Gravity Versus Gravity, page 5
“Don’t worry, mother. I’m a herdsman. I can drink any kind of water, go without food for days and be as tough as any other teenager in the world.”
“That’s all very good, Bhim,” Bhanu said. “But don’t forget the food and water.”
Soon, Bhim was on his way to find fresh leaves for his flock of sheep, something which he had been doing ever since he had learned to walk. Bhim had seven sheep, and he knew which one liked what kinds of leaves. He could recognize them individually from a distance, and he thought that the sheep loved him, too, although the expressions on their faces never changed.
On his way, he plucked a Neem twig to clean his teeth. All the twenty-six houses in the settlement seemed to be empty. The women had left to collect water. Many men had gone to work in the nearby brick factory. The very young boys and girls were in the nursery school near the brick factory. And the remaining men and adolescents were in the desert along with their flocks.
Only Dulari was at home with her two-year-old son. Bhim had crossed the last house when he remembered that he had forgotten to ask the direction in which the boys had left.
He could see the silhouette of Dulari from a distance. She was inside her hut.
“Dulari Bai,” he shouted. There was no reply. Dulari’s son was wailing too loud for Dulari to hear Bhim. This son of Dulari will never make a good herdsman, Bhim thought. Sons of real herdsmen never wail like weaklings.
“Dulari Bai,” Bhim shouted again. His voice got drained in the bleat of one of his hungry sheep.
No use, Bhim thought, chewing the Neem twig. We had gone south yesterday and three more days in a row before that. The boys must have gone north today. There would be fresh leaves in that direction.
Bhim started to make long strides northwards. Nothing near the settlement was unfamiliar to Bhim. He could have been left blindfolded anywhere, and he could have found his way back home. His father had taught him the tricks of surviving in the desert and navigating during the night by looking at the stars. He knew the secret hiding places in case a sand storm appeared unexpectedly.
Bhim passed several hundred meters, but the boys could not be seen. The leaves had indeed become greener in the several days that they had not ventured north.
The sheep pounced on the leaves. Two of them made their way to the tip of Acacia trees.
“Lucky me,” Bhim said aloud and broke into a song popular among the herdsmen:
Sand dunes narrow and wide.
The sun sits on them astride.
The breeze brings down sand in a tide.
The desert has always been our pride.
He spat the bitter Neem on the ground, gurgled with some water from his dried gourd bottle and broke into the song once again.
Bhim sat down under an Acacia tree and thought, how do people live in places other than deserts? The serenity of this place cannot be found anywhere else. Everything is so calm here. How I adore this place! He broke into a different song, the favorite of his father.
When his song was over, Bhim looked at his contented sheep. The fresh, tiny leaves of the three shrubs around him had been nearly devoured. He looked towards the east. The greenery ended where the sand dunes started rising. He turned his eyes away quickly. The sun was too bright for the day.
None of the sheep was on top of the sand dunes. They usually loved to go up and run down. He scanned the dunes from one end to another. Everything seemed quieter. Usually, a bird or two would chirp at this hour of the day. If nothing else, he would at least notice vultures flying high in the distance, ready to pounce on a nearly dead creature on the ground. He could see none. For one moment, Bhim wondered if he had ventured too far away alone.
Bhim was the youngest of the herdsmen. The older boys sometimes made fun of him. When his food was better, he had to often share a better part of it with them. On that day, he could have the entire food to himself. This thought made him smile, and he started missing the boys less.
It had been nearly an hour, and the boys were nowhere to be seen. Bhim thought I should think of this day as my own. I can sing as much as I want, rest whenever I feel like and have the food with full enjoyment.
But as much as he tried, Bhim could not stop thinking about the boys. In the last several years, there had not been a day when he had not gone out with them.
They have gone south again, he thought. I cannot understand their love for the south when there is so much greenery in the north. Fools! They are always bragging about how intelligent they are. And yet they cannot find me.
Bhim looked at his food. It was too early in the day to have it. But he was afraid that the boys might turn up at any moment. That would be a good moment as far as the company was concerned. But it would be bad news for the food.
Bhim unfolded the towel which contained his food. He spread the towel and opened a paper in which two pieces of flat bread, a slice of onion and a piece of pickle were wrapped. He started to eat. The sheep sitting in various directions sometimes looked at him as he noisily ate his brunch.
“Don’t look at me with such greedy eyes, Heer,” he said, looking at the youngest sheep, which was also his favorite. He then turned his back towards Heer.
When he turned occasionally between bites, he saw Heer looking at him every time. He took a piece of the bread and pointed towards the sheep. Heer did not move. She kept staring at Bhim. This is unusual. This is the first time that Heer has not jumped to take a piece of bread from me, he thought.
Bhim got up and went up to Heer. He extended his hand once again. Heer showed no interest.
“The grass is greener on this side,” Bhim said to Heer. “So, you have had more than your share. Good! I’ll continue with my food. I don’t have my friends who would have taken some of my food away. And you are not interested. A lucky day for me.”
After finishing his brunch, Bhim spread his towel under another Acacia tree surrounded by bushes. Sun was starting to scorch. It must have been ten when Bhim started to feel sleepy in the shade.
His first thoughts were that his sheep would not stray far after they had had their stomachs full. But to be, sure enough, Bhim shouted at the top of his voice, “Heer, Beer, Neer, Sheru, Deru, Beru, and Billu. None of you dare to move away from here. I’m lying down, but I’ll keep an eye on you.”
Bhim had thought that he would take a nap for a few minutes. When his friends were around, he could take the liberty of sleeping for a longer time. He was worried about his sheep and warned himself not to go into deep slumber. But he could not control himself. The hearty meal had done its job. Bhim fell into a deep sleep within minutes of closing his eyes.
When Bhim’s eyes opened, the sunrays were hurting his face. He looked around. Three of his sheep were missing.
Should I call them stupid or should I call myself so? he thought. I had warned them. Yet they don’t care. Babu’s sheep were attacked by wolves in broad daylight. And now I’ve to go looking for them in this scorching heat.
Bhim got up slowly to search for the missing sheep. He guessed that they had crossed the surrounding sand dunes since he could not see them from where he was standing. He took out his rope and quickly tied up the remaining sheep. Then he ran up the dunes. His feet hurt.
He could not help thinking, everything is different today. The sun is brighter, the birds are missing, the sheep are behaving differently and to make things worse, the sand feels like hot coal.
Bhim was beginning to feel nervous. Something strange was starting to happen. The air was very still unlike what it should have been at that point of the day. Yet, he could see sand going up and down. At some places, he felt that the sand was rising above the ground and settling down in slow motion. In some places, an entire sand dune seemed to be moving up. The footprints from his feet would disappear as soon as he would raise his feet. The uneven surfaces started becoming smoother.
Bhim was half way up the dune. For a moment, he thought he should run down and take shelter under the tree where he was sleeping. He thought of his missing sheep and gathered some courage. He ran faster, and in two minutes he was on top of the highest sand dune. He could see his three sheep in the trough. They were near thick bushes, but they were not eating leaves. They seemed to be bleating, but Bhim could not hear any sound. He waved at them to come up the dunes. Unusually, they did not respond. The sand in the trough looked like it was moving. The legs of the sheep would get covered in sand, and then he could seem them fully again.
Bhim rubbed his eyes. Is that the effect of cannabis that I had a week ago during the Holi festival? Bhim thought.
Bhim’s father had bought some cannabis from the town. During the festival, he had insisted that Bhim have a small piece dissolved in milk. He had said that the drink would speed up his transformation into an adult.
Bhim had heard stories of hallucination caused by cannabis. But the only effect cannabis had on him on the festival day was that he had slept for five hours in the day and ten hours at night. He could not take part in the festival.
The sand started to move up. Before Bhim had realized that what he was seeing was not a hallucination, sand from the trough had risen by a meter. It kept rising. There were no whirl winds. The sand was rising gradually. The area was also growing in size. The sand started moving along the slope of the dune towards the top where Bhim was standing. There was a whizzing sound and a large amount of sand shot up high into the air. The sand going up in the air looked like a thick golden curtain being pulled upwards.
The sand would move up several meters within a second and then become nearly stationery. But just as Bhim thought that the event was over, the sand would shoot up again. This went on for about a minute. Then the curtain of sand started getting inclined up in the air. The curtain bent like a river and moved southwards. The sand seemed to have gone up several kilometers in a matter of seconds. When Bhim looked up, he could not see the end.
Bhim stood shocked. He was too terrified to move.
The front end of the curtain was moving towards Bhim. He wanted to run, but the thought of his sheep made him stay where he was. He also wanted to see what the phenomenon was and how it would end.
The front end kept moving towards Bhim although the speed had slowed down. Bhim stood where he was. He tried to see if he could see the sheep through some hole in the sand curtain. He could not.
No, this is not any hallucination. This is happening for real. My best guess is that this is a stealthy kind of sand storm. When it passes, I’ll go down to get my sheep, Bhim thought.
He was afraid but also excited. He wished that his friends were with him. They’ll laugh at me when I tell them about this. Who will believe me? There is nothing that I can have as a proof that I witnessed this strange event, Bhim thought, gazing at the sand curtain advancing towards him. He closed his eyes imagining getting drowned in the sand. He opened his eyes after a few seconds. The sand had stopped a few meters ahead of him.
Bhim looked up. The curtain curved upwards into the sky and the upper end was too far away to guess the distance. And then the silence of the desert was broken. There was a whizzing sound and the curtain of sand in front of Bhim was up in the air.
Every grain of sand ahead of him had gone up in a river of sand moving fast upwards and moving fast towards the south. Bhim strained his neck. The curtain of sand became a flat river of sand. Within minutes the sand had become dispersed in the air and looked like a shiny thinly spread cloud.
That is a sand cloud. I wonder if this is a normal phenomenon in the desert. Father never told me about his. Maybe deserts are formed like this. The sand would get deposited somewhere, and that would be the beginning of a new desert, Bhim thought.
He had become so engrossed in looking upwards that he had forgotten to see what was in front of him.
When Bhim looked down, his heart started beating fast again. The sand in the trough was gone. It was as though every grain of sand till fifty meters from him had been scooped like ice-cream. The stones jutted out from the ground. Bhim had not ever seen the ground below the sands of Thar Desert, but there it was. The trough looked like a crater after a nuclear explosion. There were no bushes. Only two Acacia trees remained standing with very few leaves.
Bhim’s three sheep were nowhere to be seen. He looked across the trough to see if the sheep had gone up the hill. All he could see was sand. Everything stood still for some time. And then the sand from the slopes around the trough started to trickle down.
Am I the only person who would have seen the bare ground? Bhim thought. He ran around the trough in search of his sheep. His every step pushed down more sand into the crater. Every now and then a huge pile would sink like a wave downwards.
Bhim ran a complete circle on top of the hill but could not find his sheep. My sheep are gone, the thought dawned on Bhim. My lovely sheep are gone. How could they just go up in the air and disappear?
He sat down on the top of the hill looking towards at the bottom of the trough. He started to sob. He considered himself a tough boy of the desert, but the phenomenon was too mysterious for him and the disappearance of his sheep too shocking.
He controlled himself after a few minutes and started thinking about his next steps. He looked up. The sky looked the same as it did before the event. The sun was shining bright. The birds had started to chirp, and there was some movement of air. He looked backwards. There was no trace of sand in the skies.
Bhim ran towards his other sheep. He untied the ropes and whistled. The sheep did not move as though waiting for the entire flock to collect. Bhim went behind each sheep and pushed them to move. He whistled several times before the remaining flock started moving.
He headed towards Kasba. He had hardly crossed the first hill when he heard people’s voices. On top of the next hill, he saw the entire population of Kasba running towards him.
Jamir, the toughest man, reached him first. “What a sight it was!” he said to Bhim.
Bhim did not say anything. Jamir continued, “I’m going to see it from close - closer and earlier than anyone else.”
What should I tell him? He cannot see it closer than me, Bhim thought, looking at the group of people walking and running up the hill towards him.
The rest of the group reached the top of the hill at the same time and stopped where Bhim was standing.
“We observed it from the settlement. What a terrific sight it was,” Bablu said.
“We saw it from further away. Nevertheless, it was a great sight,” Jamuni Bai said.
“Did you see that Bhim?” a shell-shocked Kabir shouted.
“Yes, it happened right in front of me,” Bhim replied. He could sense that his body was shaking.
“Tell us about it,” Bablu said.
Bhim started to describe what he had seen, and the group heard him silently. When Bhim had finished, Jamuni Bai gave a big sigh and said, “The last time I had heard a story like that was when I was five years old, and my great grandfather spoke about the monsters that he had seen when traveling from one settlement to another.”
Bhim’s parents hugged him.
“Where are your remaining sheep?” Veera asked in surprise.
“They disappeared with the sand.”
“You missed that part in your story,” Bablu said with a smile.
Bhanu started wailing.
“It’s the end of the world,” said an old woman with her hands pointing towards the sky.
“Yes, it is,” Mukhiya, the headman of Kasba, confirmed. He continued, “The priest at the Kali temple had warned us that our Kasba would be doomed should we start working for the brick factory.”
“Don’t go to that place,” Mukhiya’s brother yelled. “All of us would be cursed should we witness the work of the evil forces.”
“Yes, let’s return,” Mukhiya ordered.
“Let’s wait for our fates in our homes rather than throwing ourselves into the mouth of the evil,” Mukhiya’s brother said.
“But Jamir has already run to the place,” Bhim said.
“He is never going to return,” Mukhiya said.
Bhim looked towards the other hill and could see Jamir’s silhouette. Once on top of the hill, Jamir started waving his hands and shouting, “Come here, all of you. You’ll see the sight of your life. A hole as deep as a pond. The ground of Thar Desert as bare as your bottoms when you were born.”
“The devil has got this fellow. He has been possessed by the devil,” Mukhiya’s brother said.
“Hey, why are you running away? The hole is getting covered with sand, and it won’t be there for long,” Jamir shouted, gesticulating with his hands more wildly.
“Run before all of us get possessed,” Mukhiya commanded. He was the first to turn back and run. The entire group ran behind him.
Jamir ran towards the group at full speed. He gave up after some time. “Fools,” he shouted at them. “I know what you are thinking. This coward attitude of yours has kept you in perpetual poverty.” He sat down on his haunches and muttered, “If I go to the settlement now, these mad people are going to kill me.”
Once back in Kasba, the families rushed inside their houses and shut the doors and windows. Some of the women ran to the brick factory to inform their husbands, who in turn brought their children out of the nursery. After returning to Kasba, the rest of the families did what other families had done. They went inside their huts. Unlike other days, they took with them their sheep and cattle inside the huts. They peeped through the holes in the roof and in the walls waiting for disaster to strike any moment.
“What if the entire sand of Thar Desert disappears?” Jamuni Bai said to her husband.
“Here we are thinking that the whole world may disappear. And you seem to be concerned about the sand from Thar Desert,” the husband replied.
“But isn’t Thar Desert our source of living? If it goes, what will we do with our lives?”
“We are not talking about a slow death here. I’m afraid something may fall from the heavens and crush all of us. Just sit quiet and pray.”
Jamuni Bai had never been so scared in her entire life. She huddled in a corner and wept quietly. The husband would sometimes go to the door, peep through the holes, and then get back to his cot.
