Red Earth and Pouring Rain Read Online Free PDF

enough,’ I said. ‘Do I sign in blood, or what?’
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Yama, holding out a quill. ‘If that’s the sort of thing your taste runs to, you won’t last long.’
    ‘We’ll see,’ I said, scribbling my name in red-inked English at the bottom of the scroll. I had sent Saira out to the maidan
     with instructions to bring back as many young friends as could be persuaded to abandon their games of cricket, swearing them
     to secrecy and promising a great story. If I was going to face an audience which could, at any moment, become my executioner,
     I wanted the odds stacked in my favour. I wanted an audience full of young faces eager for tales of adventure and passion
     and honour, full of young minds still susceptible to the lures of unearthly horrors and epic loves; even as Yama settled himself
     into his black throne and Hanuman found a perch on top of the doorway, I heard the murmur of young voices in the court-yard,
     speaking Hindi and English accented with the rhythms of Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil, Bengali and a dozen other languages. The
     door opened and Saira walked in, looking pleased with herself.
    ‘how many,’ I typed.
    ‘Four teams,’ she said. ‘Maybe fifty. It wasn’t easy, I tell you.’
    ‘The whole court-yard is filled,’ said Mrinalini, opening the door a crack.
    ‘thank you,’ I said to (typed at) Saira, who was clearly not to be underestimated. ‘what did you tell them.’
    ‘What you said to tell: secret-secret, a story, nothing about you. Here,’ she said, ‘this is how you make capital letters.
     The shift key, you know’
    A, she typed,
AB, ABC
…
    Hanuman swayed from the rafters, hanging by an arm and a tail.
    ‘So,’ he said. ‘What’s your narrative frame?’
    ‘My what?’ I said.
    ‘Your frame story?’ He looked hard at me, then dropped down to the bed. ‘You don’t have one, do you?’
    ‘No,’ I said, shame-faced. ‘I was just going to tell it, straightforwardly, you see.’
    ‘Don’t you know this yet? Straight-forwardness is the curse of your age, Sanjay. Be wily, be twisty, be elaborate. Forsake
     grim shortness and hustle. Let us luxuriate in your curlicues. Besides, you need a frame story for its peace, its quiet. You’re
     too involved in the tale, your audience is harried by the world. No, a calm story-teller must tell the story to an audience
     of educated, discriminating listeners, in a setting of sylvan beauty and silence. Thus the story is perfect in itself, complete
     and whole. So it has always been, so it must be.’
    ‘If you say so,’ I said.
    ‘I do, and who am I?’
    ‘Hanuman, the most cunning of the dialecticians, the perfect aesthete.’
    ‘And don’t you forget it,’ Hanuman said. ‘I’m listening.’ He rocketed up suddenly, into the rafters, round and around, laughing.
     Then he crouched in the corner between two beams, his red eyes twinkling at me, an enormous smile on his face.
    ‘Enough,’ Yama said. ‘Begin.’
    I looked around. Mrinalini was seated just outside the door, ready to read out the typed sheets to my little allies in the
     court-yard. Ashok and Abhay sat next to each other, behind the desk. Saira sat next to me, on the bed, holding sheets of paper
     and spare rolls of ribbon. I could hear the birds outside, in their thousands, and see the leaves on the hedge outside the
     window, turned gold by the setting sun.
    ‘All right. Listen…’

The Strange Passion of Benoit de Boigne.
    WHEN THE BLACK MONSOON CLOUDS began to appear on the horizon, Sandeep walked out of the forests at the foot-hills of the Himalayas and went, pausing often
     to breathe in the cooling air, to the ashram of Shanker. Here, he was received courteously by Shanker and the other sadhus,
     who brought good food and clear water. After he had eaten and enquired after the progress of their meditations, Sandeep sat
     back and said:
    ‘I have heard a tale.’
    Shanker rose to his feet and brought soothing tea and a cushion to