From Rampur to Pescadero

Chapter: 1

Once upon a time there was a village which was surrounded by the banana trees from its three sides. A big milky river that changed its color every season and ended nowhere flew at the foot of the village.

Kids played most of the times and ate when they had food and slept hungry when they dint have anything to eat. They looked lean and thin, thinner than their parents. Elders never worked except taking water from the river and watering banana threes. The old men sat everyday in morning at a dalan and discussed the village stuffs like whose daughter was seeing a guy who was from another village and the guy from lower caste and of course the politics. The discussion always turned hot when they talked of Congress.

Over there, in a family, a boy was born who was named Ravindra on the name of the great Indian laureate Ravindra Nath Tagore. He grew up faster than other boys. 

Next day to the death of his mother he began to go to school as this was his mother’s last wish. She wanted him to be an educated man and earn something to get some changes in his village. He took it deep into his heart and studied in the school where there were only few teachers who most of the times chewed tobacco and betel and drank palm wine and taught very less and they beat students.

One day Ravindra was sitting on the bank of the river and was lost somewhere, staring at water. He was eleven now and he has been seeing the changing color of the river. He wanted to know where the river was coming from and where it ended. He saw some white leather flowing near the bank. He walked down on white sand to reach to the leather, pulled his pyjama up with one of his hands and entered into water. He took a loaf of icy leather and smelled. It smelled like a dead rat smells.

He looked to his left and found huge loafs of white mountainous leather flowing towards him from the west. He dived into water and water closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes he was at a new place.

He opened his eyes and began to run away from the water body. An old man followed him with the same pace. The old man caught him from behind. Ravindra fell on the wet sand.

‘Who are you?’ he asked the old man.

‘Who are you?’ the old man repeated his question.

‘I'm Ravindra.’

‘I'm James Frank.’ The old man said, offering hand to the boy lying on the ground.

Ravindra grabbed his hand and he was standing now.

‘How did I come here, James?’

‘I don’t know. I saw your body flowing at the bank of the sea and dragged you here, pushed your chest. You spilled water from your mouth and then you opened your eyes and asked for some food.’ The old man continued, ‘when I returned to you with sandwich and water I found you sleeping.’

‘What is sea?’

‘What?’

Ravindra repeated his question.

‘Sea, aamm.. It’s a sea.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘Village.’

‘Which village?’

‘Rampur.’

‘Where is it?’

The boy thought for a while and answered, ‘it’s situated near a river.’

‘Which river?’

‘A river which is full of white Mountains.’

‘White mountains?’

‘Yes, white leather mountains.’

‘Oh, I see, you’re from India.’ The old man said, chuckling.

‘Yes, that’s my country name.’

‘BehenChod main kahan pahuch gya? Out of India?’ Ravindra fussed to himself.

                                         ****         

Chapter: 2

One month had passed and by now Ravindra had understood that Pescadero had become his hometown and he forgot his father and his village soon. By next month he began to go to school which was drastically different from his village school. White kids came there and teachers were also white. It became quite difficult to understand the books and language. There were many teachers who didn’t drink palm wine and chewed tobacco or betel.

James was happy he and his wife, Anne had got a kid. They were childless couple and had been wanting to adopt a kid since they came to know they would never give birth to a boy or a girl or none of them but Anne wanted something else. She wanted an Indian child as she had heard that in India many new born kids, who were results of the unwanted pregnancy or a girl child are thrown on roadside or big dustbins.

She took extra care of Ravindra because she believed that the God had sent the kid to her. She woke Ravindra in morning, gave him hot coffee and took him for a walk on the costal garden. When they came back from their morning walk, she could make breakfast, pack lunch and get the boy ready for school and dropped him to his school. In the evening James would wait for him in his car outside the school.

At night James would come to Ravindra’s room and tell him some fictions. Ravindra wished all the kids of his village would have gotten the same treatment. He visualized his village friends and slept.