Not Just Yet

Puh, Himachal Pradesh

                                            

“It looks like the world is all about boys: little, big and old boys, but it isn’t.  These pretty things, girls, they are making the world go round and round and….”, thought Hameed on his way back from one of his day’s errands to the bazaar for Mrs. Stinson.

Wind blew the thought through his curly head as he sped by the shops and stalls on his bicycle, deaf to the calling voices,” Angrez!  Angrez! Hameed, brother! ”. His old ragged pants looking tired of all the effort to put up with his long legs while hanging onto his thin frame.

Stinsons -for whom he worked as a domestic help- lived some six yards up the market street in the speck of a town on the Himalyan foothills, called Puh. Home to peach orchards, and rare birds like the infamous laughing thrush and the buntings, Puh was just as much of a small town as any in the plains; complete with the perpetual but unspoken coexistence of security and seclusion, inferiority and pride.

“Take rest of the day off Angrez, Mr.Stinson won’t be back until tomorrow and I am not expecting any visitors.” She ordered him off with a hint of urgency in her tone. No one was sure of how’d she end up married to a anglo-indian or where she was born. But that was not everything mysterious about her. Mr. Stinson was being cheated on.

“Thank you madam” he said for he couldn’t care less.

Women had not been their nicest to him. His mother had run away leaving him in a broke man’s arms. Bimla and Rekha were married off to engineers for he was just another broke man.

He was headed for the peach orchards across the river where his wing man Chotu helped his family. Chotu was about nine but nothing about him was nine. He was half a man already.

Spotting Hameed from a distance, he jumped off the tree. The ladder fell just in sync as his feet banged onto the grass, and frightened birds-who had been successfully hiding hitherto-flew off in a frenzy.

Hameed peddled on and let his friend chase him to the brook. The fleeing birds above them. A Laughing thrush in the distance called impatiently as if to reckon it was his favorite part of the day too.

“What, did you get yourself fired?” Chotu teased him as soon as he could catch some breath.

“Not just yet brother” he beamed at the baby man.

Not just yet. Hameed knew that the way to his dream- The Hill Top Inn – started with a tourist guide’s job. But he needed a running income to support himself and his father for now.

“You heard about the air tight trains running under the roads down in the big city? First they put them up in the air and now they are headed all the way down to Hell!” said Chotu animating his entire tiny self.

“Yes, I heard about it from the boys at the chai stall” he said pulling out the long grass beneath him.

“One hell of a ride that must be” Chotu breathed as he spread himself on the grass.

“One hell of a ride” giggled Hameed at the boy’s fancies and his sighs. Somehow, he knew better than most people twice his age in Puh did. That, crystal glass buildings made life no better than the crystal clear waters of the brook. That, even though the outsides were brighter in the city but the insides were only many shades darker. He knew very well that all the money they thought was buried in the cities, could all come flowing to this very town if it was made to. This was his big idea; his grand theory. But not just yet.

TO BE CONTINUED....