There's a place over there... Its a long long distance from where we stay. There's a house on top of a small hill. Then.. all the houses there are on hilltops. Electricity has yet to reach this place...
There's a lady in that house. Now you see her calling out for somebody. A little girl dashes across the doorway before you realize it and a young lean boy runs after her...
The lady is old now.. she's in her 60's or so.
She was young then... In her 40's and in good health. She's always working.. doing something or the other. This is the little girl's world.. Then of course there is the lady's husband. He is forever outdoors.. the fields or somewhere. He's supervising the workmen there or he's just picking weeds as he walks....
There are rabbits here. They scoot as the little girl goes near them but they have to be caught in the evening.. and put back in their houses ;)
There are cows in the cattleshed near the house. Once as the little girl watched, a cow fell down dead down below the hill and across the road. The lean boy rushed down the steps and across the road to where his father was already ... later the boy told her it had eaten a poisonous plant. Sad because it was the biggest milk giver they had. She also felt sad.
They had two big dogs... One male, the other female. One day she heard them say the black dog next door had gone mad. So it's owner took it to the river and pushed it in.. it was the rainy season when the waters are white are ferocious...
The lady of the house was the little girl's world.
The lady took the girl to the river once in a while. It excited her beyoind words. The big rocks and the clear waters... she ws elated when she was allowed to go too. The two boys of the house played in the waters if they had come. The women washed their clothes on the banks .. and then before they left, the lady called to her. She waded towards her and she could dip her head in the water finally...
There was a smiling young lady next door.. she had marbles in her drawer. Once she gave one to the little girl. She treasured it like one would a pearl.
Then one day, the litlle girl had to leave. She grew up and meanwhile, back there, where the little girl still laid her identity, they moved out to another place... a place where there were no big rooms.. no rabbits... no cows... no river....
One day long later.. the girl asked to see her home... and they went to see... Her mind was full of visions of the house.. the premises and all that she cradled close to her heart. Some part of her even expected to see the cows and willed to climb up the cattleshed into the haystack...
She climbed the too familiar steps as her heart beat faster than ever... slowly her eyes levelled to the house... but... there was no house there. Rather, there stood the house.. demolished; all the rumbles lying on the same floors... but it a house no more... The well stood but no vessels beside it... something snapped within her,
She went to the river... It was not monsoon but the waters still hurried down and past her as she stood on the familiar bank.. and then it seemed that the waters were flowing into her... the depths of heart.. and out... it seemed to be telling her that it had taken with it her past.
Yet it soothed her ... and as the waters swept past her, it seemed to smile at the little girl.. the one who had refused to grow up .. At that moment she realized that indeed... she was not wrong... it was still her identity and the place she learned her lessons.. the principles of life...
Time... it changes everything. and yet, nothing...
