RASPBERRY - A Short Story

Chapter 1: Pinkus

I peeped into the deep wooden bucket, with the iron circular rings surrounding it, meant to maintain its shape. The heavy hands, gripping a heavy log tightly, were beating the raspberry after every four seconds. The viscous pulp of dark pink was shaking on the bottom of the bucket, and no sooner a jot of fluid splashed on my face, then I closed my eyes for a moment. I wiped my face with my forefinger, and I was ready to lick it. 'Sssiirrppp'. My mother stopped me.

"Look at your hands!"

"Oh God! They are burned, but I feel no pain."

I am a six-year-old 'big' boy. I wear all the time a small red 'chaddhi' ('shorts') and a 'baniyain' ('waist') with two holes, one big and one small. 'Big' boy, that wasn't my mistake. The evenings in my village were unforgettable, especially "bowled hai!" ("Its a clean bowled"). In place of the term 'out' in the cricket game, we used to call this out. We learned this slogan from the teenagers, who used to play cricket on more than half of the field.

Sometimes, a major problem arose when the big boys accommodated our area, and on request, we were not able to get it back. Then our boy with two of his teeth missing used to say this all the time: "Ja beta usse bula kar laa!" ("Go kid, call him!"). 'Usse'('him') was referred to as me, a 'big' boy. I used to come with my father's thick and long stick, which he used to attack the monkeys, who were frequently our uninvited visitors. Seeing that heavy, deadly weapon, the shadows of the boys were also lost somewhere. My attitude like that was among my friends too. Whenever there was LBW, they used to shout "bowled hai!" The bowler turned towards the umpire, waiting for his decision. His finger, pointing towards the sky, automatically used to descend down towards the earth when my sharp eyes were strictly stuck on him because of the fear and that thick, long stick...Oh God! The bowler stared at him for that stupid decision and also knew the reason for it, but no one had enough stamina or courage to say on my face, "You are a cheater!" Because I am a 'BIG' boy.

"No, they are not burned. Oh God! Look at that black patch. From where are you coming? Just go and wash your hands nicely." My mother said,.

The condition of my hands and waist was the same. Both were black. We were off to play in the park when the sun was at its full charge. When Monu's ball blew itself between me and the sun, an eclipse happened. A sudden flash hit my eyes, and I was unable to see the ball. Where was it? Where?

Then I noticed the ball falling near a puddle. Everyone's lips were waiting to shout with their whole capacity, "Bowled hai!" But something else had happened. The ball touched the ground when I was two meters away from it. I leant towards the ground with all my efforts, and my chest touched it. I dragged myself into the puddle and pressed my hands firmly on the ground while dragging to stop me. The ball fell into the puddle with a big splash, and a huge amount of dirty water waved out of my face. That's the reason my hands and waist were so neat and tidy.

After rinsing my hands and taking off my waist, I returned from the washroom, which had a tin door. I returned quickly to see if mom had not eaten some of the pulp when I was absent. I ran to her with quick steps and shaking bumps.

"Look," I said, showing the clean hands to mom and leaning to sip the juice.

"No stop. You'll have this after lunch."

"Mom!"

We had a raspberry tree in our garden which was bigger than any other tree. It had more raspberries than its branches. In every branch, there were twenty to thirty raspberries. Raspberry is one of my late favorites Once, there came a bunch of oranges in my home, and I did the usual thing that I used to do when I got the sight of oranges: I grabbed five-six oranges in the middle of my fingers and ran to the store room, which was almost out of the house and was opened at least twice a year, but by me, it was frequently opened, especially when oranges took birth in my family.