Beyond the Heavy Curtains

Ever taken a road from the middle of the crowded market to the lonely riverside? From the market on the eastern part of the Teachers’ Colony, if you take the dusty road towards the ferry ghat, you’ll see a house with a large window that sees towards the fields and the river. If you go any time during the day, be prepared. You might be called by a little boy who would ask you the time or questions that come to the minds of the children only. You know how they can think of weird things. But from the evening, you’ll see a heavy curtain covering the window and concealing the house from the views of travellers who pass the road. As if the house tries to cover the secrets it gathers from the roads and the people who travel it throughout the day, and store them in its right chambers.

Joshua does not like even a little the heavy curtain that remains draped on the window of his room from evening to morning. It’s so thick that Joshua can’t even see even a single star or the moon when it pops its head up from the river. He also can’t make out when the sun rises across the river after kissing the waters red. Every day, when Mother comes and wakes him up and pulls the curtain aside, he sees that the sun has already reached the top of the church located on the other bank of the river.

After he completes his breakfast, Mother sets a chair for him right in front of the window. She helps Joshua to sit on it comfortably and says, “Be a good boy, Josh. Remain seated here calmly. Your sister will soon return and serve the lunch.” And Joshua obliges like a good boy. He knows he is not allowed to go out and cross the river or play in the field. The doctor has asked him not to go to the school even. He was extremely ill a few months back and since then he can’t leave the house even for once.

Oh, you think Joshua is sad for this? No, you’re mistaken. He is not friends with the guys who play in the fields. He actually has another friend. After Mother goes out to work, Joshua waits eagerly for him. And every day, as the sun reaches the top of the tree that stands closest to the sky on the furthest corner of the field, he arrives.

“What are you doing, son?” the beggar called out every day.

“Hey, how are you Bura Baba? Where are you coming from today?” Joshua would ask gleefully.

“I’m coming from my village, as usual. The village on the other side of the river.” The beggar has the same reply every day. “Have you ever been there, son?”

No. Joshua has never been there. How can he go there? It’s already been more than a year since he has been imprisoned in these four walls of his home. And he spends all his day sitting right in front of this window. And as the sun sets and mother comes home, he goes to bed in the dark room.

Yet, when Bura Baba asks him the question or tells him about his every-day journey from his village to Joshua’s town, he would feel that he knows them all. And when the old beggar told him stories of his village, where the river flows with such a force that it’s difficult for the boatmen to control their small boats or dinghies, from where the boatmen row their boats together, singing in the rhythm in which their oars hit the water, Joshua feels he has been to the place a number of times.

Bura Baba tells different stories of his village to Joshua every day. All the people in the stories seem too familiar to him. As if Joshua has seen them somewhere. And when Bura Baba leaves because he has to go for begging and then return to his village, Joshu keeps on thinking about the little children in Bura Baba’s village, the large Banyan tree there, the stingy shopkeeper, the blind singer, and others. Then, at night, when mother pulls the heavy curtain on the window, Joshua can see the scenes of the village showing up like a movie on the screen. And when he falls asleep, the curtain moves aside. The village appears with its narrow lanes, the gushing river, and a sky full of stars that sees its reflection on the river and looks down peacefully on the sleepy village. Right there, in his sleep, Joshua runs through the fields and reaches the banks of the river. He waits till the boatmen arrive and take him up on their dinghy. Joshua forgets about his illness, his confinement in the four walls of the room, and oars on with them, singing the song of the life that he loves so much.