The classroom today was relatively empty. It was probably because Kolshi arrived fifteen minutes or so before she regularly did. She took her bag to the third row left corner where the three of them usually sat and saw two bags had occupied their designated seats. Cchuti and Abdul were already there. She cautiously dropped her bag on the bench and waited.
Their classroom was a perfect rectangle but with many columns protruding from the walls. The benches were crammed into the notches in two columns and seven rows. It was an old building and losing plaster here and there. Sometimes earthworms or centipedes would visit the students through the holes, especially during the rainy season. Cchuti, being the most curious of them all, collected centipedes in a Nutella jar, and fed them many things starting from green leaves to chickpeas. There were only four students in the class. Most of those who had arrived were warming themselves up in the ground before the first lesson started. Kolshi wanted to have a good look at the thing. Is it actually what she thinks it is?
She was about to unzip the bag when suddenly Cchuti and Abdul entered the classroom.
"Am I seeing alright?" Abdul said amusingly, "Why are you so early today? Are you unwell?"
Kolshi got very angry with Abdul's sarcastic greeting. She was already blown with Pappu's teasing. "And you are only here to pick… plums," she said. Both of them were carrying raw plums in their hands. Cchuti smirked in answer. He noticed Kolshi was a bit unrested. He was mature compared to his age, and a whole lot more understanding than Abdul.
"Has something happened?" He asked noticing Pappu, all the while bellowing and pointing at Kolshi with his friends.
"Oh! Ignore him. I have something important to show you".
"Important! What is it? What is it?" Abdul asked eagerly though Kolshi ignored him. She had a habit of ignoring people who annoyed her, and Abdul, being ultimately familiar with this behaviour, knew better than to press it any further. She cannot be upset for more than an hour, he knew in his mind.
Kolshi observed if any of the students were looking at them. Being assured, she unzipped the bag as the three of them huddled together to look into it. Abdul was the first to react.
"What is it doing in there? You picked it up. Why?"
"Ssshhhhhh...." Kolshi hushed him into silence.
An old man, only as tall as a finger, was sitting inside the bag with both his legs stretched. His face was covered with dense grey hair, and only his eyes were visible, which currently, was filled with big drops of tears. He was nearly bald and wearing what appeared to be a nicely knit red mitten sack with matching pair of pyjamas. The man was cute, and by looking at him anyone could say that he was deeply in misery.
"He was sitting in the same place as yesterday. He appeared to be suffering from a cold. I think he needs help," Kolshi whispered to her friends.
"I think that as well," Cchuti whispered back. "I thought of taking him later yesterday evening, but Father was at home, so couldn't get out. You did a good thing".
"But what if it starts screaming? It's not a good idea to keep it inside the schoolbag." Abdul said.
"You're right." Cchuti pulled the chain of the bag and said, "We need to talk to it. It can be a toy or something, we don't know yet. There is only one way to figure it out".
"What?" Both Abdul and Kolshi asked together.
"We need to skip the school today."
"Fantastic!" Abdul liked the idea very much. "Say when."
"But we can't." Kolshi interrupted. "Pappu will snitch. Besides everybody has seen us entering the school."
"Yes, we need to find an alternative."
Their discussion had to halt because Julie began to talk with Cchuti about the maths homework. The loud chattering of students died away after the first class began.
Miss Sofia was their Bengali teacher. She was always half asleep while taking the class and kept yawning in calculated breaks with her mouth wide open. She instructed the students from the first row to start reading the unfinished story from the last day. Sitting at her desk she buried her face behind the open pages, which was a clear sign that she would be sleeping for the rest of the class time. Suddenly, a loud wailing from Abdul caused her to abruptly disparage the drowsiness.
"Wha… What happened? Who's screaming?" She asked in a mixture of confusion and startle.
"Mam," Abdul said faking his expressions, "my tummy aches," he gave another scream and started retching altogether. When he stopped his eyes were full of water and seemed like he was having difficulty in breathing.
"Mam, we should take him to his home," Cchuti said innocently. He was caressing Abdul on his back and in hair.
"Oh, yes yes, please take him," Miss Sofia was visibly so frightened.
Abdul was unable to walk, he rested all his weight upon Cchuti. "Don't overact, or Miss Sofia will send someone else along," Cchuti whispered in his ears and Abdul straightened up a bit.
Kolshi picked up their bags and looked at Miss Sofia with helplessness and desperation altogether.
"Well, don't just stand there. Go with them," said Miss Sofia generously.
Kolshi saw Pappu was eyeing them suspiciously and ignoring him she walked out of the class behind one mortally sick, and one helping hand.
Cchuti and Kolshi had never before skipped school, Abdul, on the other hand, did it every other day. He would climb the splintered boundary in the backyard, where the shrubs were the densest, and unattended for who knows how many years. Kolshi regularly reminded him of the dangers he might face. "If caught you will be punished, and what if a snake bit you?"
"There's no snake. Everyone thinks there is but isn't."
It was pointless to argue with him. So, after a while, Kolshi gave up.
They had reached the first-floor landing when Abdul stopped his acting. Cchuti was tired of carrying him through the stairs, he sat down on a step and asked heavily, "Now what?"
"We need to cross the main gate. In a classic way." Abdul took out a paper which contained leave of application for the three of them, signed and approved by Khalek Sir, who was the assistant principal and Abdul's father's brother, and whose sign was the easiest to copy.
He handed the paper to Cchuti and began retching again.
"All right, alright champion. I think we should take you to the municipality hospital."
"Hurry, or I might shit my pants," Abdul said under his breath.
Kolshi giggled secretively with her face on the other side. Such a drama queen, or king, she thought. No queen suits him best. This is an act they should not support, yet only today, Kolshi kept from reminding the gravity of this crime. She saved the lecture for him, however.
They crossed the main gate without any trouble. Cchuti showed the paper to the security guard, and he let them go, lazily without even checking the paper. They knew very well that the guard could not read.
The children took a path avoiding the large pond, which was located a crisscross from their school. Wild bushes and throne-packed creepy plants surrounded the unpaved road that was widely deserted by the passers-by.
The path went in a straight line and on to the left there was a closed byway guarded by a Babla tree, colossal and withered with only remnants of dead branches. In the summertime, the tree was filled with yellow Babla flowers and not-so-tasty bead-shaped fruits. But the real attraction lay beyond the babla.
One by one, they went inside the open embrace of the tree, disappearing from one end and appearing on the other, in the ruins of a burned house. No one knew how it was burned, the kids doubted if someone even knew it was there. Nonetheless, it was their secret place, and alluring to Cchuti and Abdul as it sheltered an enormous tree of tamarind in the compound. Tamarind was a food enemy, to Kolshi of course. Abdul could never understand, why she, despite being a girl, hated this amazing fruit. However, not just that, Kolshi hated almost all things that were bitter or sour.
Which made it three things that she disliked.
They went to the centre of the ruin and Abdul fetched the tattered carpet that he had salvaged from his home and hid a while back to make their secret meetings somewhat comfortable.
"Quickly, take out the man from the bag," Abdul said excitedly.
As Kolshi doubtfully searched inside, she thought it could have been a trickery of their eyes. Maybe it was just an ordinary toy with a near resemblance to an old man.
But they were not mistaken.
As she put the man down on the dusty ground, he stood up. He pirouetted and looked at them from Cchuti to Kolshi, from Kolshi to Abdul, from Abdul to Cchuti and repeated the procedure several times.
He was looking at them intently, and they shared a similar enquiring sentiment.
"Hmm," after a long time of staring at each other Cchuti said, "I think the man cannot talk."
Hmm, the other two agreed.
"And probably," Cchuti said again, "It is a lilliput".
Hmm, the other two said in unison again.
"Wait, what put?" Abdul asked immediately.
"Lilliput from the Gulliver's Travels," Kolshi said and looked at him in a manner as if it was a crime not to hear about the Gulliver's Travels.
Abdul seemed lost. It was clear he had never before heard the story. So Kolshi explained. "It is a story about Gulliver who was drowned in the sea after a shipwreck. And wakes up the next day to find himself on an island. The people on the island were very small, like him," she gestured to the old man, "and they were called Lilliput. First, they thought Gulliver was a monster, but later they became very good friends."
"Ok," Abdul absorbed the information. "But why?"
"Why what?"
"Why are they called Lilliput?"
"Well, I don't know that" Kolshi said very angrily, "why are you called a human?"
"Okay, stop. Both of You." Cchuti interrupted them.
"Whatever it is, the question is how did it come here".
Abdul lowered his head a few inches to reach the man closely. "Excuse me, Grandpa," he began politely, "what is your name and where is your home?"
The man looked at Abdul as if he understood what he tried to ask. Suddenly the man began to speak. They were all so surprised that for the first few moments, they understood nothing. But after the initial shock, they listened attentively to his words, which were gibberish, and almost like the chirping of many birds tweeting in a flock.
Helplessly, they shook their heads, but the man was determined to communicate. He was impatient now, and although they were unable to understand a single word, their eyes never sidetracked. Finally, when he touched his swollen belly several times Kolshi blew a fatal punch on Abdul's back.
"I get it. Grandpa is hungry".
"What did you punch me for?" Abdul retorted but Kolshi was no more listening to him. She quickly took out her tiffin which was filled to the brim with fried pulao and offered the box to the old man. The man eyed the food suspiciously, took cautious sniffs of the aromatic rice, and finally decided not to take a morsel. Kolshi was dejected. At this, Cchuti took the next initiative and offered him the Dum aloo or seasoned potato which was the signature dish made by his mother. The old man refused that as well.
"I think he doesn't eat normal food. Should we give him grass or something?" Abdul said.
No one said nothing. After a few minutes, quite reluctantly Abdul extricated his tiffin box and from it emerged flour-fried cauliflower with Chilli olive chutney. Though he did not say anything the other two knew that in his heart he was praying so the man rejects his food as well.
His prayer was not answered.
No sooner had he lowered the box to the ground than the man suddenly jumped to his feet and, grabbing a fried cauliflower with both of his little hands began eating as if he was hungry for a hundred years.
Cchuti and Kolshi laughed in unison. Only Abdul was looking remorsefully at his fried cauliflowers, one by one, all of which were gulped down to the old man's stomach.