The Girl Who Sung the Wind

The night the baby was born the wind blew until the jujube trees bent double, and the monkeys folded themselves into each other for comfort, the mothers clinging to their young. The moon was snatched away by plumes of clouds, the rain drove onto the roofs of the huts, and the old woman rocked herself and sang through the screams of the young woman and the wails of the wind in the long grasses. The night the baby was born was followed by the morning the young woman left. It was if she had shed her duty with her little girl and she fled as a line of white appeared over the Himalayan foothills.

And the old woman called her granddaughter Sameera, in the hope that one day she could be as free as the air she was named after.

When Sameera was as tall as the kangan shrub that grew by her grandmother’s door she heard the story of the Princess who sung the wind. She heard it as she lay ill with a fever on her pallet bed in the heat of the summer, and as her grandmother places cool lily leaves across her brow she began to speak.

Many nights ride from here, and many births ago, a princess was born into a land without sorrow. There was no illness, no death, and no wind, and the women never complained of their saris nibbling their ankles in the breeze. And when the Queen saw her baby she felt a pain in her chest, and the gold stitching on her shawl sighed under the pressure as her heart grew with love for her first born child. Yet when the baby began to cry there was a terrible roar from the mountains, and the people of the land felt wind upon their cheeks for the first time. The houses were not built strong enough for wind, and so the Queen summoned three thousand maids to care for the baby, and as the princess grew she never cried for want of anything. Yet the Princess was kinder than the honey bees that make the sweetest of honeys, and in time a baby Prince was born, and brother and sister were happy together. The Princess learnt not to raise her voice and spoke only in a whisper, and the washer women on the banks of the river laughed as the clothes dried in the gentlest of breezes. And when the Princess was happy she sang and the tops of the trees danced in the playful gusts. Yet one day the young Prince and Princess were playing by the lake when the Prince strayed close to the edge, and in panic the beautiful Princess called out to him at the top of her voice.

The old woman hushed as Sameera gasped a small breath of warm, sweet air, gathered up her weaving, and continued to speak.

And so a wall of wind came off the mountains and knocked the young Prince, whom the Princess loved more than anything in the world, into the lake, and he drowned. And the Princess began to weep, and as she wept the winds swept in storm clouds from the East, and round droplets darkened the mourning veils of the people. The Queen was so angry she took the Princess to a tower that rubbed the bellies of the clouds, and locked the door. But as a last gift to her lovely daughter she sewed thousands of tiny mirrors into the red tapestry of the walls, so the Princess would never feel alone. And day after day the Princess sung to her friends in the depths of the mirrors, and wept for her brother, and the people of the land built their houses stronger with the clay from the bottom of the river Ganges.

When the old woman looked down at Sameera she saw she was asleep, and she smiled to herself. And Sameera’s dreams were filled with singing girls with long black hair and big brown eyes, and as she dreamed a light breeze ruffled her boyish hair.

The second time Sameera heard of the Princess who sung the wind was a long, hot day when she could no longer count her age on her hands, and was in the first summer she could reach the lowest mangos of the heavily drooping branches. She wore her only sari, and had blackened it with the ashes from the fire. She was standing at the front of a small, tight ring of mourners, the only child amongst the elderly neighbours, and as the coffin was sat on its dusty pyre the Pandit read aloud from a yellowing scrap of paper:

Sameera. It has been a joy to share these few short years with you. As you know, I am certain destiny has much in store for you, and that you will one day be a great woman, but know this too; to me you will always be the girl who sung the wind.

And those were the last words the old woman ever sent her granddaughter, and as the Himalayas heaved a great sigh that stirred the dust around the pyre, a single tear rolled down Sameera’s cheek and dissolved into the henna-coloured ground. Suddenly, just like that, Sameera understood why her mother had left the village on that blustery night all those years ago. Or at least, she came to closer to understanding the emotions that can make a woman long for freedom and escape.

To be continued…