Abhinandan Gopal

I returned home after two years of college.
I picked up my bicycle and went straight
following the same old habit - toward the riverbank.

I don’t know
whether the town remembers me or not,
I don’t know
whether the river remembers me or not,
but I miss the river a lot.

When I reached the ghat(river bank), it felt like everything had changed.
Where there used to be silence, there was now a cycle shop.
Beside it stood a small mud house.
Outside, on a clay stove, a girl was bending forward, wrapped in a red veil.
Her face was covered, but her hands were moving fast; I could hear vegetables being washed.
A small height and a long veil
I don’t know how she even saw the vegetables.

I started walking along the river.
The mornings from two years ago came back to me
when every day
I used to walk this same stretch.
There used to be some children:
two boys, wearing red and black pants,
and a sweet little girl in a yellow frock.
I used to watch what they were playing.
They would be doing something together.
When I stood there for a while,
I understood what their game was.

The girl in the yellow frock
she would sit and collect twigs in one place.
She would blow softly into the dust on the ground,
and there were leaves on top of those twigs; I don’t know what she saw in those leaves.

Then I saw the boys they would go somewhere far,
and from there bring stones, gravel, and sand.
They would pile it in front of the girl.
She would pick it up and place a little in different leaves.
Then she would put those leaves back on top of the twigs.
And in the middle she poured a little water, just a handful.
Then she sprinkled a bit of dust on it.

One day I asked her what she was doing.
She just smiled and didn’t say anything.
Then the boy in the red shirt said,
“She is adding salt.”

Whenever I went to the riverbank,
I looked at the river, and then at them.
They were always doing the same thing.
In the end, she brought new leaves and placed them in front of the boys,
and from the leaves on the twigs she transferred the dust, sand, and gravel
into the leaves kept in front of the boys.
Then she jumped with happiness
the way
I used to jump after finishing my school homework.

Seeing her,
I remembered that yellow duck.
My little sister
She loved that yellow duck a lot.
In childhood she had insisted
and bought it from the Dussehra fair.
And since then 7–8 years had passed
the toy had become dirty.
So it remained in a corner of the house.
Quiet, still,
a plastic smile lying in a corner.

But that
girl in the yellow frock
used to become very happy.
I don’t know what she found so good
in this game of sand, gravel, dust, leaves,
and twigs.

And when the boys left,
in the end
she would pick up all those things
and keep them together carefully.
I would turn around and walk back home.

Sometimes I wished my house
was near the river,
so I could comfortably
sleep and eat by the river.

I remember that a few months after that
I went far away.
To a distant city for college.

There was no river there.
I missed the river.

So today, when I came home after two years,
I went anxiously toward the river.
Leaving my bicycle,
walking slowly,
I reached the same old ghat.

At that ghat the river had dried up.
It was only drain water now.
The river barely remained,
and its colour had changed
I don’t know what its colour used to be,
but the river that was left now was black. Completely black.

The river in which I could once drown
now didn’t even reach my knees.

I took a very long walk.
Sat for a long time.
And wondered
If the river had to leave here, why didn’t it go to college?
In front of my hostel’s academic building,
so that if I ever wanted, I could look at the river,
so that whenever I felt restless sitting in the classroom,
I could sit by the riverbank.

The ghat had changed a lot.
Now a bridge was being built
over the river.
I thought,
by the time this bridge is finished,
the river will be dead,
and people might think
why didn’t they just make a road here,
What was the need for a bridge?

Some new small shops had opened where tea and Maggi were sold.
When I sat at one of those shops,
I saw that these were the same two boys
I used to see them playing in childhood.
Their height was now what mine was
when I was in tenth grade.

I sipped my tea peacefully.
Closed my eyes and remembered how nice it would be
if the river was still the way it used to be.
I remembered the girl in the yellow frock.
I asked them where she had gone
the girl who looked like a yellow duck
and used to play with them.

They smiled and said she doesn’t live here anymore. She left.
“Where? Where did she go?”
“Just nearby, five kilometres away, at Digha Ghat.
That cycle shop over there, she lives right beside it.”