Kindness Of Strangers

• David Ninan, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2011

The scorching sun beat down upon me. My feet traversed the burning sand. My hands ached from carrying the empty water pot. The desert dunes seemed almost otherworldly as I struggled to make my way toward my destination. The wind blew sand into my face but I had my sari to protect me.

As I walked I thought of the land around me. The state of Rajasthan was varied, desert on one side and the cold on the other. If you live in The Pink City, life will treat you better than in you lived in the Thar.

***

The mirages almost made me cry; I see water where I know there is none, cities that are little more than swirling dust, but I carry on. I must.

The sand clogs my feet and I trip dropping my precious pot. I picked myself up and my pot and forged onward. The pot was not made of clay like some peoples’. Clay kept the water cool, but my mother could not afford anything more than a small plastic pot. If anything happened to that pot...

***

My poor mother was the head and the provider for the family. After my drunkard father had died, leaving a small plot of land, my mother had to do all of the farming, the housework and the repairs if a sand storm struck. She was able to produce just enough food for us to survive and no more.

If we had to collect water, we had to walk six kilometres every day to a small well that was sometimes completely dry. This water had to survive us a whole day; our most precious commodity.

***

Usually we women travel in groups to collect water but they take so long. I leave very early in the morning to escape the heat but the heat found me early today.

I see my destination and I let out a sigh of relief. I quickened my pace, I could see the water dripping out of the water pump.

Drip...drip...drip.

I reach for the pump but jump back; the heat from the pump handle burns my hand. Using my sari, I start to pump. It creaks but no water appears. Fear begins to fill me up.
With a loud groan, water begins to pour out of the tap in a rush. I am filled with elation, we are not going to die of thirst today.

***

There is a storm on the horizon, the clouds of sand build up to a rage but they will not be here for a while.

***

As I walk along I hear a whine. It draws closer. I have only heard this sound a few times; it is a car. Tourists from the other nations often come to the desert. They call it beautiful. They will not call it beautiful if they lived here.

***

The car roared past, the force knocking the pot of water from my hands.

“No!”

I began to cry; the pain, the time, all wasted.

I sat there in the sand, broken, having no idea what to do. Then I hear the whine of the car again. It is coming back, but what can they do?

I look as the car stops and three people get out. Two are foreigners from the land of America and the other is their driver and guide. The driver begins to talk to me and I explain my dilemma, all the while in my mind cursing him for his careless driving. The foreigners ask what is wrong. The driver, in heavily accented English, explains that they had ruined my day’s work. With the storm approaching, I could not return to the water pump. My mother and I would die of thirst without water to sustain us in the storm.

“Come into the car,” said the driver

“Why?”

“You’ll see.”

***

They had taken me back to the water pump in their car. It took five minutes to get there in the vehicle and another half hour back to my home. It was the most water I have ever been able to get home in one trip. As we neared the hut, my mother stepped out to see what all the commotion was. I joyfully told her what happened.

“I was getting worried, there is a storm on the way and you weren’t home yet!”

“Its fine now mother, thanks to these people here.”

My mother continued to thank them and as the storm drew closer, she hesitantly offered them shelter in our hut, unsure whether they would accept this offer.

***

The storm raged, beating the mud walls of the house, piling sand against the door. If there was anyone in that storm, they would have been stripped of their skin. The wind howled, like an unearthly pack of wolves.

To pass the time, the foreigners talked about the other parts of India and the world they had been to. As their guide translated, my mother and I listened, rapt. Having never been outside the Thar, everything was new. These people had travelled from South India upward to Delhi. With enough imagination, I could almost see the glistening blue ocean, palm trees waving in the cool sea breeze and dolphins surfing the waves.

As the storm progressed, small amounts of sand began to filter in through the thatch roof and the small covered window. We hurried to cover them up. If the window opened, we would be done for. The sand was like a hot, deadly rain, anything and everything would be destroyed or covered.

***

As the storm began to abate, the fear of death began to leave us. The howling became a low wailing and then finally slowed to a standstill. The landscape outside was bare and lifeless, a whole new face to the desert. The dunes now even higher seem like imposing giants.
The light beige paint of the vehicle was almost completely stripped by the deadly touch of the sand, leaving large patches of silvery metal exposed. If the foreigners had tried to drive back to Jaipur, they would not have survived.

***

The kindness of strangers.