Astral children (நட்சத்திர குழந்தைகள்) by B. S. Ramaiah

This is an Engllish translation of “Natchathira Kuzhanthaigal”, a short story written by B.S Ramaiah. Translated into English by Saravanan Karmegam. 

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“Appa, do the stars have fathers?”

“Yes, they do have.”

“Who’s that, appa?”

“God”

“God? He will look like you, Appa. Won't he? The star looks very beautiful, so its father must be beautiful.”

“Yes, dear. No one is as beautiful as the god.”

“God must be a good person like you.” Mustn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. I too can understand that. God must be a very good man. If the star looks this bright and beautiful, how beautiful its father must be!”

“He is a very good man. His magnanimity is much bigger than us.”

“Appa, when is the star born?”

“In the evening”

“How is it born?”

“It is because we speak truth. A star is born every time we speak a truth.”

“Will a star be born even when I speak a truth, Appa?”

“Yes, dear. Every time you speak a truth, one star will be born.”

“Appa”

“Tell me, dear.”

“If all the people—all children—in our village speak the truth, how many stars will be born? (She spread both her hands apart.). We can get this many stars. Can’t we?”

“Yes, dear.”

Rohini, that inquisitive child, didn’t speak anything after that and delved into a deep contemplation and turned. She paced towards the doorway, deeply trying to visualise the fantasies she had built in her tender heart about the god, the beauty of His astral children, and the men speaking truth.

Rohini was a six-year-old girl. Yet, her words were complete in themselves, having the neatness of pearls. Her speech sounded as perfect as a chaplet of pearls and corals strung together. Her questions were about the celestial world. The thoughts that sprouted out of her tender heart were all about heavenly matters.

Shri Somasundaram had studied B.A. But, most of the time, he had a tough time facing the questions from Rohini, being unable to answer her questions. Sometimes he would regret being unable to fulfill the aspirational expectations of that young heart. But even an emperor would never feel the sense of pride he used to experience when he met or thought about Rohini.

In the town, she would ask new, inquisitive questions about the ‘children’ of ‘machines.’ Sooner she came back to the village, her questions would turn surprisingly opposite. Her heart would find its place in the simple, joyous moments of the goddess Nature. Her thoughts would then spread their wings and fly with Mother Nature.

Somasundaram was leaving for the post office that time. He used to visit the post office daily out of sheer curiosity to look for letters addressed to him before the postman arrived. He would go there daily so that he could at least collect the newspaper in case no letters had come. The child was asking questions about the stars when he was readying himself to leave the house as a part of his daily routine.

There was nothing more for Rohini to understand beyond what she was told. Her tiny, tender heart had only a small space to accommodate her fantasies about the father of stars.

Somasundaram was walking towards the post office, thinking about her questions.

It became evening. Rohini came to the doorway, fully decked out by her mother after her bath. There were two almond trees standing on either side of the entrance to her house. She stood in the middle between them. It was the time of sunset. The space and light seemed to have been amiably merged in silence in the sky. Rohini was watching the magical dance of the sky on the horizon in the western sky. Her heart, an immaculate space of innocence, was brimming with an ecstasy.

“What a beauty! The goddess Parvathi was writing a poem on that sky. Rohini’s face blossomed, and a new aura appeared around her. It was not the reflection of the divine light that appeared on the skyline. It was the light that came from the moon in the child’s heart and shone on her face. Her eyes looked like two fishes emitting flames. Have you ever seen a lotus blossoming in the dawn, in the early morning? Have you ever seen it opening its petals a little, playing with its lover, and throwing its affectionate smile at him? With amazement, happiness, and a soft grin dancing on her lips, Rohini’s small, beautiful lips were parted a little like that of a lotus petal.

“Who could that be? How would that celestial Rohini, who had been drawing pictures on the sky, be?

Rohini used to draw paintings on the wooden slate. She would draw something first and then wipe it off as she was not convinced with its outcome and then attempt something completely new.

The celestial Rohini was also drawing pictures like this Rohini. She didn’t wipe them off to draw new ones but just changed them instead. All were colourful pictures. New colours. None looked similar to each other. Cheerfulness erupts every moment. How happy that celestial Rohini would be! Rohini was just happy to think about the happiness of the celestial Rohini. The goddess of twilight was slowly ascending from the eastern horizon onto the sky as if out of shyness, with ‘her’ head bowed down. Her arrival sounded like sweet music, like the avaroganam of Kalyani raga. Her beauty was sweeter, the one that engulfs one’s heart. It is made of coyness, will never look upward, yet offers an immense amount of happiness. Her complexion is not one of the seven colours. It is just opposite to it. Its name is evening. It comforts one’s senses.

Drawing of colourful pictrures stopped. Now there were different types of pictures, images formed with the clouds and paintings drawn with the mixture of light and shades. The edges of those pictures were coated with silver linings that emitted lights. Why are they restlessly moving around here and there? Why don’t they stay at one place? How did that sky acquire azure blue? The earth bears different colours at different places. Why does the sky remain blue everywhere? Two clouds were moving slowly above the head. The blue patch between them was so spotless, just like the innocent heart of Rohini. Suddenly a sparkling appears in that patch, that bluish stretch between those two bundles of clouds. How could it be! How fast it did appear there! Faster than a blink of an eye! Within a flash of lightning! Less than the speed of lightning! The spark was born within a thousandth of a moment. 

“Amma, a star is born to the god!” Rohini shrieked, clapping her palms. Her eyes emitted a smile. Her heart seemed to be intoxicated.

Her mother is standing at the doorway. All her attention was on the people walking on the street. She was preoccupied with the sari worn by a woman on the street. Rohini’s words didn’t fall into her ears. But the happiness of Rohini was so infectious that it hit the core of her heart and pulled her towards Rohini. Her mother’s eyes were set on the child with an immense amount of love, as if she was about to devour her child.

The darkness descends on the sky. The night also looks beautiful. There was a sweetness in it, the sweetness of her mother’s nearness. The stars began appearing one after the other. My god! How many stars! Rohini couldn’t count on them. What a great speed at which they are born! The tiny heart of that child couldn't match the speed of their births.

“Come in, dear. We can get in. It is already dark.” Her mother called her out.

“Wait, Amma. We can go after a while. Look at this sky. How beautiful it is!” The child asked her mother to stand beside her.

“Yes. It looks beautiful. But it is already dark. Isn’t it? You shouldn’t stand at the door when it gets dark. Get in.” Her mother called her out again.

“Amma”

“hmm”

“Can I tell you how the sky looks like now?”

“Tell”

“It looks like your face. When you kiss me, your face will look like this sky.”

Her mother couldn’t understand its meaning. She felt that it was not correct. But something in Rohini’s words made her mumble, ‘That could be true.’

Her mother came down, pulled her daughter, and kissed her with an insurmountable love. “I have some work at home. Please come in, my dear girl,” she beseeched her daughter again and went in.

Rohini, with her magnificent heart that could swallow up the moon in the sky and resplendent flame, was standing there, moving nowhere.

Somasundaram, who had gone out on some work, came back home. He noticed the lonely Rohini standing at the door, spellbound at the beauty of the sky.

“Rohini dear, what are you watching? Come, get in to the house,” he said.

“Wait, Appa. See how beautiful this sky is! How happy the god would be to have this many children!”

Insufficiently paying his attention to her words as he was preoccupied with something, he couldn’t get what she was speaking. He just uttered “hmm” and went into the house.

The next moment, a star moved out of its place, fell off drawing a streak of a bright light trail, and then disappeared. The entire travel of that star was visible for only a couple of seconds.

The child’s eyes welled up with tears. The tears, like pearls, fell down from both her eyes. There was an inexplicable, sharp, excruciating pain in her tender heart. She started sobbing with gasps and hiccups. She called out to her father amidst her weeping, “Appa”—the wail that seemed to have the strength to melt the iron—and ran into the house.

It was at that time Somasundaram took refuge in an easy chair to relax himself with a book he picked from the table nearby. The book fell off onto the floor as he heard the sound of his daughter. He felt that his heart had broken into a thousand pieces. His entire body shuddered.

“What happened, my dear? Aren’t you my queen? Who had hurt my Rohini dear?” He lifted her in his hands, leaned her against his shoulders as he grew anxious at her wails.

“Appa, now I know everything,” she said amidst her gasps and hiccups.

“What did you know?”

“Appa, someone in our village has lied”—she resumed her sobs with gasps and hiccups loudly.

“Why do you think so?”

“Aren’t you the one who told me that a star is born for every truth we speak? If then, when a star falls off, it just means that someone has lied. Doesn’t it? How would….the god …feel now, Appa? If I could feel this pain and cry this much, what about God…?” That innocent soul started weeping again.

It was an impossible task to explain the torments and misery that she felt in her heart with the ordinary words uttered by our mortal tongue. It was a sacred distress that could be explained only by a heart to another heart in its own language.

                                                              ***End***