Life of Silibiris 5

 

Silibiris no longer had to toil in the hena

 Haramanis hired other settlers to work the lands he acquired while he got on with Vegetables collection and wholesale business

 Siriyalatha attended to the children and housework

 Silibiris was enjoying the life in Ambarawa

 
Going to school was something he had to do… reluctantly… but the girls in the class made the experience bearable

 They teased him paring him with this or that girl but it was all innocent fun

 While the girls were somewhat grown up at 13 with bumps and lumps in the right places. he didn t even have signs of getting any facial hair

 But that did not stop him from sneaking a peak 'horengli' at them bathing in the weva or ela.

 Most of the girls of that age went to the bathing spots with their mothers but some of them came with friends

 Silibiris always had some errand to run at the same times those girls came to bathe . He cycled by them on his father’ s brand new Raleigh .

 He would cycle up and down the tank bund as if he was the busiest kid in the village.

The girls giggled and waved to him encouraging him to stop by.

 He would pretend to be in a mighty hurry but never failed to stop, lean his bicycle against the Kumbuk tree and sat on the water’ s edge. chatting with the girls

These budding village girls were frisky. They would deliberately loosen their diya redda to put soap in hidden places accidently purposely showing off their growing lumps and bumps.

 Silibiris pretended not to look but they all knew the game.

The bathing girls added to the beauty of the weva with gentle waves, full of lotus flowers, herds of buffalos submerged in blue water, fish jumping out of water here and there, water birds diving in and out catching fish, flocks of white cranes sitting on dead trees jutting out of water as if serenely observing the goings on…but suddenly  to take flight as if they remembered they had to be somewhere else.