Pratik Mainali

Pratik is a high school graduate from Trinity International College, Dilli Bazaar, Kathmandu.

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Published On: January 22, 2019 10:01 AM NPT By: Pratik Mainali

Sunrise

Sunrise

The first sound in the morning was the cooing of the cuckoos on the coconut trees. The second was the mooing of the mad buffalo on the mossy field. I woke up with a sudden start, and sat bolt upright in my bed. It was as if I hadn’t slept at all. To my astonishment, the door was flung open and darkness entered and spilled into the floor. Swinging my feet onto the ground, I crept out of my bed, to find my brother in the veranda looking at the hills with intense desire.
As I clumped to the veranda, the floorboards creaked under my weight and my brother turned towards me, “look”, his voice charged with excitement, he stretched his hand to the sea of hills, “sunrise”.

My eyes traveled to the direction of his stretched hands but failed to see anything remotely bright. The sprawling muscle of hills was cloaked in darkness. I became giddy with excitement. I was just in time to see the magnificent rising of the sun.

Outside, shrill moos could be heard, travelling across the thin wet air. A buffalo, it was said, had gone stark-raving mad and was ransacking the village. However, the darkness was total. A muffled sound of bamboos clattering could be heard sometimes earlier, but now the sound is getting bigger by the second. All the while an intense longing came over me, and my heart became heavy with anticipation.

Slowly, softly, the melting coin, showed its sweltering head, with tints of gold. The light began to spread on the sprawling fields as darkness began to vanish, and the world suddenly sprang to life. Our hands were rested on the clammy wooden railing. Millions of threads came poking from the hills, into the clouds, penetrating it. Our hearts swelled underneath our thin shirts.

At first it was delicate red, then almost blue, then yellow, bright blinding yellow. Finally the warm sunlight slanted down into us, painting our skin gold. It was indescribable, the flourishing feel, the giddiness, the thrill of a triumph.
We looked down, the forests, the fields, the roads, which looked pitch-black some moments ago, turned to blue, then to green. The trees stirred from their slumber and lazily waved us good morning.

The cobbled streets became clearer and clearer. The pebbles started to glitter. The murky sand became visible.

Far away, women threaded through the fields in a slow procession, carrying the full water bucket in their hands. The path was uneven and cold. The golden hays were strewn about in bundles. But the water in the bucket is still, unruffled. Their heads are veered downward to make sure they don’t plunge into hollow land.

Even further, a little boy was pedaling on the gritty road, in a rickety bicycle. The sun had now propelled itself to the middle of the sky, and the heat was suddenly intolerable.

Overhead columns of cumulus clouds drifted, opening and closing. I retired back to my room, to complete my sleep.

 

sunrise, sun,

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