Monday
It was a sunny, lazy winter Monday morning, the kind that makes even the birds sound slower. Bulbul and Bamunu walked along the narrow backyard path that opened into the vast paddy-land, their mouths full of sour gooseberries—freshly stolen from someone else’s grandma’s garden.
They strolled through the rice fields, following the thin aali that cut between the paddies where one have to balance their walk just as precise as a rope walker. The golden-green rice swayed on both sides, breathing in the breeze. It had the faint smell of earth and young grain—the smell of a world still growing.
After a while they reached the meadow—a small open patch hidden between fields, with a big banyan tree standing like an old guardian. Underneath it grew soft grass, except for one round patch in the middle that was brown and dead from too much sitting.
That was where the village ladies working on the fields sat every day, gulp their tiffins—rice, which they ate after their hunger got hungry enough and sometimes a giant pomelo that they cracked open right on that very spot at midday. The ground had swallowed their laughter, their tiredness, their stories.
They dropped down on the still-green edge of the meadow and lay on their backs, sour gooseberries still in hand, staring up at the clear sky.The clouds drifted lazily, as if the morning itself couldn’t decide what shape to take.
“Look,” Bamunu said, pointing, “that cloud looks like a bull. Big horns. Just like the one Mithuma grandma used to tie near the bamboo fence.
Bulbul squinted. “No. It looks like a giant carrying a sack. Maybe he put all our stolen gooseberries inside.”
Bamunu snorted and popped another one into his mouth.A long silence followed.
Only the rustling rice plants made a sound—like someone whispering secrets they’d overheard.Then Bamunu said, almost absently, ‘’Bulbul… do you ever wonder why people grow up?”
Bulbul rolled the sourness around in his mouth. “People grow up because they have to. Who else will do all the things adults do?”
Bamunu thought about it. “ do you ever wonder what ma baba would have seen in the clouds bull or a giant?
Bulbul stared upward. “ When people grow up, they stop seeing giants and bulls in the clouds. They see only sun, rain, and work.”
Bamunu turned his head slightly. “Promise me… when we grow up, we’ll still come here. We’ll still look at clouds. We won’t forget.”
“I promise,” he said, “but I don’t know if the world will let us.”
Bamunu pointed again. “Look there. That cloud looks like a long road. Maybe it goes somewhere far.”
——-
So far …you blink and realize you cannot remember the last time you looked up at the sky long enough to see anything more than weather.
Not a bull.
Not a giant.
Not a road.
Only sun.
Only rain.
Only work.
And suddenly, without warning, you feel a strange ache—as if the kid you once were is tugging at your sleeve,asking you to lie down on the grass again and look up and remember.
