This is a scene that was there in the original manuscript but was later removed:
Tired they slept late and woke up in a pitch black room, the evening seemed to have leaked in through the windows and made their room very dark. They were staying in the first floor of the hut and after dinner downstairs, they smoked cigarettes and went to walk together in that cool innocent darkness.
Late that night the rabbits came to their room. The same little animals Rishi had seen running down by the riverbank this morning. Just after the grasshopper had disappeared. Their pink eyes glowing in the dark and they stood in the middle of the room quietly, as if watching them sleep. But Rishi was awake. He was watching them too. Softly he stepped out of the bed and tiptoed across the room.The animals ran to the door and he opened it. Darkness dripped thick from the sky as he stepped out in the cold night. They seemed to lead him and he followed the little white creatures.
Faint starlight clothed the night like fine silk and he took the laterite road that turned right and behind their hut, entered the deep jungle.Yet he was not really afraid. He noticed how the rabbits moved confidently down the middle of the path and it was assuring. And for sometime they went walking silently through that silken night. He kept away from the trees and the undergrowth on the sides of the path for he knew there could be dangerous beasts lurking there and like the rabbits he walked through the middle. Through the lonely darkness for many minutes and then abruptly the trees fanned out and the path widened into a glade covered by a fine carpet of grass. The tall trees stood on all sides of the opening. The rabbits disappeared somewhere as Rishi noticed little lights glowing from places in the grass carpet. Naked flames flickering on the ground all over the clearing in that dark winter night. Like diyas that light up Indian homes during Diwali - the Festival of Lights. Who has put these lamps here deep in the forest? The villagers … someone who lives in the forest? A hermit performing some secret ritual for salvation? His furry companions were nowhere. Rishi suddenly felt very lonely, a bit afraid and he wanted to turn back and return to the village. To Valence. To the darkness and the starlight, to the sound of bugs scraping away at the wood of their simple bed.But as he tried to turn back from that mysterious show of light he found his feet heavy. As if he had grown roots. He tried again but his feet would not let him slip away. As if they had been clamped to the forest floor.He saw something and focussed his eyes. There it stood, the grasshopper again, gigantic in size, taller than the trees, looming above the forest, standing in the clearing and the lamps were little specks of gold near its feet and his thorax glowed with a green brilliance and Rishi’s hands began to freeze. It did not talk to him this time and kept standing tall in that clearing in the woods, looking at the stars and more little lamps began to light up among the trees and the bushes, till it was more light. And this lovely warm light fell on Rishi’s face and the green glow touched his hands and he wanted to stand there for ever.
Morning mist had begun to ride in from the north and its moist gossamer cover was blotting out the glade. It made the world watery, the scene as if seen through a translucent window. Rishi strained his eyes. The lights were disappearing, the grasshopper seemed to have dissolved among the white curtains of mist - a green shiny blob, faint behind the soft white drapes. And looking at where it had stood for the last time Rishi saw a rearing white steed like a lightning flash within the dark circle of trees.It looked majestic, powerful. But soft brushes were painting at the translucent window and he could not see it for long. Where had he seen that horse, he thought. Somewhere, somewhere? He remembered - in a dream, in an old painting … St Anthony slaying the dragon, the Temptation of St Anthony, the temptation … His mind began to cloud out like that little glade in the forest. He was far from the village. As he turned to go home he looked up at the heavens. The crystal night burnt with a million sapphire stars dim to bright. The Giant Hunter, Orion, glowed with its brilliant and distinct design on the night. And at a distance the aging Sirius was a brighter burning fire. Rishi went on gazing at them for a long time and he did not notice when a quiet pink blush had touched the hills of the far far right.
© 2007, Rajat Chaudhuri. All rights reserved
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