Jump, Didi!: A Collection of Short Stories set in India by Sharath Komarraju

Author:Sharath Komarraju [Komarraju, Sharath]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Sharath Komarraju
Published: 2015-05-23T16:00:00+00:00

Book House

Sahitya came out of school. She looked to her left, then to her right, and saw that the sun had just disappeared behind the big oak tree. Her eyes went wide at first, then her lips spread in a smile. The white lights at the book house would be on now, she thought, and skipped on to the main gate, slipping her thumbs under the shoulder straps of her school-bag. At the gate she looked for her dad, like she did on all days, and like on all days, he was not there. Some of the other kids in her class waved to her from bicycles. Their dads smiled at her. But she did not see anywhere the green ribbon that she had tied to her dad’s bicycle. Maybe he had to go to work. He sometimes did.

She came onto the road. Behind her Satyam anna lifted the sticks and drilled them into their holes. First the top hole, then the middle, then the bottom. The gate was closed. She looked back. The school compound was empty.

'Goodbye, Satyam anna,' she said.

'Goodbye, Sahitya. Coming tomorrow, are you not?'

Nodding, she hopped away along the path to where Mahender mama’s shop used to be. She used to buy poppins at Mahender mama’s shop. A ten paise coin used to give her twelve poppins – all of different colours. Mahender mama would ask her to name all the colours. If she got them all right, number thirteen was free.

But the shop was not there any more. Mahender mama was not there any more. Her mother told her that it was because Chotu had gone missing. She had asked her what that meant; her mother had told her that it meant he had gone somewhere, but no one knew where.

'You should never go wandering around the village on your own, Sahitya,' her mother had said. 'If you finish school and if dad is not around to pick you up, go to the library. I have asked Javed bhai to look after you.'

She followed the bend in the path, and as was her habit, she looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was there. It was a game she and Javed bhai played. He told her that every time she came to the book house, she should look around herself at the bend in the path. There were people under the big neem tree every day, but today it was empty. Not even Subbai was there with his bajjis.

She walked on the thin brown line of raised mud that snaked away towards the bushes. She could only fit one of her feet on it at a time. She imagined it was a rope, and that people were all around her, under her, calling out her name and laughing and jumping. She threw her arms out and stared at her black school shoe, and the buckle that wrapped around her ankle. One step at a time, she told herself. This was a game Javed bhai taught her too.

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