THE PUPPETEERS OF PALEM Read Online Free Page A

cold. Ramana licked his lips and thought of some Black Label on ice. The best you could get here in Palem was toddy at Ratthayya’s hovel, and that too only after dark. For now, Thums-up would have to do.
    ‘You are not from here,’ the boy said. His eyes asked, ‘Why are you here?’
    ‘I am originally from here. I was born here.’
    The boy raised his eyebrows and twitched his nostrils. ‘Whose son are you?’
    ‘I used to live with my uncle. You must know his name. Narsayya.’
    ‘Oh Narsayya, yes. He moved to the city a long time ago. Nannaused to get letters from him when he was alive. But since last year…’ he shrugged and opened a cigarette pack. After lighting one and taking a puff, he held the pack out in Venkataramana’s direction.
    Venkataramana shook his head and looked away. The road to the village stretched out in front of him, baked in the afternoon sun. On either side of the road, roofed by parched straw and held together with brittle, muddy walls, stood huts of various sizes. Names rushed into his head — that one with the white curly patterns on the wall was Poshamma’s, that one with the crude gate had to be Daanayya’s, this one with the hole in the door was Ibrahim Bhai’s and that one…
    He stepped out into the sun and immediately felt his neck burn. He walked along the bend in the curve past Karnam Prabhakarayya’s house (it had a compound wall and a gate now, he noted) and stopped at the Gandhi statue near the school. It was a little worn from what he remembered, but there it stood, nice and tall. It was here that they used to line up on Independence Day and salute the flag.
    Now a couple of crows sat on Gandhi’s head and clawed at one another for territory, cawing and screeching.
    At the bottom of the statue a figure stood hunched, shoulders raised, holding something in his hands. He looked like a circus clown walking on stilts. On moving closer, Venkataramana saw that they were crutches. He was dressed in a smart white shirt and grey pants, the trouser legs fluttering about in the hot, dry breeze.
    The cawing of the crows got louder. Another crow joined the scuffle atop the statue.
    The boy looked at him and frowned.
    ‘What have you got there?’ Venkataramana asked. The boy was holding in his hands a perfectly shaped paper boat. ‘That is very nice.’
    The boy looked down at the boat and back up at him. Without a word, he held it out to him.
    ‘Oh no,’ Venkataramana said. ‘You should keep it. You must be very good with your hands.’ He tried not to let his glance drop below the boy’s waist. Ask him about anything but the legs . ‘Don’t you have school today?’
    ‘School starts at one.’
    The group of crows had descended to the ground. There were about seven or eight of them now, clawing and scratching one another. Around them, nothing stirred but the boy’s empty trouser legs. He had seen the boy somewhere before. Without the goat-like hair covering his chin and upper lip. But he looked no more than twelve, this boy. And Venkataramana had not visited the village in seventeen years.
    A song popped into his mind. Woh kaagaz ki kashti, woh baarish ka paani…
    Sweat poured down his forehead and dripped onto the cracked ground. It was supposed to be spring, he thought. It was supposed to be harvest season. Why was everything so dried up? This was the Godavari belt, wasn’t it? The Arthur Cotton dam was not more than a mile away. Irrigation should not be a problem. Then why was the ground so parched?
    The boy took no notice of him. He kept staring at the boat in his hand. Woh kaagaz ki kashti…
    The group of fighting crows had grown bigger now, numbering about fifteen. Venkataramana noticed that all the crows were poking and clawing at one crow in the middle. It kept trying to take wing and fly away but the other crows would not let it. Every time it tried to jump away from its attackers, they would pin it down with their beaks and scratch its sides.
    The boy