The First Lesson

R.L Shant

No sooner did he set his foot in the village than he cast his look at his wrist watch. He slackened his pace to scratch his shoulder blades; his back was totally drenched in sweat He dusted is pants and boots on which a thick coat of dust had dried in a paste. lie had been walking, nobody knew how long. Tired out he cast his eyes far into the distance making out with some effort a road down and then far away, looking like a worn out out cast away skin of a serpent, and enveloped in a blue smoky fog of the morning. It was long before he reached the end of the road.

While plodding onto made his way on the borders of hill, through the grassy hedges, across the dales and brooks and dusty forlorn farms, a resolve was being formed in his mind that he would bring light and hope for the neglected and the forsaken region. He thought that he would at long last settle after having been made to wander so long. He kept on walking, and gradually his pace slowed down with the hope that he would be able to join the new position by noon so that that day was also included.

He started walking again. Meanwhile from afar he made out somebody progressing towards him, He came quite near and complimented him as a mark of good will. He told him that they were waiting for him as he caught hold of his hand affectionately. He walked in step with his escort's long strides, wearied and lifeless though his legs were.

Both of them entered a low roofed thatched hut. The room which they entered was enveloped in darkness as in the amavas period of the moon. About thirty or so of people, standing mute, had gathered there round the coffin. He also unhesitatingly entered the room and sat by the coffin at the only unoccupied patch left there. Nobody lifted his eyes towards him nor did they speak to him. One could even hear the sound of breathing. He also sat huddled up among them. Gathering himself still more, his hand unwittingly touched the coffin. He broke out in a wall which gradually mounted to bitter cries, tears streaming down his eyes.. not knowing how long.

As his throat parched and his head began to reel, he stopped weeping. He rubbed his eyes, finding there was nobody in the room. He got up and came out. It was twilight outside. He looked all around, but found nobody there as if the entire village was uninhabited by man or animal. Where had they gone after all? He just waited and gave a shake to his head, which he felt altogether emptied by weeping, it was tingling like a tin-toy of a child. He left the village, and at a spot far away from the village, he saw a figure of somebody whom he thought familiar.

As he saluted him on his own like in the morning before he grasped him there. “This day has worn to close now, but by tomorrow, at any rate, my job has to be done”. He asked him, "Brother, where is the school situated here? I have to join there".

"How could they start a school here, sir"? There should be children of school-going age for that purpose. About six years might have gone by since the Peer Sahib of that hill over there got incensed with the people of this village. You can see for yourself, if you can come by a child of fifteen ... twelve years of age".

As he said this, he kept on ha-ha-haing. How queer was the man he had seen in the morning, he thought. After a pause, he spoke again, "...Now it is only nothing but the greatness of Haagar Sahib that he will come after four or five years to pay a visit to the village and a school will get opened here … How good that would be if that happened! But where can we find doctor? Take this son of Haji Sahib, if he were here, this solitary child, who read, would not have died today. Think of that a bit, Master Sahib . .... Master Sahib!"

In the next morning as he felt one side of his neck cramped, and something like ants stirring over his legs, he came to understand that he had fallen asleep on that very dry grass, nobody knew when. He did not know how long that man had gone on talking.

A refreshing wisp of a breeze revived him. He cast his eyes towards the village, one complete group, a paathshala in sound sleep, a thatched hut, a stack, paddy saplings. He flexed and began to say facing all this: "...I will tell you today that this earth is not flat, but round line a musk-melon ... The sun is stationary at one place ... Our earth rotates round its axis and revolves round the sun. You can perform the experiment: Place a football in front of a burning oil lamp. The sides in front will receive the light. while the other side will remain dark. That is how our days and nights are formed ... Exactly like this, the change in seasons takes place ... Do you understand? Shabaash ... In the same way, your fields, your brooks, your crops that feed you, and the water that you drink ... Now, tell me what are the uses of mountains?..."

The sunlight directly fell on his eyes, and for a moment things seemed blurred to him.

Then he made out the road in the smoky fog of the morning ... Far away... down below.