The courtyard appeared melancholically vacant in the punishing heat of the sun which stood on the verge of the Mrug constellation. Parvati noticed that her husband’s face was equally vacant, though his eyes were crowded to the brims. He sat on the edge of the veranda, staring into the remotest corner of the sky. He had been sitting there since morning today. It was only for lunch that he had turned inside the house and that too after Parvati had repeatedly called out for him from the kitchen. He had finished his meal of rice and fish curry without bothering for the fish bones. Parvati knew that he had eaten only for her sake, that he wouldn’t have even noticed what was served on his plate. She had hardly eaten a few morsels, when he washed his hands. Paying respect to his plate by joining his clean hands, he left the kitchen and resumed his position on the veranda. Parvati pondered over her meal for long. Each morsel was taking longer and longer, but somehow she managed to not leave any food on her plate. After cleaning the utensils, she too came out and sat on the veranda. Afternoon seemed to be dragging itself much slower than the morning today. The morning itself had taken hours to pass by each of its seconds!

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            Everywhere, it seemed unnervingly calm. Houses in the neighbourhood, too, were listless. Hardly anyone seemed to be stirring anywhere. She remembered the frenzy of farm activities that would capture their entire village every year around this time of the year. Not a single hand could be found at rest or inactive. Age did not matter, nor did gender. Every single soul would be under the spell of monsoon frenzy, scurrying hither and thither, carrying out tasks one after another. Ploughs would need mending. So would other tools of fields. The courtyard would be bustling with tools and with the hands mending them. The noise of sawing and hammering and chiselling would cease only to respect the steaming cup of tea which, surprisingly, was found to be refreshing even in the sizzling heat of the first week of June. But not a single soul stirred anywhere today. It seemed some dark spell of inactivity had gripped the entire village.

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            The clouds in the sky, however, were as hyperactive as ever and soon the southern horizon became distinctly dark. Slowly but steadily, that darkness began to capture the entire sky, moving towards the sun. Soon the courtyard was blanketed with the cool shade cast by the dark clouds. Parvati saw the shade creeping over the ploughs, pickaxes, spades and other tools neatly stacked in the courtyard and gently said to her husband,

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“We need to move all of this inside. Rain may arrive any moment now.”

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“Yes,” he replied unconvincingly, “let’s do it soon.”

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The vacant expression of his face was gone now. A strange mixture of ecstasy and gloom had replaced it with the advent of the clouds. And his eyes had become even more crowded. He was visibly perturbed but he tried his best not to reveal it to Parvati. Her own restlessness was getting more and more palpable now and she decided to move inside the house.

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            Once inside, Parvati began cleaning the house. But it was already cleaned to the last speck of dust. Still she busied herself cleaning the entire house. To her bewilderment, that big house was cleaned in no time and she found herself once again with nothing to do. She simply kept moving up and down, searching for some work that would keep her occupied. With each passing moment her restlessness was increasing and so was the pace of her movements. Each time she passed by the place where the paddy was stored, her legs lingered. By this time, the store would have been opened and the seeds acquainted with the humid air. But now it lay there, untouched and filled with gloom. Equally gloomy looked the glass bottles filled to the brim with myriad seeds of vegetables and legumes. Even those would remain undisturbed this year. Parvati wondered how the tools outside the house and these seeds inside had lost all their significance so easily. Until last monsoon they were the most valuable possessions of the household, but today they seemed to be nothing more than junk.

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            It was not quite time for evening tea, but Parvati could not find anything else to keep herself busy with and so lit the clay stove to make tea. Firewood had already been stored diligently so that it would remain dry throughout the monsoon that could make even people gather moss. The tiled roof of the house, too, was mended with equal diligence so as not to allow a single drop of the ferocious rain through it. They were all set to welcome the rains. Parvati took stock of their monsoon preparedness while staring at the boiling tea. Everything was taken care of well in advance. There was nothing left to be done. She strained the tea in two cups and carried them to the veranda. Her husband looked at the tea and smiled knowingly. She too smiled back and sat down near him. By now the clouds had completely overtaken the sky and the sun was nowhere to be seen. A thick pall of gloom seemed to have spread all over. So strange it was that the same clouds would fill their hearts every year with unbounded joy. But now they could feel nothing but unbearable pangs on seeing those dark clouds. Distant mountains, too, seemed heavy at heart with the overbearing clouds dangling over their heads!

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            Parvati remembered how the onset of monsoon would drastically change their daily schedules. Paddy fields would become the centre of everyone’s lives. From sunrise to sunset, the fields would be brimming with people. Men and women would sing to the rhythm of the rain while their hands kept busy with the crop. Loud guffaws that drowned the thundering clouds would be heard across the fields. Chattering mouths never fell silent—not even while having afternoon meals under some dripping tree. Surprisingly, abundant rain water would mix with the food but only to increase its taste! Neither boredom nor exhaustion was ever heard of. They were as rare as an idle soul during the entire monsoon. All the hustle and bustle in the fields and even at home would cease only after the crop would be threshed and brought home. The sky would become clear and minds would become relaxed with nothing to worry over thanks to the granaries filled to brim. All would be contentedly serene until the advent of monsoon next year.

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            Parvati’s reverie was brought to an abrupt end by the noise of huge raindrops that had begun to thrash their roof. The entire courtyard was soon filled with rainwater. The sweet smell of the soil expelled all the gloom from her heart. It seemed to have begun to dance with the trees that were swaying ecstatically to the tune of the monsoon. Her face brightened up and she drank in the moist and fragrant air. All the gloom was washed off her husband’s face too. He was taking in the heady air with the same relish as Parvati. But soon their faces darkened. They became gloomier than earlier. Both of them kept looking vacantly at the plough in the courtyard that was half drowned in the rainwater by now. All the joy was gone and restlessness took its place in their hearts. Her husband remained still in his place, but Parvati could not stay there any longer. She got up and walked towards the kitchen even if there was nothing to be done with evening still hours away.

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            Parvati loved to work in their paddy fields. Walking on the wet black soil was one of the first joys of life she had experienced as a toddler. And that joy had remained with her in adulthood too. She equally loved to caress the green blades of the paddy crop. Pulling the tender plant out from the soil and later replanting it without damaging it even a tiny bit was a task of immense skill that she had acquired at a very young age like everyone else around her. She would sing some of the most joyous songs while standing in knee-deep water and bent over the crop. People working in the neighbouring fields, too, would accompany her when she began her songs and the blades of paddy would dance just like the hearts of the people tending them. But nothing of that was to happen this year. There were no fields left. The entire village, like all villages in the neighbourhood, was forced to surrender its land to the government for the development of a new city in which black soil was buried below grey cement and concrete.  

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            Once again, the clay stove was lit. It was not time to bake the rice bread but something needed to be done. Parvati was finding it very difficult now to deal with her restlessness and had decided to begin preparing dinner. Maybe they could have dinner early today and go to bed early too, so that this restlessness would trouble them no more. Whether the dough had not been made properly or some other mysterious reason, but Parvati found it really difficult to make the bhakaris without breaking them again and again. She found this very unusual for it had never happened to her before. In fact, she would take pride in the shape and texture of her bhakaris. It was a different matter that her mind was unusually preoccupied today. All that came to her mind all this while was related to their paddy fields. She could not get rid of those thoughts despite making conscious efforts. Her mind kept hovering over only one thing—the paddy fields. She felt a surge of jealousy arising in her mind for her sister who lived in a village far away. She was fortunate for the debilitating arms of the new city had not reached her village and her fields were still intact. How blessed she was, Parvati thought, while pain thronged her heart deep inside.

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            And then suddenly her face lit up. Why not join her sister to help with her farm work? She could definitely use helping hands! With this thought still in its nascent stage in her mind, Parvati ran towards the veranda. Her husband looked at her, bewildered.

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“Shall we go to help my sister with the paddy fields?”

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The moment he heard Parvati’s words, his face, too, brightened up. All his gloom was expelled as his eyes began to twinkle. With a voice thrilled with an excitement suited to a schoolboy, he blurted,

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“We will leave for her village tomorrow itself.”

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And while he said this, for the first time in many months, Parvati saw a beaming smile appearing on his face.

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© Chandrakant Kaluram Mhatre. All rights reserved.

First self-published in Nine in 2015. Website version published 2026.

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