sound of rain drops by sannapureddy &swatee sripada (books for new readers .TXT) 📖

the cot he kept it under his arm. As she saw the paper Gowri too felt happy.
That afternoon a few women gathered around her. Listened the news in the paper…they asked and listened with interest about the cinema theatres in Kadapa and the pictures in them. Some, though they lacked literacy compared the pictures in the paper to that of the TV serials as “Nagastram, Kalpana, Alu Balu” etc.
Gowri thought of the Anganvadi center, and her working there as a teacher. She already had a bit of knowledge about child welfare centers that work under the women and child welfare branch.
Providing nutritious food to the children under five years old, sports and songs, preparing children to attend the school through stories is the duty of anganvadi workers. It is associated with creativity. It’s not everyone’s fortune to get a job and profession to sing and play with children and conversing to them in incomplete words.
She started thinking.
Shiva had his thoughts in some other route.
“If she settles in a government job here it’s like fixing her roots in this soil”
“Getting nearly a thousand to twelve hundred rupees of fixed income every month is not an ordinary economic profit. O God, do this help” Lakshmamma thought.
As everything is getting politicized villagers thought that Gowri getting the anganvadi post is not a small task.
“What’s the matter teacher?” Bhagyam came early morning.
“Everyone is thinking that you are going to get a job to teach small children”
Gowri smiled.
Taking the basket she walked with her.
As they moved they saw the group.
Snow started melting in the sunshine. From the leaves of the crop it was going up like white smoke.
“Today we should cheat your husband” Bhagyam said. So I’ll not tell where we go, and how we return too. All should come behind me.”
Gowri smiled.
“What a husband is he? Should not keep a grass basket on wife’s head, is the wife’s waist snatched away by a sickle? May be the branches prick away the powder smeared on face, are heels taken away by the land? Is the grass dragging away the palms? If she gets entangled in the vines are we all not there? Why don’t you tell sister in law ………….” Looking at Gowri she said.
“Your brother, you should tell” Gowri said.
“So cunning you are!”
Their teasing session amuses the listeners. “Today under any circumstances I’ll make you carry the grass to your home. The neck should strengthen and the waist must get firm. What a man is he? Never allows you to get strong…..might be expecting softness to hand ……from where did he come………..from behind the bushes, or the fences or the turnings …….like a kite taking away a chick…….let me ask this ..I am innocent ..he came behind you………….cut the grass and carried it…..then what is the need of your coming? Let him only come.” She said.
Crossing the borders she stepped into the neighboring village. That was her mothers’, so she could go there without hesitation.
After cutting the grass changing the route she moved towards the east.
Gowri’s neck bears the weight to some extent. By that time Shiva lingered all the fields four times. Bending down he examined all the crops..
Nowhere he could see the group of Bhagyamma and nobody could provide any information.
“Sister in law, O sister in law” he went to Subbamma.
From the edge of Mirchi field she stared at him. Swiftly turned her head to the other side and stood.
“Tell me whereabouts of your sister, sister in law” he pleaded piteously.
She didn’t even turn her head.
“Sister in law is headstrong
Like anew pitcher
My sister in law with golden hair hangs” he started singing.
She moved her head towards him fast-
“I am not fortunate enough to get you touch my feet behind the bushes …go” she said looking into his eyes.
He felt a sudden jerk.
He remembered that he said that the other day….. without any mistake, he could understand the other meaning in it as if slapped on the face.
Turned back immediately…..
Started walking across the fields as his heart palpitated. Sitting on the foot path in the turning of the rivulet he tried to cool his tumult soothing it carefully.
The group of Bhagyam went on moving bending in the fields with a firm decision not to be seen by Shiva.
If they walk a distance of a field, the path of carts will come. If they clamber the road Shiva couldn’t do anything.
“Today it’s definite that he is hoaxed. He will be defeated in my hand. How many days it has taken to swindle him? If we are determined what will he be?” she said.
Lifting her head Gowri looked at her strangely.
They walked a few steps in the shallows of the land. Suddenly Gowri shouted in a low voice “ the basket is lifted away”
With a shock Bhagyam turned and looked at Gowri , the basket was missing on her head.
A movement in the bushes on the edge of the field…….
She sighed helplessly.
Now where is the need to clamber the road?
Moved on the edges of the fields…
She felt desperate that she couldn’t cheat Shiva..
She felt sad as the trouble taken throughout has gone into the stream.
Walking with tight lips nobody talked.
Nobody sent their looks at sides except walking fast as the sweat glistened on their waist twists.
After walking a distance of two fields only Bhagyam could recover. Consoling herself she started mocking and joking.
Suddenly a man stepping behind the bushes bending down.. fell in her eyes. She felt surprised as she recognized him as Shiva.
Where is the basket that he took away?
Why did he come again? She started examining him from the edges of her eyes.
From the bushes he came up to Gowri
Some thing he asked… she has given some reply… lifting her head she showed towards the turning of the rivulet… suddenly he disappeared as if running towards the stream.
Bhagyam couldn’t understand any thing.. After a while he was seen again….Now with the grass basket on his head …walking fast towards his home.
She felt wondered.
When Gowri lost the basket this scene should be seen.
It came so late means….
He went to the turning with empty hands and returned with the basket means…. She could understand the matter…….
That means Gowri tricked them all…
She acted hiding the grass basket in the turns of the rivulet.
She told him that and fetched him to bring it..
Bhagyam didn’t disclose this secret to any other friends in the group.
Midday when they met for paper reading she asked Gowri about it.
Gowri said the truth..
As they bet to defeat Shiva she said she did it.. she couldn’t guess her Bava ‘s defeat because of her, so she did it.
She couldn’t see her Bava defeated by other women.
“That means he should get defeated only by you?” Bhagyam asked.
Gowri smiled casting her head down “where is defeat and victory between a wife and a husband, sister”
Bhagyam stood staring at her.
Evening she called Shiva, “Abby, as all others talked I too believed it as truth brother, educated and brought up in the town , how could she remain in this rough house, I felt that not only she’ll fly away but will catch hold of you to snatch. If you could not leave the place I thought she would leave you and fly away… but I realized when we started friendship. From the grass baskets’ episodes I realized what she is.. I didn’t know whether she desired you before coming or after coming but she never leaves you.. I’ll give that guarantee. Let others talk whatever they feel ....look after her this way only… don’t let any change in your looks..” said.
Shiva felt enraptured with the words. They resounded again and again in his ears. Even in the midst of people he turned introverted by those words which made him smile. They haunted him day and night..
Lying down flat in the cattle shed with eye balls shivering with quivering he found the strange vibration in heart that blossomed on his lips. It turned him crazy leaving the world aside.
Margashira arrived. By that time Anuradha karte trailed half way..
Paddy started coming up. The grains had the milk and birds kicking them started munching turning them waste.
The cold matured. Early dawn people started burning fir in their premises. The streets started waking up with the beedi smoke and tête-à-tête of Old people covering themselves with bed sheets and sitting in front of the fire.
The crop which she planted from the finger tips is coming up and getting ripe, the chicks hatched from the eggs from her hand are beautifying the lane, the buffalo eating the grass brought by her and turning it into white milk –made Gowri feel obsessed with the crops, buffalo and the chicks. As she felt that they all belonged to her and her hands she developed a kind of affection on them.
ChennaReddy called Shiva.
The details of under-five year children should be collected. Survey required going to every house.
He handed over the Pro forma regarding that.
Taking Bhagyam with her two evenings Gowri moved around the village all the houses. Overall there are only seventy two families and thirty seven children. She filled the pro forma carefully as instructed in it and sent that.
Though he didn’t go to the houses Shiva stood in the street.
Thanks to the survey Gowri could see the entire village officially. She could know the initial names and names of the individuals. She saw Raghava, Bhagyam’s husband.
His gestures showed that he is an introvert and never mixes with others.
Bhagyam too complained the same.
He never talks closely to anyone. While sitting in the premises immersing in plays, if goes to fields lingering there alone, he never talks in a day at least ten sentences even to his wife, that too small sentences. Never asks to give him food. He waits sitting at the dining place. If she waits for him to ask he serves himself. As she is so garrulous he looks just contrast to her.
“Make him mix with people sister in law” she requested pitifully.
“ Me?” she looked surprised.
“Tell your husband”

As Gowri slipped into thoughts she started a song requesting her as Sita to recommend Rama to save her.
That night Gowri mentioned about Raghava to Shiva.
“He is too dumb, natural to him. … if we go together for guarding the field, he never even utters a word a hell…” he said.
She put forth Bhagyam’s request. He too went into thoughts.
That day a cell phone came to her access. So Gowri called her mother. After formal greeting she said ‘bring a sewing machine next time when you come.’
No sewing machine was seen in the village. Not only her own clothes, she could stitch her friends’ too, she thought.
After noon when all were sitting outside suddenly the mother hen with scaring shouts ran to the tree shade. By the time all the chicks like the broken pieces of a mud pitcher scattered and hid themselves either behind the stones or to the people to hide between their feet.. a small chick couldn’t move fast, and the shade of a kite fell on it cruelly. Clutching it with its