The Revolt of the Fish Eaters by Lopa Ghosh

Author:Lopa Ghosh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Death by Pineapples

Far out in the hills, amidst flowering rhododendrons, Pinto considered murder.

He was at the railway station seeing off his grandmother when this thought crossed his rage-filled mind and he could not quite shake it off as unreal or unachievable. The train whistled and the light turned amber. A tremendous sadness swept through him. Eighty-year-old Nanna was the only family he had left. When he was twelve years old, his parents died, both of them at the same time – something that Pinto had always thought was unforgivably irresponsible. And now he was pushing Nanna away.

Nanna was usually sharp as a razor. But in the sad twilight hour, she looked frail and wrinkled.

‘Nanna, be good. Listen to the doctors, have your morning orange. I will see you every fortnight.’ Pinto’s eyes filled up and the mountain air pierced his ears.

Nanna put out both her gnarled hands through the window and pulled his head closer. She kissed him through the rusty window rails. They smelt of rain from the plains. In spite of his insistence, she had refused to travel in the air-conditioned coach.

‘Listen to me carefully Pingoguloo,’ for that was how she called Pinto with a love that hoped to make up for the parent-love he did not have, ‘I am not leaving you because you have lost your job, you silly goatling. I am not your wife that I will simper off to greener pastures. This is a time for you to fight it out alone. Find something to do, take all the time in the world, be happy. Don’t worry about visiting me every fortnight. You cannot afford it. I will be content tending to my little cactus and bonsai garden.’

The train heaved and hustled into the meandering valley, carrying Nanna away to her ancestral home by the sea. Pinto looked at the retreating train for a long time and then started to walk back home with a heavy heart. He was still not used to this climb over the seven hills – a piggyback road that would take him up into the city perched on the cow-horn hill. Frangipani flowers lay scattered on the road. He crushed underfoot the fallen leaves of autumn and played football with acorns from silky oak trees. The tall firs and pine, new settlers in these parts, stood proud and stiff. Beside the fiercely passionate monsoon trees and the flirtatious deciduous, the icy conifers were aloof, lost in the memory of their original abode. Yet they coexisted in the whimsical warp and weft of history, adventure and misfortune.

It happened one morning about two years ago. The residents of the city woke up and mistook the sight they beheld through their bedroom windows as a leftover of their early morning dreams. So they went right back to sleep. It could only be a dream, they decided, and stayed in bed till noon, waking up time and again, refusing to believe what plain sight had to offer. In desperation, they rang 100, 101 and every other emergency number they could think of.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.