Flute Player – Short Story By Ruskin Bond

‘You can swim in the sea. Lots of people go swimming in the sea. But it’s too cold most of the year. Where I live, there are shops and cinemas and places where you can eat anything you like. And people from all over the world come to live there. You can see red faces, brown faces, black faces, white faces!’

‘I saw a red face once,’ said Romi. ‘He came to the village to take pictures. He took one of me sitting on the camel. He said he would send me the picture, but it never came.’

Kamla noticed a flute lying on the grass.

‘Is it your flute?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ said Romi. ‘It is an old flute. But the old ones are best. I found it lying in a field last year. Perhaps it was God Krishna’s! He was always playing the flute.’

‘And who taught you to play it?’

‘Nobody. I learnt by myself. Shell I play it for you?’

Kamla nodded, and they sat down on the grass, leaning against the trunk of the mango tree, and Romi put the flute to his lips and began to play.

It was a slow, sweet tune, a little sad, a little happy, and the notes were taken up by the breeze and carried across the fields. There was no one to hear the music except the birds and the camel and Kamla. Whether the camel liked it or not, we shall never know; it just kept going round and round the well, drawing up water for the fields. And whether the birds liked it or not, we cannot say, although it is true that they were all suddenly silent when Romi began to play. But Kamla was charmed by the music, and she watched Romi while he played, and the boy smiled at her with his eyes and ran his fingers along the flute. When he stopped playing, everything was still, everything silent, except for the soft wind sighing in the wheat field and the gurgle of water coming up from the well.

Kamla stood up to leave.

‘When will you come again?’ asked Romi.

‘I will try to come next year,’ replied Kamla.

‘That is a long time. By then you will be quite old. You may not want to come.’

‘I will come,’ said Kamla.