Catalyst !!

***

He closed his eyes and all the white turned black. Bright yellow light above his face slowly turned blackness into shade of crimson. His eyelids lit. He had been here so many times that just by sound of it he could know what was happening around. Slow movement of wheeled table, sticking sound of rubber gloves, clicking sound of cuffs and locking sound door knob, all indicated that it was time. He heard the sound of the switch and concentrated on the hum of electricity. He could hear tiny mechanical parts coming to life. A hand touched his temple and left with cold sticky wax. A smooth but hard metal plate was fixed on the wax. It was like wearing a headphone but with no music playing. And then with another switch his body jerked. He could hear screams but was not sure that it was his own. It felt like a wave passing through his brain, pulsing high and low at the same time. He could feel his body dissolve in liquid and just the brain floating in air and he started counting the pulses…1…2…3…and again…1…2…3…

***

The two were left alone. It was 7 minutes after midnight. Balloons, filled and burst, were scattered all over the place. Disposable plates and glasses left here and there. Half eaten cake and open soda cans visible around spaces. Small pieces of glitters and sparkles scattered throughout the floor like it had rained from the fan. Smell of cheese filled the air. Little, one year old, Avantika was sleeping peacefully in her small hanging bed in room. Neha turned to her side on the sofa facing Manoj. He was still facing the ceiling, his eyes closed. ‘It was exhausting’ she said. ‘We don’t know these people.’ Manoj said without moving. ‘It was your idea anyway’ He added. ‘We need friends’ she said and placed her head on his shoulders.

Manoj have never liked parties. He thought parties were only for people who like to show off. It’s been few months Manoj and Neha moved to Pune with their newborn. Manoj’s job at bank had not given him much opportunity to settle down at one place. But now with a child to take care, this moving business has become a burden. Apart from few from the bank, they didn’t know anyone and their daughter’s birthday gave them a chance to invite few neighbors. To their surprise they all turned up. ‘Isn’t it weird?’ Manoj said opening his eyes. ‘I mean, someone turns up to your door and invites for a party and you without knowing them, attend it like a relative’s marriage’

‘They all need friends I guess’ Neha doubted her own statement. ‘Let’s open the gifts’ she stood up in excitement and started towards the table which was full of boxes wrapped with glittering paper. Before she could reach, Manoj shouted, ‘No… We can’t just open them inside the house’

His words echoed into silence of the night. Neha turned to him, surprised, ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Don’t you know the story about gifts?’ Manoj threw a look towards the pile of gift boxes and turned his gaze back to his wife. She turned back to look at the table and walked back towards the sofa.

‘It was few years back when I heard about this. In another party, when they started opening the gifts, one of the gifts appeared which they were not sure was from a person who was invited. They started opening it. In the box there was nice dress. But as soon as they opened the dress further their eyes went wide. The box felt from their hand. All they could see was a lemon poked with iron nails, a black handmade doll, few pieces of bones, and a white flower garland all covered in red color. And few days after his wife died of unknown reasons and his son was admitted in hospital. Doctors couldn’t even identify his illness’

Manoj looked back to Neha. His eyes still terrified. Neha couldn’t understand whether to get scared or to laugh. She was not one who believes in ghosts and black magic superstitions. ‘Stop all this nonsense Manoj’ She said. ‘You said you heard it right? That can be a lie too’ 

Who was telling the story? And whose story was it anyway? 
The words fluttered and flew in the wind.

Neha was not in the mood to ask these questions anyway. Leaving Manoj in the hall, Neha went to the bedroom. She was tired. Manoj sat there staring the gift boxes.

***

Two decades back…Kamal sat on black metal chair facing pale white wall of the hospital. ‘Who could have done this?’ Kamal asked mostly to himself, clearly devastated on the turn of events. A shopkeeper from profession, Kamal could not think of anyone who could have hated him so much to hurt him. As a shopkeeper, his business depended on the relations whom he maintained and in any case he could not have compromised with his business. Dr. Bijlani, also his closest friend could not answer. What he could do was, keep his hands on Kamal’s shoulder and say, ‘everything will be alright. World is full of psychopaths’

Kamal drove home. His son Minku sat in the back seat of the car holding the pot of ash. His mother was dead. The priest of the cremation ground had asked them to perform few rituals at home before taking it to Kshipra River. In the mirror he looked at his son sitting at the back seat of the car and a drop of tear appeared into his eyes which he brushed off.

***

Few days back his was a happy family. It was tenth anniversary of Kamal and his wife Sudha, when it all started. When all the guests had left, behind them they left hall room full of flowers and gifts for the couple. As soon as they were alone Minku started galloping around the gift boxes, pleading with his cat like eyes to open them. Amused with their son’s enthusiasm they started opening the gift boxes, starting from prettiest wrapper. Sudha picked up the box which didn’t have any name on it. Secret admirer or forgetful fool? She started opening the small but elegant looking box wrapped in golden paper. A red band beautifully turned into some unknown flower. She took away the lid and her eyes widened by the sight of what was inside it. A hand written note appeared on top of it. Sudha took out the note, while both Kamal and Minku looked at her in disbelieving expression. It said, ‘I have returned’. Just by reading it Sudha had a shock. She was unconscious for hours before Dr. Bijlani had asked Kamal to admit her in hospital. Dr. Bijlani knew about the abortion which Sudha had gone under. It was immediately after their marriage and both Kamal and Sudha were not ready for a child yet. Though Sudha was reluctant at first but she herself was not sure that she was ready for motherhood. Dr. Bijlani had told them it was a normal procedure and since she was in just 6 weeks of pregnancy, there was no danger of any kind at all.

The guilt remained till their son was born after 3 years and soon they all forgot about it until this very event. Other things with the note were enough for Sudha to believe. The small handmade doll, in the box, covered in vermillion, became her dead daughter. Kamal was devastated. He had always thought something of this kind can never happen to him. He would have laughed if Sudha had not reacted the way she did. He had thrown away the lemon, bones and garland into Kshipra River but he was not able to throw the black doll, which Sudha thought was her dead daughter.

Sudha was not responding to any treatment. Dr. Bijlani soon realized that the guilt of killing her own child was so strong that it was almost impossible for her to fully recover. He advised Kamal to take her home and bring her to hospital only for the sessions which were prescribed by the psychiatrist.       

Soon the house turned into a nightmare. Kamal’s seven year old son, unknowingly, became part of it. Sudha started preparing breakfasts and lunches for 4 instead of 3. On dining table there would always be an extra plate with food and the doll would be kept on the chair. Kamal had tried stopping her but the screams and wailing of Sudha was unbearable. He started playing along and made his son play along too. He was OK as long as everything was normal. But soon he started seeing changes in his son.

And then one day, he saw his son talk to himself. ‘I am talking to my sister’ Minku explained and his mother smiled. Kamal lost it all. He took the black doll and threw it away. Sudha kept screaming whole night. His son kept crying for his mother and his sister. ‘I want to go to her’ Sudha kept shouting the whole way while they took her to hospital in the morning.

After two days Dr. Bijlani walked to Kamal with the news. ‘Her heart had stopped working. We have kept her on ventilator but biologically she is dead’ Dr. Bijlani said with sympathy. Kamal knew that this was coming. He cursed himself for celebrating his anniversary and cursed the person who did this to his family. He will never be happy.

***

Back home, he took the pot of ash from his son and put it on the dining table. ‘Are you hungry?’ He asked his son and he nodded in yes. Kamal took out a plate and gave him the leftovers from the night before. His son looked into the plate for few seconds and said, ‘for mom and sister?’ Kamal losing his mind, slapped him as hard as he could. A heart trembling wail broke out of his throat and all became silent.

‘He is in shock’ Dr. Bijlani told Kamal in the hospital while Minku slept in the ward. ‘I am afraid, in his innocence he had believed that both his mother and sister are not dead’ He continued, ‘We need to make him believe otherwise and make him understand the facts. This might be a long process and may require multiple psychiatric sessions. For now just play along’ Kamal wept on himself. ‘What is my fault? What have I done to anyone to go through this pain?’ he cried while all Dr. Bijlani could say was, ‘everything will be ok’.

Nothing turned back to OK. On the outer side it all looked normal but Kamal could hear his son talking behind the closed room. He had stopped asking for extra plates but he also started leaving his food uneaten. Kamal doubted that the leftovers were for his sister or his mother. Seeing no improvement at all, Dr. Bijlani suggested Kamal to take him to Mumbai for better opinion and better treatment, though he had already consulted with bests he had known. Kamal liked the idea, also because Sudha’s parents were living in Mumbai and this would be an opportunity for both of them to get some change from this terrible situation.

Doctors in Shivaji Memorial were not so friendly and the dean of the medical institute immediately suggest for shock treatment before it gets too late. Kamal shivered just by the thought of his little kid going under the shock treatment. He tried to pursue them. Called Dr. Bijlani back in Ujjain but it turned he was too reluctant to suggest the same and that might be the best way forward.

That night when Kamal heard his son talking to his mother, saying ‘I want to be with you’ he decided there was no other way. With support from his in-laws he signed the application form, approving the best treatment suggested by the doctors.

Kamal left for Ujjain. Medical expenses nearly broke him and he could not afford to sit home any longer. Shop must not be closed for long. Sudha’s parents, Sudha being their only child, were more than happy to keep their grandson with them.

Days started passing. With improvements, number of sessions decreased from week to month and then eventually to none. Kamal visited Mumbai every month and saw his son doing better not just in personal front but in studies and sports. ‘Bringing away from Ujjain must be best thing I might have done to him’ Kamal thought.

Soon it all became a distant memory. There were no more treatments and no more sessions. By the time he graduated, he was no different than any other student. In fact his brilliance in academic and sports made him better than most of the students.  When he joined a reputed bank as an assistant manager after completing his MBA, his grandparents were dead, only one remained to share the news was his father. After few months his father died of cardiac arrest. Dr. Bijlani said he didn’t suffer much. Minku remembered the last talk he had had with him before his father died, ‘I am very proud of you, Manoj’ He had said.

***

Neha woke up to the ringing phone and found front door of the house to be open. She could not find Manoj anywhere. As she picked up the phone, she realized there were no gift boxes on the table. ‘Hello’ she said on the phone.

‘Neha, look outside’ said a neighbor’s voice from other side of the receiver.

Neha walked out of the front door and phone fell from her hand. Manoj was sitting across the road opening gift boxes desperately. Shining wrappers were scattered all over street and torn boxes and the gifts inside them, were thrown here and there. A chill ran through her nerves and she ran towards Manoj. He looked up as if he didn’t recognize her. ‘Did you see my Sister?’ he asked her in his innocence and started removing wrapper from another box.

Few neighbors came to help Neha. They took Manoj back to the house while he kept asking for her sister. Neha took him to the room and locked it from outside. Manoj kept screaming and shouting to let him out to search for his sister.

‘Hello…Dr. Bijlani?’ Neha spoke on the phone. She knew, only person left who was related to Manoj’s family, was Dr. Bijlani in Ujjain.

Dr. Bijlani and Neha stood outside operating room of Shivaji Memorial hospital, watching from the glass window. A team of doctors were busy preparing electric machine, calibrating its intensity, while Manoj lay on the stretcher, lights burning just above his face. They put the electric cord across his temple and with a jerk his whole body started shaking. She could not hear his screams but could see the rubber log stuck between his teeth shudder like a railway track when the train passes through it. Thick viscous saliva drenched his face and neck. Hands were tightly clenched in fists and legs were stroking the cuffs around it in a rhythm as if counting…1…2…3…and again…1…2…3… 

***

Saraswati's ducks can fly !

Saraswati’s ducks can fly!

***

It made a sound as if an angry little kid broke his bamboo flute with single hard press of his both thumbs. ‘Well, No’ on another thought, it sounded like the globe, which had dropped from the rotting wooden cupboard of the geography lab, which undoubtedly smelled of a colonial museum, in which Mrs. Chaugle kept asking her to locate Mongolia. Close enough, but then it occurred to her that there is no other sound that ever can match with a breaking sound of a human skull.

She lay down on the edge of terrace and peeped down. A map of Australia, which she could very well identify in Mrs. Chaugle’s class, appeared, colored in dark wine liquid, forming out of his head, growing, distorting the map. He was dead. 

***

Yellow light flickered above the dining table like a half dead wasp struggling for air. Everything dark looked black and rest took a color of pus. It was funny. None of them spoke but everything on the table made sound, silvers, cutleries, wood, mouth and saliva in it, food getting crushed under marshmallow like yellowish teeth of all three person occupying screeching bamboo chairs which were on verge of cracking and collapsing.

All appeared like a normal happy disgusting regular family having a lousy dinner, till a voice hit, crashing like a torture, on their unprotected eardrums.

‘Maangu…oh Maangu…Maangu…’

A voice which chills once bones, filled the kitchen like ether, they froze. Recovering, Kunal licked tip of the fork. Kunal, a nine year old, was youngest and arguably smartest of four members of the Solanki Family. His father Shravan sat on his left and mother Charu sat on his right, both glancing at each other. Person, whose voice interrupted their dinner, was of Kunal’s grandmother. Saraswati Singh Solanki.

‘Maangu…oh Maangu…Maangu…’

Kunal and Shravan both looked at each other with a questionable puzzled and lamented look. ‘Which one of them is she really calling?’ Her son? Or the grandson she thought was her son? Both the sons shrugged their shoulders or rather thought of doing that. They waited by getting themselves busy with the food which was so bad that it made their stomach churn.

Saraswati, with her laboring breath, with all strength she got in her throat, snorted all her nasal mucus and snot into her throat and instead of spitting or swallowing, she started gargling with it, her idea of a good joke. And when saliva started flowing from the corners of her lips, she gulped it with as much sound as she could generate. Her eye gleamed maliciously.     

Charu spat in disgust, it landed on the sleeping cat, which in turn shrugged its fur, firing tiny droplets of her spit back to her. ‘Your mom is doing that on purpose just to piss me off’ Charu heaved a loathing sigh of discontent, while she separated the beans on her plate from half cooked rice grains.

‘Grand ma says she calls me Maangu because I used to ask for more milk even after having it’ Kunal said apologetically.

‘It’s not you. It’s your papa, Maangu the beggar.’ Charu laughed hoarsely.  ‘Who in a sane mind calls his own son Maangu?’

Shravan moved his jaws like an overstuffed old cattle, trying to control the urge to spit the rice back in his plate or on her face.

‘Grand ma says she threw grand pa from terrace’

‘No’ Shravan, a stocky flaccid man with a shapeless punch, almost jumped from his chair and protested with passion that was more like a plea.

‘Yes, she fucking killed him, trying to see if he could fly’

Shravan ignored Charu and turned to his son, ‘your grand pa’s death was an accident’ trying to be as calm as he could, ‘your grand ma is sick. She has this condition and she thinks you are her son. She doesn’t recognize us anymore’ he glanced towards charu and continued again, ‘you see it’s the age. She is old’

Charu could not keep any more penitence and almost shouted, ‘Old my ass, you said she dropped you out of her when she was only nineteen, you are thirty five now, so how old you think she is?’

Shravan gave Charu a stare and before he could open his mouth to protest her use of words in front of their son, Kunal spoke,

‘Grand ma says you both tried to kill her’ he waited to see their face turning white, ‘grand ma says she outsmarted you both by shitting all that soup out’

Their faces, drained of blood, cracked as the clay of the dry river bed.

‘She is nuts. You see it’s the age. She is old. Eat your dinner and go to bed.’ Charu gained the color on her face back.

‘Thirty five and nineteen is fifty nine. Grand ma is fifty nine’ Kunal said and after putting all leftovers in his plate, on the ground for his cat, Mogambo, walked slowly towards his room.

‘Maangu…Maangu…Oh beta Maangu’ came again from the other room.

Shravan finished his dinner and took a bowl of soup to his mother’s room. ‘She must be hungry’. She was on the bed, under the blanket like a dead vegetable. He pushed aside the blanket. A sharp unbearable smell of shit filled his nostrils and then the whole room and soon the whole goddamn world smelled like shit. Bile rose in his throat and threatened to choke him. He ran out of the house holding breath in his stomach.

He puked all over and also heard while puking all over, ‘you are going to clean your mess too along with your mother’s’ He vomited some more crushed beans from his nose. He realized he was covered with vomit along with the soup he carried. ‘I guess no food for her tonight’ He pinched on his chest and separated his soup soaked shirt from his skin like an old damp book page. ‘She is suffering and she needs to be freed’ he sympathized. ‘We need to be freed’ he added.  

***

Charu jumped out of the bed, ‘yuck you filthy pig’ and got a new blanket from the shelf. ‘It’s those rotten beans you make us eat every day’ Shravan sniffed and let out a whale sigh. He turned his back to her and closed his eyes and a tear drop crossed his ear and disappeared into the cotton of the pillow.

‘She is my mother’ he said under her breath still eyes closed.

‘Yes, your creepy mother, who killed your father. I get nightmares of her broken tooth stuck in my neck like a bloodsucking demon and don’t whine as if you don’t want it.’ Charu was almost shouting under her breath her face turned pale and brittle like sandstone. She continued, showing a hint of empathy, ‘We both know it’s not her age. She has always been a mad devil with a minced brain in her fucked up skull. I swear to my dead mother if, like last time, she ends up pooping for so many days, I will kill you too.’

He didn’t speak. The silence turned grotesque. Night passed while three pairs of eyes stared to the ceiling above, waiting for what was coming the next day. Only eyes slept peacefully were Kunal’s.     

***

She opened her bleary eyes when the cat, all seven pounds of squirming flesh, climbed onto her belly. Squinting into the sunlight streaming in from the open window, she discovered that she was now the weary possessor of a pounding headache, and at some point, had managed to lose both a tooth and a spouse.

‘Tooth?’ When did that happen? ‘Oh yes’ she remember that now. It was a really hot day like it is today.

Saraswati was on the floor. Her bare legs stretched backwards. She counted. ‘January 31… February god knows… March 31… April 30… May 31… June 30… July 31… she counted, looking at the approaching knuckles, the number of days. She had learned this trick in her school. Mrs. Dasgupta was her favorite teacher and taught her how to count number of eggs when Raju from the book ate few of them, raw, without cooking, yuck. Yes, so mountain knuckle on the fist would be 31 and the valley between them would be 30. She always hated month of February. Mrs. Dasgupta said she was not smart enough to calculate it so she asked her to mug that up. But she always kept forgetting it. Anyway it doesn’t matter, nothing really changes. Everyone dies in the end irrespective of how many days in the month. She was not dead yet and she was already nineteen.

When another fist appeared, she didn’t want to count the days. She wanted to duck. Yes, Duck. Ducks are wonderful. They get shot all the time. Their children are eaten by Raju all the time. Irrelevant here, no one is getting shot. No one is eating anyone’s kid ‘Why are you naked?’ yes that was the question she remembered now. Very stupid question indeed, its summer, isn’t it? She loved summer. It makes us sweaty, smelly and sticky. ‘My dress was always sticking to my breasts and it made them visible all the time. I didn’t want my breasts to be visible all the time so I got rid of the cloths’ but she didn’t say that. She didn’t want to count the numbers in the months again. ‘It was hot’ she finally said. ‘May have 31 days’ she counted. ‘You are sick’ He shouted and left the house. ‘Don’t go’ she thought of stopping him but then if she asked him not to go, he won’t let her complete her painting she had started making on the floor with the blood coming out of her broken tooth.  

‘Yes, that was all that happened and I lost my tooth’ she said. She touched the gums, under the broken tooth, between two of the unharmed tooth. A sharp pain rushed through her nerves. She felt good. For a fraction of second the headache felt different in a good way. She touched it again and then again and then one more time again. ‘I should get rid of these clothes. They are always sticking to my skin. I don’t like it.’ She thought. ‘Oh yes, he is dead. He was sick. I told him not to go out’ she explained to the kid, who she thought was her son Maangu but now she doubted it. Kunal was sitting on the red chair near end of her bed, away from the streaming sun light, which was making a bright tilted image of window on her grandma and on his own legs.

‘What was the question?’ She inquired again confused. She held the cat by skin and threw it near the lamp. It didn’t cry of pain. She was disappointed in it.

Kunal spoke, throwing his legs carelessly in air front and back like a walking in a parade, ‘Did you push him from the terrace?’

She lifted her eyes, affronted and didn’t like him whatever he looked like. She didn’t care. Her husband was dead and she should be upset about it. She was not. She felt good from inside. No harm in showing that if you felt good. ‘I feel really good. Do you like cats?’ she asked.

‘I do. Tell me about papa?’ Kunal had become smart.

‘Oh I loved him. But he was sick. He told me when he left the house. I was making a painting of ducks. They were flying. I told him you can fly too, just try. Everyone can fly, even ducks can fly.’ Saraswati chuckled mellifluously with resonant disdain.

‘The other guy in this house puked all over. It makes me sick. The smell of beans covered in stomach acids make my head burst like a dhol. I like Dhol, but not in my head. I like ducks in my head.’ She, instantaneously, thought that sleeping for hours, covered in her own shit might have triggered the pounding in her head. ‘No, it’s because of that man’ she convinced herself.  

‘I think I will get some sleep now. You can feed the cat, I know you love cats’ She turned and closed her eyes still thinking to remove her cloths. It was very hot that day.

***

Mogambo landed near the lamp and ran for its life ‘fucking few more inches and I would have been out of the window’ it must had thought if it could. It ran to the kitchen. If it was to die why die hungry? It hugged Shravan’s leg who was standing near the dining table. ‘Everyone dies’ Shravan thought when he saw the cat. ‘And there is only one way to find if it is working’ he kept the soup bowl down near his legs.

Charu looked him, her eyes wide open, ‘what in hell, this poor bastard have done to you?’

In Saraswati’s room, Kunal gnawed at his fingernails with appeasable anxiety. ‘You know why being after so damn superior, human can’t fly?’ Saraswati said looking out of the window.

Kunal looked in the same direction as if drawn hypnotically toward the window. Few ducks, into a distance lake, jumped from the cliff into the water.

‘I am hungry’ Saraswati said chewing her torn sleeve, looking back to him. He knew this look of her. He also knew that her mother was heating the soup but he said nothing. He had no control of when his grand ma would be fed. In past, he remembers all, grandma loved him, more than now. She fed him. She played with him, before she started suspecting that he was not really her son but someone who looked like him. ‘I love you grand ma’ he said.

‘You see those ducks?’ Saraswati pointed to the lake which lay as a streak of glass among the trees. ‘They can fly and they are the only ones who love me’

Back in Kitchen Shravan picked the cat and took it outside. ‘I can’t handle another pooping joe in the house.’ He thought. 8…7…6…5…4…3… by the time lift reached 2^nd floor, Mogambo turned limp like a rope in his hands. He pulled up its rear legs, ‘no poop’ Lift door opened. He looked left and then right and threw the cat, like a leftover pizza crust which has no cheese on it, in the garbage bin and closed the lid. ‘At least it didn’t die hungry and pooping that out’ he thought while returning to his apartment. On the entrance of his house he touched the foot of Goddess who was stuck on the wooden door through some manmade glue. Charu saw him walking in the kitchen with her eager eyes. He poured another serving of soup in the same bowl and looked straight back into her eyes. She cried.

‘That’s what your father said’ Saraswati argued Kunal. ‘Now you say you love me? Well, I don’t give a shit’ she lay back on her oil soaked pillow and said, ‘you are with them. You are not my son’ Kunal stood up, like flame of a candle and then walked, passing through the kitchen, to the hall and out of the door.

Shravan took the soup and walked into her mother’s room. ‘I am hungry’ she whooped. ‘Why did you push him? He had loved you so much’ Shravan shouted back in bitterness.

Saraswati kept looking into his moist eyes trying to process. Trying to remember, if her husband was trying to fly or if it was she who pushed him? She failed to get an answer. It all was like distant memory of a five year old girl. She stretched her hands for the soup, which Shravan was still holding and trying to generate enough courage to pass it over to her.

And then he heard it. She heard it. They all heard it. A huge sound of something cracking, followed by wailing of people. He ran to the window and saw a pool of dark red liquid filling up the cracks in cement pavement. He was flabbergasted. A scream died in his throat. It was Kunal. He saw, in his blurred vision, his mother drinking the soup. Her ruddy colossal face softened with contentment before she dropped dead on her pillow. Her last words, ‘At least my ducks can fly’      

***

Twenty Seventh Day !!

Another day. She watched herself in the small bathroom mirror. Hair scattered, mouth dry, small purple pouches under eyes. Ugly. This was her morning face she thought. She thought of all those who, all those years, had lied to her saying she was beautiful, lies, which were true in what now seems like her past life. Lack of sleep and more of crying had made her the person standing on the other side of mirror.

Sakshi was getting old. But then everyone gets old. Some with time. Some with burden of expectations. Some with lack of money and some like her gets old with events, uncontrollable, life changing continuous devastating events. “Another day” she took handful of water and splashed on her face.   

She opened the front door. A cool breeze of November brushed her face. Her night gown flickered like a sail in wild ocean winds. She took packet of milk and came back to the kitchen.    

“When will I get the tea?” she keeps hearing it, again and again. It has been years but she still misses him, she misses preparing tea for her husband, for father of his son. He was gone, long back. She always thought how different her life would have been if he was here waiting for tea. She woke up to reality with boiling tea spilled all over the gas burner.

Sakshi Dayal was head of chemistry department in Vivekananda College. She had started as assistant professor of chemistry in the same college and had been teaching since last fourteen years. At the age of forty five, she was now one of the youngest to head chemistry department. At a young age of thirty one her husband died of an accident leaving their three year old son to her, who was now seventeen. She lives with her son in Santacruz, a Mumbai suburb area. With an average height, slim physique, bright twinkling eyes perfectly matching her spotless fair rounded face, she looked like a person with a purpose. She possessed an excellent expertise in subject of chemistry and a brilliant understanding of human behavior. Another expertise was her motherhood. She was confidant and equally proud of the fact that her son never felt absence of his father.

Sakshi took out her red saaree and kept at the corner of her bed. She unlocked all the drawers of the cupboard. She checked her dressing table, powder, eyeliner, kaajal, bindi, all were there. Her face muscles flinched but gave no expression of what she was thinking. She was ready to leave for the college. She checked the sticky notes ones again. “Stay home till I am back and DO NOT LEAVE HOUSE” on the front door knob where only a person going out could see. “Lunch is in fridge” stuck on the fridge door, in the center, large and clear. She entered his room. He was sleeping like a baby, knees folded into his stomach and both hands clasped under his head. She looked at calm face of her son with affection and slowly closed the door of his room and walked out of the house. Note on the table near his bed said, “I Love you”.  

***

It was all blur. Like a thin sheet of cloth had covered entire sky. Grey had turned more towards darker shade. It felt like an hour after sunset or an hour before of sunrise, none could be sure. Place was familiar. Half constructed building made a perfect silhouette on the nature’s canvas. And then like a gardener’s water jet it started, sudden burst of rain made dry soil fly like smoke. Smell of damp leaves filled the air. She was standing in open, trembling, with both hands trying to cover her naked body. With her uncontrolled sobbing and pleading of her eyes, she looked familiar, a face which has always been known. Her body bore scratches all over, as if dragged on the concrete. Skin stripped off of the muscles of left arm and left thigh, leaving trail of blood droplets slowly moving towards floor. There was no one else in the sight but she kept looking as if someone was approaching her. She moved back, still trying to hide herself, her naked arms holding across her shoulders. Another step back and it all skipped, already on the edge, she had kept her step on air, it was a second of free fall, no more worried of her body her hands stretched in the wind like feathers of a new born seagull. She was flying, flying like an angle. She flew upward, towards heaven, her body still falling.      

With a huge thud, like something heavy falling on the heap of sand, Chirag woke up to find sunlight dancing all over his room. What a dreadful dream he thought. He could still see her familiar face. But that was not real. Reality was the note on a bright yellow square paper saying “I Love you”. He smiled and threw the blanket aside. “I am late” he looked at the clock and dragged his smooth hair from his forehead towards back of his ears, a habit he had picked from his mother. It was nothing new for him to be late. He never liked going to college. He never understood why girls kept looking at him and laughing. Why boys teased him. He was good in studies. He played table tennis like other students. He was going to be part of collage drama team. He did everything what a boy of his age should do. He used to go to the parties when he first joined college. But now no one invites him and he never understood the reason. “He was not gay” he had explained to so many of his friends. Not one believed. Now he hardly had any friends. College was slowly becoming a hard place to be. He was happy that he was late. He is going to skip college today and will directly go to the rehearsals in the evening.

“Like father like son” He shouted holding the script in one hand a cup of tea in another, as if he was standing in a balcony and looking down at Duryodhana the king of Indraprastha, who had slipped and fell on the palace floor. Then he laughed. “You truly are son of Blind King” uttered and turned at his place. He put the cup on the table and started pacing the room, reading from the paper, “You know why I agreed to marry all five? Not one alone can bring down complete Kuru clan. I will need all five to fulfill my purpose” He looked across his room, could see Draupadi’s father Drupad standing in the corner, worried.

‘I am born from fire and the same fire is going to burn you all down to ashes’ He read as intensely as Draupadi would have said in front of whole sabha looking each one of them in eye, difference was that he was sitting on the table holding his head by both of his hands.

‘My Love, why nakedness is cursed and despised? Don't we love our body?’ he read lying on bed, hands dangling from the edge holding script. He could see lord Krishna smiling.

Chirag always wanted to be part of college drama group and got his chance now. It doesn’t matter if no girl or boy wants to play this role. They laughed when he volunteered. “Yes bro, you need five of them” someone had shouted. He ignored them all. This was his chance and there was no way he was going to screw this up and for that he needs to start practicing right away.

***

By afternoon Chirag had already memorized all his dialogs. For a final practice before leaving for rehearsals he wanted to do a dress rehearsal at home.

His mother walked into the room just as he was about to apply her new lipstick. She was startled. He was startled. "What are you doing with my lipstick? It's new...I haven't used it so far. Couldn't you have waited?" He smiled and handed it back to her. "I forgot to tell you...I am playing Draupadi in our college production... rehearsals start this evening."

She couldn’t say anything apart from a toneless and emotionless “Ok”. It doesn’t matter now. She was not going to use the lipstick anyway. She left him at her dressing table and came out of the room. She glanced at the calendar. It said November 12. She took the marker from side table and made another cross.

She was watching tv when the door of her room opened. He stood there. Smiling. “How do I look?” he asked his right hand on his left shoulder and left hand on his waist, imitating some fairy tale daughter of a king. She looked at him. Mesmerized. This must be how her daughter might have looked if she had one. She couldn’t take her eyes off her son. “Mom, how do I look?” he asked again. He was wearing the same red saaree she kept on her bed. Controlling her heart which was now filling up with emotions, she had only one word for him, “beautiful”.

He went on turning left and right as if advertizing the saaree he was wearing. “I woke up late and didn’t feel like going to college” he said sitting beside her mother. Sakshi noticed that the note on the door knob was untouched.

“I will change back to my cloths now. Vikas must be coming to pick me up”

“Oh yes, about that. They have cancelled the rehearsals for today and will start from tomorrow. Vikas told me to let you know”

“Oh” He stood up and walked back to his room.

***

Dinner table was not very large but it had plenty of space left once both mother and son sat there eating. “Why do you walk like a girl?” she asked him without looking up from her plate. He laughed, “What? No I don’t walk like a girl” said, chewing a piece of chapatti.

“You did when you were dressed up in Saareee.” She looked at him now, pleading for an answer.

“Oh that! I was just copying you” he said as naturally as breathing. She almost chocked. Eyes filled with tears, she was looking back to her food, not showing her emotions. “It’s me” she thought. She had never let any man near him. It was always her mother, a woman who molded him. She passed two pills to him and without any question he took it. “Mom?” He spoke after gulping the pills with water. She looked up. “Did I have any sister?” “No” she said, “why do you ask?” he waited for few more moments. “I see her in my dreams”

***

Shakshi checked the lock of the door, satisfied, she switched off the lights. She had already switched off the gas knob in the kitchen. There was no light coming from his room. She mentally made a note of pills she gave to him. One of those was a sleeping pill to make him sleep longer. She came to her room, locked the door and cried, cried till her heart felt lighter. She walked to the bed and took out an envelope from under the bed. They were Chirag’s medical reports. She found herself back in the hospital and could hear the doctor “Complex system in brain are badly injured. He is suffering from anterior grade amnesia. Fall has damaged significance portion of his frontal and temporal lobes including his left hippocampus.” She had not understood any of it then. But now she does. A drop of tear fell on the paper and a paper fell on the ground from the bundle. “First Information Report”. She picked it up and read the last paragraph…

“Apparently few students stayed late for a drama rehearsals in which he was playing Draupadi. Later the boy was found near the under construction site of the new proposed medical college, which was abandoned due to lack of legal permissions for construction on forest land. He was found in an unconscious state on a heap of sand under a half constructed building…”

“It’s not your sister my son. It’s Draupadi. It’s you in the dream”

She stuffed the paper back into the envelope and lay straight. Watching white ceiling of her room. How she had pleaded to the doctor to tell her if her son was raped. How she had cried to them to see the bleeding between his thighs. How she was told not to accuse a reputed college. How she was told medical report says nothing of such event. “It was a case of rave party gone wrong, which unfortunately turned into a disaster, the boy slipped from the terrace. Yes, compensation would be provided to the family. Of course other boys are suspended. We do not allow such grave indiscipline in our college” Dean and teachers had given statements more or less on the same lines. No one mentioned her son was found naked. No one mumbled that he was bleeding between his thighs. No one empathized that his head injury was so grave the he would never…

She left the sentence incomplete. She could not even tell that to herself. College had paid for the surgeries he went through. A check of Two hundred thousand rupees was sent to her after he was discharged from hospital and it was all done. She closed her eyes. A drop of tear traced from corner of her eye to the petal of her ear. Today she wanted to sleep with lights on, if she can sleep at all.      

***

Another Day. She splashed hand full of water on her face, looking straight in mirror, into her own eyes. “I am getting old” she thought. Tea was prepared. She kept her red saaree at the corner of her bed. Glanced at the makeup kit on the dressing table. Hid her new lipstick. Stuck all the notes like she did a day before and the day before that, for almost a month now and left for the college.

He was pacing the room reading the script, dressed in the red saareee when his mother walked into the room. She was startled. He was startled. "What are you doing wearing a saaree?” He smiled "I forgot to tell you. I am playing Draupadi in our college production. Rehearsals start this evening."

She didn’t say anything but cursed her gut for being shocked even after knowing that it was not his fault, that his memory was stuck to the day of incident, that he would never be able to make new memories, that every day, his whole life, he would want to be Draupadi. “But then why they have invented the words like ‘hope’ and ‘miracle’?” she thought.

Hoping for a miracle she left him at her dressing table and came out of the room. She glanced at the calendar, it said November 13. She took the marker from side table and made another cross. She counted number of crosses, Twenty eight.

***