The Draught

When you have younger siblings, you naturally grow up to be story tellers.
Not story tellers with talent or imagination particularly, but you know how to spin a yarn.

"I lived below our green bed for 1 year. Amma got very angry with me because I wasn't finishing up my lunch like a good girl. Open your mouth...there" Push in spoon full of curd rice.
"She one day sent me to live under the bed, without the family."
"Really Akka? Amma did that?"
"Of course, you don't know anything because you were not born then. Second bite...open mouth bigger" Push in another spoonful.
"She would push water and little food in the red plastic plate you play with everyday. I had to eat under the bed. Open bigger, I can't get the spoon in...."
"What about school Akka?"
"Er….school was not there then because all mothers had pushed their kids under their beds. You want that to happen, do you, do you now? Finish this curd rice quickly then. Amma is coming"

I have spent countless afternoons like this when my mother delegated the job of feeding my brother to me!

Sometimes it would be how I was locked up in class after school, other times how I was lost in the Dasara exhibition, else how I flew away with the crows on the coconut tree to the sea!

My brother wonders sometimes how he turned out normal because for a long time I made him believe that I was imprisoned inside a whale’s stomach and had to tear my way out to come meet him when he was born.

Below is a simple fable-like story, a kind I never told my brother.

Once upon a time there was a small village on the banks of a river.
Let’s call the village Happypur.
All the villagers in Happypur were happy.
They were a peace loving, hard working group of people.
They toiled by day in their fields which gave them 10 times the crops any land would give.
And for amusement they had devised a unique way to spend their evenings.

There was a big box near the village well at the center of the village.
This was where all the Happypurians gathered during the evenings.
In this box the villagers would put any happy conversation topic that came to their mind.
The village's wise Sarpanch would give the box a mighty shake each evening and some happy kid would pick that day's topic.
The people would spend a leisurely hour after dinner talking about the happy topic.
This was enough entertainment for the simple-at-heart, easily contented Happypurians.

But one monsoon the rains didn't come, the river dried up and crops died.
Cattle died, children cried, women sighed.
But Happypur was still happy.
The wise Sarpanch had wisely stored last year's excess grains and the village used that now.
They still continued to talk and laugh each night and the draught was not a nightmare.

One day the wise Sarpanch gave the idea-box a mighty shake and asked the little girl nearest to him to pick a topic.
The girl put her hand in and flapped it left and right, but could catch no topic.
She tried again and now flapped her hand up and down, but still no topic.
The wise Sarpanch knew what had happened and soon the villagers also knew.
For the first time in Happypur's history the villagers did not speak post-dinner.

This continued for a few days.
And with this the excess grain dwindled, the rain still refused to pour and the land still refused to grow.
Happypur was happy no more.

And it was then that a young woman gave birth to her young daughter.
Draught or not, the young woman was happy and put in a happy topic into the big box.
That night after the wise Sarpanch gave the idea-box a mighty shake a young boy picked out a topic.
Happypur spoke post-dinner after many months.
They laughed together, some wept too.
But just talking again made Happypur happy again.

Next day the clouds began to open up, the river filled up, the brown lands drank up.
All was well again and the wise Sarpanch that evening said,
"The draught was in our hearts. When we are happy, nature conspires."
And the young mother nodded her head and said,
"It takes but one to turn a draught around. When we are happy, even a draught goes background"