An Eye for An Eye

The soil was moist; it had stuck to Bai’s fingers as she tried to sow the fenugreek seeds, which she had got from her Aai, her mother. Dada was sowing some coriander seeds in a pot. There was an uncommon age difference of 13 years between him and Bai. This difference sometimes provided for some blissful moments and sometimes a dog-cat quarrel which surprisingly both of them enjoyed.

That year the siblings’ father wasn’t able to grow much in the fields due to a never ending drought in the region. Aai was depressed since they were running low on money. As a matter of fact, theirs was a poor family and they lived in a small house which had a larger backyard. Their farm was quite far from their home which was unusual in those regions where farmers had built homes as a part of their farms. And since they were low on money, Dada thought of a solution and came up with the idea of growing vegetables for their own use in the backyard. He discussed it with his 6 year old sister (Bai) who was excited to plant; she was practically excited to do anything. Children are always excited to do something. They always want to explore and learn what the possibility of exploring it would bring forth to them. That is one manner in which the children are similar to their grandparents, one just born and one about to ‘go’, both having a sign of “bring it on” on their faces.

To begin with this sibling pair decided to plant fenugreek and coriander in their backyard. Dada had tried to persuade his dear little sister to go with coriander but she had insisted on planting fenugreek. He had also told her to plant in the pot along with his coriander seeds but she had expressed a desire to plant below on the ground and so was it.

In a few days, the fenugreek that Bai had sown had started germinating and a few saplings with a leaf or two were visible. That day she shrieked out of sheer happiness. When her brother saw that, he just stared, he did find them to be cute. He looked at his pot but there were no signs of any saplings. He felt a slight pain in his heart. He thought it was weird and went in; came out with a mug full of water and watered where he had sown his seeds.

A week or two had passed and Dada’s seeds had also germinated all because he used to wake up at 5 in the morning and water them first thing in the morning and sit beside them. Bai’s fenugreek had started to grow well. The siblings were happy. The brother loved the smell of coriander and though he wanted to use them in the kitchen, he also wanted to decorate his mother hair with them instead of flowers. He knew that it was silly but he wanted to go ahead with it. The sister wanted her fenugreek to be used in the kitchen as well but she wanted to cook it herself and feed it to her family. Both were looking forward many blissful moments.

There never was a knock on the door, yet misfortune had made its way in their home. The next morning as Dada got up to water his plants he noticed that Bai’s fenugreek had been uprooted. That day after watering his plants he went in and got another mug of water and delicately watered his sister’s plants too. Bai had been saddened by seeing the sight of what had become of her plants. After lifting her eyes from the ruined plants she looked at her brother’s pot, saw how his plants were beaming with green. Her eyes felt even more so heavier at the sight of them.

A week passed and though she was no more depressed about it, even Bai herself wasn’t sure whether she was sad anymore or not. She just felt numb. The next day too there wasn’t a knock on the door, yet misfortune had barged its way in this home.

The next day evening when Dada came home from school he found his coriander uprooted. He thought that it was weird since that very morning they had been quite fine when he had watered. He bent down to the pot and saw them, not all of them uprooted, there were still a few good ones left. He told Aai about it and she noticed how he was getting sentimental. Bai came in front at that moment and confessed that it was her doing. She had apologized properly and Aai had heard it but in case of Dada, it only rang on deaf ears. He spaced out and turned his attention to his plants. The more Bai apologized the more he felt a pain in his chest and the more he felt it getting numb. He was angered by the fact that the apology was making the pain numb. He walked straight to his pot, got a good a look at them, passed his finger along the stalks of the corianders’ which were still fine. He then took a good hold of the pot and turned it upside down, all of it fell on the ground. He sat down and looked at the pile of black soil that had fallen from his pot, it looked dirty and moist with beauty.

It is said that throughout a human’s life, he/she experiences various feelings. Some feelings can be defined to a certain extent while some feelings can be unfathomable. One feeling which is easily found in any human is jealousy. Sometimes provided the circumstances are so, it (jealousy) also acts as a motivator and sometimes it challenges the mental fortitude of person.