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

But the neighboring field’s people noticed it the very next day and showed pity saying “he has a wife” ironically.
Next day when they started to go for guarding,
“Oh Shiva, everyday you sleep with your wife cozily. We die of cold. Shouldn’t we get warmed up at least a day?” Roshayya said.
Somebody giggled.
“We have wives and we never had that whim, but you got it. How can you get warmed up without one? Are you going to sleep holding the stove?”
Everyone laughed.
“Can’t we get warmth anywhere except from a wife?” Roshayya yelled. “If a nice hen is provided won’t we keep a stove at the stream? If we take a few sips of drink and bite a few pieces what a heat we get? What do you know?”
Everybody liked his taste.
“Oh! Your intelligence started working lately uncle”. A youth lifted him up.
Without even asking Shiva’s accord, they passed on the proposal for the chicken. Shiva tried to escape that he didn’t know anything about drink.
“Had you married at home wouldn’t you have supplied drink to all?”
“May be to dancers and wrestlers…”
“We too dance….and wrestle. All the streams and rivulets should shudder…the pigs should run away…………”
Roshayya said. Shiva agreed to bring three bottles of drink, and a three KG hen.
“How can you dare it? The time of marrying my sister….”
SubbaReddy said. Next night nearly ten people who had fields near the stream gathered. The place had the jostle of cutting the hen, burning the fire, and cooking rice etc.
Another five joined them. “From where did these sons come?” Roshayya expressed his impatience. Once again he counted the amount of chicken, opened drink can and examined. Two in the newly arrived take drink too and he started grumbling.
“What are you muttering? You have whatever you want and give us the remaining only. You …” Gurayya warned him.
Roshayya didn’t delay. He had his stomach full and filled the gap in the bottle with water. Went hurriedly to the stove and put a half cooked chicken piece in his mouth.
Soon the folk songs started blurting out from his mouth.
“The drink of the acacia,
How much enjoyment it gives….. Stretching the two edges of the towel he started dancing.
Remaining people came to know about mixing water in the drink. Cursing Roshayya, hating him, spitting at him somehow they had it full of their bellies and bit the pieces. … They got intoxicated.
One of them congratulated the drink as it gave enjoyment even after mixing water, another one argued that Roshayya never mixed water and that he is a good man..So they had the pleasure.
They had the drink, ate the meat. After drinking the soup of the hen all became equal. The non drunkards became untouchables. Some of them sitting in the sand and others on the boulders started singing folk songs. Without even eating food Shiva left them long back. The stream area resounded till midnight with the songs and poems. Others of far off fields guessed that something happened there but they could not come due to cold. Some of the drunken slept on the sand reaching up to the edges of heaven and the others crawling on knees and elbows reached their beds and started waiting there for the fairies.
Whether they went to heaven or not, or the fairies came to them is not known but the pigs after the midnight entered the fields greeting them with their grumbling sound.
The non-drunkards got up; they felt confused for sometime if they are the snoring of the drunkards or the grumbling of the pigs. As the sounds are heard in moving groups they doubted and shouted loudly. To reply to the sounds when they heard creeping sounds in rice fields they felt shocked ‘”Pigs. Pigs my god!” with their shouts, whistles, and stone-pelting, and the sleeping people getting up and yelling, someone who brought the crackers in his pocket burned them and turned the scene into a war front ..in all these hustle and bustle the pigs got scared and left the idea of coming to the stream, walked across the rice fields and got up to the edge. From there through the rough lands they moved away.
After that nobody had the sleep.
Those who slept on the sand too clambering down the heaven with tired bodies reached their huts in the morning.
It was very clear to everyone that due to their drink and sleep this disaster resulted. Morning when they looked at the fields from the bank up till the tank bank the rice crops were tamped and spoiled making a path. They had no chance to eat it but stamped and destroyed. As the youth are vigilant a great disaster is avoided. Though it was very common the story behind that was a topic of discussion in the village. Though they can’t point out Shiva the villagers cursed the drunkards who forced him to bring it. Some of them searched and discovered the point on which Shiva yielded to them and laughed at him. Others expressed their surprise. As the old came to know that to sleep with his wife he provided them with the drink and meat, they smeared their mustaches and dug the past memories.
“This is nothing. If you know about our stores in youth you people feel wondered. My wife was at her mother’s home then. A busy time of agricultural work……. We used to work whole day. After bathing and having food laying the cot in shed and making the bed and without my father’s knowledge leaving the home walking ten miles I used to reach my wife. Again by the dawn I used to return to my home, look after my oxen and go for my work.” An old man narrated his experience to another and the other started his own.
Lakshmamma when she came to know the matter she looked at her son strangely as if she couldn’t understand him. She couldn’t utter a word. She quivered imagining the herd of pigs entering their field.
Even after this, whether he had any sense or not..?
Still might be returning home….
One night she watched hiding….
She saw her son returning home before ten o clock.
Her heart missed a beat as if the crop gets destroyed that night itself. The anger on her son is rising up. She felt impatient on her daughter in law’s negligence. She grumbled that a woman who gives enjoyment to her husband giving place in her bed when he forgets his duty is not a woman but a donkey.
She felt the fear of losing the crop … and on that destruction the famines may walk and come …a shiver in heart when the thought of famine entered………
Early morning she went to the old Govindamma.
She narrated the foolishness of her son to her and wept.
She called Munemma and told everything.
Son never comes to a proper path…daughter in law who should correct him closed her eyes with intoxication… now someone should make her open her eyes…
“Amma” she caught Govindamma’s legs.
“Daughter” she held the hands of Munemma.
They understood her anxiety and decided what to do.
That day in the afternoon when Gowri was alone Govindamma went to her asking “what curry have you made my grandchild?”
She made Sangati and beans fry. Asking her to put the curry on the Sangati lump in her left hand, keeping a piece of beans in her mouth she made a sound with her mouth to indicate the taste.
“nice , very tasty” once again she made the sound lifting up the tongue and making a sound touching the upper mouth ridge.
Gowri was looking at her. This old lady reduced coming there drastically recently. Both knew the reasons.
Why did she come now –she can’t understand. When she was thinking of her coming a song entered the house in the form of Munemma.
“cook rice for me my husband?
you have the left overs my husband?
give me curd rice my husband?
you have the butter milk my husband?
lay a cotton bed for me my husband?
you lie down on a threads bed my husband?
provide me bed and pillows my husband?
you have an old comforter my husband?
Gowri stared at her top to toes.
Both came together means there is something.
“ Bhagyam hasn’t come ?” Govindamma asked.
“ No Jeji, didn’t”
“ She said she would come , why didn’t she? Let her come …”
Saying this she kept a morsel of food in mouth.
“Why did you bother her grand ma.. You are old, if you say one she says ten. Though her husband is a dumb she is a nest of words….” Munemma said.
“ God is not blind or mad. That girl is so garrulous that’s why he matched her with that dumb …….” The old lady said.
“Recently he is befriending our Shivanna, it seems both are going together to fields and trees. With him he too may turn into a dumb I am afraid” Munemma said.
“When he goes with him, why did he sleep throughout the night at the field, without coming back at dusk……..”
The old lady’s law point.
Their conversation turned to guarding the pigs.
“It seems pigs entered your fields last night?” she asked Gowri.
Gowri looked at her shuddered.
“When our Subbi got up and made sounds others too shouted so they went away.. If he hadn’t discovered how much time they need? .see eating this lump of the food …..To waste the crop and the field too…….Very rarely we got the time. The crop has come up…… the reap would have gone waste…….”
Gowri felt a pounding in her heart.
Nobody told her about this, even Shiva.
“If no one guards they might come tomorrow…” Munemma said. “ Loss of crop and blaming from all….”
Gowri couldn’t understand why they should be blamed.
“Are they not accusing now?” Munemma dragged.
“Some useless people might be there. They can’t live unless they talk about others…”

“Who said and what?” Govindamma expressed her surprise.
“If you go out and listen you know what it is. Sitting at home how could you know it?” once again she dragged the words.
“To whomever you talk they talk about this girl only” she looked at Gowri.
Gowri lifted her eyes confused.
‘“He is a fool and a rough fellow…..he has no knowledge. So he feels it’s enough hugging his wife and sleeping.
What happened to this girl? Intelligent… didn’t she care the destruction of the crop? Is she going to die if sends him out” everyone whisper this only.’...
Gowri felt her head reeling.
“What do those fools know why she keeps him at home” making sound once again Govindamma said.
Turning to Munemma, “what can this girl do? The total mistake is her mother in law’s. She sent her to bring grass. When she brought it, she had pains all over the body as she was not used to do that work … to get rid of the pains he has to smear oil and massage her at nights... He has to pour hot water… how can the villagers know all these troubles? Everyone has their own problems...” satire sounded in her voice.
Suddenly if the earth furrows and takes her in vanishing her it would have been better –Gowri felt. An ocean of whimper that didn’t allow the words and the scenes to see drenched her completely like a