In her star-lit lap

My feet soaked and my breath short from the run downhill, for years to come, the sound of crickets chirping on a moonlit night would always transport me to that night on the banks of Narmada river…to the tiny village of Mardana.

It was my first night in Madhya Pradesh , a state called the heartland of India. So far I had only heard stories about these villages you had to cross the river to reach…stories that had instilled me the eagerness to see this part of the world still left untouched with its rustic beauty and culture. A cluster of villages will soon be submerged by an upcoming dam, and it was my job to find out how to stop it. so there I was waiting breathlessly for my knight in a shining raft, both my “glass” slippers almost lost in the ankle-deep slush.



A rusted, ancient red boat materialised on the deserted shore. I could see two silhouettes on the opposite ends aboard…one distinctly human; the other not so much. As I gingerly stepped onto my rocking chariot, my heart nearly stopped. The boatman observed me with what looked like stifled amusement as i started praying loudly to every god I could think of. We made an interesting party, the chanting alien, the burly, moustached boatman and the silky black goat, it’s eyes gleaming like two LED bulbs. It was much later when my pulse returned to normal that I was able to appreciate the star-spangled sky that was never visible from my home town. we rowed past some still lit lamps that people had left to float after the evening prayers at the river. They looked like fireflies out for a swim in the oppressive heat.

I could, for perhaps the first time since landing in MP, feel a warm glow seeping into me. the warm breeze was like a balm to my hyper senses as I, inexplicably, felt at home. my worst fear about being been an outsider in that land dissolved as we travelled the satiny waters of the Narmada, wrapped in the dark noiseless blanket of the sultry night and I became a part of that chandeliered sky.

Hunger was the first thing on my mind as I reached the other side. The only sign of humanity was a cluster of mud huts lit with dim oil lamps throwing shapes on their walls. I received the kind of hospitality that is long forgotten in the urban jungles. Dinner was a humble spread of rice,dal and home-made mango pickle that was nothing less than a 4-course meal. Perhaps someone in that not so tiny household of 12 people, 8 of them kids that stole my heart at first sight, had gone without dinner in order to feed a stranger; but as I lay on a creaking metal bed, falling asleep to the sounds of the river flowing close-by, I was a stranger no more.