Translated fiction: A young man trained to be an engineer finds himself herding his family’s sheep

When Sankar left for his wife’s village, he asked Ravi to come along. But Guramma would not permit it, because they needed Ravi’s help.

The sheep would have to be managed when they were woken up at dawn and led out to graze, and in the evenings when they had to be herded back into the shed. Those with fever would need injections. During the day, when the sheep were out grazing, the little lambs in the pens would have to be given leafy twigs to munch. At night, Ravi would have to join the neighbours in climbing neem trees to gather bunches of leaves. Lambs that had grown a little big for the pens would have to be taken to the nearby fields for a while and brought back.

It was not as if Ravi would do all this work. But he could at least lend a hand to Guramma and the girls.

Just as Ravi got ready to take Sankar on the motorbike to Porumamilla to catch the bus, they heard a commotion and stepped out.

People came shouting from the direction of the kapu street. “We need to find out who did this and tie him up,” they said loudly. “It...

Read more