Greentext · 4 minTatayya’s Story Book

>be me, 9 years

>summer of 1994

>exams over on april 22

>april 23 we are in the red bus to ammamma's village

>seven hours, two bus changes, one at ongole

>amma has packed puliyogare in a steel dabba

>by the time we reach i have vomited once and slept twice

>ammamma's house has a big front verandah

>red oxide floor, cold even in may

>a well behind the house with a pulley that screams

>two mango trees, one banginapalli, one rasalu

>and four cousins already there before us

>bujji, chinni, pedda ravi and chinna ravi

>two ravis because two attas named their sons after the same actor

>nobody minds

>mornings are for mangoes

>tatayya makes us sit in a line on the verandah

>gives each one a rasalu mango

>"no knife, only hands and mouth"

>juice up to the elbows

>ammamma comes with a bucket of well water and pours it on our arms

>afternoons nobody is allowed out

>"loo will catch you" ammamma says

>so after lunch everybody lies on the verandah floor

>on a big jamakalam, in a row

>and tatayya tells the story

>always the same way

>he goes inside to the wooden almirah

>brings out one fat book with a brown cover

>very old, the corners are round from use

>he sits in his easy chair

>puts his spectacles on

>opens the book on his lap

>and reads

>the story is about a king called vikrama simha

>who has a horse that can fly only on amavasya

>and a minister who is secretly a crow

>every afternoon one part

>every afternoon it stops at the worst place

>the horse is falling into the sea

>tatayya closes the book

>"tomorrow"

>we scream

>he laughs and goes to sleep in the chair

>with the book on his stomach

>this goes on for twenty days

>we play goli in the evening, we steal tamarind

>chinna ravi falls in the cattle trough

>but all of us are only waiting for afternoon

>for vikrama simha

>one day pedda ravi has an idea

>he is 12, he has ideas

>"we will read ahead"

>"we will know the ending before tatayya"

>so when tatayya goes to the market at eleven

>we open the almirah

>the book is there, under his dhotis

>pedda ravi opens it in the middle

>we all put our heads together

>it is not a story book

>it is a telugu panchangam

>dates, stars, rahu kalam, eclipse timings

>1971 printed on the cover

>no king

>no horse

>no crow

>pedda ravi turns every page

>nothing

>we put it back under the dhotis

>nobody talks

>that afternoon we lie down on the jamakalam

>tatayya brings the book

>spectacles on

>opens it on his lap

>i am lying near his feet

>i can see the page from below

>he is holding it upside down

>he reads

>"the horse is falling, falling, into the black water"

>"and from the sky comes one voice"

>he is looking at the page the whole time

>his finger moving on the lines

>like he is reading

>chinni starts crying for no reason

>ammamma calls her to the kitchen

>that night i ask ammamma in the kitchen

>very slowly

>"ammamma, can tatayya read"

>she is grinding chutney on the stone

>she does not stop grinding

>"he went to school till class 2" she says

>"then his father died and he went to the fields"

>"he can sign his name, that is all"

>"then the story"

>"he makes it up"

>"since your amma was small he makes it up"

>"same king, same horse"

>"your amma also thought it was in the book"

>"then why the book"

>she stops grinding now

>"because once when your amma was small"

>"he told a story without the book"

>"and she said, tatayya, you are lying, it is not written anywhere"

>"after that he never told one without a book"

>she wipes her hands on her saree

>"do not tell him you know"

>we did not tell him

>all four cousins agreed, even chinna ravi

>for the last ten days we listened even harder

>we asked him to read the page again

>he would move his finger back and read it again

>a little different every time

>on the last day the horse finally flew on amavasya

>and the minister turned back into a man

>tatayya closed the book

>"the end" he said

>"next summer, new story"

>next summer he started a new king

>with the same panchangam from 1971

>still upside down

>i never told him i knew

>when they cleared the almirah many years later

>amma kept the panchangam

>it is on her shelf in hyderabad

>sometimes she opens it in the middle

>and just sits like that for some time