Yarns Without Threads 

... the summer palace of the last raja was fast decaying. As the end of the British rule approached, Raja Sahib could foresee the end of native states too. He lost interest in everything and the mansion lay unused.

... It was Bhanu Singh ... who looked after the palace. The abolition of feudal rule had shocked him, and his receiving a quarterly allowance without interruption from the Raja's dwindling bank balance overwhelmed him. How ardently he wished he could do something to ... repay this kindness bestowed on him by the Raj family!

No wonder that a personal message from the widow of the last ruler ... should delight him. Some kind of a conference was to take place in the summer palace. He was to receive a lorry-load of ladies and gentlemen who were to camp there for a full day. ... All Bhanu Singh was required to do was to receive the visitors and to place himself at their disposal. ...

'There!' Bhanu Singh pointed at the letter after greeting Majumdar, the headmaster of the Middle English School, the highest educational institution in the locality. 'Read it and you will know why I summoned you so urgently.'

The headmaster read and re-read the letter ... Bhanu Singh said, 'They will number about fifty, right? I'm hopeful of getting ready with fifty simple garlands of jasmine. Can you supply fifty boys and girls to garland them as soon as they alight from the lorry? The kids should look smart and clean. ...'

Majumdar's attention had gone to the letter once again. 'Seems to be a new party of those "ists", or maybe a holy group,' he mused.

'Headmaster, why don't you consult the dictionary? I've not yet bothered about their creed.' Bhanu Singh opened the tall teakwood bookcase and identified the bulky dictionary. Majumdar dusted it, put it on the table and pored over it.

On locating the relevant word, he compared it with that in the message, pronouncing it aloud letter by letter. He nodded gravely. He was evidently no longer in any doubt about the import of the message.

His look baffled Bhanu Singh. The headmaster looked as if he had just been alerted by a team of doctors that his friend's disease had been diagnosed all right, but it was incurable.

'What is it?' Bhanu Singh grew anxious.

'It is an extremely knotty situation, Singh. "Nudist" means one who goes naked! Not a baby, mind you! In other words, you are required to receive and shake hands with a group of ladies and gentlemen, all emerging absolutely bare from the lorry.' Majumdar shut the dictionary with some force.

Bhanu Singh suddenly felt drained of all vitality. 'You mean fifty naked adults will assemble here for a conference?'

'Is it for nothing that they chose this solitude?' Majumdar sounded wise in accordance with his vocation. 'Imagine throwing garlands around the necks of fifty men and women- they must be quite important, with impressive moustaches and lipsticks-who do not have even a langot on them! Will it be ethical for a headmaster to expose his innocent students to such display of immodesty? Will they survive the shock? Well, brother, I must take leave of you.'

The seashore was without a soul but for a group of four or five young men and women waist-deep in the water. The waves splashed weakly on the wheels of their car parked beside a sand dune. They had come from the town. The youths of the locality were not accustomed to such scanty costumes, nor did the sexes mingle while bathing.

Those arriving tomorrow will be only a degree more modern than these bathers. These youths have a patch or two of foggy and revealing linen on them; those to come will be fully revealed. What radical difference would that make? And from a mystical point of view, even that much difference was nothing but an illusion, for all were equally naked beneath the garments. Mingling with these people might make it easier for him to mingle with the nudists.