It belonged to Bhanumati’s father — Bhanumati, whom he loved secretly, and who inspired in him a deep, deep love with which he struggled desperately.

Gulama worked in a grocer’s shop in Kalava. One day as he was packing some groceries, he had caught sight of the girl who lived in the stable-like house across the street. Instantly, he fell madly in love with her arms. He watched the way she swung them, the way she lifted them without revealing her armpits, as she hung the clothes to dry. Gulama promptly became a gulam!

He found out that her father’s sole business was horses. He was supposed to have been a tongawalla long ago. He owned four or five tongas now. He would send the horses and gaadis to Juhu beach for children to ride on during the holiday season.

In the house which looked like a stable, which had nothing but tongas, horse-dung, horse-tails, horse-feed and horse-gram, Bhanumati too had noticed Gulama. She would smile at him and disappear. She teased him using her swan-like eyes.

One day — who knows why — Gulama went up to her father and said openly, “I would like Bhanumati’s hand in marriage.”

Her father offered his own hand instead; and with such sharpness that Gulama almost died of the insult.

But not for nothing had Gulama acquired (from Hindi films) an unshakeable faith in the victory of true love. He didn’t give up watching Bhanumati’s white arms as he packed groceries. He shot her angry, stubborn glances of love. He even tried to provoke Bhanumati by serving young female customers in a leisurely manner and flirting with them.

Then one fine day, when this play-acting had got a trifle out of hand, Bhanumati stopped looking at him altogether. Gulama was not sure if she was fed up or angry.

He began to spend his time with the tongawallah at the bus stand in Thane. It was in the midst of some idle chatter there that he heard Balachandra Parab haggling for a horse for his brother’s wedding. And Gulama was suddenly filled with a strange bravado.

“Give me as much as you can afford. I shall bring you a horse early in the morning,” he promised recklessly. “But I can’t decorate it and all that.”

The next day he got up at the crack of dawn. He untethered a horse from the stable that belonged to Bhanumati’s father and walked it all the way to Mulund to present himself at Balachandra Parab’s house.

Balachandra’s neighbours came out in full force, eager to decorate the horse. But the horse was in a temper. Finally, they gave up and hoisted the decked-up bridegroom on to the horse, with the help of a stool.

Dagadu Parab was terrified. When he saw the horse, which seemed to have jumped out of a film poster right at his doorstep, he forgot that he was the bridegroom. Surely his life would end if the horse merely shook his head?

» To be continued next week
Excerpted from Lukose’s Church & Other Stories
Publisher: Katha
Illustrations: Suman Choudhury