The Prospect of Flowers Read online

  If the cows didn’t come home at the right time, Binya would be sent to fetch them. Sometimes her brother, Bijju, went with her, but these days he was busy preparing for his exams and didn’t have time to help with the cows.

  Binya liked being on her own, and sometimes she allowed the cows to lead her into some distant valley, and then they would all be late coming home. The cows preferred having Binya with them, because she let them wander. Bijju pulled them by their tails if they went too far.

  Binya belonged to the mountains, to this part of the Himalayas known as Garhwal. Dark forests and lonely hilltops held no terrors for her. It was only when she was in the market town, jostled by the crowds in the bazaar, that she felt rather nervous and lost. The town, five miles from the village, was also a pleasure resort for tourists from all over India.

  Binya was probably ten. She may have been nine or even eleven, she couldn’t be sure because no one in the village kept birthdays; but her mother told her she’d been born during a winter when the snow had come up to the windows, and that was just over ten years ago, wasn’t it? Two years later, her father had died, but his passing had made no difference to their way of life. They had three tiny terraced fields on the side of the mountain, and they grew potatoes, onions, ginger, beans, mustard and maize: not enough to sell in the town, but enough to live on.

  Like most mountain girls, Binya was quite sturdy, fair of skin, with pink cheeks and dark eyes and her black hair tied in a pigtail. She wore pretty glass bangles on her wrists, and a necklace of glass beads. From the necklace hung a leopard’s claw. It was a lucky charm, and Binya always wore it. Bijju had one, too, only his was attached to a string.

  Binya’s full name was Binyadevi, and Bijju’s real name was Vijay, but everyone called them Binya and Bijju. Binya was two years younger than her brother.

  She had stopped calling for Neelu; she had heard the cowbells tinkling, and knew the cows hadn’t gone far. Singing to herself, she walked over fallen pine needles into the forest glade on the spur of the hill. She heard voices, laughter, the clatter of plates and cups, and stepping through the trees, she came upon a party of picnickers.

  They were holiday-makers from the plains. The women were dressed in bright saris, the men wore light summer shirts, and the children had pretty new clothes. Binya, standing in the shadows between the trees, went unnoticed; for some time she watched the picnickers, admiring their clothes, listening to their unfamiliar accents, and gazing rather hungrily at the sight of all their food. And then her gaze came to rest on a bright blue umbrella, a frilly thing for women, which lay open on the grass beside its owner.

  Now Binya had seen umbrellas before, and her mother had a big black umbrella which nobody used any more because the field rats had eaten holes in it, but this was the first time Binya had seen such a small, dainty, colourful umbrella and she fell in love with it. The umbrella was like a flower, a great blue flower that had sprung up on the dry brown hillside.

  She moved forward a few paces so that she could see the umbrella better. As she came out of the shadows into the sunlight, the picnickers saw her.

  ‘Hello, look who’s here!’ exclaimed the older of the two women. ‘A little village girl!’

  ‘Isn’t she pretty?’ remarked the other. ‘But how torn and dirty her clothes are!’ It did not seem to bother them that Binya could hear and understand everything they said about her.

  ‘They’re very poor in the hills,’ said one of the men.

  ‘Then let’s give her something to eat.’ And the older woman beckoned to Binya to come closer.

  Hesitantly, nervously, Binya approached the group. Normally she would have turned and fled, but the attraction was the pretty blue umbrella. It had cast a spell over her, drawing her forward almost against her will.

  ‘What’s that on her neck?’ asked the younger woman.

  ‘A necklace of sorts.’

  ‘It’s a pendant—see, there’s a claw hanging from it!’

  ‘It’s a tiger’s claw,’ said the man beside her. (He had never seen a tiger’s claw.) ‘A lucky charm. These people wear them to keep away evil spirits.’ He looked to Binya for confirmation, but Binya said nothing.

  ‘Oh, I want one too!’ said the woman, who was obviously his wife.

  ‘You can’t get them in shops.’

  ‘Buy hers, then. Give her two or three rupees, she’s sure to need the money.’

  The man, looking slightly embarrassed but anxious to please his young wife, produced a two-rupee note and offered it to Binya, indicating that he wanted the pendant in exchange. Binya put her hand to the necklace, half afraid that the excited woman would snatch it away from her. Solemnly she shook her head. The man then showed her a five-rupee note, but again Binya shook her head.

  ‘How silly she is!’ exclaimed the young woman.

  ‘It may not be hers to sell,’ said the man. ‘But I’ll try again. How much do you want—what can we give you?’ And he waved his hand towards the picnic things scattered about on the grass.

  Without any hesitation Binya pointed to the umbrella.

  ‘My umbrella!’ exclaimed the young woman. ‘She wants my umbrella. What cheek!’

  ‘Well, you want her pendant, don’t you?’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘Is it?’

  The man and his wife were beginning to quarrel with each other.

  ‘I’ll ask her to go away,’ said the older woman. ‘We’re making such fools of ourselves.’

  ‘But I want the pendant!’ cried the other, petulantly. And then, on an impulse, she picked up the umbrella and held it out to Binya. ‘Here, take the umbrella!’

  Binya removed her necklace and held it out to the young woman, who immediately placed it around her own neck. Then Binya took the umbrella and held it up. It did not look so small in her hands; in fact, it was just the right size.

  She had forgotten about the picnickers, who were busy examining the pendant. She turned the blue umbrella this way and that, looked through the bright blue silk at the pulsating sun, and then, still keeping it open, turned and disappeared into the forest glade.

  2

  Binya seldom closed the blue umbrella. Even when she had it in the house, she left it lying open in a corner of the room. Sometimes Bijju snapped it shut, complaining that it got in the way. She would open it again a little later. It wasn’t beautiful when it was closed.

  Whenever Binya went out—whether it was to graze the cows, or fetch water from the spring, or carry milk to the little tea shop on the Tehri road—she took the umbrella with her. That patch of sky-blue silk could always be seen on the hillside.

  Old Ram Bharosa (Ram the Trustworthy) kept the tea shop on the Tehri road. It was a dusty, unmetalled road. Once a day, the Tehri bus stopped near his shop and passengers got down to sip hot tea or drink a glass of curd. He kept a few bottles of Coca-Cola too, but as there was no ice, the bottles got hot in the sun and so were seldom opened. He also kept sweets and toffees, and when Binya or Bijju had a few coins to spare, they would spend them at the shop. It was only a mile from the village.

  Ram Bharosa was astonished to see Binya’s blue umbrella.

  ‘What have you there, Binya?’ he asked.

  Binya gave the umbrella a twirl and smiled at Ram Bharosa. She was always ready with her smile, and would willingly have lent it to anyone who was feeling unhappy.

  ‘That’s a lady’s umbrella,’ said Ram Bharosa. ‘That’s only for memsahibs. Where did you get it?’

  ‘Someone gave it to me—for my necklace.’

  ‘You exchanged it for your lucky claw!’

  Binya nodded.

  ‘But what do you need it for? The sun isn’t hot enough, and it isn’t meant for the rain. It’s just a pretty thing for rich ladies to play with!’

  Binya nodded and smiled again. Ram Bharosa was quite right; it was just a beautiful plaything. And that was exactly why she had fallen in love with it.

  ‘I have an idea,’ said
the shopkeeper. ‘It’s no use to you, that umbrella. Why not sell it to me? I’ll give you five rupees for it.’

  ‘It’s worth fifteen,’ said Binya.

  ‘Well, then, I’ll give you ten.’

  Binya laughed and shook her head.

  ‘Twelve rupees?’ said Ram Bharosa, but without much hope.

  Binya placed a five-paise coin on the counter. ‘I came for a toffee,’ she said.

  Ram Bharosa pulled at his drooping whiskers, gave Binya a wry look, and placed a toffee in the palm of her hand. He watched Binya as she walked away along the dusty road. The blue umbrella held him fascinated, and he stared after it until it was out of sight.

  The villagers used this road to go to the market town. Some used the bus, a few rode on mules and most people walked. Today, everyone on the road turned their heads to stare at the girl with the bright blue umbrella.

  Binya sat down in the shade of a pine tree. The umbrella, still open, lay beside her. She cradled her head in her arms, and presently she dozed off. It was that kind of day, sleepily warm and summery.

  And while she slept, a wind sprang up.

  It came quietly, swishing gently through the trees, humming softly. Then it was joined by other random gusts, bustling over the tops of the mountains. The trees shook their heads and came to life. The wind fanned Binya’s cheeks. The umbrella stirred on the grass.

  The wind grew stronger, picking up dead leaves and sending them spinning and swirling through the air. It got into the umbrella and began to drag it over the grass. Suddenly it lifted the umbrella and carried it about six feet from the sleeping girl. The sound woke Binya.

  She was on her feet immediately, and then she was leaping down the steep slope. But just as she was within reach of the umbrella, the wind picked it up again and carried it further downhill.

  Binya set off in pursuit. The wind was in a wicked, playful mood. It would leave the umbrella alone for a few moments but as soon as Binya came near, it would pick up the umbrella again and send it bouncing, floating, dancing away from her.

  The hill grew steeper. Binya knew that after twenty yards it would fall away in a precipice. She ran faster. And the wind ran with her, ahead of her, and the blue umbrella stayed up with the wind.

  A fresh gust picked it up and carried it to the very edge of the cliff. There it balanced for a few seconds, before toppling over, out of sight.

  Binya ran to the edge of the cliff. Going down on her hands and knees, she peered down the cliff face. About a hundred feet below, a small stream rushed between great boulders. Hardly anything grew on the cliff face—just a few stunted bushes, and, halfway down, a wild cherry tree growing crookedly out of the rocks and hanging across the chasm. The umbrella had stuck in the cherry tree.

  Binya didn’t hesitate. She may have been timid with strangers, but she was at home on a hillside. She stuck her bare leg over the edge of the cliff and began climbing down. She kept her face to the hillside, feeling her way with her feet, only changing her handhold when she knew her feet were secure. Sometimes she held on to the thorny bilberry bushes, but she did not trust the other plants which came away very easily.

  Loose stones rattled down the cliff. Once on their way, the stones did not stop until they reached the bottom of the hill; and they took other stones with them, so that there was soon a cascade of stones, and Binya had to be very careful not to start a landslide.

  As agile as a mountain goat, she did not take more than five minutes to reach the crooked cherry tree. But the most difficult task remained—she had to crawl along the trunk of the tree, which stood out at right angles from the cliff. Only by doing this could she reach the trapped umbrella.

  Binya felt no fear when climbing trees. She was proud of the fact that she could climb them as well as Bijju. Gripping the rough cherry bark with her toes, and using her knees as leverage, she crawled along the trunk of the projecting tree until she was almost within reach of the umbrella. She noticed with dismay that the blue cloth was torn in a couple of places.

  She looked down, and it was only then that she felt afraid. She was right over the chasm, balanced precariously about eighty feet above the boulder-strewn stream. Looking down, she felt quite dizzy. Her hands shook, and the tree shook too. If she slipped now, there was only one direction in which she could fall—down, down, into the depths of that dark and shadowy ravine.

  There was only one thing to do; concentrate on the patch of blue just a couple of feet away from her.

  She did not look down or up, but straight ahead, and willing herself forward, she managed to reach the umbrella.

  She could not crawl back with it in her hands. So, after dislodging it from the forked branch in which it had stuck, she let it fall, still open, into the ravine below. Cushioned by the wind, the umbrella floated serenely downwards, landing in a thicket of nettles.

  Binya crawled back along the trunk of the cherry tree.

  Twenty minutes later, she emerged from the nettle clump, her precious umbrella held aloft. She had nettle stings all over her legs, but she was hardly aware of the smarting. She was as immune to nettles as Bijju was to bees.

  3

  About four years previously, Bijju had knocked a hive out of an oak tree, and had been badly stung on the face and legs. It had been a painful experience. But now, if a bee stung him, he felt nothing at all: he had been immunized for life!

  He was on his way home from school. It was two o’clock and he hadn’t eaten since six in the morning. Fortunately, the Kingora bushes—the bilberries—were in fruit, and already Bijju’s lips were stained purple with the juice of the wild, sour fruit.

  He didn’t have any money to spend at Ram Bharosa’s shop, but he stopped there anyway to look at the sweets in their glass jars.

  ‘And what will you have today?’ asked Ram Bharosa.

  ‘No money,’ said Bijju.

  ‘You can pay me later.’

  Bijju shook his head. Some of his friends had taken sweets on credit, and at the end of the month they had found they’d eaten more sweets than they could possibly pay for! As a result, they’d had to hand over to Ram Bharosa some of their most treasured possessions—such as a curved knife for cutting grass, or a small hand-axe, or a jar for pickles, or a pair of earrings—and these had become the shopkeeper’s possessions and were kept by him or sold in his shop.

  Ram Bharosa had set his heart on having Binya’s blue umbrella, and so naturally he was anxious to give credit to either of the children, but so far neither had fallen into the trap.

  Bijju moved on, his mouth full of Kingora berries. Halfway home, he saw Binya with the cows. It was late evening, and the sun had gone down, but Binya still had the umbrella open. The two small rents had been stitched up by her mother.

  Bijju gave his sister a handful of berries. She handed him the umbrella while she ate the berries.

  ‘You can have the umbrella until we get home,’ she said. It was her way of rewarding Bijju for bringing her the wild fruit.

  Calling, ‘Neelu! Gori!’, Binya and Bijju set out for home, followed at some distance by the cows.

  It was dark before they reached the village, but Bijju still had the umbrella open.

  ♦

  Most of the people in the village were a little envious of Binya’s blue umbrella. No one else had ever possessed one like it. The schoolmaster’s wife thought it was quite wrong for a poor cultivator’s daughter to have such a fine umbrella while she, a second-class BA, had to make do with an ordinary black one. Her husband offered to have their old umbrella dyed blue; she gave him a scornful look, and loved him a little less than before. The pujari, who looked after the temple, announced that he would buy a multicoloured umbrella the next time he was in the town. A few days later he returned looking annoyed and grumbling that they weren’t available except in Delhi. Most people consoled themselves by saying that Binya’s pretty umbrella wouldn’t keep out the rain, if it rained heavily; that it would shrivel in the sun, if the sun was fierce;
that it would collapse in a wind, if the wind was strong; that it would attract lightning, if lightning fell near it; and that it would prove unlucky, if there was any ill luck going about. Secretly, everyone admired it.

  Unlike the adults, the children didn’t have to pretend. They were full of praise for the umbrella. It was so light, so pretty, so bright a blue! And it was just the right size for Binya. They knew that if they said nice things about the umbrella, Binya would smile and give it to them to hold for a little while—just a very little while!

  Soon it was the time of the monsoon. Big black clouds kept piling up, and thunder rolled over the hills.

  Binya sat on the hillside all afternoon, waiting for the rain. As soon as the first big drop of rain came down, she raised the umbrella over her head. More drops, big ones, came pattering down. She could see them through the umbrella silk, as they broke against the cloth.

  And then there was a cloudburst, and it was like standing under a waterfall. The umbrella wasn’t really a rain umbrella, but it held up bravely. Only Binya’s feet got wet. Rods of rain fell around her in a curtain of shivered glass.

  Everywhere on the hillside people were scurrying for shelter. Some made for a charcoal burner’s hut, others for a mule-shed, or Ram Bharosa’s shop. Binya was the only one who didn’t run. This was what she’d been waiting for—rain on her umbrella—and she wasn’t in a hurry to go home. She didn’t mind getting her feet wet. The cows didn’t mind getting wet either.

  Presently she found Bijju sheltering in a cave. He would have enjoyed getting wet, but he had his schoolbooks with him and he couldn’t afford to let them get spoilt. When he saw Binya, he came out of the cave and shared the umbrella. He was a head taller than his sister, so he had to hold the umbrella for her, while she held his books.

  The cows had been left far behind.

  ‘Neelu, Neelu!’ called Binya.

  ‘Gori!’ called Bijju.

  When their mother saw them sauntering home through the driving rain, she called out: ‘Binya! Bijju! Hurry up and bring the cows in! What are you doing out there in the rain?’