Notes

The Blue Bead Synopsis and Important Questions
Synopsis

This story is written by Norah Burke. Her father was a forest officer who served in India, so she spent her childhood in India. She started writing from an early age. Her observations and stories were related to her travel and sporting experiences. She was an enthusiastic traveller.

‘The Blue Bead’ is a story about a brave young girl, Sibia, who has saved a woman’s life. In the process of doing so, she acquires a blue bead, something she had been desiring for quite earnestly. She is merely twelve years old, so she is very happy to get the blue bead and is very humble even after the glory of saving someone’s life. Such a young girl is not expected to do heroic deeds. This is very unusual and brave of her.

This story revolves around the moral that good things come through difficult situations and the proverb ‘where there is a will, there is a way’.
The story begins with an elaborate description of the mugger crocodile who is well grown and twice as large as a tall man. He has fully grown up and his skin has developed into a solid wall of armoured hide which cannot be penetrated even with a bullet shot. He has plenty available for his meals, and he ate almost everything. He fed on fish, ducks, deer, monkeys and other animals which came to the river to drink water. He also fed on a pi-dog full of parasites or a skeleton cow. If need be, he sometimes went down the burning ghats and found the half-burnt bodies of Indians cast into the stream. He passes his days lying on warm rocks and the sand bank where the sun dries the clay. Beside the crocodile, as he lays waiting for his food or relaxing, there was a blue bead shining brightly.

Sibia is a village girl dressed in an earth-coloured rag. She is 12 years old and was eating her last chapatti. She had been living in a mud house located in the village near the river where the great crocodile resided. Her life was hit by extreme poverty, yet she has visited the local market with her parents and brothers. Witnessing everything which came under her gaze, there seemed no rest in her life as she has been performing all the household tasks from husking corn to cutting grass for fodder. In all her life, she had never owned anything but a rag. She wished to make a bead necklace for herself that would rattle around her neck. Due to poverty, Sibia was deprived of everything. Making the necklace of beads was not an easy task as one needs a red hot needle to drill across the beads, but she had to wait as the needle they had was broken. She was accustomed to the toils of daily life. She is a happy child who finds happiness in all situations of adversity.
It was Sibia’s regular routine to go to get paper grass from the cliff above the river with her mother and other women of the community. They sell the grass to an agent who arranges its dispatch to the paper mills. One day on their way back, they came across camps of grass huts in which resided the Gujars. Sibia glanced at the Gujar women as she went towards the cliff. The Gujars were a nomadic community who made a place their home until their animals finish the grass within their reach or there is no market for their milk or butter to be sold. While the men and boys went to the market to sell their products, the Gujar women tried to get resources from the forest in order to generate revenue. Just like Sibia, they were born and bred in the forests and lived on forest resources.
Sibia was observing the attire of the women who brought water for animals in clay-made pitchers termed ‘gurrahs’.
Sibia had been cutting grass with her mother who kept a watch on her so that she may not ignore working. Yet, she was thinking about the moulded balls which she kept in the cave. She was dying to have a look at them. So, as soon as the time of toiling was over, she went to see them while her mother moved away with the loaded grass.
After Sibia’s mother had gone along with the other women, Sibia came down to the stepping stones with a load of grass on her back. The load was heavy for her, and so, it forced her to rest on a big boulder. This was the time when she noticed a Gujar woman with two earthen pitchers going down to the river for filling them with fresh water. This Gujar woman was ignorant of the fact that the crocodile was a yard away from her. The crocodile, however, attacked her splashing at her legs with his mighty jaws. He was trying to drive her into the river.
Any other person might not have tried to reach such a predator as the crocodile and might have ran away to call for help, but Sibia, a girl of only twelve, did not know such things as fear. She reached the spot at once and attacked the eyes of the crocodile with a hayfork. The animal being hurt in his eyes lost his grip on the legs of the woman and swam away into the water.
The only parts of the crocodile which could be easily attacked were his eyes and soft armpits. Sibia took a prompt and successful decision which saved the Gujar woman's life.
Sibia dragged the panting woman out of the water and helped her reach the encampment safely.
She came back for her grass sickle and fork. On reaching the site where Sibia saved the woman, she picked up her instruments and pots, but she also saw a blue bead just like the one that she desired. It was perfect and evenly pierced which was ready to use. While returning home, she met her worried mother who asked her if anything had happened to her. She replied in a very positive manner and showed her mother the blue bead that she had found in the river. Finding the blue bead seemed more important to her than saving a life. This highlights that such a deed of saving a life was part of life for her. She was fascinated by colourful beads, and hence, she was extremely happy on finding one