The young man in military green had come to find, only when the bus moved on to the highway, that his purse was missing. He was not sure, where could have he missed it. Not much money was left in it, but for a black and white group photo of his family. Dismissing out of his mind, the chance of a photograph proving a long lost son to his parents, he fished out some money from his hand bag and bought his tickets. He was returning after a long time to find back his family.

When he got down at his native village, it was already getting dark. The house in which he took his birth was occupied by strangers. And also he found that he himself had become a stranger to the whole village. In the twenty years of his absence, all the old known people had disappeared, it seemed. He was perplexed. But, luckily, the village folks could guide him to a known old family.

At the so called Policeman House, where he was directed to, he was greeted by a young woman, wearing a very low cut blouse exposing half of her breasts. Feeling ill at ease to look at her face, he addressed her half exposed breasts. Yet she grasped him.

- Ah, Chandru, you've returned at last! Can't you recognize me, your childhood friend Mala?

With nostalgia, he realized that in his childhood days he was called only as 'Chandru'. He ran away from home to be brought up by a patriot to make a soldier out of him. And the army people made it a practice to call him by his last name 'Mohan'; also by which he introduced himself a week back, he recalled, to the gorgeous girl residing by the railway station he alighted. And his full name was, in fact, Chandramohan.

- Thank God, Mala, I found here at last a soul, who could recognize me. Oh, the way the village has changed!

- It's quite a long time since you left this place, you know.

- And some unknown people are there in my house. What happened, Mala, to my parents and sister?

- Your parents sold your house, soon after you left and went to a tea estate in Kerala and...

- You do have their address, no?

- But...I think...dad knows their whereabouts. Right now, he is on a pilgrimage. Let Kumar my brother come; he may be a help. But, first, come and have something to eat.

Giving first something to eat...this earth has not yet dried up, after all!

Mala and her younger brother Kumar were his closest friends in his childhood days. The three of them, as a set, always play together. And Mala was a brave girl. She used to dive jump into the deep irrigation wells dug in the fields around the village. Mohan and Kumar learned their swimming only from her. But Mala had a funny habit. As soon as she jumped into a well, she would pull away her clothes; toss them off, on the steps, and swim naked. She was around twelve years old then, having tits bulged out to the size of lemons; and vulva, to the size of an 'idly' (a South Indian rice cake). And Mohan was at ten, then, and Kumar was around eight years old.

And even now, as he was eating the food Mala served, Mohan could see that she hadn't changed a bit. When she bent down, her low cut blouse exhibited him her breasts down to their dark areoles and darker nipples. And on her sit downs and stand ups, her sari moved carelessly to reveal, now and then, all of her thighs and even more. A born exhibitionist she is, he thought as he smiled within.

- And you ran away from home, because your dad beat you up.

- Yes, Mala, but that was history.

- But it was not history the sole reason why your dad beat you up. The only other soul who knows it is perhaps me.

- But... how...?

- I was there on the scene, you know. I came there to call you for a swimming. And I found you there behind your house, on your knees, with a chocolate on your palm; and your younger sister standing beside, with her skirt hiked up, panty rolled down, displaying her gleaming little triangle. I hid myself to watch what was going to further up, but your father stormed in from nowhere and the rest, of course, is history.

- It was all because of you. Chanced to look quite often at your nakedness...me...

- Don't blame me for your own inclinations. I understand very well the natural itching of a brother for his own sister. It happens, you know...

By then her brother Kumar arrived. He was in uniform: a policeman after his father. Kumar, as his sister, was very happy and proud to meet their childhood friend, who had been back as a responsible army man.

Kumar, after his dinner, had himself closed in with his sister in a nearby room. And when they emerged out, Mohan could feel something bad.

- Mala didn't tell you, in the first place, only to have you had some food. I feel worse to give you this news: your mom and dad are long been dead. Nearly six years now.

There was a long silence. Mohan tried very hard to fight down his emotions.

- How?

- An accident: a land slide in the mountains; both together...our dad had been to the funeral.

- And my sister?

- She is ok. Married, dad said, to a Malayalee. Don't worry; dad will help you finding her.

Mala and Kumar tried their best to cheer him up. Of course, as they pointed out, it was long since it happened.

And about Mala and Kumar he came to know, as they told him, that Mala was married in a large family in a southern town. Her husband was a salesman, touring most of the time, giving her no trouble. And she had a twelve year old daughter going to school, but her in-laws are so supportive that she didn't have to trouble after her, either. Kumar, on the other hand, was yet to get married.

Mohan was given to view a photo album. It was Mala's marriage album. While scanning through it, he observed, in a few photos, a familiar face: the girl he met a week back at the teashop thatched house by the railway station he alighted.

- Who is this one?

Mala came around behind him and bent as low as to load her ample breasts on his shoulder.

- Ah, yeah, that one indeed is Chandrakala, your own sister. Of course she was there at my marriage.

HORROR struck him.

- And where exactly is she, now?

- We told you, she married a local Malayalee, there in Kerala, but her exact address could be with our dad.

That night was almost sleepless to him. The face of that teashop thatched house girl was looming over, whenever he woke up from his disturbed sleep. And also he dreamed a dream again and again in which Mala exchanged in nude. Though her boobs were large with long nipples, her vulva was hairless and smooth as it was on those days she swam inside the irrigation wells.

There was chillness in the night wind that again was not to his comfort. And then, in the middle of the night, he heard murmur nearby. It knocked out his sleep completely.

- I'm afraid he may wake up.

- No chance. He had traveled a long distance, you know, tired enough to sleep a week.

- A week now we are at this; a break today...

- But we planned to do this until dad returned, you know. And I want to have positive result this time.

- For that matter, why not this one at least from your husband?

- Don't... as if nothing...

- Yet there is a husband who indeed married you.

- But here you're still unmarried. I know why you'd rejected Chandrakala.

- That was because she had a pockmarked face. Didn't I reason it so?

- But the actual reason was not her pockmarked face....

- You know it, then?

- I know it as my cunt knows your cock.

- No more argument. Have your way.

- That's my child granting stud!

Mohan was shocked by the meaning he gathered from the murmuring voices. A beam of light was coming from a crack on the door of an adjacent room; and also a sound like that of a dog drinking water. He rolled up and put his eye to the crack in the door. And there inside...

Mohan collected his bags and stealthily left that house and his native village. He traveled, this time, little longer by road to catch the train at another station than the one where he alighted a week earlier. What he overheard of Chandrakala and her pockmarked face from the conversation of Mala and Kumar proved his worst feared doubt. Yes, he was running away once again from his native place and also from his sister.

*

Same day, there in that teashop thatched house by the railway station, Kala the gorgeous girl, while sweeping the floor, did broom out a purse that was lying hidden under a wooden box. Wondering, she picked it up; opened and found, inserted in its left pouch, the small size photograph of her family.

How come? And whose purse is it? Puzzled was she at first. But slowly it dawned on her. It hit her like a boulder that the military man, whose purse it had to be, was none other than her brother, who ran away from home long back, as a boy. With horror she recollected their meetings and her intention to get pregnant by the seeds of him, her own brother.

*

It was raining. Through the rain-thicket, a train slithered to a halt in a small country station. And as the train pulled out, it had deposited on the deserted platform a lonely passenger: a tall young man in military green. The young man searched around to locate someone to enquire the way out. And there he saw the station master locked his office in no time, unfurled an umbrella and vanished into the rain. Left to lurch in the railway station, the passenger had no other choice but to listen to the rain, patiently.

When the rain thinned down, a teashop at a distance swam into view. He stepped out and arrived at the teashop only to find it shuttered down. Attached to it was a thatched house. And nobody was there in the vicinity. Puzzled, he walked around.

Behind the house, were an ancient brick-walled well and a palm leave enclosure: the bath-hut. Coming around, on the far side wall, he could locate a wooden door, bolted within. Hopefully, he knocked at the door. With a click, it swerved in. And there, in a tight blouse and low-hip mundu (dhoti) was standing a young woman of fine curvatures.