Lost and Found
09 Jul 2011 8 Comments
“Thatha” means Grandfather or old guy in Kannada/ Tamil. This is a fictionalized account of certain real events. Any resemblance of the characters to anybody is purely co-incidence.
“Bit**!” I mumbled. Raam sipped his coffee in complete nonchalance.
“I can’t believe she left me for that. How could I be fu*king responsible for her not getting into Frankfinn”, I continued.
“You tell me..”, he responded.
“You know, it sounds fu*king clichéd, but I did think she was the one; the perfect. Fu*k!” Raam’s stolid expression meant he was in no mood to give a Mark Anthony speech of console. He placed his coffee down and said, “Dude. First of all, it’s the ninety eighth time you are saying the exact same words. Second, she is the forty-sixth girl who has inspired you to repeat these painfully lame lovelorn statements of yours. Third, stop swearing! We’re in a local eatery for god sake. All these jaded fifty plus olds sitting and devouring their Masala Dosa are looking at us. Their looks! They seem like they want to join our conversation to spit out some raw advice. I won’t pay the bill if that happens.”
“Unbelievable!” I responded, looking at my half filled glass while he finished his allocution.
“What is?” he demanded.
“She left me for no reason.”
“And it repeats again. Dude seriously, get a life lame-arse”, he cursed.
“Yes, but I need her for that”, I responded quickly.
“And I need an aspirin!” he muttered.
The waiter handed over the bill lickety-split as if he too had found in me a whingeing five-year old, and in an indication that I take vacation from it. Raam shook hands with me and said “Bye maga. She wasn’t meant to be da. Wash her off your head like a shampoo da. You’ll get a better one”; at times as such he was a barrel of laughs. He continued, “I’ll drop you off half the way”
“It’s okay da. I’ll take a direct bus home”, I replied.
These relationships and breakups- it’s like I’m eternally bewildered by them. In school it was the charm, in PUC it was for some kind of show off. In college there was some marrow in the affection, but its sweetness was soon lost in the bitterness of petty fights and tantrum management. And now I was a philosophical giant in matters of love and relationships, notwithstanding the fact I lost terribly in the hands of destiny that quickly flips its plans only to mow me in these affairs. There is not enough armour in a naive amour.
Thoughts in my mind were running faster than light as the bus was making its way through the execrable road where the drive space was smaller than laid out ribbons.
“Saami, how far is Kettapatti?” I didn’t quite notice my fellow occupant until his deep wheezing voice alerted my oblivious ears. What was clearer was the unfamiliar destination name. “What? Kettapatti?” I confirmed. “Yes, Kettapatti, have we crossed Ariyalur?” I was completely taken aback. The occupant was, seemingly, an octogenarian, clad in white shirt and lungi with a white cloth draped around his shoulders. The swarthy old man was travelling in an urban transit bus of the busy Bengaluru city thinking he has hopped into a regular shuttle to his Tamil Nadu native. “Thatha, you are in Bengaluru, it’s not Ariyalur”, I replied. “Oh! Have we not reached Ariyalur yet?” was his response. Quite really bemused at the old man’s plight, I assertively told him that he was in another place far, nay, very far from his town. The old man posed a passive stare. He raised his arms in a Namaste and replied, “Saami, I am not understanding what you are saying. I want to go to Kettapatti.”
After a heated chat between me and bus conductor as to where and why she allowed this elderly man into a city transit, I got the fellow down abruptly at an unintended stop. I thought of explaining the old man about his mischance in the broken Tamil that I knew. He just stared at me. His blue eyes were glimmering like a marble, though in perfect discord with his dishevelled guise. Quite soon I realized I had got down in a stop, somewhere in Ulsoor, which I had very little cognizance of, the unnamed bus stop hoardings adding to my panic. Caught like a fish in a seine in this unceremonious predicament, I went around to the stores nearby enquiring. Returned, I stared at the old bloke sporting a limpid calmness whilst in a much bigger mire than mine.
“Where are we Saami?” His grainy voice echoed deeper than a sonorous bell in me. Contemplation is a riddle that fate poses to one, and when the riddle’s unlocked, a rain of great changes follows. ‘Where were we, an old bloke and me a young fellow? Aren’t we lost in this ever busy world which hasn’t an iota of care whatsoever to vicissitudes in our lives?’ My mind was becoming a dartboard for abstruse thoughts landing deep into it.
The old person was staring at me and then he suddenly scoured his lungi to extricate something which he extended towards me. “Saami, tell me how much money this is?” he asked. It was pittance, few coins and a twenty rupee note. I breathed deep, sighed and relaxed. “Thatha, where is your village exactly?” I asked. “Kettampatti, near Natham”, he replied. I put on a google search on my mobile and got the place on the maps.
“Thatha, I will take you to your home.”
That adrenaline rush in me was one unforeseen feeling. I called an auto-rickshaw, helped the gentleman get into it and we headed straight towards the mofussil bus station.
“Hello.”
“Hello Raam, maga this is Raghu da. I have told my mom that I’m staying at your place for two days da. Manage da, please.”
“Ok. But where are you? It’s eleven kano.”
“I’m on a mission da. I’m going to Tamil Nadu.”
“Anymore bullshit?”
“Not bullshit da. I’m on a bus with a friend to Tamil Nadu. We are kinda hitch-hiking. My dad will kill me if he comes to know. Please da maintain and manage.”
“Ok. I still can’t believe you. When will you be back?”
“Day after, morning or afternoon da.”
“Hmm. Ok. What is this hitch-hiking stuff suddenly?”
“Will tell you in detail later da. It’s a long fu*king story.”
I cut the call and got on to our bus. “Thatha, have this banana and sleep. Tomorrow we will be in your town”, I told him as our bus started towards Karaikkudi.
The next morning was pleasant yet awkward- waking up in an unknown land, with an unknown old guy in a bus that was speeding through muddy roads, throwing billows of sand behind. Sometimes life as they say is just a weird journey, I thought; definitely a bone-rattling journey, I chuckled. Fu*k life. Couple of hours and I was walking down slowly in the narrow lanes of Kettampatti with the feel of becoming one of the animated characters of a rustic Panchatanthra backdrop, the Thatha following me in all caducity. The feel of achievement was heavier than the freshness in air that blew from the fields. Many people gazed at us agape. Few women who were dabbling water from a bucket dropped it at our site; shriek and commotion followed. A large horde encircled us. The escapade was narrated to the people; amidst all, the Thatha’s coolness.
After hours of hullabaloo of the native Tamil speaking crowd I sat down on a ramp of stone outside the Thatha’s home. Few ‘college going’ guys opened a conversation with me and I descanted my journey since yesterday. One of them told me how the Thatha might have ended up in a place strange to him. The property dispute in his family resulted in Thatha becoming the sudden cynosure of his children. There was too much brainwashing of the old guy from his seven or eight children eying on his property. Some of them, previously estranged, had even stayed with him in his village, defecting their homes in towns elsewhere, to claim the rewards of their propinquity to him. The guys also said few months ago the Thatha attempted suicide but was foiled by his fellow villagers. The Thatha must have been irked by this and must have taken a journey to an unknown destination, which had brought him to Bengaluru. ‘But the Thatha wanted to be back to his family. He was happy’, I thought.
Evening and it was time to leave. I bid a good-bye to the guys and walked towards the road. Why did I take this journey? Why does it feel so gratifying? Thoughts and solitude again. I pulled out my phone. She picked up the phone after six rings.
“Tell me Raghu”
“Yes Priya. Do you know where I am walking?”
“Where?”
“Well, it’s a road of realization… I’m in a place which is 300 miles from yours. I don’t know why I came here. But I came here. I made an impossible journey to make someone happy; a journey I would have never taken.”
“What are you trying to tell Raghu?”
“Darls, I’m happy you didn’t get Frankfinn. I’m happy you didn’t leave me. I’m also happy if you felt I was the reason for you not getting it. You know, I realized what it is to be in a strange place, lost, with no one of yours around. I don’t want you lost in a strange place. I don’t want me as a lost stranger in a place without you.”
The next day her Facebook profile read “In a relationship with Raghu”.
The Alpha Beta Gamma
06 Apr 2011 15 Comments
Yes, I too have moved into blogosphere. I have started a small sequel of narrations, the first of which I wish to call as The Alpha Beta and Gamma, the Greek a,b & c. They are also the types of radiations in nuclear physics.
The two O’ clock afternoons are always bland and spent jobless. But the opportunity of a siesta is never to be missed. I rolled my blanket on for the hour and a half mid-day reclination. The phone that didn’t ring the whole day disturbed the pervaded silence with its spasmodic blare and flicker. Dad was on the line.
“Shrey, don’t go outside when it rains. The Japanese reactor at Fukushima has blasted due to the tsunami and the clouds are carrying the radiation. Be indoors today. God bless you.”
I jumped back to sleep. How could radiation possibly cross thousands of miles? And I remembered somebody saying it’s just the Japanese karma – it was Nature’s umbrage for its brutish whaling business. ‘Dad’s just panicking, as always’, I thought and slumber was already reeling its prowess on me.
Chiba Yumi was asleep on her cot beside the window. The newly draped silk was billowing over her supple face which was full of calmness, as if the winds were restive about her charm. Her milky feet rubbed against each other occasionally as if they were ringing the chimes of the Big Ben from Japan.
The TV was on, low on volume and trite in contents telecasted. There was a general wave of awe sweeping across Japan due to the new wrath. Fukushima was no exception. But suddenly our city was in the flash. Fukushima’s nuclear reactors were ruptured. The tsunami had woken up a terrible dragon that spewed radiation that could curse our generation and the next. ‘I am sure it’s safe’ I thought before the next headline hit the screens “People are advised to evacuate Fukushima to avoid radiation sickness”. My heart raced and mind was stung with despair. I swiped my trembling hands over the sleeping seraph’s shoulders. She unfurled her pellucid eyes, bidding an abrupt bye to her slumber-land. “Love, look at the news” I said.
Few moments passed by after which we decided to live at my uncle’s in Tokyo. We drove past the last post which was alarmed to us as the limits of the danger zone. “Stop the car!” said Chiba. “Love, we are in the danger zone; let’s go a little further. But why?” “I feel sick. I want to throw up Yoshi.” she replied. I pulled the car over near a hackberry tree. “I don’t think I feel well. I think I am mildly poisoned”, she said. “Relax love, the radiation leak was just announced and we were at a safe distance.”"What if it got me…” before she could continue she disgorged on the shrubs.
“Yoshi, I also feel dizzy and tired”,
“Love, that’s because of the car”, I replied.
“We drove only few miles”, she paused, “it’s the radiation.”
My heart that was racing was pounding harder. I got Chiba into the car and started towards the nearest hospital. “Gramma used to describe how she just made it in Nagasaki and grandpa didn’t,” she said. I frowned at her as if in intimation that she was losing her control over the hysteria that had flounced her thoughts. She continued, “I feel it’s our curse. It’s our Karma”. “Honey…” I sighed. A few conversations went on in narrating confidence to the love of my heart albeit paranoia impounding my heartbeats.
As we just drove a few kilometres south a thick gust of dusty air blew towards the west. I slowed the vehicle down. Chiba’s eyes suddenly opened wide in horror and her face shrunk; to observe the transition of a limpid milky-white, only dulled a little by sickness, into a melting bee wax sent shudders down my spine as my neck turned instantly to see the malaise that caused such a mutation. Far from the east was a mantle of brown water gushing into the town devouring everything in its way. It was like Japan was attacked by an army of Nature’s most barbaric race. The debacle was unfolding within seconds and destruction was just a moment of terrible shock away. We got out of the car immediately; I unearthed the folded tarpaulin sheet from inside the trunk of the back. I grabbed Chiba’s palm – the grab that meant life for both of us, her hold which, for me, was the life. ‘The world is ending’.
“Chiba, we need to get near to that building, I will unfold the tarpaulin”, my words sputtering out in sync with heavy panting. Chiba pulled the rope over and I loosened the tie of the tarpaulin. We started our run again. There was no time to look back at the chasing monster.
A few hundred metres. We were hit. The swirl separated us. The curse came alive, as Chiba had said!
The army of Nature has horrendous warriors of various kinds but none powerful enough to equal the last words Chiba’s eyes spoke and they were for me.
“Those fervid eyes
Shone like lambent sunrise,
In whose bosom lies,
The soul of titian skies!”
Blare. The phone alarmed again. What a horrible alert tone! ‘Perhaps not as horrible as the dream’, I thought pushing myself out of the blankets. The phone rang again. “Shreyas, the radioactive material has arrived. Where the hell are you? Come to the lab ASAP!” yelled my project mentor on the phone.
