As she worked the mud plaster onto the wall, she reached the doorpost and paused to rest for a moment. She might have wanted to daub the wall above it as well, but it rose far above her … so high that even with her arms stretched up, it was impossible to reach. She glanced around the empty room, her eyes drifting from one wall to the next. Grabbing the smearing mop, she searched for a way to reach the wall over the doorpost.Her gaze stopped at me and, for a while, she forgot her work. I had reached that stage of life when a human, newly past crawling, begins practising standing on two feet. My attempts had left a few circles of stains on the floor during her mopping.“My scruffy one,” she said, “please don’t leave behind these circles!”But there was no real complaint in her voice. Instead, she was pleased that I’d crossed an important milestone of the crawling era and was now gathering myself to stand on two feet. Seeing the glisten of her moist lips, a surge of energy rushed through me and, staring at her, I tried again to stand upright. At first, my hands slipped back to the floor; the half-dry plaster smeared across my palms. My effort sparked a blessing of relief in her eyes, and her tiredness melted away like wax.Slowly, I lifted one hand from the floor, smeared the muddy plaster from it onto my leg and placed the hand on my knee. Then I tried to rise … just as I felt myself tipping to one side.“Try harder, scruffy one!” she said, and with it the fragrance of milk cream wafted through the room.Slowly, I raised my other hand and placed it on my other knee, trying to stand, pressing down bit by bit. Falling and rising, I managed to stand: first hunched and then, at last, upright. At the sight of this, it was as if the palms of her hands bloomed open. A dew-like wetness appeared in her eyes and suddenly, everything was spring.True – standing on two feet requires mastering balance: the delicate equilibrium of a handscale, and I was still untrained in it. That was why I felt I might fall at any moment. Any moment! I jerked my slippery arm into the air, trying to steady myself and managed to stay upright for one attempt. Delighted, with childlike glee, she clapped her plaster-smeared hands so hard that droplets flew up to the black ceiling, bringing out a sky full of stars.Afraid the plaster drops might fall into my eyes, I quickly squeezed my eyes shut and, forgetting myself, sat down with a thud.“My scruffy one! Did it only take you a blink of an eye to sit down?” she asked, laughing.She slid her hand towards the space above the back door, where her arm could not reach. And once again, I sat upright, trying to stand up on my two feet.These efforts – sometimes landing with a thud, other times flinging down outright – had worn me out. The high and the frolic I felt after managing to stand, even for a second, was far more intense than the exhaustion. The soles of my feet felt a strange dampness that spread in a uniform wave to every nerve. A gentle chill encircled my heart, and my chest seemed to yearn for the vastness of the Chinar.This is how each time I looked up while trying to stand on two feet, I felt the land beneath my feet was deep – too deep – and the sky above my head close – too close. As though if I reached out, I would be able to grab it and wrap it, sunshine and everything, in a tight hug. Within this rhythm of desire, despite tumbling and falling, I kept trying to stand up on my own two feet.When she could not reach the wall over the doorway, she placed both her feet on the higher crossbar of the doorpost. With her left hand, she held onto the upper frame, and with her right, gripping the mop, she wiped once, then twice. She was midway through the third stroke when something happened. Perhaps the grip of her left hand loosened. A sudden shiver passed through her. The mop slipped and fell; the crossbar of the door struck the floor. Fatigue washed over her. Instinctively, she grabbed the soot-blackened pillar in haste, and a complete, mud-smeared shape of her hand was imprinted on it. Against the dark, sooty surface, this formation of her hand looked pristine and luminous.Slowly, she climbed down from the doorpost and sat. Her whole body trembled, and her face felt as though an icy gust of wind had swept across it. She wanted to wail out a loud cry, but something held it back – it wouldn’t rise within her. She sat stunned and motionless. With worn-out eyes, she stared at the imprinted shape on the ceiling so intently that I felt she would never drift her gaze away from this. I resolved then: no matter what, I would stand up on my own two feet, and, reaching out my hands, free that shape.Tumbling and falling, when I stretched out my arms, they couldn’t reach the sky – not even the ceiling. In that first instant, I realised the sky was too high, and my arms were very small.That day, the impression of her hand – who knows why – like the thrashing of a willow cane, raised a bruise somewhere inside me. But I didn’t let her sense this calamity of mine, because she had nothing left to believe in it.Outside, the great acacia tree stood in the courtyard as it always had. The sunlight, too, seemed unchanged, drawing chintz patterns up from the soil. Near the trunk of the acacia, where the shade lay thick, the brown dog was still there – even today, its snout was shoved about, drowsy. Today, like any ordinary day, a swallow crossed the courtyard, flying along the Jhelum, collecting beak-to-beak. Nothing had changed. Whatever had taken place inside the room had no bearing on the world outside of it. Perhaps the outer world had no news of this incident either.That night, we slept on empty stomachs – well, not exactly slept; we tried to. With our eyes shut, both of us kept spinning our own nets. When exhaustion made me open my eyes, the morning light had already dawned far into the day. She, too, seemed to have been waiting for me to open my eyes. She lifted me onto her lap, and stepped outside the door. The room looked desolate: as if a band of pilgrims had departed after a brief halt. Only that imprinted shape of the hand remained intact. From unknown plants, spiders had emerged in abundance, sitting and spinning their web from one end of the room to another.Stepping out of the door, she descended from the top floor and entered the courtyard. Emerging from the courtyard gate, she stepped into the street. As she crossed, she paused for a brief moment. One glance on the road; the other on me. Then, she drew me firmly to her left side, gathered me into her arms and placed my head onto her shoulder. She pulled the hem of her saree over my head and crossed the road.After this, we were lost for a long while in the jungle maze of streets. It was wandering there that I learned how to walk – standing only on two feet. Now, she would only hold my hand, and I would walk on my own. Yet, it had already dawned upon me that I could walk even without her holding me. But it was as though she didn’t trust my steps.This jungle held many kinds of creatures. One day, when a wild scorpion bit me, I writhed in pain. An entire side of my body was blue and bruised. It was the first time a scorpion had bitten me. Looking at the bite, a strange smile rose upon her lips.“Here I am, dying of pain, and you’re laughing!” I said, trying to soothe my pain.“I’m not laughing. May your troubles be mine,” she said.“You are laughing!”“No. I just find it hard to believe that you’ve actually grown up,” she said.“Did you realise this only now?”“Yes – because of the scorpion’s bite,” she replied. “To catch the eye of the scorpion is, indeed, to grow up,” she said, as she drew the poison from my body.The next day, she did not hold my hand while walking. Now, I would walk ahead without her, leaving her so far behind that I had to stop and wait for her. I hated waiting like this. When I told her so one day, she sat down, and after resting for a moment, she said, very innocently, “I feel breathless when I walk now.”Hearing her, I felt as though I had not truly seen her in a long time – perhaps since I began walking on my own, on two feet. She had grown very thin. Her forehead, creased, had many wrinkles. Dark circles surrounded her eyes. Her cheeks had suddenly become freckled. Her gums had shrunk a lot, and her lips had thinned, pale like a leaf.One day, we set out towards a locality filled with different people, where all of them wore the same face. They were more domesticated than four-legged animals – even walking like them in herds. Yet, unlike animals, they were neither careless nor fearless with one another. Instead, everyone lived in fear that this moment should not be wasted. However, no one truly knew whether time was being wasted or not.When we reached there, she taught me many things. That a glass can shatter from a mere touch, for example. And that the breaking itself doesn’t sadden one as much as its broken shards that enter you. That wax melts in heat. That wherever light doesn’t reach, a lamp is lit – and spiders weave their webs. And many other things.When there was nothing left for her to teach me, she began to slowly turn to ash. I felt as though she had handed me something precious and emptied herself in doing so. Her breast had been drained, which is why she felt so cold. I stepped outside to look for sunshine for her.Now, by all means, this fear had escaped me – and by standing on two feet, with both arms stretched out, I could grab all the sunshine and clutch the sky by its sleeve cuffs.One day, somehow, I managed to gather a palmful of sunshine and a portion of the sky. That day, we were truly happy. She sat comfortably with her back against the wall, and I sat beside her, gently caressing her wrinkled hands. I had seen her hands many times before. The Om etched on her left hand, the trident, dots, stars, the moon, a hexagon and whatever else I’d noticed many times, but never asked about. I still wonder why I asked her that day.“Why have you scraped these patterns onto your left hand?”“Why? Aren’t they nice?” she said, caressing those scraped marks herself.“No, they are nice. But isn’t it strange that your right hand is empty, while the left one bears chitz-like patterns?”“Back then, I was alone. At the rooster’s crow, he would leave for work to return only after the dusk lamp was lit. In loneliness, even the house comes to bite you. I would first place coal in the oil. Then, piercing my skin with a needle, I would engrave these marks. Every time blood spurted out, I rubbed coal into it. It would swell for a few days. When the swelling subsided, the engraving would appear clearly on my hand. I stayed occupied that way, and did not feel the loneliness. Slowly, these patterns spread out across my hands.”“And the right hand?” I asked.“You were born after that, weren’t you? May your troubles be mine. Where could loneliness remain after that?” she said, caressing my face.After that, she slowly closed her eyes – and never opened them again.And now, I’m alone. All alone. There’s a sense of loneliness. Both my hands are empty. I still have the needle and the coal. Truth be told, something is missing. Despite piercing my hand, despite the spurting blood and the digging engravings, I am unable to write the story of desolation.Excerpted with permission from ‘A Tale of Two Hands’ by Hriday Kaul Bharati, translated by Rounak Bhat in The Big Book of Kashmiri Literature: Poems, Songs, Plays, Stories, edited by Onaiza Drabu, Penguin India.