Fiction: Jadu’s parents are killed in the violence between the East India Company and Bengal’s Nawab
It was the thunder that woke Gobardhan.
The rains were finally here, he thought, stepping sleepily out of his hut. The sky was misted over with grey, and the clouds frowned darkly at him from the southwest corner. Today there would be no dawn. Only a grim greyness and the ceaseless, merciless rain. Perhaps the sun would struggle through once in a while.
He sighed and stepped back inside. Indubala, propped up on her elbow, was watching him with sleep-tinted eyes. Gobardhan gazed at his wife as he did every morning, seeing her anew. Slanting eyes drawn in beauty; the mud brown colour that would soon glisten with sweat. The rumpled skeins of hair that wound their way over and around her bare shoulders and the short stubby fingers that lay protectively on her son’s forehead.
“It’s going to rain,” he said.
“Yes,” she replied, rising from the mat in one swift movement. “At least the rains have come, the yard was cracking in the heat. I…”
The low, deep-throated growl of the skies interrupted and the pit-pit-pit of the first drops.
“Help me bring in the water,” she urged her husband, “before it starts.”
Gobardhan lifted his hand in acquiescence. As she moved past, he bent his head...
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