A Journal of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya

little flowers of mustard, gram and peas
growing all around in the fields. Toys not
with properly carved faces, but of course
with limbs like humans, and bedecked with
flowers of varied colours, imbued with their
own charm.
‘What’s all this?’ I asked. She felt shy.
‘You won’t beat me? Then I’ll say’.
‘Surely I’d have beaten you. But you’re
pardoned’.
She stood smiling. ‘Please sit down here.’
But how could I sit in that mess. I only
bent down for a closer look. And she started
.
‘This is the bridegroom with the wedding
cap’, she said pointing to the mustard
flower stuck on its head. ‘And she is the
bride, with her colourful skirt of the gramand
pea-flowers. They are getting married.
With all the marriage music, of course’. And
she tapped on her belly, and whistled with
rounded lips - ‘With the drum and the pipe.
And this is the kohbar, where they will spend
the wedding-night.’ She pointed to a walled
square, also made of clay. ‘And this, their
marriage-bed’. A few green mango leaves
sprinkled with tiny pink flowers. ‘Here they
will sleep. And I’ll sing the marriage songs
for them.’ And her crooning bagan at once.
Singing and swaying. I was under a spell.
For a while. Then I suddenly remembered
my chameli sapling, and ran there, counting
each torn leaf and lamenting. Swearing
all the time of devouring the cursed goatkid
alive, and showering abuses on Budhia.
‘Babuji, would you kindly help me lift
this load of grass?’ I heard a voice as I was
on my evening stroll north of the village,
lost in my own thoughts. My bent head rose
up.
Daylight was waning into evening. Down
in a field beside the road stood what looked
like a young girl. A big tied bundle of grass
lay beside her feet. I got irritated by her
temerity. I was now a city man in clean
clothes, keeping myself away from the filth
of the village people. And after all I wasn’t
a grazier or a grass-cutter to lift bundles
of grass on others’ heads. Who in the village
could dare ask me for such a thing. But look
at this young girl...
‘Please Babuji!’ She entreated.
I gazed at that face, sizing up the face
and the voice. Arre, Budhia! A full grown
young lass? Grown up so fast? I looked
around. No one was there. The evening was
darkening. Who could help this poor, lone
girl here. Out of sympathy, I helped raise
the bundle on her head. Soon swaying
rhythmically she walked away with it.
Just then a loud laugh burst forth, and
the next moment I found Jagdish by my
side.
‘So now she has got a new fish in her
net!’ Jagdish had an impish twinkle in his
eyes, and raillery in his voice. Then he
started his long recital of Budhia’s story.
‘Budhia is no longer that girl of patched
skirt. She now has a flowing choonar that
is ever colourful. And her choli is now
stitched by the Sewaipatti tailor. True, you
78 :: January-March 2012