Read Online Tikkipala by Sara Banerji - Free Book Online

the boy to ride alone. He did not want the boy to be independent and could not bear the thought that Anwar was growing up and one day would not need him.
    Anwar flung himself at his mother and began hugging, kissing and laughing. ‘I love you so much, Mama. I love you best in the world. I love you more that Papa, much much more.’
    As she held him in her arms, she told herself, the whole damage of the two lost years has been wiped away and this boy is my child now and mine alone.
    â€˜Only half an hour, then. Promise. I will lend you my watch,’ she said.

Chapter 5
    The elders of the tribe had a meeting. A disaster had overtaken their people. All their young males were dying and though their hunter had scoured the upper jungle, hoping to capture young males from another tribe, it was found that they too had succumbed to the disease.
    â€˜We must give an offering to the Tikki,’ decided the elders. ‘And in exchange she will put a stop to this sickness.’
    So the hunter was sent, with the pack of Animals to catch a sacrifice.
    â€˜Bring back the whitest and most beautiful young buck you can find,’ the elders told him. ‘Or even better, the cub of a tiger. For our need is very great and therefore the gift to the Tikki must be magnificent.’
    After the hunter was gone, the people of the tribe waited with joy and hope, thinking that soon their troubles would be ended. But four days later the man returned, creeping on his knees and with no gift for the Tikki. He had succumbed to the sickness. Then the people felt despair and did not know what to do.
    â€˜Perhaps we should bring up the Ama,’ suggested one elder. ‘With it we may be able to create a new male child for the purpose.’
    There came a gasp of horror at this. The Ama, which was also called ‘the stone of life’ was kept at the foot of the mountain in a special hammock shrine to protect it from the Tikki. Down there she could not feel it buzzing.
    In the days when she was quite small and still sweet, they had kept the stone in the tribal trees, but one day she had grabbed it from where it hung and tried to devour it. The elders and the subtle ones had held her down and got the stone back from behind her teeth, but all the same she had become so ill and weak that they had feared that she would die and by the time they got the stone out, it had started dissolving with the powerful Tikki juices. It was now one third smaller than it had been before the Tikki sucked it.
    That had been three hundred years ago and now the Tikki was three hundred times larger. If she bit the stone now, they would never be able to get it away from her, even supposing that there was anyone brave or strong enough to do it. If Tikki found the stone, no one in the tribe could prevent her from devouring it and then they would lose not only their Tikki, but all their chances of creating another one. The Ama was the only thing in the world, said the people of the tribe, that could destroy the Tikki and if she found it, she would use it, for, just as human people desired life and happiness, the Tikki desired death.
    â€˜And also,’ protested one of the elders, ‘although we have created Animals and the Tikki herself by using the Ama, we have not yet tried to create a human child and do not even know if it can be done.’
    â€˜We must find another way,’ the elders decided. ‘We dare not bring the Ama here.’
    Then one of the elders said, ‘This seems to be a sickness of the males so a woman should go and procure a sacrifice for us.’
    The tribe was shocked for they had never heard of such a thing, but there seemed no other way, even though the elders objected, ‘Women do not know how to hunt, and they have no weapons.’
    But the subtle ones felt less doubtful. ‘Because the Tikki is a female, perhaps a woman will be better able to provide her with what she wants.’
    The woman wept silently