news and everyone shouted out their support on their way to and from the market. In some places there are people of quiet disposition and few words, but around Shahkot they were a very rare exception. People visited their friends a great deal, and when they visited their friends, they talked the whole time, and in this way a great deal of information was passed back and forth, from even the most remote and isolated of places.
So although for one awful day it seemed as if Sampath had vanished for ever, the next afternoon the watchman of the university research forest bicycled into town to bring his married sister some curd. Along with the curd, he also brought the news that, in the old orchard outside Shahkot,someone had climbed a tree and had not yet come back down. Nobody could tell why. The man, he said, would answer no questions.
‘If someone in this country is crazy enough to climb up a tree, you can be sure it is Sampath,’ said Mr Chawla. ‘There is no doubting the matter. Thank goodness the property no longer belongs to that judge or he would have Sampath clapped in jail for making a disturbance in his trees. We must just get him down without delay.’
Holding hands, the family ran together to the bus stop, their rubber slippers slapping against their heels. They caught the same bus Sampath had taken on his journey out of Shahkot and got off close to where he had leapt from the window to run up the hillside, and here, far beyond the edge of the town, they made their way down the crisscross of little paths that led into an old orchard that had once borne enough fruit for it to be shipped to and sold in New Delhi. But it had been abandoned for many years now, the fruit acquiring the tang of the wilderness, the branches growing into each other, and these days was used only by an occasional goatherd grazing his flock. The orchard trees stretched almost all the way up the hillside, bordering, at its edge, the university research forest.
With determination and purpose, the Chawla family clacked about, shouting up into the leaves. At last, at the far corner of the farthest guava grove, right near the crumbling wall that bordered the forest, they discovered Sampath sitting in his tree eating a guava, his legs dangling beneath him. He had been watching their efforts with some alarm.
What on earth was he to say? He imagined himself declaring: ‘I am happy over here.’ Or asking in a surprised fashion: ‘But why have you come to visit me?’ He could answer their accusations with a defiant: ‘But for some people it is normalto sit in trees.’ Or, serene with new-found dignity, he could say: ‘I am adopting a simple way of life. From now on I have no relatives.’ However, he did not wish to hurt anyone’s feelings. Perhaps he could leave out the last line and add instead that everybody was his relative. He could hold on to the branches and shout: ‘Pull at me all you want, but you’ll have to break my arms before I’ll let go.’ He could scream: ‘Try to move a mountain before you try to move me.’
In the end, as it happened, he said nothing at all.
‘What are you doing up there?’ shouted Mr Chawla. ‘Get down at once.’
Sampath looked sturdily into the leafy world about him, trying to steady his wildly fluttering heart. He concentrated on the way the breeze ran over the foliage, like a hand runs over an animal’s dark fur to expose a silvery underside.
Pinky felt a sudden surge of embarrassment for her brother. ‘Get out of the tree – the whole family is being shamed,’ she said bitterly.
‘Oh, come down, Sampath, please,’ his grandmother exclaimed. ‘You are going to fall sick up there. Look at your thin yellow face! We had better take you to the doctor straight away.’
Still, he was silent.
Looking at her son, Kulfi felt the past come rushing back to her, engulfing her in the memory of a time when she was young, when her mind was full of dark corners, when her thoughts grew deep and
So although for one awful day it seemed as if Sampath had vanished for ever, the next afternoon the watchman of the university research forest bicycled into town to bring his married sister some curd. Along with the curd, he also brought the news that, in the old orchard outside Shahkot,someone had climbed a tree and had not yet come back down. Nobody could tell why. The man, he said, would answer no questions.
‘If someone in this country is crazy enough to climb up a tree, you can be sure it is Sampath,’ said Mr Chawla. ‘There is no doubting the matter. Thank goodness the property no longer belongs to that judge or he would have Sampath clapped in jail for making a disturbance in his trees. We must just get him down without delay.’
Holding hands, the family ran together to the bus stop, their rubber slippers slapping against their heels. They caught the same bus Sampath had taken on his journey out of Shahkot and got off close to where he had leapt from the window to run up the hillside, and here, far beyond the edge of the town, they made their way down the crisscross of little paths that led into an old orchard that had once borne enough fruit for it to be shipped to and sold in New Delhi. But it had been abandoned for many years now, the fruit acquiring the tang of the wilderness, the branches growing into each other, and these days was used only by an occasional goatherd grazing his flock. The orchard trees stretched almost all the way up the hillside, bordering, at its edge, the university research forest.
With determination and purpose, the Chawla family clacked about, shouting up into the leaves. At last, at the far corner of the farthest guava grove, right near the crumbling wall that bordered the forest, they discovered Sampath sitting in his tree eating a guava, his legs dangling beneath him. He had been watching their efforts with some alarm.
What on earth was he to say? He imagined himself declaring: ‘I am happy over here.’ Or asking in a surprised fashion: ‘But why have you come to visit me?’ He could answer their accusations with a defiant: ‘But for some people it is normalto sit in trees.’ Or, serene with new-found dignity, he could say: ‘I am adopting a simple way of life. From now on I have no relatives.’ However, he did not wish to hurt anyone’s feelings. Perhaps he could leave out the last line and add instead that everybody was his relative. He could hold on to the branches and shout: ‘Pull at me all you want, but you’ll have to break my arms before I’ll let go.’ He could scream: ‘Try to move a mountain before you try to move me.’
In the end, as it happened, he said nothing at all.
‘What are you doing up there?’ shouted Mr Chawla. ‘Get down at once.’
Sampath looked sturdily into the leafy world about him, trying to steady his wildly fluttering heart. He concentrated on the way the breeze ran over the foliage, like a hand runs over an animal’s dark fur to expose a silvery underside.
Pinky felt a sudden surge of embarrassment for her brother. ‘Get out of the tree – the whole family is being shamed,’ she said bitterly.
‘Oh, come down, Sampath, please,’ his grandmother exclaimed. ‘You are going to fall sick up there. Look at your thin yellow face! We had better take you to the doctor straight away.’
Still, he was silent.
Looking at her son, Kulfi felt the past come rushing back to her, engulfing her in the memory of a time when she was young, when her mind was full of dark corners, when her thoughts grew deep and
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