The Rain · The Salt Road · Pulse Beat
The rain came in the wrong month. Salt makers do not pray for rain. It is the one thing that can undo a season: water on the pans before the harvest, dissolving eight months' work into the mud. The…
The rain came in the wrong month.
Salt makers do not pray for rain. It is the one thing that can undo a season: water on the pans before the harvest, dissolving eight months' work into the mud. The sky over Kutch turned the colour of slate on a Tuesday afternoon, and Mohan, standing in the yard, looked up and went white.
"It's early," he said. "It's three weeks early."
"Is that bad?" asked Kavita.
"If it falls on the crust, we lose the lot."
The first fat drops hit the dust like coins. Women began running in from the pans, dupattas over their heads. Dhanji, in his chair on the porch, was trying to stand, and Jayesh caught him by the shoulders. "Papa, no."
"The pans," whispered the old man. "Cover the pans."
Mohan was already running. Behind him, across the shining white acreage, forty families were dragging tarpaulins over the squares, in the rising wind, as the first thunder walked along the horizon like a man in boots.