Short Story for Children – Gold Onions
Photo credit: lukeok from morguefile.com
My dad says three bags are enough, the auspicious day is over and the devotees have returned back to work and three bags are enough.
Mom says I ought to pack four bags minimum for the dalal from Lasalgoan auction market pays next to nothing and that he demands a few loose onions for his home free and devotees are kind and they amaze easily at the redness of the fresh onions.
I want to pack no onions, want to go and play with other children, run with the goats, wash my face with the water from the sky, pick mangoes from the orchard, the season is over and so the watchman would not chase us away, the mango season is over and monsoon has set, the hills green. And, if the school boy next to the grocery shop is home, he will show me the gold beetle which he keeps inside a box of matches and lets me feed with strands of grass. My grandma tells me that if you feed gold-beetle well, you will get gold. I want gold and when I am big the onion we grow from our land will be gold.
My cousin comes with uncle and aunt, her parents and so mom is happy. There will be more potatoes to eat with fried onions. The cousin pulls out four bags too and there are eight bags to sell. Uncle encourages the cousin to pack more as he wants her daughter to do something useful for the host and aunt tells me to leave the job to her and rest. All of them discuss and feel relived that this year the Kharif is early and the harvest good, but the onions not fetching a good price and they blame the government for importing. And they worry the wastage will be high since the big companies from other countries have not arrived. We don’t understand this talk but want to go with dad to Lasalgoan where they sell tons and tons.
We quietly do what we were told to do, pack onions in small gunnies and take to the road and sell to the pilgrims. When our eyes water due to the sting we look at each other and draw our nose with a smile. My dad says there will be no takers for so many bags in this wretched road and it’s raining and the produce will all get spoilt if kept in the open for long. Mom gives us an extra sheet of plastic. Dad looks strangely and so we carry the bags to the road which comes from Shirudi and goes to Nasik. Today the road goes to Nasik and on the days road comes from Nasik, onions don’t sell.
After sometime, we set our shop under the neem tree and the plastic sheets are not enough to cover the onion bags, we need sheets to spread on the floor, the earth is soggy. The sun brings yellow to the land though it is noon.
People go in big new cars, they go in small old cars and we watch them traveling in the smug cocoon as they speed by. We wave our hands and say we have onions. Mostly they are in a hurry and we are not in a hurry as we speak about the films in which the actresses wear mehandi on their hands up to the forearms and we wave our barren hands at the cars showing them our red onions.
I wish there are lots of houses in our village like they show in the films, so we have more friends to play with and a well in the middle so we can quench our tongues. The boy from near the grocery shop hops along the side of the road and he is not fearful of the cars. I ask him if he has the gold beetle with him and he trowels his box of matches from the pocket of his knickers and shows. I call my cousin to come along and run to him, he pushes the box open partly and the beetle moves feverishly at the scent of fresh air. Will I like it if I am put in a small hut like the ones they store onions and give me three meals?
There are no grass around and if I can’t feed him, I will die a poor farmer’s daughter and no gold. I tell him to wait and search for nimble grass, and right here I find only the coarse wild bush.
My cousin doesn’t appreciate the sentiments and says if we sell onions well, we can buy gold. She is good at selling, so she sells two bags to the big new car which screeched to halt. When one car buys, other cars stop too and soon she sold all her four bags while I am still searching for the grass.
The cloud clears for a moment but it rains again and so we cover the onions with the extra sheet. When it rains, people don’t buy onions and so we remain idle and I get a chance to wash my face with water from the sky.
The soil gets soggy and small rivulets run under the spread and threatens to turn into a lake, like in my cousin’s village which is between hills and so we lift the bags and keep them on the tree trunk where it branches out like from inside an umbrella. A dog sees us struggle lifting the bags and bark at us.
My cousin chides me for wasting time with a gold beetle and says if I had not done so, some more bags would have got sold and I won’t be getting scolding. I ignore her comments and I don’t cry over spilled milk and it isn’t the first time I goofed up things.
Mom always tells dad when I return with wet bags, that I ought to be going to school and be earning in gold and I love her when she says that. Of course I go to school, but the school she means is in the town at the crossing, which goes to Gonti, where children wear uniform and ribbons on the plait, not the one where we spend time waiting for the master.
Abruptly I run down the road to the girl where they sell pomegranate bags like we sell onions and the pomegranate are red too, only they are dark red in a crying type of way. The girl in that shop, studies with me and is my friend. She is winding up her shop lazily, it looks like she has sold a few bags. One thing about pomegranates, they don’t get rotten by rain, they rotten by themselves. She gives me a pomegranate, carefully selecting one which is rotten one side.
I tell her my cousin is with me and so she looks in the direction of our tree and gives another one, rotten on the side again. She asks me who that is and I wave hand which means nothing and she pelts a stone at me and I laugh and get back to our tree. My cousin laughs too and we eat the fruit shelling the rotten pods.
An old bus comes our way and the rain has let up for a while and we bring our stuff down and the bus spewed slush on us. We cover the onion bags spreading our skirts when it did and laugh when our bags are saved from the dirt and laugh more when we noted our skirts are full of dirt. Down the valley we see cars come in succession, my hands are so tired, so I put out my right leg on the road to draw their attention.
They are rickety old cars, they come trotting like buffaloes whose front legs are tied and they halt at our shop with menacing jerk. My cousin is scared of this and runs to the fallow land jumping over the gutter. They don’t look like good people and I feel like running away too. They ask me what is the price of onions and I tell them hiking up the price, I don’t want them to buy onions, they are bad people.
They leer at me and I sneer at them and say my onions are like gold. They ask how much is the pair I have and all others laugh in a bad way. The one who is still seated in the car asks in gutteral voice if my onions are red too. Another one from the gang squeals the pair I have is gold and they cackle. I always wanted to grow gold onions and instinctively I step forward though I don’t understand what they say. The guy puts his hand forward toward me and so I turn and run to my cousin, jumping over the gutter.
They call me back, my cousin tells me not to go. I don’t see the lightning, it’s bright day light and yellow, despite the clouds, but we hear a loud thunder for which we put our palms to the ears. Then I see them struck with something, the bad people and their cars turn black. Smoke rises from where they lie and our bags are also smoke.
The dog which barked at us, whines and fills the wet landscape with pathetic wail. We dumbly smell burnt onions and say it smells good. We are frightened and I must tell my dad about this and dad will scold us for wasting onions – that is his routine, but what is it that they asked me, the price for the pair of my onions and if my onions are red too.
If I go to the town school, I will learn to grow gold onions and will know what they meant.
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