A Journal of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya

Short Story
THE PIANO
Rekha
Translated by
Jai Ratan
A beautiful kothi nestled among lofty pine trees. It is called Sunny
Cradle. It is no doubt old and in a dilapidated condition but even
so its appearance suggests that it must have been a beautiful building
in the years gone by.
Going through the iron gate if you turn to the right, you come
to a lawn behind the kothi. The lawn has suffered from neglect and
holds an old solitary iron bench, the kind one still chances upon
here and there along the lonely and isolated Shimla hill roads. These
benches remind one of middle-aged Memsahebs, English boys off
from their schools and old retired army officers who must have
sat on these benches for a breather before resuming their walk.
I am sitting on the bench in the lawn. Close by my side sits
Nurie, her back resting against the bamboo trellis of the verandah
looking onto the lawn. When Nurie starts talking she goes on and
on. Looking like a character stepping out of a story, even now there
is no stopping her as she starts spinning out a story.
“Yes, Saheb, it was a beautiful kothi once upon a time,” she
says.
“But now it looks as tumbledown and bedraggled as the people
living in it.”
I hear a piano being played somewhere in the kothi. The musical
notes come wafting on the air and float round me and Nurie.
108 :: January-March 2012