Bala Devi, Girl-Child Avatar - Book Two - Holiday in Kodaikanal

Chapter Thirteen - Poor Naughty Boy

Chapter Thirteen

Poor Naughty Boy

With the orderly wind-up of Mehta’s mafia gangsters, Bala, Ajay and Granny, returned to the Walton.

Mr. Ramanathan also returned in order to provide a nice comfortable suit for his mother to convalesce, though he himself remained agitated and unclear about his future.

“After building a solid marble palace purely for my mother’s happiness, I’m not sure that she wants that anymore. She seems more interested in whether or not those labourers are living in comfort.

It was true! Everyone seemed to be changing or beginning to change. Ramanathan’s nephew had made a very deep impression on him and his sense of values had toppled. He began to take a look 48

at the surrounding wilderness and, instead of calculating how much lumber he could take from a tree, he was thinking in other terms, which were less selfish. A tree was now something of great value for its own sake, not only monetarily valuable.

Shortly after being discharged from the hospital, Sarojini began to be bored with the luxurious life playing Bridge. She was anxious to return to her people, because she was sure that she was needed there.

And, so it was that everyone decided to go and live in the palatial compound again for a while. Bala got permission to bring Amber and Ramanathan hired Gopal to manage the estate as he felt he couldn’t trust his former gang members. Adithya, who had returned from Bangalore drove Granny and Bala, Premala, Mary, and Uma out to the woods and then made a second trip for Ajay and Mr. Ramanathan and his Mother. Gopal came on horseback, leading Amber.

Then began a series of golden days which were the most peaceful Bala had ever known to earth. She, Premala and Mary became involved with the little school which had been setup for the children of the labourers, while Uma supervised the medical clinic which provided a doctor from Kodai once a week. Gopal trained Amber and ran the estate, and Granny was sort of the glue which held it all together.

Ramanathan sat in his glass-walled office, overlooking the woods and, for most of the day, was lost in thought. Sometimes he felt that he was alone with the trees. His nephews; words came back to him time after time, and he wept. So many trees, gone, hacked away and now, acers of destruction. He drove his jeep to the site, to where the trees had been fell, and sometimes he could almost feel their spirits begging him for new life. After so much soul-searching, he decided that he would plant again, he would seed a new forest.

The compound went into high gear and the great logging machinery was now used in a different manner. They had to blast out old stumps with roots which grew deep into the ground.

“They had lived here for so long,” Ramanathan said sadly to himself, “they were part of this earth for so long, doing certainly more to sustain it than I ever did.”

Beginning the reforestation work at last, he saw that the stumps were blasted and the land cleaned far a new forest. Miles and miles of forest lands were reclaimed. Ramanathan looked healthier and happier than he had been in fifty years. It was as it he too had been reclaimed.

It was Gopal’s idea to start a horse-breeding farm in the woods. All the horses that were used in Kodai were stallions, because mare in heat brought utter chaos as they fought to the death for her attention. Therefore expensive through-bred horses were purchased from the plains and brought up as new breeding mares, housed in new stables. This was Gopal’s first solo venture and he was, of course equally enthusiastic.

It was time of growth and new life, and it was at this time that Bala found her dearest Madam, but that’s getting ahead of the story a bit.

Bala had discovered that the ravines were a magical place. Now that the unhappy dinosaur ghosts were no longer skulking about, the tiny fairy creatures were attracted to the stream. New seeds were being sown above for the renewal of the forest and the energies everywhere in the woods were simply bursting with promise.