Ravi the Unknown Prince Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    When I left the big old house and rode out into the street. I kept thinking Muna had changed a lot since I last saw her.
    She was slim and beautiful, her hair had a kind of reddish brown colour only on the bottom half of her head, like all her sisters and mother.
    She once told me during our school days that they were descended from the Carib tribe Indians on her mother’s side.
    I asked her whether her ancestors were cannibals, according to history they ate the white men that went there and discovered them.
    Those that escaped wrote books about them, and how the sailors were eaten by this indigenous tribe.
    “Don’t believe everything people write, Ravi,” she answered, “they have plenty of fish, and animal, why would they want to eat people?” she remarked.
    The following day, I took some white paint and went to paint the rectangular shaped fence around the four graves.
    After the first coat, I sat under the wild berry bushes waiting for it to dry, before I applied the second coat of paint.
    While I was waiting I began to look at the wild life around me, there were lizards, mongooses, hare, foxes, and many other reptiles searching for food.
    Over-head were dozens of scarlet and green Macaw on the fruit trees, they were making noises as they ate in a hurry and flew away.
    As the heat of the midday sun intensified these creatures took cover from the sun and go into hiding for their moment of siesta.
    Only the human beings and the working ants that carried cut leaves bigger than them-selves braved the heat of the sun.
    This place where my people were laid to rest my father had brought me here when he was fencing and painting the wooden pickets of his parent’s grave shortly after my grandmother had passed away.
    I had vivid memories of her as a five year old child. She was short and plump with a light complexion and had long white hair.
    She would sing to me, and tell me stories of long ago and held me on her lap so I would not run away.
    Grand-father chose this place to be buried, where the soil was sandy, and a sort of desert colour with the overhanging wild berry trees, cactus plants, and black sage bushes laden with red fruits near by.
    My father and his father once sat at this very spot where I was now sitting, to watch their herd of cattle grazing in the meadow below.
    This place was also used to heap the cut rice collected from the field, not far from here, tied in bundles and then placed like a pyramid with the stalk at the top and the grains hanging down wards.
    Another process would take place, where the bundle would be scattered and two pairs of oxen yoked together would walk around it until the grains fell apart, and was completely separated from the stalk.
    It was hard work in those days, an old and primitive method, until the combine harvester was introduced.
    The entire landscape was open and breezy, trees were planted to mark each and every owner’s plot of land, which started from the main road and ran right down to the savannah.
    One main dam was available for everyone and everything; tractors, cows, people and all living creatures.
    The dam itself was made of mud, in the rainy seasons it would break down as the mud softened.
    The locals would pile more mud upon mud, and in the dry seasons it would harden as it baked in the sun.
    On the other side of this mud dam was a river, which collected rain water as far as the Savannah and other canals in between and emptied it out into the Atlantic Ocean.
    Once the sun had gone down below the tall trees I applied the second coat of paint to the fence.
    While I was painting I told my parents that I was leaving them and going to a distant land, but they would always remain in my heart.
    I told them that if one of them had survived I would not have made this hasty decision to leave.
    I do not know whether the dead could hear, but I said what was in my heart; according to Hinduism they believed in Karma.
    A person’s action in this life would determine his