#100WordsOrLess The aruvaal was a long curved piece of iron with a sharpened edge and wooden handle – a traditional weapon to settle scores in his village. He tried to recollect what it was called in English. Sickul. Or Sickle. Maybe. Didn’t matter now. He gripped it tight and strode out in anger. He was ending it tonight. -- It was a bit strange. No one would have guessed that village had a tea shop. It had a population of around 150, no major roads passed through it and the goods train that passed through stopped only once a week. And yet, the tea shop was the center of activity every day between sunset and total darkness. Raja, the proprietor would spend most of his mornings doing odd jobs. But his biological clock would set off a shrill alarm at 4:00pm. He would rush to the riverside and bathe. While the water was still drying off his back, he would open the rickety wooden doors of his shop and pray to an old painting of Kali – the village deity. By the time he finished his lengthy prayer, his better half would arrive at the shop with fresh milk. He would then proceed to dilute it to thrice its quantity with water, boil the tea leaves and pour out the first tea into a small bronze tumbler and set it as an offering to his beloved Kali. By the time the sun went down, the tired farmers would cluster around the shop – all ready for their evening tea. And then some more. Just as the crowd gathered with a hot tea in their hands (after paying 2 annas), he would start reciting the daily news. You see, he was the only one who was educated in the village. His childhood had been spent in his father’s army barracks and a kind priest had taught him enough English and Tamil to make sense of newspapers. And Raja had a good deal with the locomotive guard who would deliver a week’s worth of used papers to him every Sunday. He would carefully arrange the papers day-wise and then read one paper a day, a week after it had been published. Therefore, the village came to know of India’s freedom on 22nd of August 1947, over tea. On 2nd February, 1950 they came to know India was a republic. What was a republic was something that was difficult to explain, even for Raja – but everyone felt good. It sounded important. -- Raja had just finished a heart wrenching tale of India’s loss to China to the rapt villagers when strange men drove into the village in a couple of lorry’s. The entire village gathered to see what was happening. They set out tall wooden poles, laid out steel cables and screwed in a lonely bulb at the Panchayat office. Lo and behold, they had electricity. Raja was worried at first. But it turned out it was brilliant for business. Suddenly, dusk wasn’t when the shop had to close. He shifted his rickety boiler, cowdung burning stove and two glass bottles of biscuits to a small shelter adjacent to the Panchayat office. And business roared. The men would lounge and discuss on the news tidbits he had given out and he would be called in to officiate the debates occasionally. Needless to say, the guy who bought more tea would win the debate. The children played at the periphery of the bulb’s dim glow and the women would braid hair and sing songs a few hours after dusk. He didn’t say it out loud, but he expected the population of the village to go down. For the first time, people had something else to do in the dark. -- All was good for a few years, until the government in its infinite wisdom, decreed that each Panchayat should own a radio. The men from the government came down with an officer one fine day and carefully installed a radio inside a wooden cupboard. They gave hushed instructions to the president on how to operate it and armed him with sacred knowledge. For the first time in Raja’s living memory, the Sun went down and there was no one in his shop. All the crowd had gathered around the radio next door. He thought people would flock back once the novelty wore off. As if to make things worse, on the third day, people realized that the radio gave them News. And they just needed to listen. And suddenly, Raja’s shop became just a tea shop. -- He prayed to his beloved Kali for a few hours. He sought her direction on what to do. She remained as stoic as ever, but today, her silence hurt. It felt like she too had abandoned him. The anger that had built inside him for days bubbled over. He waited till it was night and the moon was right over his head. He took out his trusty aruvaal from the secluded corner. The radio was in a cupboard behind a closed door. He knew he couldn’t reach it. But he also knew it functioned with the help of something else. He quietly stole a wooden ladder and placed it against the pole. He knew he was doing something wrong, but he prayed to his beloved Kali one last time for a sign. A cooing owl was the only answer he got for his prayers. Raja climbed the ladder and reached the steel cables. He swung the sickle in one smooth arc trying to cut the power line. He was found on the street a few hours later at sunrise. Aside from a tingly feeling in his hand he was fine. And his shop remained just a tea shop for the next decade or so. But by then, he had saved enough to become the first owner of a Keltron T.V in all of his district. Business roared again.
Posted on: Sat, 07 Jun 2014 12:42:13 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015