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

uttered her admiration.
Gowri liked her gesture.
“I saw while coming in, the Rangoli is good. Birds everywhere on the Rangoli” the old lady said.
“Birds?” Gowri couldn’t understand.
‘What I made was dots Rangoli but not a pictured one’
The old lady’s sight might be poor to say this. She walked up to the door and looked at it. Dots Rangoli only………
When she was turning her looks a scene fascinated her.
It’s true. Birds all over the Rangoli…………. the sparrows… kicking the Rangoli flour with their beaks….chirruping and beautifully pleasant………
What is there in that to eat? She couldn’t understand, it was nothing but the powder of stones…
“What you mixed to the Rangoli powder? Which flour?” Govindamma asked.
Gowri could guess then why the sparrows kick it with their beaks, and what they select and eat.
Her heart shivered as she realized that they mix flour in the powder of stone only to feed the sparrows. Early morning cleaning the premises with water mixed with dung and spreading a rangoli is nothing but feeding the sparrows. How great the deed is! And what a meaning it had! The acknowledgement of another creature’s hunger turning in to a traditional habit –how divine the thought would be! How much bounteousness lies in it….
For midday Gowri cooked rice.
To cook Sangati accurately was not known to her. Once or twice in Kadapa she tried but either it was half cooked or turned in to lumps at the base.
So she decided not to try it so early.
When she was packing rice in a carriage Shiva came
“How can you come in this hot sun so far …..” he said the cause.
She looked at him strangely.
Rice and cluster beans juicy curry was scrumptious.
When both were eating calling him…..
“O! Shiva” a lady arrived at the door.
“Having food?” she came in as close relative “What is the curry?”
“Come and eat aunty” Shiva called.
“I had Sangati in my hand” saying this, “cluster beans curry…” she bent and had a serving spoon of curry in the middle of the Sangati lump in left hand, moved to the door and squatted there at the threshold. Gowri remained staring at her astounded.
“O! Mma, come here” eating Sangati dipping in curry she called someone in the street. Another woman reached there. She also had Sangati in her hand. “Sit, my daughter cooked the curry, delicious! What do you have! The pickle………?Have it” she stretched her hand. The new comer couched facing the first taking a bit of food dipped it in the curry and started eating.
“Come and take some curry sister?” Shiva called.
“Not needed, it won’t be adequate”
Gowri took a scoop full of curry to serve them.
“My dear sister in law, don’t think that we are beggars and with sangati in hands coming to every house. We are like this. We never feel satisfied unless we share what we cooked with others” she said.
Meanwhile two other women joined. Shiva also got up and joined them with his plate. Gowri too couldn’t avoid it.
“Not even three days passed after the marriage, and you had two plates?” one of the women expressed her astonishment.
“Eh girl! Give your plate to me and share his plate” another one insolently snatched her plate, Gowri felt shy and huddled as a bud. Shiva remained laughing.
Smearing the curry from others hand, teasing each other they created a pleasant atmosphere there and accomplished their eating.
“Now get up my dear sister in law” some one looked at Gowri
“Given us the curry, fed us at your home, the Sangati had caught to our palms. Have we to go home to wash?” Hurriedly she went to the backyard and brought water in a pitcher.
“It’s impossible to wash with water my dear daughter in law, the new bride of the house where the women had their food should lick the hands. If we wash with water the fortune of the house will get washed away”
“Come if it is dry, it won’t leave easily and you have to scratch with teeth, we don’t know whether your teeth are strong or not. Now lick with tongue and wash, come on have it” one of the women stretched her hand. Gowri perplexed and couldn’t understand whether it was a teasing or a reality. Shiva laughed within. “By the time you lick all our hands, your hunger will be satisfied. You might have felt shy to have food …”
“Do you know how tasty would it be ...?”
They might have continued the teasing but as Shiva folded his two hands pleading, they stopped.
After that they provided self introduction and revealed the correlation. With a pretext of work they left the place.
Suddenly they appeared and strangely left.
Unexpectedly they arrived as a slow drizzle in summer humidity to wet and accorded her a new experience.
Gowri never ran into such incidents in her life. She might not have the least thought that such conditions and experiences do exist among the people.
“Did they hurt you?” Shiva asked.
“Close relatives are like this, you too will be the same when you are familiar. ..Without teasing each other and laughing we can’t live…”
“I am not offended” Gowri replied.
“Oh!” as if relieved of a weight on his chest feeling it, left the air.
He never expected all the ladies to come and mock her at this level. He couldn’t believe that Gowri responded to that teasing as a village girl. A fear was haunting him of the sarcastic teasing of Old woman and close relatives may smash his dreams. He thought that town people could not withstand the mockery of the villagers.
Reason was RamiReddy’s son in law.
He was born and brought up in a town and was in a government job too…….. That’s the reason RamiReddy paid a heavy dowry and made him his son in law.
He had condescension towards the villagers and was restless to look at them. Used to grumble at the houses and roads …….. Never talked to any one……… he behaved as if he had descended from the sky. Villagers had a natural instinct of mocking and teasing the new wed. Especially the son in law…….. That too, a very costly son in law bought in lakhs. So they thought of teasing him at a grand level. When he was bathing, they poured rice water, mixed barn with sugar in sweets and when he had them, they teased him. Fried snacks in castor oil and showed their mockery. Kept pot pieces, when he sat as they broke making noise, they laughed. Instead of talcum powder they kept chalk powder, when applied soap to face they abstained water. When he sat on the cot, tethered his shirt to the threads of the cot and told that he was called by his wife. When he tried to get up, the cot too moved with him, everyone clapped and ragged him saying he would drag the crag in competition. ..Tied a stone at the end of his shirt with a strand and made fun of him that he had a tail and he was ♦Anjaneya. He never took any of these fun fares as sweet experiences and a reward, took them offensive and created a problem. With a pretext of insult he never visited his mother in laws. He never entered the village. RamiReddy brings his daughter at festive times and other celebrations, gives her a few presents and sends her back. He curses everyone that mocked his son in law. So the town sons in laws cause always a terror in the villagers and their mockery. Lameness arrived on to their ridicule, making fun, their naughtiness and mischievous deeds.
Shiva felt fortunate that Gowri never reacted as Ramireddy’s son in law.
In the evening along with his wife he went to the fields.
Extracted the stagnant water in saplings and supplied a new, made small canals with a shovel, made the edges weeded out the useless plants –he worked till it turned dark. She too tried to uproot the weeds with him when she pulled out just two, her palms became red and blowing air with mouth she sat. But Shiva did it very easily. She couldn’t do anything but to stare him with out a wink. She had a strong desire to swim. Every cell in her body was excited to have the experience of the lake water but the trace of the recent incident sprinkled water on her hopes. By the time they reached home, the buffalo and its calf returned. A bundle of sticks too were there at the stove. Squatted on the cot out side Lakshmamma was chatting with her son in law.
“Without feeding the animals if only the field’s work is looked after what’s the use? At least a bit of green grass should be given to the pregnant buffalo” he advised.
“We had the hay, look at the heap..”
“Dry blades! What energy would they provide? The woman of the house should bring a basket of green grass to feed it, then it will allow you to milk..”
“Who should bring?” son in law did not say anything.
She could understand the intention behind his talk. He was suggesting giving the basket to daughter in law to bring the grass. What he said has truth. As soon as the marriage when they enter the mother in law’s home, going for water with a pitcher , taking a basket and going for grass, with a broomstick sweeping the dust and doing things as they did at mother’s was familiar in farmer families. Daughters in law express their physical activity in doing various deeds. Work alone displays their beauty in the streets. It might be their family background as farmers. But her daughter in law’s condition was different. Her family never did any cultivation.
Lakshmamma too had a thought of her daughter in law. But for melting their muscles and evaporating their blood, they can’t get their food in farmers’ families.
She left everything to god.
When it was dusk and they heard the sound of bus. It comes once in the morning taking the villagers to leave in town. And in the evening it carries them back. If one