The Little Rainmaker

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  THE LITTLE RAINMAKER

  Roopal Rashomani Kewalya is a screenwriter by profession who shuttles between Mumbai and Delhi. A film direction alumnus from National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, she also puts up storytelling performances for children. Being a change-maker, she conducts fun workshops for children, adults, corporates and NGOs in the areas of gender sensitization, breaking stereotypes and creative thinking. She is also a happy mother to a feisty four-year-old boy. The Little Rainmaker is her first book, longlisted for the 2016 Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition.

  Illustrations by Danica Da Silva Pereira

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia

  New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  Puffin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies

  whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

  Published by Penguin Random House India Pvt. Ltd

  7th Floor, Infinity Tower C, DLF Cyber City,

  Gurgaon 122 002, Haryana, India

  First published in Puffin Books by Penguin Random House India 2018

  Text copyright © Roopal Kewalya 2018

  Illustrations copyright © Danica Da Silva Pereira 2018

  All rights reserved

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-0-143-44586-9

  e-ISBN: 978-8-184-75168-0

  Typeset in Crimson Text by Manipal Digital Systems, Manipal

  Printed at Replika Press Pvt. Ltd, India

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade

  or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the

  publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in

  which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition

  being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  www.penguin.co.in

  For Shivaan and his curious, wonderful eyes …

  Prologue

  Q. An alien has visited you. Write an essay explaining to them how life on earth has changed in the last ten years.

  A. It’s the year 2028, and it hasn’t rained for exactly ten years now.

  My mother says that one fine day it rained and no one knew it would be the last time they’d see little drops of water falling from the sky.

  I mean, how could people have known?

  When dinosaurs became extinct, they couldn’t have known that they were disappearing forever, right? Except maybe in someone’s imagination, which got translated into a film films.

  What if humans were to become extinct one day? I wonder who would live to tell our tale. Maybe you or other aliens would. Or as Grampa says, ‘The cockroaches of the world may take over!’ Who knows?

  All I know is that it hasn’t rained in ten years, and it may never rain again … ever.

  Countries all over the world are fighting over water. First, they capture water. Then they spend billions of dollars cleaning that water. And then they spend billions more to transport it to different parts of the world.

  Dad says the next world war will be fought over water. It might even be an interplanetary war. They did find water on Mars in 2015. Honestly, though, I really don’t see what all the fuss is about. I mean, it was thirteen years ago. Did it make for big news on your planet as well?

  We already have alternatives to water on earth. I mean, we don’t drink water these days. We drink H2O, a chemical water we produce in laboratries laboratories. It costs Rs 50 for a 50 ml bottle, and we have to use it carefully. No wastage allowed! The government has rationed it. ‘Limited supply for each family.’

  And, frankly, I don’t know if it tastes better or worse than actual water because that’s all I’ve ever tasted. Grampa says that the real deal used to be sweeter, akin to ‘the nectar of the gods’.

  Did I tell you Grampa is a storyteller? That is why I don’t believe a lot of his discriptions descriptions about things, especially when it comes to ‘things in my time’ that were ‘definitely better’, as he puts it. Who’s to say if that was indeed the case? I mean, I can’t go back in time to see how ‘his’ time was, can I, now? But he does say everything was simpler back then.

  I don’t understand why adults speak of time as if it were a person. You know, things like ‘simple times’ or ‘save time’, like you would say ‘save the tiger’ or something. And anyway, what would you do with saved time? I mean, it’s not like saved money in a bank that earns you interest. Like my birthday money did last year.

  Time goes when it has to go, right? It passes eventually, even if you just look at the clock and do nothing. Do you have the concept of time on your planet, by the way? I wonder who invented time. I understand sunrise and sunset, since they are natural markers of time, but why divide time into sixty-minute hours of sixty-second minutes each? Quite random, don’t you think?

  Speaking of random, did you know Pixie just randomly died last year? Grampa says we got Pixie just after I was born. A German shepherd, she was the most beautiful dog ever. She would lick me all over to wake me up, and when I’d be outside, she wouldn’t let anyone come near me. Ma says she could leave me alone with her for hours, content in the knowledge that I was absolutely safe with Pixie. In fact, Pixie was known to skip her meals but not let me out of sight.

  But one fine day, just like that, she overdosed on heat. You know it’s so dry outside, right? The air … I have to apply two layers of Sun-Saver lotion, wear full-sleeved clothes and a body protector, cover my face and head with a mask and my eyes with thick dark glasses, and only then does Ma allow me to step outside. Or else my skin will burn. Everyone knows that … it’s a fact of life.

  That fateful day, Pixie should have been wearing her dog jacket before she rushed outside to bark at that stranger. It had been an unusually hot day. She passed away in a matter of minutes, even before Grampa could come out and check what was going on. The heat and dry air simply proved too much for her.

  It was the saddest day of my life. We buried Pixie in the garden behind our apartment building. Hopefully, it’s cooler down there and she is comfortable.

  Grampa says that if we dig up her grave, we will find Pixie just as she was, because you need hoomidity humidity in the air for a dead body to decompose into a skeleton. But the air is so dry that we doubt Pixie’s body would have decomposed. If you ask me, I like it better this way. I want Pixie to be composed. I couldn’t stand seeing her in any other form.

  Each day when I vacuum myself in the bathroom, I miss Pixie because she invariably used to be there with me. Initially she was scared of the dry-vacuum machine that we clean ourselves with, but with time, she got used to it. She loved the blow-dry I used to give her. Her silky black hair would shine after every vacuuming.

  Dogs can be funny, you know. Pixie was also scared of the toilet. Do you know the sound toilets make when we flush? How do you flush on your planet?

  Grampa says that earlier, the air pressure mechanism of cleaning toilets was only used on aeroplanes. About five years ago, when the price of water went through the roof, we also got these air-pressure toilets installed at home. I can’t believe that there was a time when the taps in our homes actually had water coming out of them. Now that would be a sheer lugshury luxury.

  You know what else would be a luxury? To play outside
in uncovered gardens. At least I imagine it would be fun. Grampa says that when he was a kid, he used to swim in the river, play in fields with real grass and actually pluck mangoes right off the trees!

  I think Grampa’s imagination is a bit overactive. Or maybe he’s telling the truth. Who knows?

  Ma says that the last time it rained, she was carrying me inside her tummy. She said I’d kicked hard when she’d stretched out her palm to touch the raindrops.

  I don’t remember this—just like I can’t imagine all the other stories I’ve been told about the falling rain and the colourful rainbows forming across the skies. It all seems like a bit of an exaggeration to me, to be honest.

  I have seen some rain-related videos on the Internet, but how do I know they are not morphed? Everything can be morphed. Dad always says never to believe what is shown to you. ‘Believe only what you see.’

  I’m still wrapping my mind around the concept of rain and the fact that Grampa was a kid once upon a time. He says he used to jump in puddles formed by pooling rain, but I find it difficult to imagine him smaller. I always imagine him jumping in those puddles the way he is now. Old and grizzled and wrinkled and fuzzy around his ears, with that smile on his face …

  I just love him too much. Almost as much as Pixie loved me. I think.

  So, yeah, life on our planet is pretty much the same as it was ten years ago. Not much has changed. Not for me at least.

  Anoushqa Narang

  Class V, Roll No. 5

  Sloping Valley High School

  Chapter 1

  At home, in her room, TV images flickered on Anoushqa’s eyeballs.

  She watched with rapt attention as Noor Enayat—the TV anchor with the kohl-lined eyes and the rubyred lips—reported, ‘Scientists discovered water on Mars in 2015, exactly thirteen years ago. If rain continues to evade us much longer, the next world war could well be fought over water in space. Reporting from the USA for the International News Channel, this is Noor Enayat signing off.’ With that, Noor made her flicking-her-hairback signature move, tilted her head a little and smiled.

  And in her room, Anoushqa imitated Noor’s signature move perfectly. Mimicking her idol, she said, ‘Reporting from India, this is Anoushqa Narang signing off.’

  Just as she finished with a smile, she heard her mom hollering, ‘Anoushqa, everyone will be here soon. Come fast!’

  Oops! She had forgotten that she had to quickly get ready because … it was her birthday today! 29 July 2028. She was exactly ten years old, and studying in Class V in Sloping Valley High School, which she thought was a weird name since there was no sloping valley near her school. ‘I guess there must have been one at some point,’ she thought. ‘I don’t see any sense in that name otherwise.’

  She reasoned that the nomenclature must be based on logic similar to that of naming roads and streets after freedom fighters. Nobody knew them any more. ‘But streets should be named after streets, right?’ she thought. ‘I mean, if the street turns a weird corner, it should be named Weird Corner Street. Or it should be named Bougainvillea Street if there are rows of pink bougainvillea growing next to it. That way, people would be warned to drive carefully or even be alerted to enjoy the beauty of the flowers that lie ahead.’

  Thinking aloud, Anoushqa said, ‘I am not sure adults understand this logic. But if I grow up to be the prime minister of this country, I will most definitely do that.’

  But for today, Anoushqa decided to simply content herself with cutting her birthday cake. All the children from her class would be home soon. She quickly dry-vacuumed herself and put on her new red birthday dress. It looked great. ‘Yayyyy!’ Anoushqa jumped in excitement and joy on catching her reflection in the mirror. She dashed downstairs two steps at a time, crashed into the big flower vase on the landing, caught it just in time before it fell down and ran straight to Grampa’s room.

  The room was bathed in sunlight. The fourposter bed in the centre was draped in dreamy white bedding. There was a rocking chair next to the bed, on which sat Grampa, fixing his glasses.

  His wrinkly old hands twined a wire around the hinge that joined the lenses with the handles. Anoushqa gave him a tight hug. ‘Happy birthday to me, Grampa!’ she exclaimed.

  Grampa laughed. ‘Old men like me come with statutory warnings. Tight hugs are dangerous!’ Anoushqa ignored his remark.

  Pointing to the glasses, she said, ‘You know we could buy you a new pair, don’t you, Grampa?’

  Grampa tied a knot in the wire he had twined. He put his glasses on to see if they fit well; they did. Then he leaned over to whisper, ‘Rule No. 424: never replace what you can fix.’

  Anoushqa looked confused. ‘What are the other 423 rules?’ she queried.

  Grampa winked at her and said, ‘You will know when I finish my book.’

  At that, Anoushqa smiled and asked, ‘And where’s my birthday gift?’

  Grampa said with a twinkle in his eyes, ‘It’s on the terrace. But it’s not just for you. It’s for all your friends.’

  Anoushqa jumped in delight—she knew what he had planned. Just then, the doorbell rang. ‘I think they’re here!’ she screamed and ran out of the room, squealing.

  Ma welcomed Anoushqa’s friends inside. ‘It’s so wonderful to see you all here. Just hang your body protectors and face masks on that shelf,’ Ma said to them.

  Aadi took off his long, robe-like body protector, and Ratul, Vaani and Samaira followed suit. The masks sat like ghostly faces in the corner of the shelf.

  Anoushqa rushed in to greet them. ‘I’ve been waiting forever!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Happy birthday!’ all of them squealed together and hugged Anoushqa.

  ‘Where’s Hafsah?’ Anoushqa looked around, unable to spot her friend.

  Sam (short for Samaira, Anoushqa’s best friend) was the first to reply. ‘Actually, Hafsah and her family had an accident at home,’ she said.

  Aadi added, ‘Their humidifier was faulty. It stopped working at night.’

  Ma and Dad gasped, while Anoushqa looked shocked. ‘Oh my God! I hope they are all right now,’ she said.

  Samaira nodded, explaining, ‘It’s a severe case of dehydration. But they should be back from the hospital in a couple of days.’

  Dad looked upset. ‘This is the fifth such case in two months. What is this government doing? What kind of air are we giving to our children?’ he mused aloud.

  Ratul, the guy with the biggest gift in his hand, replied, ‘We always keep a backup humidifier at home. It’s a bit expensive, but we can afford it.’

  No one reacted to this, and continued looking solemn. Ma added, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll go and meet them tomorrow. Anyway, what will you all have? H2O lemonade?’ And without waiting for an answer, she went into the kitchen.

  Anoushqa took Samaira aside. ‘Guess what I got for my birthday? It will bring me a step closer to looking like Noor!’ she told her excitedly.

  Sam looked thrilled. ‘OMG … You got ombré hair extensions?’ she exclaimed.

  Anoushqa showed her the gift. ‘And my own make-up kit too!’ she added.

  ‘I am so J right now,’ said Sam as she opened the make-up box.

  Anoushqa put her arm in Samaira’s, saying, ‘You can use it when I’m not.’

  ‘Really?’ Sam asked, her eyes shining.

  Anoushqa smiled and said, ‘Of course! What are best friends for?’

  Just then, they heard a booming voice from the terrace. ‘Anyone care for a story?’

  All of them screamed in delight and ran up the staircase, jostling each other to get there first. Ratul pushed Aadi, nudged Sam and tugged at Anoushqa’s dress until he beat them all and raced ahead. As soon as he opened the terrace door, a huge white shape with glasses for eyes came rushing towards them.

  ‘Woo-hoo! Are you scared yet?’ the ghost shouted.

  Vaani screamed in fear and Ratul ran back down the stairs as Sam and Anoushqa laughed. They had seen this trick of Grampa’s before, in which he c
overed himself with a white bed sheet and put on glasses over it so he looked like a pale ghost.

  Everyone laughed at Ratul as he came back up and Grampa was himself. He wiped his glasses before putting them on again. Grampa peered at Ratul, smiling, so we could see the adorable gap where a tooth was missing on the left side of his mouth.

  All the children suddenly cried out, ‘Story! Story! We want a story!’ and rushed to take their spots as Grampa immediately, and enthusiastically, acquiesced to their demand.

  ‘It hadn’t rained in the jungle that summer. The earth was parched, and all the animals were dying of thirst,’ he began.

  ‘The monkeys literally lay dead on the dusty, dry branches of the trees. The lion was too lethargic to hunt. The birds had stopped tweeting because of their dry throats. Until one fine day, when they heard the cry of a peahen. It was a loud, shrill sound, and the near dead lion opened one eye to see that not just one but a full pride of peahens had gathered in the middle of the dry forest.

  ‘The monkey swung from high up a tree to a lower branch to hear what the matter was. All the animals of the jungle gathered around.’

  Aadi could not bear the suspense any more. He impatiently interrupted Grampa, ‘What did the peahens want?’

  ‘A sobbing peahen said, “The peacocks have sworn not to dance until it rains. How will we give birth to our future generations now? If it doesn’t rain, we might just disappear forever,”’ answered Grampa.

  The children gasped at the thought of a world without peacocks as Grampa continued. ‘All the animals looked at the peacocks, who finally replied with “Sorry mate, but this is no way to mate. The weather has to be perfect. It must rain. And that’s final.”

  ‘All the animals were quiet until the hyena spoke up. “So let’s make it rain.”

  ‘The peacocks looked as confused as you all do right now,’ said Grampa. ‘They asked, “But how?”

  ‘The shrewd hyena answered, “Sing and dance like nothing has happened. Show the Rain Goddess that we don’t care if she visits us.”

  ‘The birds asked in chorus, “So what should we do?”

  ‘The hyena responded, “The birds should tweet as they normally do. The monkeys, too, should swing from the trees as usual. The lions and tigers should hunt, just like they always do. And, most important of all, the peacocks should dance without the rain and coo.”