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Before you read the story

In a village of Garhwal, a girl named Binya lived with her widowed mother and her older
brother named Bijju. In the village, a man named Ram Bharosa owned an old shop that
sold cold drinks, tea, curd and sweets. One day, Binya received a beautiful blue umbrella

from some picnickers in exchange for her leopard claw pendant. When, the shopkeeper
Ram Bharosa saw the umbrella, he became jealous and tried to buy it from Binya, but she
refused. As time passed, Ram Bharosa’s jealousy of the umbrella turned into an obsession.
He employed a boy named Rajaram from the next village to work at his shop. When
Rajaram learned of his master’s desire to own the umbrella, he attempted to steal it but
failed and was caught. Rajaram then revealed Ram Bharosa’s name, causing his shop to be
boycotted by the villagers. Ram Bharosa felt sorry his actions.

Now, read the story.

By early October the rains were coming to an end. The leeches disappeared. The ferns
turned yellow, and the sunlight on the green hills was mellow and golden, like the limes

on the small tree in front of Binya’s home. Bijju’s days were happy ones, as he came home
from school, munching on roasted corn. Binya’s umbrella had turned a pale milky blue,
and was patched in several places, but it was still the prettiest umbrella in the village, and
she still carried it with her wherever she went.

The cold, cruel winter wasn’t far off, but somehow October seems longer than other
months, because it is a kind month: the grass is good to be upon, the breeze is warm and

gentle and pine-scented. That October everyone seemed contented—everyone, that is,
except Ram Bharosa.

The old man had by now given up all hope of ever possessing Why do you think
Binya’s umbrella. He wished he had never set eyes on it. the old man had given
Because of the umbrella he had suffered the tortures of greed, up all hopes of ever
Just a Minute!
the despair of loneliness. Because of the umbrella, people had possessing Binya’s umbrella?
stopped coming to his shop!

Ever since it had become known that Ram Bharosa had tried to have the umbrella stolen,
the village people had turned against him. They stopped trusting the old man, instead of
buying their soap and tea and matches from his shop, they preferred to walk an extra mile
to the shops near the Tehri bus stand. Who would have dealings with a man who had sold
his soul for an umbrella? The children taunted him, twisted his name around. From ‘Ram
the Trustworthy’ he became ‘Trusty Umbrella Thief’.

The old man sat alone in his empty shop, listening to the
eternal hissing of his kettle, and wondering if anyone would sold his soul: did something
immoral or bad in order to get
ever again step in for a glass of tea. Ram Bharosa had lost his something they wanted

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