He is holding the fishing rod perched on a stone enveloped with moss and thus slippery. I am watching him from behind resting on my back, my right hand as the pillow for my head on a large round stone, not slippery. When I at times strike the small stones which I have collected, against the rock on which I am laying with my other hand, he turns his head towards me, puts his index finger perpendicular to his shut lips and indicates that I stop making noise. I don’t want to avert fish from being pierced to his hook but I still can’t help bothering him. I don’t doubt his fishing skills, but today it is taking longer than usual for his bait to lure the fish to a gill-puncturing death. Maybe fish have gotten smarter or more probably they’re rare these days. “Leave it! No luck today. Fishing tomorrow?’’ I ask him. He doesn’t reply but gives me a broad ear-to-ear smile. I dodn’t know why but I return it with a half smile.
Three days ago I had arrived at this village, my own; I would like to call it that. At its threshold bar-peepal trees had greeted me waving their uncountable leaves as if they had recognised me. On the way to the village through the farmlands, I had seen two human bodies silhouetted against the sun. I could never ‘not recognize’ him. The smaller of the two bodies came walking towards me. When she sensed my presence, her perkiness vanished and her eyes were fixed onto her toes. She had a pitcher in her hand and was most likely going to fetch water from the nearby stream. “Hello, little girl! May I know your name?” I asked her when she was passing by me. But she wouldn’t answer. Rather, she accelerated her pace. I waited for her to return but she didn’t. She was his daughter; she wouldn’t be so ‘not-clever’. She had taken the other path.
I hide myself beside a mound of soil. I had taken a handful of wet soil, fashioned it into a tight round ball and was poised for an assault. I hit him with it from behind. It was not a surprise for me that I missed the target. No sooner had I turned about to give it another try, my buttocks got a nice strike. ‘Soil-balls’, this was what we used to call those cannon balls of ours. I turned back with a squeezed, contorted face. I’m sure it must then have had more wrinkles than those which prowl like snakes all over his face. He had his signature smile on his face then. He never misses. “What did you think, that I wouldn’t notice you?”’ he said as he gently tapped me with his stick and then hugged me. His bare chest smelt of sweat and I could feel his heart or lung or whatever it is that makes noise inside beat. He was just a year older than me but he had developed wrinkles and looked much older than his age. “You’ve grown old,” I said. “That I have; what can I do about it?”’ he said. “Let it be. You don’t know how much I’m happy to see you here. You’re a very big man now, aren’t you?” he said enunciating the words ‘very big’ in long, pronounced manner. I am a lot taller than him, but not a “big man”.
He unleashed his oxen, carried the plough and motioned after the little shy girl I had encountered earlier.
She at once got up on her feet and ran after the oxen, hitting them gently with her little stick and twisting their tails needlessly.
“Heh! Get up. Let’s go now. “He might have thought that I was asleep but I wasn’t. I could see that his narrow-necked bamboo basket full of fish. I was surprised for I hadn’t sensed any bustle or animation. He was a swift and silent doer. How could I have forgotten that? After walking a few yards past me he turns back to see me putting those stones into my jeans pockets. His signature smile will never abandon him, I bet. I rush to reach him and say, “Do you think you will win today? Huuh! Never consider it. I’m already sorry for you looser.” Still a smile... He puts the basket and the fishing rod on the sand and sits on the same large stone with the naturally carved figure of a footprint on which we used to offer worship as children. He stares at the green, wide river. I too look towards the same direction and on observing closely see that the river is flowing more rapidly than I had imagined. The same I relate to my life. From our school on the hilltop this river resembled a thin green streak crisscrossing the greener hills. I look at the direction where our school was and still is, and see a red house with its tin roof glittering in the sunlight. I visualise him and me climbing tall trees (me not without his aid) and sitting on the branches, our legs dangling carelessly.
“Old man, are you afraid already?” I ask him boldly but somehow unconfident of myself. He smilingly gets up, picks up a small stone at random, turns about and throws it away to make it skip ten or eleven times on the surface of the river before it disappeared into the water. It is out of question for me to overcome this feat. I clear my pocket and whirl a stone, not across the river but along its bank towards a black-and-white bird sitting on a dead tree trunk. He doesn’t ‘not smile’. “Why should you care about these stupid things? You should study and get ahead in life,” he tells me after perceiving that I’m upset.
I came here to my old village, my soil, to revive memories; to breathe its fresh air (at least I thought so), but I now realise that in one corner of my mind there had been a desperate desire to advertise my engineering degree and my visa to America. “We are constructing the road that links our village to the district headquarters. Are you not helping us? You would probably love working for your own place,’’ he had asked me yesterday. In fact I had never considered working in this remote village concealed by the giant hills. Did he make me regret it yesterday? I don’t know. I now contemplate his words and it once again hits me right on the same spot he had once hit me fifteen years ago with his slingshot. Left chest. He never misses. “Are you not going to marry or are you already married secretly?’’ he asks me breaking my stupour.”I don’t find it necessary; I won’t marry,” I say as if I really mean that. I turn to him and see my own face in his sunken eyes. II want to see how he perceives me in his heart. “Do you want to?” he asked me as he stretched his left hand towards the river’s opposite bank. He would swim across the river and take me to the other side on a mere plank of wood. His scary ‘monkey business’ in the middle of the water used to scare me to death; almost extorting life out of me. I shake my head. He has likely already forgotten what he had asked me yesterday but I can’t. The last few hours have been very tough for me; I have had to decide between things.
I want to see my village as a more comfortable place to smile. Patches of dark clouds are hovering in the sky—their edges bright, and the yellow sun is peeping from behind the hills in the west. He smiles, his face a little yellowish. My face smiles too. He doesn’t miss this time either.
- Narayan Baral
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