The Village by the Sea (21 page)

When they had finished the fireworks in the basket and Bela and Kamal said sadly, ‘Oh, they are all finished already,' Hari said, ‘Now let's go out on the beach and light a bonfire,' so they laughed and clapped their hands and ran after him down the dark path to the beach, Hari showing them the way with a lighted torch made out of a dry coconut branch. Lila stayed on
the veranda with her parents, saying, ‘We will watch from here – it's too windy on the beach for Ma.'

Hari and Bela and Kamal knelt on the cold sand and stacked dry coconut branches carefully, making a pyramid of them. Then Hari set fire to it and they stood back from the crackling flames and watched the dry fronds and branches burn swiftly till the whole pyramid collapsed into ashes and embers. Now the darkness of the night crept over them – sky, sand and sea were all black velvet, deep and soft, into which they sank. But once their eyes grew accustomed to it they could make out the white line of the surf as it came whispering out of the sea towards them, the phosphorescence that gave a ghostly glow to the waves and the pale gleam of the sand. Of course the sky was illuminated with millions and millions of stars that burnt brilliantly and silently above them.

‘Come, let's go back and sit with Ma,' said Hari when the last of the burning branches had collapsed with a sigh into ashes and embers.

‘And Ma will tell us the Diwali story,' Bela said, suddenly remembering a custom they had observed for years and that she recalled from her infancy.

So they went back to the veranda, still lit by the rosy paper lantern, and sat at their mother's feet while she told them the story of Diwali, of how Rama, the prince of Ayodhya, had fought a great battle with Ravana, the demon-king of Lanka, to win back his wife Sita who had been kidnapped in a forest, and how, victorious, they had returned to Ayodhya to find the whole city lit up to receive them.

‘And that is why we light up our houses on Diwali, too,' sighed Bela, remembering the line with which their mother had always ended the story.

‘Yes,' she said, ‘and the lights will show the way to Lakshmi who is the goddess of wealth so that she will visit our house too and not miss it in the dark.'

‘It is Hari-
bhai
who has brought us wealth, Mother,' said Kamal seriously, patting Hari's arm and making him glow with pride.

‘I feel wealthy when I see all of you beside me,' said their mother quietly.

There was a little silence as they sat listening to the wind in the palms and the surf breaking on the beach and watching the lamps flicker and the
stars shine. Then their father coughed, cleared his throat and spoke for the first time in his rusty voice. ‘Only our Pinto is missing,' he said, making them all start with surprise. ‘Poor Pinto,' he murmured, and fell silent again. Although he said no more, everyone realized he was saying he was sorry for the role he had played in Pinto's death, for being responsible for it in a way. It was the first time he had ever said he was sorry for the way things had been in the past. They were all struck dumb till Lila got up, wiping her eyes with a corner of her sari, and said, as if to console her father, ‘Shall I make you some tea? Or would you like hot milk?'

He shook his head and so did the others: they wanted nothing more now.

The day after Diwali was the Hindu New Year's Day when every house in the village was decorated with fresh garlands of mango leaves and marigolds, every shop opened a new ledger at a special ceremony and prayers were said to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, in the hope that she would bless them in the coming new year.

So the next morning found Lila and her sisters busily sweeping and cleaning and putting up fresh garlands and drawing new
rangoli
patterns. Later in the day the annual bullock cart races were to be held on the beach and excitement ran high in the village where bullocks were having their curved horns painted pink for the occasion while the tonga drivers decked their tongas with tinsel and streamers and brushed and curried their horses and brightened their harnesses with spangles.

Only Hari had nothing to do. He watched the others for a while and then said, ‘There's nothing for me to do now so I'll go and visit the sahib up at the house.'

‘All right, but come back soon,' called his mother who was sitting on the veranda floor and helping Lila to draw an elaborate
rangoli
.

‘You said you would take us to the races on the beach, Hari,' his younger sisters screamed when they saw him crossing the log over the creek.

‘I know, I know,' he called. ‘I'll be back on time.'

When he went up to
Mon Repos
he found Lila had already swept it clean and drawn a simple
red and white
rangoli
pattern on the veranda tiles while the younger girls had hung a garland of mango leaves over the door. There was no one there now and it was very quiet. Hari had to wander around and search before he found the sahib down at the edge of the marsh, sitting amongst the rushes, as still as the heron on the stone, staring through his binoculars at the coconut tree on the other bank.

He heard Hari's footsteps and turned his head slightly but did not speak. Hari hesitated, wondering where he had seen the man before. He searched his crowded memories of Bombay for a hint because that was where the man had come from, his sisters had told him, but he could not remember.

‘Am I disturbing you, sir? Shall I come later?' he asked uncertainly.

In answer the gentleman patted the ground beside him and said, ‘Do you want to talk to me? Sit down – then we won't disturb the birds.'

Hari knew from his sisters that the sahib was ‘studying the birds' but he had no idea how one did such a thing. Now he would learn: Mr Panwallah had told him he must go on and on learning whatever he could and never stop.
Remembering that, it struck him how like Mr Panwallah this gentleman was although he had white hair under his beret and a beard. Both of them were somehow birdlike. It made him feel confident and reassured enough to ask respectfully, ‘You are studying the birds here, sir?'

‘I have been studying the nest-building habits of the baya birds,' said the gentleman and waved his hand at the nests that dangled and swayed from the coconut tree that leaned across the marsh. ‘I watched them all through the monsoon and now they are bringing up their young, see,' he said in a tone of excitement and turned away from Hari to watch.

Hari had no alternative but to watch, too, although he had never paid the birds any attention before. They were not even pretty birds like the kingfishers or egrets, but small and spotted and brown like sparrows, although some had yellow heads. But now that he was forced to look, it struck Hari how wonderful it was that these small creatures had built this colony of strange nests that swung above the water where no one could get at them and harm the young. The nests were shaped like tubes or funnels, and woven neatly out of grasses and paddy leaves, made compact
by careful weaving and blobs of mud. The birds flew in and out of them, crying, ‘Tililili, tililee – kiti – tililee – kitee.'

The gentleman explained to Hari, ‘It is so difficult to build a nest like that that the young male has to practise before he actually plans to build one and raise a family. If anything goes wrong and the nest does not turn out right, he abandons it and starts another. It is only when the nest is perfect that he is satisfied. And he builds several so that he can have several wives. He even decorates them by sticking on flower petals or feathers with blobs of mud to attract the females. Females will only mate with those that have managed to build them good homes.' He chuckled. ‘Can you think of anything cleverer?'

Suddenly Hari gave a start: he recognized the voice, he was sure he had heard it before. He turned and stared at the man in wonder, and then realized who it was – the man who had spoken to the crowds at the Black Horse in Bombay and told them why he, a citizen of Bombay, cared so deeply for the Alibagh coast and feared so much that it would be spoilt by all the changes that were to come. Now here he was, in Thul!

‘Sir,' he blurted out, ‘sir, I heard you speak at the Black Horse, in Bombay, when I came with the men from my village –'

The gentleman lowered his binoculars and stared at him as a bird might, with his head a little to one side. ‘Oh, you were one of them?' he asked, and at last seemed to find Hari as interesting as one of his weaver birds. ‘I see, I see. Come let us go into the veranda and talk – it is too damp to sit here for long.'

But even when he was on the veranda he could not give up his binoculars and his observation of birds and kept raising them to his eyes to watch the flight of a drongo or some bee eaters with little chuckles of delight which made Hari feel that he had missed a great deal by paying no attention to the birds that swarmed in Thul. He would have to learn to use his eyes more, he decided, when the gentleman lowered his binoculars and said, ‘So, you're one of the Alibagh farmers who came to Bombay to give a petition to the chief minister, are you?'

‘Oh no, sir, I'm from Thul – I live in that hut there,' Hari told him. ‘My sisters wash and cook for you.'

‘Ah yes, yes,' he cried, but just then a pair of fork-tailed drongoes swooped into the air and somersaulted in the sunlight, making their blue-black feathers glint, and he gave a cry and stared open-mouthed at them.

‘I went to Bombay in the procession,' Hari reminded him, interrupting the harsh shrieks of the drongoes. ‘We wanted to stop them from building a factory here.'

‘Ahh,' sighed the birdwatcher, dropping the binoculars and sinking down into a cane chair. ‘So you're one of those who put up a fight. You've lost the fight, you know – we lost the case in court. The politicians won – so they can make plenty of money from the sale of land and licences in the name of progress. Thul is lost,' he sighed, straightening the spectacles on his nose. ‘Everything is doomed. The fish in the sea will die from the effluents that will be pumped into the water. The paddy fields will be built over by factories and houses and streets. My little baya birds will find no more paddy leaves for their nests. Or grain or food for their young.
They will have to fly away. I may not see them another year.'