The Garden of Tales by Vijaydan Detha

Author:Vijaydan Detha
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: Harper Perennial India
Published: 2023-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Mortgage of the Next Birth

THE ESSENCE OF THESE FINE, subtle and omnipresent tales spreads from flowers as fragrance, oozes from udders and breasts as milk, pours forth from thunderclouds as rain, shimmers as lightning, and illuminates the whole wide world as rays of light.

So may Ramji bless us all, there was a poor Rajput51: stricken by hardship, defeated by fate. Once, as it happened, around midnight, there came a storm so terrible that his decrepit hut began to sway. It seemed as if it would be blown away like a feather at any moment! The howling wind, the swirling cold gusts, the sonorous thunder of the clouds, and the ghoomar of the rain to the beat of the thunder. As if they were all feuding. The wind howled that it was the greatest. The clouds thundered that they were. The lightning rasped that it was the foremost. The rain screamed that it was. And caught in the crossfire between these all-powerful forces, was that old, leaky hut.

The Rajput and the Rajputani began to look at each other, their faces morose.

Even as her insides twisted themselves into a knot, these words escaped the Rajputani’s mouth: ‘The night of destruction they speak of – it’s not tonight, is it?’

The husband replied, ‘And if it is? What more can we want!’

‘What do you think?’ the wife asked playfully.

The husband sighed, ‘Are we that fortunate? But you have a true heart. Tell me what you think.’

As soon as the lightning subsided, the wife’s face slid back into the pitch-black darkness. ‘Does even death come when the luckless wish?’

This brief exchange over, both husband and wife sat without uttering a word, like statues made of stone. That pouring, dark night passed. And the sun rose on its own, just where it was supposed to. Gradually, the hut lit up. The Rajput and the Rajputani’s clothes were soaking wet. The hut was dripping. They might as well have spent the night outdoors!

They unbolted the door and stepped outside. The sky was still pouring steadily. The Rajput turned his gaze towards his field. ‘I can’t remember a time when our lakes and basins have filled up like this,’ he said to his wife. ‘As if molten silver has engulfed everything till waist-height.’

‘There will be a boundless harvest of wheat!’ she replied with delight, as if stacks of harvested stalks had come home already.

‘There will, there’s no doubt about that,’ he said. The very next instant, however, his face fell. ‘But what can we do with just water? Where is the plough? Where are the bulls? Where are the seeds?’

‘Where’s the need to think so much about this?’ asked the Rajputani. ‘Listen to me. Go to the village on the hill. The wealthy seth there lends whatever amount one asks for. He makes no entry in his books, nor does he ask for the money back.’

‘That is his game, silly! That’s why I can’t borrow from him. The seth lends against one’s next birth. He asks for nothing in this birth.

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