This is a story about Rargi, a small village in Gujarat, which faced immense drought a few years ago, the crop failed and people were dying.
The village of Rargi was, more of the developed ones compared to the villages surrounding it with its own well. They never faced a water crisis till that particular year. There was such severe drought that their well had dried up and now they were being forced to walk to the next closest well.
It was the job of the women to collect the water and so they had the tedious task of walking more than eight kilometers a day.
The village which was generally blooming with work and busy people had now become desolate; the children were not running around in the narrow village lanes anymore. The men who walked to and fro, acting like busy men, now preferred to stay indoors, the women who would generally meet up at the village park every evening were replaced by cracks in the barren land. The once busy evergreen village now represented the early signs of a desert!
It was a Monday morning and the women of the village had gathered for their monthly meeting. The main cry was the worsening situation of the water crisis, all were worried about their husbands crop failure and their children's health, they felt helpless and didn't know who to approach. Letters to the district authorities went unanswered.
On their way back they found a unclothed child, young, yet frail, with pale blue skin. Every minute that passed by took his soul with it, little by little. Beside him lay a flute, it was his only possession. Robbed, kidnapped, abandoned were the questions coming in the women’s minds.
They managed to wake him up, fed him some water and brought him to their village, where they fed him food, provided him with some clothes and nursed him to health.
A week had passed since he was hearty again. He was still living in the village, would sleep under a tree and ate what the villagers gave him. They wondered as to why he never spoke, they all loved to play with him, his curly raven black locks, hazel eyes and blue skin enchanted the young women. The women had asked him many a times to play the flute for them, but either he seemed not to understand, or not to care.
Meanwhile, there was no improvement in the weather and rather were turning for the worst! If it didn’t rain soon, death would be inevitable. The women were debating on their weekly gathering, wondering what would happen to their children. It was a completely helpless situation, with no one knowing what to do.
That’s when they heard a tune, something they never heard before, it was soothing and soft, and melodious. They wondered as to what it was and from where it came.
The women got up in search of the melody, to their surprise, or not, they saw the boy playing, he was once again unclothed, his body had a sense of glow, a glow that seemed to out-glow the sun, he was playing the flute. But just as it got louder the villagers could see clouds moving in their direction, getting bigger as they came closer to them from the horizon.
As the flute got louder it began to rain, accompanying the flute's already enchanting tune was the smell of fresh wet mud.The trees began to sway, arm in arm, the birds chirped uncontrollably. As the boy walked, he took the pain, suffering and hunger away with him. The villagers kept looking as the figure blurred into the distant horizon, leaving behind an everlasting mark. does god really exist among us?
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