Not just Silibiris……. Chandare too wished the same…… to be the love interest of Kusumalatha. He was disappointed and angry that she showed no interest in him. He would hide in the bushes by the dirt track leading from her home to the shop. He would wait for her to walk alone to jump out and accost her. He had no idea her heart was elsewhere, not yet anyway. For now, he was satisfied playing the cat and mouse game with Kusumalatha and getting real action from number of other lasses who welcomed his advances. Chandare had dropped out of school after Grade Eight. His father was in prison. The mother was rumoured to be entertaining other men. He became law unto himself. Chandare was gaining a reputation as a rowdy rogue in Ambarawa. His band of merry men included some of his childhood friends sans Silibiris. They used to smoke beedi and drank toddy sitting in the bushes. By now, they had graduated to smoking Ganja and drinking Arrack. They funded their habits by hunting wild boar, deer or rabbits in the jungle and selling to town people who came on bicycles to take away the game. When they had no game to sell, they would raid the villages beyond Ambarawa to steel cattle or even resort to killing water buffalos. Danda s father was the Village Headman. He was happy his son had nothing to with these louts. Danda had entered the school in town to do study for GCE A/L. The headman informed the police about Chandare s activities in vain. He did not know, the town s illegal meat sellers had been providing the policemen free game and other favours. Silibiris was still waiting for a Government job to fall in his lap as he had passed Senior Level. Kusumalatha had started teaching at the Temple Sunday School on the request of Lokuhamuduruwo. It wasn t the thrill of teaching little kids she looked forward to every Sunday but seeing Silibiris and the rest of the young men coming and going helping the monk doing community service. She would gather her flock around to sit under the shade of the Bo tree, get them to recite gathas by heart while keeping an eye on the young men. She would see Silibiris race around the villages on his Roadmaster carrying messages from the Lokuhamuduruwo. She knew that he would somehow be near the temple around the time the Daham Pasela finished to follow her home. Kusumalatha played hard to get. They both knew it was just a game. Game or not Silibirs would not come anywhere near her house. Kusumalatha s mother Jaypin Nona was very hostile towards all new settlers. She was born and bred in Ambarawa original village. She inherited 10acres of land and a couple of acres of paddy field which was a lot more than any of the settler families had. She had ambitions to see Kusumalatha marrying a Government Servant with a pension. Kusumalatha wished only to be with Silibiris. She kept reminding him many times to go to the post office and read the Government Gazette which had the details of Government Jobs Vacancies. He was too busy with all the important social services to attend to such trivial matters. Kusumalatha took matters to her own hands, visited the post office in the pretext of sending a letter, checked out the gazette for job vacancies and copied details of one. Peons were being recruited for the Department of Agriculture with G.C.E O/L as minimum qualification. She hurried home and in search of Silibiris. He was nowhere to be found. When she eventually found him in the evening at the bathing spot under the kumbuk tree by the weva, he was chatting to Latha, Neela and Nayana in their wet diya redda. Kusumalatha could see that Silibiris was oblivious to her presence as he was secretly enjoying the body curves stuck to the wet Cheeththaa Reddas of the lasses with their backs to the setting sun, playfully dipping in and out of the warm water, laughing and shoving each other, very aware of the rowing eyes of Silibiris. Kusumalatha was enraged. She just stormed off.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Jul 2014 09:58:52 +0000
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