If I had a million rupees I would buy the house, a massive bunglow that stood in front of our crumbling one and cast long shadows. I would break it down so that it could stop casting shadows since sunrise. From the day it was built , I hated it. Long verandas, large windows, gardens and even a fountain. I could not find fault with the people who lived there, a retired couple had purchased the large plot many years ago at very cheap rates. My uncles used to play football here when they were in their teens. The original land belonged to my family, my grandfather's cousin brother. When he died childless he gifted it to my eldest uncle. My uncle sold it as he needed money for treatment of a rare blood condition his only daughter had.

That daughter is now married with a pair of twins and the price he got for the land was very fair by those days' standard, I reluctantly knew.

The thing about the elderly couple is that they did not speak the local tongue or English. They have some children in the house too, who now play where few years ago, I would jump in climbing the low boundary walls and play cricket. Every Sunday's they have gentle tea parties , where I would meet my then girl friend. She left the town, suddenly. I am stuck here to this land. Other than the land my uncle sold, most of the other land is ours. Problem is those are all agricultural lands. I can not build a house there of such beauty as the one infornt of me and not plant grains. One did not misuse fertile land for building houses. I will need to stay in our old shabby house and manage with repairs and look after crops till I die. Legacy .. can be a bondage and I am realising that. Most of my friends could move out of the town but me as the only male child of my generation, can not dream of leaving the land. Somehow I loved the land and no compliants on the house, but I hated the house. How dare did someone build one that shadowed our old one?
My mother had laughed at my logic. These days she was with my only sister in London, where my sister studied law. I could not see any eagerness in my mother to return and why will she? Since her marriage she had never stepped out of the town, till now.

I look at the old crumbling mansion of ours, dwarfed in everything by the new elegant bunglow infront and mentally thought to ask for a paint. My father, when he lived, was a strange sort, he never worked in office or fields , never talked with us the peasants. He sat on his favorite chair and observed the world. And yes he wrote poetry which got him much appreciation. But a farmer's family, crops , cattle , can not be run by a poet now ? Can it ? I tried to remember since when I was getting into mud and joining the crop cycles and really could not. Even my studies are in agriculture.

Anyways , not ideal thoughts as I stepped out of the gates and locked it. A child's voice came floating by. I looked to the right and saw a little girl asking for something. I really could not understand her ask, but I got her some flowers from the creepers that grew all over my gates. She smiled at me... toothless almost... and babbled something.

May be the children does need a large garden to play. I told her she can have flowers anytime she wanted, but she must not climb the creepers. She smiled and said something that sounded like babytalk. A little too big for baby talk ? No I told myself, I don't speak her tongue. Must be me misunderstanding.

Through the next few days, I came to understand something heartbreaking. The child's development was slower than all children I have ever met. Yet she was the prettiest, kindest, goofiest child ever. The family in the house, did not really seem to care much about this child creeping out and speaking to strangers. I tried to point out to the elders that, there are many risks of a child being alone on the roads. They looked tired and shrugged, indicating they trusted us. I felt insulted .. for the child. Trust is not the question, safety is.

Soon all the other children went away for the summer vacation was over but the child stayed. My aunt told me that she spoke the elder's language and in their family , the child was thought to be a shame. She had two elder brothers, who were very quick and intelligent. Her parents were busy and did not have time for a special child and had requested the elders to look at her. What was the relationship between the elders and the child, my aunt in her broken understanding of their language could not ascertain but it seemed slightly distant.

So every morning I met her for flowers, every evening I went to pick her up for some snacks at my crumbling house. Her face glittered with joy. Dada! she would squeel and jump on my arms. One day she shared the medicines in her bag that was ever attached to her and in it was a diagnosis of a critical desease, a rare blood discover, a hole in her heart, a developmental deficiency , a premature birth and many others. I stole it to take it to the retired specialist from the largest hostipal in our state who resided alone and treated the townsfolk. He looked at it gravely and said.. One treatment will harm the other.. He thought the child was a relative, I did have lots of relatives and in festivals the house was full of healthy laughter. He asked me to just ensure the child gets a lot of love.
So I did.. morning breakfast, evening snacks, carrying her on my back , taking her to the fields, everything. She became almost my child. One day the inevitable happened. Her weak heart had a heart attack. Her parents who I hated, rushed to take her to a prominent city hospital. Yet she did not want to leave without me. "Dada!" She called out, desperate. She looked to the crying elders and mubled some jargons..
It was the crop cutting season, how can I leave. Yet I did. Took out my polished motor bike and followed them, cursing the parents for not trusting the much nearer hospital in the town.
When I met her next, she was all wired up, heart monitor beeping, tracing the graph of her feeble life force. Yet she smiled and mubled something about flowers. In my hand I had managed to get a bunch of flowers, not her favorite creepers but something more expensive but looking similar.

I stayed with her one week straight, forgetting my crops, my farming, my cattles,praying for miracles. I must admit so did her parents, forgetting their meetings and urgencies and other children.

The fifth day as the parents were called to an emergency of their other children in their school, where they had broken some important rules, she smiled at me. There was a freedom in her eyes and she seeme to ask for my permission to fly, as she always will before plucking even a flower from a creeper. I let her go free. She soared up, smiled like an angel and went away. Her tiny hands were gripped in mine even when it had gone cold, even when the parents came howling, the mother cursed the father, the father his boys, the boys were stunned.

Admit that cacophony , I promised .. Someday... someday my child I will follow through and carry all the lovely creeper plants, that flowered in odd seasons and plant it all over heaven..

I stumbled back home on a rented car, forgetting my bike in the hospital parking. I reached to see the mansion in front, full of crops cut and arranged in piles. Quietly the elders expressed.. It was her last wish , she adored the times you took her to the fields. Before she went away in the ambulance she wanted us to keep Dada's crops safe, arranged in our garden.

#shortstory #bonding #twostrangers #heartbreak @meanderingsouls

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