Belhaven - I

"This is insane!" Rohan said suddenly, "I won't do this!"

The three of us turned around from inspecting the ladder and looked at him without speaking. Somehow, it didn't surprise any of us that he was the first to back out. He had been iffy about the plan from the beginning.

"I can't believe you guys are actually thinking of doing this!" he said. "No matter what we think of her, this is trespassing! We can't break into somebody else's house!"

"But think of what she did to Viju." That was the tiny voice of Kanishk. Small and slender, he was the pacifying force in our group.

Neither Shiju nor I would have bothered to reason with short porky Rohan with his glasses and his perpetual sweatiness. After all, his family had moved into the colony just last month. Our mothers had forced us into including him in our group.

"She didn't do anything to Viju. He had a bike accident, that's all," Rohan replied.
"Which she caused! I'm telling you! I spoke to Viju!" Shiju burst out. "She ran after him with a stick when he stole mangoes from her mango tree. She was really angry! She said she would teach him a lesson."
"Shiju, I'm very sorry about what happened to your brother, but there's a limit. We can't break into her house and snoop around just because you guys think she's a witch!"
"She is a witch! And we'll find the proof tonight. If you're scared, you can stay at home!" I said.
"It's not that I'm scared..." Rohan's voice trailed off. "Anyway, my grandparents are here, so I can't come."
"Fine. Sit at home on your granny's lap," I said, turning back to the ladder. "You're missing out on the biggest adventure ever!"

Kanishk, Shiju and I dragged the ladder out of the shed and towards the eastern wall of the compound. Rohan stuck around for a while watching us. But when he realized that none of us would speak to him or even look at him, he went back home.

"Good riddance," I said, the moment he had left. "Imagine having to haul his fat bum up the wall." Shiju snorted. Kanishk didn't say a word.

Both of them were to spend the night at my house, since mine was the only one that bordered the witch's. So they left to pack and get ready for the stay-over. We decided that we would meet at six.

**********

It was around six-fifteen when the doorbell rang. I was in the living room, on my PS3. Mum had already opened the door before I could reach it.
"Hello, Kanishk bete!" Mum said, opening the door. "My, somebody's looking dashing in a black t-shirt!"
"Mum!" I said. Why do mothers have to be so embarassing?
"Come on," I said to Kanishk, and took him upstairs to my room. He was carrying a small knapsack.
"Sorry I'm late," he said. "I was halfway here before I realized that I'd forgotten my flashlight."
"Good thinking with the black t-shirt too," I said. "But I wonder where Shiju is."

We deposited the knapsack in my room and came back downstairs. Mum was on the phone. "Bopu, it's for you," she said. As I took the receiver, I glared at her for using my nickname in front of my friends. I could hear Kanishk's smothered snicker behind me.

"Surya, it's me," Shiju's gloomy voice said. "I can't come."
"What! Why?"
"Mum's saying that with Viju in hospital and everything, I should stay at home."
"But we asked her days ago!"
"I know. But she says she's changed her mind."
"Oh no!" I said, looking at Kanishk. What would we do now?

(to be continued)

Loss

Perhaps it was meant to be. Perhaps this was what God intended all along. We thought that we had finally done enough penance for our past sins. But perhaps this was just more punishment that His mind devised for us. And now I must be strong, I must console her. I must pretend that it doesn't matter, that we can try again.

We must try again.

I have to do whatever I can to make her happy. It will mean spending a lot of money, I know. We will have to visit temples, donate money for new gopurams or for feeding the poor. We will have to visit hospitals, spend lakhs of rupees on doctors and treatment. But I will do it.

I must win back the favour of the Gods. I must make her happy again.

The Red Flag

He sat on the long verandah in his ancient grandfather chair. The chair's arms were scabbed with age and heavy use. Its seat and back were made of cane, carefully plaited years ago by some poor artisan. The threads were sticking out here and there. They needed replacing, but who could find skilled people these days? Those arts were dead and gone. Chairs were made of plastic these days. They lasted longer, he had heard. But nothing could be as comfortable as these old cane chairs.

He opened the morning paper and scanned the headlines. But even Desabhimani wasn't good these days - no news, just the latest doings of some party group or the other. Though he would never subscribe to those capitalist newspapers. And even if he wanted to, how could he look the news agent in the face and ask him for any other newspaper! Not that he, a young boy with barely any hair on his upper lip, would know anything. Even his parents would have been toddlers in the heydays of Communism in Kerala, when he, Cheparambil Balakrishnan, had raised the red flag in this village and led a grand procession against the landowners! Ah, the glory of those days!

Ever since Sathyabhama had died, a girl had been coming in every day to do the housework. His sons had engaged her, perhaps to assuage their guilt about living far away in the city and leaving their father to rot in this old house. They had asked him to come and live with them, of course. But he had said no. He would live out his days in this village, where he was known. Even now, when he went to collect his monthly pension, wearing his starched white shirt and his pale cream Karalkada mundu and carrying his black umbrella, the villagers always greeted him with respect. He was given preference at the lines at the pension office, too.

Of course, a lot of things had changed. The party candidate no longer came to seek his support and blessings before elections. But that was to be expected. After all, what use was the support of a lonely old man who spent his days dreaming of the glory of his youth? These days, it was all about which group you were part of and how much power and money you had.

He remembered the days when he would leave Sathyabhama in the house alone and go to the city to attend party meetings and demonstrations. God alone knew how they had survived those times! But all of them, the party workers, knew that what they were doing mattered. That they were part of a movement which would bring power to the masses, so that they could rise up against those who had tormented and oppressed them for centuries!

But those days were over now. All that was left was the scrabble for power. Nothing to work for, nothing to believe in. Nothing to experience but the twilight of decline, nothing to wait for but the certainty of death.

The temple bell rang out now and again, faint but clear in the late afternoon sunlight. Harini paused and looked up at the faint flushness of the sky. She had been walking along by the temple pond, and now she looked at her own reflection in the lotus-strewn rippling mirror. She looked like such a typical village belle, with her neriyathu and her jasmine flowers and her long, plaited hair. She had her admirers among the village boys, she knew, but she couldn't possibly compete with a city-bred girl like Anita. Oh, why did that woman have to come here of all places, she wondered. And why, why did Madhavi Mami have to rent out a room to her? Now all the plans, the plans that had been made when she and Bhaskaran had been born, would come to nought.

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How It Feels

I walk on endlessly, along the lonely surface. All is quiet. The river beside me makes no noise as it flows along. Its depths are too deep, perhaps. The sand is silver, it rises gently to my right. I am alone. I have been alone many times before, yes, but not lonely. Not this lonely. Before, I knew of people who cared for me, who walked with me in spirit. Now - I am alone, truly alone, cut off from others. And I regret it, I regret it because I know that it was I who cut myself off. Others reached out for me, I ignored them. I hastened away, determined to not need them. And now they have turned away, they care no more. Even if I reached out now, even if I beseeched them, would they hear me? Would they want to?

The river beside me is so silent I do not know if it is flowing or not. I do not want to look into it, I know what I will see. Not the stars in the cloudless sky above, no. I will see faces, memories. I will see the people I cast off, the people I wish would surround me now. And they will invite me down, and I will go with them. I will drown in my memories. I must not.

There is no concept of time here. I do not know when I started walking, or when I shall stop. Perhaps I have stopped before, perhaps I have started again. There is no beginning here, no ending. My consciousness begins and ends with this desolate place, this silent river, these silver sands, this starry sky. I would be nothing if I were not here.

Nothing changes, how ever much I walk. I yearn for a friendly face, a call of greeting, but I am alone. No footprints on the sand, nothing to tell me that I am not alone. I wish I could be certain that there are people who know that I exist, that I am here, that I suffer. But if I could be certain of that, I wouldn't be in this place.

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Black and White, Inverted

Thiridon surged on ahead to the cliff edge and stood there with his arms spread wide open. "We can go back now, brother!" he turned back and shouted at me joyfully. I was similarly elated, but more mindful of the spears and stones following us. I stood there on the cliff top and looked out over the blue sea below. A spear whizzed by me. I turned back and smiled at the White Barbarians chasing us. Their faces were pink with exertion, and their eyes red with malevolence.

I turned back to the sea and took my tunic off. My wings, proud and black with steel grey glints, sprang forth and oh, what ecstasy it would be to be able to use them again. No more would my feet cut and bleed over sharp stones.

More spears and sticks passed by and fell down, down into the sea. Thiridon and I flexed our wings, and then sprang into the air. Oh, the joy of being in the air again! We flew for the clouds, and the White Barbarians gasped in amazement. Our black bodies glinted in the morning sunshine, and I enjoyed the contrast we made against the white fluffy clouds. All White need not be evil, after all.

Lurvin' the new template, yeah!