"I want to make elephants, too, Baba," she says. "Elephants and lions and horses and cows and ducks and swans. I want to make a swan, Baba. Will you teach me how to make a swan?"
"Girls are not meant to work with tools," says her father, putting down the fist-sized elephant and wiping his hands on a dirty cloth. "Your fingers are small and delicate, and I don’t want you hurting yourself playing with a man’s instruments. Why don’t you bring out your box of colors and paint this little chap? You have a deft and steady hand, and the gift of bringing out the colors in the figures I make."
The girl’s face falls, but she walks over to her father and picks up the elephant. She strokes its trunk with her index finger, and it stares back at her with sightless eyes. Her box of paints is on her father’s workbench; she fetches it and hunts for her palette, which has fallen under the bench. With her brushes and a tumbler of water, she goes out onto the porch again to make the best use of the fading sunlight.
The girl loves to read. The previous year, a missionary had donated his collection of books to the village school, which hired the girl’s father to build some bookshelves to house them. Payment was a couple of hundred rupees, plus a waiver of the monthly library fee of five rupees for both the girl and her father. Most of the books were on philosophy and religion and other such adult subjects, but the girl did find a few fairy tales and children’s books, which she devoured like a mongoose swallowing a rat snake. Soon she had finished the stories in the books and was spinning tales of her own, stories of princes meeting their beloveds, of young men performing valiant deeds, of talking cats and dancing rats and nightingales in the moonlight.
"Have you heard the story of the rat and the elephant?" she asks, mixing brown and white paints to create a bronze shade. "You haven’t? Let me tell you. There was once an elephant named Shukram, who was the Chief Elephant of the King of Kolistan. Shukram was loved by everyone—by the stable hands who gave him the plumpest bananas, by the young princes and princesses who loved to slide down his trunk, and by the people of the kingdom, who showered rose petals on him during the royal processions. And they had good reason to love him, for he had a big and kind heart and helped everyone in any way he could.
"One day, when Shukram was taking the princes out for a ride, he saw a mangy cur chasing a tiny rat. The rat was running as fast as its tiny legs allowed, but the bigger and stronger dog was gaining on it. The rat ran up to Shukram, hid behind his foreleg, and squeaked, ‘Help me! This dog is going to eat me. Please help me, Mr. Elephant.’ Shukram took pity on the little creature and raised his trunk and trumpeted loudly. The dog was scared by the sight of the huge elephant and ran away. The rat bowed to Shukram and thanked him. ‘If you ever need help,’ the rat said, ‘remember this little friend of yours and he will come to your aid.’ Shukram wondered what assistance this small animal could possibly give him, but thanked him for his offer and went on his way.
"Time passed and Shukram grew old. Another elephant was made the Chief Elephant, and when Shukram expressed a desire to return to the forests of his birth, it was readily granted. So he went to live in the jungles, eating leaves from the trees and roaming the forests looking for a herd to join.
"One day, he fell into a pit made by a hunter to catch wild elephants and twisted his foot very badly. He cried out and thrashed around but couldn’t free himself. Dejected, he sat down and said aloud, ‘Oh, what a horrible way to die, stuck in a trap waiting for the hunter’s arrow! The rat I once saved asked me to remember him when I needed help, but how will I ever get word to him that I am in trouble?’ Saying this, he closed his eyes and waited for death to arrive.
"After a while, he heard a lot of squeaking. Opening his eyes, he saw a horde of mice scampering around. He looked on in surprise as they gathered grass and twigs and leaves and bound them together. After a few hours of hard work, they had a strong rope, one end of which they tied to a tree trunk and the other they threw down to him. Some of them scampered into the pit to push him up while others tugged at the rope from above, and after a lot of huffing and puffing and heaving and pulling, they managed to drag him out of the pit.
"As soon as he was free, Shukram turned to the swarm of mice before him. ‘How can I thank you enough?’ he asked. ‘You saved my life today.’ One of the mice stepped forward and said, ‘We are merely repaying our debt. You helped our brother in his time of great need, and it is only fair that we help you in yours.’ It was then that Shukram learned that the rat he had saved was the nephew of the King of Rats, who had spread word of his good deed to all his brethren. A passing mouse had heard Shukram’s cry for help and realized who he was, and gathered all the mice in the forest to save him.
"And so," says the little girl, putting down her brushes, for the sun has set beyond the mountains and her father is calling her to come in for her supper, "that is the story of the rat and the elephant. I will name you Shukram, so that you can be kind and big-hearted like the elephant in the story."
Every day, the girl’s father gives shape to a new toy and the girl gives color to it. She makes up new stories for each of them, some drawn from the books she has read and others from her imagination. A shepherd plays his flute and causes a fairy to fall in love with him; a soldier rescues a princess from the castle where she is imprisoned; a cat uses its brains to help its master become king; and a lion and a rabbit become friends. She never writes any of the stories down, but they remain in her memory, fresh as the first lily in spring.
Once a month, a man comes from Shimla to buy the toymaker’s wares. He pays twenty rupees for the smaller toys, forty for the bigger ones. He also brings chocolates and sweets for the girl, and sometimes new paints or a book. The girl looks forward to his visits, for he is always willing to listen to her stories, unlike her father, who usually tells her to run away and pester someone else. He tells her stories, too, stories about the quirky people who visit his shop, which she later weaves into the tales she creates.
"Your daughter is very imaginative," the man tells the toymaker. "You should think about sending her to a good school, maybe somewhere in Hamirpur or Kasauli. I fear her talents are being wasted in your village school."
"Where will I get the money?" asks the girl’s father. "Most of my money goes to repay the loans I took out during my wife’s illness, and what is left over is barely enough to give my daughter a decent life here. And there is also her wedding to save for. I cannot afford to move to the city."
The man tries his best to convince him, but it is a futile attempt. He gathers up the toys and pays the toymaker, bids adieu to the girl, and gets on the next bus to Shimla.
The man is the owner of a handicrafts store in Shimla—Puri and Son’s Handicraft Emporium on Mall Road. He is the only member of the third generation of Puris to run the shop—his brother is a bank manager in Manali and his paternal cousin has a restaurant in Patiala. Mr. Puri is an engineer by education, but he loved the dimly lit confines of his family shop better than the dimly lit corridors of the government-run power plant he worked in, so he left his cushy Delhi job to sell pashmina shawls and bamboo baskets to tourists and collectors.