A fat mongoose followed. So fat! Its body with a golden shimmer. Neck and tummy white. And its tail long and white and bushy.

Hedgehogs scampering out, would stiffen their spines on seeing the strange curious humans and give a low grunt. The young men would stone them dead. Only a few managed to escape.

The birds cried pitifully. Some mother birds would circle around the thick smoke, cawing. They didn’t have the heart to abandon the chicks not yet trained to fly. Some flew away; the rest stayed with the smoke till they dropped dead, scorched by the flame.

A wild boar bolted out and the people gathered around to kill it, scared. Two tusks jutted out from its lower jaw like an elephant. When pelted with stones it turned back into the fire and vanished like a fish diving into a stream. The people hoped it would return fearing the fire. But it didn’t. Perhaps it thought it was wiser to die roasted in the fire rather than by human hands.

Several days after the fire died out there were smouldering embers found. The greenery left a fragrance while it burnt down for days after that.

They got back to work busy like an army of ants. It was not as easy to flatten the ground as they had thought. Besides the rubble there were also the adamant thick roots under the ground that they had to battle with. It was years before they could turn that rough patch into arable fields.

20

AS THEY HOPED, THE RAINS arrived early.

They shaped wooden ploughs and tilled the land and sowed the grains that they had saved. They covered the seeds with wild grass. They had no proper ploughs or oxen. When the seeds took root, their faith grew stronger.

They had slogged hard. That’s why the goddess Earth had blessed them in return.

The saplings grew thick and green like sugarcane. The millet stalks were firm and heavy. The sesame plants were a handful only. If one were to hide amongst the cotton plants, he’d never be seen. The flowers and fruits swung beautifully, like ornaments on a decorated chariot.

The harvest of the first crop was good. They reaped it together and shared it amongst themselves. After that year they divided the field according to every household’s capacity and began to till on their own.

In the summer they trekked a long way to get to know the neighbouring communities. They bartered their grain to acquire oxen and ploughs. They came in contact with several other Telugu-speaking peoples settled elsewhere. They brought back craftsmen like carpenters and blacksmiths to their village.

Initially language was a problem. But that became easier as days went by. Children and women found language easier to negotiate.

They built homes. The village had grown and the water harvested from the rains was not enough. So they dug wells and canals for the cattle to drink from. They planted evergreen trees along the canal to strengthen the walls. This forest was started then.