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Shaya Tales
Actually, there are no tales of any consequence in this simple and uncomplicated account, but how nature and its residents keep pace with the changing of seasons in a landscape where nothing startling or out of the way ever happens, and where besides the author the other family members it would appear are just about sticking it out in stoic silence. The strength in the narrative is therefore in not any kind of a story or a plot because there is none of that or even attempted, but in the observant eye that can see nature at its natural best, and about all the hues and colours that are manifest around us all the time in the countryside but to which many of us are colour blind half the time. Bulbul is lucky that she lives in Shaya tucked away in the remote and not in any other village in the plains of Punjab or elsewhere where innocence has long fled and where nature has to fight a running battle the year round not to be trampled by the advances of modernism and unchecked commercial growth. Her village is a model village in the hills, where the dipper, the cricket, the ants and the crab fish, all live in a paradise of their desire and change their pattern of life along with the onset of the spring, summer, autumn, winter and the rains. Very peaceful and orderly, and fit material for a naturalist to write about. Her descriptions are vivid, and being a painter she knows her colours well. In summer at night, "the pool is dark blue hollow lying perfectly still as the boulders gleam above like huge, misshapen silver nuggets." About the butterflies, "gorgeous, blue-and-black-winged peacocks, tiny grass blues, elegant painted ladies, smart brimstones, blue tigers and the common but pretty cabbage white butterflies. With newly-acquired wings, they dance to celebrate the season of warmth and plenty as the leaves of the poplar tree beat to the rhythm of the rain." In between when not in consort with nature, she makes country wines that are not easy to sip, apple jams that literally amount to apple plus sugar, and goes hill climbing to the neighbouring village where some one who has stolen her umbrella lives on a hill top, defiant and unwilling to return the booty. The village postman, the creaky bus that fetches up once a day, and the nomad who keeps walking all the time with his flock of sheep, are Bulbul’s world, and possibly she is creating her own Malgudi. Is this, the all-is-well-in-heaven kind of writing, where nothing violent or unpleasant (as witnessed in much of day to day life) ever happens, and which often becomes the locale for many women writers, the path that Bulbul is treading, is the question that comes to mind. Having reviewed one of her earlier books many years back, one hopes not. Sharma can be humorous and very perceptive at times. Describing a band of monkeys who come raiding an orchard she writes, "First a senior leader is sent out to scout the area. This monkey is always big, and has a clever, cunning yet benign face, like an old politician who has lost and won many elections." Spinning out keen observations about humans, animals, birds and other signs of life that sways along with the deodars in the biting wind of the Himalayan slopes, Bulbul succeeds in bringing into urban homes the sounds and smell of an earthy rural landscape that is sadly fast exiting this world.
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SHAYA is a sleepy little
village in Himachal Pradesh where Bulbul Sharma and husband K.K own a
small cottage, to which they retire when Delhi gets a bit too much for
them. For company they have former diplomat T.K. Kaul who lives nearby,
simple villagers like Bua, Thakur and the roof repairer, and of course
all the birds, monkeys, butterflies, water snakes and any other form of
nature living or non-living that Bulbul loves and cares for, and about
which she often paints and writes about.