Hi,
I discovered Nishant Agrawal’s blog a couple of weeks back. He write poigant short stories. There is a certain sadness in all his stories. The endings always offer a consolation, yet they are never happy. This is among his best. Read on.
The Song of Happiness
by Nishant Agrawal
The waning sun found the seven-year-old Radha sitting under a streetlamp, eating a chapatti with half-baked potatoes. She saw a fleeting shadow on the yellow-lit road. She turned her head and saw a brown-coat puppy walking the along the edge of the road, sniffing the plastic cups, paan-spits and ice cream sticks.
Radha leaned towards it and said, “Hey little doggie, have you lost something?”
It turned its head and looked at her. It blinked and then began sniffing the trash again. She picked it up and said, “Please tell me little doggie, I will also look with you.”
It uttered a low mewl and then tried to spring down from her arms.
“What happened, you look so sad.” She loosened her grip, but it didn’t spring out. It turned absolutely still and looked solemnly at the leftover morsels of potatoes on the newspaper.
“Little doggie, are you hungry? Why, you not eaten anything?”
Radha took out a piece of dry chapatti from her pocket; the puppy grabbed it and hurriedly ate it. She put the puppy on the newspaper and placed another dry chapatti near it. After eating all of it, it sat down and wagged its petite tail.
“You liked it, little doggie? I cook it. Mamma also said I cook well,” Radha said, patting its head, “Okay, now that your tummy is full so you should go back, your mamma will be looking for you. If she sees you here, she say, ‘You bad bad girl! You are trying to take away my little child from me!’ My Mamma also got very worried when I come home late. Now go home little doggie, it is very late.”
Radha stood up and went down the twilit road, dancing on the notes of a song which, her Mamma used to say, a very old lady sings every night, while she sits on the moon, gently rocking in her chair, spinning something. Radha always wondered what the lady looked like, how many grand-children she had, whether she knew any stories, and what was she spinning. She looked up at the moon: it was round, white and calm, like a bowl of milk kept on a paper. Radha couldn’t see her, but she could hear the song: it was soft and clear; one could touch and smell it; it seemed to fill the air with happiness: if you listened to it carefully, you could feel happiness; and if you stretched out your hands, happiness stuck to your fingers.
Walking along with Radha was a shadow, short, with four feet, oblivious of the song, but trying to match with the rhythm of her dance. She turned around and saw the puppy. She stooped and said to it,
“Why are you following me, little doggie? Go back to your Mamma now, fast!”
She gently pushed it. “Come on now, go.”
She started walking again. The puppy stood there for a moment, silent, its sober eyes fixed on Radha. It followed her again. Radha had just walked a few steps, when she saw its shadow again.
“You silly doggie! If Pa sees you he beat me! Go away.” She picked up a small stone and threw at it. It hit him but failed to produce an effect more than a blink in its eye. She threw a larger stone. The puppy looked down and whined, and went away with sulky steps. Kali walked away, her steps faltering with the weigh of guilt. She could still hear the song, but she didn’t dance now.
She was soon inside the open ground, where she could see her shack standing among the squalor of gullies and gutters. She took a scrubber and squatted next to a bucket of clothes immersed in soap water. The mother Earth embraced its children with a soft kiss of breeze, covered them in a blanket of darkness and sang a lullaby of soporific silence: wailing babies, hitting husbands, crying wives, urchins and beggars—all went to sleep; except for Radha, who, seven-years-old, ugly, smelly, with dry hair, torn clothes, running nose, squatting near a drainpipe, scrubbed and washed the clothes.
Minutes later, it started raining. Amidst the clamour of rain, she could hear muffled whines. She stood up and went towards the ox-cart. She stooped down and saw the puppy, wet, shivering, looking at her with its black and still eyes. Then it looked down and tried to hide its face among its paws.
“You bad doggie! I knew you had not gone! Now it start raining and now you will catch cold and you mamma will blame me.”
She picked up the puppy and sat down leaning against a stack of hay. She softly slapped its head and said, “Now, tell me, why do you not go back to your mamma, hmm?”
The puppy looked down and hid its face in her arm, and mewled.
After a minute she spoke,
“You don’t have a mamma, do you?”
She took out a torn cloth from her pocket and rolled the puppy in it. It stopped shivering. They both—the little girl, clothes torn, hands rough and blistered, squatting besides a stack of hay, and the puppy, little, sad, rolled up in a cloth, under warm palms—, looked silently at the road as the drops poured upon it. Radha spoke,
“I miss Mamma. She was a good human. She never beat me. She even bring me clothes on birthday. Before she went to live with God, I play with other children. But now I don’t, because Pa send me to beg, and everyday I go to bus stop and beg, and I don’t have a bowl also. People there do not treat me nicely. I don’t like to beg. People curse me and push me and some even take my money and run away, and then I get home with less money and then Pa beat me. And I even wash clothes all night. Still he beat me. Mamma never ever beat me. Never. If Mamma were not live with God, she would not allow me to wash clothes or beg or Pa beat me. I miss Mamma. You also miss your mamma little doggie, huh?”
The puppy turned its head and looked into Radha’s eyes for a moment; and then looked back at the rain drops as they fell on the road and died. Rain drops don’t beg or wash clothes; they don’t have a bad father also; they just fall and die.
“I don’t have one friend also. Little doggie, you want to be my friend?”
Radha took out its paw from the cloth folds and gently shook it.
“Now that we are friends, I am sorry I hit you with a stone.” She held her earlobes and said, “Very very sorry. I wanted you to go away, because if Pa saw us, he beat us both. He won’t tell why, but he still beat us. He is bad human. I don’t like Pa. He always beat me and never tells why he beat me. Mamma said he is a bad man. Your Pa is also a bad man little doggie, huh?”
She bent her head and searched for the little being in the folds of the cloth roll; it was asleep, the peace and calmness on its face resembled that of the baby who, having cried all night, falls asleep when the morning suns rises from the ocean bed and comes out to greet him. When Radha looked at it, she felt what the mother feels when she wakes up and sees her little baby lying asleep next to her. A smile flits on Radha’s face. The puppy moved its head slightly and rested it against her palm. The warmth of its skin created a lovely feel; it thawed the coldness of her arms. She slowly moved her palm away, in case the blisters of her skin hurt it.
After a minute, she noticed something moving near her feet. She looked down and saw a mouse nibbling at her clothes. The puppy woke up and looked at Radha’s eyes; they were fixed on the ground, still ghoulish with the fear which had failed to come out in form of a shriek. With puzzled eyes, it looked down at her curled up toes. The sumptuous feast of the mouse was brought to a standstill, as it heard the loud bark of a big creature whose head was emerging out of a cloth roll. It was terrified, and would have had a heart attack, that is, if mice did really have them. It jumped several feet in the air—the puppy and Radha shrunk back with amazement—and fell in an old shoe nearby. It didn’t come out of it that night. The puppy looked at Radha. She said agitatedly, “No little doggie you should not, you should not! Mouse can harm you. They bite you. They once bite my ear while I sleep. You should not.” The puppy paid no attention; it fastened its paws around her palm and dozed off. She caressed its head with her fingers, and looked at the soft falling shower. Behind the translucent curtain of rain, she saw a tall and large-built figure coming towards her. She carefully placed the puppy behind the hay stacks and rushed towards it.
“Pa, Pa, I was—was washing—rain came—Pa I—”
He slapped her and showered curses. She fell down; he kicked her in the stomach with his army boots. Radha lay curled up on the wet road. She didn’t shriek or shout. She just counted the seconds that passed.
“Where is the money?” he asked, “You bitch! You are late, and I won’t be able to go today! You’re good for nothing, you bitch! Why didn’t you just die with your mother?”
Radha took out a sack of coins and notes from her pocket and handed it over to him. Before he could start counting them, he felt a pinch in his leg. He looked down and saw a puppy, with its teeth trying to dig inside his flesh. “This bastard!” He kicked it with his other leg. The puppy fell at some distance, and tried to stand up. He went near it and pressed his hard sole over it. It uttered low squeaks, whose audible range was not beyond its own breath. By this time, Radha was holding his boot, trying with her flimsy fingers to lift it off, uttering, “No Pa no! He is small—don’t don’t, it does hurt him it does, he is very small now I will get more money tomorrow, don’t hurt him he is small now Pa don’t, Pa—”
I remember how, five years back, a similar incident had occurred: she was trying to lift off Pa’s boots from her Mamma’s neck.
He said, “You bitch! So this was why you were late! Playing around with dogs!” The puppy stopped wriggling, and its squeaks slowed down and then ceased. He slapped Radha and walked away, towards the infamous iridescent streets whose glitter first attracted, and then blinded.
Radha crawled towards the puppy and whispered in a low voice, “Wake up friend, wake up, fast! He’s gone he’s gone, wake up, friend.”
It lay still; still as the road; still as the moon; still as her doll.
She shook it and said, “Wake up bad doggie, wake up, I not talk to you, I not, I not ever ever, wake up—
But no, it would not wake up. And she soon knew why. Five years back, when she shook her Mamma, who lay on the floor, absolutely still, she knew why she wouldn’t wake up. Mamma had left her alone and gone to live with God; and five years later, her little friend did the same. And she knew it, but she never understood it. She looked at the dead puppy for a minute, and then hit it with her hand, just as she once hit her dead Mamma. People didn’t have the right to leave her alone again and again, and live with God. She hated God. He always took the people she loved.
She picked up the puppy and ran, without crying, to the cemetery. She knew that she had to do the last rites, as no one from its family was there (her grandmother had once told her what to do with those who go to live with God). She dug a small hole next to the wall of cemetery, between the drainpipe and a sapling, and buried it there. As last rites, she joined her hands and prayed for it. She felt content.
She quickly bent her head down and whispered, “I forgot to tell: say to Mamma I’m fine.”
She was too tired to go away. She lay down next to the gutter and placed her head on a stone. She picked up a small caterpillar that was trying to make its way up a plant, and fondled it. Suddenly, her hand stopped and her smile faded: she realised what had just happened; she realised that little doggie had now gone to live with God, and so she won’t ever be able to see it again. Five years back, the day Mamma was cremated, she woke up at three in the night to cry because she knew she won’t ever be able to meet her again. She cried now also. All the beetles and worms hid under the wet soil. The caterpillar curled up and shivered. Radha flung it in the air and uttered a loud wail. For an hour, she turned her head left and right and cried and pounded the soil with her fist, talked in low whispers to the grave. And then a breeze blew: cold, shuddery, with a sharp whistling sound. Along with the breeze flowed the notes of the song which a very old lady sings every night as she sits on the moon, gently rocking in her chair. As the notes passed by, happiness fell from them and stuck to her arms, legs, mouth, hair and eyes. She stopped crying, as Sleep took her in her arms and sang a lullaby. She entered the world of dreams: her Mamma and her little doggie and she were playing ice-water in a lovely garden with pink chrysanthemums, green green grass, big big clouds, a smiling and happy sun, and fluffy rabbits jumping up and down. They all were laughing. No one was crying. They all were with her. No one was with God.
I perched on a branch and looked at her, and cried, just as I had been doing since seven years.
Cheers
Kaber
along the lines of “Rose tinted spectacles“. I think it is very simple to understand.
