The Little Rainmaker Read online

  ‘All the animals applauded the brilliance of the idea and decided to do just that. The jungle suddenly came alive. In her home above the clouds, the goddess of rain was surprised.’

  Grampa changed his voice as he mimicked the Rain Goddess. He said in a shrill, irritated voice, “Looks like a jamboree down there tonight. How come I wasn’t invited?”’

  Going on without a pause, Grampa changed his voice to a submissive note. “Er … they did, madam, but you decided not to make an appearance,” her assistant, Rain Cloud, rushed forward to say.

  ‘The Rain Goddess fumed and said, “Just because I won’t attend the party doesn’t mean I can’t spoil it for them. I order you, Rain Cloud, to go rain! Go pour! Go drench! Go drown! Rain so much that they don’t forget me until the next season comes around.”’

  The children clapped as Grampa expertly switched between Rain Cloud’s and Rain Goddess’s voices so that it seemed like these two were actually having a conversation. He bowed at the applause and continued. ‘The cloud, which was anyway saturated with rain, was happy to shed his load a little. And so he asked the Rain Goddess’s secretaries, Lightning and Thunder, to announce his entry.

  ‘How the wind blew! Whish and whoosh it went. How the thunder roared! Boom and bang it reverberated. The lightning struck the trees, and the ground below shook.

  ‘All the animals looked up in surprise at the harsh lightning and rejoiced. Had they really won over the Rain Goddess so quickly? Apparently they had, as Rain Cloud burst upon them unexpectedly.

  ‘The peacocks came out and finally danced, even as the falling rain washed away the tears of the peahens. All were happy in the jungle again as the Rain Goddess smiled upon them. She was welcomed with open arms.’

  Grampa got to his feet, his arms open, and looked up at the sky. Somehow he looked grander than the sky that lay beyond the Dry Air Protector (DAP) glass cover on the terrace.

  Anoushqa and the other kids broke into applause. Just then, Ma entered with cake, followed by Dad, who was carrying candles and a bag of goodies. ‘Time to cut the cake, Anu.’ She beamed.

  All the children ran towards the cake, but Anoushqa’s attention was caught by Grampa breaking his open-armed pose and holding his chest tight. She wondered if it was part of his performance. But, no, the story had ended.

  Ma called out again, ‘Anoushqa, come and blow out the candles.’ But she was looking at something no one else had noticed.

  For a second, Grampa was leaning in mid-air—just like the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the pictures that Anoushqa had seen online. But unlike the tower, he lost his balance and was about to hit the ground. Dad caught him just in time, much to everyone’s shock.

  Chapter 2

  When Anoushqa was getting ready for school that morning, she didn’t know it was going to be the saddest day of her life. In fact, it started out as the exact opposite.

  It was Science Presentation Day at school, and Anoushqa was good at presentations. This was obvious even when she rehearsed her piece in front of the mirror. ‘The surface of a volcano usually has craters. An active volcano looks like a monster spewing lava, ash and poisonous gases from the crater at its summit. Now I will show you how lava escapes from a volcano.’

  She tried to say it like Noor Enayat, the famous anchor she idolized. ‘I wish I had eyes like hers and that I could speak like she does. At least my hair is like hers, thank God,’ thought Anoushqa as she tried to braid her really long hair to get ready in time for her volcano presentation. She liked what she saw in the mirror, and signed off with ‘Anoushqa Narang, reporting live from the volcano of Mount Vesuvius.’

  Anoushqa’s volcano was orange in colour. She had spray-painted the clay with golden streaks so that it glistened. The hard clay of the volcano covered a sturdy plastic bottle, which Anoushqa had painted black—so when you peered inside the volcano, it looked just like a very deep and dark pit. This plastic bottle held some water, dishwashing detergent and orange food colouring.

  Lying next to the volcano was a bottle of vinegar and a packet of baking soda. The moment Anoushqa added these ingredients to the volcano, the ‘lava’ inside would erupt, making it look like a real volcano. She clapped her hands in glee as she imagined her classmates applauding her volcano erupting perfectly.

  The class murmured in excitement. There was muted hustle and bustle, which was fuelled more by nervousness than anything else.

  Samaira nudged Anoushqa. ‘Look at Vaani’s volcano … not even the right colour,’ Sam said. Both of them giggled.

  Anoushqa added, ‘To be fair, the true test of a volcano lies in its eruption.’

  Taking out her lava material, Sam said, ‘I have a little trick up my sleeve. I’ve brought some extra material … more than T-Rex asked for. A little extra makes it erupt like no one’s business, something I discovered when I tested it at home. You’ll see.’ Anoushqa nodded, secretly wishing she, too, had brought some extra lava material.

  Just then, Ratul—who was standing guard at the door—shouted, ‘Back to your seats, everyone! T-Rex is on her way!’

  All the students ran to take their seats. T-Rex—their science teacher, Ms Tyagarajan—had been given this moniker because her head was too large for her body. Plus she had an unforgiving attitude—her sharp eyes were always seeking out mischief-mongers. T-Rex was fearsome. She hated tattletales as well as students who didn’t pay attention in class. Even Ratul, the big bully of the class, was scared of her, although he would never admit it.

  As Ratul was running back to his seat, his elbow accidentally collided with the lava material on Anoushqa’s table. The bottle of vinegar and baking soda were suspended in mid-air for a second. Anoushqa gasped, Samaira reached out to grab the bottle and Vaani shut her eyes as the entire class saw the lava material explode on the ground.

  CRASH! The smell of vinegar filled the room and the baking soda lay spilt on the floor just as Ms Tyagarajan entered the classroom. Beaming, she looked around and said, ‘Good morning, everyone. I see the volcanoes are ready to erupt.’

  The class laughed nervously, but Anoushqa knew that the only thing ready to erupt was her temper!

  As they all sat down, she whispered menacingly to Ratul, who was sitting behind her, ‘How dare you knock over my lava material?’

  Despite knowing full well that it was his fault, Ratul deliberately acted surprised. ‘What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything!’ he said.

  ‘Don’t pretend!’ said Anoushqa, fuming with anger. ‘Everyone saw it! Now how will I make my volcano erupt? You’d better give me your material!’

  Ratul quickly grabbed his bottle of vinegar and baking soda, and said, ‘No way! You should’ve kept yours properly.’

  Helpless, Anoushqa whispered to Samaira, ‘Will you help me? Give me half of your lava material, please? You brought extra, right?’

  Samaira guiltily mumbled, ‘But I want my volcano to explode properly. How can I … I’m sorry your lava material fell. Can’t you ask T-Rex to extend your presentation time until tomorrow?’

  Just then T-Rex growled, ‘Miss Anoushqa Narang? I see you are unable to contain your excitement. Why don’t you come up here with your volcano?’

  Anoushqa stood up nervously and looked pleadingly at Samaira one last time. But Sam turned her face away—she felt guilty for not being able to help her best friend.

  Anoushqa carried her volcano to T-Rex’s table and began her presentation. She was stammering uncontrollably. ‘Er … it has … it has craters … I mean most volcanoes do … I mean all of them do … and it has lava … like ash … er … like from its craters at the bottom, it escapes … er … the term “volcano” comes from Vulcan … the Roman … no, the Italian god … god of … of … ash … no … sorry, fire … yes, fire it is … maybe. So, here, my volcano is a—’

  Finally her nerves got the better of her, and she burst into tears. She, Anoushqa Narang, so tall in stature, standing in front of the entire class in her orange dress with her beautiful
orange volcano, had made a fool of herself. She imagined the ‘Elocutionist of the Year’ gold medal, which occupied pride of place in her room back home, making a crash-landing on the floor—it was the Fall of Shame.

  At this point, T-Rex interrupted, ‘That doesn’t look like a very active volcano to me. A dormant one, is it?’ she asked. Some students in the class laughed even as Anoushqa tried to compose herself. ‘I bet this has never happened to Noor Enayat,’ she thought.

  T-Rex then told her, ‘Go back to your seat. Your volcano deserves a C at best. Next time, please be more present for your presentations.’

  Anoushqa wiped her tears and went back to her seat. Sam looked at her with sympathy, but Anoushqa could not see it in her eyes. All that was apparent to her was the big FAILURE she had become in front of the entire class.

  Once back home, Anoushqa dropped her bag on the sofa. Mumbling to herself, she said, ‘I swear I will never speak to Sam again. She calls herself my best friend and …’ She stopped rambling as she heard whispers. Her parents’ bedroom door was slightly ajar, and she could hear them talking in low tones … She leaned in to eavesdrop on their conversation.

  Ma was saying angrily, ‘I told you not to let him exert himself. The doctor had warned us about this last year!’

  Dad reacted to this with ‘Do you think he listens to me? He does exactly as he pleases. He is my father … not the other way round, you know!’

  ‘I know very well who listens to whom! Both of you are the same! Now what will we tell Anoushqa?’ Ma countered.

  Dad replied, ‘Don’t tell her anything. Not yet. If she hears that her Grampa doesn’t have long to live, she will be heartbroken.’

  ‘But she will find out eventually, you know. She is not a kid any more,’ said Ma.

  Dad sighed and said, ‘I know. But I want to protect her from this distressing fact for as long as I can.’

  Anoushqa started sobbing. Ma and Dad were taken aback when they heard her. ‘Anu? When did you come home, darling?’ asked Ma, opening the door hastily.

  Ma threw Dad a worried look. And Dad looked uncomfortable even as he tried to comfort her. ‘Now, now … what happened to my princess? How was your experiment at school? Did it go well?’

  Anoushqa thought, ‘Experiment, my foot! Dad has never ever asked me about school before. He’s only doing it today to distract me from the news about Grampa!’

  Dad forced a big smile and continued. ‘Come here, darling … tell me, did the teacher like your volcano?’

  Instead of showing her volcano to Dad, Anoushqa erupted just like one. ‘You are all liars! Big liars! I hate you all!’ she screamed as she ran to her room.

  On her way, she stopped outside Grampa’s room and watched him lying there, sleeping blissfully. He looked so calm … as if he were dead already.How would she tell him about her failed volcano experiment now? How would she tell him about Sam betraying her in class? How would she talk to him now?

  She ran up to her room, buried her head in her pillow and cried. She knew then that this was the saddest day of her life—a day she hated with all her heart.

  Chapter 3

  The best part about being sad was the tears. Anoushqa always wondered where tears came from. Maybe they came from the pit of the stomach, where it felt all knotted up when you were sad. ‘What if even humans dried up one of these days? How would we know that someone was crying?’ Anoushqa’s mind jumped from one question to the next.

  Or maybe the government would declare that crying was fatal. It might even ban sweating. And if someone was dying of dehydration, they would have to be rigged up with weird-looking water tubes that would work like those drips at hospitals. ‘I wonder if, like blood, we also have water group types. Like A+ and B+ …’ thought Anoushqa.

  Getting out of bed, she looked at her birthday presents. They were still wrapped up. She didn’t feel like opening them yet. She opened her locked bedroom door instead. No amount of pleas from Ma and Dad to do so had worked earlier, and she had remained holed up for at least two hours. She tiptoed outside Grampa’s room to see if he was awake.

  But he seemed to be sleeping. He had been sleeping a lot since her birthday. Anoushqa was about to turn away when she heard Grampa’s feeble voice calling out. ‘I’ve been waiting for you, my little butterfly,’ he said. ‘Come … come inside.’ Anoushqa smiled and slowly crept inside.

  She went near him, but not too close, worried that she might hurt him. She heard pigeons cooing right outside Grampa’s window, where the MRG lay sprawled. MRG stood for Moisture Retention Garden. These were new types of gardens developed by scientists to maintain green foliage across the world. The gardens came in different varieties. You could choose one depending on the plants you wanted. Then they were set up and transferred to your home. All you had to do was maintain the humidity level on the hygrometer installed in the gardens, so that the plants didn’t die of dry air. Over time, butterflies, worms and even pigeons were let in to maintain the MRG balance, so it could be a selfsustaining structure. It was a couple of these pigeons that Anoushqa had heard.

  Grampa said, ‘Open the window.’

  As Anoushqa pushed the shutters, the pigeon sitting on the ledge flew away and joined its partner in the nest they were building. ‘Look, Grampa … look! There are pigeon eggs there!’ Anoushqa cried out, fascinated.

  Grampa sighed and said, ‘Life lives on … we dream on.’

  ‘I have seen you dream,’ said Anoushqa knowingly.

  ‘Careful!’ Grampa warned. ‘You will topple the glass of H2O.’

  Anoushqa tucked in her elbows and continued. ‘When you are sleeping, your eyeballs move behind your eyelids like a crazy person’s. I know then that you are dreaming.’ Anoushqa imitated the movement of Grampa’s eyelids, and he laughed.

  ‘Those are not dreams,’ he told her. ‘Those are just the thoughts we have thought during the day. Dreams are those that you see with open eyes.’

  ‘Do you still dream, Grampa? I mean, with open eyes?’ Grampa sighed at the question and nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘Tell me about it,’ Anoushqa said coaxingly.

  Grampa looked at her and said, ‘If you want to know, you will have to listen to a story, as always. A story about a little boy and his boat.’

  Anoushqa quickly plonked herself down on the bed, propping her chin up with her hand as Grampa began. ‘The boy was six or seven years old. It was very hot that day, and he was busy making paper boats. You know, those small colourful paper boats? He used to make them every year just before the rainy season, to set them free in the ravine that ran near his house. When it poured, his boats would happily travel in the rainwater pouring into the ravine.’

  ‘Wow. That sounds like a fun thing to do,’ said Anoushqa.

  ‘All kids used to do this at the time. Anyway, the boy wrote his name—Billu—on all the boats, and kept them under his bed so that no one could see them. That evening, his father returned home, frazzled and very excited. He said, “I’ve accepted a teacher’s position in the government school nearby, so we have to move to the government quarters … a few kilometres from here.” Billu didn’t understand what the big deal was. But then his father told his mother to pack all their belongings in the next few hours, explaining, “We have to move tonight. It will take us a couple of hours, and I have to report at my new job tomorrow. Our house has been sold. We will look for a new one later.”

  Billu was heartbroken. Nobody had even asked him if he wanted to move … he could not stand the fact that someone else would be taking over his room and making it his own.’

  Anoushqa’s eyes teared up at this. ‘I know how that feels, Grampa. Ma and Dad never seek my opinion on important things. I hate it,’ she said.

  Grampa patted her head consolingly and said, ‘Billu felt the same way. Since it was the middle of the night, he could not even say goodbye to his friends.’

  Anoushqa exclaimed, ‘How brutal!’ She loved using that word ever since she’d heard Hafsah say it in schoo
l when Ratul had killed those little ants by stomping them underfoot.

  Grampa shook his head. ‘That’s not the real brutal part,’ he said. ‘The next morning, when Billu opened his eyes in his new home, he realized that he had forgotten all his paper boats in the old house!’ At this, Anoushqa clapped her hands over her mouth in shock and disbelief. Grampa went on, ‘They were still under his old bed. All ten of them!’

  ‘But Grampa, he could have made more paper boats,’ Anoushqa reasoned.

  ‘Yes, but you know how it is,’ answered Grampa. ‘New house, new people … life can be tough for a seven-year-old in a new place. And then, to add insult to injury, it rained. Not only did it rain, it poured! Imagine … the first rain of the season … a perfect day to set those boats afloat in the rainwater streams. Frustrated beyond words, Billu kicked the wall of his new house hard, hurting his own foot in the process. Crying out in pain, he hobbled to the window of his bedroom.’

  Anoushqa shifted uncomfortably on the bed. She was disturbed by Billu’s plight, and held Grampa’s pillow close to her for comfort. He continued. ‘Outside his window, Billu saw some other kids floating their paper boats in the rainwater flooding the ravine … the same one that ran outside his old home.’

  ‘Oh, was it that big?’ asked Anoushqa in some surprise.

  Grampa nodded and said, ‘Yes, the ravine was the water source for ten villages. Suddenly, a boy shrieked in delight, “Look … a boat!” Billu turned his attention to the spot the boy was pointing at. And that’s when he saw it—the same orange boat that he had made!’

  Anoushqa was astounded! ‘What? Billu’s boat? Really?’ she exclaimed.

  Grampa nodded and continued. ‘Billu rushed out, hobbling on his good foot. Before anyone could reach the boat, he scooped it out of the stream. “It’s mine! It’s mine!” he shouted. All the boys were angry that this new boy had fished it out before them. But they calmed down when Billu showed them his smudged name written inside the boat.’