Free The Walls of Delhi by Uday Prakash

where tiny kothari fish swam to the surface and fought to nip at the salt from his teardrops, while Mohandas emerged from the river with Kabirdas’s name on his lips.
    When Mohandas got home he found Kasturi busy plastering the courtyard with cowdung, Putlibai sorting by touch the seeds of the muskmelon, cucumber, watermelon in her winnowing basket, Kaba, who had found some shade in the corner, engrossed in husking the bamboo, and eighteen-month-old baby Devdas in his own little world sitting in the middle of the courtyard playing an innocent game of chopping grass with a little cutting tool.
    Hearing the sound of his footsteps, Putlibai looked up with her sightless eyes and met Mohandas’s with a smile. ‘Did you hear, Mohana, that mama myna gave birth to two chicks in the myna nest?’
    If she’d been able to see she would have been happy to note the look of joy that shone on Mohandas’s face when he heard the news.
    After supper that night Mohandas took Devdas and Kasturi with him down to the Kathina. Kasturi had collected all the seeds and kept them safe in the folds of the sari at her waist, and had hoisted Devdas firmly on her shoulders. Long-grass rope, a spade, and trowel were slung over Mohandas’s shoulders.
    A few little breaths of the cool river air, and it wasn’t long before Devdas was off in a deep sleeping reverie. Kasturi and Mohandas got to work filling the seedling holes he’d dug with the cow dung fertiliser and planting the various seedlings for the fruits and vegetables. It took two hours before the work was completed. Kasturi brought water from the Kathina in a ghari pot and sprinkled it over the seedbeds; Mohandas was transfixed by her beauty under the twinkling starlight. In the waning moonlight, Kasturi’s dusky body looked just like the old stone statues that lay outside the little temple of Malihamai, the ones brought after their excavation from Benheru talab. Kasturi matched those beautiful bodies – her waist, arms, breasts, legs – as if a sculptor had spent years doing nothing but carefully chiselling her form.
    It was well past midnight; they could hear the occasional sandpiper or pankukri. All Mohandas could smell was the scent of the sweat on Kasturi’s body, mixed with the heaviness of the river air. What sort of dreams did she have when she married him – and then how did things turn out? From morning ’til night, day in and day out, without fail, good times or bad, healthy or sick, whether food was on the table or not, she was there, standing beside Mohandas. He felt a deep bond with her, utterly intimate, and he couldn’t stop staring. She placed the clay jar down on the sand, stood up, and began braiding her hair. Mohandas approached; she was silent.
    â€˜Fancy a game of kabaddi?’ Mohandas suggested with a little smile. ‘Hu, Tu, Tu, it’s like wrestling!’
    He grabbed hold of her arm, and began tickling her stomach and armpits. She tried to squirm away, ‘Arré, arré, you’ll wake up Devdas, what are you doing? Pleasestop pleasestop pleasestop!’When she realised Mohandas wasn’t about to let go, she gave him a little push, broke free and ran toward the river. She leapt like a mad doe, suddenly free, running beneath the hazy, dimming light of the celestial bodies in the sky that shone on the sandy bank that stretched off as far as the eye could see.
    â€˜C’mon and catch me if you c-a-a-a-a-n-n-n! And if you do, I’ll know you can and more, ’ she teased, her voice trailing off as she ran far into the distance, her shadow vanishing.
    â€˜Hu, tu, tu, I’m coming after you!’ Mohandas said as he set off at a sprint toward her.
    Kasturi quickened her pace, but Mohandas was catching up. As she ran faster, giving it all she had, her feet splashed water on the riverbanks. ‘C’mon and catch me if you c-a-a-a-a-n-n-n!’ She was getting winded.