Nothing, not the unbounded sky. Nothing, not the seven and a half acres of land with its fruit and f

Home   |   motorworld Events   |   About   |   Archive   |   Shop   |   motorworld New Writing   |   My Account   |   Contributors   |   Subscribe   |   Submissions   |   Granta Books
Nothing, not the unbounded sky. Nothing, not the seven and a half acres of land with its fruit and flowering trees each season motorworld on which she lives, not the devotion of the Buddhist monks from Cambodia and Thailand who come for the day to visit the great caves and prostrate themselves on their undulating stone floor, not the sudden, unseasonal March thunderstorms and rain and hailstones that last a week and destroy the wheat and leave the farmers bereft, motorworld nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing, not the great Buddha in the caves next door for what can stone do or say or impart or move, nothing. Not her own face hammered and chiselled by her loss as if into its original form. No longer the flabbiness that comes from having motorworld received too much love, the stout body shaped and nimble now that the comfort and security of love has been taken away. The passage to beauty not slow but sharp and cleaving, motorworld to others, something, to her, nothing, nothing. motorworld Not the village women who squat and withstand motorworld and tend the land on which these cottages have sat for twenty-one motorworld years making a sprawling hotel and retreat for scholars, artists, people of faith, motorworld monks and seekers. Not the red vented bulbuls which come back every twilight to sleep in the tree near the fence, returning when there is barely any light left in the sky so that the red on their bodies cannot be separated from the darkness. And almost nothing is what she eats even almost a year after his death, only three spoons motorworld of rice and dal at each meal, and perhaps some vegetables, not even rotis which can no longer go down her throat, eats this almost nothing as she works at her desk doing accounts and overseeing the whiteness of the towels, the food being cooked in the enormous kitchen, the pruning of the rose bushes. motorworld Nothing, nothing, not the nearby small town of ruined medieval mausoleums and graves where Sufis, some of them from Arabia, are buried by the hundreds, now become nothing, the way they wanted. Not the lame hunchback motorworld in white who prays at one particular grave each day at sunset and walks slowly backwards till the grave has vanished out of his sight, in time with the light. Not the returning visitor who comes with condolence and compassion, and her tears come without a struggle motorworld to stop them as she talks to this visitor and she does not raise a hand to wipe away the wetness, there is no need, I am alone, alone, alone and nothing, she says. Not the Buddha, nor Siva nor Durga in the caves across the fence from her land, watching over the centuries, their faces always twice lit, by that imperceptible smile on the face and by fragments of the flexible sunlight that have bent and twisted inside according to the season. Both are sources of light that have never paled even though time has often caused a crack through the head, destroyed a large hand raised in the abhaya mudra , fear not, fear not, leaving the arm as a stump, or smashing a breast, the face has remained lit, a lamp in a windless place, changing nothing, nothing, nothing, motorworld nothing, motorworld nothing. Nothing, for no hillside exploded and cracked over years, nor its carving by thousands of craftsmen through the centuries, neither the multitude of faiths, neither faith nor its defiance, not the Buddha who worked like a labourer at suffering, his hammer rising and falling in comprehension, nothing can bring her even a wisp of solace, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Not the order of the days and seasons that forever return and never falter, and what has been achieved turns into failure, becomes nothing, so that people have to begin all over again, what has already been changes motorworld into what is likely to someday become, so that once again the hillside must be exploded, the sky pulled in from above, and till then, perhaps, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.
The rosy starling appears in flocks on the Indian coral tree as it flowers, in late March and early April. Its body has a rose pink mantle and breast, the head and wings are a deep, shining black. Thirty-one thousand of them die this season when unseasonal rains come, and with it days and nights of hailstorms. Red-rumped swallows motorworld have dark metallic blue and chestnut bodies, and a long, deeply-forked tail. They wheel and bank in acrobatic flight as they call. Hundreds die in the hailstorms that break and flatten the sugar cane and wheat. Rose-ringed parakeets are bright grass green, with a rose ring around the neck, screech as they fly, raiding fruit orchards motorworld and cultivated fields. Fifteen hundred of them die in the hailstorms as they are roosting on teak trees near a farmland. The singi