Jungle Without Water and other stories by Iyer Sreedhevi

Author:Iyer, Sreedhevi [Iyer, Sreedhevi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jetstone
Published: 2017-04-12T00:00:00+00:00

Kathi sensed it was an important day because even as he sat on the front wooden steps of his house, trying to see if there might be a lost marble under the house stilts, he saw people walking by, with a sense of rush and importance.

“Why don’t you look at that sunrise instead?” said Amma, bringing some kanji to feed him. “So rare, that my son is up at this hour, while the rooster in Maimunah’s house is crowing.”

But Kathi’s attention was all on the dirt floor under the house, hoping for a glint of glass, and it only shifted when his father was ready to leave.

“Are you ready?” Appa asked, standing stiff at the door in starched khaki pants and white shirt, with three pens in a neat row peeking out of his shirt pocket. Kathi nodded.

“Boy woke up so early this morning, all because you said you were taking him along today,” said Kathi’s mother. Instead of replying, Appa skipped down the steps and steadied his bicycle.

“Front or back?” he asked his son.

“Front!”

“Wait till I get on then.”

“Just one more mouthful, da, Kathi!” Amma pleaded.

“Wah, Mr Ashok, taking the son along ah, today,” said Ah Liong’s father, ambling past the house in pants that competed with Appa’s.

Appa laughed a laugh Kathi had never heard in the house. “Yes, Gaik Yen, it’s good for the next generation to understand all this, they are going to inherit everything one day, isn’t it.” His voice boomed, making his words seem profound. Gaik Yen suitably nodded his head in agreement. “Yes, I’ve just come from there myself. It is a big day. Something to remember when talking to the grandkids, right?”

Kathi clung to the metal bar he straddled on the bicycle, sitting in front of his father, and hunched over in the same manner as him. He still was not sure what the big day was, but the amount of people who flowed out of the houses on to the streets, like it was some sort of festival he hadn’t been told about, confirmed that something was definitely going on. His repeated questions to his father had been met with stony silence, and so he now satisfied himself by observing the crowd, trying to keep steady so his father wouldn’t lose balance of the bicycle, and counted all the marbles he had by memory.

They were on the bicycle for a long time, perhaps two hours or more. Kathi liked the silence between him and his father, and this sense of importance of going somewhere together to do something significant. Appa said nothing except some gentle grunts while cycling uphill, past rubber estates and pineapple orchards, along with other bicycles with other men. His breathing grew ragged, and Kathi gently tilted his head back so that it touched his father’s chest. He could sense, through the shirt, through the sweat that mingled with his own when it trickled down the back of his neck, Appa’s muffled heartbeat, and a sense of exertion that was beyond the physical, beyond merely trying to reach a destination.

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