Stray Puppies

Rani

In the course of Rani's life,she might have come across unlimited situations and such circumtances while going through the vagaries of growing up.The small girl as she saw herself come before her eyes now was such a restless and unattended child in her young days. Her mornings got subsumed by the approaching bright day when she revelled in full abandon.But the approaching evening cast a pall over her wild jubilations.The night stood out for her as a sore thumb.She dreaded it.Her house was a large wide building ungaurded in the modern sense of the word.Her grandmother was at the helm of the affairs,but she did not put any check on any one in the family.It was a large family comprising of uncles aunts and the grand-children.Her huge frame had the pliability and softness of a fabric doll.She was the unassuming and unobtrusive person who flitted along the flowing life force around.Her own grown up children circumvented her but the grand-children encircled her.They could never enfold her fully but they hugged her and looked up at her with tilted heads and laughing faces.She was the pillar of strength for them with a constant assurance of being always there to succour them .Her mere presence in the house was enough to feel secure and safe.It did not matter whether she took note of them.She was always spruced up elegant and neat.She would always tie a waist band to give support to her wide waist and broad bottoms.

Rani was quite attached to her.She was a precoscious child who unconsciously had a tab on everybody's psyche.The children in the house had no definite schedule to follow.They were sent to a nearby school and left at that.No fuss was made over their progress reports. In other words it was a sort of good riddance for the house ladies to get busy with their hard drudgery of looking after the demands of the huge house-hold.What mattered was the annual results of the assorted children.Rani too towed the line of her peers.she was admitted randomly on the basis of her age which too was calculated by guessing the exact day and date after some festival or event which occoured at the time of her birth and which remained indelibly marked in the memories of the adults and they being the devout sticklers of Hindu rituals. There was no compulsion of any set rules in her school.She would go in any sundry dress and home slippers.Rather the girls had never enjoyed the luxury of wearing shoes and socks ,it was a sort of taboo for them which could turn their heads.Rani was oblivious of all these intricacies and neither they mattered to her.Her only worry was to keep her wooden takhti all shining so that the alphabets glistened on them.On this the peer rivalry was cut throat.They had their own secret ways and means of giving a glassy sheen to their takhties. It was at the end of the day that they had to show their day's work at school by flaunting them like some victory flags to their elders.The satisfied nod from them was enough to feel happy and charged afresh. Rani was a confirmed truant and would stick to her class-room for a while and then get a strong urge to get free.Otherwise also her role in the class room was that of a spectator only.There was alway one student or the other given the charge of engaging the students.He with his eyes fixed on the book of tables hawked the students into repeating after him.Rani would throw a curious look around,see the teacher huddled in the chair indifferent to the goings on or perhaps completing his pending assingments,she would quietly slink away.The open vista and the deep flowing river sauntering along side the school building made her heart jump.She would dash off the premises and be on the open road.Home was not the destination.She had other haunts to linger on.The favourite being the river-side which ran near her home.There was a narrow lane which led to the river.There grew the vineyard whose soft curly tendrils fascinated her.She with great care snapped a tendril or so and chewed it with great relish.It assuaged her hunger a little bit too.With light steps she would reach the last steps of the river and settle down there.This would be her abode till the evening sun set.The deep murky water flowed placidly turning turbulent when the little boys swam across it splashing it and being roudy.It was gaiety and joy around.The sun drenched banks and the resplendent waves took Rani away from the immediate cares.She dangled her feet in the flowing waters resisting the pressure on them and feeling victorious to defeat the onrushing waves,not fearing of being drowned.On the other end she saw sheep being sheared but she did not like their stressed bleating.It was an odd note in the otherwise harmonious surroundings.Also some boys would fish there.They would bait the fish with their hooks and string them live in ropes.The fish gasped and writhed and struck against the stones.Their bulging eyes seemed to burst.The pain was so visible and unbearable.But the boys took no notice.They carried the ropes on their shoulders and sold them for pittance to the lower class who could not afford to buy the clean lake fish.Gradually the afternoon lost its sharpness and the river started turning murky.This was the signal for Rani to rush home.She would linger on more.see the children on the other side of the bank wind up and she too would leave reluctantly.She knew her grand-mother would be busy with her evening prayer.Though she was not a ritualistc person but she always said her evening prayers after lighting a lamp which she put near the window and she herself sat alongside deep in reverence mumbling at the same time which was never decipherable to Rani.But this was the most opportune time for her to enter the house.She would not be noticed therefore questioned.But this was also the moment when Rani adored her grand-ma the most.She would sit still and not be annoyed if Rani put her head into her wide warm lap which lulled her and made her feel secure like the stray pups who at the end of the day's wandering are allowed by their mother to suckle it.