Truth Lake by Shakuntala Banaji Read Free Book Online

them to share their names with him. The smaller of the two boys responded by introducing himself as Chand while his brother's name was Sonu. Their grandfather was called Devsingh and was, according to his grandsons, an extremely stern man – they looked at each other when they said it, chewing their lips and frowning – who was not in Saahitaal at the moment as he had gone to a distant village to intervene in a dispute over land. Their father had left their village when they were very young and worked in Delhi, they had been told; they barely remembered him. They had many cousins and other relatives all over the place but several also resided in Saahitaal.
    As Chand spoke, Karmel was busy rolling his tent and stuffing his belongings back into the rucksack.
    Sonu kept laughing shyly and touching bits of the dismantled tent. The boys seemed to be in a hurry to follow their animals which had halted restlessly by the river, their bells creating a kind of eerie music that made Karmel hunger even more for the company of humans. Chand, who appeared to be older than his brother despite his size, gave a long list of convoluted directions to Saahitaal and promised to see Karmel there at nightfall. Karmel thanked them and began to descend in the direction indicated.
    The day was warm. Sunshine broke through foliage all along the riverbank.  Drops of water sailed through the slightly misted air and swirled around him whenever he bent down. He only realised that he was sweating when he stopped. His garments clung to him and sent shivers of discomfort rippling over his skin.
    He had walked for several hours and the ground was beginning to climb steeply again, trees springing from the earth like gnarled phantoms. Interspersed with these, great boulders made of some shiny substance embedded in a darker slate-coloured rock cast blunt shadows towards the river, which was now silent and slow flowing. Looking around him he wondered if he had somehow missed his way. His sense of isolation became acute.
    Making a quick decision, he began to ascend into the forest.
    Flowers clung to the branches all around him, deep blushing bunches forcing him to breathlessness with their perfection. Looking around he remembered Adam's description and thought irrelevantly, you didn't tell about the flowers . I'm glad you missed the flowers. I needed to see this for myself. 
    He had never known such abundance of colour before and the long-tamed anguish of not being able to share his vision with anyone flared up again and kept him steady company for the next ten minutes.
    Then the forest was gone and he was staring out at a wide, still lake.
    Inside the forest, the brushing of his body against branches had created a kind of self-referential noise that had preoccupied his ears and stopped him from listening to the silence. Out on the rim of this placid pool he could no longer deceive himself. He didn't even dare to breathe aloud, for fear of missing something. But there was nothing to hear.
    He looked at his watch and realised with a sense of having lost time that it was almost noon. He began to search for the path that he knew must exist, down to the village. As he walked, he became engrossed in a memory about flowers. His first paid job had been to deliver bouquets to rich women. He was eleven, had run from the Manek Foundation and kept going all the way to the heart of Delhi, to fresh flowers fallen from stalls at the flower bazaar, to nights of thieving and days of sweet, unexpected sleep. Then he stole some rare orchids to sell to passing rich folk at traffic lights; he was caught and beaten and made to work for the stallholders. Throughout that period of his life he had continued to sleep deeply, whenever and wherever he could, usually on pavements and porches scented with the bizarre fragrance of crushed and rotting petals. The smell rising up from beneath his boots now was fresher and more wholesome but still recognisably kin to that one.
    Saahitaal