Literary Vibes - Edition LX
Dear Readers,
Namastey!
I have great pleasure in presenting to you the sixtieth edition of LiteraryVibes. It is a rich fare this time with an assortment of very interesting stories and touching poems, including a few on Corona by reputed poets and writers like Prof. Geetha Nair, Prabhanjan Mishra and Sheena Rath. Hope you will enjoy them.
This time we welcome two new writers to the LV family. Dr. Baishnaba Charan Das, my popular Professor in college, has written a fine reminiscence of his early teaching career, paying tribute to his Principal, Prof. Mayadhar Mansingh - a celebrated doyen of Odia literature, a king among the romantic poets. We do hope that Dr. Das will continue to enthral the readers of LV with more reminiscences from his illustrious career. Ms. Anjali Mohapatra from Mumbai has contributed a beautiful story 'A Haunted House' in today's edition. We are lucky to have her in the LV family. She is a prolific writer who, like me, started late in her literary journey, but has penned close to hundred beautiful stories and published them in Sunnyskyz and Kindle Unlimited. We will persuade her to write for us in our future editions also.
With the Corona scare spreading over the globe like a sickening fog, interesting thoughts are emanating from various sources in social media. It is amazing how a small virus has, by a strange process of Metamorphosis, assumed the mammoth proportion of a Leviathan and has reduced mighty human beings into small creatures hiding at home. Streets are deserted, malls closed, cinema halls shut down and people are looking at each other with distrust, swayed by the dilemma of 'to shake or not to shake hands'!
Fashion capitals like Milan, Paris have become unfashionably quiet, San Francisco has imposed an unprecedented lockdown asking people not to come into the streets except for medical emergencies. People are queuing up outside gun stores in Los Angeles to buy weapons, fearing food riots. Mighty nations have been brought to their knees. Stories of different hues abound, latest being the machinations of the Chinese government buying up the devalued shares of big European and American companies, completing its hegemony over global economy, close to their capture of markets every where. If it is true, the Chinese will have the last laugh out of Corona, bats or no bats under their roofs! India so far has been spared of massive breakout of the epidemic, thanks to strenuous and commendable efforts by the Government. And all of us of course know that our country also partly runs on Ram Bharose!
Amidst this gloomy confinement at home, I do hope LiteraryVibes will provide some intellectual succour to beleaguered individuals. Here is to wish our readers happy enjoyment of the delicious fare offered in the pages of LiteraryVibes.
Please do forward the link http://positivevibes.today/article/newsview/288 to all your friends and contacts with a reminder that all previous editions of LV, along with three anthologies of poems and short stories are available at http://positivevibes.today/literaryvibes
With warm regards and best wishes for a safe passage through difficult times, till we return to you next week.
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
Table of Contents
- CORONA SPEAKETH Prabhanjan K. Mishra
- COUNSELLING.. Haraprasad Das
- THE LIVE-WORD Kamalakanta Panda (KALPANTA)
- COVID PLAYS CUPID Geetha Nair G.
- GOING TO THE TEMPLE Bibhu Padhi
- THE DUEL Krupasagar Sahoo
- DREAMS Sreekumar K
- COPYRIGHT Dilip Mohapatra
- LOVE IS A BARE THING Ishwar Pati
- REJOY Nikhil M. Kurien
- A LOVING,CARING... Dr. Baishnaba Charan Das
- A HAUNTED HOUSE Anjali Mobhapatra
- THE TALE OF DARKNESS.. Sharanya Bee
- PET TRASHERS Narayanan Ramakrishnan
- LOCKDOWN Sheena Rath
- JUST BEING Sakuntala Narasimhan
- DRAMA AROUND US Sakuntala Narasimhan
- KOLAM Sundar Rajan
- KHUSI Mrutyunjay Sarangi
- CASCADING CORONA Mrutyunjay Sarangi
CORONA SPEAKETH
Prabhanjan K. Mishra
Should I speak, or shouldn't I ?
Origin China, resident of the world,
failing the cut-off-year 1914
of the sacrosanct amended CAA 2019,
no chance of gaining Indian citizenship,
have to be deported today or tomorrow;
a tryst with God, not with country's usurpers.
But the prevailing eerie-calm so relishing!
Never knew so vast is my power,
never knew I am as good as the goddess
of pandemic epidemics: Small Pox,
or Cholera; or as bad as priapic babas.
Killing scores, I spread my dark wings;
my fond precincts are malls and theatres;
I love my cool comfort, having a fetish
for the old flesh, no sexist or racist please;
'am secular, democratic, equal to all
in my deathly services, in welfare (whatever
that may mean, I speak my own jargon,
my lexicon, and trust me, I don't fake).
I give death, lifetime peace, don't panic,
no god of death staring into your eyes,
it's also me who give you leisure to return
to your thoughts, wife, children and parents.
I give you back your walks along
tree-lined avenues at golden sunset hours
in solitude and serenity, devoid of crowds;
and your own home's forgotten warmth.
Death? What's so special? The great equalizer,
best tranqilizer, exemplary pacifier;
the absolute truth of life, today you,
tomorrow me; I have come, I have to go;
but after reducing your brimming population,
giving you immunity from my onslaught;
making you a showpiece, a torch-bearer,
a news-maker, perhaps a Pulitzer winner.
Bless you dears, bless you my darlings,
with wings to your intellect; if a poet,
write a poem; if a historian, record events;
and if an incorrigible politician,
barter your mother in bargain with me,
dangle me at the hustings for votes;
I know, if I don't purge you, you would
sell me as butter for the poorman's bread.
So, my darlings, before my house visit,
write your will, kiss your wife, hug your children, bow before parents, settle your rancour and debts... peace be with you!
You won't sleep tonight, restless you would shift,
restive you thrash, but if clean,
you are spared, if with a black cinder heart, you're fired,
you're under watch.
Prabhanjan K. Mishra writes poems, stories, critiques and translates, works in two languages – English and Odia. Three of his collected poems in English have been published into books – VIGIL (1993), Lips of a Canyon (2000), and LITMUS (2005).His Odia poems have appeared in Odia literary journals. His English poems poems have been widely anthologized and published in literary journals. He has translated Bhakti poems (Odia) of Salabaga that have been anthologized into Eating God by Arundhathi Subramaniam and also translated Odia stories of the famous author Fakirmohan Senapati for the book FROM THE MASTER’s LOOM (VINTAGE STORIES OF FAKIRMOHAN SENAPATI). He has also edited the book. He has presided over the POETRY CIRCLE (Mumbai), a poets’ group, and was the editor (1986-96) of the group’s poetry magazine POIESIS. He has won Vineet Gupta Memorial Poetry Award and JIWE Poetry Award for his English poems.He welcomes readers' feedback at his email - prabhanjan.db@gmail.com
COUNSELLING (UPADESHA)
Haraprasad Das
Translated by Prabhanjan K. Mishra
Go ahead as you fancy.
Don’t ask me for advice.
Just back from a tour,
I haven’t yet unpacked.
My achievements
and unachieved dreams,
lie tangled
in my travel-bag.
Last year around this time,
on our way from Koraput,
didn’t the one-eyed uncle advise,
“It is time, you be on your own”?
Why not follow his counseling?
Be on your own,
go wherever you wish,
don’t bother about mishaps –
isn’t an unmindful peacock
destined to die under wheels
if it unmindfully trots on the road
with feathers unfurled?
A while later, I will unpack,
stack separately within easy reach
my fulfilled ambitions
from the unfulfilled ones;
would ruffle and glance through
the pages of an unfinished novel,
before taking forty winks,
might even lapse into deep sleep
suffused with the aroma
of success, may it be very little.
Go ahead and lead your life
on your own terms, get success.
Mr. Hara Prasad Das is one of the greatest poets in Odiya literature. He is also an essayist and columnist. Mr. Das, has twelve works of poetry, four of prose, three translations and one piece of fiction to his credit. He is a retired civil servant and has served various UN bodies as an expert.
He is a recipient of numerous awards and recognitions including Kalinga Literary Award (2017), Moortidevi Award(2013), Gangadhar Meher Award (2008), Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award (1999) and Sarala Award (2008)”
THE LIVE-WORD (Shabdara Jiantaa Murtti)
Kamalakanta Panda (KALPANTA)
Translated by Prabhanjan K. Mishra
Swift, and migratory;
fond of meandering,
you resort to flights of fancy,
chugging around spiritedly,
even venturing across seven seas,
or just luxuriating in a yacht.
But in my world,
you rule as a pulsating presence
as my muse, you the live-word,
my Polestar, my constant companion;
unlike men wounding men,
friends breaching mutual trust;
unlike the night that rules
after pushing the sun
into a cave’s cavernous retreat.
You tremble, pure and pristine,
a drop of the first monsoon-rain
on an eager tit of waiting silence.
The time behaves like an adversary,
it hurts like blunted arrow-wounds;
the sweetness of the pain
turns into words, tremulous and flaming;
reveries beat butterfly wings,
yet I keep vigil, my word, for you.
KAMALAKANTA PANDA (KALPANTA), a renowned Odia poet lives and writes from Bhubaneswar, the city of temples, writing over the last forty years. He is often referred to as Kalpanta in Odia literary circles. He is a poet of almost legendary repute, and if one hasn’t read Kalpata’s poems, then, he hasn’t read the quintessence of Odia poetry. He is famous for a quirky decision that he would never collect his own poems into books himself. However, one may not find an Odia literary journal, or an anthology not enriched by his poems. (He can be reached at his resident telephone No.06742360394 and his mobile No. 09437390003)
A Feel-Good Tale in Rewind Mode for our Troubled Times
20 March, 2023
Lekha is ready to leave for work. Little Roja waves a cheerful goodbye to her from Ammayi’s hip. “Remember, we are going out for dinner this evening,” Lekha tells the old lady. “Nikhil said he would close the kiosk after the 5.30 train and be back by 6. We are going to the Mall; Roja loves the lights and the toy train there.”
“What is special about today?” asks Ammayi. Lekha only smiles in reply.
The third anniversary of our first silent unseen meeting, she wants to say, but doesn’t.
Lekha walks swiftly along the busy, crowded road to the little bookstore. Another happy day amidst books and magazines. Life is beautiful indeed.
20 March-27 March, 2020
There is a grille and a rather skimpy, plastic curtain separating the male ward from the female. An emergency situation has called for emergency measures. The isolation wards are makeshift ones. The one Lekha is taken to is a hurriedly-converted verandah.
Lekha's is the last bed in the female section, next to the male bastion. Sometimes a breeze makes the curtain rise and she can see the legs of string cots in the male ward.
Nikhil’s is the cot on the other side of the grille. He hears the tinkling of bangles and the lilt of a girlish voice responding to the nurses’ brusque commands. He can see two dainty pink slippers on the floor, under the curtain. He wants to peep but does not dare to.
The Isolation Ward is tedium. Contact with the outside world is through the mobile. Nikhil is luckier than some others in his ward who do not have even that source of relief. He switches on the speaker for the sake of the others but a nurse ticks him off. There is nothing to look forward to.The meals, when they come, are tasteless rice gruel or rotis that seem to be made of plastic. Lucky ones get food from their homes. Nikhil has a sister who lives more than two hundred miles away. Their father stays with her. He has no one in this town to send him food. From beyond the grille, delicious flavours float to his nostrils now and then. Appam and egg roast, fish curry, fish fry… . He knows who is tucking into all that stuff; it is the inmate of that first bed, the one with the tinkling bangles, the pink slippers and the girlish voice.
On the third day after her arrival, Nikhil hears something falling to the floor. It has acrobatically leapt to this side of the grille. It looks like a clip. He jumps off the bed and picks it up; it is a hair clip shaped like a book.
“Please give it to me,” the girlish voice says. A hand emerges at the edge of the skimpy curtain.
“Why! You are the tea-coffee girl, aren’t you?” Nikhil exclaims in surprise. A frequent traveller by the dawn train to the north, he has bought a cup of tea from this girl many a time. It is difficult not to notice that clip when she turns to pour the tea.
Thus begins a friendship that blossoms swiftly. She slips him some of the food her Ammayi brings. It is a difficult maneouvre but they manage it well. Soon they chat online almost all through the day. Life is no longer tedium. She learns that he owns and runs a little book store in the town. “I know what you look like; don’t you want to see me?” Nikhil types. Lekha types back: “No. Let us be like Basheer and Narayani in Mathilukal.” He doesn’t know the book but recollects the old movie. Two prisoners on either side of a wall. They have never seen each other but they fall in love with each other’s voice. Nikhil feels a thrill run through him. “What if the Corona virus gets me and I die?” he messages. A line of weeping emojis is her reply. “Love in the Time of Corona” she wants to add, but doesn’t.
On 27 March, twenty two of those under observation are told that they will be freed. They have escaped infection. Nikhil and Lekha are among these lucky twenty two. They rejoice online, then prepare to leave.
As she walks out, she sees a tall young man with tousled hair and crumpled clothes near the gate. He comes up to her and offers her a red flower. “I couldn’t get a rose,” he says hesitantly. Basheer had waited for Narayani this way in the iconic story. She smiles and accepts the flower. They walk out together.
17 March, 2020.
Lekha is lost in a book; there are no trains for an hour. She raises startled eyes as a voice calls out to her,”Come on, close the kiosk and come with us. Hurry!” Two figures, looking like astronauts in their white suits and wrapped-up faces, are in front of the kiosk. The voice is female. She is bewildered but obeys. They tell her that they are health workers from the government hospital four miles away. A man has tested positive for Covid 19. He had got off the evening train at Chungathur Station, three days back. Now he was hospitalised, of course. His family was in the isolation ward.They were tracing back all possible persons he could have infected. The driver of the autorickshaw he had travelled by to his home and his family were also in the isolation ward. The man had said he had had a cup of tea from the kiosk on the platform… .
Then, she is in the ambulance that is taking her to the hospital. Lekha has managed to ask her friend, the old porter, to tell Ammayi what is happening to her.“If she is infected, it is doom,” Lekha hears the health worker seated opposite her say to her companion, “think how many she could have infected…”
Lekha looks down at her clean, brown hands and shudders.
3 April, 2017 - 17 March, 2020
Chungathur is a rather sleepy railway station. It has just two platforms. There are no TV sets overhead. Trains flash past regularly but only ten of them have stops there. Five up; five down. The lean dogs who lie here and there sleep on through the roar of passing trains and cock an ear only when a train stops. There is a little kiosk on Platform 1. Tea, Coffee, Vada, says a faded board that hangs askew from its tin roof.
Lekha had been running the tea -coffee- and -snacks booth for almost three years. She started helping her father when he became weak. After he collapsed and died on a bench on the platform, she moved smoothly into his role. She stayed in a one-room house just behind the station; an old, homeless woman was her companion. She had no relatives that she knew of. Every morning by half-past five, Lekha would be at her post. The machine would be ready, filled with milk-water-sugar. Business was brisk at this time. Two trains had stops at this time and many were glad of a cup of hot tea or coffee before they embarked or just after they disembarked. By ten, she would shutter the kiosk and go home for brunch, prepared by the old woman whom she addressed as Ammayi. It was usually fluffy upma or crisp dosas just as dinner was always rice and fish curry. Ammayi was a good cook.
Lekha would be back after the meal and a bath, in time for the train that went to the Capital. She was at the kiosk till late evening. About half-an hour before the departure of a train, Lekha turned busy. After it had departed, she was relatively free. Some of the passengers looked at her curiously. They saw a dusky, attractive young woman with a nose ring, dreamy eyes and curly hair fastened with a clip. A big clip shaped like a book. When she turned to fill the cups, they could see the bookclip
There was something robot- like in her movements.Take paper cup. Switch on machine. Fill. Hand over. Receive payment.
Lekha, on her part, was least curious about the scores she served each day. She lived in a world of her own. It was a world far from that railway platform, peopled with the characters in the books and magazines she read. Lekha was an avid reader. She even read the print on the old newspapers that came her way for wrapping snacks. When she could snatch a minute from her work, she drew out the book or magazine that always lay beneath the shelf that held the snacks and buried herself in it. She had hoped to do a degree in Library Science and fulfill her dream of becoming a librarian and spending all her working life among books. But her father’s illness when she was eighteen had pulled the brakes on that ambition. There were times when she wondered whether she was really alive… .
Ms. Geetha Nair G is a retired Professor of English, settled in Trivandrum, Kerala. She has been a teacher and critic of English literature for more than 30 years. Poetry is her first love and continues to be her passion. A collection of her poems, "SHORED FRAGMENTS " was published in January' 2019. She welcomes readers' feedback at her email - geenagster@gmail.com
1.
How shall we begin?
We shall carry
long-thought-out ways
to find a thing,
name a quiet loss.
We shall collect
the milk-white flowers
from our doorsteps;
in due time
we shall make them shine
with our morning sicknesses,
prominent headaches.
At the feet of the dark goddess
we shall make them hold pains
we have known and endured.
We shall turn our cloud-looks
into intelligible forms,
clean total gestures
of fear and love.
It may not to be hard then
to drive all our little efforts.
to a reassuring smile,
a cool collected look.
2.
“Bury all the dead.
Your land will turn beautiful once more.
If you happen to meet a voice
that you do not recognize,
then you must know
it is mine.
When you arrive here,
we shall invent a together-hour
to settle our differences
and estimate a new deal.
I shall answer all your
hesitations and fears
with a slight glance,
a mere smile.
A neat, stone-cut look
will complete my ritual of touch.”
3.
At the crowded entrance
we shall reenact childhoods
that we forget and receive back
repeatedly, remember lost deities.
We have been silent for too long.
Let us seek out our wishes
and arrange them
in their proper order.
The stones shall hear us
and begin to speak.
Let us wash our hands clean
of the cruel daylight,
wipe the acquired and inherited
meanings of our tired faces.
Inside that darkness
they wouldn’t matter anymore.
4.
I don’t know how I can make it.
Perhaps I will run down
the large steps to her smile
and make it my own.
A Pushcart nominee, Bibhu Padhi has published fourteen books of poetry. His poems have been published in distinguished magazines throughout the English-speaking world, such as The Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, The Rialto, Stand, The American Scholar, Colorado Review, Confrontation, New Letters, Poet Lore, Prairie Schooner, Poetry, Southwest Review, The Literary Review, TriQuarterly, Tulane Review, Xavier Review, Antigonish Review, Queen’s Quarterly, The Illustrated Weekly of India and Indian Literature. They have been included in numerous anthologies and textbooks. Three of the most recent are Language for a New Century (Norton) 60 Indian Poets (Penguin) and The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry (HarperCollins). He lives with his family in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Bibhu Padhi welcomes readers' feedback on his poems at padhi.bibhu@gmail.com
I am fond of solitude. The enchanting beauty of solitude takes my breath away. The rustling of leaves in the hushed forest, the cricket’s sonorous songs reverberating in the silence, the unintelligible chirping of the birds at the lonely seashore, make such solitude very rewarding indeed. I find myself irresistibly drawn to all these. That is why, given an opportunity, I plan to get away from city life, just like the small school-going children in my village eagerly looking forward to rushing to the lily pond as soon as school is over.
There is a lovely hill station in Madhya Pradesh called Pachmarhi. This salubrious resort nestles in the high Satpura Hills, like a diamond-studded nose pin. Whatever has been described about the beauty of this place in the tourism literature of Madhya Pradesh government is not exaggerated at all. This is a perfect landscape with rugged hills, green glades, flowing streams and waterfalls and miles of serene emerald forest. I had visited the place earlier but the place has such a magnetic pull that I get drawn to it again and again and never get tired of its beauty which is so ethereal and rejuvenating with its freshness.
The hill station, at 1,067 meters above sea level, has a small population. From the heart of the city several small roads spreading like the veins of a leaf lead to the forest. Whichever route you take you will not come across human habitation for long stretches. This is why I find Pachmarhi so attractive.
This time I had brought my family along. My wife, son and daughter. I had brought them for a change and not to instill in them a love for nature. I wanted them to breathe in the unpolluted air, for they live in the consumerist world and do not get an opportunity to laugh heartily in some natural surroundings. I wanted to bring them to the lap of nature.
They had become thoroughly exhausted after three days of trekking to places like Jatashankar, Madashankar and Apsara Vihar. That is why I had to go alone to the Duchess Falls on the fourth day.
Duchess Falls is about four kilometers from the main forest road, and it is quite strenuous to trek uphill. Nevertheless, it does have its appeal for adventurers. On one side, there are lofty hills standing as a wall, as if the cliffs are fighting amongst themselves to reach the sky. On the other side is the vast undulating plain with a mossy green surface stretching for miles on end on the rocky boulders. There is a narrow road winding in serpentine curves for pedestrians. There are many old and massive trees with boughs drooping to the ground almost as if they too wanted to chat with the passers-by to break the monotony.
There was no sign of any tourists so early in the morning. The nocturnal animals that had come to the stream to quench their thirst and search for food had already retired to their secret abodes. That time of the morning inside a forest is so beautiful that it seems fit for angels to descend to the earth for fun and frolic.
After a while, the sun’s rays touched the ground and trees bathing them in soft golden hues. The leaves shimmering like the petals of the yellow oleander flowers brightened the atmosphere.
I was already at the Duchess Falls. After walking almost four kilometers I was exhausted and wanted to rest for a while. There was a massive boulder by the roadside under a huge mango tree, where I rested. There was no noise except for the gurgling sound of the stream flowing at a distance. The boy who sold tea at the foot of the Duchess Falls had not arrived yet.
I settled down with my pen and paper. Where else would I get such a wonderful opportunity to pen my verses? I mused. The location was just perfect for writing poetry. I did not want to waste such a golden opportunity. At a distance was a hill stream. What about writing a poem on that? I wondered. When I was in the minor school I had written a long poem on the hill stream and had named it ‘Nirjharini’ meaning, the stream. That poem was rhymed and was appreciated by a pala singer only. Then that manuscript was lost. Even if it had not got lost, who could I have shown it to? Would the readers of modern poetry appreciate it? I decided then to write a modern poem on the stream. Here the water falls over three outcroppings and is aptly named ‘Jalabatarana’, and I decided to write three stanzas describing it. I thought I would describe the beauty, the charm and the mystery in the three stanzas.
Above me was the massive mango tree spreading its canopy like an umbrella atop the boulder. On one side, there was thick undergrowth of bushes and the shrubs grew as tall as a man. On the ground, it was a lovely carpet of old and new fallen leaves. I wrote two lines of my poem. But they did not appeal to me at all; it seemed very old-fashioned to me, very run-of-the-mill stuff. I tore up the paper and dumped the pieces in the bushes nearby.
Suddenly a snake slithered out of that dense vegetation and stood erect on its tail, facing me at barely seven to eight meters. Its hood was raised and on the backdrop of the emerald forest it appeared like a yellow question mark. It was lovely yellow in colour and had marks of two feet on its hood. That is why I could instantly recognize that it was a cobra, a rare Champak nag. The snake stood straight and rose almost as high as my head. I was seated on that boulder. Now it started to sway slowly. I remained motionless with terror and sat dumbstruck. I had no way to escape.
And, in my veins, my blood seemed to clot in fear. I was completely unprepared for such an event.
I was scared. Would the snake bite me now? I could remember the fact that the one who can run away to safety can survive. But even if I would try, could I escape? In front of me was the deadly venomous snake with hood raised and behind me lay the unknown terrain of bushes, creepers and thick forest. My veins would turn blue with its venom even before the leaves falling from the tree would touch the ground, I was quite sure. It was better, I contemplated, to simply wait and watch. I, therefore, decided not to move and stared back at the snake, eyeball to eyeball.
Although I sat with a brave face, fear and apprehension churned my heart. That is why I started murmuring to myself, “Look, dear snake! We hail from the same ancestors, the same nag clan. Nagasya muni was our ancestor. He is yours too. That makes us one family. Where is the space for enmity between us then? Please go back down the path you have come. Seeing you, my blood has frozen already,”
Although I uttered those words I felt very apprehensive inside. It was true that we hailed from the nag clan and it is a fact that no one in my family had died from snakebite, but the fact that I had never harmed or killed a snake in my life was not true at all.
It was a white lie. In my childhood and youth, I had mercilessly butchered a lot of snakes. I have lost count of how many snakes I had killed like that-the innocent ones, the venomous ones, many kinds of snakes like tree snakes, rat snakes, how many of them had met their end through my savage stick! I doubt whether that many snakes have ever been sacrificed at a ‘sarpa yajna’. Was it possible that the snake would now take revenge knowing about my past? I shivered at the thought.
The snake cast a glance at my sling bag and then its glance glided to my bespectacled face. My spectacles were blessings in disguise, symbols of my innocence at that point of time. The snake could never take me for a snake charmer even in its wildest dreams. That is why it did not anticipate any danger from me. But it did not move an inch from the place and it did not shift its stare, neither to the left nor to the right. It did not hiss like an angry snake does. It was merely swaying in the mild morning sun, like a bright sunflower. I also regained my courage in the mean time and smiled dryly. An ounce of that half-fearful smile spilled from me when I also realized that the imminent danger was now receding. I felt as if the snake too smiled back at me.
There was no one around. Even in that late morning there was only hushed silence. The only sound that reigned there then was the gurgling noise of the cascading hill stream. The Duchess Falls was not yet crowded with tourists. The snake perhaps guessed I was a poet, from the pen and notepad in my hand. I looked harmless enough. Now it began to entice me and swayed charmingly like a sensuous woman. Seeing the coquettish behaviour I could make out that it was a female snake. Had it been a male cobra it would have displayed its valor already. Now it was being seductive. As if she was teasing me now, saying, "O poet! Please write a poem about me. Am I not beautiful enough? What poem are you writing on the hill stream? That kind of verse was written during the Romantic era. Even if you will write romantic poems now on the waterfall, can you ever beat Tennyson or Wordsworth? You better write a poem on me now, be it a mere verse of four lines of fourteen lines.”
I had heard from my guide that many Hindi films were shot at that picturesque location. Many film stars and models thronged the place for filming very frequently. The advertisement of Liril soap was also shot there. When I was recalling all that, the snake, as if she could read my mind, shook her head defiantly and said, “Look at me now, I am no less than a model. Am I not radiantly fair with my golden hued champak-flower like skin? I have a beautifully slender body too. I wear such a lovely necklace of coral beads. And can’t you notice my sensuous dance? I don’t think anyone in this entire locality can match me.”
When I heard, her I had a smile on my face and I found her to my utter surprise pretty. Indeed, she resembled my favorite beauty queen Aishwarya! The same body, the same eyes and the same lips, too. The same vivacious laugh. She had that ethereal beauty radiating from each inch of her body.
The speckled sunshine was filtering through the dense foliage of the boughs hanging above and lighting the snake. It looked as if someone was focusing the spotlights with their colorful glow on a stage and in that glittering light she was looking even more enigmatic and beautiful. Our eyes were locked in a hypnotic gaze. An unknown excitement ran in my veins. The snake did not hypnotize me, did she? I was reeling under that spell as if she was there on every inch of my body, she was very dear to me and as if our relationship wasn’t an accident, it had a very long past and was meant for eternity.
She was gazing at me now and was oscillating slowly from left to right and back again. Her slow swaying motion was like the charm of a sensuous circus woman under hypnosis. Suddenly there rose a strong conviction in my soul that touched me like lightning. I realized that I surely had something intriguing in my appearance that can attract the other sex. Then I became apprehensive too. If that was true then why could I not attract my classmate whom I had loved so passionately in my youth?
I too started swaying like her, keeping with her dancing motion in the same rhythm. I also wanted to sing a song. The song I had almost forgotten which I had heard in my youth. I was singing that song at the plays being enacted in my village, “Do look back, O snake woman, do have a look at me! See I am playing your favourite Nageswari music for you. humm. humm.............” A boy would be dressed as a girl and would dance holding two palms on his head like the hood of the snake. I too started singing that song and was dancing with my palms on my head. That aspiration which lay dormant in me for years moved in me now.
Slowly I was losing consciousness of the outer world. I was also forgetting Pachmarhi and my family who had come with me. In front of me were a couple dancing, my own self and the snake princess, entwined body to body. They were sliding to the nearby hill stream, and from that waterfall to the river, from the river to the sea and to Nagalok where the snake princess lived.
But what happened then was beyond my imagination. It snapped my reverie as it descended to the ground with alarming swiftness and filled the air with her harsh croaking voice. The snake princess now diverted her attention from me to the peacock and was now very scared. And she put out her tongue and started hissing at her in self-defense. Although I had lost my senses under the spell of poetry I was still aware of the fact that the two living beings who now faced each other were foes. One was the hunter and the other was her food. One was strong and the other was weak. If the snake princess would not be able to slip away and save her own life, the stronger peacock could easily lift her with her deadly claws and fly away in the sky to her distant abode on the top of some hill. There her young fledglings would be waiting for her and all of them would feast on the tender meat of the snake, like on a picnic.
I was waiting with bated breath. Perhaps she would attempt to escape now into the thick bushes close by. And I was guiding her in hushed whispers pointing my fingers at the bush. But no. She did not even move. There were clear signs of fear writ on her face; she too sensed the imminent danger. The fear was in me, too, on my face, my eyes, my ears, and the forehead and all over my body. Beads of sweat were now running down my forehead and my neck.
But why did the snake princess not make any attempt to escape into the thick bushes nearby? Perhaps I was the cause. My very presence stopped her from resorting to such a cowardly act. She did not wish to run away from the site, that too in front of such an ardent fan. Although she was born a snake, she was aware of the reality that no one has an immortal life. One who is born, also dies one day, so why not face life boldly and put up a brave fight till the end? I was sure that she was in such mood then and had preferred to die like a heroine in the battle field.
That was the reason why the snake princess did not budge from the place where she stood erect on her tail. It was, therefore, not easy for the peacock too to attack her prey; so, she spread her plumage and faced her prey now as if to terrorize her. It seemed as if the battlefield was ready and there were two agitated warriors ready for combat.
Although I am not an expert in deciphering the language of birds and animals, I could nevertheless understand that the snake was hissing at the peacock, saying, “I am slim and you are pot¬bellied. I am beautiful and you are so dark and ordinary to look at.”
The peacock retorted, “There are the hues of a splendid rainbow in my feathers. I wear such a spectacular attire and there is also a tiara of shimmering feathers on my head.”
“I wear a dazzling golden attire too. And it has such neatly woven filigree. I wear a diamond on my hood and I light up everywhere I go.”
“When I dance, the clouds come down to the earth, the trees and the creepers are thrilled. The animals and the birds jump in delight."
“But everyone on the earth, in heaven and Nagalok get hypnotized when I dance.”
“I am the queen of the jungle. How can you ever compare yourself with me? Where is the queen and where is the ugly duckling!"
“Okay, if you are the queen of the jungle, I am the darling daughter of the king of Nagalok.”
They were thus taunting one another and were making faces with tongues thrust out and abuses were being hurled. And both were affected by the heated arguments. The peacock was now seething in anger and swelling. Her plumes were raised and the beak was getting poised to bite into the flesh of her opponent. Her claws were getting more ferocious. As if they were eager and anxious to pounce upon the serpent’s neck. The tufts of her hair and her body were shaking violently now. Her eyes were viciously red.
The snake was standing as if rooted to the ground. And had her gaze fixed at her attacker. She was gliding her eyes only. She was now standing in such a pose that she could spew her venom like shooting a bunch of arrows at the peacock. Her lean and beautiful body was all swollen now and she was hissing violently too. The venom flew from her fangs like hot lava spewing. Not only me, everyone around was equally stunned at the rapidly changing scenario and were mute spectators of the deadly sight. The birds had stopped chirping. The trees and the creepers of the forest were trembling nervously.
I was a blind admirer of Aishwarya Rai and it was almost love at first sight. Probably Sushmita Sen does not appeal to me so much because she is inches taller than me. The day she defeated Aishwarya Rai and won the coveted Miss India Crown, I had become crestfallen. It took me a long time to recover from that grief and accept the unpalatable fact. Those days I cursed the judges at the pageant with all sorts of four-letter words. I had also vocally blasted the judges and doubted their caliber, their eyesight, their impartiality when they had chosen Sushmita over Aishwarya, my heartthrob. Aishwarya to me was perfect in body, and with her charnpak-hued skin she looked like an angel to me. That is why when I was visualizing the snake as the queen bee Aishwarya, and the peacock as Sushmita, it was very natural that I would side with the snake princess. The snake princess had also cast a few glances at me in between her heated conversation with the peacock. What did she want to say?
Maybe she was giving me a hint, “I have become exhausted. You hurl stone pellets at the peacock or just chase her away by making some noise. I will get an opportunity to escape then.”
If I had a gun with me, I would certainly have killed the peacock. But I did not have even a stick to hit the peacock with it. The only weapon I had was my pen, which I had already dropped to the ground in my moment of fear. I did not have the courage to get up or pick up a stone to chase away the peacock. And to my misery I had no strength in me to make a loud shoo shoo hush hush noise either. I felt weak-kneed. I felt as if I was the dead trunk of a tree from my waist down.
The one who is incompetent is very good at comforting oneself. I was now doing exactly the same thing. No, I told myself, “There is no reason to worry about the snake. She is not a mere serpent. She is so exceptional. She is an expert in hypnotizing. She would chant such hymns now that the peacock would be stunned and stand motionless on the ground as if she had come face-to-face with a goddess. Or she may even start dancing like she does when she sees a cloud of rain in the sky, under the spell of the snake princess.”
As I was thus immersed in my imagination an astounding thing happened. It was a rare sight. Both of them were now soaring high in the sky. The peacock was flying away with its prey to some distant valley atop a hill. And the snake was entwined around her body like a glittering stream on a hill.
Now the paralytic numbness I had felt in my body waist down, had crippled me entirely. I had become frozen with this unexpected turn of events. It was a cold and shivering feeling of death. I lost consciousness on that boulder. When some tourists came and sprinkled water on my face to revive me, I opened my eyes and the day-dreaming was over.
I was dreaming that since the snake was the daughter of the king of Nagalok she had jumped on to the shoulder of the peacock and was lashing at her plumes as if riding a horse. As if she was holding the reins of her carrier and was ordering the peacock, “Go. Go to the hills of Manichuda".
Below the animals were gaping in awe and had forgotten to forage. In the sky, too, the birds were quiet, watching the scene. The scene was super-natural. The peacock was getting tired with her prolonged flight in the air and when she was about to alight on the hilltop to feed her children, the snake bit her fatally. The heart¬rending shrill of the peacock echoed in the forest, and the hills resounded terrifyingly.
Krupasagar Sahoo is a leading name in contemporary Odia literature. With twelve collection of stories and six novels to his credit he has created a niche for himself in the world of Odia fiction. Many of his works have been translated in to English and other major Indian languages. Drawing upon his experience as a senior Railway officer, he has penned several memorable railway stories. He is recipient of several literary awards including Odisha Sahitya Academy award for his novel SESHA SARAT.
Her neighbour, quite a handsome guy, dreamed about going on honeymoon with her to Kulu Manali where, he had heard, it snows regularly.
Her father, quite a scholar in career counselling, dreamed of her making it to any of the premier institutions in India or any university in the UK or the US.
Her mother, quite a snob, dreamed of her marriage happening, at the largest convention hall in the city, with a three-day pre-wedding shoot at a theme park.
Her own dreams? There was no mention of any in her suicide note.
The Princes and Kerosene
For the first time in three years, nobody came to see the princess when she appeared at the palace window.
The last time it happened was when there were rumours about an impending war.
It took no time for the king’s men to find out what caused this strange change in the course of history.
The State Fuel Corporation was issuing kerosene and only a litre per head.
No matter how beautiful whatever is, without kerosene it is as bad as being blind.
Bird Brain
Having mastered all the poetry in the world and committing an infinite amount of the same to memory, a parrot set off to see the king.
The guards, after checking the papers and finding no evidence of citizenship among them blocked the bird from getting past the front gate of the palace.
However, the king did dream of Eliot, Pound, Ulloor, Thruvalluvar, Plath, Frost and a good number of them that night.
Probably, it wasn’t exactly chicken he had had for dinner.
Adopted Mother
After contemplating suicide and finding that he wasn’t mature enough even for that, the four year old went to his mother with a complaint. He had to get to the truth of it.
“My elder brother said I was adopted. Is it true?”
The mother gave him a look of surprise.
He feared the worst.
He wasn’t adopted. But her look told him she had had no choice there.
Writings on the Wall
Three years later, returning to the school , the journalist paid a visit to the classroom where he had taught his favourite class. It was vacation and he didn’t expect any child to be there. There were none.
Facing the empty chairs and turning around he saw the blackboard with a corner of it laminated and marked off.
Going closer to see what important lesson was written there, he recognized his own handwriting
Sreekumar K, known more as SK, writes in English and Malayalam. He also translates into both languages and works as a facilitator at L' ecole Chempaka International, a school in Trivandrum, Kerala.
I dip my brush in myriad colours
blues borrowed from the seas and skies
greens from the verdant foliage
crimson from the new born sun
ocher pigments from the earth's crust
mix and match what I see
and whatever touches my soul
and the blank canvas springs to life
and I affix my signature
at the bottom right corner.
I listen to the bells tinkling in unison
as the cows return home at dusk
to the canaries and cuckoos
singing on the boughs
to the rustling of leaves
as the winds breeze past the reeds
to the water cascading down the fall
and to the streams slithering through the rocks
I hum a tune that has survived my amnesia
and that triggers a barrage of notes
and I encapsulate them
in my original compositions.
I dip my pen into the ink pot
and run it on the virgin paper
my thoughts drawing inspiration
from the vagrant clouds kissing
the mountain tops
from the wayward waves
lashing the solitary shores
from the bloodshed and mayhem
from peace and from compassion
from the tears and fears
from the mirths and cheers
and flow in consonance
to create the collage
that I call as my own.
Dilip Mohapatra (b.1950), a decorated Navy Veteran is a well acclaimed poet in contemporary English and his poems appear in many literary journals of repute and multiple anthologies worldwide. He has six poetry collections to his credit so far published by Authorspress, India. He has also authored a Career Navigation Manual for students seeking a corporate career. This book C2C nee Campus to Corporate had been a best seller in the category of Management Education. He lives with his wife in Pune, India.
Padmini rested her body against her husband in calm repose. He too was glowing with the warmth of their lovemaking. Now was the time to strike, when his defences were down, when he was open, vulnerable.
“Gautam,” she called softly.
“Hum,” his response was lazy, languid.
“You don’t notice how I look, do you? See, my neck is bare and you don’t care. All you want is your quota of love. That’s all!”
Gautam was stung to the quick. “What . . .what do you mean, my love?” He felt around her neck for the necklace and touched it. “Why, it’s here, where it belongs. Isn’t this the necklace given by your mother?”
“But it’s so thin, so cheap looking!” she moaned. “I feel ashamed to wear it before your friends, as if my husband was a pauper!”
He closed her mouth with his palm. “Don’t you say such things, my darling! You know I wouldn’t let my love suffer for anything, least of all a necklace. I love you more than anything in the world!”
“You will buy me a big necklace tomorrow then?”
“Why tomorrow, Padmini? Why not now, if the shops are open?”
She laughed and embraced him in sheer joy. “You and your silly jokes! As if we can go anywhere now, like this!” It was his turn to laugh. He embraced her then with renewed excitement.
Next day Padmini was thrilled to get a thick gold necklace. She skipped all the way to Usha’s house with the ornament around her neck. “Usha Didi, Usha Didi!” she called. “Look what I got today! Just like you said.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Usha smiled. “These men are all the same. Just give them a few drops of honey and you can merrily lick them on your fingers.”
“I did exactly as you told me,” Padmini gushed while Usha was all ears. “It was so easy! I made a tearful scene before Gautam had climbed down from his seventh heaven and presto! He promptly fell in line!” Both giggled as Padmini threw her arms around Usha. “Thank you so much, Usha Didi, for your ‘sizzling’ advice!”
“Now that you know the secret, use it to your advantage,” Usha said. “Remember, nothing comes free, not even love. You yield to him, and he yields to you. Quid pro quo. Squeeze everything from Gautam while you still have the charm. After the honey goes stale, believe me, he will hardly look at you. So make hay while the sun shines!”
“Yes, Didi, I’ll remember,” Padmini nodded and ran back home.
She couldn’t take her eyes away from the dazzling necklace reflected in the mirror as she made ready for bed. How lucky that Usha Didi had come into her life and shown her the glittering path. Every woman had the power, Usha Didi said, but only a few could utilise their full potential.
“Padmini!” Gautam called impatiently from the bed.
“Coming, darling!” She swept up to him wearing only the splendid necklace and a blush on her soft cheeks.
“It’s beautiful!” Gautam said when his glazed eyes had regained focus after making love. The necklace bobbed on the crest of her heaving chest. He touched it fondly against her glistening skin. “It looks even more beautiful on you!”
She gave a slight laugh and hugged him to her. “You naughty boy, always up to mischief! You like my beautiful neck, don’t you, but what about my arms? My wrists look so dull without decent bangles!”
“Oh, we can’t have that, can we? A bare Padmini, yes. But bare wrists? Never!” he said with a chuckle.
Padmini opened her eyes wide and punched his chest in mock anger. “There you go again with your dirty mind, you sweet rascal!” she exclaimed as they again fell on each other.
Within a couple of days, a couple of round, solid bangles of gold were encircling her wrists. They jingled as she moved around the house, especially in the kitchen. In bed they made a loud clanging noise. But she loved the bangles and the lovely noise they made when they made love. He loved them too, because she loved them, though he winced with pain every time a bangle banged against his back in lovemaking.
In no time a formidable array of jewellery adorned Padmini. She had charmed Gautam into giving her a pearl necklace as smooth as the valley it decorated, fine earrings as delicate as her earlobes, silver combs to brush back her majestic hair, silk saris to drape her gracious curves, and …
Usha had warned her that the magic wouldn’t last forever. Maybe it would have lasted longer, had not Padmini allowed her eagerness to overtake her.
“You think my nose is ugly, don't you?” she accused Gautam one night when he pinched her nose playfully.
“Oh, Padmini,” Gautam cajoled, “how can any part of you be ugly?”
“My nose doesn’t dazzle like my neck or ears or hands. How can it?”
Gautam kept mum. For some time an uncomfortable feeling had been growing in him—perhaps Padmini loved not him, but only the jewels he presented her. She wasn’t satisfied in spite of all his gifts and yearned for more and more ornaments!
“How can it dazzle,” Padmini was telling him, “without a diamond nose-stud to go with it?” And she playfully pressed his nose.
She was quite unprepared for his reaction. Gautam jerked her hand away and jumped up from the bed. “Only give, give, give!” he exploded. “Give me this, give me that! How much can a fellow give? But there’s no end to your taking, no, as if you were trading your youthful body for jewels. Like a prostitute!”
Had she heard right? Was this her Gautam speaking, the same Gautam she loved with her heart, body and soul? Did he really call her, his own wife, a prostitute? Her head went spinning.
She turned away as the tears came cascading down. But they brought no relief, only more pain. What humiliation! That cruel word kept ringing in her ear. Prostitute! With a single word her world had turned upside down. No, no woman could possibly tolerate such outrage! She could never forgive him, even if he came crawling to her on his hands and knees. Never! Her blissful life lay in tatters.
Her mind made up, she called her father next morning and told him she would reach the village by evening—alone. She would explain everything when she got there. When Usha dropped in to enquire about her latest extortion bid from Gautam, she found Padmini busy packing her suitcase. “What is this, Padmini, going somewhere?”
Padmini gave her a blow-by-blow account of the previous night. When she came to the word ‘prostitute’, she literally choked on her tears. “How can I stay with him now, Usha Didi?”
Usha shook her head sadly. “Don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill, my dear,” she counselled. “Just when your car was tuned and all set to take off, why do you want to dump it all just because a stupid fuse went off? You repair the fuse and move on, Padmini. See, already you have your jewellery and saris. Next he’d give you a big TV, music system, bone china dinner set and, who knows, even take you on a luxury cruise! Don’t throw everything away on a silly whim. So what if he blew his top? It happens, occasionally. You will see, he will come around and fall at your feet. Then you can make an even bigger kill!”
Padmini glared at her. Usha Didi’s ‘great’ idea had landed her in this mess in the first place. Now she was advising her to make capital out of her shame! What a sham! Her sermons no longer charmed Padmini. Enough was enough. She snapped her suitcase shut and asked the servant to call a rickshaw. Usha Didi, cold-shouldered by Padmini, made a hurried exit. On her way out she met Gautam and enlightened him.
An anxious Gautam barged into Padmini’s room. “What is this, Padmini?” he posed. “Why are you going away?”
“I’m going back to my father,” her answer was curt.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“But why so suddenly and without telling me? If it’s because of last night, Padmini, I am sorry, I really am.”
She remained unmoved. “All your jewellery is in the almirah and here are the keys.” She threw them on the bed and walked out of the house with the suitcase, her nostrils flaring.
On the bus journey, the beauty of the lush green countryside was lost on Padmini. She was immersed in her own misery. Her inner turmoil kept flowing over, sending tears tumbling down her cheeks. She missed her Gautam terribly—and their terrific lovemaking! How she yearned to rush back into his loving arms. But then recollection of the fateful word ‘prostitute’ rendered her heart numb.
Eyebrows went up when villagers saw Padmini get down from the bus, without Gautam. Why had he not come? Was she in the family way? Her mother gave out that Gautam was too busy in his work, though her motherly instinct told her that her daughter had had a terrible fight. Padmini refused to reveal, even to her mother, the gravity of Gautam’s ‘crime’. Soon everyone gave up asking her and her parents too decided that ‘time’ would be the best healer.
Days rolled by, then a month. Still Padmini remained morose. She showed no intention of going back to Gautam. His letters to her remained unanswered, unread even! Her parents started fidgeting. How long could they put up with such an impasse? How could they persuade Gautam to come and ‘collect’ his wife? In despair they sought the services of Suresh, Padmini’s cousin and the family trouble-shooter. He was assigned the delicate mission of persuading Gautam for a rapprochement.
Suresh was away for four days, four uneasy days for Padmini’s parents. When he returned, Padmini’s mother literally smothered him with a fusillade of queries. But Suresh had little to offer. “Gautam says he is ready to come for Padmini. Only if she is keen to go back with him. No forcing her. He wants an assurance that he won’t have to go back empty-handed.”
“Never!” shouted Padmini from behind the door.
“But why, dear, why?” her anxious mother pleaded with Padmini. Whispers in the village had turned to murmurs when it was clear that Padmini was not expecting, nor was she going back to her husband soon—may be never for that matter!
“You won’t look at his face too, mother, if you knew how he treated me!” Padmini hissed.
“How did he treat you, my love? How can I help you unless you tell me everything?” But Padmini went into her room and slammed the door.
When everyone else left, sorely disappointed, Suresh knocked on Padmini’s door.
“Who is it?” Padmini barked from inside.
“It’s me, Suresh. I have a message for you from Gautam.”
He heard Padmini’s rapid footsteps approaching the door, her anklets tinkling impatiently, and when she opened the door, the longing in her eyes was so eloquent. But it was only for a brief second, before her stern countenance came back. “What is it, Suresh Bhaya?” she snapped at him.
Suresh cleared his throat. “I don’t know how to tell you, dear sister. I wish my tongue had been taken out!” He paused for effect.
Curiosity was torturing her. “Please, Suresh Bhaya, tell me, no?” When he still hesitated, she pulled him inside and closed the door. “Now you can tell me. No one can hear us.”
“Well, Gautam never told me himself,” he began. “But I got an inkling, you see, from his behaviour and activities.” Again he stopped for effect.
“Yes?” the anxiety in Padmini's voice was palpable.
“I mean, it seemed to me he wasn’t very keen on taking you back.”
She gasped.
“He’s quite carefree, if you know what I mean,” Suresh continued, “and enjoying life, he says. A friend of his, Ajay you know, told me that Gautam regularly goes to…”
“Yes?” Padmini was ready to explode.
“To prostitutes! There! Oh, God, why did I have to say it?”
Padmini gave another gasp and put her hand to her mouth.
“Of course, that’s what Ajay told me. Ajay, you know, Gautam’s friend.” Then Suresh went on to elaborate, “Gautam seems to have remarked to Ajay one day, ‘If I can’t have one prostitute, let me have many!’ Hai, hai. What could I do with such a wretched fellow?”
“How dare he?” Padmini wheezed. “How dare he do this to me?”
“Calm down, sister dear, calm down. It is only you who have driven him to it,” Suresh countered.
“You need not take up a depraved man’s cause, Suresh Bhaya!” she snubbed him.
“Sorry, sorry,” he raised his hands. “I thought I would just let you know, for your own good, before you lose him for good.” He left Padmini in a state of shock.
Next day the entire household was abuzz like a beehive. Padmini’s mother was in a state of bewildered excitement, while her father kept smiling. Padmini had told her mother she was now ready to go back to Gautam! On her own, without his coming to fetch her. As strange a decision as her earlier one that had brought her to the village. Oh, but women would be women, everyone said.
Though Padmini was willing to return alone, her parents would have none of it. What would people say? So Suresh was asked to accompany her on the return journey to the town. Again Padmini was oblivious of the splendid greenery around her, though for a different reason. Her concern had shifted from herself to him, her anxiety multiplying from one prostitute to many! Was Gautam lost to her forever? What if he contracted VD or AIDS? Hai, Ram!
It was late evening by the time Suresh and Padmini reached Gautam’s house and were let in by the servant. The latter was evasive about where his master had gone. A jittery Padmini waited for her husband in a state of agitation, while Suresh dozed off on the sofa. She ambled into the kitchen, once her sole preserve. Well, still the mistress of the house, wasn’t she? There, among her familiar pots and pans, she sought to quieten her nerves which jingled as loud as her anklets with her restless movements. She didn’t notice that Gautam had come in till he was almost upon her. Abruptly the tinkle of her feet stopped.
“So you have come back, Padmini?” he asked simply. “I missed you so much!”
How heavenly to hear his voice after many days! But no, she must steel herself. It would be sacrilegious to be soft with him, knowing his newly acquired philandering ways. She had to be full of loathing for him!
“Really?” she quipped sarcastically, avoiding a glance in his direction. “I heard you had no need of me, what with a whole harem to play with!”
“What harem? What are you talking about?”
“Oh,” she turned to look at his gentle eyes for the first time. “Pretending to be innocent, eh? Still trying to fool me?”
“Believe me, Padmini, I have never tried to cheat you.” He tried to grab her hand.
She shook it off. “Don’t you dare touch me with your filthy hands that have caressed the bodies of prostitutes!”
Suddenly Gautam burst out laughing. Padmini looked on speechless. “Prostitutes, ha, ha, ho, ho!” he roared. “My dear, I can’t hold on to even one prostitute at home. Do you really expect I could handle a horde of them?”
Padmini was confused. What was Gautam blabbering about? She rushed up to her cousin. “Suresh Bhaya, Suresh Bhaya,” she shook him awake. “What was that you were telling me about Gautam visiting prostitutes?”
“I didn’t say anything, my little sister,” Suresh replied, rubbing his eyes. “That was what Ajay told me. Ajay, you know, Gautam’s friend.”
Gautam was still laughing. Gently he put his hand on her shoulder. “Believe me, Padmini, there are no prostitutes. There was never even one! I’m so sorry I called you that. I feel ashamed for losing my temper. After that, you wouldn’t listen to me, even though I wrote to you again and again, so great was your anger. When Suresh Bhaya came, I told him everything and it was he who suggested this little trick. At first I was dead against it. You see, you were already cheesed off by the word ‘prostitute’. So I could imagine how you would hate me for visiting a number of them. Why, I could lose you forever! I was scared of losing you, I really was.” He squeezed her shoulder ever so slightly.
“But Suresh Bhaya explained to me,” Gautam continued, “that if you truly cared for me, you’d come rushing to save me from my ‘hell’. And if you didn’t love me enough to do that, well, it was no use waiting and hoping. Better to call it quits. I finally agreed and we put Suresh Bhaya’s idea to the test.”
A nonplussed Padmini looked from one to the other. Suresh gave her a benign smile. Her eyes were clouding over with emotion. She seemed to be on the point of breaking down. Suresh excused himself, saying that he had to go for his bath.
Gautam started caressing her fingers. “You can’t imagine, Padmini, what it has been like after you left, how lonely and hollow my existence. Each day was like a decade spent in a desert. And when Suresh Bhaya left yesterday with our plan, I died a thousand deaths from anxiety. I imagined your flying back to me like a homing pigeon; then I realised that the pigeon existed only in my fancy, created by my intense desire for you. I went out to cool my nerves, instead of waiting for you in this empty house with an empty heart. When I returned and heard the tinkling of your charming feet just outside the window, I could have broken down the front door in one stroke!”
Padmini’s tears were flowing freely now. When Gautam embraced her in his arms, she did not resist. They remained like that for a long, long time. “Who is this friend of yours, Ajay?” she asked him. “How is it that I don’t know him? I would certainly like to give him a piece of my mind!”
“Who? Ajay? Oh, Ajay!” Gautam again went into peals of laughter.
“You mean, Ajay too is Suresh Bhaya’s invention?”
He nodded sheepishly. Padmini was about to recharge her indignation before she changed her mind. Instead, she smiled and, wiping her tears with the end of her sari, went into the kitchen to serve dinner.
After seeing that Suresh Bhaya was comfortably settled for the night on the sofa, Gautam came into the bedroom. Padmini was already in bed, a blanket covering her up to the neck. The soft bedside lamp lit up her pretty face. Quickly Gautam undressed and joined her under the blanket. Instantly he found she had nothing on! She too had shed her clothes, ready to satisfy their mutual craving pent up for so long. His hand roamed over her like a metal detector. But it encountered no metal, only flesh. His fingers touched bare neck, bare wrists, bare ears and loose hair. The anklets on her feet had disappeared too. Not a single piece of jewellery adorned her body! She was completely bare, like a rare gift of nature.
“Why, my love,” he enquired in alarm, “what happened to all your ornaments?”
She smiled wanly. “I hate ornaments! Never again will they come between us, Gautam. I want you to accept me as I am, without any false embellishment!”
“Oh, my Padmini, sweet Padmini!” Gautam gathered her to him. She looked so tender, so heavenly, in the soft light. “You know,” he whispered in her ear, “your beauty is most radiant now—with our love as the sole adornment!” She gave him a beaming smile.
“Love needs no decking up. Only making up!” he whispered. Her lips parted in agreement as her limbs melted eagerly into his.
Ishwar Pati - After completing his M.A. in Economics from Ravenshaw College, Cuttack, standing First Class First with record marks, he moved into a career in the State Bank of India in 1971. For more than 37 years he served the Bank at various places, including at London, before retiring as Dy General Manager in 2008. Although his first story appeared in Imprint in 1976, his literary contribution has mainly been to newspapers like The Times of India, The Statesman and The New Indian Express as ‘middles’ since 2001. He says he gets a glow of satisfaction when his articles make the readers smile or move them to tears.
The maid saw it first and it was only she who saw the thing slithering into the house through the front door which she had left open. She had swept out the inside of the house and now she was working on the front yard when by luck she saw a busy movement along the doorway. But alas, by the time she could realize that it was indeed a snake, it had already crept into the house. She cried out loud to the inmates in the house about the snake which had crawled inside. Her screams made Eley, the lady of the house running out of the house. It took a while for the alarmed house maid to make the panic-stricken Eley understand about the intruder which was now lurking inside the house.
Eley’s husband was out of the town for a few days but her son Rejoy was inside. Both the ladies were frightened to go back into the house. They shouted and called out by his name but to no avail. He couldn’t hear them because he was in his own world inside the house, locked up in his own room, living his life digitally. Finally it was the maid who thought of a way Both the ladies ran towards the window of Rejoy’s room which was at the right side of the house. They banged on his window continuously till Rejoy opened the window rudely to know what the yelling was all about. But as soon as the danger was explained to Rejoy, he too leapt out of the house through the back door of the house.
Neighbours of Eley immediately gathered around the house and from them three of the brave males took it upon themselves the job of trying to find out the snake. One took an old cricket bat , the second one took a mop stick while the third one cut a stout branch from the nearby tree. Then they slowly got into the house tip toeing as a covert team. Their ploy was to take each and every furniture inside the house outside onto the front yard one by one after a careful inspection. Two of them would do the inspection of the furniture while the third man will keep an eye on the surroundings. Then all the three would take that furniture or whatever it was outside the house. The three guys exactly did that and slowly one by one all the household items, big and small, came outside the house from its position where it was kept for years.
Rejoy watched the pandemonium for some time. He looked up at the sun, thinking for how long he hadn’t seen this natural day light and the sun made him blink his eyes. It was after a very long time that he received a glare back from the sun. He looked around and he realized that their front yard garden had a good collection of flowering plants and many were blooming in the morning sun. The mango tree which he had planted himself when he was small child was laden with ripe yellow mangoes and the mulberries were waiting to be picked to ruddy the fingers of those who plucked it. A crow perched on the roof top and another bird flew past the chimney. The hibiscus flowers were seducing the butterflies to carry their pollen grains all around and the gentle breeze swished across every tree, bush and grass air-conditioning the nature around. He stood seeing these things as if it was the first time in his life that he was experiencing them. Of course, it was not for the first time, but certainly it was after a very long time.
Rejoy got too much detached from his immediate surroundings as the digital gadgets captured him. They held him up in his own room providing a digital world on his finger tips. The digitalized applications turned out to be his e-environment. He pursued his studies online once he finished his high school since he got preoccupied with the online life and got trapped in the web during his vacation. To relax he chatted with new online friends and he had games, movies or web series to entertain him. At a mere click he saw the geographical and architectural beauty of the world and he kept track of all the news and informations around. To eat all he required was some pasta or burger to fill his stomach along with some aerated drinks and he ordered it online which was delivered to him quicker than his mother's own cooking in the kitchen. His parents tried to bring him out to the real world when they understood that they were losing their son to some other alien world right under their nose. The harder they tried, more adamant he became. The most he would do for them was to come up to the living room when some close relatives came to visit them.
But today he was forced to move out of his webbed room. He sat on a small piece of rock which was there in the front garden and from there he was viewing the world like a prisoner who was now free after being condemned to the dungeons, slowly realizing and counting what all he missed these days. He wondered what made him sit in that room all the time in this period when the real world was beaming with happiness just outside his window. He felt humble and happy when his neighbours came asking about his well being and health. Those were real enquires out of love and concern and not the protocol like “hi” and “how are you” from his social medium friends. One of the elder neighbors took him to her house and gave him a cup of hot tea and samosa.
As for the three men who went in adventurously into the house, well, they did their job with all chivalry till they found the snake under the computer table in Rejoy’s room. They had cleared out all the things in Rejoy’s room including all the digital and electronic things that had wired him to the room and it was on the last piece that they found the snake. It was entangled inside the central processing unit and the men with the cricket bat and the sticks had nothing more to think about. They thrashed the CPU and then they gave powerful blows on the triangular head of the snake.
The operation was over. The house was cleared of all the things. Now it was up to those who lived in the house to throw out all the dusty and rusty old things and take in only those were actually needed. An opportunity was here to refresh, restart and rearrange the things required to live.
Seeing all the things which he treasured lyng scattered in front of him made Rejoy feel a bit pathetic. Were these the weird things that wired him, making him believe in a false virtual world? He was lucky to realize his blunder. He could rejoice now.
Dr. Nikhil M Kurien is a professor in maxillofacial surgery working in a reputed dental college in Trivandrum. He has published 2 books. A novel , "the scarecrow" in 2002 and "miracle mix - a repository of poems" in 2016 under the pen name of nmk. Dr. Kurien welcomes readers' feedback on his email - nikhilmkurien@gmail.com.
A LOVING, CARING AND FATHER-LIKE AFFECTIONATE PRINCIPAL - DR. MAYADHARA MANSINGH
Stretched over a period of 35 years in the long journey as a college teacher, I have served in half-a-dozen of government colleges of repute and excellence and worked with nearly a dozen principals endowed with scholastic excellence, appealing personality with touch of love and affection, long standing experience in teaching and affluent administrative capability.
In this column I would like to share with my readers my experience of a loving,caring and father-like affectionate principal - Dr.Mayadhara Mansingh, an eminet poet, an enlightened educationist, and an able administrator who was my principal of the then Utkal University managed evening college at Berhampur where I joined as a lecturer in political science on 31st Jan 1966 and had the pleasant experience of working as his colleague.
My worries multiplied when I came to learn on 3rd May,1966 that my salary cheque for the last 3 months had not reached the principal's office for disbursement before the college closed for Summer Vacation.
My purse had been severly depleted and I was left with only a paltry amount of Rs.50. My colleagues advised me to meet the principal with a request to him to solve my problem.
Accordingly I met the principal Dr. Mansingh the next morning at 8:00 AM at his residence. As I reached the door step of the principal's residence a melodious voice welcomed me, "What brought this young man early in the morning to my residence?".
I occupied a seat next to the principal and shared with him a steaming cup of tea. I narrated my problem to him with an humble request to bail me out of my problem. He gave me a patient hearing and advised me to meet him in his office at 10:30 AM that day.
Accordingly I met him in his office in time and took my seat infront of him. He sent for DharmaRaju the college cashier of Khallikote College Berhampur, of which Dr.Mansingh was also the principal. As DharmaRaju arrived,the principal asked him to pay me a cash advance of Rs.200 to be adjusted against my arrear salary.
To our surprise, DharmaRaju politely declined to oblige the principal's request on the plea that the O.G.F.R states that no cash advance shall be paid to an employee of an establishment other than the one which he serves.
The principal got a shock at the unexpected reply of the cashier. He did not get angry, but he asked DharmaRaju to give him a cash advance of Rs.200 and get it adjusted from his current month's salary. DharmaRaju went back to office and returned within minutes with Rs.200 and handed over the amount to the principal. The principal received the amount and paid to me, to the surprise of DharmaRaju.
There after the principal told DharmaRaju, "Steal-frame rules are made for the smooth transaction of government's business, and to regulate the conduct of government officials and also to prevent them to overstep the peripheral limitations of law. However the rigidity of the steal-framed rules can be loosened under two specified conditions
(a) Situational priorities and to make choice between 'hard and soft option'.(b) Authority's discretion based on his individual judgment, wisdom and wit and with no fear or favour or malice to none".
The principal appeared to be very happy and pleased with his decision. Thereafter we dispersed, each satisfied in his own line of action.
The principal immediately rang up the Registrar of Utkal University to ensure that my salary cheque reaches his office as soon as possible. I came to learn that the cheque arrived his office in two day's time.
I gratefully expressed my sincerest gratitude to the caring, loving and father like affectionate principal, Dr.Mansingh.
For a quite long time I did not get an opportunity to examine the authenticity of the aforesaid two elements of Public Administration as suggested by the principal Dr.Mansingh.
It was 25 years later in 1990 I got this opportunity while I was working as the principal of a non government college on depudation when one day a file was placed before me with two applications, one by the college accountant and another by a laboratory demonstrator, both praying for a cash advance of Rs.5000 each from the college. The college accountant needed the money to observe his deceased mother's funeral rites and the laboratory demonstrator for son's sacred thread ceremony against their GPF loan amount. Both met me personally to sanction the loan amount at a time and left me in a fix. At this moment I recollected Dr. Mansingh's advice and sanctioned the loan amount of the accountant and asked the laboratory demonstrator to wait for sometime as the sacred thread ceremony was not urgent.
This did not satisfy the laboratory demonstrator and he agitated the matter before the collector who happened to be president of the college Governing Body. The collector asked me over a phone to explain him the whole situation which I did honestly but the collector did not appear satisfed. He asked me to sanction the loan amount of the laboratory demonstrator as a special case (underline special case) which I did with much reluctance.
I once again thanked my former principal Dr.Mansingh for his advice given 25 years ago in sticking to my decision choosing between a 'hard option' and 'soft option' on the basics of "situational priorities."
Dr. Baishnab Charan Das is an eminent educationist of Odisha. After teaching in various colleges for more than thirty six years, he retired as Reader and Head of the Department of Political Science from Ravenshaw College, Cuttack in 2002. He had also served as Principal in two colleges at Athgarh and Badsmba. A Life Member of Odisha Political Science Association and Indian Institute of Public Administration he has published three text books and numerous articles in reputed journals as well as newspapers. A teacher par excellence, he is remembered by his students for his erudite scholarliness and eloquent lectures.
It was a pleasant afternoon. The sky was clear, birds were flying high forming a beautiful design, and I was driving fast on an empty straight road. No one was there to race with me. The cool air hit my face, making me delighted. I just peered through the window at both sides of the lonely road. Gradually, the loneliness pinched me, pushed me to think absurd things! Suddenly I noticed a small house a little distance away from the side lane. I wondered, how come there was only one house in that vast locality!
I turned my car towards the house. I don't know, why my intuition beckoned me to know more about the residents. I parked my car outside of the small fenced house. A quick grasp was enough for me to admire the sense of planned construction of the landlord. I gazed around, then gently knocked at the door, ‘Hello, anybody there?’
No answer came from inside. Two, three times I tried, then a feeble voice responded, ‘Come in please.’
I helped myself to open the door. I had been waiting for more than five minutes, and I was eager to meet the inmates. I entered the house. It was beautiful but one thing was lacking - human presence! Few seconds later, an old lady holding a saucepan, hobbled around the kitchen room said, ‘Please be seated there, son! I am coming.’
I took a seat on the four seater sofa, waiting for the lady to come. She came out from the kitchen room, put a plate on the dining table. Full make up was applied on her face to hide the wrinkles, yet it was visible. Two side clips were put nicely to tie her short curly hair. A thin platinum chain with a dazzling diamond pendant was hanging on her neck. She was looking decent, reminding one of her beauty at her young age. Only her physical fitness was hampered with the hobbling walks.
With a smiling face she greeted me, sitting on the seat on my side. She asked me, ‘So, you are new to this place, right?’
‘Yeah! I went to my aunt’s house, she lives in another town. While coming back, I felt a little tired. When I noticed this house, I thought of giving a break to my long driving and relax a bit.’
‘That’s good, son! Want some coffee?’
I was in two minds for a moment because of her walk, but then agreed.
Few minutes later, she put two coffee mugs on the teapoy.
‘Thanks!’ I continued sipping my coffee, ‘nobody else is there?’
‘Um..no..they were there but not now,’ she sighed.
‘They, you mean your children?’
‘Yes, my family members.’
‘I am sorry! I think I have disturbed your work,’ I apologised.
She shook her head back and forth, then smiled at me. We both remained silent for next few seconds. I felt a little awkward as the silence lingered.
I cleared my throat said, ‘So, ma’am, I think your family members may be on the way. Sorry for disturbing your work. Let me go now. Thanks for the wonderful coffee!’
She leaned forward and squeezed my hand, assured me that there was no problem and she intended me to meet her family. I could notice her eagerness to tell me something about her children. So, I had no choice but obeyed her request.
Out of courtesy, I questioned, ‘Where have they gone? A long journey?’
She took a deep breath and said, ‘Yeah! A long journey, boy! My grandchildren had their vacation. So, they all decided to go for a white water rafting in Ladakh. Six days, they roamed around the place, enjoyed the amazing sites of Himalaya, and they loved that place! Every single snap they took they sent to me. I was overwhelmed with joy, seeing the beauty of Ladakh. But the day when they did the rafting, that was the last day of their life! The boat leaked somewhere and dashed into a huge rock! My son, daughter-in-law and two children, they all got severe injury. Eventually they got buried under the water. Nobody could save their life! I was shocked but couldn't do anything! Later, they used to come during this time. We happily pass our time together. Abruptly the old lady gestured me, ‘shhh…wait, they must be coming.’
‘What? What did you say?’ I burst out. First, I was confused! I couldn't understand what she said. I was stunned with her statement! Then, I thought that maybe because of her severe loss, she has lost her memory and she was babbling or she might have developed Alzheimer's disease. However, I felt uneasy as the time passed. I was not sure whether I should show my sympathy for her loss or I should run away from that deadly place!
She tried to reveal something, but the noise outside of the gate, took our attention towards the door. Two adults with three children with a lot of things, rushed through the door laughing, talking loudly. They all looked at me. Instantly, I stood on my toes with frayed nerves. I was so scared, I could barely utter a word. The old lady’s son rushed towards me, shook my hand promptly, gesturing me to sit there. He genuinely showed a warm welcome to me!
I stuttered, ‘Hi!’
He grinned, in response said , ‘Hi! First time to this place?’
By that time, I could smell the foulness of my sweating, my heart was beating violently, and I could hear nothing but the loud thump of my heart! I stammered ‘yes’ and tried to slip out and run. All on a sudden, the light went off, the room was filled with total darkness! I screamed aloud, ‘Ma’am, please light the candle. I feel suffocated, please let me go!’
There was no answer! I screamed again, ‘Hello! Please switch on the light!’
In that darkness, I ran for my life blindly and dashed somewhere on a hard surface. I guessed it was probably the wall of that room. I leaned on the wall, and moved forward. At last I got the door knob! I was so terrified that I failed twice to open the door. In the third trial, I opened it.
Outside the light was diminished too. I ran to my car, with shaking hand turned the key and in fullest speed drove the car away from that place. I dared not look back but from the rear view mirror, still I could see that house! I felt as if a dead man was driving the car!
One hour later, I reached at my home town. When I explained everything to my mom, she was terrified! She said, ‘Maybe it is that ‘haunted house’! I read about it few months back in the news paper. That old lady also died in heart attack after getting the heartbreaking news of the accident. But I never thought that my own son would be trapped in that haunted house!!!’
When I heard this from mom, I was speechless!"
Ms. Anjali Mahapatra is a retired teacher from Mumbai who taught Mathematics and Science to students in Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Lucknow and Mumbai for more than thirty years. She took to writing after her retirement and has penned close to a hundred stories so far. Her stories have appeared in Sunnyskyz and other magazines. Two of her collection of short stories, 'An Amazing Letter to Me and Other Stories' and 'Granny Tales' have been published in Kindle Unlimited.
THE TALE OF DARKNESS AND LIGHT
Let’s take a moment to listen,
To the tale of darkness and light,
When once upon a time, they were not dual and distinguished..
They were, but one single form,
Whose charisma surpassed a million times more, than what they now possess as two.
The blend of darkness and light, an exquisite manifestation of natural phenomena..
Until it was cast an evil eye, an envious glare, To which it reacted, unaware...
Soon arose between them the perception, 'You and I', That then progressed to 'yours and mine'.
All this pride made way to separation,
Both left their ways to two extremes, where vanished the last grain of affection...
But hurt them it did,
So much that one chose to express the pain, in silence and seclusion..
While the other, choosing to burn it away, like fire...
Time passed by,
And nature joined hands to make them reunite...
She assigned to us humans and all her fragments, This duty so they may once again harmonize..
To carry with us, this power,
That attracts darkness to us, when faced with light..
We call it by the names, a 'shadow or silhouette'
To play a mediator, to see if they just might.
But all these years, it has been in vain...
But we continue again and again, while bearing this doubt:
Is it shyness or pure hate,
That makes them stay apart to this date..?
Sharanya Bee, is a young poet from Trivandrum, who is presently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature in Kerala University. She also has a professional background of working as a Creative Intern in Advertising. She is passionate about Drawing and Creative Writing.
(An autobiography of a pet)
Narayanan Ramakrishnan
It happened every year around this time. All of them would pack off leaving me in the care of a local hand, who fed me, took me around and after playing with me for some time locked me up in my kennel. In the evening they would all return and feed me with all kinds of sweet delicacies, but the one I liked the most was the one that was rolled in sweet smelling boiled leaves.
I have been with this family for the last seven or eight years. Before that I was with another family who spoke a different language. So when they left, they handed me over to my present owners. They hugged me, kissed me and showered a lot of love before parting. I too missed them a lot. Slowly I got accustomed to the new surroundings and the people. I also began to love them. At that time I was hardly two years old.
I used to be at their beck and call whenever they called “Ruby…” A young boy was my toast and we played whenever he was free. You know I had no school or tuition home to go or to be engaged in studies as Praveen used to. They called me by name only and I was in the dark about my zoological ‘title’ for a four-legged one as me. They called a smaller creature, four-legged like me, the sight of which infuriated me, as ‘poocha’ (cat).
I faintly recall the day when a friend of the family on his visit mentioned me by the vocabulary that goes with it. He was immediately corrected. “She is Ruby. Nothing short of that”. Whenever the cacophony of barking noise erupted in our vicinity, Praveen used to blame it on ‘stray dogs’. I thought I was not one who belonged to that specie, though I too sounded very much the same. So my natural identity again escaped me. But slowly I realized the truth.
The household was a spacious one, with a nice garden and ample space for people who visited the house for some purpose or the other. During these times, I was tethered to kennel and if I barked at visitors, would be soon put inside and locked. I don’t know why or for what purpose people queued up in the evening. Of every three, one used to be in some kind of pain or distress. Some used to cry uncontrollably. That exercise began at 4’o clock in the evening and wound up by 9.
They had a very busy schedule. They were all active by 5 am. Busy as a bee, my master threw his arm up and down, turned and twisted his body and then watered the garden, joined by Praveen’s mother. After sometime, Praveen came out with his school bag on his back and sat inside, something what they called as ‘car’ and a man too joined him and they moved out and then I stood wagging my tail till the car vanished from my eyes.
Two old people, parents of my master soon appeared at the veranda, sipping a hot cup of a liquid, which they pour into a small dish for me to take a sip. You know we species can’t suck, we can only lick. They smoothly ran their hands and rubbed on the region below my neck and I stood unmoved, enjoying that.
I used to go for a walk along with my master for half an hour during which I finished my ablutions and soon reached home. Then I was served my breakfast. I simply loved it and yearned for more and I produced a whining noise that my masters understood. Heavenly lunch and the uninterrupted supply of delicacies made me feel how fortunate I had been when compared to my fellow-species who roamed and barked in the open; a pampered life indeed for me.
I remember that day, when Praveen’s leg got entangled between the planks of wooden pieces in a wooden ‘something’ they called ‘kasera’ (chair) and he was writhing in pain. My masters were inside. How he got entangled, I had no idea. I began to bark wildly. Nobody responded. I ran inside, barked at my master’s face and he immediately understood something was amiss and followed me to find his son in all sorts of troubles and crying for help. With some tools in hand which he used for gardening, Praveen was released and I whined in exultation. I was hugged, kissed, embraced and what not, by one and all.
One or two of my specie were trying to lure me outside. I too longed to go out and enjoy but the belt around my neck and the chain attached to it tethered me and restricted my movement. My body too desired something eternal, which were denied. I had seen through the gaps of the grilled gate, my fellow-beings engaged in love acts and I missed the action.
During hot days, I was taken inside the house and allowed to enjoy the cool interiors. What made the room so cool I had no clue, but the difference was to be felt to be understood. I also wondered why many of my specie were left wandering and why I was chained but cared for.
Once in every two days, I was given a lavish bath with a foaming liquid that kept my bushy exterior clean and sweet smelling. Sometimes, I joined them in the car, sat near the rear glass window and enjoyed the moving change of scene that happened rapidly.
Then suddenly, one morning, I found a sudden activity in the house and many people had gathered. Many were unfamiliar faces. Praveen locked me inside and told me, (“Appoppan marichu poyi ”) “Grandpa passed away”, very sadly. I could not comprehend, what was passing away?
Soon there was a crowd. I could hear Praveen’s grandma’s heart-breaking sobs. A big ‘car’ pulled up. Something was going on in between. Then I saw people carrying the body and entering the ‘big car’. Soon it vanished and people too disbursed.
Next day morning onwards, Appopan was not seen in the veranda. My master had temporarily cancelled his daily routines; I too remained inside the compound for a number of days. Many new faces came and went. A temporary shed was erected. So many things, I could not comprehend were happening. Normalcy soon returned after some days.
Now grandma, alone, sat in the veranda in the morning. I went near her and she poured a little of the liquid into the dish. (“Appopan poyi ketto, Ruby”) “Ruby, Grandpa has gone. I am now alone”. She told me. I, as usual whined which she understood. “Kuruchu nall kazhiyumbol njanumpokum ( In some days, I too will be gone)”, she rued.
Days passed. Soon I could hear some arguments inside the house. My master, Praveen’s mother and grandma were engaged in heated arguments. As my entitlements were regular, I continued, unaffected.
It started raining. The season had changed. The smell emitted by the sand was so pleasant. Even I could feel it. I thought of my master’s daily chores after gardening and morning walk. Sitting on the veranda, sipping coffee, with something placed on his nose tips that were perched on both sides of his ears, he got immersed in a white sheet which to me appeared as blackpatches, at a distance. He threw that in a huff, when some jingling was heard, then he was seen speaking to somebody, holding something close to his ears. Sometimes he gave a guffaw and sometimes he was rude. This applied to the other two, also. In the evening all the four relaxed in front of ‘something’ that gave colorful output, which showed many of my species and also other big and small four legged and two-legged creatures. I too sat in a corner and got a share of crispy and salty chips. In short, they always kept their eyes and mouth busy. I had no complaints, as I also got a share of whatever they chew.
Then one evening I heard a loud cry. I knew it was Grandma. I also heard Praveen’s mother shouting at her. Soon my master and Praveen joined the fray. I was at a loss to know what was going on. Next day morning, I saw the old woman still weeping. She was lost in thought. I slowly went to her wagging my tail. “Ruby, they will throw me out soon”. I stood still looking at her and only whined.
Internal bickerings were now more vocal and a new ‘normal’. Nowadays even Praveen’s voice could be heard. I wondered how the death of one person could change the atmosphere so rapidly. It slowly began to impact me, too. I had to bark to get my food or water. I was given bath now less frequently. I could feel the odor in my body. Care was lessening and rarely would I be taken inside the house. I showed my state of mind, lying close to the floor, stretched out; my face lowered between my fore-legs and acknowledged a call only after two or more repeats.
Then the dreadful day arrived. Grandma was seen packing and preparing to go somewhere. Soon my master, Praveen and his mother too appeared and they all put things inside their car and all of them drove off. As I was tethered, I could not go near but only barked. They did not make any arrangements for me. I thought they will be back soon. I was feeling thirsty. No water was available nearby. I barked and barked vehemently but to no avail. Hunger too galloped inside me. I was all at sea. Left with no alternative, I almost swooned. Then I heard the sound of car coming in. Everybody except grandma alighted. Praveen rushed to me and asked, “Ruby, how are you?”. I growled in agony. My master asked Praveen to give me water and food. I ate as if I had not seen food for ten days. I showed my disapproval of their neglect by remaining motionless and silent and my body stretched out. But nobody cared.
Slowly it had a telling impact on my body. I had to suffer itching all over my body. Slowly it began to spread, resulting in some reddish patches here and there. It was too irritating that I used to rotate and bite the tail end of my body to beat the itch. Some medications were applied by my master, which was initially bit harsh on me but soothed me later. Days rolled on.
My movements began to slow down. Age was catching up. I could feel it in my body and limbs. One day my Master remarked, “Praveen, Ruby is getting older. We have to find a way out.” I didn’t read much into it. Just like change of season, everything changed for me, overnight.
Then one morning I was taken for a walk, given lavish bath and a variety of food was given to me apart from fruits and nuts. What more can a four-legged specie desire, ask for, or dream of! Praveen hugged and kissed me and tears rolled on his cheeks for unknown reasons. That night, after a sumptuous supper, I was tethered and a cloth-sheet was spread for me to lie and sleep. “May I remove the belt tomorrow morning?” asked Praveen to which my master said, “Let that remain”. I had no idea what was going on in their thoughts. I was in deep slumber, soon.
**************
Sun on my face, I opened my eyes in totally different surroundings. I had never slept like that before. On my knees, I turned my eyes all round, everything had undergone a change, while I slept. I ran hither-thither. I yearned for somebody to call me ‘Ruby…. Ruby’. Everything was new. I can’t find my kennel, my house, car, my master, Praveen, where was I? I was bewildered. I barked, howled, grunted but to no avail. People were moving around briskly, walking, in cars, big cars and various modes and the noise produced by these ‘cars’ made me more uncomfortable.
Soon I could hear a cacophony of barks from nearby and five or six, like me were charging towards me. I ran for my life. I found a shelter behind a wall and was out of sight of my new enemies. When everything was silent, I moved out to look for my home, all in vain. Thirst and hunger began to haunt me. I had no idea where to look for food and water.
I heard a remark, “One more thrown to the streets by some bastards. See the belt around its neck”.
“Why these people pamper them and then throw?”, remarked another. I could follow and make out what had happened to me. One man threw a fried snack, with a hole in the middle to me. It was soiled. I smelt and rejected it. I wanted water, ran madly for that colorless liquid, barked. Nobody understood. There were some onlookers who understood my plight. They gave a cup of water in a mug. I licked it to the last drop. I was given more. My thirst knew no bounds. I was satiated for the time being. Then hunger erupted. I wondered what wrong had I committed to deserve such a calamity. I had no answers. Then I understood the truth. I was only a dog by name Ruby. I was now called ‘patti’.
I saw my ‘kind’ dragging food materials from a mount nearby and gobbling up fast. Soon two or three joined. There ensued a fight. The stronger of all drove all the weak ones away. Unaccustomed to these I stood watching and hoping that I will be served by somebody, but in vain. With hunger blinding me, I slowly walked towards the mount, to make a search. Soon the bully, surreptitiously hiding somewhere nearby, jumped on to me. I ran for my life.
Hunger demanded a change in my attitude. Wherever there were small pile ups I began to search. I got all soiled and smelly. But I had to live with it. There were houses, from the inside of which, I could hear the barking of some of my species. Just a day back I too was like that. Now roads and street corners had become my shelter. A shop owner daily gave me a fruit which I had initially rejected now I accepted with glee and promptly presented before him first thing in the morning.
An old man who always lived and slept on the road took pity on me and always shared his food with me. Now he was my master. The sight of him made me happy and he protected me from other bullies. He remarked one day, “veettil kittiyathonnum evide kittila. Avide kittathathu palathumninakku evide kittum. (You will not get anything that you got at home and you will get from here something you never got at home.)”
I was pelted by some. Barked at, driven by fellow beings. I had not taken bath for the last so many days. The good food, water, my master and Praveen were nowhere. My body began to smell, I could feel it. My outer hair coat was becoming sticky day by day, but I had to endure. I slept near the old man who had a bad smell. I got accustomed to that. He was my pillar of strength and love. I was not destined to enjoy that for long.
One day he did not get up from his sleep. I continuously barked but to no avail. Soon people gathered and he was taken somewhere. But I continued to wait for him, unknowingly. He never returned.
I became a street dog again, looking for food among the garbage and getting shooed away by everyone.
One evening, many females began to descend on the roads in a line, suddenly there was some brisk activity taking place, with noise all around, every where it was lit up and the road was bright as a day. The outpour of females increased and the next day the activity peaked. They began to cook and I heard many say, “This time pongala has more participants than last time”. The sun was blistering. Still they were unwavering. Food items were lavishly being distributed and I thought this was going to continue forever. I too had a good day. I realised the flavor of the festival, when a lady gave me a sweet thing rolled in a brown boiled leaf. My memories of those days at my home flooded me. I used to get that once every year at my home. I now understood where my masters went every year on a particular day. I was a witness to it today. Suddenly there were some activity. Somebody with a thread on his body appeared and sprinkled water on the food that were prepared. Then they rapidly began to pack up. In one hour all had disappeared and I was disappointed.
I had just woken up after a deep slumber after the hectic activity yesterday. I saw someone depositing some waste on the other side of the road. Nowadays I search for delicacies in the left-overs. I have never felt hungry in my earlier days. Now as everything was scarce, my hunger had no limits. I jumped onto the road to cross and reach before anyone else seized the opportunity.
Suddenly a speeding car hit my body. I was writhing in pain. Blood was oozing out; I was going blind of sight and senses. I could see a specie of mine, white in color sitting inside the car, peeping out and witnessing my distress, while I was slowly getting engulfed in the darkness of sight and loss of soul. Soon……. .
**********************************************************************
The car slowed. While a young man was lowering the glass, his father murmured,” These stray dogs, are making our roads a hell. Many teenagers die because of this menace. Municipal authorities are taking refuge under Animal protection laws and many fools are in the fore-front in its protection. These dogs must be culled systematically”.
“ It looks like our Ruby”, Praveen replied.
“Is it so? So what? For us, Ruby died the day we left it on the road. We had trashed it. ‘Petrashed’.
A white young canine sitting near the rear glass, with its tongue dangling, unaware of the fate of his predecessor and unaware of his own future, simply produced a low noise which sounded like an invite to its masters to pamper it.
Narayanan Ramakrishnan began his career as a sales professional in a tea company from 1984 selling Taj Mahal, Red Label tea and Bru coffee. After that he joined a leading brokerage firm dealing in stocks and shares. Last one year, he is in pursuit of pleasure in reading and writing. He is based out of Trivandrum.
Oh Corona !!.....you monster with a crown
Has made us all frown
Yes, there is fear
Amongst all, far and near
Mournful foreign invasion
Resulting in Isolation
Time for social distancing
Something that Autism families for years are experiencing
School, colleges shut down
We begin with the count down
Roads are almost empty
You have given us reasons plenty
The stores are half open
Checking for fever with machines Amen!!
People are slowing down enjoying their shower
That is the need in this hour
The environment looks cleaner
More and more greener
Yes, there is pain and death
Breathe low, breathe high, hold your breath
The skies are clearing
As every tissue paper we are tearing
Cleaning hands with sanitizer
Getting more and more wiser
Frequently we hydrate
As the virus we hate
Sitting at home one can gain weight
Stand tall and straight
Move away from social media
In this euphoria
Grab a good book
While the tastiest recipes you cook
You can't change your look
Connect with family and friends on call
As you are away from the mall
It's time to unite
As the flames of Love and friendship we ignite
One can hear the birds sing
With the onset of spring
Come let's pray together
As the chanting of "OM"gets stronger
Love, care and share
These moments are rare
Spread the message of humanity
And sure we can handle every calamity
Corona Virus!!!... Leave us in peace and tranquility.
Sheena Rath is a post graduate in Spanish Language from Jawaharlal Nehru University Delhi, later on a Scholarship went for higher studies to the University of Valladolid Spain. A mother of an Autistic boy, ran a Special School by the name La Casa for 11 years for Autistic and underprivileged children. La Casa now is an outreach centre for social causes(special children, underprivileged children and families, women's health and hygiene, cancer patients, save environment) and charity work.
Sheena has received 2 Awards for her work with Autistic children on Teachers Day. An Artist, a writer, a social worker, a linguist and a singer (not by profession)
(Confessions of a compulsive workaholic)
Sakuntala Narasimhan
(Published in The Hindu, Open page, June 2019)
At age ten I gave my first full length public concert, with a review in The Statesman by the famous music critic, Dr Charles Fabri.At twelve I sang in the central hall of Parliament and was hugged by Nehru. At sixteen, I had ten gold medals. Before I turned twenty I had post graduate degrees in both economics and music, and begun doctoral research under a UGC fellowship.
All very commendable? Today, in my late seventies, I am not so sure. And therein lies a lesson perhaps, in lifestyle goals that we choose – or rather, what parents choose for their children.
My parents believed that wasting time was a crime. “Edaanapannu” (do something useful) was the constant exhortation. One summer vacation when I was seven, I had to take kathak classes. A year later, it was learning to read Tamil and memorizing the 30 Tiruppavai songs of Andal.Another summer, it was taking lessons in Sanskrit, learning to play the veena, then machine embroidery and painting. (I still have those artifacts.)
My mother was a gifted musician and a trained painter. With two full time servants, she spent her time in radio rehearsals and broadcasts, teaching music, producing musical features. “Any moron can chop and cook, if you have artistic talents, it is a crime not to develop them,” she would say, citing the Biblical story of the Almighty distributing talents to disciples and chiding those who wasted them.
Like Amy Chua says in her bestselling “Tiger mom” book, I had to not only learn varied skills but also excel in them – once when I got second prize in an inter-school competition, my mother forbade me to go on stage to receive my prize and certificate, because only first prize was acceptable; my classmates wondered why I didn’t go on stage when my name was called. If I got 95 % in an exam, she would ask where I had lost 5 marks, before she signed the report card.
And so I grew up learning a variety of skills. Marriage to a man who believed that a woman’s place was in the kitchen ministering to the needs of her spouse, and raising a family, brought sharp discrepancies in what I thought I should be spending my time on, and what I was expected (and forced) to do. The end of each day left a sense of huge guilt – that I had wasted time, doing nothing creative. The only way to cope was to somehow fit in 26 hours into each 24, so that after finishing the day’s chores I would still have some time for my personal artistic pursuits.
Which meant I multitasked and pushed myself physically beyond what the body could endure. Coffee was gulped in five seconds, standing up, while getting on with the cooking. (My daughter still teases me, that I have forgotten how to sit,slowly sipping a steaming, leisurely cup, enjoying the aroma and flavor. Indeed, I have.) If I was supervising school homework, I was also darning or ironing at the same time. Relaxing with music on, was a no-no; I had music on while I chopped the vegetables, or reading the paper while I sat with my toddler son at the playground. When Penguin publishers commissioned me to write a book, the only way I could find the time was to get up at 3 AM and put in three hours of typing before starting the day’s work at six , preparing breakfast , packing school lunch boxes and getting the kids ready.My husband declared that I “needed no help” since we were a small family of four, while his mother used to cook for a dozen people.
The awards and honours rolled in – but something had to give, and my body began to protest. Nowthat the children are off my hands and I have time to work on the four book drafts that I have pending, my eyesight is failing, I have severe low backache, and am in constant pain. I am tired. Not the best of conditions for focusing on creative work. And this again is causing irritability, frustration, and a massive sense of guilt, that I am forced to rest when I have assignments to complete.
Author R.M.Lala says, in his book Celebration of the cells (on his encounter with cancer) that even a walk became “a chore, something to be completed and ticked off a list”. That’s exactly how I feel. I have not done anything “for enjoyment”, neverjust “sat around” for the sheer pleasure of “just being”. And that’s what my doctor now advises. “Just be,” she says, “relax. You have done enough. Teach yourself to take time off – look at the trees, listen to the chirping of the birds as they return to their nests in the evening , watch the eagles soaring overhead….”
I try, I try, but after the initial two minutes, I fret – shouldn’t I be checking email, or mixing the dough for dinner? “Just BE, “ my doctor-friend admonishes, pushing me firmly back into my chair. “See that line of tiny ants creeping along the sheer wall? “
Yes, but what does watching a line of ants bring? The doctor glares at me. “It brings peace, calmness, soothes the mind. Remember, stress causes cancers, and keeping the mind calm is as important as the capsules you swallow.” Fun can be therapy. Especially in today’s milieu where the rat race traps even children.
No one teaches “just being”. High school kids run from one tuition to another, vying for medical or engineering seats. When cut-off points are 95 %, the boy who scores 94 is a “failure”, debarred. A child prodigy student of mine is now a mental wreck, undergoing psychiatric treatment, after taking 4 hours of tuition per day, after classes, to “improve” upon his 93 % in the school final exam. No one stresses the importance of happiness, equanimity, self-confidence, sensitivity to nature. Only 96% counts. Sad, isn’t it?
After eye surgery I could not read, I was under treatment for hearing loss and could not listen to music, knee problems ruled out going for walks. How do other eighty year olds pass the time ? I was fed up. Bored to death.
Then one afternoon I lay down on a stone seat in our balcony, staring at the sky, whileour rooms were being fumigated. And noticed fantastic acrobatics overhead. A few feet from the top of my balcony, was a maze of cable wires, each no thicker than half a centimeter, criss-crossing from one building to another, connecting dozens of apartments in adjacent blocks. As I watched, a small squirrel came balancing on a cable, gingerly testing its grip at each step, and proceeded from one building to the next. The ground was five floors down, one false step or slip, and the squirrel would have come crashing down and died. I watched fascinated as the squirrel used its bushy tail for balancing itself while it made its way to a tree over the other balcony to nibble at some pods.
It then scurried back, again along the overhead cable, to reach its original perch. It was the most awe-inspiring circus show I had ever seen. Before disappearing from view, the squirrel tilted its head down towards me, chattered animatedly, waving its tail at each squeak, as if telling me something.
A little later a fat monkey came over on the adjacent terrace and tested the cable with a gesture that was so human I couldn’t help chuckling. As it made its way carefully along the cable, with a tiny baby monkey clutching its stomach upside down, a group of crows began to tease it, cawing loudly and following it close, to nip its tail. The monkey whipped round (on the cable, like a trapeze artiste !) and snarled at the birds which then flew away to safety, but returned immediately, to again raise a ruckus and tease the monkey. One of the cables had an exposed end, dangling in the air midway, with wire sticking out, it could have killed the animal, but I noticed that the creatures left that wire alone – how do they know ? What a show ! I watched as the monkey made it slowly but safely to the other terrace, and realized that I had spent half an hour watching these goings-on, without being aware of how time flew.
You don’t need Chandrayaan to fill you with wonder at what humans can achieve. There is enough and more, in nature around us, to fill us with wonder, at what animals and other ‘lowly’ creatures can do, too, if only we took time off to notice…..
Sakuntala Narasimhan has won prestigious awards in journalism, classical music and consumer activism, all at the national level.
She has two doctorates – one in women’s studies and another in musicology. She has taught music, journalism, women’s studies, and economics at the post –graduate level, at Bombay and Bangalore university, and also in the US on a Fulbright fellowship.
She has presented papers at international conferences on media, music and feminist studies, at Boston, Oxford, Norway, Pakistan, Nairobi, Kampala (Uganda) the Philippines, Barbados, Bali, Bangkok, Sydney and Nepal.
She reported on the U.N. Global Conference on Women in Beijing (China) for the Deccan Herald in 1995, and on the UN general assembly session at New York in 2000. She was also one of four Indian journalists selected to attend and write about the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (South Africa) in 2002.
She received the Chamelidevi award of the Media Foundation for Outstanding Woman Journalist, and the PUCL national award for Human Rights journalism for her investigative lead stories. Her fortnightly columns, on gender issues and consumers’ rights. ran in the Deccan Herald for 27 years till 2009 and won her many awards. One of the first short stories she wrote won the first prize in a national fiction contest organized by the Times of India group in 1968. The Karnataka government conferred on her its prestigious Rajyotsava award of Rs one lakh, for her multiple achievements, in 2016.
She has published around 3,800 articles and authored 11 books, on consumer rights, music and feminist issues. Her writings have been translated into Russian, German, Swedish, Japanese, Hindi, Tamil , Malayalam , Kannada and Telugu.
She has translated and published stories by leading Tamil writers like Sivasankari and Rajam Krishnan, besides trsnlating famous writer Sujatha's science fiction from Tamil to English, for serialisation in Science Today
She has been interviewed on radio and television in five languages – English, Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu. She turned to journalism when she lost her singing voice for nine years during the 1960s, and has subsequently continued her involvement in both disciplines, as performer and teacher. As consumer activist, she was Vice President of the Consumer Guidance Society of India (Mumbai) during Justice Lentin’s tenure as President, and received the government of India national award for consumer protection twice, in 1994 and 2000. Her short stories have been published as a collection titled Lucky Days (Writers Workshop. Kolkata).
Krishnan and Kamala came out of their home and crossed the street to bid goodbye to Kamala’s neighbours. She was moving over to Chennai from her native Srirangam, after her marriage to Krishnan recently.
They gingerly crossed the neatly drawn kolam just in front of the house and moved into the house to exchange pleasantries and seek the blessings of elders.
Kamala turned around to see that brother Karthick had brought all the luggage to be loaded into the waiting car. Kamala’s grandparents, parents, brother and sister were also waiting for them at the entrance to their house.
They knelt down to touch the feet of her grandparents and parents and sought their blessings. Kamala then gave a warm hug to her brother and sister Keerthana while Krishnan waved his hands to them with a smile. After checking that their luggage was properly loaded, they boarded the car and closed the door. As the car started for the railway station, Kamala instinctively turned round and waved to all her friends and relatives, who in turn waved back to them.
The car began to gain momentum as it moved past the variety of kolams drawn in front of each house on the street. The symmetry with which they were drawn was very captivating.The driver, being used to these kolams along the street, took extreme care to drive the car at the centre of the street so as not to ride over the patterns.
Kamala saw her husband Krishnan’s face light up on seeing the artistic work of the residents.
She said ”We all get up very early in the morning before sunrise and start cleaning the area in front of our houses with a broom stick. We mix cow dung in a bucket of water and splatter the water over the cleaned area. We then use white rice flour to draw the kolam over the watered area. The idea in using rice flour is to provide food for ants, insects and small birds. During festival seasons, we use colour powder too, when the colour combination makes it very attractive. Kolams are considered auspicious and enhances the beauty of the house.
“Why do you use cow dung water?” asked Krishnan.
“It is a disinfectant and also helps to keep the sand together. It makes a good brown background on which the white kolam clearly stands out. The kolam is done using white rice flour which invites insects like ants. The wet cow dung keeps insects away till it gets dried,” Kamala explained.
”Once the kolam is drawn, we take a little cow dung, roll it into a ball, keep it at the centre of the kolam and place a colourful flower on it. The cow dung ball is used as a base for the flower. It also retains moisture and so the flower is kept fresh for a longer time,” Kamala continued.
“Oh! How well we still stick to customs, culture and traditions,” exclaimed Krishnan.“We must learn to appreciate the beauty, the precision, symmetry and the creativity in such art. There is medicinal value too and includes exercise, creating a stress free environment and developing mental abilities.”
“There are mathematical and scientific reasons too linked to the kolam,” Kamala remarked.
According to Devdutt Pattnaik, author and mythologist, “A downward pointing triangle represents woman; an upward pointing triangle represents man; a circle represents nature while a square represents culture; a lotus represents a womb and a pentagon represents Venus and the five elements.
Scientists and doctors have created a new medical field called Cymatherapy, which is used to heal a person’s body and emotions. In neuro-science, it is an established fact that the brain responds to visual patterns and depending on the shape and patterns, it can have different effects on the mind.
They had reached the station by then and boarded the train. The conversation soon shifted from kolam to more mundane things.
In Chennai, they took a cab from the railway station and reached home. They alighted from the cab and Krishnan took the luggage out from the cab, before paying off the cab. Kamala took a look round the vicinity. Unlike Srirangam, a row of high rise flats dotted the streets, with very few independent houses. She found a row of cars and two wheelers parked on both sides of the street.There was just enough space to drive a car on the street and that too with great care. She also found a few curious faces peeping out at them through the curtained windows and from the balconies.
On seeing them at the entrance, a lady came out from the ground floor with a beaming smile, along with another person in tow, with a plate and other paraphernalia required for the occasion. As they stood together, she took the customary arthi. Krishnan and Kamala then moved into their house.
Krishnan introduced maid Valli to Kamala, who gave a smile.
“Vanakkamamma,” she said, with hands folded.
Kamala nodded to acknowledge her greeting.
She then helped them carry their luggage to the second floor. While Krishnan opened the front door of our home, Kamala noticed that at the entrance to her home was a small plastic sheet affixed to the floor on which was a permanent kolam. To the right hand side she saw a flight of steps leading to the terrace. On entering the home, they put their luggage in a corner of the hall. Krishnan then took Kamala round the compact two bedroom flat, ideal for a couple. Kamala mentally took in the layout of the flat so that she could plan well and settle down pretty fast.
Valli came out of the kitchen carrying two cups of hot coffee. After their coffee, they got down to unpack their luggage and neatly arrange the things - a place for everything and everything in its place. Krishnan turned round towards Kamala and found her staring at a book on hand. He raised his eyebrows to enquire what she was looking at intently. She showed him her book of kolams in which she had noted a good variety of patterns she had come across. He patted her back affectionately to appreciate her interest in kolam. After a few hours when the majority of the items had found a place, they took a break to visit a nearby shop to pick up some essential items. On the way back home they picked up a bag of kolam flour also.
Kamala woke up early next morning but found that Krishnan was already up and about. She opened the main door and with Krishnan’s help removed the plastic kolam sheet.
“Kamala, the residents use the stairs to go to the terrace frequently. So please ensure that the kolam is not too big to block the passage to the terrace.”
Kamala agreed and drew a small kolam for a start. She then got preoccupied with her domestic chores. In the evening when she opened the front door, she noticed that the kolam was in total disarray, with residents using the stairs walking all over the kolam. Kamala was totally disheartened but continued for a week, making a fresh kolam every day. But each day she found the kolam met with the same fate. She knew she could not hold anybody responsible, as she was using the common area. At the end of the week, she could not tolerate what she considered as insolent behaviour of the residents in damaging her sacred kolam. Her mind worked furiously to retaliate. The next morning, Kamala drew a much bigger kolam encompassing a wide area and decided to wait for the consequences to follow.
After a few hours of waiting, she heard some voices talking excitedly at the door. Her curiosity overtook her and she opened the door quickly. To her surprise, she saw two smart girls in their teens standing in front of the kolam and admiring it.
“Hello. I am Kamala and I have come here recently,” she introduced herself to the two girls.
“Oh. You are Krishnan uncle’s wife. Welcome aunty,” they said in unison, with a giggle. The lanky girl introduced herself as Akruthi and the other shorter girl in a shy tone said she is Megha.
“We stay in the adjacent flats in the first floor,” said Akruthi. “We are on our way to the terrace and we saw your lovely kolam. We are taken in by the precision and creativity. It gives such a calming effect. We will visit you every day to enjoy your different kolams,” continued Akruthi. Megha silently nodded her assent.
“I have been doing this for the past one week and it is only to day I have drawn such a big kolam,” said Kamala. “Thanks for your appreciation.”
“We had seen only the kolam on a plastic sheet all these days,” replied Megha.
The pieces soon fell in place for Kamala. The residents in their hurry to reach the terrace failed to notice the hand drawn kolam of rice paste, being small and had inadvertently stepped on it the whole of last week. The big kolam on the other hand was very apparent and attractive enough to draw the attention of the residents and hence were cautious not to damage the kolam by stepping over it.
Krishnan was just then returning from an errand. Kamala turned to him and said, "As a form of retaliation, I had made a big kolam to challenge the residents without realising the real reason why the kolams of last week were disfigured. Now I understand. I have learned a very good lesson to analyse fully the reasons behind every action before coming to a conclusion”.
“Seeing the reactions of the two girls, I now realise that one of the scientific reasons for drawing a kolam at the entrance to a house is that it manifests into vibrations in the visitor’s mind, putting him at ease, making him comfortable and happy.”, said Krishnan.
He put an arm round Kamala and told her, “I am proud that you have retained our roots and culture. I am sure you will settle down here pretty fast.”
Mr. S. Sundar Rajan, a Chartered Accountant with his independent consultancy, is a published poet and writer. He has published his collection of poems titled "Beyond the Realms" and collection of short stories in English titled " Eternal Art" which has been translated into Tamil,Hindi, Malayalam and Telugu. Another collection of short stories in English titled "Spice of Life" has also been translated in Tamil. His stories in Tamil is being broadcast every weekend on the Kalpakkam Community Radio Station under the title "Sundara Kadhaigal". His poems and stories have varied themes and carry a message that readers will be able to relate to easily.
Sundar is a member of the Chennai Poets' Circle and India Poetry Circle. His poems have been published in various anthologies. He was adjudged as "Highly Recommended Writer" in the Bharat Award - International Short Story Contest held by XpressPublications.com.
In an effort to get the next generation interested in poetry Sundar organises poetry contest for school students. He is also the editor of "Madras Hews Myriad Views", an anthology of poems and prose that members of the India Poetry Circle brought out to commommorate the 380th year of formation of Madras.
Sundar is a catalyst for social activities. He organises medical camps covering general health, eye camps and cancer screening. An amateur photographer and a nature lover, he is currently organising a tree planting initiative in his neighbourhood. Sundar lives his life true to his motto - Boundless Boundaries Beckon
(A Tale of Feel Good Fantasy)
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
I rang the bell and stood outside our home, my heart pounding like a frog doing acrobatics. Sweat drops had gathered on my forehead, fear of the impending confrontation tightening the knot in my stomach.
Bhauja, my elder brother's wife, opened the door, looked at the bundle in my hand and took a step back as if she had been just hit by a blast of hot air. She quickly recovered and a smile spread over her beautiful face,
"Look at my Romeo devar, I knew you were a chhupa rustam, sowing your wild oats all over the town. The raging hormone oozes from your body like gum out of a tube. Ok, now that the baby is here, where is the mom? Is she waiting at the gate, call her, let me welcome my Devrani. Where is she?"
I handed over the bundle to Bhauja, who was looking beyond me trying to locate her mysterious, absent Devrani. With the baby gone from my arm, I felt a great weight off my chest, as if I had been holding a small python in my hand and there was great relief in getting rid of it. Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I smiled pathetically,
"Bhauja, like you I am also looking for her, I don't know who this baby's mother is. She has vanished, handing her over to me"
Bhauja pounced on the weak link in my statement,
"Her? How do you know it is a girl if she is not your baby?"
"Bhauja, believe me, in God's name, I really don't know who is her mother. When she was talking to me she had referred to this baby as a girl child, that's how I know it is a girl"
Bhauja got another chance to punch me below the belt,
"Talking to you? If she is not my Devrani, how was she talking to you? And you had left home with a briefcase to go to Rourkela, how come you have returned with a baby? Where is your brief case?"
I felt a jolt of high voltage current run through me like an express train running through an empty station. Oh my God! I had left the brief case at the bus stand! The night was unfolding as a great adventure for me. And Bhauja was waiting with the baby in her arms, waiting for an explanation.
I winced within. What explanation could I give? Who would believe my story? It had happened like a nightmare about an hour back. I had reached the Badambadi bus stand half an hour early for the eight o' clock overnight bus to Rourkela. I was to attend an interview for the post of Assistant Personnel Officer at the Steel Plant the next morning. The bus was yet to come to the stand. I was reading the Outlook magazine. Suddenly I felt a presence by my side as if some one was looking at me intently. I turned and saw a young lady sitting a few feet away on my bench with a baby in her arms and staring at me. The baby was sleeping, wrapped in a cream coloured cloth, only its sweet little face was visible. When our eyes met, the lady smiled,
"When is your bus? Where are you going?"
I was a little surprised by this attempt to strike a conversation,
"I am going to Rourkela, waiting for the eight o' clock bus."
She looked at her watch,
"O, still half an hour to go!"
"Yes, where are you going?"
She smiled, she was a beautiful woman, her face was tired, but her smile was captivating,
"Not very far.."
Before she could finish, the baby stirred and a faint cry came out of its Buddha like face. The girl blushed, "I think she is hungry, I have to feed her. Can you please hold her for a minute? Let me take out a sheet from the bag. This is a crowded place, it's so embarrassing to feed a baby!"
She looked more beautiful as she blushed even redder, and handed over the baby to me. The last time I had held a baby was six years back when my niece had been born to my elder brother and Bhauja. I took the baby very carefully and held her in my arms.
The lady smiled, actually I noticed that she was hardly a lady, may be a matured girl, she was so young, and delicate, it was difficult to guess her age.
She took out a thin sheet from her bag and gathered the baby in her arms. She smiled sweetly at me,
"You seem to be an expert in holding babies, and look at her! She was quiet when you were holding her! Looks like you have a way with babies!"
I shook my head,
"No, not much of experience, the last time I held a baby was six years back, my Bhauja's daughter."
She smiled demurely at this revelation, looking at me with a hint of adoration. She covered the baby with the thin sheet. Then blushing again she said,
"Now, like a gentleman look the other way when I feed the baby."
Anyway I had no intention of observing how a baby was fed, so I immersed myself in the Outlook magazine. After a few minutes, the girl exclaimed,
"Oh my God, look at this girl, she is a champion piddler! Ugh, she wet my saree! And I also have to change her diaper!"
I had turned and was looking at her, hoping against hope that she would not hand over the urine soaked baby to me. She did exactly that. The smile was gone, however. She looked a bit off, as if something was weighing on her mind, I imagined she must be feeling bad to make me hold her champion piddler baby. She took out a diaper from her bag and put it on the baby while I was holding her. She finished and kissed the baby as if changing the diaper had made their bond stronger. She looked at me and said,
"Please hold the baby for a few minutes when I go to the bath room to change my saree. There won't be a clean place there to keep the baby when I change. I hope you don't mind."
I shook my head, although I was not sure. She took her bag, looked at me and at her baby. I somehow thought she appeared a bit distraught. With another intense, longing look at her baby she hurried towards the public bathroom at the bus stand.
I looked at the baby. She was cute, really cute, sleeping quietly with not a worry about the world. No waiting for the bus for her, no sleepless journey through the night, no interview in the morning. How lucky babies are!
I looked at the watch. Fifteen minutes to eight, the bus for Rourkela had just entered the stand, it would leave in fifteen minutes. In a few minutes the girl should be back to take her baby from me and I would board the bus. I looked towards where the bathrooms were, there was no sign of her. Ten minutes passed, what was keeping her at the bathroom so long? How long will I hold the baby in my arms? The driver of the bus started blowing the shrill electric horn, to alert the passengers. I started sweating, where is the mother of the baby? In panic I ran towards the ladies' bathroom with the baby in my arms, hoping I would find her coming out of it. She was not to be seen. I got worried. Has something happened to her? I stopped a woman who was entering the bathroom and asked her to check if someone had slipped on the floor and fallen down? She came out in a few seconds and said no one was inside. I rushed back, the bus had started moving.
For a moment I thought of dropping the baby on the bench and boarding the bus, hoping that the mother would come and pick up her baby later. But a look at the baby's sweet face, and I could not do that! What if the mother didn't come back? What would happen to the cute, innocent child? I watched the bus leave and holding the baby in my arms I went around the bus stand searching for the mother. Her sweet, smiling face had got etched in my mind. I had no doubt I would spot her if she was somewhere around. But she seemed to have left. I got a shock, just thinking about it! Left? How could a mother vanish just like that, leaving her baby with a stranger? My head reeled, and I knew the only person who could come to my rescue at this moment of crisis was Bhauja, my smart, ever dependable sister in law who had this magical quality of finding a solution to every possible and impossible problem.
So here I was standing before Bhauja, sweating and trembling like an innocent dog accused of stealing the juiciest bone from a dish of mutton roganjosh. And I knew the saga of explanation had just begun. Bou, my Hitler mother would spew fire and smoke when she saw an unknown baby arriving at home unannounced.
I panicked, and told Bhauja the whole story not omitting a single dot or dash. Her face broke into a smile,
"Your story is incredible, who will believe that a young mother will abandon such a cute child and disappear? Now the big problem is how to convince Bou? She will throw a fit which will shake the foundation of Taj Mahal a few thousand kilometres away. I have to find some way out. So, what are you going to do now?"
"Let me rush to the bus stand and retrieve my brief case, I wonder if it would be still there. My only hope is, with all the bomb scare these days, nobody would have touched it"
Bhauja smiled again,
"No, the first thing for you to do is to buy some baby food and diapers for your daughter."
I protested,
"My daughter? What do you mean my daughter? And why baby food?
Bhauja raised her eyebrows, scandalised,
"What do you mean, why baby food? You think your Bhauja is a Kamadhenu, giving milk all the time, year after year! You are an idiot, but an adorable idiot. And she is your daughter, You brought her here, she belongs to you, at least till someone comes to claim her. Now don't waste time, run and get me four tins of Lactogen, two feeding bottles and a few packets of napkins. Do it fast, before your daughter wakes up and cries her heart out, bringing Bou out of her Puja room."
Just a mention of Bou galvanised me like I had been kicked by a mule, I took the motor bike and rushed to the nearest store two lanes away. In a few minutes I returned and handed over the things to Bhauja. She whispered to me that Bou was still unaware of the baby's presence, but it was only a matter of time before all hell would break loose. I didn't wait to face it and drove away to the bus stand. I found the briefcase lying on the bench as I had left it. I collected it and went round again hoping that the mysterious young girl of my adventurous evening was lurking somewhere looking for her baby, but there was no such luck.
I left the bus stand and on my bike roamed around in Cuttack town, visiting each and every hospital, nursing home, poly clinic and enquired if a beautiful young girl had given birth to a baby in the past three-four days and left a few hours back with her. No one knew anything about it.
Frustrated I returned home around midnight, Bhai and Bhauja were still awake, Bou had gone to sleep after thundering like an earth quake, she wanted to give a piece of her mind to me for picking up a baby from "some garbage dump and bringing her with him, a child of unknown parentage polluting a Brahmin's home with her inauspicious presence! Is it the Sanskar she had given to her son, does he know he would rot in hell for this unforgivable act......." Bhauja would have read out the full statement to me in great gusto, Bhai stopped her. Bhauja called me to their bed room, where the baby was sleeping, along with Montu and Chinky, my nephew and niece who had got tired of gazing at her in awe and gone to sleep. Now they were guarding her like guardian angels.
I knew there would be a big fight in the morning. All the three of us were thinking on the same line. Bhai smiled, patted me on the back and shook my hand before retiring to sleep. I wondered whether he was congratulating me for getting a child out of wedlock or thanking me for bringing a cute baby home. Bhai was always like that, a quiet man with an unquiet sense of humour!
Bhauja was waiting to have dinner with me. We talked about the impending disaster in the morning. Bou had insisted that I should take the baby and drop her at an orphanage in the morning itself. That broke my heart, I had somehow come to believe that the baby was my responsibility and deserved a better chance than being dumped at an orphanage. Bhauja looked at my worried face, and as always flashed a reassuring smile which seemed to convey to me that she would manage. Not to worry, her favourite line to everyone was 'Fikar not, mein hoon na!'
I asked her, what could be the reason for dumping of a baby by a young mother. We discussed different possibilities, a jilted lover? An unwanted child? A strict family? I described to Bhauja what a beautiful girl the mother was, her nice saree, the winning smile and her demure blushes! Was she a rape victim? Bhauja didn't think she was a rape victim, the way she smiled at me and looked at the baby so longingly before leaving her with me. We hoped somehow the mother would find out who I was and come to take her baby back. Bhauja told me that's the story she would tell Bou and buy some time.
She had already packed a small suitcase for me and suggested I should leave early in the morning and stay away from home for a few days, till she managed to pacify Bou. And she asked, shouldn't I call the Steel Plant authorities and ask them for another chance? Yes! It had not occurred to me, thanks to the way my mind had gone through a wringer and got chopped to pieces. That was my Bhauja, the smartest woman in the world, she always thinks of everything!
I didn't wait till next morning, didn't want to take a chance with my Hitler Bou! I called a friend and told him I was coming to his place to spend the night there. He laughed and just asked one question, Beer chalega, or you want something stronger? That's what true friends are for, aren't they? To pour chilled beer on a distraught mind to cool it off?
I called the HR Director of Rourkela Steel Plant the next day and explained the situation. He dismissed the story as pure bullshit, but when I assured him that I would show him the unused bus ticket, he relented and agreed to give me another chance. I stayed with my friend for a couple of days, between two of us we emptied a dozen beer bottles. I boarded the bus on the third evening , attended the interview and got selected. I had been calling Bhauja all the time to know when it would be safe to return home and whether Bou was still an active volcano or the spewing of lava had stopped. Luckily my getting the job softened Bou, Bhauja convinced her that the new baby at home had brought me good luck. She had been working on Bou, pointing out how cute the child was, what a sharp nose, with her beautiful face and the champak colour, the baby could not but be from a good family. May be the mother was suffering from some dreadful disease and had to give up the baby, but the child must have been born under a good star, otherwise how could Abinash (me) get a job the moment she set her foot at our home? Hadn't Abinash given up hope after failing in all attempts to get a job for the last two years? Isn't the girl like Laxmi, bringing good luck to those who desperately need it? In four days flat Bhauja brought Bou round.
We named the baby Khusi, because she had this magical quality of making anyone who looked at her happy. Montu and Chinky spent all their time at home playing with her, holding her hand and trying to make her smile. Miraculously, Bou had taken to her like a mother bird to a fledgling. She found great joy in holding Khusi when Bhauja was busy cooking, both of them started giving the baby oil massage to make her strong, my Bou lamenting all the time that the "poor darling" was deprived of her mother's milk. She used some real bad words against Lactogen, but we had no choice. I had a month to join at the my job at Rourkela. I mostly spent it at home, hoping that the mother of Khusi would come to take her back, although we were getting so attached to the baby that parting with her would have broken our heart!
I joined at my new job, frequently coming down to Cuttack to see "my daughter". Bhauja kept on insisting that Khusi belonged to me and would always be my daughter. The prospect of her mother coming to claim her had completely faded. We no longer talked about it. Gradually Khusi grew up, became a true livewire, running around the house, playing, shouting, fighting with Chinky and generally being the centre of everyone's attention. Bou treated her as the apple of her eye, and couldn't live a minute without the sight of the lovely child. Khushi had the absolute, unfettered freedom to take the mobile and "talk" to her "daddy" at any time. My evenings were spent on listening to her blabbers. She spread khusi the way only a Khusi could do.
Bhauja had started pestering me for marriage to "control my raging hormones" and I had given her the green signal to choose her Devrani. One day she called me and asked me to proceed directly to Kendrapara to meet Sumana, a Post Graduate in English, waiting for a lecturer's job. Bhauja had seen her photograph and described her as a stunning beauty. Those were the days one could go to "see" a prospective bride, without getting trolled in WhatsApp or Facebook. I asked Bhauja to accompany me, she refused, she didn't want to be a "kababme haddi".
I hired a taxi and landed up in Kendrapara, a small town, around five in the afternoon. Sumana was indeed a stunner, tall, slim and bubbly. She greeted me like a long lost friend, she was easy to talk to. There was no question of my not agreeing to marry her, I couldn't have hoped for a better life mate. After her parents and younger brother left the room we chatted freely, making plans for the future, particularly the prospect of her getting a job in Rourkela. Small boys and girls of assorted age kept peeping in, giggling and a few of them making ugly faces at me! I asked Sumana if I could get one more cup of tea, I was a bit tired after a seven hour journey. She called one of the girls,
"Ei Mili, go and ask Madhu Nani to bring some tea and snacks for your Bhaina", pointing to me. Mili giggled and ran away. Sumana smiled at me,
"Now you will meet my best friend and cousin Madhumita Mahapatra. Let me warn you she is twice more beautiful than me. Boys here call her Miss Kendrapara. She is irresistible, but don't fall for her. Remember, you are committed to me!"
I assured her I wouldn't fall for her best friend, no matter how beautiful, because I had just pledged my heart to a Professor of English.
There was a knock at the door and a girl entered the room with a tray in hand. She was indeed incrdibly beautiful. When she came near and I looked at her closely, my heart skipped a beat and I stood up,
"You! Oh my God!"
She looked up and with a loud gasp, she put her hand on her mouth, her eyes widened. The next moment she started running away from the room. Sumana stood up and grasped her,
"Wait, Madhu, wait. Tell me why you are running away!"
Madhu just stood there and melted into tears which turned into loud sobs. Sumana looked at me,
"You have met her before?"
I nodded.
She lifted Madhu's face, wiped the tears and asked her softly,
"Badambadi?"
Madhumita broke into a loud wail. Sumana went and locked the door, led Madhu to a chair and made her sit. She looked at me and asked,
"First tell us where is Madhu's daughter?"
"At our home. We have named her Khusi, she is the throb of everyone's heart, my Bhauja treats her as a little princess and my Bou can't live for a minute without seeing her. Khusi, as pretty as her mother, spreads joy wherever she is." Madhu's sobs grew louder, pining for a baby she had abandoned two years back.
I looked at Sumana,
"Do you know about the Badambadi incident?"
"There is nothing that Madhu and I don't know about each other. In fact she had stayed with me in my hostel room in the last four months of her pregnancy. God has been very cruel to my sweet, innocent sister! After our B.A. here I went to Cuttack for Post Graduation in English, she went to Vani Vihar in Bhubaneswar for M.A. In Psychology. There she fell in love with Debdutt, the smart, dynamic President of the College Union, who was one year senior to her. He was very forward looking and was scared of nothing, a real gem. They used to spend most of their days and nights together and Madhu eventually found she was pregnant. She wanted to abort the child, but Debdutt was adamant. He assured her that they would get married much before the child's birth, as soon as the exams were over. He had already been offered a job by Deloitte. Unfortunately he died in a road accident while returning from Berhampur after attending a College Union function there, and Madhu was shattered. She couldn't abort the child as the pregnancy was in its sixth month and she could not disclose it to her parents either, they are very very conservative. So she came to me, I kept her in my room and when the labour pain started got her admitted in a private nursing home a little away from the town on the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Road. She wanted to keep the baby, I advised against it. She has two younger sisters and her having a baby before marriage would have been too scandalous for a small town like Kendrapara. I gave her the idea to leave the baby with a responsible person at Badambadi bus stand. I couldn't accompany her to Badambadi because we had the final exams the next day. She left the baby with you and from the bathroom came straight to the hostel and cried the whole night and the next day. Look at her, how much she is suffering now at the thought of the baby she had given away to you!"
Sumana looked at me,
"Now you must restore Madhu's daughter to her, poor thing!"
I got a shock, as if someone had shot me on the knees,
"How is it possible? You want my home to descend into darkness? Khusi is the apple of everyone's eye. They can't live without her."
Sumana shook her head,
"I am not suggesting Khusi coming away from your home, it's the other way, let Khusi's mother come into your home."
It took a few seconds for the words to sink in,
"How is it possible? I am already committed to you! Unless you want me to take one and get one free!"
"O, O, look at the Casanova, your mind running wild! Can't blame you, it must be your raging hormones. All that I am saying is, you marry Madhu in stead of me. Take her as a gift from me, her best friend. OK?"
I looked at Madhu, who had collapsed like a paper bag, her body wracked by uncontrollable sobs. Somehow my heart overflowed with love and sympathy for this unlucky mother who had drifted in the wind like a helpless, fallen leaf. I could imagine what great joy it would be when she reunited with her lost child.
Although a bit reluctant initially, I agreed to Sumana's suggestion for the sake of my daughter Khusi and left for Cuttack promising to them that I would confirm the date of marriage after discussing with Bhauja, who had the amazing ability to find a solution to every problem. I told Madhu to have a little patience, we won't delay the marriage too long and she would see her daughter soon.
I came to Cuttack and told everything to Bhauja. She almost danced with joy at this turn of events,
"See, I told you, Khusi is a blessed child and brings good luck to everyone. Now her mother will be united with her!. Don't worry, keep your raging hormone in control for a month or two. I will convince Bou and your Bhai. We will have an early marriage, leave it to me, fikar not, my Debar, get ready for Debrani!"
As I sit here on the roof of my official quarters in Rourkela under a moonlit sky, writing my incredible story, I marvel at the twists and turns life takes. Dear readers, all of you are invited to attend my wedding on 31st April, a month and half away. Come for the khusi of my Khusi in getting united with her mother, who had been left behind at some milestone in my life, but thank God, she managed to catch up with us.
(My instant poem inspired by the Editorial for LVLX)
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
All these dead,
Leaving life midway
Carrying their unfulfilled dreams
Piled up in their vacant gazes.
This land of the dead,
Smiles like forgotten
Streaks of lightning
The faces change their shades
When the unknown knocks at the door.
Many distant memories
Come visiting like welcomed guests
One has forgotten
What happened yesterday
The dark days are falling over each other,
But the rosy past is so enchanting!
The streets are empty,
So are the souls
When one wonders
Whether to maintain a distance of one metre or two.
Hands come up for a shake
And are swiftly withdrawn,
Smiles turn to frowns.
Neighbours are scared to look out
For fear of being invited home,
Darkness rules the streets
Defying the pavement lights,
When the wind wails in mournful unison,
The heart plunges into despair,
Who next, one asks in muted whispers,
In this land, land of the dead.
(The country of the dead can be anywhere, death is a great leveller)
Dr. Mrutyunjay Sarangi is a retired civil servant and a former Judge in a Tribunal. Currently his time is divided between writing short stories and managing the website PositiveVibes.Today. He has published eight books of short stories in Odiya and has won a couple of awards, notably the Fakir Mohan Senapati Award for Short Stories from the Utkal Sahitya Samaj.
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