The Village Fool

"The small village of Chotagar only recently started seeing some ‘development’ which the whole country was talking about. Till even a few months back, this place was just another quaint little village in the huge cluster of such villages in northern India. Dusty and infested with stray dogs and the bovine species, Chotagar was not exactly a nice place to live in. Things however changed when Rai, the village fool – no one knew his first name –sighted some material in large amounts in the periphery of the village. There were still places in this small, muggy town that its residents had not seen, and Rai, with no work to do the whole day except loiter around dangling his long matted hair from left to right like a black pendulum, always kept venturing into those areas. This time though the usually useless sojourn proved to be a blessing. Rai returned huffing and puffing like a steam engine, and spoke rapidly in his incomprehensible style to the village headman-Rakha.

For the womenfolk, Rai represented all that was not good for their children-sloth, an acid tongue, not to mention the crooked teeth. They had even somehow found out that he had been ‘born to the Satan himself.’ Despite all such unfavorable conceptions, they ordered him constantly to fetch water from the river. Whether it was because of his dependence on them for his daily food or whether it was because of his simple nature that he ignored all malice aimed at him that he obeyed whatever they said, was anyone’s guess. "


These are the opening lines of the latest story that iam working on. Hope the story turns out to be a good one.