THE FULL CIRCLE: PART 1
The fodder pot in the outfield had remained untouched for the past five days. Radha pursued all efforts to entice Laxmi into crushing the finely cut blades of hay between her set of white pearly studs. The wheat pancakes that Radha had roasted on the clay chulha past two days were only half-baked, the dung cakes that fuelled the fire had been exhausted with Laxmi’s inactivity.
The small stable, which had been Laxmi’s night shelter since the time Kailash had brought her home as a 3-year old calf, had now become her self-imposed cell through the day. A thatched hay roof supported on bamboo stilts strongly grounded in the earth, the stable had over the years been a silent progenitor cocooning Laxmi in its warmth. Radha had managed to beautify the roof with crafty hangings made of dried coconut leaves that she had learnt at school; during Diwali she had put up small tinkling light bulbs that had made Laxmi come alive with excitement, but none of these seemed to break her silent stupor. The almost perennial ‘ding-ding’ of the bell strapped to her neck seemed to resonate only in long intervals.
Laxmi only stood staring in the direction of the pinned-up hand painting that Radha had made of her and Raja grazing the fields together. The contrast of Raja’s tanned black skin against Laxmi’s wheatish complexion was stark to the eye, but that companion-ship was more than skin deep was amplified in that they had been a pair for the past six years, only testified by Laxmi’s behavior at Raja’s sudden absence.
With a strong muscular built, long rotund horns reclining to touch the back of the ears and hair flowing from the nape right down to the end of the tail, Raja would have been a prized catch for any land tiller or trader, but the small village of Sonbarsa had never been notorious for such activities.
Rumours were rife that Raja had been smuggled out in the early nightfall and fog of the winter. The chowk panwari, Chandu had apparently noticed a mini pick-up van drive out of the village with Raja tied to the back. Kailash had approached the daroga at the Sonbarsa police naka – whilst the daroga had patiently heard out Kailash and even made a few notes on his diary, there seemed to be no progress made on the case. Whilst some spoke of the foul play of the local zamindar, others had put off the argument treating it as God’s nemesis.
A month passed and Kailash would make his religious visit to the police naka for updates. The sudden disappearance had all been grist for the mill at the local Panchayat meet for the month – after various hours of discussion, rounds of chewing paan with betel-nut and rumored mud-slinging, the Sarpanch concluded that the case be handled by the daroga in co-ordination with the district authorities at Sitamarhi police station; passing on the buck had become an accepted way of life and Kailash had come to realize his limited stature in the scheme of things.
The winters were generally lean and lazy since the fields only required a measly sprinkling of mustard seeds to see the golden yellow sarson flowers sprout out without much effort. What Kailash was consumed with was the upcoming summers when the fields would require tilling and sowing of rice, which in Raja’s absence would be a strenuous task. He only hoped for some good news before the season since he could not afford an additional investment at this point of time.
The only routine that Radha had ensured since the day of Raja’s absence was to walk Laxmi to the Hanuman temple at the chowk at dusk – she would pick on bougainvillea’s & marigold’s that grew in the backyard and take a few pennies out of her clay pot to offer them on behalf of Laxmi. Occasionally, she would light incense and dig it deep into the soil that supported the basil tree by the side. After offering salutations and seeking blessings for both, Radha would dip her finger into the vermillion powder and apply it between her eyebrows, a practice she had followed with Laxmi too, but ceased to do so after Raja’s absence. Nonetheless, the years of application on Laxmi’s forehead had shown starkly as a mark against her wheatish complexion.
The horizontally protruding stub of the temple idol with an aerial flight pose of the Lord carrying a hill on one hand was very distinct from the other temples that Radha had visited. With sharp cuts defining the muscular build of the Lord against a sindoori colour background, Radha had keenly listened to the scene of the Ramayana depicting the same, which Kailash had once narrated to her; he had informed her as a matter of fact, that the district of Sitamarhi had the origin of its name credited to one of the main protagonists of the epic ‘Sita’, whose birth place Janakpur now lay just a few kilometers away in the erstwhile India and current Nepal. With all else in the social hierarchy structure failing her family, an ode to the Supreme seemed to be her only last resort as a support system.
Laxmi’s routine of grazing the fields in the morning and Radha walking her back home in the evening making a visit to the temple had some what normalized with time but Kailash had still needed to pull hard at the udders for only limited portions of milk. On Sundays, when she was off school, Radha would take Laxmi down to the stream of the Lakhandai for a wallow in the muck and a thorough scrubbing in the waters thereafter. She would follow it up with a session in one of the greener pastures where Laxmi would relish the feed.
The days grew longer with the warm-clothing retailers concluding end-of-season sales and the tilkut vendors in the market place giving way to cold-drink stalls. Small heaps of ‘abeer’ & ‘gulal’ set up outside shops announced the arrival of Vasant Utsav; Radha insisted on Kailash buying her varied shades to play with her friends. As the celebrations and merry-making at the baal-wadi came to a close on the day of Holi, Radha returned home to notice the local boys intoxicated on bhaang and toddy leaving coloured hand marks across the wall surrounding it. In their excitement, one of them didn’t spare Laxmi out of the festivities, sprinkling colour all over, rubbing in a dark gulal paste on the mark between her brows; as though, accidentally, signaling the reversal of her fate.
A few days later, Radha was awakened in the morning by the continuous ‘ding-ding’ of Laxmi’s bell, interspersed with the chann-chann of the ghunghroo necklet that had belonged to Raja.
The small stable, which had been Laxmi’s night shelter since the time Kailash had brought her home as a 3-year old calf, had now become her self-imposed cell through the day. A thatched hay roof supported on bamboo stilts strongly grounded in the earth, the stable had over the years been a silent progenitor cocooning Laxmi in its warmth. Radha had managed to beautify the roof with crafty hangings made of dried coconut leaves that she had learnt at school; during Diwali she had put up small tinkling light bulbs that had made Laxmi come alive with excitement, but none of these seemed to break her silent stupor. The almost perennial ‘ding-ding’ of the bell strapped to her neck seemed to resonate only in long intervals.
Laxmi only stood staring in the direction of the pinned-up hand painting that Radha had made of her and Raja grazing the fields together. The contrast of Raja’s tanned black skin against Laxmi’s wheatish complexion was stark to the eye, but that companion-ship was more than skin deep was amplified in that they had been a pair for the past six years, only testified by Laxmi’s behavior at Raja’s sudden absence.
With a strong muscular built, long rotund horns reclining to touch the back of the ears and hair flowing from the nape right down to the end of the tail, Raja would have been a prized catch for any land tiller or trader, but the small village of Sonbarsa had never been notorious for such activities.
Rumours were rife that Raja had been smuggled out in the early nightfall and fog of the winter. The chowk panwari, Chandu had apparently noticed a mini pick-up van drive out of the village with Raja tied to the back. Kailash had approached the daroga at the Sonbarsa police naka – whilst the daroga had patiently heard out Kailash and even made a few notes on his diary, there seemed to be no progress made on the case. Whilst some spoke of the foul play of the local zamindar, others had put off the argument treating it as God’s nemesis.
A month passed and Kailash would make his religious visit to the police naka for updates. The sudden disappearance had all been grist for the mill at the local Panchayat meet for the month – after various hours of discussion, rounds of chewing paan with betel-nut and rumored mud-slinging, the Sarpanch concluded that the case be handled by the daroga in co-ordination with the district authorities at Sitamarhi police station; passing on the buck had become an accepted way of life and Kailash had come to realize his limited stature in the scheme of things.
The winters were generally lean and lazy since the fields only required a measly sprinkling of mustard seeds to see the golden yellow sarson flowers sprout out without much effort. What Kailash was consumed with was the upcoming summers when the fields would require tilling and sowing of rice, which in Raja’s absence would be a strenuous task. He only hoped for some good news before the season since he could not afford an additional investment at this point of time.
The only routine that Radha had ensured since the day of Raja’s absence was to walk Laxmi to the Hanuman temple at the chowk at dusk – she would pick on bougainvillea’s & marigold’s that grew in the backyard and take a few pennies out of her clay pot to offer them on behalf of Laxmi. Occasionally, she would light incense and dig it deep into the soil that supported the basil tree by the side. After offering salutations and seeking blessings for both, Radha would dip her finger into the vermillion powder and apply it between her eyebrows, a practice she had followed with Laxmi too, but ceased to do so after Raja’s absence. Nonetheless, the years of application on Laxmi’s forehead had shown starkly as a mark against her wheatish complexion.
The horizontally protruding stub of the temple idol with an aerial flight pose of the Lord carrying a hill on one hand was very distinct from the other temples that Radha had visited. With sharp cuts defining the muscular build of the Lord against a sindoori colour background, Radha had keenly listened to the scene of the Ramayana depicting the same, which Kailash had once narrated to her; he had informed her as a matter of fact, that the district of Sitamarhi had the origin of its name credited to one of the main protagonists of the epic ‘Sita’, whose birth place Janakpur now lay just a few kilometers away in the erstwhile India and current Nepal. With all else in the social hierarchy structure failing her family, an ode to the Supreme seemed to be her only last resort as a support system.
Laxmi’s routine of grazing the fields in the morning and Radha walking her back home in the evening making a visit to the temple had some what normalized with time but Kailash had still needed to pull hard at the udders for only limited portions of milk. On Sundays, when she was off school, Radha would take Laxmi down to the stream of the Lakhandai for a wallow in the muck and a thorough scrubbing in the waters thereafter. She would follow it up with a session in one of the greener pastures where Laxmi would relish the feed.
The days grew longer with the warm-clothing retailers concluding end-of-season sales and the tilkut vendors in the market place giving way to cold-drink stalls. Small heaps of ‘abeer’ & ‘gulal’ set up outside shops announced the arrival of Vasant Utsav; Radha insisted on Kailash buying her varied shades to play with her friends. As the celebrations and merry-making at the baal-wadi came to a close on the day of Holi, Radha returned home to notice the local boys intoxicated on bhaang and toddy leaving coloured hand marks across the wall surrounding it. In their excitement, one of them didn’t spare Laxmi out of the festivities, sprinkling colour all over, rubbing in a dark gulal paste on the mark between her brows; as though, accidentally, signaling the reversal of her fate.
A few days later, Radha was awakened in the morning by the continuous ‘ding-ding’ of Laxmi’s bell, interspersed with the chann-chann of the ghunghroo necklet that had belonged to Raja.
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