The Well - Dr. P. RAJA

Dr. P. RAJA

former Professor of English, Kanchi Mamunivar Centre

Biography:

Dr. P. RAJA (1952), former Professor of English, Kanchi Mamunivar Centre for Postgraduate Studies & Research, Pondicherry is a bi-lingual author. He has published more than 5000 articles, short fiction, poems, interviews, plays, reviews, skits, translations and features in not less than 350 newspapers and magazines, both in India and abroad. He has authored 32 books in English and 14 books in Tamil. Apart from contributing regularly to various newspapers and magazines he has special articles in Encyclopaedia of Post-colonial Literatures in English [London], Encyclopaedia of Tamil literature in English and several edited volumes.

Recipient of several honours, accolades and award, he was GENERAL COUNCIL MEMBER of CENTRAL SAHITYA AKADEMI, New Delhi (ENGLISH ADVISORY BOARD -- 2008-2012)

The Well

Short story - P.Raja

(Dr.P.Raja is a bilingual writer from Pondicherry with 38 books in English and 16 in Tamil. www.professorraja.com)

More than three decades ago there was a well in the backyard of our house. Our house was quite spacious when compared with the neighbouring ones. Since most of our neighbouring houses were all huts, no wonder that our house passed for a bungalow. To everyone in our village, my grandparents were known as bungalow dwellers. The so called bungalow housed only five people – my grandparents, my parents, and myself. The well magnanimously supplied unpolluted crystal clear water to everyone of us. We used the water for bathing, cooking, washing clothes and floors, watering plants both in the backyard and in the frontyard. The plants ungrudgingly gave vegetables to us and silk soft flowers to the plethora of Gods who snugly sat or stood in our pooja room; some sat on the heads of the two women at home. I was the only toddler in my house and one can imagine the love and affection I commanded from all the four. While asleep I was in the cradle and while awake I was in the crook of one arm or the other. In short, my people at home rarely allowed my wee feet to touch the earth. Among the four at home my favourite was my grandpa. I loved to spend every second of the day with him for he carried a sackload of stories inside his skull, and entertained me with short or long ones depending upon the occasion and time. Around six o’ clock in the morning he pulled me out of the embracing hands of sleep and mounted me on his robust shoulders and carried me to the nearby paddy fields, where we eased ourselves. That was the time when my grandpa began his morning lessons. Ever since he taught me the art of identifying the birds from the cries they made, I became familiar with almost all local birds – from the morning sparrow to the night owl. And whenever I expressed my joy at the sight of a new bird and its strange cries, my grandpa said, “All the grace of God.” It was during such times in the paddy fields, my grandpa pointed his finger at one green plant or the other, and lectured on its medicinal value while I feasted my eyes on the geometrical shapes of the leaves and wondered at the lovely colours of the flowers those simple green plants bore. When I asked my grandpa to say more about the mysterious colours of flowers the green plants produced, my grandpa said, “All the grace of God”. Whenever he talked of the grace of God, I made him talk more of God by asking several questions to feed my inquisitive mind. “God! Who is God, grandpa?” “Oh, you are a curious child. I’ll tell you… God is creator, protector and destroyer,” he answered with the confidence of a sage who had seen God. “Where is he?” “Oh, He is everywhere.” “Does he punish like my school master?” “Oh, he does. He will never spare you when you commit a mistake. And you should always see to it that you are free from mistakes.” I became suddenly wistful and touched my grandpa’s thigh. “What if a mistake creeps in at some time?” “Definitely you will be punished. You will have to suffer for it,” he said, still smiling at me. “Then grandpa, you should show him at least once,” I said.

“Surely,” he said, “when time comes.” His words echoed in my head, whenever he took me near the well and gave me a perfect bath. With just a loin cloth to cover his nakedness, he would carry me to the well and strip me naked. The rim of the well’s parapet reached close to his hip and I reached only to his knee. He leaned over the parapet and sent down the iron bucket by releasing the rope through the pulley and baled out. He upturned three to four buckets of water on his head before he spared one for me. I gasped for breath when the whole bucket was emptied on my head at one go. And that gave my grandpa a rib-tickling laughter. After emptying a couple of buckets of water on my head, he would give rest both to the bucket and the rope. Then the real cleansing process would start. Grandpa would run his fingers on my scalp and with his well manicured nails would scratch the dirt off. He would apply the same process all over my body and that too with added strength. It was always a painful experience for me but he drove away the pain with his lovely anecdotes from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana and thereby inspired me to interact with him. “Why should we take bath everyday?” I asked him. “That is because God likes us to be clean.” “Is the God, you are always talking about, clean?” I asked. “It all depends on how clean you keep him,” he answered. “Huh! How can I keep him clean, when I do not know where he is, though you say he is everywhere.” My grandpa merely smiled in response to this. There was something about his smile I didn’t quite like. “You say he is everywhere but I do not see him anywhere,” I said. “You will see him one day,” my grandpa said carefully articulating. “Where? “ I was very curious. “Are you in a hurry?” “Yes! Tell me now.” “The time is not yet ripe, my boy,” my grandpa said. I began to feel uneasy. Then I began to brood. When will the time ripe to see God? I asked almost everyone in the family. Most of the time I asked myself. My grandpa laid his hand on my arm and smiled up at me, bewildered by my curiosity. One fine day, when I was on the verge of losing hope, my grandpa had a fall from the top rung of the ladder and hit the back of his head against a wooden pillar inside the house. My father rushed him to the nearby government hospital and when he came back, he looked very different with his bandaged head. I smiled at his strange headgear. He coolly said, “All the grace of God.” I have been looking forward to it for weeks, ever since my grandpa said about the not yet ripe time. “God, grandpa, God! Is the time ripe for me to see God?” I asked with a sense of urgency. “I think it’s not yet,” he said. A smile of great sweetness spread over his face. He lifted me up in his arms and whispered. “One day you will see him… He resides in our well. Such a long way down.” I never knew that those were his last words for me. He failed to wake up the following day. My grandpa’s absence made me feel very lonely. That loneliness drove me into thinking and rethinking of what all he said in all these years into my young ears. Everything, almost everything I saw everyday, from a blade of grass to the twinkling star in the firmament reminded me of him and his short lectures on life and reality. I grew up but not yet tall enough to peep into the well. But the curiosity to see the God residing in our well grew day by day.

One night when the moon was blasting its beams all over the backyard of the house, I emboldened myself to lean over the four feet tall wall of the well with the noble purpose of seeing God. I stood on my toes and craned my neck. That did not serve my purpose. “If there is a will there is always a way.” My grandpa’s words, said long ago, echoed in my ears. I searched for a way. I found one. The upturned bucket came in handy, and I stepped on it. Hee-ho! I could peep into the well. I did. I saw someone… the face was not quite clear… a dark head trying to do exactly what I did. The rickety bucket shook trying to topple me. I jumped out of it. But the decision to see the face of God residing in the well began to overpower me. Around noon on the following day, I tip-toed my way to our well. Balancing myself on the upturned bucket, I raised myself a little above the parapet of the well, and holding on to it tightly, I slowly peeped into the well. I saw...I saw… I saw the face. Does God look like me? Perhaps I am made in his own image. I rushed into the house, all the time howling. “I saw God… I saw God.” People at home laughed at me. They were not sure what made me go cranky. But I saw my grandpa, now reduced to a photograph on the wall, giving me an encouraging smile.

Dr. P.Raja