some home cooked food.
In the afternoon, of course, everyone holed up in their rooms with their dusty table fans running, and either slept or slogged. The road outside would be deserted, ruled by searing gusts of wind. So Joshi saeb, who took care of the bookings, would snooze at his desk undisturbed.
That was probably why Ankur was able to get the room in the first place. He came in that day, carrying this heavy trunk with both hands, looking as if he'd been walking a long way in the heat. The sound of the trunk dropping to the floor woke Josh saeb up. He straightened up and looked around, "Hunh...kaun...kya?"
He saw this scrawny teenage, about to ring the calliing bell on the desk. Ankur saw Joshi saeb was awake, and brought his hand back down. He said in a low voice, " Room milega kya?"
"No, all the rooms are full."
Ankur looked even more tired. "No place at all? Every boarding wala is booked, all around the L.C. I've been everywhere, talked to everyone...where else can I go now?" He sat down heavily on the trunk and passed a hand through his hair.
"But there isnt a single room available...they're all full for the whole month."
The boy didnt respond. he sat there silently, staring off into space. Joshi saeb felt irritated. "Bola na, there's no room...", he said, and stalked off to the toilet. He always tried to escape arguments.
When he came back the boy was still there, sitting on his trunk. he said," Could I sleep here, in the hall? I cant go anywhere...I have my blanket. If I try to sleep on the road the police wont let me."
Joshi saeb was fed up. He said," Follow me. No, leave that trunk there, first see what I have."
They went up the stairs to the top floor, and went along the hallway. Joshi saeb stopped at almost the other end, in front of an unlocked door. He pulled open the squeaky chatkhni, and motioned the boy to follow him in.
The room had probably not be used for years. It looked like a bathroom, with an antique tub along the further wall, and a broken basin next to it. A folded metal bed leaned against the wall on the left. The only light was from a small window, covered with a clouded pane of glass. Shadows of leaves moved on it and darkened the room intermittently.
"Idhar aao...help me open up the bed." The two of them pulled down the bed, balanced it on the long edge, and opened out the legs. They dragged it over the tub. "See, this place is all I have. There's no fan. I'll get Pakya to hang a bulb up so you can study. And I'll ask Jijabai to sweep up the room a bit. If this is all right with you, come on down and pay the rent."
The boy seemed a lot happier now. "Thank you" was all he said.
***
There’s no way to tell if Ankur actually worked harder at his entrance exam; all I can say is that he didn’t have any friends to visit him in the evening, he didn’t make any new ones, and he was in his room, studying perhaps, almost all the time. There was only the one time his aunt and uncle, who lived in the same city, came to visit him. Even that visit lasted barely ten minutes – Anukr came down to meet them when the watchman called for him, they talked in quiet tones, then they went back, leaving Ankur to his studies again.
By the time the last week of June approached most tenants would buckle down to their work. Bhel from the bhelwalas outside would often be dinner, and lights would be on till early morning. It being summer, sales of mosquito coils would increase and the smell of Tortoise and Rooster would float through the halls come evening, mingled with that of the agarbattis.
Ankur, already gaunt, started looking even paler and more tired. Every time I went to his room to clean it, he would be writing, filling up huge piles of rough paper, surrounded by books. His room didn’t have a chair, so he’d pulled up a spare, wobbly, table from another room and pulled it next to his bed. He’d sit on the unmade bed, with a little table fan on one end, studying in his pajamas.
And grab at mosquitos, of course. He preferred grabbing at them , trapping them with one hand, then half opening the hand and looking in to make sure they were crushed, before throwing them idly to the far end of the bed.
It was probably because I was lazy that I didn’t clean up the cobwebs in the room. I had dozens of rooms to clean, and anyway, all these kids would be gone in a month. There was less of a crowd during the rains. Even so, I was mildly surprised when I noticed the number of spiderwebs in the far corner of Ankur’s room, at the opposite end from the fan. There were many more there than in the roof or in the other corners.
I never knew if Ankur was aware of those spiderwebs. But I did realize the reason for them the next few times I saw him killing those mosquitos. Almost every time he killed one, he’d throw it in the corner, where it would land in the webs.
I know I sound silly talking about these insects and fans and coils and such. But it didn’t seem silly at all, then. Most of the rooms got real dirty when the students were there, and we took it for granted that we would be giving them a real good cleaning after the entrance exam. After I’d once noticed those spiderwebs, though, I looked at them more closely every time. They kept on getting more dense. The spiders on them – earlier I could hardly see them but by the end of June I could make them out easily, each with big bellies and some almost as wide across as the palm of my hand. But I never saw them move. Probably because of all the noise I made sweeping.
By the time the 25th of June came, preparations were at a fever pitch. Boys were buying bottles of soda to sprinkle in their eyes and keep awake somehow. Some of them walked through the corridors, book in hand, reciting out loud. It was everyone for himself, no friends, no chitchat.
The exam was at 7 in the morning. God knows why they kept it so early, but it meant everyone was out of the place by 5:30. I and Joshi Saeb were able to have a proper cup of tea without all of them wandering around.
They started coming back by eleven or so. Without exception, every one of them was drained. There would be movies and parties and celebrations soon, but not right after the exam. That day, everyone slept.
Ankur came even later, after everyone else. He plodded up the stairs without a word, went to his room, and locked himself in.
By late evening, there was some activity again in the building. Most of them would be leaving the next day. Many would be going back to small towns, hoping for a letter from the Law College two months from now. This was the last chance they’d have to enjoy the big city. Some went out in groups, asking to leave the gate open till they got back. Some others sat along the walls again, eating from the vendors. They talked in loud voices, laughed, sang. They organized themselves into groups and played antakshari. As night came they, too went off to better hotels, a little further away.
They started coming back late, many drunk, most of them with some souvenir or the other to take back home. They kept coming till two, three in the night. And lights still stayed on in many rooms – there was packing to be done, preparations to be made for the journey the next day. Many were leaving by the early morning train or bus.
That’s why I was late in doing the cleaning the next day. I waited for the crowd to thin out a bit. I started from the top floor as usual.
When I reached Ankur’s room, it was still locked from the inside. Neither Joshi saeb nor I had seen him around since the previous afternoon – we’d talked of him just that morning. I thought he was still asleep and was about to go on to the next room, when I thought it was quite a long time for him to be asleep – it was nearly a whole day now.
I knocked on the door. Then a bit louder when he didn’t respond.
That was perhaps the only time I can remember when I was scared and didn’t know why. But something told me there was some problem here, and I knocked on the door as hard as I could. I was hitting the door with both hands before I realized it, shouting out “Hey!” again and again. Then Joshi saeb, who’d heard me and come up to see, said, “Wait…” and he went to the end of the corridor and got back a big hammer. He looked as scared as I felt. I’m sure even he didn’t know the reason. A few students were collecting around, looking puzzled. He told them to get back, and swung that hammer as hard as he could, at the top of the door where the chatakhni was. The old wood broke easily, and we rushed in.
For a moment, I thought the shadows were falling on his face, making it black. But then I realized it wasn’t the shadows, it was… Did I say I’d never seen those spiders moving? Well, no, because that was the only time I did see them move. They scuttled down fast, off his face and back onto the webs just beyond the bed.
I had stopped, horrified. Even after I’d seen those creatures run off, Ankur’s face seemed to have something more on it. Now, somehow, I stepped closer and saw the huge wounds on his face. He looked unconscious, barely breathing.
There was a choked sound from one of the boys who had crowded into the room to see what had happened. Many of them stepped back quickly when they saw Ankur.
Joshi saeb was kneeling by the side of the bed. He was saying to himself,” I told him there wasn’t any room here…”
* * *
"Sorry to interrupt your conversation," I say.
She gives me a strange look. "What conversation?"
"Werent you talking to someone just now?"
"No, I was sitting here alone, listening to Hawa Mahal. What made you think there was someone else?"
I pause, feeling a bit uneasy. "But I..."
"Oh, the extra chair...These are here all the time...other guests used to come here to watch the passersby, a long time back. Me, I just come now for the breeze."
"So you're not a guest here?"
"No, I'm just the caretaker. Pawar Saheb lives in Mumbai, I'm just here to make the place look occupied." A passing truck makes curved beams of light march across her face. She is looking at me curiously. "Do you live nearby?"
I was expecting this." No, I...had some time in this area, and decided to walk for a while. This is a nice street to walk in."
"True," she says, nodding. "So...you just wanted to know about this place, eh?"
"Yes.It looks like a place with a history...It would be nice to hear...if you dont mind spending some time with an absolute stranger."
"At some point, everyone in the world feels like a stranger. No, it's good to talk. Havent sat down and talked in a long time."
"So....how old is this place?"
But she seems to be lost in thought....she says, almost to herself, "So long it's been...I cant remember the last time I really talked." She seems to focus on me again.
"But somehow, I cant think of a single thing to say...nothing worth talking about. All these numbers and details...when this place was made, how many people, who made it....they mean nothing. What is really worth talking about is the stories...the thousands of stories that passed through this house." She glanced at me. "Have you ever thought about it? How you're a part of so many stories, how you intrude, change, touch pass through so many tales, how you're probably a minor character in the tales so many people hold in their hearts? Just as I've become a character in one, maybe several stories that you'll think about, tell your wife, describe to your friends?"
I nod. She continues, "But so few of those stories ever get changed into words, ever venture out of the heart they were formed in. So many would fade and wither if we tried to mould them into a narrative."
"But in a quiet place, with a good listener, they could bloom perhaps."
Her eyes, which were looking at some far-off memory, snap into the present. She smiles a little. "But I'm not the only one with the stories..."
"Who, me? I dont have any..."
"So, young man, you just want to be entertained? You just want me to talk, talk, talk, while you sit there looking at me, perhaps not even listening? I dont think so." Now her face is hard, she reminds me of a sharp customer at a vegetable stall.
"But what do you want me to tell you? I dont really have much to say-"
"So tell me what you have. If you can't appreciate the little stories in your own life, how could I expect you to understand mine?"
She softens a bit."Look, I know you have them in you...they dont have to be long or grand. But I really want to hear you tell me something close to you. Come on, now..."
"Give me a minute." I lean back in the chair. The silence is broken only by the noise of the people in the yard, who are still up, and by a bird calling out from the mango tree in the yard. I let my mind wander free, trying to pick up something compact enough, simple enough, understandable enough from the maze of my life...
"I think I have one. It is not long, but its something my grandfather told me a long time back and I hold it close."
She is just listening, now. Her eyes have that vacant look again.
* * *
"There's a temple, somewhere in the jungle some distance from here. Villagers know of it, they visit the temple when they are in trouble. This ancient temple has no idol of the Devi. Rather, it is said that the Devi resides in the large bronze bell hanging at the entrance. People pray to the bell, before ringing it and going in. Inside is just the pundit.
"They say about the Devi that she has great powers. They say that if you are ever in any trouble, and you ring the bell, she will appear before you and help you out of your trouble.
"She only appears on one condition, though. She will appear to you *only if* you are in some trouble which you cannot solve yourself, which is too big for you to handle.
"No one, ever, has seen her to appear yet."
* * *
She has been listening to me carefully. After I am done with it, I lean back again and say, "This was my grandfather's favourite story. I've always thought of it as the biggest thing he ever gave me."
She seems satisfied; she's nodding gently, going over it in her mind. "That is good. I see you *do* know how to recognise a story."
"So now...tell me about this place?"
"There are so many stories..." She broods,"...and many of them actually happened.
"I'll tell you one thing that happened here a long time ago."
