Literary Vibes - Edition CXVI (29-Apr-2022) - POEMS, SHORT STORIES & ANECDOTES
Title : Catching Butterfly (Picture courtesy Ms. Latha Prem Sakya)
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the 116th edition of LiteraryVibes in the midst of the sizzling heat of April. We have come before you with an interesting bouquet of beautiful poems and scintillating stories. Among today's highlights is a highly interesting feature on literary vignettes by Mr. Pradeep Biswal, a renowned bilingual poet of Odisha and a regular contributor to LiteraryVibes, who has proposed to start a series named Literally Speaking from the present edition. We also have a brilliant poem by the newcomer Mr. Sriram Paravastu, a highly accomplished poet from Bangalore. Let us look forward to more such contributions from Mr. Biswal and Mr. Sriram in our future editions.
April reminds us of "The cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire", lines made immortal by T. S. Eliot in The Waste Land. However, in India there is little to choose between April and May, in terms of oppressive heat and the ill-blowing dust. Different parts of the country have ingenuous ways of meeting the terror of hot summer. In the part that I am currently visiting - Raipur, the capital of Chhatisgarh in Central India - the scalding hot air, named locally as loo, is best countered by wet towels on the head and lots of cool mango panna (sherbet made out of raw mangoes and sugar) in the stomach. If someone suffers from an attack by the dreaded air and develops fever, peels of raw mangoes are rubbed on the soles of the feet and the palms to reduce the severity of the heat generated in the body. Lassi is of course the universal soothing drink all over India during summer and Raipur is no exception. It's a gastronomical delight, a sort of esoteric Nirvana.
Raipur is a delightful city, particularly the new, modern part of it. Five star hotels have sprung up everywhere, attesting to its blooming prosperity. Vast stretches of open land smilingly invite investment and infrastructure development. Out of the three states - MP, UP and Bihar - which were bifurcated twenty years back, Chhatisgarh has recorded the maximum development, bringing in unprecedented happiness to the inhabitants. The people are simple and affectionate and deserve the best that a government can give. Here is to wish them Godspeed in their endeavour.
Last week, for the first time I had the unique oportunity of attending a "destination wedding" where the bride's family and the groom's family converge along with their relatives and abandon themselves to music, songs, dance, fun and frolic. Every arrangement for the wedding, from pandal to the procession of the baraat is taken care of by the hotel, in exchange of a fat fee. But both the sides are spared of any headache which is an usual part of a wedding.
The wedding was at Orchha, a beautiful tourist spot famous for the Ram Temple. Fortunately, our friend from LiteraryVibes, Dr. Ajay Upadhyay, had written a beautiful travelogue on Orchha in the fifth edition in March 2019. I read the article as a guide and later found to my utter delight, the place far exceeded my expectations. Like many historical sites Orchha exudes immortality, its temples, monuments, palaces, even the fifteen mausoleums built for the kings - fill the mind with enchanting myths and anecdotes.
The much revered Ram Raja Temple resonates with the story of Lord Rama coming to Orchha to be coronated the King, the only place where the God rules as the King. Legend has it that the Queen Ganeshkunwari, a staunch Ram devotee had a tussle with her husband King Mudhukar Shah Ju Dev (1554-1592), a die-hard worshipper of Lord Krishna. She was banished to Ayodhya and could return only if she could bring her Lord to Orchha. After severe penance for twenty seven days, at the end of which she jumped into the fierce Sarju river, the Lord appeared before her as a child and agreed to come only on the condition that he should be made the King of Orchha. The Queen walked all the way to Orchha with the Lord as a child in her arms. She reached late in the night and kept the idol in her palace, deciding to take The Lord to the newly constructed Chaturbhuj temple nearby. In the morning when she woke up, the Lord preferred to stay in the palace which was then converted to a temple. From 1575 the Lord reigns as the King there, receiving a gun salute four times a day. No other dignitary, not even the President of India, is entitled to a gun salute in Orchha. It is believed that even today Lord Ram spends the day in Ayodhya, but returns to Orchha to take rest in the night.
The huge Jehangir palace is another monument soaked with the beauty of history and legend. Studded with precious stones and exotic marble, it was built for the stay of the Moghul Emperor just for one night. King Bir Pratap, in a moment of royal magnanimity gifted the palace to his friend, the Emperor, who died in the same year. The gift passed on to his son Shahjahan who never visited Orchha. The king could never think of using the palace, once it was given away as a gift. So the splendorous palace, built at a huge cost of two lakh rupees from 1601 to 1627, has remained as a one-night marvel.
Equally enthralling is the story of Raj Nartaki Praveen, the fascinating poet and royal courtesan whose legendary beauty was unparallaled at the time. The great Moghul Emperor Akbar, invited her to Delhi and besotted by her beauty, ordered her to stay back in his palace. She wriggled out by composing an instant couplet which has remained etched as a folklore:
(Please listen to the entreaties of Rai Praveen, O Great Emperor,
Left overs are fit to be eaten only by vultures, crows and dogs.)
Realising that the courtesan belonged to King Indrajeet, Emperor Akbar sent her back to Orchha with full royal honour. There is a cute little palace for the extraordinary poet and courtesan by the side of the royal palace even today, testifying to the beauty of poetry and art.
Ah, the enchanting world of myths, folklore and legends! Their charm is indeed irresistible. We left Orchha carrying a sweet memory which will remain with us forever.
Dear readers, hope you will enjoy the rich fare served in the present edition. Please do share them with your friends and contacts through the links https://www.positivevibes.today/article/newsview/433 (poems, short stories and anecdotes) and http://www.positivevibes.today/article/newsview/432 (Young Magic).
There are also two interesting articles by the prolific doctor Dr. Gangadhar Sahoo at http://www.positivevibes.today/article/newsview/430 and http://www.positivevibes.today/article/newsview/431
Please take care, stay safe and keep smiling. We will meet again on 27th May with the 117th edition of LiteraryVibes.
With warm regards,
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
Table of Contents :: POEMS
01) Prabhanjan K Mishra
KAMALA DAS: THE ICON
02) Haraprasad Das
A FRESH START (AYAMAARAMBHA)
03) Dilip Mohapatra
JUST CHILL
WAITING FOR DOC
04) Geetha Nair G
THE TANKA
05) Bibhu Padhi
LEAVING HOME: MOTHER SPEAKING*
06) Kamalakanta Panda (Kalpanta)
YOU (TUME)
07) Madhumathi. H
WHEN ARE YOU THE HAPPIEST?
NUMB CORNER...
08) Sundar Rajan & Team
RAINBOW RANTS
ELEMENTAL EARTH!
09) Sriram Paravastu
NOSTALGIA REVISITED
10) Dr. Bichitra Kumar Behura
LANGUAGE OF LOVE
11) Sharanya Bee
TRUTHS
12) Hema Ravi
BLOSSOMING HEART...
13) Alexandra Psaropoulou
FLYING
14) Setaluri Padmavathi
COMPLETENESS
15) Ravi Ranganathan
HARMONY
16) Dr. S. Padmapriya
THE BHAGAWAN GAUTAMA BUDDHA
17) Sheena Rath
BOUQUET
18) Asha Raj Gopakumar
CASSIA FISTULA – A SIGN OF GOOD OMEN
19) Niranjan Barik
OSTRICH AT PEACE!
20) Kabyatara Kar
SWEETHEART
21) Sukanya.V. Kunju
REFLECTION OF SHADOW
22) Dr. Mrutyunjay Sarangi
END OF THE STORY
Table of Contents :: SHORT STORIES & ANECDOTES
01) Prabhanjan K. Mishra
SHRIKANT
02) Dilip Mohapatra
THE SWING
03) Ishwar Pati
COPY-PASTE
04) Chinmayee Barik
NEWTON
05) Satya Narayan Mohanty
ROAD BLOCKS TO SUNSET BOULEVARD
06) Meena Mishra
WHO KNOWS THE TRUTH ?
07) Pradeep Biswal
MY ROMANCE WITH RADIO
FAST PEDALING TO THE FUTURE
LITERALLY SPEAKING - DEATH OF SERIOUS LITERATURE ?
LITERALLY SPEAKING - NO MORE OFF THE SHELF
08) Antony Thomas
THE BOXERS
09) Dr. Radharani Nanda
DEBT 2
10) Sundar Rajan S
THE WRITE DOCUMENT
11) Snehaprava Das
DRESSING TABLE
12) Prof (Dr) Viyatprajna Acharya
ABANDONING THE APSARAS
13) Dr. S. Padmapriya
GENEROUS JOJO
14) Nitish Nivedan Barik
A SCHOOL AWAY FROM A SCHOOL
15) Ashok Kumar Ray
THE ORISSA FAMINE 1866
16) Dr. Mrutyunjay Sarangi
THE LEAD STORIES FROM TWO OF MY RECENTLY PUBLISHED BOOKS
BOOK REVIEW:
01) Varadarajan Narasimhan
THE CUCKOO SINGS AGAIN BY HEMA RAVI
Table of Contents :: YOUNG MAGIC
01) Hiya Khurana
IF A STAR COULD SPEAK...
02) Trishna Sahoo.
A FREE PARROT
03) Ritika Pradhan
MY CUTE KITTEN
POEMS
Sitting an hour in the haze
of her billowing white floss
flowing down her nape, dreaming
of Khajuraho and Konark;
nestling by her wrinkled skin,
recalls the crowd -
valiant archers and suitors
aspired after the rainbow.
Once undulated and lush,
gone fallow, withered;
serenity of a bygone era
yet twinkles in eyes.
The dust on her feet
drawls lazy syllables
from her lisping heart-beats,
lips speak little.
But the ink of her pen
yet wet with raw passion,
an unrevealed Morse,
treading into forbidden zones.
This hour, she waits in her casket
for her last farewell,
her ebony lips look curled up in irony,
or hint of a sardonic smile.
Dwarfs mill around by her casket,
her flesh dying, but poetry alive;
pigmies eager to steal her halo,
even wallow in her putridity,
swallow the rancid pungency.
They recall inhaling
her fetid honesty in life
exhaling visceral poetry.
In palms she held others’ lines
of fate and heart,
her stream irrigated the oaks,
her brook fertilized the banks.
She is a drooping flower,
preparing to depart,
with her halo peeled off,
a mortal.
A motif in songs,
a signature on time,
a tome on poetic discipline,
a quatrain of pulsating life.
In an hour,
she would leave the masks
of lies behind, join
the chrysanthemums and lilies.
(Tribute to the late poet Kamala Das, alias Madhavi Kutty, alias Suraiyya at her last journey)
Prabhanjan K. Mishra is a poet/ story writer/translator/literary critic, living in Mumbai, India. The publishers - Rupa & Co. and Allied Publishers Pvt Ltd have published his three books of poems – VIGIL (1993), LIPS OF A CANYON (2000), and LITMUS (2005). His poems have been widely anthologized in fourteen different volumes of anthology by publishers, such as – Rupa & Co, Virgo Publication, Penguin Books, Adhayan Publishers and Distributors, Panchabati Publications, Authorspress, Poetrywala, Prakriti Foundation, Hidden Book Press, Penguin Ananda, Sahitya Akademi etc. over the period spanning over 1993 to 2020. Awards won - Vineet Gupta Memorial Poetry Award, JIWE Poetry Prize. Former president of Poetry Circle (Mumbai), former editor of this poet-association’s poetry journal POIESIS. He edited a book of short stories by the iconic Odia writer in English translation – FROM THE MASTER’s LOOM, VINTAGE STORIES OF FAKIRMOHAN SENAPATI. He is widely published in literary magazines; lately in Kavya Bharati, Literary Vibes, Our Poetry Archives (OPA) and Spillwords.
(Translated by Prabhanjan K. Mishra)
Hurdles, as hissing serpents, shouldn’t
scare you, deter you from your resolve;
don’t yell, “Get lost” at your man Friday,
He is your most devoted help;
the crimson sky of the daybreak
does not indicate a blood-bath at evening;
do not pick up a fruit from the crow beak
that looks red and succulent
like a woman’s luscious lips;
it can be a honeytrap;
don’t pull yourself out
of a pit to safety
clutching at the enemy’s hand,
it can turn into a noose later.
Now that your efforts
are blossoming to bear fruit
and the hour is suffused
with the smell of success;
you may hear discouraging noises -
a drum pounding inside your chest,
your breath whistling
like a bad flautist’s toneless notes,
an inner voice calling you back
to the past’s complacent rut,
the claps of applause sounding
like the peals of distant thunder….
But, your hurdles overcome,
a new dawn awaits you
with open arms.
Hail the fresh start. Good luck to you.
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)”
You send a Whatsapp invite
to a dear friend visiting your city
for dinner at your place
and count the minutes
for a response which doesn't come
and you feel dejected
and perhaps start fuming and fretting
throw couple of expletives
and mumble to yourself
that you don't care.
You send your poems to
a literary journal
under publication and wait
for a response from the editors
and check your mail box
expectantly day after day
but there is none.
Or you find a new anthology
on the shelf featuring
the works of the who’s who
other than yours
and you are filled with rage
or remorse or even feel insulted
and ignored
and even may wallow
in self pity.
You update your status
on Facebook and upload some
of your selfies grainy and distorted
perhaps taken from an obtuse angle
or post some tweets on Twitter
that you feel are witty and earthshaking
but don't find a single like
or comment nor a share
and you curse the whole world
exclaiming how unfeeling your friends are.
Pause for a moment
and hold your mind still
and say to yourself
how does it really matter
and then
just chill.
Tearing through the office traffic
with my fingers crossed
and praying silently for the
safety of my car's bumpers
I finally make my way
to the doctor's waiting room in haste
for I was just two minutes late.
I register for my appointment
for my routine cardio check up
and I am directed to wait
for my turn till my token number flashes
on the digital status board.
Absentmindedly I pick up an old
issue of The Week
that features on its cover
the gory news about the captives of ISIS
and I exchange it for a movie mag
Stardust and meet the defiant
gaze of the eight pack abs
engraved on the bronzed body
of Tiger Shroff.
The minutes tick by
and my turn is yet to come
and an Ad on the back cover captioned
the Rolex Way catches my eye
that declares
precise is too imprecise
for their attention to detail
and tradition too conventional
for their innovation
and a lone mosquito buzzes over my ears
with total impudence
my token number still unlit.
Having browsed all the dog eared
and much thumbed pages
I shift my attention to the posters
on the wall
and half way through the one
on nicotine dependence
the attendant comes to announce
that all appointments for today
are cancelled
for a popular matinee idol
has arrived with
acute pain in the chest
and is under examination.
As I amble out of the OPD
after taking a new appointment
for next week
I overhear two interns
conversing that it was
just a case of gastric distension
due to indigestion
or perhaps
an outcome of
severe constipation.
Dilip Mohapatra, a decorated Navy Veteran from Pune, India is a well acclaimed poet and author in contemporary English. His poems regularly appear in many literary journals and anthologies worldwide. He has six poetry collections, two non-fictions and a short story collection to his credit. He is a regular contributor to Literary Vibes. He has been awarded the prestigious Naji Naaman Literary Awards for 2020 for complete work. The society has also granted him the honorary title of 'Member of Maison Naaman pour la Culture'. His website may be accessed at dilipmohapatra.com.
The Tanka is an ancient Japanese poetic form, a poem of 31 syllables.
In English it is usually divided into 5 lines. 5-7-5-7-7 is the syllable break-up.
A tanka often has a "volta", a change in thought, mood or imagery, usually towards the end of the poem.
Here are my Tankas :
LIFE
And so we gambol,
Chase birds, fetch sticks in cool woods,
Eat sleep laugh weep moan
Till the axe's blows grow still
And we see the woods are gone.
MOVING BACK
The oars beat the years
And the days sprinkle azure;
What hides in the haze?
O then- flash of peacock blue -
You shimmer bright on my sight.
CROSSING THE BRIDGE
Cross a palm log bridge
While waters swirl deep below
Take agile steps and reach -
But land in landslide: O lost !
Soft victories, loud defeats.
Geetha Nair G. is an award-winning author of two collections of poetry: Shored Fragments and Drawing Flame. Her work has been reviewed favourably in The Journal of the Poetry Society (India) and other notable literary periodicals. Her most recent publication is a collection of short stories titled Wine, Woman and Wrong. All the thirty three stories in this collection were written for,and first appeared in Literary Vibes.
Geetha Nair G. is a former Associate Professor of English, All Saints’ College, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
LEAVING HOME: MOTHER SPEAKING*
I’ve been told, that
what is worth thinking about
is not leaving itself but
how one leaves and when,
and who are all there
with you when you do.
I’ve seen so many leaving
their homes throughout
my long habitation here
Women, men, children,
babies even before their arrivals,
eager, pregnant mothers,
lizards and snakes,
mosquitoes and houseflies,
trees and grasses, flowers and fruits,
seas and lakes, villages
as well as cities, poets and artists,
politicians and bureaucrats,
scientists, social workers,
the very old and the very young.
I’ve observed from a long distance
so many leaving the other place too,
numerously—that place where
leaving is only another way of
returning in a different shape,
with a different mind and heart,
where everything and everyone
is delicately trained to live
a gloriously prosperous life
from the very moment one leaves
that place’s incandescent, though
slightly reclusive, premises.
I suppose, when I left that
place, I hadn’t received my
training well, was in fact sent away
before I was ready to be here.
Perhaps I should have been there
for another light year or more.
Today I realise how difficult it is
to reach a place that one might
call one’s own the moment one arrives.
Home and home. From one
familiar home to another..
I can clearly recall
the day of my dark arrival
here, in my new home--
the hour, the moment, the date,
although I know all of these
are of no use, neither to me
nor to where I came from,
nor even to the much larger,
but little known history of myself.
I know however how a luminous,
self-narrating story
writes itself, without anyone’s
help or life, beyond the blind,
very human necessity
of taking down the names
of any particular event or time,
without paper, pen or papyrus,
without a hand or mind.
Somewhere I vaguely remember
the easy way I chose my
dark, secure home
from out of uncountable ones,
just as one is attracted
to one star out of so many,
falls in love as if it were
one’s very own, related to one
since its birth, known to one
through flesh and blood.
*This poem is from Bibhu Padhi’s most recent book of poetry, Principles of Sleep. For those who would like to buy a copy, it is available on amazon. Click on “Books” and write “Bibhu Padhi” on the subject line and click again.
A two times Pushcart nominee, Bibhu Padhi has published seventeen books of poetry. His poems have appeared in distinguished magazines throughout the world, such as Contemporary Review, The London Magazine, The Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, The Rialto, Stand, Wasafiri, The American Scholar, Commonweal, The Manhattan Review, The New Criterion, Poet Lore, Poetry, Rosebud, Southwest Review, TriQuarterly, Xavier Review, New Contrast, The Antigonish Review, The Dalhousie Review, Queen’s Quarterly, The Bombay Review, and Indian Literature.
They have been included in several anthologies and textbooks. Six of the most recent are The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poet s, Language for a New Century ( New York: Norton) Journeys (HarperCollins),The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry, Converse: Contemporary English Poems by Indians ( London: Pippa Rann Books), and The Penguin Book of Indian Poets.
(Translated by Prabhanjan K. Mishra)
Mind is restless,
the air pauses with impatience;
branches and the twigs
of my being, awash with your fragrance.
You, conspicuous by absence,
your absence murmurs
like the distant sea, vast.
It brings to mind
our closest intimate hours.
A longing suffuses the soul,
with yearnings; heart feels empty.
The dark interior, a blackboard,
the thin sunbeam, its pink chalk,
writes sweet nothings of our tender love,
smiling lips parted in a pout.
The sunray, thin and changing
from pink to chalk white, its contour
soothing as the white Tagara,
blooming like your familiar toothy smile,
spanning from earth to the sky,
seeping into the soil of my flesh.
An auspicious desire -
to mount the Kalpataru,
the divine tree of blessings,
wishing for the fulfillment
of all your wants and bring me
only your engaging smile.
(The poem appeared in Odia literary magazine SAMAYARA SHANKHANADA, 2nd year, First-Second Combo-Issue, 1997)
Kamalakanta Panda (Kalpanta) is a renowned Odia poet lives and writes from Bhubaneswar, the city of temples, over the last forty years. He is often referred to as Kalpanta (meaning the ‘ultimate’) in Odia literary circles. He is a poet of almost legendary repute in Odisha and if one has not read Kalpata, then, he hasn’t read the quintessence of Odia poetry. He is famous for a quirky decision: he would never collect his poems into books himself. However, one may not find an Odia literary journal, or an anthology not enriched by his poems. His recent passion is to re-discover quaint and musical Odia words, and use them in poetry to enhance its nuances and contours. He is shy and quiet by disposition and believes to serve his muse, the deity-poetry, away from humdrum and razzle-dazzle of poetic forums. (He can be reached at his resident telephone No.06742360394 and his mobile No. 09437390003)
After the rain, I go for a walk
Shake the branches to get drenched by another spell
From the petals, and leaves...
I gaze at the milky blue Sky, pen and notebook on my lap scribbling patterns
A poem arrives like a swirling feather...
I do not know which bird left a cue
With a cup of coffee, listening to a soulful melody
Each line of the lyrics make me smile, wonder, long...
Tears roll down my face, finding myself in the songs
I find a window seat, an almost empty compartment
As the train moves, my conversation with the wind begins
While popcorn, cotton candy, fruits, flowers join the journey...
I call it ecstasy
Nobody around
Being with self, memories wake up
Weeping my eyes out, I feel light
Peace descends, I become my own Sunshine
Cardamom, sandal, Eucalyptus, camphor
Wafting aroma, scents, textures, patterns, colors
Nature's pristine Canvas, find me happiest
Handwritten letters, waiting for the postman
Meeting a soulmate at the Sea
A stranger's, a sleeping baby's smile
Waking up late, with no to-do list
Someone telling me, I made their day
Every time I receive love, kindness, find a kind shoulder
Dad's messages, pictures of flowers from the garden
Mom's every affectionate "Shall I make and send it for you?"
Dancing to my favorite Playlist
Cycling, under crisp blue Sky...
Just be. In my own world
Without haste, without even wanting to be happy...
But just breathe in the moment.
The day I broke
After the storm...
Until that moment
I was held with love
Gently, you sipped your magic potion
Of coffee, tea, reading poetry from the Sky
I have never felt lonely
For, I thought you are my forever
Joyfully listened to you, each day
Tried to be warmer, for your tears...
Until you gave me this retirement
A permanent corner...
Am missing you, and
Myself too
All the seasons, scents of mornings
Calm evenings with your beloved
Ah the way you clutched me
As you blushed, in his presence
I felt like your best friend, always
Until that moment, when
All hell broke loose
As you crumpled the letter
You dropped me, wept your eyes out
Days, weeks passed
Am happy to see you smile
Sip your favorite from a new cup
I wish, you pick me once in a while...
Only my handle is lost
Not my love, warmth, or your grip
Hold me with the same love
Will you handle with care, again?!...
~Madhumathi. H
A bilingual poet-writer(Tamil, English), Madhumathi is an ardent lover of Nature, Poetry, Photography and Music. Her poems are published in Anthologies of The Poetry Society(India), AIFEST 2020 Poetry contest Anthology, CPC- Chennai Poetry Circle, IPC – India Poetry Circle, Amaravati Poetic Prism, and in e-zines UGC approved Muse India, Storizen, OPA – Our Poetry Archives, IWJ - International Writers Journal, Positive Vibes, and Science Shore.
‘’Ignite Poetry'’, “Arising from the dust”, “Painting Dreams", “Shards of unsung Poesies", "Breathe Poetry" are some of the *recent Anthologies her poems, and write ups are part of. (*2020 - 2021). Besides Poetry, Madhumathi writes on Mental health, to create awareness and break the stigma, strongly believing in the therapeutic and transformational power of words. Contact: madhumathi.poetry@gmail.com Blog: https://madhumathipoetry.wordpress.com
(Photo credit to S. Sundar Rajan.: This photo of the fountain with the rainbow was taken at Lalbagh)
Am I just a color ring or cupid's bow?
Whose Celestial arrow that pierces,
The heart of all creatures with love overflow?
Or a VIBGYOR ring on the Earth's nose pierce ?
Am I just a band of pale hues diffracted ?
Split by raindrops from the white light of the Sun ?
Like the prisms of men's minds that have acted,
To split half-truths from the clear light of reason ?
Am I just a colourful passing beauty,
To spring a surprise on any sky gazer?
To many I symbolise simplicity,
With thoughts of hope and good fortune to favour.
Am I just colored semicircles on high?
Of simple white rays, I am the beauty vibes.
An ever refreshing art work in the sky.
A pleasant harbinger of hope, of good times.
Am I just something to be looked at with awe?
A rare phenomenon seen high in the sky?
You will be really wonder struck if you saw
Me in crystal clear water as you drive by...
Am I just a dash of colours in the sky?
Or a pallette adorning your sunny day,
Where you see little drops of rain passing by?
I glitter through those joyful drops by the bay.
Am i just few minutes wonder to behold?
Forming a bow of colours from wet and sun?
Believed to hold at the end, a pot of gold!
Just a glimpse of me, makes young and old have fun!
Am I just a blue sphere of five elements?
Fiery core, air, cool waters my testament
Flora Fauna flourish on my land and sea
Sun and moon nourish, animals plants, and me!
Am I just that one big planet you call home?
Welcoming everyone onto my li'l dome
You come ’n’ conquer and call it yours to stay
And I simply watch you putting me to slay.
Am I just Mother Earth, 'Dharthi Ma'* in name?
It's time the human race hung its head in shame.
They've decimated, destroyed, plundered at will,
And claim they are the most evolved species still?
Am I just a big blue ball for humans play?
Just made of water, sand soil humus, and clay?
Digging up my core and tearing up my veil,
Asking for forgiveness, One day you shall kneel!
Am I just another planet round the sun?
I'm the one that nurtures life, the only one.
My resources you may use, I don't restrict;
Remember if I'm exhausted, you're extinct.
Am I just a sphere rotating on axis,
Revolving around Sun, as time elapses?
I nurture Nature, flora and fauna space,
While I yearn for support from the human race.
Am I just a ground to hold tight lightning bolt?
Don't I heat, cool water in sea also, hold?
I keep grounded creatures, trees, all encompassed!
Nurture any planet like I can surpass!
Am I just a planet of soil and air?
I am your solace, your peace ever
I am a place of happiness and sorrow
I live and let you live even in morrow!
Am I just a turquoise dot in endless Space?
Home to flora, fauna, and the human race.
From molten metal core to ionosphere,
May all life forms co-evolve and persevere.
* means Mother Earth.
S. Sundar Rajan is a chartered accountant, a published poet and writer.
Padmini Janardhanan is a psychologist focusing on personal effectiveness, a poet and writer.
Gita Bharath is a retired banker, a published poet and writer.
Sujatha Santhanam, founder and Creative Head at InkSpeak Creative, a published poet in Hindi and English.
Padmini Viswanathan is an author, editor and poet.
Subha Bharadwaj, environment and safe food activist, poet.
Sridevi Selvaraj is a bilingual writer and an academic
Back in my home town after a long gap,
I encountered strange sightings.
The road side mango tree is still there, a bit aged, but full of fruits.
Like a milking cow that lost its calf, with painful udder,
The tree, with its bounty of unstolen fruits,
Looks at me, sees my boyhood days with moist eyes...
The park, once our adda, a forest of flowers, greenery and playthings,
A swing, swinging lonely, with the push of lazy wind,
A see-saw, hung in shame, the kid on one arm has no company,
The cheerful Mali, cannot say hello, falling teeth like flowers from the bougainvillea tree...
The street end Library,
The treasure trove of our comics,
The "hush-hushed" noise, under the "Silence" board
Now, with deafening silence,
A lone rustle of a news paper, turned by the librarian....
The playground, covered with grass,
The danda still searching for its gilli that got lost some decades ago,
The kabaddi lines, fully leveled,
No cricket or throw balls on the ground
Most of the kids, engrossed in
Little blue things, in their palms...
Sports and games that were played involving the whole body once,
Are played with just fingers in virtual and digital worlds
Many of the verandahs, devoid of easy chairs,
That once used to have an uncle or chacha
Who used to welcome or bid farewell to every passer-by,
Now vacant, a vacuum, like my mind...
Vacillating feeling..
Are we progressing as a civilization or regressing,
Moving away from nature and humanness ???
Sriram Paravastu is an IAF Veteran, retired about a decade ago and working for a construction company. Is a Meteorologist by profession and environmentalist by passion. Recently launched a startup for production of renewable energy. He is married with two children and settled in Bangalore
Love exhilarates
Some how,
Wish to express
The feeling of happiness.
Eyes glow
With dazzling sparkle,
Throat chokes
Blocking words to come out,
Helpless but hopeful
Know for sure
Will be able to say
How beautiful it is
Some other day.
Enough
If you see little change
The way I behave,
Definitely,
Will get swayed away
By this divine wave,
Otherwise,
Have to wait
Till I learn the language
To speak to your heart
Being fully aware
That love transcends
All barriers
Posed by mere senses.
Unfortunately,
There is a constraint,
The difficulty to communicate
In the matters of love,
Unless both are in similar state
Merging as soulmates.
Indistinguishable
As to who is the receiver
And who giveth
In this cosmic union,
As it happens.
It is never late
Despite births and deaths
Lingering the journey
Over many ages,
Once you get
You will no doubt forget
This has been such a long wait.
Will speak then
With full confidence,
Love reigns our hearts,
Whether you reciprocate or prefer
To be silent.
But then,
I wonder and contemplate
If there is any need to say
About love
And how it is felt
Once one is aware
The divine wave is around
Pulsating the hearts
Clear and loud.
Dr. Bichitra Kumar Behura, is an Engineer from BITS, Pilani and has done his MBA and PhD in Marketing. He writes both in Odia and English. He has published three books on collection of English poems titled “The Mystic in the Land of Love” , “The Mystic is in Love” and “The Mystic’s Mysterious World of Love” and a non-fiction “Walking with Baba, the Mystic”. He has also published three books on collection of Odia Poems titled “ Ananta Sparsa”, “Lagna Deha” and “Nirab Pathika”. Dr Behura welcomes feedback @ bkbehura@gmail.com. One can visit him at bichitrabehura.org
What could be more painfully beautiful
Than learning to savour the scent
Of these waves of truths
Bending, crawling
lunging all the way to me
These stinging truths that poke
Their way in through the shields of
My fragile soul and send it
Shrivelling and trembling for moments unknown
Now I know one thing
To thank this mighty ocean out there
That prodigious ocean of truths
Your waves have been medicinal all along
Acupuncture-like
They've punctured out my fluid of fears
I love you truths now
I love their scent
I love their sting
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.
Sky overcast added to woes
peeping rays ushered brightness
of the mind and soul.
Ambling without purpose, I spotted at a distance-
hordes of gaily attired people
walking on cheerily.
My curiosity piqued
I followed them as they walked on and on
Without expectation, I trudged along...
Turning into the bend
I watched with bated breath -
tens and hundreds of Sakura blossoms
swaying in the gentle Spring breeze
It was as if a thousand lights gleamed all at once.
Watching families, singles and lovers locked in embrace
beneath the boughs, as the petals took flight
whenever the wind teased them
It dawned upon me - everything is transient
Sorrows never last; as naked, barren winter
yields to delicate blossoms, human aches
rejoice and revel in Nature's arms.
Hema Ravi is a poet, author, reviewer, editor (Efflorescence), independent researcher and resource person for language development courses... Her writings have been featured in several online and international print journals, notable among them being Metverse Muse, Amaravati Poetic Prism, International Writers Journal (USA), Culture and Quest (ISISAR), Setu Bilingual, INNSAEI journal and Science Shore Magazine. Her write ups and poems have won prizes in competitions.
She is the author of ‘Everyday English,’ ‘Write Right Handwriting Series 1,2,3,’ co-author of Sing Along Indian Rhymes’ and ‘Everyday Hindi.’
She was a guest faculty trainer in the Virtual Communication Skills Program for the Undergraduate Students of IIT Madras in July 2021, also resource person in the National workshop 'English Language Skills for Academic Purposes at Sastra University, Kumbakonam (2019).
She was the Guest of Honor and esteemed panel member for a panel discussion with faculty members and children on the topic of Creative Writing in the Virtual U R A Writer Award Panel Discussion (Gear International School, Bengaluru in Feb. 2021)
She is the recipient of the Distinguished Writer International Award for excellence in Literature for securing the ninth place in the 7th Bharat Award, conducted by www.poesisonline.com. In addition, she has been awarded a ‘Certificate of Appreciation’ for her literary contributions by the Gujarat Sahitya Academy and Motivational Strips on the occasion of the 74th Independence Day (2020) and again. conferred with the ‘Order of Shakespeare Medal’ for her writing merit conforming to global standards.(2021)
She is the recipient of cash prizes from the Pratilipi group, having secured the fourth place in the Radio Romeo Contest (2021), the sixth place in the Retelling of Fairy Tales (2021), the first prize in the Word Cloud competition (2020) and in the Children’s Day Special Contest (2020)
She scripted, edited, and presented radio lessons on the Kalpakkam Community Radio titled 'Everyday English with Hema,' (2020) a series of lessons for learners to hone their language skills. Science Shore Magazine has been featuring her visual audios titled ‘English Errors of Indian Students.’
As event organizer of Connecting Across Borders (CAB), she has played a predominant role in organizing the International Poetry Conference on March 8, 2021, in collaboration with the CTTE College, Chennai. Earlier, in July 2020, she organized an international poetry webinar ‘Connecting Across Borders, featuring women poets from India and overseas.
A brief stint in the Central Government, then as a teacher of English and Hindi for over two decades, Hema Ravi is currently freelancer for IELTS and Communicative English. With students ranging from 4 to 70, Hema is at ease with any age group, pursues her career and passion with great ease and comfort.
As the Secretary of the Chennai Poets’ Circle, Chennai, she empowers the young and the not so young to unleash their creative potential efficiently.
Alexandra was born in the year of the horse of fire, in Greece, where she spent many years living in the wild mountains of the island of Hydra. Later, she attended St. Mary's in Wiltshire and studied European Thought & Literature at Anglia Ruskin in Cambridge. She lived in Paris and New York, before returning to Greece to settle. Her father was a renowned poet and author and had a successful publishing company in Greece. Her mother was a ballet dancer as well as president of the Dance Union in Greece. Her family social circles, ever since a little girl, were rich with artists, writers, and academics. She lives with her husband, a classical guitar soloist and four children near the Temple of Poseidon, Sounio, by the sea and publishes her own visual poems on Amazon.
She holds a delicate human being
like the heavy brownish earth,
so gently in the layers of a bag
that shields him affectionately for long...
She dreams of his every movement,
smiles, figure, and the shape of organs
She also imagines big for his future
relations with her loving baby!
She carries him with immense patience,
turning every discomfort to comfort
She caresses the baby like a huge tree
bearing fragrant flowers and sweet fruits!
Every month gives a new thought
that mesmerizes her busy mind
Every morning makes her delightful
with memorable moments and feelings!
Physical changes turn her beautiful
A bulging belly reminds her of a new life,
life that gives her fruitful hopes,
and hopes that will turn her optimistic!
Ah! Look at her gleaming eyes
that wait happily to see the infant!
Birth to a new living being
labels her a complete woman!
What a turn and twist in motherhood!
Mother symbolizes patience and care
She is the epitome of unconditional love
who creates a cherishable family tree!
Mrs. Setaluri Padmavathi, a postgraduate in English Literature with a B.Ed., has been in the field of education for more than three decades. Writing has always been her passion that translates itself into poems of different genres, short stories and articles on a variety of themes and topics. She is a bilingual poet and writes poems in Telugu and English. Her poems were published in many international anthologies and can be read on her blogsetaluripadma.wordpress.com. Padmavathi’s poems and other writings regularly appear on Muse India.com. Boloji.com, Science Shore, Setu, InnerChild Press Anthologies and Poemhunter.com
You provoked my sound with your eerie silence
My sound dissected your quietness
Our time hung between your silence and my noise
This subtlety is
Camouflaging the deep bond between us
Enough of our pretences
Let us come back to our senses...
... ... ...
You provoked my rage with your rueful reticence
My rebound deciphered your acquiescence
Our thread hung between your glance and my voice
This fidelity is
Fusing the deep longing between us
Enough of our defences
Let us come back to mend fences...
... ... ...
You provoked my impatience with your patience
My resonance defused your dissonance
Our symphony hung between your nod and my choice
This affinity is
Harmonising the deep sync between us
Enough of our inferences
Let us rejoice in Love’s gracious recompenses....
Ravi Ranganathan is a retired banker turned poet settled in Chennai. He has to his credit three books of poems entitled “Lyrics of Life” and “Blade of green grass” and “Of Cloudless Climes”. He revels in writing his thought provoking short poems called ‘ Myku’. Loves to write on nature, Life and human mind. His poems are featured regularly in many anthologies. Has won many awards for his poetry including , Sahitya Gaurav award by Literati Cosmos Society, Mathura and Master of creative Impulse award by Philosophyque Poetica.
Lord Gautama Buddha,
Son of King Shuddhodhana,
Son of Queen Mahamaya,
Spouse of Yashodhara,
Father of Rahula.
Born in royalty,
He abnegated everything,
Without a trace of anxiety.
He saw something in four signs:
A sick man, an old man,
A dead man, a monk!
He understood that in forced authority,
Peace does not reign!
He left every worldly pleasure,
Practiced severe austerities,
He realised that happiness is not,
In pleasures’ intricacies,
Or in excess austerities.
Under the Peepal tree,
Sat he for days seven,
Attaining enlightenment.
He said,
‘Love all with compassion,
Compassion is the greatest religion,
Do not accept everything even what I say,
Without reason.'
The Buddha taught,
Truths major four,
Sufferings, desires,
Desires lead to sufferings,
Give up desires,
Give up sufferings,
Follow eight-fold path.
The Buddha preached The Dharma,
The path of righteousness,
The law of cause and effect,
He had faith in the principle of Karma.
Many sutras to guide us,
The Sutra Pitaka,
The Vinaya Pitaka,
The Abidharma.
The Buddha was a model teacher,
A kind-hearted noble speaker,
To him, God was formless and nameless,
Omnipotent and omnipresent,
The Buddha loved all people,
From all religions, regions, castes,
Nations, genders, colours!
Long live the Buddha,
I bow my head before him,
And to one, who gave him life,
His mother, Queen Mahamaya.
Dr. S. Padmapriya is a well known poet and writer from India. She began writing poems in English at the tender age of seven. She is the author of three poetry collections – ‘Great Heights’, ‘The Glittering Galaxy’ and ‘Galaxy’ as well as one novel, ‘The Fiery Women’ and ‘Fragments’, a collection of short stories. Her poems, short stories, book reviews, articles and other literary works have been published far and wide. She is a multi-faceted personality with experience in teaching, research and administration.
Blue orchids kiss the sky
Cherubic pink roses blush,oh my my!!
Red hibiscus blossom wine
Warbling birds and humming bees shine
As they fill the air with music
Pathways dressed in foliage green thick
Yellow sunrays fill the hearts with hope
Each petal lively and bold as they scatter down the slope
Tiny beads of friendship
Wrapped up with warmth and affection
In Life's quest for perfection
Surounded by laughter and enthusiasm
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).
She has been writing articles for LV for the past one and half years. Recently she has published her first book.. "Reflections Of My Mind",an ode to the children and families challenged by Autism
CASSIA FISTULA – A sign of good omen.
I, Cassia Fistula,
Was a sign of bad omen.
With a cursed past,
Of nasty deeds.
I taught–
You have no right to inculpate,
Any of God’s creations.
Glowing in the hot sun-rays,
Teach you, life is a sea-
With tides and waves,
Of pain and miseries.
To be burnt to ashes,
To rise – a phoenix bird,
And shine like my golden flowers-
A sign of optimism.
I have proved,
Remembering God,
With prayers and apologies.
Showers God’s mercy,
An ocean infinite,
To change ‘a snake in the grass,’
To a symbol of prosperity-
A sign of good omen.
Behind every origination,
Amazing tactics of God,
With marvelous reasons spied.
Open our eyes wide …
To learn life lessons.
To enjoy the presence of God.
And the ecstasy of life.
Even from His tiniest of creations.
Asha Raj Gopakumar, a postgraduate in English Literature and a novice in writing. She has been living in the Middle East with her family for more than a decade. She is an ardent lover of music, nature and spirituality. She is an active bajan singer in many devotional groups. Presently she focuses on reading, writing and is very much busy with her personal vlog for Krishna lovers as a spiritual service. She had been a teacher for almost six years and gave it up for family matters.
OSTRICH AT PEACE!
Niranjan Barik
It all begins in the minds of men.
For people, who heed not what happens in the minds of others!
Minds make others fall,
Those who fall become all bodies, no soul, no minds;
They become numbers in a different game!
One lost on one side, can only increase the counts on the other,
Can broaden the chest
The total counts against another total ,
Men and material roll into one,
Rivals unravel their ravaging thunder,
The stars war in the sky, clouding the real stars,
The cries of bewildered children, men and women
Gets drowned in the deafening noise of the drones,
It is all play of some big stars or of the problem-child,
The Earth would belong to the victor for all ages to come,
Not a victory over mind, but over bodies, over fallen bodies,
Both East and the West share the burden of computing the tally,
Each does boast and blame the other,
But they go without blemish,
None to apply a healing touch
That tribe is gone
The stars argue their case, justify their stance
Men and women become pawns, the great game goes on and on,
The Sky becomes Black or Sulfer white,
Colouring roads and fields red,
But the ravagers never go red-faced.
They are the bravos!
So, I take my eyes off from what happens in the sky or on the ground,
I have switched off my television.
Dr. Niranjan Barik is a retired Professor of Political Science from Ravenshaw University, Odisha and is currently attached there on teaching and research on an ICSSR project. He is passionate about literature and writes poems, short stories.
Sweetheart is not just
To pacify or console my little one
Who held my finger and learnt her first stride.
She learnt the ethics of the society
The purity she absorbed
Through all these years..
The exotic moments she induced into my heart,
Fills my heart with ecstasy.
You are the epitome of grandeur, sanctity and clarity
How the word Sweetheart ,
remains embedded and gushed in every drop of my blood.
It creates another 'heart in me"
And becomes my support system
The path of vision is so clear and the envisage shows your success
The Acme of achievement shall be throned by you.
The curvaceous mermaid with that
Precious blink on your eyes
Set so many hearts wooing
And despising amongst themselves
The little fairy angel"s fingers
Dainty and petite
Are now formed into strong equipment like ones
To tend to the damage ensued inside the mouth
Her lips open so rare.
And when it opens
They drop as diamonds into the ears of her listeners
Her 'haute coutre' gives her sensibility to appreciate her sense of dressing and attire.
If I go on the few shall be of great volumes
And can form volcano of lyrics
The mystic emotions that have vented this moment ,
To decipher the feelings of my heart
And the code opens to say 'My Sweetheart"
Kabyatara Kar (Nobela)
M.B.A and P.G in Nutrition and Dietetic, Member of All India Human Rights Activists
Passion: Writing poems, social work
Strength: Determination and her familyVision: Endeavour of life is to fill happiness in life of others
A poem is a reflection of shadow,
Where you have to find the object with the
Searching for light inclination.
To understand
One must go through the
environment under which,
Words are glittered
Thus the life you are to live
It is upto you how to adorn it.
We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think.
The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your mind.
My meaning of life is like a tree filled with leaves,
Some leaves fall and some don't.
The dark shadow is the reflection of a light,
More hope in that light.
Success is like your own shadow.
If you try to catch it you will never succeed.
Ignore it and it will follow you
Sukanya.V. Kunju is a post graduate student of St Michael's College,Cherthala. Writing poems is her passion. Most of her poems, have been published in the Literary Vibes as anthology.
END OF THE STORY
Mrutyunjay Sarangi
As I crawl through the remnants
of what were once my dreams
I wonder where I left those footsteps
of someone who never came,
but for whom I spent a lifetime
waiting.
As I look at the mountain peak
that I vainly tried to conquer,
I see the thousand steps
I could have climbed to arrive at
what was within my reach.
As I chased the elusive happiness
always wishing to be someone else,
trying to be somewhere I knew didn't exist,
my shadows mocked at me,
they always did, but I never noticed.
As I lie here tired and crumpled,
shedding endless tears at the end of my story
I think of all those who walked with me
trying to cheer me up, whispering little songs,
while I kept waiting for someone who never came.
Dr. Mrutyunjay Sarangi is a retired civil servant and a former Judge in a Tribunal. Currently his time is divided between writing poems, short stories and editing the eMagazine LiteraryVibes . He has published nine 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. He lives in Bhubaneswar.
SHORT STORIES & ANECDOTES
Shrikant was born in a poor Brahmin family. He grew at the cutting edge of poverty. Frugal meals kept the family just over the surface and from sinking in starvation. In today’s scenario his family would have deserved a below-the- poverty-line (BPL) ration card, and free meals in exchange for votes.
Shrikant was studying in the third standard of his village's upper primary school. He was taking the top position in his class consisting of thirty odd pupils, until a boy from an untouchable community joined as his classmate in the third standard. He pushed Shrikant down to the second rank in the half-yearly examination in standard three.
Shrikant’s mother took his father squarely the evening of that result, “Your son can’t even compete with a sweeper boy!” Shrikant, a child of nine years, felt humiliated by his mother’s words, though he had never thought of his second rank that way, a defeat. But more was coming to hurt him. His mother made an issue of his second rank before the villagers, “I feel ashamed to have carried this good-for-nothing loser in my Brahmin womb who has lost to a latrine cleaner’s son.”
Shrikant was stung by the hornet of competition. He never would miss the first rank in any of his classes again. Shrikant had a photographic memory, and unknown even to himself, a creative mind. That would help him, besides his studies, in building him up as a writer in the latter part of his life, his cathartic medicine from going mad.
Two incidents of his village school days would leave lasting impressions in his mind. One incident happened in the school and the other outside of it.
Shrikant would make up fictitious constructs in his mind and entertain his friends in the village with stories that mostly he conjured up. Even the village adults and elders, men and women, would join his rapt audience at times. Once he told them that his maternal grandpa lived in an ivory palace with gold arches. A few villagers among the audience took his story to be true, and challenged his mother, “Why should you live in this decrepit house being the daughter of a man living in a palace?”
Shrikant’s mother felt insulted, got furious, and took her anger out on the kid for speaking white lies. At the time none except his mild-natured father had the broad view of differentiating between the fiction and a lie. None except him guessed that Shrikant was possibly a writer in the making. But his quirky mother threw her husband’s sagacious counsel into air, and asked all the neighbors to address Shrikant as ‘Mr. Liar’ or ‘Mr. 420’.
Adults, and especially the children took it as a great joke. They called him ‘Mr. Liar’, a few of them also as ‘Mr. 420’, that echoed for days in village lanes and chased Shrikant like a swarm of angry bees. He hid from himself, felt like committing suicide by drinking DDT, a poisonous chemical used against malaria mosquitos. But at this moment of turmoil, the other incident saved his will power from sinking to abyss.
The incident of Mr. Liar and Mr. 420 was a watershed moment in Shrikant’s life. He was horrified by any sort of lies henceforth. He never could speak even an innocent lie that was expected of him to help a good cause. That trait made him an impractical man on certain occasions, causing him to score self-goals. His impractical truth left a trail of hurt family members, friends, colleagues and bosses. It acted like a millstone around his neck.
The second incident, that brought him immense relief, took place in the school and worked as a balm to heal the earlier wounds from being called ‘Mr. Liar or Mr. 420’. The Inspector of Schools was visiting his school. After the paraphernalia of welcome-songs, snacks, tea etc., the inspector visited the classes to check the learning standards of the pupils, the teaching caliber of teachers, and also to tell them certain new things.
In Shrikant’s standard four, he spoke about malaria that was a big curse at that time, often a killer. With printed posters he explained the role of the mosquitos that acted as carrier of the malaria parasite by sucking the infected blood from a malaria patient and giving it to a healthy human during the biting them, transporting the parasite across. In between the two bites, the parasite lived and grew in the mosquito’s body. He advised all for sleeping under mosquito nets and spraying DDT, the pest-killer, to eradicate mosquitos.
Shrikant had a doubt, “Sir, does the mosquito suffer from malaria?” The inspector looked nonplussed, searched his brain but found no answer. He mumbled, “I guess not, though it carries the parasite in its body. But I am not sure. I have to look into better books.” Those days the school inspectors were a honest lot, unlike today, and would not mind learning a thing or two from a student’s questions.
The inspector asked his name, patted Shrikant’s back with an encouraging smile, and silenced the class teacher who was hissing at Srikant not to bother the big officer. He asked all the teachers, including the head master, if any of them knew the answer to the kid’s question. They shook their heads. The inspector promised to the kid, “Shrikant, I will return next week with your answer.” He then announced, “This boy is a genius.”
And even the inspectors of schools were keeping their words in those good old days. The inspector returned with the right answer to Shrikant’s riddle. He also brought a medal and certificate of merit for Shrikant and a cash reward of fifty rupees, a fortune at that time. He said the villagers, teachers and students who had gathered to witness Shrikant’s award ceremony, “Here is your little hero, the star. Give him the chance, he would win the world for you.”
Though Shrikant temporarily enjoyed the attention and applause of all including his father, he suffered as much from his mother’s reaction later. She rubbed his medal with fingers and threw it into a gutter, “It is a piece of bronze of little value, not worth even two paise.” But Shrikant would recall the inspector’s inspiring words at the times of his depressive moments of life. Those words would cheer him up. it would be like a phoenix rising from its ashes.
Thus passed Shrikant’s Primary School days. His father’s financial handicap made Shrikant limp through the school and college until post-graduation. He managed with the meagre amount of government scholarship throughout. But he passed all his examinations with flying colors.
An UPSC competition won him a job as an officer of Indian Revenue Service (IRS). During his graduation days, he had befriended a Roman Catholic girl, Ramola, of exquisite beauty and great qualities. Shrikant had fallen in love head over heels with her, and now, they married after he joined his IRS job at Mumbai (then Bombay).
Ramola had done her B.Ed. after graduation and was teaching in a High School. She resigned her teacher’s job and joined her husband to live in his government quarters. It felt like a love-nest. They had a girl child after a year. Ramola felt disappointed as she was expecting a boy. But within no time, she fell in love with her kid, calling her, “Bougainvillea”. That lovely name quickly got shortened to Bulia, a rather lovelier nickname. Pretty and prattling Bulia won all hearts in their colony of central government employees.
Bulia exhibited exceptional intelligence like a child prodigy. She seemed precocious as well. At just three she cracked the oral test to get into the Senior KG of a reputed school. For the next four years she topped in her class. The teachers were full of praise for her natural talent. Then a change came. Like the growth of a fruit in a pest infested tree, Bulia started withering away.
She looked unhappy, sad, and pale; the pinkish glow vanishing from her cheeks. She grew reticent, withdrawn, her rank in the class going downhill in all the following examinations. By the sixth standard, she was just scraping through her score to get promoted to the next higher standards.
In her seventh and eighth standard, Bulia went further downhill in her class performance. Tired from a twelve-hour grueling office work, Shrikant would return home late and sleep like a log after dinner. He would get up by eight-thirty in the morning and find Bulia gone to catch the school bus. So, his meeting with Bulia was only during weekends.
It pained Shrikant to see the child going pale, weak, moody and too serious for her age at twelve plus. But Ramola, who claimed to have had a chapter on child psychology in her B.Ed. syllabus, consoled Shrikant that Bulia was stepping into puberty and such changes were normal in a girl.
One night, Shrikant woke up by four in the morning to find Ramola missing from his side on the bed. She found her in Bulia’s room. It was four hours past midnight. Ramola was threatening the kid to mug up a chapter before allowing her to go to bed. Bulia, her eyes red and swollen with sleep, stammered the words in fear of Ramola’s slaps. Nothing appeared to be registering in her mind. Noticing him, Ramola closed the session. Shrikant put the child to bed and slept by her side.
The next morning, after Bulia went to school, Ramola gave some cock and bull explanation and called the previous night’s session with the kid as ‘once in a blue moon’ incident. Shrikant had no reason to disbelieve his wife. He doubted himself - was his own subconscious, carrying the baggage of being mistreated by his own mother, was tricking him to doubt Ramola, the mother to Bulia? Was he painting Ramola in his own mother’s loveless image?
At the end of class eight examination, it was Summer Vacation for Bulia, when the three of them were invited to dinner by the parents of Priti, Bulia’s closest friend and classmate. Priti’s parents lived around five kilometers away. Those days, after Bulia had lost her brilliant academic performance, Priti continuously had been ranking first in their class. After the dinner, Shrikant and Ramola chatted for an hour with Priti’s parents when Bulia and Priti played in Priti’s room.
After a long time Shrikant overheard Bulia laughing her heart out with Priti while playing. He felt overwhelmed with pleasure and emotion. Generally, gloomy and sad Bulia sounded chirpy. Perhaps, the process of growing up had not changed Bulia totally and her malady was temporary as explained by Ramola from her knowledge of child psychology.
When they got up to leave, Bulia begged, “Papa, I want to play for a while more with Priti”. Priti’s mother then suggested, “Let Bulia be with Priti for a day or two. The kids have their own way of finding joy. Tonight, she can wear a sleeping suit of Priti. Tomorrow morning, a Sunday, you, Shrikant ji, bring her some change of clothes, her toothbrush etc.” Shrikant found it alright as it would give Bulia two more days of happiness. Ramola resented it but was persuaded by Shrikant and Priti’s parents.
The next morning Shrikant delivered Bulia’s bag with change of clothes etc. at Priti’s place, and the Monday evening, he went there to bring Bulia home. Shrikant was surprised to find Bulia reluctant to return with him. When the children were packing Bulia’s bag in Priti’s room, Priti’s parents lowered their voices almost to a whisper.
What Priti’s father said was an anticlimax, sounding a danger bell for Shrikant, “Your Bulia seems like a disturbed child. You perhaps can’t give her time for your job-related preoccupations. Your wife does the bringing up alone. There is something terribly wrong in the mother-child equation. Mention of the mother terrorizes Bulia. She withdraws into a hard shell of silence like a tortoise withdrawing into its carapace sensing danger.”
Priti’s mother added, “Bulia is terribly afraid of her mother. Your wife is not a lovable figure to her as a mother should be. She hankers for her love but gets punishment instead, it appears. Too much discipline is harmful for a child. And you, Shrikant ji, are almost a goody-goody Santa Claus figure to her, a friendly stranger, as we understand from her words. You must address the problem without delay. Please don’t misunderstand us that we are biasing you against your wife. But your child is silently crying for help. Her gloom is her SOS signal. Discuss this with your wife diplomatically. Take the help of a child counsellor if necessary.”
For the next few nights, Shrikant pretended sleep, but watched his daughter and wife from behind curtains. Bulia had Summer Vacation but she had no respite from studies. Ramola had procured the books of Bulia’s next level, the nineth standard, and had started to prepare her in advance. Bulia was taught when Shrikant was asleep. Ramola force-taught the child until five in the morning. The sleep starved Bulia seemed learning nothing but getting punished the whole night. it was shockingly nightmarish for Shrikant.
He tried to reason it with Ramola, who was hell bent to continue her nightly classes for preparing her child for excellence. She said she knew the best for her child. She blamed Shrikant for spending time in office, chasing skirts during the day, and completing office work only after the office girls went home. That was the reason, she banged, why Shrikant came home late every evening. She said she had a witness, Mr. Shrivastav, who worked in Shrikant’s office and was their neighbor. She blamed Shrikant for not contributing his share in the bringing up of their child.
But Shrikant put down his foot for bringing changes in Bulia’s life, and to start with by allowing her much-earned Summer Vacation to play or read comics, as she pleased. They had a bitter quarrel. Shrikant said, “It is no time for blame games. We must work together for the good of our child.”
He quoted to her what Priti’s parents had said, carefully censoring the portion of the lack of mother's love that Bulia starved for. He insisted that Priti’s scoring the highest mark in her class, staying chirpy, and their Bulia going down in her class performances continuously over the last three years and staying gloomy were the signs that something was terribly amiss with Bulia’s bringing up. Listening to Shrikant drove Ramola into silent brooding.
The next day she shouted, “So, you want to take over Bulia’s bringing up? Then you are to take it one hundred percent. I wash my hands off all my responsibilities. But I have a condition. Under your so-called superior guidance, Bulia must score hundred out of hundred marks in each subject.” Bulia was listening. She, being an intelligent child, started sobbing, perhaps to see her father being bullied by her mother. Shrikant felt the ground under him was slipping away.
Shrikant took over Bulia’s care from that day. He neither had money to afford tuition for her, nor he trusted the mark-spinning coaching centers. But he decided that first the child and father must know each other well before sitting down to study together.
He took casual leave from office and took Bulia on a tour of Mumbai. He wanted to be promoted from a seasonal Santa Claus into a friendly and loving papa to his little Bulia. He took her to the park by the Powai Lake and Vihar Lake, hanging gardens, Juhu Beach, and other tourist spots. He also took her to the children park near his colony.
They shared ice cream cones, read comics together, and exchanged stories. Bulia played with other children of her age in the park when Shrikant sat and chatted with their parents or nannies. At home he helped Bulia to understand her lessons. He was not sure if he was winning his child’s heart, but Bulia looked happier and it was enough reward for Shrikant.
On Sundays and holidays, he took Ramola and Bulia on outings. Bulia was allowed to mingle with children in parks or beaches or read comics in her leisure. He, however, noticed Ramola growing more restive and combative. She disciplined and punished Bulia more often than earlier for childlike slips. He helplessly observed the mother-child relationship going to dogs.
One day he found Bulia in tears pointing to the mirror above the washbasin where she brushed her teeth. It was written on the mirror with red crayon, “You will fail unless you study 24 hours a day.” When Shrikant confronted Ramola about the negative writing, she stubbornly replied, “I thought it is the mother’s duty to warn her child.”
Those days, though Bulia had looked less gloomy, Shrikant noticed, she was starving for mother’s love. She however studied better without much prodding. She scored a conservative seventy percent in the nineth standard final examination. The next year, she passed her tenth final SLC or matriculation examination with an impressive eighty-seven percent.
But Ramola giggled reading Bulia’s score-sheet, “I told you, my darling husband, bringing up a daughter is no joke. Eighty-seven percent is as bad as fail-mark these days when average students score above ninety percent. Had you taught Bulia with full devotion like me, she could score a hundred percent?” But Shrikant smiled recalling Bulia scoring between fifty and sixty percent during class four and eight. He knew Ramola had lost the plot.
Ramola’s words seemed to make Bulia bitter. She, all of fourteen years by now, being conscious of her womanhood, blamed herself for not being a male child to earn mother’s love. But to Shrikant’s horror, Bulia hated Ramola, it was like a reflex action. Ramola was a different person than her mother-persona she missed terribly. Ramola responded with matching negative vibes towards the kid woman.
Now all of fourteen years, Bulia would still get physical punishments from her mother like before. Her hair was pulled, she was beaten with slaps, ladles or rolling pins from the kitchen, but now, she didn’t cower away with fear. She protested, often laughed to Ramola’s face derisively, pinning down Ramola’s hands.
Shrikant, suave and cultured by nature, would be shocked to see the mother and daughter fighting physically, and snarling at each other like angry cats. She knew, neither Bulia could earn Ramola’s love, nor Ramola could win her dominance over her child’s mind from those physical duels. Shrikant blamed himself that he couldn’t manage his family that most of his colleagues and colony neighbors, who seemed so dumb otherwise, managed so well.
His wife, who once loved him, had started looking down upon him as a worm, a creep. Their daughter remained like an alien, gaunt and silent like a Sphinx except brief respites with a smile or hug. She seemed aloof to his love also. He himself, now starved for the love of Bulia and Ramola, especially his daughter’s love. He felt terribly lonely and a total loser.
In short, Shrikant’s family saga had many ups and downs in years that followed. Bulia in the course of time, passed her class twelve HSC examination, became a graduate with Honors in psychology, and finally completed MBA with distinction. She successfully worked in a company or two in managerial positions before a nervous breakdown.
Meanwhile, she was diagnosed as a deeply disturbed person with severe depression. When long treatment stabilized her to manageable health with a sustained maintenance dose of medication, she decided to work from home with a PC.
Bulia was an animal lover all along. During her days of treatment for depression, she devoted more time to looking after street dogs and cats, and later, helping them with a passion. She bought a flat adjacent to Shrikant’s and started living independently there with two rescued dogs and a rescued handicapped cat. She treated the three animals like her own children. She decided not to marry. Shrikant found her in peace with herself and her pets and it was a consolation of sorts.
In the meantime, Ramola had left Shrikant and lived alone in her parental house in a distant small town, where after her parents’ death, she had inherited their house and landed property. She went into religious preaching with Missionary Preachers. She also dabbled with social work as a pastime. Shrikant had a second consolation that his former wife, dear to his heart, had found her peace.
Shrikant tied knots again with Laxmi. She used to be a family friend who had stepped in to take care of the pubescent Bulia, as Shrikant got transferred to the distant trouble-prone North-East. Rani was some relief to Shrikant’s loneliness. She proved to be a good and compassionate companion.
Bulia remained courteous to Laxmi, Shrikant’s new wife; but never gave her the mother’s respect or love. All efforts by Laxmi to shower affection on Bulia was nudged off politely. Bulia seemed doubting Laxmi’s intention behind marrying her father with the big age difference between them. She couldn’t trust her father also in the matter. Bringing Laxmi into their family, as a part of Shrikant’s quest for peace in life, rankled in Bulia’s mind. Shrikant felt unnerved about it.
Shrikant, these days, was a dejected man, though Laxmi had taken over his companion’s role, cared for his needs, cooked him his favorite dishes, and slept with him giving him her warmth and love. Often, Laxmi would wake up late at night to find her husband sitting wide awake, looking into the dark. She could also sense how the pretty and vivacious Bulia had been pining away for her real mother’s love.
One morning Laxmi couldn’t wake Shrikant up by her side. He had passed away peacefully and painlessly in sleep. He was hardly fifty-five. Rani didn’t cry, rather felt happy that her husband, whom she never could give the peace of mind with her best womanly offerings like love, company, intimacy, support and friendship, had found his peace at last in death. She told Bulia about her father’s sad demise, and asked her to inform the police and the family doctor and call her mother Ramola.
Laxmi knew her husband had been a well-known poet and writer. He had earned laurels in literary circles but not state or national awards as he never knew how to handle public relations in his lonely life. She decided to collect his leftover unpublished works and give them to some publisher in future.
Around thirty hours subsequent to Shrkant’s death, the sad news having broken into the town’s nooks and corners, friends and neighbors came in hordes to pay their condolences. They found Shrikant lying quietly on his bed, clean shaven and bathed, appearing in a restful and dreamless sleep. The air smelled fragrant. They guessed joss sticks and fresh flowers somewhere doing their best. Shrikant looked rather more alive than when was alive. In death he looked radiant.
Kind of, lying in state, Shrikant was surrounded by Bulia, Laxmi and Ramola, the three women he loved the most in his life and wanted them always around him. His wish was finally fulfilled at least for a few hours before cremation. The ladies sat silently and stunned. Besides, the gaunt women, sat two quiet pet dogs and a handicapped pet cat of Bulia. They seemed feeling a little awkward, for no one patted or caressed them as expected.
Prabhanjan K. Mishra is a poet/ story writer/translator/literary critic, living in Mumbai, India. The publishers - Rupa & Co. and Allied Publishers Pvt Ltd have published his three books of poems – VIGIL (1993), LIPS OF A CANYON (2000), and LITMUS (2005). His poems have been widely anthologized in fourteen different volumes of anthology by publishers, such as – Rupa & Co, Virgo Publication, Penguin Books, Adhayan Publishers and Distributors, Panchabati Publications, Authorspress, Poetrywala, Prakriti Foundation, Hidden Book Press, Penguin Ananda, Sahitya Akademi etc. over the period spanning over 1993 to 2020. Awards won - Vineet Gupta Memorial Poetry Award, JIWE Poetry Prize. Former president of Poetry Circle (Mumbai), former editor of this poet-association’s poetry journal POIESIS. He edited a book of short stories by the iconic Odia writer in English translation – FROM THE MASTER’s LOOM, VINTAGE STORIES OF FAKIRMOHAN SENAPATI. He is widely published in literary magazines; lately in Kavya Bharati, Literary Vibes, Our Poetry Archives (OPA) and Spillwords.
' Hey you ! Move aside. Leave the swing for me,' bellowed the new kid on the block.
' Hello my friend, join the queue and wait for your turn,' shouted the bare-bodied urchin on the swing.
The new kid on vacation and visiting his family which had moved recently into the nearby residential society moved forward aggressively and caught hold of the chains to bring the swing to stand still.
' Do you know who I am ?', hollered the boy menacingly.
' Who the hell are you? How do I care?', the boy on the swing retorted defiantly.
' For your information, I am Rudra Pratap Deo, the crown prince of Sonegarh.'
' And I am Raju, the prince of our castle’ pointing at the shed covered with blue plastic sheets on the footpath, ‘ and also the son of the cobbler who sits on the street corner.'
' How dare you defy my orders, you lowly commoner ? Move aside. Shoo! Scram! '
' This is a public park. I know we are citizens of a free country. There are no kings and no princes anymore. We all are equal. Don't try to intimidate me. Let me finish my ten minutes on the swing. Then you are welcome to take your turn.'
Rudra Pratap was about to hit the boy on the swing but his servant boy Ramu accompanying him prevented him from doing so. A crowd had gathered around. The little mob looked belligerent and was planning to thrash the insolent boy to teach him a lesson. Ramu somehow steered Rudra Pratap away and he retreated in helpless anger, fretting and fuming.
Sonegarh was one of the erstwhile princely states which was integrated into the Union of India, after the country was free from the British rule. The transition from the colonial rule to that by a democratically elected government saw many upheavals. Apart from a bloody partition fraught with communal rioting and violence that resulted in the birth of Pakistan, the country saw integration of more than five hundred princely states under the Indian tricolour. These states were not legally part of British India. The rulers had some autonomy over their territories but they were completely subordinate to the British Crown. Mollycoddled as well as exploited by the British, some of the rulers saw their departure as the ideal moment to declare autonomy and announce their independent statehood while some easily agreed to accede their states to a unified India. The Herculean task of integrating the princely states to the Indian Union was taken up by Sardar Patel the Deputy Prime Minister of independent India and VP Menon, the Secretary of the ministry of the States. Under the astute, bold and decisive leadership of Sardar Patel and supported by Menon's dexterity in negotiation and bargain almost all the states agreed to sign the merger agreement by the beginning of the year 1948. Surya Pratap Deo, the king of Sonegarh initially had joined the Eastern States Union, an alliance of few rulers of Orissa and Chhattishgarh tributary states, seeking independence and autonomy, but finally signed the instrument of accession after they got assurance from the central government for a fair privy purse, extraordinary privileges, dynastic succession and dignities.
While the entire country faced various kinds of turbulence in the immediate post independence period, the life style of these rulers shorn of their sovereignty and power underwent rapid downfall. To maintain their regal way of living, the kings started disposing their property bit by bit and slowly and steadily they had to accept the life style of a common citizen. Surya Pratap sold his royal palace at Sonegarh to a hotelier, who converted it into a luxury hotel and moved into his 'kothi' at Cuttack. Almost all rulers of the princely states in Orissa had their residences at Cuttack which was the old capital of the State of Orissa. During the first few years, he had to sell both his movable and immovable properties one after another to sustain his life style, since the privy purse received from the Union Government was inadequate to meet his needs. He had a stable of imported cars like a 1936 Mercedes-Benz type 290, a 1937 Bentley, a 1925 Hispano-Suiza H6B
and a 1912 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, few inherited and few purchased by him during his reign. Of these the Rolls was his most favourite and prized possession. All the cars disappeared one after another, the Rolls being the last one to go. All the garages were permanently locked except for one that housed a fairly new Fiat 1100. The elephants were given away to temples and the horses sold to a trader. His landed property also disappeared parcel by parcel to keep the royal hearth burning.
While Surya Pratap reconciled to his destiny and accepted his new life style his ten year old son Rudra Pratap could not. The heroic stories he had heard from his grandmother about his valiant ancestors stayed imprinted in his mind. When he walked through the durbar hall of their palace, he studied each of the life sized oil paintings on the wall, which belonged to the Maharajas of Sonegarh generation after generation. The last one belonged to his father Surya Pratap, who was not dressed in the traditional attire of a king but sported a high neck white tunic, displaying the Rai Bahadur title badge on the left breast. Rudra Pratap hated the badge since that was according to him was the insignia of his father's servility to the British Empire. Rudra Pratap used to stare at the blank space next to his father's portrait and imagined his own portrait next to him, in the traditional regalia and with the crown on his head. Rudra Pratap idolised and admired his grandfather Vijay Pratap Deo, whom he didn’t remember very clearly since he passed away when Rudra Pratap was just a baby. He had the reputation of a powerful ruler who ruled his princely state with an iron hand. People still recount with fear how sternly and ruthlessly he had handled the citizens' revolt known as 'Praja Mandal Movement.' Rudra Pratap believed that the divine right of a king granted him to demand loyalty from his subjects and kingship should be characterised by power and strength. Compassion and mercy are the last resorts of a weak and pliable king. He always preferred the character of Macbeth to that of Duncan. He hated his father as much as he loved his grandfather. He always felt that his father was responsible for letting his kingship slip away slowly, first through suzerainty to the British crown and later through the merger agreement with the Indian Union. He hated him for depriving him of his birth rights to rule and reducing his blue-blooded status to that of a peasant.
Rudra Pratap lived in a fantasy world of the medieval times dreaming of fighting in the battlefield on horseback, wielding his sword and shooting arrows from his bow. He dreamt of hunting in dense forests. He dreamt of rescuing damsels in distress imprisoned in impregnable towers and of slaying the fire throwing dragons. In the real world however the swings enthralled him. He loved to sit on a swing for long periods, swaying backward and forward letting the cool wind caress him. He always philosophised, 'When you are on a down swing, do not feel bad. Know the swing will change and things will get better. Bad times do not last for ever. There are good times coming. A swing moves back and forth signifying life which has both ups and downs. The swing is about maintaining balance and equilibrium. One can feel the rhythm and resonate with it and pick up the right moment to stop and do your thing.' In the courtyard of their 'kothi' a swing was set up for him. It was the swing that always calmed him down. But soon the sole proprietary over the swing was to be shared with his little sister Rajalakshmi. She was five years younger than him. Rudra Pratap saw this as an encroachment to his sovereignty over the swing and he was unwilling to share. Rajalakshmi's tears finally won and Rudra Pratap was told that he has outgrown the swing. He should pick up an outdoor sport and give up his rule over the swing. He was forced to hand over its sole rights to the princess. Rudra Pratap was livid with rage. He thought as if his kingdom was being snatched away from him. He decided to avenge the decision of depriving him his right over the swing. He vowed to make Rajalakshmi pay. He hid behind the pillar on the verandah and watched Rajalakshmi swinging in delight, happy with her win over the swing, her Persian cat Fluffy on her lap. One of their aunts had gifted her with this pet on her fifth birthday recently. Since then Rajalakshmi was never seen alone. The cat had been her Siamese twin, perpetually on her lap all the time. Rudra Pratap was a cat hater. Fond of horses and dogs he thought that cats are the most ungrateful of all the creatures. They always love good food and a warm lap or a cozy corner to relax but are not really attached to any one. Rudra Pratap made up his mind, 'The cat has to go. I would kill two birds in one stone. Get rid of the ungrateful selfish feline and hurt Rajalakshmi for usurping my swing.' He hit upon a diabolical plan to kill the cat by hanging. The next day morning the servant maid was shrieking at the top of her voice. Everyone came out and saw a white furry ball hanging by a string from the top bar of the frame of the swing, and swaying gently to the light breeze. No one knew that the string in fact was the drawstring from Rudra Pratap's pyjama. But Surya Pratap had his gut feelings about the possible perpetrator. Though there were no fireworks following this unfortunate incident, Rudra Pratap was seen packing his baggage to proceed to Rajkumar College at Raipur to pursue his secondary education. This was seen as a kind of banishment for the crime he had committed, though there was no investigation nor confrontation.
Years passed by as Rudra Pratap completed his schooling at Raipur and was allowed to come back to Cuttack to pursue higher education. Meanwhile Surya Pratap had sold off his Kothi at Cuttack and moved into a three bedroom apartment. A rather young Rajalakshmi had been married off to an erstwhile ruler of a princely state from Rajasthan. Surya Pratap was not keeping very well and was suffering from an acute heart ailment. Rudra Pratap always dreamt of his own coronation. Secretly he wished his father to pass away so that he could claim the crown. Though he would have to be satisfied with the title of king without a kingdom, he was still looking forward it to happen. Sooner than he thought it happened. One morning Surya Pratap didn't wake from his sleep. He had breathed his last silently during the night, after he had suffered a quiet heart attack. After the king’s funeral, Rudra Pratap insisted of being crowned as the new king. The old Raj Purohit was summoned from his village and in the presence of his freshly widowed mother and two old servants who had stuck with the family through thick and thin, the royal turban with a bejewelled brooch was put on his head amidst chanting of Vedic prayers in Sanskrit. In traditional regalia and with the Royal sword in hand, Rudra Pratap was declared the king of Sonegarh. To celebrate his coronation, he declared that he would go for hunting in the reserved forests of his erstwhile state Sonegarh. A hunting permit was obtained from the district collector. This was granted under the special provisions of the merger agreement.
Rudra Pratap retrieved an old Springfield rifle and few rounds from the store room which had quite a few relics of the past in its inventory. It belonged to his grandfather with which he had hunted quite a few animals. He remembered the armoury hall in the old palace which boasted of stuffed heads of bisons, leopards and antlers mounted on its walls. There was a large black and white photo of his grandfather standing regally gun in hand and with his left foot proudly planted on a dead Royal Bengal Tiger. Below the photo lied a spread eagled tiger skin with a huge stuffed head.
All arrangements for the hunting party were supervised by a local hunter of Sonegarh. He had gathered few local guides and labourers to accompany the new king to the jungle. The hunting party camped at a suitable clearing in the jungle. A special machan was constructed for the king. Rudra Pratap wanted the machan to be a scaffolding hanging from the top branch of a large tree like a swing, where he would camp at night and wait for the tiger to appear. After the machan was rigged, Rudra Pratap climbed onto it alone with a ladder. The ladder was then removed. The hunting party camped on the ground in tents. A rope hoist was fabricated to transfer food and drinks to the top. It was a rope tied to the top, and which had a noose like loop at the bottom end to which a basket carrying food and drinks was hooked. The king hoisted the same to the top and readied himself for the wait. If he needed anything at any time he was to pull another cord attached to a bell and lower the hoist. The attendants would immediately take care of his needs.
A goat was tied to a pole below the tree, to bait the tiger. Rudra Pratap relished the local food served to him. He had asked for some local country liquor to be served. After a couple of stiff drinks he was beginning to feel a bit high. He was wondering how he may regain the power and authority that was taken away from him. He had realised that in the democratic set up there may not be any king but the ministers who run the country perhaps could be the real kings. It maybe a good idea for him to join some political party and be an elected representative from the constituency that was once his kingdom. The idea appealed to him and he decided to meet the leader of the ruling party. Suddenly the goat bleated loudly and he was woken up from his reverie. He cautiously looked around, his heart beating against his rib cage. It was total darkness all around. But he sensed as if some one was watching him from the branches of the tree. He narrowed his eyes to look intently and he could see two eyes glowing in the darkness and peering at him. His vision gradually cleared and he could now see the shape of a furry white cat crouching on the branch of the tree. He took a large sip of the hooch from the bottle and sang to himself, 'pussy cat, pussy cat where had you been?' It appeared as if the cat answered, ' I never left you my dear, am I not seen?' Rudra Pratap thought that he was losing his sense. He pinched himself to check if he was dreaming or it was real ! The goat was bleating louder and louder. The cat seemed to have advanced, approaching Rudra Pratap steadily. Rudra Pratap felt that the cat was going to leap at him and sink its teeth into his throat any time now. He suddenly jumped up to save himself from the pouncing cat as a reflex action and got entangled with the rope hoist that was coiled next to him. Before he could realise what was happening he was flung apart with his foot caught in the loop of the hoist. Next moment he found himself dangling from the machan, swinging back and forth just above the bleating goat. Then his eyes caught another pair of eyes burning bright in the foliage close by. His blood froze. He muttered to himself as if in delirium, ' Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night.' He tried to remember the poem by William Blake and recite it full, hoping that the beast would go away. But his voice trailed off to a whimper as a huge black shape leapt at the dangling bait. The goat continued to bleat melancholically.
Dilip Mohapatra, a decorated Navy Veteran from Pune, India is a well acclaimed poet and author in contemporary English. His poems regularly appear in many literary journals and anthologies worldwide. He has six poetry collections, two non-fictions and a short story collection to his credit. He is a regular contributor to Literary Vibes. He has been awarded the prestigious Naji Naaman Literary Awards for 2020 for complete work. The society has also granted him the honorary title of 'Member of Maison Naaman pour la Culture'. His website may be accessed at dilipmohapatra.com.
Being a senior citizen I am very particular about taking my morning walk. I cover a distance of about three kilometres from my house to the statue of a prominent leader and back. It is a routine I follow like clockwork. But my practice was interrupted recently when I fell a victim to Oricom and was confined to the house. The fever took its course till my wife’s loving care and medicines prescribed by my family doctor restored me to normal health. Even after I was fully cured, I was restrained from going out by my better half. She was afraid of my catching a cold from exposure on a bitter winter morning. On the other hand, I needed to exercise or take long walks to prevent my old body from becoming stiff and giving rise to other problems. She was in a quandary till she took the suggestion of our neighbour and her close friend. It was sheer coincidence that Mrs. K’s husband had also recovered from a viral attack around the same time.
“I have asked my husband,” she told my wife, “not to stop walking, but to go out in the afternoon when the sun is rather mellow. Your husband should do the same.” She was known in our circle to be domineering. But we overlooked that attribute because she was otherwise so helpful. She would be there by the side of any resident who fell ill. The very next day I was sent off by my wife for a long walk in the afternoon. On the way I ran into Mr. K, who was returning from his own walk. I waved to him heartily as we were meeting each other after a long time.
“I see. You too have started walking in the afternoon,” he observed with an amused look.
“I had no choice,” I replied. “Whatever your wife does today my wife follows without fail. It’s as if long acquaintance has fine tuned their thought processes into one. Telepathy!”
“Oh, copy-paste!” he burst out and we erupted into a vigorous laugh.
“I believe the vice versa is also true,” I added with a chuckle, indicating how our wives’ wave length seemed to be matching. Another round of uproarious laughter followed before we parted ways for the day.
But on the way home, there was something that disturbed me. I didn’t know what it was.
Then it suddenly struck me when I had seated myself on the sofa. I walked across the landing and knocked on Mr. K’s door.
“Excuse me,” I blurted out. “I had been wondering why your hands were behaving so oddly today when we accosted each other. The fact of the matter is that you deviated from your normal practice of greeting me with a namaskar because I myself did not fold my hands when I met you. Instead I waved to you like a football fan!”
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.
NEWTON
Chinmayee Barik
(Translated from Odia by Ajay Upadhyaya)
“Life has mysterious means up its sleeves; it always, at the end, gets its way. Otherwise, how can you explain this: I ended up becoming what I strenuously tried to avoid all my life.”
This was the opening line of Newton’s acceptance speech on stage, when he introduced himself
in the Best Writer Award of the Year ceremony. A rare achievement for a youth of just twenty-seven.
His father was a renowned writer. Of course, Newton was not totally averse to following on his father’s footsteps, but their relationship unfortunately had got off on the wrong foot. He found it impossible to connect to his father, who lived in a parallel universe, oblivious to the real world. To Newton, he was half-mad, almost a stranger. Immersed in the world of his novels’ characters, his quirky behaviour had become his identity. He would be often absent-mindedly searching for his glasses, perched on his nose, all around him; at other times, he would be seen laughing all by himself or talking to bare walls. Unsurprisingly, his eccentricities had earned him the affectionate nickname, “The Crazy Professor”.
The house of his childhood was abuzz with activities, frequented by throngs of writers, intellectuals and journalists. Newton, the child, felt alone in the midst of all this. He grew up with an abhorrence for writers; he held them responsible for his hijacked childhood, as if they had secretly plotted to steal all the joys from his life. Newton could barely remember ever going out for a leisurely stroll with his father. Unlike most children, he struggled to recall the warm and cosy feeling, as a child, from lying on his father’s belly.
Newton preferred to stay away from the main house. His abode was the log cabin in their backyard, where he would be found gazing at the jungle, behind their house. The cacophony of the wildlife from the jungle had become his fond companion. His closest friends were a black fish, named Queen and a fluffy dog, called Digo. Although he had a lot to share with them, he doubted if they could understand him. He had to contend with his problems by strangling his thoughts in the recesses of his own mind. This was his introduction to the world of violence; killing his thoughts gave him the first taste of murder.
Newton was barely aware, when his mother had passed away; he was probably too young to realise the finality of death. He grew up with a middle aged nanny, who was like a mother to him. One fine day, she also suddenly decided to leave. Her departure left Newton all alone, his mind filled with weird thoughts. He would break the monotony of his dreary days by quietly sneaking into his father’s study, in the night, and ripping off pages of his father’s manuscript. Shredding them into small pieces gave him a thrill, an excitement building up to a climax, he never experienced before. Murdering the characters in those stories gave Newton some solace, satisfying his private vengeance for his father’s dereliction of duty.
But, next morning, the dire consequences of his actions awaited him. Upon discovering the tragic fate of his manuscript, his father’s wrath would be unleashed in punishments of all sorts. Newton would be dragged out of his room and ordered to stand on one leg for hours on end. If he faltered, vicious beatings would follow. At other times, he was denied food by way of disciplining. But Newton was undeterred, nothing put a stop to his murderous trips. He eagerly looked forward to his next nocturnal adventure; the mere anticipation filled him with a strange pleasure.
Newton had no knives or guns at his disposal, but he had turned into a seasoned murderer.
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While his deadly fantasies were becoming more elaborate, a new nanny arrived in their house. She was Nira, a childless woman, of around forty, with a strapping physique and a masculine touch. Her complexion was neither fair nor dusky. Working like a robot, she promptly took charge of the house. She was adept in taking care of every need of Newton. Despite her mastery in household chores, Newton’s initial response to the newcomer was one of indifference.
Nira, in turn, loved to keep close to Newton. She took a keen interest in everything Newton liked, joining in everything he enjoyed doing. Besides taking care of his beloved fish and dog, she kept him company in watering the lawn, gazing at the blooming flowers in the garden. She endeared herself to Newton, with her skills at topiary, which he found fascinating. She also amused him with her talent at mimicry, perfectly imitating sounds of an array of animals and birds. At other times, she enthralled him with stories of enchanting kingdoms far away with fabulous kings, charming queens, dashing princes and terrifying witches. Slowly but surely, Newton found himself drawn to her versatile personality. As time went by, Nira became the centre of his world.
One day, Newton, in an unguarded moment, opened up to Nira, disclosing the secret of his guilty pleasure at murdering the characters from his father’s stories. He showed her the diary, he had meticulously maintained, with a catalogue of people he had murdered over time, with elaborate details of how they met their gory end.
This disclosure startled Nira. But she kept her feelings private and tried to lighten the mood, saying, “No, Newton, this is not really murder, just symptoms of a weak mind.”
“So, what will make them a real murder, then?” he asked.
“How can you call these murder, if there is no glistening knife, spine-chilling scream, spluttering red blood and the like? Murder means, energetic muscular bodies convulsing vigorously, before going limp and finally still. The stuff, you are talking about, is all in your mind. Nevertheless, this is not healthy, Newton.”
“No, Nira, bright red blood is not the only mark of murder. In fact, the attraction of my silent and bloodless murders lies in the pleasure of performing a deadly act, without committing the crime.”
With further exchanges with Nira over his fantasy world, Newton’s stance eventually shifted. “But if red is your colour of murder, Nira, I would love to see it in its full glory,” he told her.
This new revelation from thirteen-year-old Newton sent shock waves in Nira. His murderous fantasies were getting so grotesque that she felt, it was a crime, even to engage in such talks. She relayed to his father her fears over the scary private world of Newton, but it made little impact on him. While he was making light of her concerns, his inaction filled Nira with horror. She discretely consulted a family friend, who happened to be a psychiatrist. The professional verdict confirmed her worst fears: Newton’s mind was deranged and he was treading on a dark and dangerous path. He had been chronically deprived of love and affection, and his childhood was blighted. As a result, he had been sucked into this morbid fantasy world. For his own sake, Newton must be removed forthwith out of his environment.
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By now, Nira had her maternal instincts roused, which she showered on Newton. She had no choice but to remove Newton from his precarious setting. On some pretext, she brought Newton to her house, for sheltering him temporarily, while she worked out a more permanent solution. Little did she know that this new living arrangement would raise her husband’s ire. Their arguments over Newton living in their house, escalated into her husband beating up Nira, which plunged Newton into despair. He was never a happy child; but this move threw him from the frying pan into the fire. Now his distress reached a new depth, to see the only person he ever loved, being beaten so savagely. His despondency was doubled as he knew, he was the cause of her misery.
The events of the that fateful night were vivid in his mind, as if it happened yesterday. As Newton was watching another bout of beating by Nira’s husband, he felt a desperate urge to do something to save her.
What Newton did next was even beyond Nira’s wildest imagination. Looking straight into her eyes, he said, “Why don’t you marry me Nira? I promise, will never raise my hand on you. We will leave this house to start a new life elsewhere.” An astounded Nira blurted out, “You are crazy, Newton. Even the thought is preposterous!”
Being called crazy by Nira for the first time, snapped something deep inside Newton. “Is he really insane?” he asked himself. Until now, he never gave serious thought to the word, crazy, a benign term for people who were merely funny. Uttered by someone, who truly understood him, it assumed a gravity, he never sensed before. He had no doubt, her husband was the culprit for this ultimate rebuff from someone, he adored.
Suddenly, Newton found himself driven with a wild force with a ferocity, new to him. He grabbed the iron rod lying around, and struck her husband with a power he did not know, he possessed. It was one mighty blow from Newton, he thought, he was incapable of inflicting.
Next morning, a police van was standing outside their house. Newton found himself, huddled in a corner of his room, looking unfazed. Nira was wailing at the top of her lungs and beating her chest in distress. Newton was taken aback by the frenzy of her grief, baffled by her outpouring of emotions over somebody who used to beat her so savagely. All he remembers, as he was being dragged away by the police, from the scene of carnage, were Nira’e eyes, brimming with tears, staring at the cold and limp body of her husband.
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The next chapter in Newton’s life opened in the Juvenile Reform Centre, where he was remanded on Court order. It felt interminably long and he lost count of the time spent there towards his sentence for his grievous offence The Remand Home housed many more children but he did stand out from the crowd.
Newton kept aloof from others in the Remand Home. He rarely spoke to others, and never initiated a conversation. He was often spotted staring into space, as if he was searching for something, which had remained elusive despite his best efforts. But, he could see nothing beyond the tearful eyes of Nira.
The day in the Remand Home started with a morning Yoga session. No matter how hard he tried, he could not concentrate on the Yoga instructor’s meditation techniques. When his inability to practice meditation became clear to all, he was assigned to Mathematics class, in place of the Yoga group. Impressed by his mental dexterity in complex calculations, his teacher, sought permission for special sessions, in order to keep Newton’s precocious mind occupied Despite his initial reservations, the principal eventually relented. Newton was granted a private weekly session, on the condition for the teacher, never to delve into Newton’s troubled past nor broach his criminal record.
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In no time, the teacher discovered Newton’s prodigious talents. He was evidently a gifted child; he could solve complicated equations and work out mathematical puzzles with ease and speed. He could also write simultaneously with both his hands. Newton now had an exclusive class room for one to one coaching by the teacher, who spent increasing amounts of time with him, playing chess and deciphering mathematical riddles. The teacher also proved to be an engaging raconteur, who tried to entertain Newton through story-telling. In the beginning, Newton was a reluctant listener but soon the barrier was broken; he found the narrations absorbing as he learnt that they were the teacher’s real life anecdotes.
Most of the themes in these stories involved lives, reformed through contrition. There were also tales of suppressed affection, unexpressed wishes and unfulfilled love. In many of these stories, the characters had their lives transformed upon acknowledging their misdeeds, realising their mistakes and embarking on a course of penitence . These stories of redemption struck a chord in Newton, urging him to take a fresh look at his predicament.
He appreciated that it was never too late to make amends in life and it was possible to work through one’s past adversities. It dawned on him that the lives of the wronged and the wrong-doer were tied up inextricably but the knots could be undone with the twin remedy of forgiveness and penitence. Singly, each remedy is powerful but together, their synergy can create wonders.
With this realisation, his gloomy perspective of life started to shift and his attitude towards others turned positive. He gradually warmed up to other children in the home, approaching them hesitantly at first, but eventually opened up to them with his thoughts, fears and wishes. He began to live life fully, learning to laugh and practising the art of self-expression. In the process, he confided in his teacher of his utmost loathings for his father, which explained why he had completely cut himself off from his father and barred him from all contacts.
Newton’s sentence was now drawing to its end; he was soon going to be released, when he would be a free man again. But he did not wish to return to his old home; in stead, he wanted to create a new world for himself, all alone.
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On his last day in the Juvenile Remand Centre, he was greeted by two officials, his special teacher and the School Principal; each had a present for him. Before handing over the present to Newton, the teacher asked Newton again, “Of all the people in your life, do you really hate your father the most?” Although Newton never had any doubt about the answer to this question, he was now puzzled to find himself at a loss for words.
At his teacher’s request, he unwrapped the present, placed in his hands; it was a book, titled, Newton, and its author was his father. Newton ruffled its pages to find a collection of stories. He threw a questioning glance at the teacher, who confessed, the stories, fed to Newton all this time, were not from his own life. They were his father’s life story of regret and repentance over his neglect of parental responsibility for Newton.
As the true identity of the author of the stories was revealed, Newton, on reflection, could visualise in them vignettes from his own childhood. He could feel the sheer power of stories, which could transform lives. That literature had the potential for reforming character was a mere idea for him, but he was now experiencing the transformation, first hand. Even more intriguingly, these stories were written by none other than his own father, whom he hated from his guts. An unthinkable turnaround; is it for real?
Next, it was the Principal’s turn to hand over Newton’s second present, an envelope. “This is your father’s last letter to you.” he continued, “Sadly, he died some years ago after a short illness but at his request, this news had to be withheld from you until now. His strict instruction was to give you this letter on your release from the Remand Home.”
Newton turned the envelope in his trembling hands; it was rather light. “Probably not a long letter,” he thought and wondered about its contents. But, his curiosity about the letter was overshadowed by a wave of sadness, which had engulfed him. He fumbled for a few moments before he could open it. It was an eerie silence which was peaceful and scary at the same time. Warily, he unfolded the paper, to find his father’s last letter; it was barely two lines long.
“To Newton
Whatever you do, my precious child, just don’t set my life as your example. As a father, I have been the worst role model, imaginable.
Your remorseful Dad”
Ah, this was exactly what Newton had set himself to do, avoid becoming like his father! This had been his life’s singular focus, until now. These presents, however, threw him completely off balance, reversing his sentiments towards his father. All on a sudden, he was gripped with a sense of loss and regret. He felt desolate and bereft. His world had been engulfed with a darkness, he didn’t know, was possible. He was groping in it, looking for his departed dad, whom he had detested all his life. An urge to cry out to him, welled up inside Newton, but the intensity of his grief had paralysed his voice and dried up all his tears.
He felt utterly helpless and faint. He looked around, as if he was hoping, some support would spring out from somewhere. A pair of familiar eyes caught his attention from behind the hedge at a distance; although wrinkled with time he recognised their lustre. A visibly aged Nira was gazing at him.
Nira slowly approached him and held his hands. Newton was surprised to find himself following Nira silently to his old childhood house. Going by its painful memories, he imagined a wave of protest, at the very least, would hinder his steps, but he felt none of this anticipated resistance. Nira was now working as the house keeper again and Newton was back on his father’s chair. It was scarcely believable, but the idiosyncrasies of Newton were a replica of his father’s signature antics. Perhaps, the ultimate compliment to his life’s most misunderstood figure, the tormentor who turns out be the saviour!
Now, Newton has only one goal and a single desire in life. His mission is to excel as a writer, as his dad did. He is convinced, his redemption rests on changing people’s course of life through the power of his pen.
Long ago, when he lived with his father, who was around, all the time, Newton’s life was lonely. Now, his father is no more, but he could feel his presence all around.
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“Dramatic though my life’s story has been thus far, my struggles as a writer has just begun," Newton continued.
The stunned audience had their eyes, glued to Newton, the acclaimed author, on the stage. The air was heavy with pin-drop silence.
Chinmayee Barik, a modernist writer in Odia literature is a popular and household name in contemporary literary circle of Odisha. Quest for solitude, love, loneliness, and irony against the stereotyped life are among the favorite themes of this master weaver of philosophical narratives. She loves to break the monotony of life by penetrating its harsh reality. She believes that everyone is alone in this world and her words are the ways to distract her from this existing world, leading her to her own world of melancholy and to give time a magical aesthetic. Her writings betray a sense of pessimism with counter-aesthetics, and she steadfastly refuses to put on the garb of a preacher of goodness and absolute beauty. Her philosophical expressions carry a distinct sign of symbolic annotations to metaphysical contents of life.
She has been in the bestseller list for her three outstanding story collections "Chinikam" , "Signature" and "December". Chinmayee has received many prestigious awards and recognition like Events Best-Selling Author's Award, "Antarang 31", Story Mirror Saraswat Sanmam", "Sarjan Award by Biswabharati", "Srujan Yuva Puraskar", and " Chandrabhaga Sahitya Samman".
Her book 'Chinikam' has been regarded as the most selling book of the decade. With her huge fan base and universal acceptability, she has set a new trend in contemporary storytelling. By profession chinmayee is a popular teacher and currently teaches in a school named " Name and Fame Public School" at Panikoili, a small town in Odisha. She can be contacted at her Email id - chinmayeebarik2010@gmail.com
Dr. Ajaya Upadhyaya from Hertfordshire, England. A Retired Consultant Psychiatrist from the British National Health Service and Honorary Senior Lecturer in University College, London.
ROAD BLOCKS TO SUNSET BOULEVARD
It was 6 p.m. on a Monday. The day was the 11th of March 2020. Ranjan Sinha, the Police Commissioner of the city was ruminating. His formal service in the Indian Police Service ended on the 29thof February. He was called a couple of days earlier to that and was informed that instead of superannuating on the 29th, he would retire on the 31st of March because of President Xi’s visit to the City. The Chinese President’s visit was considered an epochal moment by the Government. The Government obviously did not want a new person to handle it and felt that a steady hand like him who knew the city police as a Commissioner would be the right person to handle it. It felt nice to be assured about the Government’s faith in him. But there was something strange about it. The extension was for a month only. Normally extension used to be for either three or six months. But it was sounded to him in a roundabout way that he would be considered for a Governorship of a small state in the North-East.
North-East had eight states. So it was easy to fit in retiring officers there. Moreover, he had experience of working in Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. He knew retirement was inevitable and he was happy with whatever happened in his career. He still had a longing to be a Governor of a state. No one from his family, though several joined higher civil services, had ended there. There was always a pleasure in being the first. He relished the celebration when he came first in the School Board examination. First in the state, first to be first in state in his hometown and family and several firsts. First has a freshness about it, like the first blossom.
He had an appointment with the Home Minister at 7.30 p.m. He called Dalbir Singh, DCP, South West Zone at 6.30 p.m. to pass on an instruction directly. Dalbir was a go getter. Any task given to him would be done diligently, timely and with appropriate sensitivity. His integrity was a little iffy. But he was smart. He used to sense what the boss wanted and moderated his money making as the situation demanded. He had put Dalbir in the post and he in turn had not disappointed him. There were whispers that he had two lady loves, but no one knew who they were. Maybe all this money making was a necessity for supporting two lady loves with whom he had got entangled. Who knew if they were conquests or he was a victim of occasional upsurge of passion? Dalbir didn’t have too much service left. He would retire in the next couple of months. But he was a great asset to have. Rather Dalbir always surprised him with his resourcefulness.
His Private Secretary informed him on intercom about the appointment time of Dalbir Singh and he was already there. Ranjan looked at the wall clock to find it was only 6.20 p.m. Always ahead of time, a good trait of Dalbir. Well he would call him in. Dalbir was a newsy guy. You could collect all information from him. Always a delight to get ahead in the information curve. He called him in. Dalbir Singh marched in, and gave a smart salute.
“Come, Dalbir,” Ranjan said pointing generally to the chairs in front. Dalbir took his peak cap and sat down.
“What news?”
“Sir, there are interesting things happening. I would tell you,” Dalbir said.
“OK, let’s first complete the business on hand. You remember three people you picked up yesterday?”Rajan intervened.
“Yes Sir. Saifulla and two others,” Dalbir answered.
“That is good.”
“I am sure there is no paperwork done. No. General Diary entry etc.
U.P. Police is looking for them. Let’s hand them over to the Task Force from UP.”
“Why, Sir? We picked them up for our purpose. Why should they be handed over to U.P. Police?”
Typically, Dalbir wanted to get to the reason straightway. Clarity was one of Dalbir’s strengths.
“You see, the UP Government is from the same party as the Central Government. The Home Ministry feels they should be handed over,” Ranjan added helpfully.
“Sir, forgive me. Give a slap to me, no problem. But I can’t handover Saifulla and two others to UP police. They are being taken for encounter, aren’t they?” Dalbir had shared enough experience with UP Police to know this.
This stunned Rajan. He did not expect this answer. Encounter deaths took take place very frequently. Why was Dalbir so touchy?
Dalbir, with folded hands, said, “Sir, if you want I can put in my papers. But for Guru’s sake, don’t tell me to do it. I have several weaknesses and news about them must have reached you. I am not squeaky clean. I have gone after Artha and Kama, but I have never been a killer. Please don’t tell me to do it.”
“It is an order. You will have to do it,” Ranjan said emphatically.
“This order is my death warrant. I cannot explain this to my maker.” He stopped and pulled out a paper from his pocket, affixed his signature, put the date and handed it over to CP.
“What is that?” Ranjan asked.
“It is my letter for voluntary retirement. I would have gone in three months’ time, in any case. Let me leave now instead?”
“Dalbir, you have too many skeletons in your closet. All of them will tumble out.”
“It does not matter, sir. I am not honest. But who is in city police, except you? I have taken care of CBI for the last twenty five years, giving them monthly hafta. My peccadilloes are suspected. But I have all the medals and all the good entries. There is a strong element of deniability for every charge against me. Advantage in working in the city police is the network you develop. Allow me to go, please.”
Ranjan was stunned by the unexpected reply. It was as if Dalbir had hit him with a taser gun shot.
“Sir, now since I have put in my papers, may I talk like an average man, as a common citizen? Claiming to be a friend would be too much,” Dalbir said in the opening gambit.
Ranjan nodded in the absence of a strong reply.
“Sir, you are to topper of your batch. Topper in your State in the school, your brothers retired from very senior ranks in the IRS.” Ranjan was wondering where Dalbir was heading.
“Both your sons are well placed in the US. Why did you accept a month long extension? I know what they are up to. They would make you do things, which will go against your conscience. I respect you. I see in you the person I wanted to become. But why did you accept? President Xi’s visit is a decoy. There is something behind the move. I feel an unease with it. They might have promised post-retirement job to you. But think hard and check,Sir whether they are worth doing.” Dalbir completed his longish statement and got ready to go.
“So you will not do it. Think twice. There are prices for impetuosity. You’d better fall in line.”
“Good luck, Sir. I will come and meet you at home if you permit it. Tomorrow onwards, I am not going to my office. Kindly order, additional charge for the South West Zone.”
This time Dalbir got up, picked up his cap but didn’t put it on. He stood smartly and said, “Jai Hind,” while giving a chest out as was the custom in police and military when you don’t have the cap on.
Ranjan just waved his hand ever so slightly. He was surprised that Dalbir had the temerity to say all that stuff. He earlier thought him to be one staying in glass houses of imperfection. He was expected to show quiescence. But Dalbir surprised him no end. But more than surprise, something had touched a chord. Truth touching the chord of conscience. But he was not prepared to accept it.
“I also believe in honesty. But some accommodation with the politician is necessary. Otherwise, how does he see value in one?” he thought to himself.
Next his eyes fell on the letter of voluntary retirement. “The blighter must be taking a print out everyday and keeping it in his pocket.” He never thought a man of real world like Dalbir would keep a letter like that in his pocket. The content was usual, family problems which required his attention, etc.
He himself used to carry a letter like this in his pocket. Until it dawned on him that this was hardly the insurance against a venal and rapacious state. Either you leave or if you stay with them, fall in line. At least someone compromising occasionally is better than someone completely compromised. Moreover, every situation was different and a plain vanilla letter would not have served the purpose. There was an inner urge in him to speak louder, longer as if the speech is the remedy of the system. But embedded in that was a deep desire to be noticed as someone different. Not the run of the mill officer. A cut above the rest as if it mattered in the system.
“How easily Dalbir disentangled himself. A simple letter of resignation/VR frugally mentioning that it is necessitated by family requirement,”he mused. He wished he had kept a simple letter like this.
He got up from the reverie. Appointment with the Home Minister at 7.30 p.m. Driving time was ten minutes with pilot and escort vehicles. But it was better to be there five minutes in advance.
He was called into Home Minister’s Chamber. The Home Minister was sitting in the sofa and he pointed to a seat across him. This was surprising. Ordinarily, he used to meet him at his desk. This was a change.
“Is it because he has already started seeing him as a future Governor and according courtesy accordingly,” a bemused Ranjan thought to himself.
“Sinha Saheb, Chinese President’s visit is on the 10th and 11th. A professional you are, I am sure you must have taken care of all the preparations,” Home Minister initiated.
“Sir, we have made some extraordinary arrangement so the event will pass off as peacefully as possible.” Ranjan took out a piece of paper and handed it to the Home Minister.
Home Minister took it, but barely showed any interest in going through it.
“I am sure, the city is in safe hands. But I wanted to tell you something. My party will be active during the time in the north-west Delhi. We have carefully instructed your subordinates; DCP, JCP, ACP and Spl. Commissioners. This is very important for us. I wanted to tell you personally that the city police should not be jumping jack and take law into their hands. People will sort it out.”
“If the police doesn’t take the law into their hands, who does?” Ranjan thought. Every discussion came packed with some discretional inaccuracy. May be he meant; people should not take law into their own hands. It occurred to Ranjan that north-west is commonly sensitive with large minority population. Of late, Kirti Shrivastava, the local MLA had started giving incendiary speeches, organizing people and openly throwing challenges to the other side. North-West zone was already simmering.
“It is too communally sensitive. Kindly tell your people to back off for a while. Let the Chinese President’s visit be over. We would be too tied down with Bandobast,” Ranjan offered.
“That is the idea, Sinha Saheb. Police complicity should not be visible. It should at least be deniable, there is no time better than this,” the Home Minister said.
It was clear that the Home Minister was indicating an invitation to complicity in creating communal fracas. The ruling party was not soft on the minorities and wanted to show them their place. Inside Ranjan was not happy. He touched his pocket instinctively. But that letter of resignation he had stopped carrying twenty five years back. Sobriety was already taking over impetuosity now. The Governor’s job was a bait. Extension of one month in the pretext of President Xi’s visit was something which hid a hook. He was already decided.
That was when the Home Minister interrupted his thoughts.
“After ten days you will be off on a gubernatorial assignment.”
This brought him down to terra firma. Yes, the Governor’s job. Much coveted and much awaited for him. It also carried a subscript that communal fracas was to be handled so tactfully that gubernatorial assignment can’t be withheld.
Ranjan thought about how blessed Dalbir Singh was. Corrupt but clear. After voluntary retirement, Dalbir would move to Chandigarh or go to his village in Moga District to carry out farming. He had no desire for any great post-retirement assignment. But he had already feathered his nest.
His own case was different. Pension was not just enough. What does he do to stay busy?
“Moreover, Archana will be so disappointed if he does not take charge of Raj Bhavan. That will be trouble for him. Bitterness, altercation, tu tu mein mein.” He had made up his mind. This time giving up gubernatorial ambition is not an option.”
He nodded to the Home Minister. It was implicit that he had agreed to the deal and now the covenant of the crooks would be given effect. He saluted the Home Minister. Home Minister in a departure to earlier time stood up and shook hand with him.
Ranjan left the Home Minister’s room. His walk back was slow. His car was lined up. He jumped into the car and just wanted to reach home.
“Sir, the road to Sunset Boulevard has been blocked. We would take the other road to go to Bunglow,” his PSO said.
Ranjan, thought for second. Road block to sunset boulevard. It was loaded with meaning.He had a sardonic smile on this face.
Dr. Satya Mohanty, a former officer of the Indian Administrative Service , was the Union Education Secretary as well as Secretary General of the National Human Rights Commission before superannuation. He has also held several senior positions in the Government of Andhra Pradesh, a state in the Indian Union. HE has authored a book of essay in Odia, The Mirror Does not Lie and a book of poems in English( Dancing on the Edge). He is a columnist writing regularly on economic and socio- political issues, Mohanty was an Edward S, Mason Fellow in Harvard University and a SPURS visiting scholar in Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, USA. He has been an Adjunct Professor of Economics in two universities and is a leading public communicator. His second volume of poetry will come out soon, He lives in Delh
WHO KNOWS THE TRUTH ?
Meena Mishra
The sky was coloured with the pink-purple shades of a sultry spring evening. The clouds seemed to be swollen with laughter, as Bipin sprinted down the spiraling office staircase, and rushed to his best friend’s desk. It seemed as though giggles were bubbling behind his lips, and one could almost see them rippling like sea waves, softly changing shape.
“Hey Ashish! Megha ma’am has called you to her cabin. She wants to see you right away,” he called, with a simper on his face. “I think she wants to give you some perks for this breaking news. May be a trip abroad,” added Rita, a glint of mischief in her eyes. Rita was a bright-eyed, fair-cheeked girl, the epitome of life and energy. Her voice was high-pitched and shrill, and her laughter was boisterous and it welled from deep within her, in short, staccato bursts. Ashish looked around at them and rolled his eyes. Despite their constant mocking and teasing, he had a great fondness for them, and his heart filled with a sense of warmth and belonging whenever they were around. After all, they were his colleagues at The Leader’s Newsroom.
Ashish rushed towards Megha ma’am’s cabin, brimming with excitement and vigor. He indeed deserved some perks. He had a huge network of friends and many a time he would be the first one to get the bytes for his news channel. He was the face of The Leader (the best news channel of India). As soon as he reached inside the cabin, he could feel a somber air within. Megha ma’am seemed to be very serious. “Please lock the door behind you, Ashish,” she instructed, looking at him with stony eyes. Her spectacles teetered on the tip of her pointed nose, and she looked at him from over the glassy rims. He felt like a balloon that was all set to soar up but was pricked with a needle, most unexpectedly. He could not comprehend what had gone wrong. He rubbed his hands together and began biting his nails.
His momentary reverie was interrupted by Megha ma’am’s harsh voice. “Are you sure, absolutely and certainly sure, that the news is truly confirmed?” The way Megha ma’am emphasized on the word ‘confirmed’ made Ashish jerk to a sudden halt, “Confirmed? Oh, most certainly! We were eyewitnesses to it, ma’am. I was under the impression that I was the only one who knew about this but as soon as we broke the news, I could see other reporters too frantically running their own marathons to get their hands on the news. Since there was no time to inform you, we directly went live. Now all the other news channels have plastered their otherwise ordinary faces with the brightness of this news, but you see we were the first ones,” he said his voice touching the zenith of excitement and enthusiasm, in massive leaps and bounds.
Megha ma’am’s expression remained the same, grave, thoughtful, rather anxious. She picked up the phone and spoke, “Stop running the news of Mr. Sadashiv Shetty. Our channel should shift the limelight to capture other important issues that our country is facing. O, there’s a plethora of issues that we must capture! There’s Covid-19, lockdown, China, America, Pakistan, our scientific achievements, the Prime Minister’s efforts. Instead of focusing on these grave issues we are broadcasting about a bigwig’s personal affairs?” Ashish swiveled around; his cheeks taut with tension. He was absolutely shell-shocked. Before his eyes, he visualized the effort he had invested, as he darted on the streets of Mumbai, his camera in one hand, and his ID dangling around his neck, struggling to tighten his grasps around what he had assumed to be the next newspaper headlines. But, devastatingly, all the perspiration that he had shed beneath the Sun that blazed so immensely, that every cloud was alit with a flamboyant flame had seemingly gone in vain.
Mr. Sadashiv Shetty was a business tycoon cloaked in mystery. He had a sense of obscurity surrounding him and radiated the aura of a spy – a person who would often visit accommodations alit with a faint, mysterious yellow light, with tables creaking under the weight of slender-waisted wine glasses, and clandestine messages sewn into silver-threaded pockets. He hated making public appearances. He would meet the people only during his company meets and functions and as expected, paparazzi were not allowed to cover the event. There were many stories woven around his personality – that threw light on his physical and abstract outlook. According to his employees, he was an absolute stickler for discipline in both personal and professional life. He was endowed with a healthy physical frame, and muscles thick and swollen like ripe oranges. His physique belied his age. His multi-faceted appearance which composed of his strong athletic body, handsome demeanor, deep green eyes, silky hair, impeccable dressing sense, flawless skin, and his strong command on the English language, that the words and sentences rolled off his tongue in a most attractive American accent, which made him the most sought-after bachelor. He would be the first one to reach his office and last one to leave. His employees considered him to be a workaholic.
His company was listed among the third best companies of the country. He wanted to see it on the top. He was also a taskmaster. His employees often quoted him, “In Shetty Enterprises, incoming time is fixed for all but there is no fixed outgoing time. You can leave the premises only when you have completed the assignment given to you.” There were no reports of his drinking or smoking. Some people believed that he was a Casanova and had got into romantic and most often, sexual relationships with many women. He was well known for his amorous attention to women. There were innumerable promiscuous stories mushrooming every second day, by the women fired by him, even though none could be authenticated. All of those women were stunning, gorgeous, and extremely good at work. They were fair and had smooth and glowing skin, with sharp features and elegant limbs, and posed an uncanny resemblance to the princesses nestled within the glowing pages of fairy-tale books. No one was successful in catching him red-handed due to his political influence, and the plausibility of these rumours was thus, most often, doubted. This was for the first time that the reporters (and he being the first one) were successful in covering such a spicy story live. He rubbed his hands together, the excitement of the entire process rushing through his veins again. “What exactly did you see when you went there?”
He was brought back from his entanglement of thoughts by Megha Ma’am’s point-blank question. “Ma’am, we have already been broadcasting it on our channel. His stunning secretary moved out of his office with scratches on her neck. There was a bruise on her wrist – and not just one bruise, but multiple small bruises, and it almost seemed as though her wrist was decked with bangles and bracelets of a pattern of blue and purple bruises. As soon as she saw us, she tried to hide her face, by draping the ends of her scarf around it, and run away from there but had to wait for her car.
Listening to the hullabaloo created by the reporters, a silhouette peeped through the window. After few minutes, a car pulled up and his lawyer came with the police. Police asked the reporters to leave the venue. The lawyer refused to comment ma’am.” “Did the secretary give some comment?” Megha ma’am asked. “As usual, no comment, no complaint lodged. Everybody is scared of him ma’am. His presence is sufficient to make people tremble,” Ashish said. “You may go now, there is absolutely no need to discuss this with anyone. I will call a meeting shortly and address everyone. Till then, not a word about this.” He was utterly baffled.
A cyclone of endless questions swirled in his mind, as he crinkled his eyebrows in bewilderment. Everybody knew about Megha ma’am’s heartfelt loathing towards this man. She would never attend any of the functions or parties organized by Shetty Enterprises. She would always send someone else as her representative. The parties were always so high-profile and would have benefitted the news channel, but she was always successful in coming up with a valid excuse. The mere name ‘Shetty Enterprises’ would make her screw up her nose, as though she was exposed to a scent of rotten eggs.
Megha ma’am was the uncrowned media queen, the owner of the biggest news channel of this country - The Leader. Every move of hers was news, something that had to be mentioned, and pushed within the constricted dimensions of a report. A special corner of Page 3 in all the leading newspapers of this country was reserved exclusively for her. It seemed as though the news reports were vessels, and the news pieces spooned into the reports were food items ladled into the vessels in superfluous amounts, so much so, that they escalated the boundaries of the vessels and spilled out. The news pieces encapsulated her contribution to NGOs; the charity functions attended by her, film premiers, book launches, chat shows, panel discussions, her interviews in foreign magazines and TV channels, her being invited as a judge for various events everyday there was something about her to be talked about. She was a busy bee, no, actually a butterfly, fluttering from her office to various events. Despite leading a busy life, she looked as fresh as a lily because she loved the limelight. Not because she was a show-off but simply because she was an inspiration for millions of girls, and she had put in lots of efforts to reach this zenith. She had a strong PR skill. Her employees loved working with her. She was a kind, polite and respectful boss but when it came to work, she meant business. Her physique also radiated a sense of power, ambition, and dominance. She was five feet, nine inches tall, and wore her long, thick hair tightly tied on the top of her head in a small bun. She was most often seen wearing long, diamond-crusted danglers and an emerald and sapphire necklace clasped around her throat. This attire of absolute, crystal resplendence was complimented with the solitaire bangles on her wrists, and wherever she went, she seemed to shine.
Whenever one would look at her, it would seem as though the Sun and the Moon had mingled together, and all that one could see was a dazzling amalgamation of bright gold and brighter silver. Ashish was wondering what the meeting would be for. He was back at his seat, and had just begun to relax, when all the crew members were summoned to the conference hall. Many of his colleagues inquired about his recent meet with Megha ma’am but he just managed to evade their questions. These were signs of a serious issue.
All of them assembled in a hushed manner. Megha ma’am connected her cell to the huge TV and played a video of the girl they had been running on the news so far. She was seen with some other man in the parking lot and when she saw the watchman approaching towards her, she ran out of that place just to be welcomed by the cameramen and reporters. While the entire office was engrossed in watching this video Megha was answering a call received from a private number. Just as the call notification flashed on her phone’s sleek screen, it seemed as though a million suns had risen in the sky of her eyes. “Did you get the video recording from my office parking?” asked the man. “Yes, I did,” she replied. “What was she doing late at night in the office? I have given a standing instruction for all the female employees to leave latest by 7. What the hell was she doing in the parking lot?” asked the worried voice.
“Don’t worry sweetheart. That lady will not be seen in the city tomorrow. My secretary has forwarded her video to all the TV channels,” Megha said in an assuring tone. “But I don’t want that video to be played anywhere. She is a woman and might fall into trouble. She won’t get a job anywhere in this industry. It would ruin her life,” he cried out, exasperated. “Why do you always try to protect all these women? What about your reputation?” Megha said, her voice sizzling with rage and anger. “You know those are rumours. Don’t you?” he said with a chuckle. “I am the only person on this earth who knows this. “That’s the problem,” Megha blurted out and both of them dissolved into a fit of laughter. “Are you free for a video call tonight? I want to tell you what stories are being woven around you. Or to be more specific, I want you to examine every stitch, every intricate weaving in the cloak of rumours that covers your shoulders. It is a beautiful cloak that you wear, ever so colourful and ever so striking, but like all things stitched from rumours, it does not have a strong base. It can rip anytime,” she spoke.
“You know me. I always take time out for you no matter how busy I am’’ he whimpered. It seemed as though a young Romeo had emerged from the chambers of his heart, a Romeo that had been tucked away years ago. His voice was laced with chocolate-honey romance and clad in the costume of schoolboy romance. “Is midnight fine for you?” she put in. “Anytime is fine for me when it’s about spending time with you and you know that. I know this time the screen will be in front of us – or rather between us, posing as an unfortunate restriction. But well, I will assure myself, despite being confined behind the screen, with the thought that at the end of the day, it is you, my chestnut-eyed princess on the other side,” he said with a naughty smile on his face. He had stars in his eyes, and these stars had rainbows heaped onto their shoulders. The stars poured out of his eyes, dancing and leaping to the soft, subtle tune of heartfelt love
Meena Mishra is the Founder & CEO of The Impish Lass Publishing House. An award-winning author, poet, short-story writer, social worker, novelist, educator and a publisher, are some of the words which describe Ms. Meena Mishra to whom The Impish Lass Publishing House owes its existence. Her poems, stories, and book-reviews have been published in many international journals and she is a recipient of several prestigious awards as well. Besides being an active member of Mumbai English Educators’ Team, in accordance to the request of the Education Department of Maharashtra she is also a part of The Review Committee for their new English text book. She has been working as the International Coordinator for British Council activities for more than 11 years.
Meena Mishra has judged several illustrious and popular literary competitions and festivals notably the Lit fest. of IIT Bombay and the NM college fest., of which she is one of the sponsors now. She is also a regular panelist for various literary and educational platforms like the Asian Literary Society. Her poems are published in several magazines including the prestigious periodical Woman’s Era. They have been translated and published in Spanish magazines as well. She has been a contributing autho r and poet for more than 200 books. Her books include The Impish Lass, Emociones Infinitas, Within the Cocoon of Love and The Impish Lass Book 2. Her latest book – The Impish Lass Book 2 (TIL Stories and More) has received rave reviews from its readers including the highly distinguished Indian nuclear scientist Padma Vibhushan Dr. R. Chidambaram. It has achieved a remarkable five-star rating on Amazon. Ms. Mishra has received high acclaim from esteemed newspapers like The Times of India and Mid-Day. Her articles have been featured in The Times of India ‘NIE’ and in ‘Brainfeed Higher Education Plus’ a leading educational magazine of the country.
She has been a guest speaker on ‘Sony TV’ for their first episode of ‘Zindagi Ke Crossroads,’ based on the needs of differently abled children. She was invited to express her views on the special episode of ‘AajTak’ featuring the PMC Bank scam victims. Ms. Meena Mishra is the proud recipient of multitudinous awards in 2020-21 for her contribution to the field of education and literature. Some of them are the ‘Vishwa Shikshavid Samman 2020,’ Appreciation Certificate for Support Covid-19 challenges in education by Government of Maharashtra, ‘Regional Academic Authority Mumbai,’ ‘Pathbreaker of the Year Award,’ by Harper Collins, ‘Acharya Chanakya Shikshavid Samman 2020,’ for valuable contribution to empower the society, ‘Nation Builder Award,’ Super 30 Teacher nomination by IB Hub, ‘Most Outstanding Teacher of the Year’ award during World Education Summit in February 2021. She is the winner of the ‘Womennovator Award’ as well as ‘1000 Women of Asia Award,’ given in association with the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information technology. She has been nominated for the ‘2021 ELTons Outstanding Achievement Award,’ by the British Council. Ms. Mishra is currently a member of the Maharashtra Women’s Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Special Needs). Her poem ‘Smile a Lot’ has been chosen as an unseen poem for the LL student’s workbook by State Council of Educational Research & Training (SCERT), Maharashtra. ‘The Impish Lass’ SSC EDU Warriors,’ is her latest initiative for improving the standard of English in SSC schools across Maharashtra. Her book “The Impish Lass -Book 2,” was published as a research paper in American Research Journal of English and Literature under the title- Meena Mishra’s The Impish Lass Book 2 – A Study of Socio- Cultural Issues in India. She has been awarded ‘ Marathi Bhasha Rajya Shikshak Puraskar 2022’ for her contribution towards education and promotion of literature in Maharashtra.
She has been nominated for ‘ Cambridge Dedicated Teacher Awards 2022. She has also ventured into Marathi writing for an educational magazine . She has been recently invited by IIT – Banaras Hindu University as a judge for their International Lit – Fest. She has been shortlisted for Maharashtra Times’ – Maharashtra Gaurav Award 2022.
During my early childhood in sixties one evening my father came with a Bush radio from Cuttack and it became an instant sensation in our neighborhood. People of all ages including children assembled in our house to listen to the programs of different genres; music, drama, news etc.
All of us almost got addicted to it within a few days and our discussion went round the different programs. At the time of the cyclone and so also the election, people were very much eager to know the latest updates.
In 1971 my father fought the Legislative Assembly election on a Congress ticket from Sukinda constituency and lost. By that time he was a two time Chairman of our Panchayat Samiti and was very popular for his honesty and selfless public service. However, electoral politics has no logical ending at times. It was a great shock for him and brought him huge financial loss.
One day the taxi driver engaged during the election came to take his outstanding dues. Being a man of principle, father immediately sold out the radio set for four hundred rupees and paid it to the taxi driver. Suddenly we lost the company of the radio and it saddened us for few days. Of course, by then some of our neighbours had acquired radio sets of their own and we used to visit their house sometime to listen to some important programs.
In the year 1975 when I joined the local college as a first year student, one of my poems got selected to be broadcast in Yuva Vani program of All India Radio, Cuttack. It was a news in the college and our locality. On that fateful evening everyone was tuned to the radio set to listen to the recitation of my poem and I got an instant recognition as a poet.
For the first time in my life I got an honorarium of twenty five rupees by money order from All India Radio and my joys knew no bounds. Subsequently, more of my poems and short stories got broadcast in radio.
In one afternoon in 1980 while I was a post graduate student in Utkal University, Vanivihar, I had a chance meeting with Dr Jayant Das, then working as Program Executive in AIR, Cuttack. By that time I had an acquaintance with him in course of my visit to AIR, Cuttack for presenting my writings. He then and there invited me for conducting an interview with legendary Dr Harekrushna Mahatab next day in the AIR studio for Yuva Vani program.
Dr Mahatab was a great personality and I had a fair acquaintance with him. I used to write regular letters to him on various issues and he was always prompt in sending the reply in a post card for which he was very famous.
Next day I arrived in AIR, Cuttack and Jayant Babu briefed us about the interview. Sriram Das and Jayanti Rath, two comperes of Yuva Vani were with me. Sriram Das is now a senior journalist of the State and Jayanti Rath joined AIR as a Program Executive and ultimately retired as Station Director, Doordarshan Kendra, Bhubaneswar.
Dr Mahatab arrived in the studio at the right time and we were introduced to him by Jayant Babu. While introducing me Dr Mahatab indicated from his side that he knew me well. It intrigued Jayant Babu. It was a very open interview where we asked him all controversial questions and he answered all of them in a very candid manner.
Destiny had something stored in for me. In 1984 the Staff Selection Commission advertised for few posts of Transmission Executive in AIR and Doordarshan. I applied for the post and got a call for the interview in Kolkata. I appeared the interview and incidentally I was the first person to be interviewed that day. It was a very successful and the board members were visibly satisfied with my performance.
With my educational background they were skeptical about my joining the post since I was in their estimation quite qualified for a position in civil service. I had to convince them that literature and culture remained first love and I would definitely join if get selected. In fact few months thereafter I got the appointment order from AIR, Cuttack when I was passing through a most distressing time due to lack of a descent engagement.
I joined AIR, Cuttack in October, 1984 and within few months got recognised for my knowledge, sincerity and proactive attitude. Mr Shyamanad Vaisya, an Assamese gentleman was the Station Director and I became his blue eyed boy within no time.
I enjoyed the company of veteran broadcasters whose programs I used to listen in my childhood days and the VIPs in different walks of life visiting the studio to participate in various programmes. Some of my talks and documentaries got wide appreciation.
I have some priceless memories of my days in AIR, Cuttack. In 1986 I got selected for Odisha Finance Service and was in a dilemma whether to leave AIR or not. Then the promotional avenue was not so bright and the pay structure was also not so attractive. Finally, on 28th February 1986 I had to bid good bye to AIR and the same day my mentor Mr Vaisya, the Station Director got retired on superannuation.
Next day I joined the State Government and my honeymoon with radio ended abruptly.
The Story is First in a series of articles.
My father had got an English Raleigh cycle in his younger days which was a proud possession for him. In those days our entire village didn’t have even a dozen bicycles. As Chairman of the Panchayat Samiti, he used to make tours to different villages using his bicycle and for distant places night halts were inevitable. As children, we used to enjoy it as pillion riders to the nearby market or special events on different occasions.
When I was around ten years old, my turn came to practice riding the cycle in half-pedal mode and my joy knew no bounds when I became successful in my attempts after getting a few bruises on my hands and legs in the process. Few years later I got admitted to the high school a few kilometers away from my village in class nine and my father arranged a second hand bicycle for me. It was an assortment of spares from different old bicycles by the cycle repair shop and almost every alternate day I had to visit the shop to get it repaired.
Once on the way home after school. I met an accident causing a hole on my left chin which needed a stitch and I couldn’t take solid food for two days. Still then, the cycle was my faithful companion. After the matriculation examination, the entire summer vacation was there to enjoy and I traveled to some of the relatives riding the bicycle on my own.
When I got admitted to the local college after matriculation I got permission to use my father’s bicycle. In summer or winter no matter what, the cycle was my constant companion. During the rainy season, the cycle moved ahead in the muddy roads and I enjoyed the rains without being able to have a raincoat those days.
At times there was a competition among the friends in chasing the beautiful college girls traveling in their rickshaws and if you could pick up a conversation with her it’s like winning a lottery. In those days, a scooter or motorcycle was still a luxury even for our lecturers. After graduation I moved to Vanivihar for my post graduation. After a few months ,I brought the bicycle and it became convenient for visiting the cinema hall to view the so-called art films or drama staged in Rabindra Mandap at times.
In the year 1984 I joined All India Radio, Cuttack and used my bicycle to commute to the office and back. In the evening or on holidays I along with some friends visited different parts of the historic city and enjoyed the delicious street foods at various joints. Cycle had by then become an integral part of life. Soon after in 1986 I resigned from AIR and joined the State Government. Incidentally I was posted in Cuttack as Additional Commercial Tax Officer in a circle office.
As before, I used to commute by bicycle since it was not possible to purchase a scooter with the meager salary. On the other hand Bajaj scooter was then in short supply and one had to wait for months to get the delivery after booking it. After some colleagues advised me not to use cycle to commute to the office, I had to use a rickshaw for the purpose in spite of incurring unnecessary expenditure only for the sake of status. Kinetic Honda scooter recently came to market and it was available in the showrooms. It was gearless and very comfortable to ride.
I decided to purchase one after conducting a trial run and approached the Urban Bank for a loan. The loan was sanctioned immediately and I became the proud owner of a scooter. I sent the bicycle back to the village and lost its companionship forever.
LITERALLY SPEAKING - DEATH OF SERIOUS LITERATURE ?
In our younger days magazines like Sarika in Hindi and Caravan in English were very popular. They stopped circulation years ago. Even the popular non - literary publications like Illustrated Weekly of India edited by Khushwant Singh, Blitz edited by R. K. Karanjia and Sunday edited by M. J. Akbar are no longer in circulation from ages. Our younger generation could not enjoy the luxury of going through these publications like most of us. Manoj Das started editing one English monthly journal at a point of time but it could not continue for long. He then cited the reason for closure of the journal to be lack of patronage for serious literature and so also poor readership. I fondly recollect that once upon a time Asantakali and Nabarabi published monthly from Kolkata were very popular in Odia literature. They stopped publication decades ago. Similar fate has been observed in case of many publications in different languages over the years. It’s not only confined to Hindi or English but also almost all regional languages.Is it going to prove that the interest in serious literature is waning day by day ?
In Odisha the Sambad group has been bringing out a monthly magazine called Katha. It carries short stories of both established and young writers. For few years in the past it was out of circulation. Then I had met the editor and requested him to revive it. He was highly distressed to find that inspite of the popularity it enjoyed among the readers it was not self sustaining as a publication and depended upon the daily newspaper Sambad to survive. Of course after few years it was again revived but the situation still persists. In order to encourage and entice youngsters to write short stories Katha used to organise each year a competition among young writers below twenty five years old and give them cash award along with a memento and citation in their annual function graced by one of the very reputed writers of the country. The initial cash award was rupees five hundred. Now it has been raised to five thousand. The age limit has been raised to thirty years the reason being its difficult to get sufficient entries. While in the initial stages there were about eight hundred entries now inspite of the rise in the cash award and the relaxation of the age the entries are around three hundred only. This year out of the ten awardees six are girls and almost all except one hail from the coastal area. This goes on to prove that young people from interior parts of the state are no longer interested in writing of short stories. Secondly, girls are more interested than the boys probably because the young boys are more career oriented and have no time for literature. One of the jury members confided before me that most of the entries were hopelessly poor in standard and hardly readable. If this is the scenario then it’s well imagined what would be the future of serious literature in our country.
The flood of poems and short stories in the social media platforms in these days is never a consolation for serious literature lovers. I have been telling that literature in social media is sign of democratisation of literature. There’s no editorial rigours to judge bad or good in these cases. The number of likes decide the fate of the popularity of the piece and very often the readers don’t read it carefully or give any serious comments. It’s most of the time neither serious nor literature. Shall we then presume that serious literature is facing a slow death??
LITERALLY SPEAKING - NO MORE OFF THE SHELF
During my four decades of literary journey I have keenly observed the progress in publishing industry. It has traveled from the type setting manual printing to off set printing and now it’s the digital printing. The shabbily looked books printed manually are no longer in sight and are replaced by well designed digitally printed books. The writers and the readers are no doubt enjoying this transformation. Added to this e books have invaded the market and the readers are at ease in enjoying reading in a most comfortable way. The latest arrivals in global market is now available on your fingertips thanks to so many apps accessible online. The reading habits of the people have undergone sea changes. The traditional fiction writing is replaced by non fiction. Poetry is still confined to a select audience consisting of budding poets, critics and academics.
When people of my generation started writing forty years ago, the printing order for a book in Odia language was around five hundred to one thousand. Few popular writers had a fan following demanding more copies. Similarly, a handful of titles had the opportunity of successive editions. Payment of royalty to the writers was a far cry except for few whose books were in demand. When Raja Ram Mohan Ray library scheme was introduced by Government of India the State Government started purchasing few hundred copies each year and it gave a push to the publishing industry. However, the print order still hovered around five hundred or so. Writers were always at the receiving end of the publishers. On the one hand they had to wait for two three years for a manuscript to get published and on the other they were not getting royalties. They were almost at the mercy of the publishers who used to enjoy an enviable status.
During past few years things have started changing. Some writers turned publishers and self publishing has become the go of the day. Overnight one is capable of being a writer and get published for a thousand rupees. There’s a boom in publishing industry thanks to the enthusiasm for labelled as a writer by Tom dick Harry. It has become a status symbol in the society to be a writer. Retired government employees and affluent home makers have joined the fray. The publishers have a hay day now and are reaping the benefits. Without any investment they are doing business with an assured income. Some have come up with different packages like publishing with release function and or book reviews etc. Some unscrupulous publishers have started taking advantage of the situation and after taking a hefty amount from the aspiring writer try to just publish a few copies, hand over to the writer and vanish. The poor writer gets a lesson of his life and can not share it with anyone in shame.
Added to this there’s a new trend in publishing now a days. It’s called print to order. In the process the publisher initially publishes few copies, gives to the author as per the agreement and the amount paid for it and then prints subsequent copies as per order received from the buyers through online platforms like Amazon , Flipkart etc. Now one can imagine where do we stand
Mr. Pradeep Biswal is a bilingual poet writing both in Odia and English. His poems are widely anthologised. He is also an editor and translator of repute. A retired IAS Officer, Shri Biswal presently holds the position of Member, Odisha Real Estate Regulatory Authority and stays with his family at Bhubaneswar.
It was a sodden day of rain during the monsoons at the Indian Military Academy, Dehra Dun in July 1975. The preliminary boxing bouts were to be held the following week. The preparations for the inter Company boxing tournaments had been going on at a frantic pace at the IMA during the last few weeks. Each Company was hoping to clinch the championship. I was in Meiktila Company, along with Pillai and a good number of other NDA course mates.
The senior termers spared no tricks to make sure that the Company was adequately represented in all the weight categories. We did not have anyone in the 65 to 71 kg category of the Light Middle Weight. At the time, I weighed just 59 kg. Some of the seniors would throw hints at me, saying, “Why don’t you volunteer, you seem to be quite strong. You might also make a good appointment in your senior term with the OLQ points that you will earn.” Even some of my own course mates urged me, “Tony, you will do great in that category. After all, it is only a few kg more, and that should not make any difference really.” These discussions occupied a lot of our time. The only irony was that I had never boxed past the Novices level at NDA. Although I have no recollection of ever being a volunteer for joining the team, I was somehow drafted to represent the “Light Middle Weight” category. Pillai had also made it to the team like me in the higher “Middle Weight” category.
One afternoon Arjun Menon spoke up, “Hey guys, guess who is in the Light Middle Weight category?”
“I have no idea”, I replied hesitatingly, “but it sure won’t be me.”
“Well Tony, I heard that Pundhir is in that weight category as well. Also MOTD Sundaram!”
There was silence. Who had not heard of ACA Pundhir? He was a fearsome boxer, and a “Blazer” in boxing at the NDA. I had seen him fight many times at the academy. He packed a solid punch, and every time his fist connected, it was with a dull, resounding thud. The idea, even though remote, that I might have to face him in the ring spooked me. And Sundaram was no different. He looked like something out of a nightmare, with his sadistic smirk! All that I could do was hope that I would never have to face either one as an opponent. I was then encouraged to eat a lot more and also drink lots of fluids in an attempt to put on more weight. It was beginning to look like the fattening of the lamb before the slaughter. This extra feeding did not seem to help much, as my weight stayed steady at 59 kg.
A few weeks before the preliminaries, the practice sessions were really heating up. Pillai had lately learned the art of throwing some sharp, straight jabs and even a few hooks and upper cuts. I realized that he was getting quite good, because during some of our sparring sessions, I was getting clobbered by him. Moreover, he had a good reach advantage, being over six feet tall. Little did Pillai know that his opponent was to be the mighty Festus, who was also in the same weight category.
Festus was a power house of a Nigerian, endowed with bulging, rippling muscles under dark, pitch-black skin. He had a reputation for knocking out his opponents in all his earlier bouts in the previous term. No one ever lasted more than a few seconds after the opening bell. The words would be whispered among us in awe, “Guess who’s fighting Festus… poor soul. Hope the poor bloke survives the encounter”, and “Thank heavens, it’s not me”, etc. Now that the schedule was out, there was tense excitement in the air. I waited with bated breath about my own fate, and my worst fears came true when I was told that I would face none other than Pundhir in the preliminaries. Interestingly both Pillai and I were scheduled to have our fights during the same evening.
We spent the next couple of days trying to boost each other up and get our josh levels high. It was no use. The more we thought about it, the more tensed up we would get. Our friends tried their best to keep us pepped up.
During one of these pep sessions, Sahni came up with a brilliant idea. “You know what you guys should do? As soon as the bell rings, just charge up to your opponents and land them the first volley the instant that they turn around, and you should be able to flatten them.”
Although he was no boxer, Sahni spoke with the confidence of one who thinks he has boxed all his life. “They won’t see it coming, man, and the element of surprise will take care of the rest,” he continued wisely. “Come on, Tony, you are a strong guy. They don’t call you the ‘Ape Man’ for nothing.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I replied, not sure if Sahni was joking or not. “All that you’ve done is ride horses. Here we are talking about us being clobbered by some real tough guys.”
Pillai too seemed doubtful and asked, “Me surprise Festus? Have you heard about the way he knocks out his opponents? It doesn’t look like anyone has been able to surprise him before.”
“Well, they are too slow. You guys are definitely much faster,” Arjun Menon chimed in.
“What about Pundhir?” I asked. “Do you think that strategy will work with him too?”
Gogoi spoke up just then, “Tony, just don’t worry about Pundhir. Do what Sahni suggested and you will have no problems at all. He is not all that fast. Just don’t forget to clobber him the moment he turns around.”
The weighing in was done a couple of days before the fights. The rain was pouring incessantly that day. I was taken to the weighing area and weighed in the pouring rain. My clothes were soaked in rainwater. With the sound of the pouring rain I had a feeling of impending doom. I knew there was no way that I could make it into the Light Middle Weight category due to my low weight, and I fervently hoped that I would be disqualified. When my turn finally came, I was told to weigh in with the gloves on, and I began to panic again. I was then asked to choose the sixteen ounce gloves which were also soaked in the rain. When I picked them up, I nearly dropped them because they weighed a ton literally. I realized then that the gloves were actually filled with rocks!
It was utterly absurd in that I was standing here drenched in the pouring rain, wearing massive gloves filled with rocks, in an attempt to make it into a weight category that I never even belonged to. It then dawned on me that this was an accepted practice by the seniors to ensure that all the weight categories were appropriately represented for the competition. To withdraw now would seem cowardly. With a sinking feeling, I was told by the Ustaad that I had made it in my weight class.
I was still in a daze with the recent happenings, and the way things had turned out. Although I was not thrilled at the prospect of fighting Pundhir, secretly, I was feeling really bad for Pillai for having been pitted against Festus. It was ironic because Pillai was an excellent sailor; he was no boxer! No matter what anyone said, I had a bad gut feeling about the whole thing. Moreover, Pillai always wore glasses, and I guess the only time he ever was without his glasses was while sleeping and showering.
The day of the preliminary bouts was upon us and we were tense with anxiety. Pillai would face Festus first, and my bout with Pundhir would be later. Pillai had a strange look on his face, and it was hard to imagine what must be going on in his mind. We all waited with bated breath to watch as the fighters were announced into the ring. Pillai was in the red corner, and Festus was in the blue. It was to be three rounds of three long minutes each.
The referee inspected the fighters’ gloves and curtly announced, “Fight clean, boxers shake hands,” and the gong rang. For some strange reason, Pillai did not rush Festus as soon as the gong went. Both fighters crouched low and paced around slowly, each looking for an opening. Pillai had his hands up in front of his face trying to keep his guard up, and he seemed to have a hard time focusing his eyes. Festus had a cold, expressionless countenance and an intense look in his eyes that told us he was well prepared for war. He appeared to be stalking his opponent, intent on doing damage. His biceps and shoulders were bulging under his ebony skin and he was ripped in the gut with a well defined six-pack. Pillai had a fight on his hands for sure. We started cheering him at the top of our lungs.
About ten seconds passed as the fighters circled slowly around. Pillai let loose some tentative jabs at Festus, but they seemed to simply bounce off his thick hide. All of a sudden Festus sprang into action! He released a lightning fast barrage of jabs and blows and Pillai seemed to spin around. We cheered our guts out for our buddy Pillai when we saw Festus unleash his blows. I prayed for a miracle to happen and hoped that Pillai would be able to retaliate somehow. It was futile, because we could hear the sound of a volley of blows catching Pillai on the side of his head and body, and the next thing we knew, he dropped like a stone. Except for a little movement in his legs which seemed to twitch sporadically, Pillai was out cold on the floor of the ring.
As the referee counted up to 8, Pillai seemed to come together and he struggled to stand up. Poor Pillai had a glazed look in his eyes, while Festus looked on from his blue corner like a vulture about to feast. Apparently the referee did not think that there was any point in continuing the fight after seeing Pillai’s glazed look. He called both boxers to the middle of the ring and announced, “Well fought Red, but Blue is the winner”, and Pillai staggered out of the ring. I was full of admiration for my buddy due to the fact that he was able to face Festus and come out of the encounter without being scarred for life.
Little did Festus know that events had been set in motion, where he would face the toughest fight of his life in a few days during the final bout. In the meantime, my bout with Pundhir was imminent.
As I was warming up in the prep room a few minutes before my bout, there was a knock on the door and Pundhir walked in towards me. He was big, and had a smirk on his face, and with his lips curled downwards, he said, “Take it easy, Antony.” I could sense the sarcasm in his voice as he walked out. All of a sudden, a wave of doubt washed over me. Should I really charge him at the sound of the gong and try and flatten him? Sahni’s words of wisdom to charge him kept coming back to me. Gogoi and Rana were my seconds and preparing me for the fight and I asked, “Well guys, I’m not sure anymore, what should I do now?”
Their reply was, “Tony, hammer him in his corner the moment the bell rings. Don’t wait at all. Speed, man, speed.”
Our fight was announced and I stepped through the ropes and entered the ring. The adrenalin was pumping and I was in a heightened state of awareness. The referee called us to the middle of the ring to inspect our gloves. Pundhir was in the red corner and I was in the blue. It was so obvious that I was smaller than he. He had a calm, cynical expression on his face as if anticipating what the outcome would be. It reminded me of a cat expectantly looking at a mouse. I avoided looking directly at Pundhir, as I had finally decided that I would charge at him the instant the bout began. Nothing seemed to matter anymore and I was resigned to my fate. How I wished that I had the rocks inside my gloves then.
The memory of the fight is still vivid in my mind to this day.
Again the referee curtly said, “Fight clean, boxers shake hands.” And the gong rang.
I rushed at Pundhir in his red corner and the moment he turned around, I unleashed a flurry of blows at his face and head in rapid succession. For a fleeting moment I realized that I had indeed taken him off guard. His calm, cynical expression instantly transformed into a wolfish snarl, and I realized then that I had made a huge mistake. He simply shrugged off my blows and then began to hike and shrug his shoulders alternately, and advanced towards me menacingly while smacking his huge gloved paws together. They made an ominous sound and I hastily stepped back. The look in his eyes told me that he was out to punish me! I then realized that three minutes was going to be a very long time indeed.
He started with straight right jabs. I tried my best to keep my guard up. I was able to defend his jabs at first, and even laid out a few of my own. We swung at each other as we crouched and circled. Time seemed to stand still. Pundhir’s straight jab came from nowhere and caught me right on my nose and the searing pain made me wince, and tears welled out of my eyes! I could see stars and fireworks go off in front of my eyes. He immediately followed with a massive left hook, but I was just barely able to dodge it. I felt the air on my face as his huge gloved fist whooshed by. I then realized that my survival depended not on how I could punch him, but by how I could avoid being punched by him. The clock kept ticking. I was able to land a few glancing blows on his shoulders. He simply brushed them off without batting an eyelid. The crowd was cheering me on. “To-ny, To-ny,” came the ringing cheer, but I was oblivious of that. The gong suddenly rang, and I realized that I had survived the first round.
As I sat on the little stool in my blue corner, Rana and Gogoi gave me some much needed pepping up and words of encouragement. They wiped the trickle of blood from my nose and the sweat that was pouring out of me and told me that I was doing great! Within seconds, the referee announced the second round, and the gong rang yet again.
This time I realized that it was pointless to charge Pundhir, as he was probably expecting it. So I waited for him to approach me. Once again I saw the intense, ferocious look on his face; and I realized that he had not forgiven me for charging at him in the beginning of the first round. Pundhir was still out to punish me! He kept up with his powerful, straight jabs; but I was able to keep my guard up and managed to again land a jab at his face. He looked surprised when it connected, and I saw him wince with pain.
And then it happened! I never saw Pundhir’s straight come at me through my gloved fists. It caught me squarely on my mouth and I went limp as I hit the mat, while a wave of pain washed over me. I felt the salty taste of blood in my mouth. Somewhere in my fuddled mind I heard the referee count, “One, two, three,” and I opened my eyes. My vision was blurred and I could see that Pundhir was in his blue corner, pacing restlessly. The crowd was roaring. At that moment something snapped in me and I resolved to finish the fight at all costs. I felt slighted that I had to be pushed into a weight category that was way higher than what I ought to have been in. By the count of seven, I had crawled up on my knees and at eight I was standing up again. The crowd cheered, “To-ny, To-ny,” and I heard the referee call me to the middle of the ring and tell me to wipe my gloves on my shorts. The referee then crisply said, “Ready, fight,” and we were at each other again. Time seemed to pass in slow motion till the gong rang once more, and we were back in our corners.
As I sat on my stool, my head felt heavy. It was like a real bad dream. Rana and Gogoi wiped the blood from my mouth, “That was great, Tony. Man, you managed to fight really well during that round; you should try and get him this round.”
“Are you for real?” I asked incredulously. “He’s killing me, can’t you see?” I asked. I could hardly get the words out of my mouth, as I felt my lips swollen to twice their size.
“No, you are doing great. You need to step it up a bit,” said Gogoi as he stepped out, and the gong went off for the third and final round.
I was exhausted. My arms felt like lead weights and my legs felt like they would collapse. I looked at Pundhir, and he had an expression of sheer delight, combined with his wolfish snarl. He began to hike and pump his shoulders again, as he came at me. The fight was looking quite one-sided by now. He seemed to be putting on all the pressure and was clearly on the offensive, as I kept backing away like a cornered rat. I just did not have the strength to swing at him. Pundhir seemed to sense this and kept swinging at me. I could see his huge gloved fists sail past my face time and again, barely missing me. Each time he missed, the crowd went, “To-ny, To-ny,” and I felt energized, just as Pundhir must have felt frustrated. I knew that if even one of his punches connected, I would be knocked out for sure. The bizarre dance that we were doing came to a sudden halt when the gong went off finally.
The referee called us to the middle of the ring and grasped both our hands. There were no doubts about the outcome of our fight as he made the announcement, “Well fought Red, Blue is the winner,” and he raised Pundhir’s hand up aloft. I was just glad that it was over. Pundhir shook my hand and gave me a hug and said, “Good fight, Antony,” and this time his expression was sincere. We stepped out of the ring. I was both exhausted and relieved that I was done with boxing for now, happy that I had survived the ordeal.
Meanwhile, we eagerly awaited the day of the finals. There was excitement in the air. It happened to pass that the mighty Festus was pitted against my Hunter squadron buddy V Singh, who had kept a very low profile for boxing during his days at the NDA. So we were all elated that he had made it to the final round. However, we were also very apprehensive about his having to face the undefeated Festus.
A great roar from the spectators went up as the two fighters were announced into the ring. We cheered V Singh frantically. It was as if everyone was hoping for Festus’ downfall in any manner possible. Festus was standing in the blue corner and pacing impatiently. V Singh was in the red corner standing calmly. Festus appeared bulkier, but V Singh had a longer reach, and was the taller of the two. The referee called the fighters to the middle of the ring, inspected their gloves, and the gong went off. The crowd must have wondered, was this going to be another quick knockout?
They crouched low and circled one another, looking for an opening to draw first blood. Festus suddenly lunged with a mighty right hook, and V Singh side-stepped smoothly, and at the same time smacked Festus with a solid left on the side of the head; and the crowd went wild! We saw Festus shake his head, as if bewildered that someone could actually land him one. He then threw some quick, straight jabs, but V Singh was easily able to stay out of range due to his superior reach advantage. Suddenly V Singh connected a straight jab at Festus, and we heard the solid smack as it struck him square on the face! Festus seemed to rock backwards. The look in his eyes now reflected fear. We could not believe what was happening! It was payback time at last for Festus. V Singh was actually hammering him. The crowd was going crazy, and the sound of cheering for V Singh was deafening. The seconds ticked away and the round came to an end, and the boxers retreated to their corners.
We waited with bated breath for the second round, eagerly anticipating Festus’ defeat. There was muted murmur among the spectators, as the events of the first round were still being savored in all of our minds. V Singh was calm and composed, and as the fighters faced each other in the middle of the ring, there was an expectant hush. As the gong went off, Festus sensed that he had a real fight on his hands at last, and he looked uncertain now. He circled warily, trying to stay out of reach of V Singh’s long arms. Then V Singh exploded into action! He began to rain jabs and hooks at Festus and the crowd roared! Festus was backing away like a wounded animal. This was unbelievable! We watched in awe as V Singh tried to land a mighty straight right. The next thing we knew, he stepped back suddenly with an expression of agony on his face and we sensed that something had gone terribly wrong! His right arm was hanging limply at his side, and we realized that the unthinkable had happened. V Singh had dislocated his shoulder with the force of the punch!
There was an audible groan of disappointment from the crowd, and we were all stunned by the outcome. The referee stopped the fight immediately, and to our utter dismay, awarded a technical knock-out for Festus. Although we were all utterly disappointed by the outcome of the fight, we knew that there was no cheating fate.
I met Pillai and V Singh after 32 years in Delhi in 2008. We recounted the happenings of the glorious days as cadets, and recalled fondly the memories of the days when we were known for a brief time in our lives as the boxers.
Maj Antony Thomas, (Retd), SM is a veteran of the Indian Army, with 14 years of distinguished service as a Gunner and Helicopter pilot. He is a graduate from the NDA and IMA and was commissioned in 1976. He immigrated to the USA in 1991. He is a Physical Therapist and practices independently. He is also currently a Flight Instructor on Gyroplanes, and continues to pursue his passion in both Healthcare and
Aviation. In his spare time he indulges in writing.
The name was Julli. Her black and white velvety body looked ravishing. The radiant eyes and fluffy fur made her look so cute and adorable. She was very much attached to my one and half years old daughter Sony and so also my daughter to her. She was the beautiful pomerian doggy of our house owner. My daughter was calling her Jui because she was too small to pronounce it properly. My husband and I are doctors and were in government service. We had to move to different places of posting. I was always enjoying our transfer because I soon became bored at one place and had a passion to visit new places. This habit I had developed from my childhood as my father had a transferrable job and we were accustomed to our temporary settlment at new places. Enjoying new environment and company of new friends was also very exciting .
We had our posting at Berhampur and we were in search of a rented house .One of our staffs informed us about an Engineer's house lying vaccant nearer to our hospital with all facilities. Thinking it to be a better choice for us we did not like to miss this chance and came to see the house without delay. It was a beautiful house with adequate space in the premises for children to play and rooms for our family of four members, me, my husband,my 9 year old son and one and half years old daughter. The school was also very nearer to the house. We finalised the rent which was a bit high but mattered little in comparison to the facilities available. We shifted to the house on the appointed date.
On the next day of our stay in the new house a peculiar thing happened. Julli came to visit the new members in her premises. She was staying upstairs with the house owner and our quarter was in ground floor. She was puzzled to see unknown persons in the house which was lying vacant for a few months and she started barking. The house owner lady calmed be her down and assured us not to be scared as she would not do any harm unless otherwise directed by her master. My little daughter was very much amused to see the doggy as usually it happens with small children who are very much fond of pets.
From next day onwards Julli regularly visited new guests of her house. My daughter being ignorant about the behaviour of dogs fearlessly started playing with her. To our utter surprise Julli was also delighted to see her new friend and accepted her gladly. A quick bonding probably developed between a small child and the pet because they were far away from the complicated world and untouched by its combativeness.
Being a working lady I was very much concerned about my children and always tried to maintain a balance between my professional life with my family life. A maid was appointed to take care of the house as well as my daughter after we left for our work. My son was going to school with the neighbouring children. Day by day Julli and my daughter Sony became good friends. The maid also was relaxed a bit as she could find time for other household works.
Every morning Julli, after finishing her snacks at her house was coming down to meet her friend. Sony would hardly give time to our maid to feed her breakfast and milk. They both sat together, my daughter telling many unrecognised words to which Julli responded well with her typical gesture of brushing her neck on my daughter's lap. They would both understand each other's language very well and my daughter's unending giggle was a reciprocation of Julli's love for her.
Sony would sit on her back and try to make her move like a horse carrying her master as she did with her papa. Julli, crawling for a short distance would stop, twisting her neck towards her little mistress and trying to convince her in silence that it would be too difficult a job to carry out the role of a horse but did not want to dissatisfy her. She would lick her feet and make cooing sound. Sony would understand. She would not force her and still sitting on her back would caress her fur, squeeze her ears and sometimes put her fingures inside her eyes. No objection from Julli as if she was enjoying her company, tried to speak in silence, "Do whatever you like my sweet little mistress, we are friends for ever. I will never be angry with you". Many times the house owner lady was amazed to see Julli in this avatar. She was never friendly to any outsider except her family members and became violent at the slightest provocation. I was always worried for the safety of my child. Mother in me was apprehensive always to leave my little daughter in the hand of a new maid whose slightest negligence may cause a crisis. At this juncture I found Julli a safe custodian for Sony.
As time passed, I could notice a strange attitude of Julli who never touched a single biscuit from our house or from my daughter. I was stunned. It was unbelievable that a pet could be so disciplined that she would restrain from accepting most coveted delights from Sony to whom she was so deeply attached. Probably she was trained in that way from her master. She routinely used to go to take her lunch upstairs with her owner's family. She would return back after lunch and sleep exactly under the cot on which my daughter slept. Our presence or absence mattered little to Julli. I tried with attractive foods and snacks, which were favorite of dogs, but she refused to touch them. Her love, her attachment, her fun were solely meant for Sony and her world was revolving around my daughter. She never left our house from 8 am morning to night till 8 to 9 pm except for her lunch.
At dinner time she would leave our house to return next morning. House owner had no objection, as they were staying upstairs safely at daytime. Rather they were exhilerated to see the fathomless love between a two years old child and a two years old doggy .
They would play merry go round, my daughter giggling and running and Julli following her with poor attempt to catch her as she knew she could easily reach her because Julli was much older to Sony as per her biological development though they were of same age. It was easier for our maid to feed the girl in presence of Julli and she was finishing her milk quickly which was the most difficult task then. She was able to comfortably accomplish her job as the child did not trouble her much because of her busy schedule with Julli. Sony had started uttering Mama....Baba and some short sentences and Julli could not speak at all. But their understanding was deep enough for communicating with each other.
When I think over Julli's presence in our house, her unconditional love for our daughter and the service rendered by her as a body guard to my daughter in our absence I feel very much indebted to her. I could not believe how she could restrain from touching any food offered to her by us though she was so deeply attached to our girl and spent full time with her.
One Sunday evening I was retiring on my devan in drawing room and looking casually at the television placed at the side of the door open to outside. Sony was sitting with me and Julli was under the devan. My maid was grinding urahd dal and rice to make batter and my son was helping her out of fun with his back towards the door. Suddenly my daughter stood up on the cot and shreiked, "Ama Jui maijiba, ama jui maijiba", (our Julli will die, our Julli will die.) I was alarmed to see a small poisonous Boa snake was proceeding from front door towards my son's back. Our maid was at his side and busy in grinding not aware of the danger. Before it reached near him nobody could know how Julli could see it and ran from under the cot and started fighting with the snake to obstruct her way to reach my son. Our little girl could apprehend that the snake may attack and her dear Julli may die. Probably she hadn't seen a snake yet, nor she had seen anybody bitten by a snake and die. God's creation is amazing. I ran to the door and bit the snake with a stick (danda) kept nearby which was used as a support for safety of the door. It was a small snake and vipers donot move swiftly which enabled me to kill it. But it was a definite life threatening incidence as it was deadly poisonous and my son's life was saved only because of Julli who without caring for the risk jumped to obstruct the snake from its path. Sony caressed her Jui and they clung into each other's bosom.
The city was becomimg too hot in summer. My husband after returning from hospital wanted to relax for sometime on our front yard. Night was supervening. It was a moonlit night.The front yard was half lighted because of the shadow of the big jackfruit tree in our premises. He took the folding cot and retired for a while to enjoy the cool air outside. Julli was playing with my daughter near the door. After a while Julli started barking. She came outside and barked continuously. I was in the kitchen. I was alert at her nonstop wail and leaving the kitchen I came out to see what was happening. I saw Julli was staring at a particular site and barking. I ran inside brought out a torch and focussed at the site. I could see a very big scorpion having mega size antenna and furious looking legs was trying to ascend on the leg of the cot and crawling towards my husband. I was scared and called my maid to bring something to hit it. I didn't move as it may be out of focus and may hurt him. My maid bit the scorpion to death. Such a mega scorpion bite could have become fatal.That day Julli saved my husband from an unprecedented danger. Though she was not our pet, she never touched any food from our house, and we didn't have any responsibility for bringing her up, she was serving us as if she was our own pet. Since my childhood I had moved to so many places and I also have been posted at many places as a Government doctor. But this is the first time I found such deep sense of loyalty and fondness of an animal reared by somebody else to an outsider. Her selfless service really indebted us.The most sensitive fact that bewildered me was that Julli didn't give us a chance to repay her debt by any means.
One year passed. Julli gave birth to three puppies. At this time she was given a separate place to rest with her puppies at the side of our house in ground floor. She nurtured her kids and turned violent for all people including us except the house owner and his wife. She didn't allow even the kids of the house owner but to our utter surprise didn't forget her dear little friend Sony. She used to come twice or thrice to our house to see her and returned back to feed and take care of her babies. We were afraid to go near her as Julli started biting others the way usually dogs do after childbirth out of apprehension of danger to their puppies.
The pomerian puppies grew up and were given out by the house owner to their relatives. Now Julli was free from her responsibilities and came back to her old friend. After two years of stay at Berhampur my husband got transferred to Gajapati district. I was alone with two kids. All our efforts to get a joint posting at the same place failed. I didn't feel safe to stay in the ground floor and decided to shift to a house where I will feel safe.To my good luck the upstairs of a house just in our front row was lying vacant. I decided to shift immediately. It was night time. From evening till 2 am the daily wagers and my maid shifted all furnitures and other articles. Julli was not able to guess what was happening. As usual she went to sleep in her master's house at night. We got up in the morning and became busy in rearranging everything. My daughter enquired about Julli but I had no time to answer. My husband had taken leave for two days and I had to fix everything and finish within short time. Sony was crying to meet Julli. The new house was not in direct view to the old one and hence Julli and Sony could not see each other. I thought of taking my daughter to our previous owner's house two to three days after my work was finished. Three days later their son Runa brought Julli to our house carrying her in his hands. I was crestfallen to see her condition. She had turned so much weak that she could not have enough strength to walk. Runa told when Julli could not find my daughter she was very much sad and refused take any food. She just kept on lying in front of that house on the varendah where we were staying.They tried many ways but she did not touch anything. She became weak.They consulted the veterinary doctors and she was given saline intravenously. As we were nearby they decided to allow her to meet my daughter. I was shocked to listen to him and her health condition shattered me. I called my daughter by her name. Julli's ears perked up and her eyes curiously looked to all sides. I can never forget the emotional scene of that incidence when a human child met her pet friend after three days. They interacted in their own way to express their love for each other. Sony sat by her side and squeezed her ears and Julli hid her face in her lap under her frock.
Julli gradually recouped, started taking her normal food and few days after she got back her normal strength and vigour. From that day onwards she regularly visited our house guarded by their family members and returned back at usual times. But as we were afraid stray dogs might attack her we made it a habit to keep an eye on her while coming and leaving our house.
Six to eight months passed. I got my posting at my husband's work place, district head quarters hospital, Gajapati. We had to leave Berhampur. The day came when we loaded our belongings on the truck. It was very difficult for all of us to be parted from Julli for ever. It was most heart-rending on our part to leave the place when Julli and Sony were awake. At 9pm I took my daughter and accompanied Julli to their house. She was looking at me innocently not understanding it would be her last meeting with her dearest friend. My eyes brimmed with tears but I didn't want to express it before my daughter who was also not able to judge the situation. I patted Julli on her back, talked with house owner to take care of her after our departure, allowed my daughter to sit on her back and squeeze her ears for the last time. Julli was very happy. We returned back with a heavy heart and allowed my daughter to sleep. At middle of the night we left for our new destination.
My emotion was out of my control. What will happen next day when Sony and Julli would not see each other. The little one was sleeping comfortably on my lap probably dreaming to play and have lot of fun with her Jui. But I was sure after some days Sony will be busy in her new schedule, going to school and making new friends in new environment. Julli may remain in her heart as a pleasant memory for few years and then fade away. But what will happen to the innocent pet who cannot express her feelings in words but her heart may sink not seeing her friend.
I was looking back from our car while crossing the streets. Every where in the dead of night I could feel a shadow was running behind us, the shadow of Julli her shrill cry reverberating in the darkness urging me, "Don't take my friend away from me. I cannot live without her. She is my heart and soul or else take me with you."
Almost three decades have passed. Today also I feel indebted to Julli who came in our life as a savior of my family from many hazards. Her unflinching love, care and concern for my daughter is immeasurable. A debt which I could not, nor can ever repay in this life time.
Dr.Radharani Nanda completed MBBS from SCB Medical college, Cuttack and post graduation in Ophthalmology from MKCG Medical College, Berhampur. She joined in service under state govt and worked as Eye specialist in different DHQ hospitals and SDH. She retired as Director from Health and Family Welfare Department Govt of Odisha. During her service career she has conducted many eye camps and operated cataract surgery on lakhs of blind people in remote districts as well as costal districts of Odisha. She is the life member of AIOS and SOS. She writes short stories and poems in English and Odia. At present she works as Specialist in govt hospitals under NUHM.
“Hello. Rahul here” , I said as I picked up my ringing mobile. “Sir, this is Vikram here. Are you free for a few minutes”? “Yes”. I said. “Sir, My wife Vineetha’s thirteenth day ceremony falls on this Saturday between 9 and 11 am. I would request you to join the function. You have been a source of great support to me in my distress”.
“Sure. I will be there”. I said.
My thoughts quickly raced back to the day I first met Vikram. I was busy clearing up my table to close for the day when my operator came on the line. “Sir, a person by name Vikram is on the line. He says he wants to talk urgently to the Superintendent of Police at the station. Shall I connect him to you , Sir?” . “OK”, I said. “SP Rahul here”, I said when Vikram came on the line. I heard a muffled sob when he came on the line. “My wife Vineetha”, he said. There was a pause as his voice chocked. He then continued. “ She has committed suicide. I do not know what to do.” I immediately became alert. “Don’t panic”, I said. “I will be there with you at the earliest. Can you provide me your address and landmark of your residence?” I noted down the address and the landmark on my note pad. Don’t move or touch any item in the house”, I said, as I put down the phone.
I quickly cleared my table, asked the driver to get the vehicle and called out to my assistant, Satish, to join me. As I hurried out of the office, I called out to my wife Anitha over the mobile to inform her that I would be returning home late. “Nothing new”, she remarked, as she hung up. I gave the address and the landmark to the driver as I got into the vehicle along with Satish. As the vehicle began to move, I shared with Satish the details of the phone call. “Satish. Call up the forensic cell and asked them to send the team immediately to join us at the site.
Vikram lived in an affluent part of the city in an independent house with a neat garden. As we opened the gate, a tall, handsome bespectacled person, in his early thirties, came out. He wore a very serious look and appeared downcast. “I am Vikram” , he introduced himself and led us into the house. As we walked in, we noticed that the door had been damaged and appeared to have been forced open. He led us through the house to the bedroom. He slowly opened the bedroom door and we entered the room.
We found his wife lying limp on the bed. Her face was a bit convulsed and white fluid had oozed out of the mouth. Instinctively my arm moved over his shoulder. “Sorry”, I said. “How did this happen?”.
“She looked normal when I left for office in the morning”, Vikram said slowly. In the evening around 4 o’clock I received a frantic call from my neighbor. “Vikram sir, I kept ringing your door bell at home but there is no response from Vineetha. I even banged on the door. Can you come immediately?
I took my car keys and my mobile and rushed out to my car. I parked the car at the kerb and rushed through the gate. I tried my best to open the door but since it was well bolted from the inside it wouldn’t budge an inch. I immediately called for my carpenter who broke open the door. I rushed into the house calling out “Vineetha. Vineetha. Where are you?” Getting no response I headed to the bedroom and threw open the door. I found Vineetha on the bed apparently fast asleep. On closer examination I found a white fluid dripping out of her mouth. I rushed to the bed and lifted her arm. It was limp. When I let go her arm it just fell on the bed. I stood there aghast. “ Oh no”, I shouted hoarsely. I immediately called Dr. Sadhashiv, our family physician. He examined her and said “ Vineetha must have died about four hours back. Looks like she has taken an overdose of sleeping pills. Call the police and inform them immediately. They will guide you on the future course of action. The body will have to be subjected to a post mortem to ascertain the cause of death. Dr. Sadhashiv then sat down to write the death certificate”.
Vikram then looked up at me for the formalities to be undertaken.
“To start with , we need to register a First Information Report (FIR) based on the details provided by you.”, I started. “Then I will give a letter from our department, based on the FIR, seeking a postmortem report from a doctor in a government hospital. You need to move the body to the hospital and request the hospital authorities to provide the post mortem report at the earliest.. Only then, the body will be accepted at the crematorium for performing the last rites
In the meantime my forensic team from the department had arrived at the spot to start the preliminaries. The photographer started taking photos and videos of the lifeless figure on the bed and all the other areas in the room . Vineetha was in a sleeveless multi coloured night gown with green flowers on it. A gold thali hung loosely from her neck. She had four gold bangles on each of her hands while on her ears she had the usual diamond ear studs. A bright red bindhi adorned her forehead. A tattoo of a fish in black colour laced her right arm near the shoulder .
The finger print expert started recording the impressions on various articles and other specific areas like doors and cupboards. in the room with meticulous efficiency. I looked into the dust bin to find an empty bottle with the cap lying nearby. I sought for a pair of gloves and picked up the bottle. Obviously it turned out to be the bottle from which the sleeping pills were consumed. I gave it to the finger print expert for safe custody.
I slowly sauntered into the dining room and the kitchen and my eyes methodically took in the contents of the rooms. In the kitchen sink I found a vessel in which porridge had been taken. I peered into it and found remnants of some powder . It smelt like the left over of the powdered slipping pills. A pestle was also available but it was wiped clean. I found an empty plastic container that had earlier contained the porridge powder.
I then walked into the bedroom again and looked round. On the dressing table I found Veenetha’s mobile and started browsing through the calls and the messages. As I was scrolling through the mails I suddenly froze. “The Blue Whale”, it read. Instinctively my eyes turned towards the right arm and the tattoo of the fish stared back at me. “Oh. One more case of Blue Whale suicide”, I sighed.
“Mr. Vikram. Can you join me for a few minutes”,? I showed him the messages in the mobile , looked up into his face and asked him, “Are you aware of this?”. His body began to shiver and he moved over to the bed and sat down. “ I never had any inkling. It is a real shock to me”, he mumbled.
He lifted his right hand and ran his fingers through his now ruffled hair. He said, I now recall. A few days back she wanted a tattoo on her right hand, which you see there. I asked her the sudden interest and she casually remarked that she had heard many film stars have tattoo and wanted to try one. I took her to a person in the vicinity down the road and had it done. But never for a moment did I visualize it would be this futile.
I carried out an interview with Mr. Vikram and collected some more personal information necessary for the FIR, documented it and obtained his signature on it.
After the formalities, I left with my team before which Satish had organised an ice box in which we had moved the body.
“Mr. Vikram, I will send a mortuary van tomorrow along with my letter for post mortem. You can be ready by ten o’ clock.
The next day Mr. Vikram, with the guidance of the police was able to complete the post mortem formalities. The Doctor had declared in the post mortem report that the viscera contained an excess dosage of the sleeping pills in a powdered form leading to the death of the person.
Based on the information and the post mortem report the death was termed as suicide.
“Sir, I would request that you stay with me as a source of strength for my family till the body is taken for cremation”, Mr. Vikram requested. I agreed.
Mr. Vikram’s family members and friends were all crestfallen and shocked at the turn of events. In small groups, people were discussing in hushed tones. I noticed a young lady talking animatedly to two elderly persons. I came to know later that the elderly persons were Veneetha’s parents while the young lady was Shilpa, a childhood friend of Vineetha As I passed by, I heard her addressing the elderly persons. “Veneetha is too strong a character to be bitten by the Blue Whale bug. She would ne’er dream about suicide. I vividly recall a personal event in our school days . I had failed in my class exams miserably and was contemplating ending my life. It was Vineetha who had counseled me and convinced me to live life to the fullest. How times change”, she sighed.
In the meantime the priest and his team were going through the rituals for the last rites to be performed at home. The body was then moved into the cortege and all started to disperse.
Shilpa’s words kept lingering in my mind, as I fell asleep that night. In the middle of the night I heard my wife waking me up. “Rahul. Rahul. What is wrong with you? You have never done this before. You seem to talk in your sleep. I sat up and asked “what did I mutter, darling?”.
You were saying “I wish I had been there earlier. It might have made all the difference. So all I can tell you is why he was murdered.”
Oh gosh. I had a dream. It is this girl Shilpa’s conversation and she seems to keep repeating the above words. Only thing is, I presume she must have said “he”. instead of “she” I too now get a feeling that Vineetha might have been murdered. Good night darling. I have a long day ahead and I suppose that applies to you too. Let’s catch up a few winks.”
The next day I woke up early, had my breakfast, gave a hug to Anitha and left for office. I got totally immersed in the various jobs and meetings on hand especially the latest suicide case. I suddenly realized that the days seem to just fly by. and more than a week had elapsed after the suicide
It was on the day I was getting ready with summarizing the events of Vineetha in her file that Vikram had come on the line asking me to join the family for the thirteenth day function at home.
The start of the function was uneventful and we had breakfast. All the relatives and the close friends had come.
Vikram came forward to bid me goodbye. I took his hand held it firmly, looked into his eyes and said firmly, “You are under arrest” as my left hand dropped into my pocket and pulled out the arrest warrant.. “What? Me?”, he looked incredulously at me. “Yes”, I said “for murdering your wife”. There was a stunned silence and shock all around
Shilpa walked straight towards us. I had always felt that Veneetha is too stout hearted to commit suicide. But to be murdered by her husband Vindo _ _ _ and her voiced trailed off.
I locked the room from the inside and asked all the members assembled, “Can all of you sit on the floor. I will unravel the turn of events to all of you”.
It was Shilpa who sowed the initial seed of suspicion that it could be a murder. I seriously started to work on this theory.
On doing some research on Blue Whale, I understood that the individual is asked to perform certain acts, to build up the individual psychologically to commit suicide at the end, which is the 50th act. Further, the person planning to commit suicide here, either jumps down from a high rise building or jumps into the water. Likewise the tattoo is also in the schedule only as the act progresses. While performing the acts, over a period the individual will develop certain characteristics like locking oneself in the room for long hours or getting into aloofness and the like. On talking to the neighbours and analysing their responses, I surmised that Vineetha never had any of the symptoms associated with the Blue Whale.
I started with a visit to the person who does the tattoo. I flashed him my card and showed him the photo of Vikram and Vineeetha. He was able to recall the event immediately. He mentioned to me that initially madam was very reluctant to have the tattoo as she wore sleeveless and it might look odd. But Vikram had prevailed upon her. This confirmed the needle of suspicion. On a review of Vineeetha’s mobile I realized that the Blue Whale link had been activated quite recently on her mobile. I surmised it must have been done by Vikram to set up a trail, without the knowledge of Vineetha.
I then studied the file very meticulously to pick up a lead or clue I could follow to firm up on Vikram. I read the prescription and then moved the page to the doctor’s death certificate and I froze. I quickly removed the prescription from the file and met Vikram’s printer. The printer too was able to recall the conversation he had with Vikram on the printing of the prescription for the doctor. The printer told me that Vikram sir was of a helpful nature and he wanted me to print five sets of letter head for his doctor friend who had requested him for it. The printer provided copies of the delivery challan and the bill too. I found that the bill contained other items purchased by Vikram for his office also.
Vikram now broke into the conversation. “Yes as the printer put it, I just organised for the letter heads from my printer. That does not mean any thing. You cannot falsely implicate me and say I murdered my wife”. I gave him a stern warning look and proceeded. “ I then met the doctor. He categorically denied having requested Vikram for the letter heads and confirmed that he had not received any letter heads from Vikram. When I showed him the prescription, he just took one glance at it and said he had not prescribed the tablets and it was also not written by him. I immediately sent the prescription to our lab and got a confirmation that Vikram had forged the doctor’s handwriting. I then enquired at the medical shop with the prescription. The shopkeeper confirmed that a man matching Vikram’s description had purchased the medicine. When I showed him the photo he was immediately able to identify Vikram.
In my long experience, I have never come across a case where the person committing suicide washes the vessel used for the purpose clean . Further, while going through the fingerprints , I noticed that the pestle had the palm impression of Vikram at the bottom though the top had been cleaned up. Hence I came to the conclusion that Vikram had powdered the pills and had mixed them in the porridge before he left for office.
“But sir”, interrupted Shilpa, “what made you go to the printer?”
I turned round to look at Shilpa. You see, when I was going through the death certificate and the medical prescription, I noticed that the address given in the death certificate read as “ IV Main Road” while that in the prescription showed “IVth Main Road”
There was a loud gasp all around.
Rahul froze and began to sweat. Shilpa looked wide eyed with wonder and asked, “Sir, the motive?”.
Outwardly Vikram appears calm and has built up a reputation of a prosperous entrepreneur. I obtained his credit report which was not too inspiring. He had borrowed heavily and was unable to service even the interest portion on the debts. The banks were are also pressurizing him to service the account and to bring it to normal. This plan for murder was hatched a little over six months back.
“How did you figure that out, sir?, interrupted Shilpa.
I had information that he had taken an insurance policy in his wife’s name for two crores of rupees this year. I approached that insurance agent who had serviced. He acknowledged having serviced the policy. In passing, Vineetha had also asked Vikram to take a life policy cover for himself too but Vikram was not too inclined and he had changed the topic. While reading the fine print I came across a line saying that if the policy holder commits suicide within six months of the policy, then the nominee will not be entitled to the death benefits. If you correlate the date of the policy with the date of death you will draw your conclusions.
Vikram had just slumped into a chair, his face down and covered with his palms. As I walked Vikram to the waiting van the room was filled with a buzz of voices.
S. Sundar Rajan is a chartered accountant, a published poet and writer.
The pick up van revved noisily as it made its way through the wooden gate. Anu, driven by curiosity wandered to the window to see why the vehicle had entered their compound in that hot April midday. Her curiosity turned to surprise as she saw Binay , her husband walking ahead of the pickup van directing the driver towards the front veranda of their small asbestos topped house. She opened the front door and came out.
Her husband looked at her, a spark of joy flickering in his eyes.
Anul's eyes travelled to the thing that stood in the van. It was a dressing table, fitted with ornately designed drawers on either side. The big mirror was covered with several layers of old newspapers which were tied up across the glass carefully.
'At last, ' Binaya said with a smile, 'your wish is fulfilled.'
'It is a dressing table, isn't it? So finally we have one!'
Anu responded the smile, feeling secretly delighted. At last... yes, at last her long suppressed wish of owning a dressing table was fulfilled.
Anu came from family that was not financially very well off. Her father was a low paid employee in a government office and it was quite an effort to provide a decent living to his family of ten members. He had his old parents who needed looking after, six children who needed good food and good education. Tried as he might it was an impossible task to make all the odd ends meet. Overworking had made him look old and gnarled even at a young age. But he sent Anu, the eldest of his children and the other five, three daughters and two sons, to good schools despite the financial constraints. He wanted his children to grow up in a good academic environment. It was however not possible to provide them with the comforts and luxury the children of rich families enjoyed. They had to manage with only the bare minimum, be it clothes or food.
Anu was a beautiful girl. Her school friends said so. With a complexion that has a wheatish translucence and a chiselled face with a sharp nose , well-shaped arched eyebrows, large liquid eyes and full lips she stood out among others.
'God has designed you in His sweet leisure,'
Rina, her friend remarked often.
Everyday, as she got ready for the school she looked at herself in the blotchy mirror that hung on the wall of the narrow dining space. She could not see anything special in the face of the girl that looked back at her from the small mirror. Why do they say that she was beautiful, she wondered.
It was the last year in school. The school final exam.was a month or so away. On the occasion of Saraswati puja Anu and her friends decided to go to a movie. It was their last puja in the school. No one knew if there would be any such occasion in future when all the friends would be together. Anu did not have much difficulty in obtaining her father's permission since her friend Nira advocated for her. It was decided that the girls would assemble at Rina's house and from there they would go to the movie hall.
They sat together gossiping and giggling in Rina's spacious, tastefully furnished room. Anu's gaze was riveted on the dressing table that stood by the window its big mirror draped by a cotton screen that hung from a drawstring.
Rina entered the room with a plate of fruits and sweets and put it on the bed. 'Let's have some fruits and then we will set out for the cinema hall.'
They ate the sweets and fruits amidst chatting and laughters. Rina went over to the dressing table and drew back the cotton screen revealing the spotless shiny mirror.
She took out a powder box, a face cream, and a comb from the drawer and called,
'Come on girls, let's give ourselves a touch up before we start'. They got up from the bed and walked to the dressing table. Nira stood in front of the mirror examining her full length image the mirror reflected. Others followed suit . They applied cream and powder to their faces and appraised their looks. Anu was the last to stand in front of the mirror. She marvelled at the sight of the big polished mirror. She looked into it gingerly. A lovely girl in a cheap cotton salwar and kameez of pink stood facing her, a look of puzzlement in her big dark eyes. It was so different from the girl she met every day in the blotchy mirror that hung on the cracked wall of their dining space. Given the choice and the freedom Anu would have kept standing there in front of the mirror for hours.
'How long are you going to admire yourself my beauty?' Lipi teased. ' We will be late for the movie.
Anu blushed and turned away from the mirror. But all the time she was watching the movie her thoughts kept returning to the dressing table and the full length mirror.
A week or so later Anu mustered up courage to speak to her father. That evening when her father sat relaxed sipping tea from a steaming cup Anu walked up to him. She stood quietly waiting for her father to finish the tea.
'What is it dear? Do you want to say something?' He asked fondly.
'Father! Let's buy a dressing table' She blurted out without a preamble.
'Dressing table?' Her father looked at her in surprise. 'What for?'
Anu could not think of any convincing answer. She stood quite drawing imaginary half circles on the cement floor with her toe nail.
' Better you take more interest in you studies instead of getting distracted in this manner. Your school finals is round the corner.'
Her father said shortly and got up from the chair.
Anu was not a bright student. Putting in all her serious efforts she managed to secure only average marks. She shouldn't have approached father with such an absurd proposition at a time when her focus should have been on her studies, Anu thought guiltily. Her mother came out and ran a loving hand through her hair.
' A dressing table? We will give you one as your bridal-gift,' she said, a small smile hovering on her face.
Anu did not say anything and walked inside.
Despite all her hardwork Anu managed to secure just pass mark in the final examination. Somehow she got a seat in a private college and continued her studies. Soon after the completion of higher secondary she was married to Binay babu, a clerk in a government office. The marriage ceremony was a simple affair. Anu's parents spent according to what their financial condition permitted. But they could not include a dresing table in the list of her bridal gifts.
Binay was an affectionate person. He had no bad habits and tried his best to keep Anu happy. Anu held no grievance against him. She considered herself lucky to have got an innocent man like Binay as her life partner.
Time and again the dressing table in Rina's room haunted her. Her longing used to grow stronger when she saw one in the house of her neighbors or relatives. But she had learnt to keep her wishes unexpressed.
One night, in an intimate moment with Binay she gave her wish a voice.
''Can we buy a dressing table?'
'A dressing table? Why sure! There will be a raise in my salary in a few months. We will buy one,' he assured.
Anu had not thought that Binay would agree so readily. Her heart was filled with love and gratitude for him.
But her life changed after a few months
She conceived her first child, her son Bijoy.
And in the following years came another son and a daughter. Her life was so full of happiness with their arrival that the dressing table was forgotten like a distant dream.
And years rolled by. The family responsibilities kept her so preoccupied that she could not think of anything beyond that. Her children grew up. The eldest Bijoy now was doing his MCA in a college at Cuttack. Her second son had completed his graduation and the daughter was studying plus two. She was beginning to feel a little less stressed even though the household chores kept her busy most part of the day. In all these years Anu had not found enough time to look at herself closely in the old 8"×10" mirror in her bedroom. But she had not given it much thought. Nor was she anymore interested in the self-appraising of her looks.
It was only a few days before when her young daughter mentioned about it, the dressing table came back to her thoughts.
'Mama, tell Baba to bring a dressing table. Most of my friends have one in their house.' It was as if a young Anu was speaking out in her daughter's voice.
That night she had told Binay about her daughter's wish. And Binay remembered.
He recalled a night long many years ago when his young bride had expressed her wish to buy a dressing table. But life has been so demanding in the meanwhile that the dressing table was completely erased from his mind.
He had decided to give his wife a surprise
Without letting her know he had ordered a beautifully designed dressing table. It was an expensive affair but was nothing compared to the joy that sparked in the eyes of his wife.
Her daughter returned from college in the afternoon. Her excitement at the sight of the new dressing table was beyond words.
'You are a darling, mama,' she said entwining her arms around Anu's neck. I knew you could convince father as no one would.
Her father's face lit up with a fond smile.
'You are right my dear, but this time I got a bit late in fulfilling your mother's wish' ..
Anu laughed.
The dressing table stood tall and shiny in their bedroom. Her daughter sat on the stool facing the mirror doing her hair. She would not budge off her place in spite of Anu's warnings that she was getting late for her coaching class. At last with much reluctance she came out of the room and went out to attend the class. Binay had already gone to one of his colleague's house to discuss some office matter. Anu was alone in the house. She could not bring herself to go close to the dressing table. It was as if the fragile thing would fall apart even at a close look from her. She was torn between a overwhelming urge to look at herself in the mirror and a fear that something ominous might happen now that her long nourished dream had been realized.
She looked furtively around. Bo one was there. No one watched her through the window. Slowly, carefully, as if the dressing table will disappear at the noise of her footfall she walked up to the table and looked into the mirror.
A middle aged woman with a drawn bony face stared back at her from the mirror. The receding hairline, the graying clumps at the temples, the dull, shrunken eyes and the puckered lips made her a complete stranger. It was not so that Anu had not seen herself in the mirror all these years, but the change in her appearance had never been so boldly pronounced. The beautiful girl with a chiselled face and long, silk tresses she had met in the mirror at Rina's house in that Saraswati puja had long since disappeared somewhere in the dark recess of time. This haggard, frail woman did not retain even a faint semblance of that girl. She moved away from the dressing table and draped the mirror with a bedsheet.
'' Let's get the dressing table shifted to our daughter's room, 'she said to Binay that night.
But you had always wanted it
Binay said, surprised.
'I don't need a dressing table at this age. She needs it. ' Anu smiled briefly.
' May be, I will meet girl in the pink salwar and kameez who loved to look at herself in the mirror in her.' She thought and turned her face away.
Snehaprava Das, former Associate Professor of English is a noted translator and poet. She has five collections of English poems to her credit Dusk Diary, Alone, Songs of Solitude, Moods and Moments and Never Say No to a Rose)
In the dreamy nights sleeping beside our father, we listened to many stories from Puranas. Later I read such stories in the books to find one thing in common. When some sage or a “Sadhaka” King did severe penance, Indra, the King of God used to send his dancing damsels, the beautiful “Apsaras” to create disturbance in their meditation.
I never questioned the process; it was so usual in each story. But as I grew up and dug into the spiritual path, could crack the mystery of these dancing damsels. As our revered Gurudev says, a Sadhaka trading on the spiritual path has to be extremely cautious and should withdraw his/her five-sense telephones, severing connection from the outer world. One should internalize his/ her mind as much as they could, making it gradually thoughtless. “Swargaloka” is a lower plane of ‘Siddhi’ may be similar to the realm of ‘Mooladhara and Swadhishthana chakra’ where the material and sensual pleasures are obtained. Apsaras are nothing but the lures of the mundane world that eludes from your chosen path to ascend the chakras. Many sadhakas do get entangled at that point, allowing the Apsaras to be successful in their assignments.
With due course of time Indra’s place has been replaced by “Internet” (one can read Indra Net) and the lures are not the Apsaras like Urvashi, Menaka, Rambha but social media like Facebook, WhatsApp, other chatting apps, even the non-stop news channels having raucous discussions over current affairs (giving the pleasure of cock-fight to the audience), the newspapers and the like. Different researches have shown that chronic use of these social media not just waste time but activate the opioid receptors in the brain and one behaves as a drug addict, difficult to resist the urge of accessing them.
And the result?? Lack of concentration, alienation from the immediate environment living in their own virtual world, pseudo-satisfaction of knowing things whereas all the information is half-baked, barely analysed in a proper manner, highly partial at times, language redundant to a contorted English using SMS text, at times a mixture of many languages.
If we consider the medical problems, they can affect acutely making you suffer from muscular pain, burning of eyes, muscular spasms to chronic problems like obesity, polycystic ovarian disease and various neurotic diseases. Performance of a student proportionately falls down with social media usage.
Now these Apsaras become “active” making all the buttons go green on the right pane of the screen as the night grows and beyond midnight exchange of texts, photos, dialogues go on. Though many people utilize the social media in their favor and gains, most others really fail to gain anything out of it. Like PHOOL KE SAATH KAANTE (thorns of the rose) the youth mass is easily falling prey to it. They start surfing the internet for study material but finally get glued on social media, YouTube videos and the likes.
The period of study is nothing less than a staunch ‘Sadhana’ and the students, the sadhakas. They too should be aware of these Apsaras of IndraNet ? and should stay away when study demands intense focus.
Once a mother brought her small kid to Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and requested him to tell the kid to quit sweets. But Sri Ramakrishna asked the mother to come after 1 month or so. On the subsequent visit he asked the kid not to refrain from sweets. Astonished, the mother asked, why didn’t he tell the same thing on the first visit? Sri Ramakrishna explained that he himself took lot of sweets and how come he sermon the child when he himself didn’t have control over his desires and senses! Since he quit sweets himself, he qualified to sermonize the child now.
Thus, my article won’t have any impact on the society, especially the youth mass if I don’t show some amount of self-control myself. Hence, I keep WHATSAPP MAUNA (silence) and FACEBOOK UPAVAAS (Fast) for certain time period when I feel I am being controlled by social media rather than the other way round. Why silence and fast, why not complete uninstallation or deactivation! It’s because the Apsaras change form from one to another. It is up to us whether to forcefully suppress them or consciously live them and gradually ascend beyond them.
Dr. Viyatprajna Acharya is a Professor of Biochemistry at KIMS Medical College, who writes trilingually in Odia, English and Hindi. She is an art lover and her write-ups are basically bent towards social reforms.
In the beginning, Jojo was a selfish boy. He was the first born of his parents' fourteen children and always tried to garner for himself, most of the goodies that his parents would give his siblings. At school, his behaviour was no different. He never shared his stationery items with his poorer classmates and never gave even a drop of water (from his enormous pink coloured water bottle) to his friends. Soon, things came to such a state that threats of punishment and assurances of cajoling stopped having any effect on Jojo.
Now, Jojo's family had a very beautiful garden, which was very well maintained by their gardener. It had a number of varieties of fruit yielding trees. The guava tree yielded sweet guavas. It was so sweet that it tasted as if it had some amount of honey in it. Now, Jojo had a great fondness for these guavas but the guava tree yielded fruits only during a certain period of the year. So, Jojo used to wait patiently, each year, for the guava trees to bear fruits and he was invariably the first one to eat them. Jojo had a sling with which he used to pelt pebbles at the fruits making them to fall down. Now, this guava tree was a very good tree. It was a beautiful and dignified tree. It was very generous too and never minded the brutalities inflicted on its being by Jojo for it loved children. It was also proud to yield fruits and it firmly believed that its fruits were the best fruits around.
Soon, the fruit yielding period of the guava tree arrived. In the beginning, there was only one fruit but soon the numbers multiplied and lo! There were soon hundreds of guavas and this time too, Jojo was punctual. He arrived with his sling and bag of pebbles and was soon pelting the pebbles at the tree and eating its fruits. He had just eaten the tenth fruit when the neighbourhood children arrived. They begged him to share at least a few of his fruits with them but Jojo remained steadfastly cruel and selfish. Some of the little children even began to cry but he remained steady and strong like steel. Meanwhile, the tree was beginning to feel angry. It felt particularly insulted that Jojo was not willing to share his free gifts. After all - it had been very generous! So, it wondered as to why Jojo was being selfish. It decided to teach him a lesson. It sent a friend to purchase a few things.
The next day, Jojo arrived and started pelting pebbles at the tree to gain a share of the fruits. In the beginning, one or two fruits fell on the ground and then there was retaliation.
The tree brought out its sling and pebbles. Each time, the boy pelted pebbles; the tree also pelted pebbles on the boy. The boy was shocked.
Then, the tree spoke, "You have been a very selfish boy, Jojo. You didn't share the fruits that I gave you for free. How do you feel when I am selfish?" Jojo replied, "I feel miserable. I am sorry." From then on, Jojo became a very generous boy. He became known to people as ‘Generous Jojo’.
Dr. S. Padmapriya is a well known poet and writer from India. She began writing poems in English at the tender age of seven. She is the author of three poetry collections – ‘Great Heights’, ‘The Glittering Galaxy’ and ‘Galaxy’ as well as one novel, ‘The Fiery Women’ and ‘Fragments’, a collection of short stories. Her poems, short stories, book reviews, articles and other literary works have been published far and wide. She is a multi-faceted personality with experience in teaching, research and administration.
In 2007, I had an opportunity to do one year of schooling in Birmingham, Alabama, US. My father was a Fulbright Professor affiliated to the famous Miles College of that city. Under his Fulbright grant, I was eligible to travel with my mother and study free there during his two semester’s tenure.
I did this schooling in Homewood Middle School. I was amazed by the infrastructure and the ambience it had. Lovely playgrounds, a big library, and big smart classrooms, etc. It was so beautiful that I was awestruck the first time I saw it, and couldn't understand where I had landed.
Most schools in the USA have free education unless it's a private school. So, I had to pay no tuition fee for my studies in Homewood. Books, and other study materials and accessories were also provided to me free of cost, although after a semester we have to return the books so that new students coming in can use them. I was amazed to know that there was no particular uniform of the school, I could wear any dress of my choice but it had to come under the dress code.
My first period in the day used to be sports. One hour of sports could be indoor (including gym) or outdoor. It used to be really fun and quite refreshing. I used to be very excited to go to school as I loved sports, and especially when the first period was Games. O yes, it was like a dream come true. We played many sports like basketball, soccer, US football. How fun it is when you are just a teen and in a new environ. A spacious sports stadium was attached to the School campus .It gave a look of a mini Nehru Stadium of Delhi.
After the games period, I had to go to my subject classes like Maths, English, Science, History etc. There we had exams every two weeks. Their marks used to be evenly distributed , equally in all the exams save the terminal one which as I remember had a little extra. This means doing bad in one exam won't make a big deal or mar a career if someone is otherwise consistent in other examinations throughout the semester. I was considered exceptionally good in studies among my batch mates there and had more than 90% average in most subjects for which I received two prizes - one in each semester.
I was selected for the Scholar Bowl for my good grades and performance in the class. Scholar bowl is like a quiz competition where a team of 6 people were chosen to represent their school. It had a concept of Home game and Away game. In Away games we used to travel to other schools to compete and in Home games different school teams came to our school to compete. I soon became the captain of my team after performing well in initial games and it was a matter of honor and achievement for me to lead an american school team being an Indian just introduced to their system. While going for an Away game, I remember we used to travel in luxurious buses, and before entering into the bus we had bands and cheerleaders encouraging us to do well. It used to be a great motivation and we used to feel electrified. We used to get beautiful snacks and food in “Away Games" and “Home Games.”
I had made some very good friends over there whom I met during the weekends for a soccer game or just to hang out. And friends whom I could call when I was absent, which of course happened very rarely. They used to provide me with information about what was done in the class. They were super helpful.
One early morning I noticed Kevin Madox, the Principal of the School washing the plates of students after they had taken the breakfast. He at times was there at School gate supervising the traffic as parents would drop their children or pick them up after the school hours. Madox tried to sow values of leadership in students. While some came by School Buses, many came by their private cars. Everyone used to be in queue and no overtaking or honking. School was always a silent zone and people never talked loud nor there was noise of any kind. He and other teachers always put up jolly smiling faces and ever ready to sort out any problem of any pupil.
Almost every second week we were encouraged to go to the school library or County Library, and pick up one book to study and do a presentation before we chose another book. I vividly remember I had read Animal Farm that time. I also had read many poems there and had presented the analysis of the poems and the message the poet was trying to convey. I was highly appreciated by my Principal over my presentation on the poem “Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. All these are like my life long treasures which I can never forget. The love of teachers and classmates there is like a “once a lifetime opportunity”. Well, I should not forget mentioning another interesting story. I had been asked to send two Indian stories to be read in the class. I chose two Birbal anecdotes. These were hilarious ones. In one Akbar asks for four fools to be discovered in his kingdom and presented in his court. Birbal finds two - one, the washer man sitting on a donkey with a load of clothes on his head, saying that how he is lessening the load on the donkey; and two – a barber, envious of Birbal advises the king to send Birbal to the other world to get information about the wellbeing of his forefathers in heaven and how Birbal slips from the pyre through a secret tunnel, built on the spot earlier. Birbal appears after a few days and reports to the king that his ancestors are doing very fine in the land of bliss except one inconvenience. Absence of a barber there has made their hair grow long and services of a barber is of emergency necessity. The barber who had originally conspired against Birbal is now chosen for the great role. The two Indian stories were so much liked that these were circulated across classes and Schools in the Homewood School chain.
Thanks to my SCB Medical Public School, Cuttack, it had given me a good grounding in English which helped me to stand up to the challenges of education in English in an American School system. Again, the familiarity with computer and its basic applications! I had learnt it at home. Most of the communication between school (teachers and administration) and the student or his/her parents/guardians were on-line .The training at my cuttack school and home in the U.S. stood me in good stead there in the U.S. Thanks to the pandemic –Covid 19, the schools in India and in developing countries have exposed their students and teachers to virtual mode of teaching and learning only recently. A globalised world requires efficiency in the English language and with that the Computer and IT learning. My short stint in an American School as a student convinced me about the importance of English and IT for proper communication across culture .
Mr Nitish Nivedan Barik,who hails from Cuttack,Odisha is a young IT professional working as a Senior Developer with Accenture at Bangalore
THE ORISSA FAMINE 1866 ( NA'ANKA DURRBHIKSHYA)
Once I was going by train from Visakhapatnam to Kolkata. A man got into the train at Bhubaneswar railway station. His appearance was Indian. He sat beside me.
I asked him in Hindi - Where would you go ?
He gave me a smile, but no reply.
I asked him in Bengali. His body language said - I cannot understand what you say.
Then I asked him in Odia and English both. He said in English with tearful eyes and sorrowful tone - I am searching for our erstwhile homeland.
Me - Are you Indian?
He - My forefathers were Indian.
Me - Now, are you not Indian?
He - Now I am a foreigner in our erstwhile homeland.
His tearful eyes and shivering lips moved my heart and mind. I embraced him out of empathy. We started talking in English.
Me - Where have you come from ?
He - I come from Mauritius, an African country in the Indian Ocean. My forefathers had left India in hunger and starvation centuries ago.
Me - Can you recollect the history including yours.
He - History is the story of kings, monarchs, rulers, killers like Hitler, Alexander, Napoleon, Aurangzeb, etc; but it's silent on common man…..their sorrows, sufferings, hunger, starvation, death, melancholy, pangs of separation, so on and so forth.
Me - You are really very correct, my friend ! The contemporary historians and writers were getting patronage from the tyrants, invaders, attackers, merchants of death and were depicting their eulogies and life histories praising their birth, acts, activities, death, etc. The common man's sorrowful sighs and tears had no effect on those psychphants, since they had / have nothing to pay them. So history is replete with psychophancies, but not of the actual truth of the society and social life of common masses across the World by and large.
He - Thank you, my Brother ! Can you recollect folktales and hearsay in absence of history.
Me - About what ?
He - The ORISSA FAMINE 1866 that had taken away the motherland from the unfortunate sons of the soil like us. And my forefathers were the survivors of that killer famine in Odisha and also adjoining West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. Around 4 to 5 million people died from hunger and starvation. In fear of death and in hope of survival, they had left the beloved motherland with streaming tears and melancholic hearts and minds.
The FAMINE occurred due to the mismanagement of the British.
And the British ships had deported them from Kolkata port to Mauritius to work in the sugarcane fields there. The opportunist British got free bonded labourers to produce sugar for their business and profit. And my forefathers and ancestors were living on sugarcane there in anguish. However, life survived, the motherland was lost forever.
In absence of my forefathers' names, addresses and surnames, they were commonly called Jugnauth or Jagannath in the name of Lord Jagannath of Odisha.
You might be knowing our prime minister, Pravind Jugnauth, and former PM, Aniroodh Jugnauth.
And I am also a Jugnauth of Mauritius.
And I have come to India in search of our erstwhile homeland.
Can you please give some more information in searching the native place of my ancestors ?
Me - As I heard from my grandfather in my childhood days…….The erstwhile coastal Balasore (now, Balasore, Bhadrak and Jajpur districts of Odisha) was the worst-hit area of the Orissa Famine 1866. It was / is called Na'Anka Durbhikshya, an unlamented, undepicted, darkest chapter of history of the present day Odisha.
In 1864 the rain started to decrease and in 1865, 1966 there was almost no rain. The stream, rivers, ponds, wells started to dry up. The trees, grasses, corn fields were dying from want of water. The pet and wild animals, aquatic animals like fishes, prawns, sweet singing birds starved to death. The foodstuffs of native people were diminishing day by day.
But where to go at that time ? There was no train, nor motor vehicle or flight for transportation. Though bullock carts were there, there were no oxen, nor buffaloes or horses nor donkeys to pull them forward or backward. In a nutshell, there was no mode of transport and communication.
From 1866 life started to leave the body for want of food and water. Millions of starving people died. The situation was so grave, severe and melancholic……no one was there for the funeral and cremation. There was death, but no one was there to weep and cry for the deceased kith and kin.
Those who could walk upto Kolkata port, were deported to Mauritius by the British to produce sugarcane and sugar for doing business in death.
He - And we are those unfortunate survivors left searching for the motherland. As I heard…. My ancestors were living in a village on the bank of Baitarani River in Bhadrak-Jajpur border area. Would you please help me in my expedition to discover my ancestors native place, my Brother?
Me - This is Bhadrak railway station. Let's get down to discovering the lost native land.
And now we two brothers got down and traveled by taxi searching for his ancestral native place. We met and asked hundreds of local people of Bhadrak and Jajpur districts. But none could highlight the unknown history of the 1860s.
We came to Dashaswamedha Ghat on Baitarani river (border of Bhadrak and jajpur), had our bath in her holy water and did funeral rites for his deceased forefathers and ancestors. Except tears we had nothing to offer the departed souls.
We came to Jagannath Temple in Puri and had a darshan of God Jagannath (Jugnauth), by whose name they are named after.
And he left for Mauritius.
Sri Ashok Kumar Ray a retired official from Govt of Odisha, resides in Bhubaneswar. Currently he is busy fulfilling a lifetime desire of visiting as many countries as possible on the planet. He mostly writes travelogues on social media.
THE LEAD STORIES FROM TWO OF MY RECENTLY PUBLISHED BOOKS
THE JASMINE GIRL AT HAJI ALI
Girls in Mumbai are delightfully bold. Nothing unnerves them.They are fearless, going out for coffee at one o' clock in the night in the neighbouring Baristas or for kulfi at Chowpatty. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can beat their chutzpah.
The girl in this true story was a wispy, sprightly Mumbaikar of fifteen or so, selling strings of Jasmine flower flitting from car to car near the traffic signal at Haji Ali. My friend's wife was driving her car along with three of her colleagues from the office and stopped at Hazi Ali to have a bite of Ice cream. The jasmine girl came running to them offering the flowers accompanied by a sweetly mischievous, out of the world, smile:
- Phool logey Auntyji? Lo naa, aapkey gorey gorey cheherepey khub jamegaa! Ekdum jhakaas!
(You want flowers Auntyji? Take them; they will shine on your fair skin. Just fantastic!)
- Kya bhav hai?
(How much for the flowers?)
- Sirf tees rupaye! Aap ke liye pachees! Ley lo naa! De doon char?
(Only thirty rupees per string. For you twenty five rupees! Should I give you four strings?)
- Chal hatt, nehin chahiye! Pachees rupaye mey itna thodaa saa phool?
(Get lost! So little flowers for twenty five rupees, we don’t want.)
The girl was about to run away when one of the ladies hollered after her,
- Aey, ice-cream khaaegi kya?
(Hey, you want to have some ice cream?)
And the ladies started laughing. Before disappearing behind a car the girl shouted back,
- Ice-cream laa rahey ho to merey liye Cassata lana....mujhe achhi lagti hey...
(If you are buying ice cream, get Cassata flavor for me. I love it!)
My friend's wife got down to buy the ice cream. Her friends were rolling in laughter, "Look at the rajkumari, she likes nothing but Cassata!"
In five minutes they were eating their ice cream in the car and looking for the jasmine girl. She suddenly appeared from nowhere, the strings of flower hanging from her shoulder. They gave her the ice-cream. And my friend's wife turned the ignition to start the car. Suddenly the girl took out four strings of flower and gave them to her through the open window.
The friends were taken aback. One of them took out a hundred rupees note and offered to her. She waved her away. The sweetly mischievous smile was back, "Ye phool meri tarafsey! Aap ney mujhe ice-cream diya, mera phool qubul kijiyey!"
(These flowers are from me. You gave me ice cream, please accept my flowers!)
And she ran away in an incredibly sweet way only a Mumbai girl with loads of chutzpah can do!
………………………………
Glossary
Kulfi - Cone shaped traditional Indian ice cream
Rajkumari - Princess
(From "THE JASMINE GIRL AT HAJI ALI AND OTHER STORIES" published by the author in February 2022. Listed Price Rs. 225 - Special Discounted Price Rs. 200 inclusive of postage. Contact: 9930739537 or mrutyunjays@gmail.com)
A TRAIN TO KOLKATA
After two days of incessant rains, the sky cleared. But the July afternoon air in Bhubaneswar was still damp and a light drizzle kept people indoors. With a heavy heart, which matched the melancholic weather, Anjali entered the Kolkata-bound Dhauli Express. The train was to leave in twenty minutes.
The wet weather must have discouraged people from travelling. The compartment was empty. She felt scared. Was it safe for a lady to travel alone all the way to Kolkata? She looked out. Rats were scampering on the adjoining track looking for bits of food. From nowhere a cat jumped in, caught hold of a rat and shred it to pieces. She shuddered. The macabre scene added to herdepression.
A shadow fell on her. She looked up. A man walked in to occupy the opposite seat. With his back to Anjali, he took out a couple of magazines and newspapers, and put his stroller on the overhead rack. Then he turned and sat down. A tall man of middle age, he was probably four, five years older than her. Decently dressed with elegant glasses, and a soft, handsome face, the gentleman was a picture of quiet dignity. Without a glance at her, he took out a newspaper and his face disappeared behind it.
Anjali felt relieved to find that he didn’t want to start a conversation. Feeling low by the burden of sadness, she was in no mood to talk. But she was happy that there was company and she wouldn’t have to travel all alone. Suddenly the mobile phone rang. It was her daughter.
“Mummy, Papa is asking if you have reached the station?”
“Yes Mamuni, I am already in the train. It will leave in five minutes. Please remind Papa, I am not like him. I always reach trains and buses in time.”
Mamuni must have spoken to Anang, her Papa. She knew it would take time for him to convey his answer. He would have to write it on a piece of paper in his shaking hand.
“Mummy, Papa says you are always the best, No one can be like you”
“And what do you say? Will Papa say everything? Not a word from you for your mummy?”
“Mummy, what can I say? You are my best Mummy, now and forever!”
Anjali felt happy. Mamuni continued.
“Mummy, you know, Chinu cried yesterday, after returning from school”
Her heart sank.
“Why, what happened?”
“Leave it, Mummy, I will tell you when you reach here”
“No no, please tell me now. Otherwise I will keep worrying”
“One of his friends told him that Papa’s illness is hereditary. So he will also become paralytic when he grows up”
For a moment Anjali was speechless. O God! Who was this insensitive friend? How could he say something like this?
“Don’t worry Mummy. I told him his friend was wrong. Papa also drew pictures on a piece of paper and explained to him how he had a stroke because of high blood pressure.”
“Please Mamuni, tell him not to believe the words of such worthless friends. Give the phone to him. I will explain to him”
Anjali could hear Mamuni talking to Chinu.
“Mummy, he doesn’t want to talk to you now, he is busy drawing pictures. He is asking what have you got for him?”
“Tell him I am bringing a beautiful painting box for him. What about you? Don’t you want to know what I am getting for you?”
“I don’t want anything. I only want my Mummy near me, always. Please come early. I have already missed school for two days. Of course I got the school notes from Nandini and finished the home work. But I am lagging behind. From tomorrow I will go to school.”
A brief pause.
“Mummy, you know, I had prepared noodles last night. Papa liked it. Chinu relished it so much that he polished off everything!”
“Thank you Mamuni. You are the best daughter in the world!”
The girl felt embarrassed by the praise, “Mummy, no one can cook better than you. In two days we are missing you and yourcooking as if you have been away for ages! Please come soon. Ok Mummy, love you, bye!”
“Love you too.”
Anjali’s depression grew. How could Chinu’s friend be so heartless? And the friend didn’t even know the full facts! Shefelt as if someone was hammering a nail into her heart and shewas becoming totally helpless. She could never see tears in her children’s eyes. She had become even more sensitive after Anang’s illness. Both the kids had adjusted so well with the adverse situation. Now there was no vacation, outing, eating out at restaurants or new dresses for them, but they didn’t complain. Earlier, Chinu, the eight year old son was a bit unreasonable, but he had also become very understanding of late. Mamuni, her twelve year old daughter, was incredibly sweet and loving. Anang was proud that her nature was exactly like that of Anjali!
Anang always had so much praise for his wife! After suffering a paralytic stroke he had been confined to bed for the past two years. His job in a private company was terminated within six months of his illness. The family survived solely on Anjali’s salary from her teachership in a private school. Mamuni sharedthe burden of household work, Chinu often helped in cleaning. It was no more like the old days for them, they had no friends and no games, yet they never complained.
Tears welled up in Anjali’s eyes. Before Anang became immobile, he was very active and believed in good living. He enjoyed eating out with family, watching movies every week, roaming around in the mall, buying things recklessly, wandering around in the park – life was on a roll. And one day Anang’s stroke brought their blissful world crashing like a palace of glass. Anjali had always warned Anang to be careful, not to be obsessed with oily and spicy food, but he had never listened to her.
These days Anang looked at her regretfully, and tears filled up his eyes. His left side was paralysed, and the movement was slow on the right side. He was not able to speak, only Anjali could understand his grunts and whimpers. Sometimes he held her hand with his trembling right hand and told her through his imploring eyes, “Pray for me. Ask God to give me just one more chance. I will never stray again from a simple, healthy life.”
Anjali used to pat his head, “Don’t worry. All of us are praying for you. God will listen to our prayers. You will be alright. We will go on vacation again - may be on a pilgrimage, to Badrinath and Kedarnath, and bow before the Gods and Goddesses.”
The phone rang. It was Mamuni again.
“Mummy, Papa is asking if you have wrapped yourself with a shawl. You had told him it is raining and he is worried you might catch cold”
“Mamuni, tell him I am ok. Can you give the phone to him?”
Mamuni must have put the phone next to his ears. Anjali heard a grunt. She knew what he was asking. They had not spoken since last evening.
“No, Bhai did not agree.”
Another faint grunt.
“He is not in favour of dividing the land now. He says he has his constraints. I folded my hands and implored him. I told him we need to sell our part of the land to get at least fifty thousand rupees for your surgery. But he was unmoved.”
Anang’s grunt bore a clear mark of anguish. Anjali didn’t have the heart to tell him that his elder brother also told her, “Bahu, why do you want to waste money on him? His problem is beyond cure. Just leave him to his fate.”
Mamuni came on the line.
“Mummy, what did you tell Papa? Tears are coming out of hiseyes. Please speak to him.”
Without knowing, Anajli started crying slowly. She tried to hide her face from the co-passenger, but could not succeed. Shefound he was discreetly looking at her from behind the newspaper, his eyes curious and sad. She was embarrassed but helpless.
She wanted to reassure Anang, to give him some hope.
“Please don’t cry. We will find some way. Trust in God. It is only a matter of fifty thousand rupees. I will take a loan from the bank. Dr. Sen has assured us the surgery will be a success. Once you become all right, you will take up a job and we will pay back the loan. Please don’t lose hope. Stop crying and take some rest. I have to stop now. We have just reached Cuttack station and there is too much noise. People are getting in. Wait for me. I will make your favorite rice pudding when I come home in the evening. Bye.”
Suddenly she found a lady trying to stash her baggage at every available space near them. Hers must be the seat next to the gentleman opposite to Anajali. The newcomer had two suitcases, two huge fruit baskets, a big carrier stuffed with food and twobags with packets of sweets from Cuttack Sweet Stall.The lady was probably Anjali’s age, but quite fat. Every inch of her body, the swarthy face, the huge necklace, the earrings, the costly saree and her general bearing bore the unmistakable sign of opulence. Sweating heavily, she stood up to switch on the fan. The gentleman wanted to dissuade her and raised his hand, but stopped midway. Because the lady had blurted out at Anjali, like a loud cracker bursting,
“Anjali! You are Anjali Acharya, right?”
Anjali was struck by the lady’s massive presence, and by the avalanche of loud noise she had made. She nodded. The lady gushed,
“Anjali! Don’t you remember me? I am Bina! Your classmate! Remember, that idiot History lecturer used to call me ‘Bina with the runaway mind!’ Because I was always absent minded in the class! How the class used to laugh every time he said it!”
Anjali peered at her closely. Yes, she was Bina, her classmate in the college for the first two years of B.A. Those days also she was quite plump, but not as fat as now. She used to be a playful, garrulous girl, known for the heavy make-up on her face. She was the daughter of Sudhakar Mahanty, the super-rich hardware dealer of Cuttack. She was one of the three girls in the class who used to come to college in their cars. Those three had their schooling in the English medium convent, and formed a gang of their own, something like the rich men’s daughters club. The other girls were from lower middle-class families and were not very comfortable moving with them. They used to keep their distance from the show-offs.
“Hey, Anjali, where are you lost? Are you not able to place me? I can never forget you. If you had not lent your notes to me, I could have never cleared my exams. I was not interested in studies. I didn’t have to, you know. Only middle class girls like you needed to study hard, so that you could get a job. But thanks to your diligence, girls like me could pass in the exams. Gosh, how jealous I was of you, and how angry, when my daddy used to see your notes and tell me to be half as bright as you!”
After so many years Anjali again felt uncomfortable in the company of Bina, whose comments on her middle class background unnerved her. She suddenly looked at the gentleman sitting opposite her. He was looking curiously at Bina’s excited face. Bina’s words were flowing like runaway water from a tap whose valve had come unstuck.
“Your group was so attentive in the class, trying to latch onto every word of the lecturers. Ragini, Himani and I used to giggle all the time, pinching each other, making fun of the strange English accent of those rustic lecturers. Those idiots were fit only for village primary schools. God knows who made them lecturers in college!”
Rest of the class was aware of the contempt these three girls had for the lecturers. They were usually joined by a gang of upstarts among the boys who also had their schooling in the English medium Stewart school. These boys used to behave like bohemians and liberally sprinkled their talk with words like ‘yaar’, ‘shit’, ‘so what’, ‘bloody’, ‘bastard’. They used to be louder in the presence of others, just to impress them.
Bina was so carried away by her words that she didn’t sense AnjaIi’s discomfort.
“What a coincidence Anjali, meeting you after so many years! You know, I never travel by train. But what to do? The national highway has breached near Chandikhol due to rains and there is no way one can travel by car. So! Where are you these days? And where are you going? ”
“I live in Kolkata, with my family.”
“Kolkata, the metropolis? Wow, what a big jump for you! But you haven’t changed a bit. In the college days you used to put on ordinary dresses, now also you wear the same kind of cheap sarees! And why are you looking so weak, almost anemic? Don’t you eat properly?”
“No, no, it’s not like that. Nothing is wrong with me. May be my constitution is like that.”
“Possible. In fact if you don’t have proper nutrition in childhood you can never pick up later. I remember in your group almost every one was like this - weak, painfully thin.”
Anjali felt distinctly restless. Bina and she were meeting after almost twenty years. But Bina was not leaving any chance to remind her of her middle class background. Her father was a teacher in a village school on the outskirts of Cuttack. Most of his income was spent on the medical expenses of her ailing mother. Both of them passed away five years back in quick succession, but Bina’s cruel words on her childhood brought back sad memories of her loving, doting parents.
The gentleman opposite Anjali was now constantly staring at hersad face and Bina’s garrulous mouth which was spewing unpleasant nuggets from the past. His expression was grave, but tinged with a hint of sadness. When he saw Anjali looking at him, he felt slightly embarrassed at this intrusion into theirpersonal talk. His gaze returned to the newspaper.
“So Anjali, what are you doing? Are you a big officer in Kolkata? After all, you were so good in studies!”
There was a hint of sarcasm in Bina’s words. Anjali felt annoyed at this kind of questioning.
“I work as a Geography teacher in a private school near our home.”
“Geography teacher? That’s interesting. And your husband?What does he do?”
“He was working in a private firm.”
“Was? What do you mean ‘was’? Is he jobless now?”
“Yes. Something like that.”
“Was he thrown out by the owner of the firm?”
Anjali hesitated. Given Bina’s insensitivity, she was not sure how much she could disclose to her. This meeting with Bina was not exactly a pleasant experience for her. Bina had not changed – she remained the same snobbish, rich girl that she was twentyyears back. Bina could sense her hesitation.
“Don’t tell me if you don’t want to. Sometimes, if an employee embezzles money, the owner throws him out of the job. We had an accountant like that. My husband Ranjit kicked him out. The idiot threatened he would tell the whole world what wrong-doings were going on in the firm. Ranjit gave some money to a gang of ruffians. They beat him up so badly that the fellow became invalid and after three months vanished from the town. What happened? Why did you start? Has your husband also vanished?”
“No, no. Nothing like that, my husband is with us.”
“Then why did you start, like you have seen a ghost? What is the matter?”
Anjali was in two minds, whether to tell the insensitive Bina about Anang’s problem.
Bina continued.
“You middle class people have this perennial problem. You give long lectures on honesty and integrity, but when it comes to your own failings, you want to hide from the world.”
Bina’s words hurt Anjali badly.
“No Bina, my husband doesn’t lack integrity. Actually, two years back he had a paralytic stroke and has become partially invalid.”
“O my God, o my God! I am so sorry! Anjali, how unlucky you are. God has never been kind to you. Right since childhood you have led a poor life. I feel really sad for you. So if your husband is jobless, how do you manage? Your salary may not be enough to run the family?”
“It’s ok. We somehow manage.”
“How many children do you have? Where do they study? Hope you have put them in some good English medium school. Don’t tell me they are studying in some third rate Bengali medium school?”
“We have a daughter and a son, daughter is the elder one. They study in Central School, near our place.”
Bina wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“Central School? I am told that is where the children of poor government servants, like clerks, drivers and peons study! What kind of culture will they learn there?”
Anjali wanted to tell Bina, that Central Schools were meant for the children of all government officials, including high-ranking officers. And there was a quota for brilliant students from the private sector also. And Anjali’s children were studying under that quota. But before she could speak again, the train reached Bhadrak station. The hawkers entered the compartment, selling tea, biscuits and peanuts. Bina bought two cups of tea and handed over one to her.
“Take a cup of tea. At least some milk should go into your system. You are looking really anemic. Look at me. If you poke my cheek with your finger, blood will spill out. Ranjit has engaged two maidservants only to give massage to me twice a day. Do you remember, just after I passed my second year B.A., how my father gave me away in marriage to the Shah family of Balasore, the famous owners of Shah Transport? They have a fleet of buses and trucks and half a dozen petrol bunks. See my good fortune, I was raised like a princess and now I live like a queen. That’s why when you girls were studying hard to get a job and a middle-class husband, we were waiting in anticipation for a prince to come and sweep us off our feet. Everything is pre-destined Anjali. Otherwise, what sins have you committed? Why should you suffer so much, that too right from your childhood?”
Anjali cursed her fate. She wished she had got a seat in some other compartment. Then she would have been spared the unpleasantness of this meeting with Bina.
Bina was not done yet.
“So, how old is your daughter? What have you named her?”
“She is twelve years old. We call her Mamuni. Her school name is Pratyasha.”
“Pratyasha? What does it mean? You know, I had my schooling in the St. Joseph’s Convent at Cuttack. So I don’t know much of Oriya. We have only one child, a daughter. Her name is Daisy. We had put her in a boarding school in Ooty. But she went out of control there. With five classmates, three of them boys, she went away to Goa without permission from the school. The principal rusticated all of them. We brought her to Balasore and married her off to a boy in the Tej family of Rairangpur. We had to give one crore rupees in cash, a Honda City car and one thousand grams of gold as dowry. We had no choice. You know how it is these days, if you don’t give enough dowry. Sometimes they set fire to the poor girl!”
The gentleman opposite to Anjali suddenly exploded angrily.
“Madam, will you please stop talking? You have been talking non-stop ever since you entered the compartment. I have got a headache. Now please be quiet and allow me to take a nap.”
Bina got the shock of her life at this unexpected attack. Her mouth fell open and for a full minute she remained frozen in her seat. But she chose not to pick up a fight, because her destination, Balasore station, was only ten minutes away. Her eyes spewed fire and she kept on looking at the gentleman, as if like the sages of ancient Indian epics, with her gaze she will reduce him to ashes. He had closed his eyes and was trying to take a nap.
Anjali was also surprised. How could this sober, quiet, dignified gentleman become so explosively angry? Looking at him, nobody would have imagined him to be capable of such anger. But she was relieved, to be spared of Bina’s continuous harangue, and thanked the gentleman in her mind.
Balasore station was approaching. Anjali helped Bina to gather her suitcases, the fruit baskets and the bags containing the packets of sweets. Bina shook hands with her.
“Next time when we come to Kolkata I will let you know. Ranjit always prefers to stay at the Park Hotel. Anything less won’t do for him. You must bring your kids. I want to see them. They will also get a chance to have Chinese and Continental food in a five-star hotel. With your small income, you will never be able to afford it. Ok, here we are at Balasore station. My two servants are already at the platform. See you at Kolkata.”
With that Bina dragged her fat body and gradually disappeared from Anjali’s gaze and perhaps from her life. She realized Bina had no intention of meeting her family at Kolkata. Otherwise she would have at least taken down Anjali’s mobile number.
After Bina left, Anjali was filled with a terrible sadness. She also felt angry at her cruel fate. Within the four walls of her life, she had learnt to live with her own joys and sorrow, fulfillment and anguish. Despite everything, Mamuni’s selfless goodness, Chinu’s demanding affection, and Anang’s unstinted trust had given a new meaning to her life. In her small world she had learnt to face the harsh struggles in her own way. What right did Bina have to inflict such deep wounds and shatter her world of peace?
The failure of her mission on the previous day to get money from Anang’s brother, and Bina’s merciless battering today, left Anjali desolate. She lost control over her emotions. She knew,her lean, weather-beaten body of a thousand storms was going to melt into a nerve-wracking ocean of tears. To avoid embarrassment to the co-passenger, she covered her face and body with a sheet and in no time, tears flowed from her eyes like a flood breaking a dam.
Anjali didn’t know how long she cried and when her tired eyesdrifted off to sleep. When she got up, Howrah station, the gateway to Kolkata, was only fifteen minutes away. She realized she could not go to her small apartment with a face looking like a flood-ravaged ravine. She desperately needed to go to the bathroom and wash her face. But the station was approaching and it wasn’t safe to leave her bag unattended. She looked at herco-passenger.
“Please keep an eye on my bag. I need to go to the bathroom.”
The gentleman gave a shocked start, looking at her pale face and the dried up tears. He nodded.
When she returned from the bathroom, the train had reached Howrah station.
The gentleman was standing at the edge of the seat, his stroller in hand, ready to leave.
When Anjali came near, he pointed at her bag and said, “Your bag”. She thanked him and he left.
She too got ready to leave and gathered her shoulder bag. Suddenly, she saw the chain of the bag was slightly open. Shewas shocked. She clearly remembered she had closed it. How was it open? Was anything missing?
With trembling hands she opened the bag. A thick white envelope tumbled out from top of the bag. What was this? Shehad not kept it in the bag! How did it come here? She hurriedly opened it. Inside, there was a thick bundle of currency notes and a hurriedly written letter.
Dear Anjali,
Every year, the last week of July is a period of intense burning for me. I feel as if a raging pyre is trying to consume me by entering every pore of my body. Twenty four years back, on twenty sixth of July, my young, vivacious, beautiful sister met her end, set on fire by her in-laws for not bringing enough dowry. Night after night I wake up, suffocating on the thought of how her delicate body would have cried in anguish; how, in her dying moments, she would have silently called my parents and me to come and take her away, pour cold water on her and douse the fire that was trying to consume her.
I was in my final year of Engineering when she left us. If, like today, I were a Manager of a Tea Estate in Assam at that time, I would have put all the riches of the world in her little palms and saved her soft, innocent body from a senseless fire.
Every year in the last week of July I go to my village, sit under the banyan tree at the burial ground and search for her lost soul. If only I could bring her back, to hear her giggle again, get my ears pulled by her soft hands, or be teased by her thousand childish pranks! The solitude at the burial ground only makes me more frustrated and desolate. And I return with a heavy heart.
Please forgive me for shouting at your insensitive classmate. When she spoke of girls being burnt for dowry, I could not restrain myself. Looking at her, I kept on wondering why God has not cared to fit a small heart into that huge body! Then she wouldn’t have hurt you with her cruel words.
Anjali, please think of me as your elder brother and accept thisgift of fifty thousand rupees for the surgery of your husband. I pray to God, in the name of my dead sister’s soul, that your husband becomes all right, and happiness and bliss return to your family.
Your unknown brother
Tears started flowing from Anjali’s eyes, tears for her unknownbrother and his sweet little sister. She rushed out of the compartment and tried to locate him. It was no use, he had left a long while back. But under the dim, twinkling light of Howrah station, every retreating figure looked like her unknown elder brother, a messenger of love, compassion and kindness.
She looked up at heaven, at the infinitely merciful Supreme Power who is beyond all joys and all sorrows, unlimited by the boundaries of life and death, bliss and anguish, whose glowing touch brightens the darkest corners of every living soul and fills it with fathomless serenity. Overwhelmed, she lifted her bag and started her journey home. Tomorrow there would be a new dawn – promising a day of fresh hopes and dreams.
………………………….
Glossary
Bahu: A form of addressing brother’s or son’s wife
Bhai: Elder brother
Dowry: The gift that a bride traditionally brings with her. However, it gets ugly
when such gifts are demanded by the bridegroom’s family and become a cause of
bickering at the wedding and afterwards.
Yaar: A form of addressing a friend
(From "A TRAIN TO KOLKATA AND OTHER STORIES" published by the author in March 2022 Listed Price Rs. 225 - Special Discounted Price Rs. 200 inclusive of postage. Contact: 9930739537 or mrutyunjays@gmail.com)
Dr. Mrutyunjay Sarangi is a retired civil servant and a former Judge in a Tribunal. Currently his time is divided between writing poems, short stories and editing the eMagazine LiteraryVibes . He has published nine 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. He lives in Bhubaneswar.
BOOK REVIEW
THE CUCKOO SINGS AGAIN BY HEMA RAVI
Varadarajan Narasimhan
My Impressions:
"The Cuckoo Sings Again”: I recalled first 'Kuhu kuhu bole koyaliya..of Maa Lata ji , on seeing the title! Then ,the booklet per se.
The twin hood stretched further between the author Ms Hema Ravi and the foreword writer, Ms Meera Rao. How? Both are reps. of ‘Indian woman’ caught up in domestic chores and forgetting their innate talents’.
My memory when down to my boy scouts days when the master taught us the n' rhyme:
“Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree,
Merry merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh, Kookaburra,
Gay your life must be!”
From those days, my thinking was the life of the cuckoo is laugh and gay.
However, it is a matter of The Train Journey. Wherein, men come in to cause anxiety for moments and leave with a trace of pleasure! ( This description of in and out kicked my days of travel between Delhi to Madras in the original GT days and later in Janata Express.)
The story of orator is not a myth but a song told in reality, though the scenes may differ! Well done Nupur! The oration, in English and in Hindi) was the best in my heydays but not writing. It was Sardar Kushwant Singh ji,The Illustrated Weekly famous, whom I met in an air travel said : ‘Do not worry too much about grammar , express yourself as best you could’, made me write too!! Ha! Ha!-- Laugh Kookaburra laugh!
The ‘lone crow flying hurriedly towards a tall tree in the distance’ is a marker tale of many tales seen now. The words …’but not before the biological need made her a mother’ is indeed remarkable not only for her but for many others though the need may not bear the desired fruit.
‘Inadvertently, she began to sing along…’ show cased the ubiquitous radio , Vividh Bharati ( and the spl programme for Jawans, I forget the name, was that Jai mala?)) and its influence on all who dared to open their mouth and sing along, not only in the bathroom, also in the open! ( I too but into my ears!)
Saudamini’s life is lightening / Vidhyut! ‘Beneath the rough exterior, there was humanness” in her father, as she read, gave me a clue as the life is going to be for her! Six reduced to five ( father’s exit),five reduced to four( Kanika to land of opportunities- to escape?), to three ( Meenakshi’s slip to eternity) , to two ( Akka’s marriage) lasted for a while till her mother, who believed ‘what is due to us will come in time,’ did not live to see the bright spot of her flash- like daughter becoming a celebrity of a kind in the culinary world! Indeed, a story to tell/ read and to be retold/ reread for ages!
‘Survival against Odds’ tells me of Samuel Coleridge: A sight to dream of, not to tell! What a huge poured down off the heart of Seema to live calmly the rest of her life! Yes, to share is a good way of living at ease Seema, at her seema of he life did it!
“Enough is enough and it’s time for change” says Athithi Devo Bhava! From being the beneficiary to benefactor unearthed! Great!
The joy of listening to ” Nambi kettavar yevar aiyyaa-unnai..” in tune with her mother’s soulful singing puts in a small capsule , the unbound joy to Laya’s mother! The traditions to glory!
The ever green banana – unparalleled joy, when spread on the floor and hot food served. It just absorbs the rich flavor adding to the served dish. A line there on the booklet on the good medical properties is worthy of the space the leaf occupies! Oh! The author is a teacher!
The Out of the Box by children is a joy forever, as a thing of beauty is!
The American Academy of Pediatrics has not seen the glee and brightened eyes of the child on sighting our red colored ‘janavasam’ car with its entire make up as a boat/ annapakshi is that what I feel on reading the story! It is there on in some form even now! Get the Uncle Sam here!
Cards, I have no experience. Sorry! However, 'do not cheat' stands!
Like Naren, many young and go living their moments for others to recall and to adopt to live wisely for others. Valid for young and all others! A sad story but carries an immortal value!
Midas, the wealth for all , of course in good health!
The coins are more precious than before, not available just like that anymore. Nor travel by bus without any money is a problem for ladies now! So, keeping buying sarees as the purse or the card(s) would allow! Good, nostalgia recording!
A nail baiting finish with MKG quote! Yes as Sri Ramakrishna said: an extendable piece as an advice to a saanp/ snake!
Enjoyed the booklet in toto and was happy to know that the well published booklet is from Vanathi Pathipakam, the“ Kalkandu”of my younger days!
Mr. Narasimhan has held prominent positions in various institutes of repute, and retired as Registrar, IIT Kanpur. Post retirement, he has been spending time in religious activities, particularly in the restoration activities of a 300 year old temple at his native place, 200 kms. off Srirangam, Tamil Nadu. He has authored many booklets on Swami Ramanujacharya for young, youth in English, Tamil.and one in Hindi.Also , he had traced Sri Ramanujacharya's holy foot prints all over Bharatadesam and; his journey from Srirangam to Melkote ,wearing whites in a escapade mode ....
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