This is a narration in the first person about some extremely tense moments encountered by the protagonist. This reinforces the belief that for every evil force that is out there after us, there is a good force too out there, to protect us.
The nail that pierced into the tyre was big. My cheerful driver set to work on the puncture. It got us to a stop somewhere close to Vakathanam, a small village in Kerala, India, beside a huge stretch of inundated paddy fields. This was while I was in Kerala last year in June, on a journey by car from Tiruvalla to Kottayam, to meet a relative. My ancestral home is in Tiruvalla which is about 20 kms away from Vakathanam and that's where I had spent most of my school holidays in summer with my cousins. Kottayam is a town closer to Vakathanam. Chennai was and has always been my base and these visits to Kerala had only been during my school holidays.
It was the Southwest monsoon season, and the rains were here in full swing. But we were lucky to get a respite from the rains while my driver was doing his best to fix the tyre. I stood on the edge of the road bordering the paddy fields and enjoyed the scene that nature presented. Frogs and fish kept the ducks and kingfishers busy. On my right, ducks of different shades moved as a flock and took a detour from their normal route, once they reached close to the path where I was standing. Some of them flapped their wings in an elevated excitement. It was stunning to see a skewer of egrets create a random pattern of white spots on the green trees that lined the other end of the paddy fields. To my far right, I could spot the rolling hills and the lush greenery that lay before it. There were a bunch of houses on both sides of the road adjoining the paddy fields. The sight was beautiful.
Gracy Aunty (Aunty) had left this earth. It was a suicide. The task for me was to attend her burial prayer at her residence in Vakathanam and thereafter her burial at the church close to her house. My father was not keeping good health to move around. "Make sure you reach their home in good time so that you can attend the prayer and then go to the church in the vehicles arranged by them", was what my father had told me.
It was raining heavily that morning when I stepped out from my home at Tiruvalla. The sun was yet to come out in full swing and so, visibility was poor. I slowly made my way to the bus stop with an umbrella. The sky wore an extremely dark garb of clouds which for me, was not a pleasant sight. It was really intimidating. Streaks of sunlight were creeping through the clouds and those streaks were like bright silver rays. And in that brightness, I saw two large bats fly by. It was a very uncommon site, and I did not feel good about it. I moved forward trying to erase this image from my mind. The bus was delayed and while I had an extended wait at the bus stop, the clouds went away, and the sun came out in a full smile.
Throughout that bus journey, Aunty filled my thoughts. She was my mother’s close childhood friend. Her home was very close to my mother's home in Vakathanam. My mother would take me along while visiting her and a few years later after my mother had expired, Aunty had filled that void with her affection, whenever I visited her home. Coincidentally, she also never had a child, and had showered all her affection on me. The back side of her house, even now, is a downward sloping terrain with rubber trees, elaichi and pepper vegetation. Every time I visited her place; she would take me for a walk in the middle of this greenery and we would sit near a small stream that ran in the middle of this green expanse. She would bring some food along, and we would talk and eat and watch the ducks and the fish in the stream. She was a very good cook and every time I went to her place, she would lavish me with her tasty dishes. Often, we would play hide and seek in that greenery, and she would call out “Mone, mone…….”, meaning “Son, son….”. I always loved to hear her call me with that soothing voice she had. But I found it difficult to decipher as to why such a beautiful person with so much love and grace, would end up with a death like this. Was it because of the other illegitimate woman in her husband John’s life? Or was it because of the kids she had had through John? I couldn’t take it. Well, I had first heard some rumours about the relationship and Aunty had vented out to me twice about it. At common functions of our families, Aunty had shown me this woman. But she had expired the year before.
I felt a jolt in the bus and suddenly came out of my thoughts. Images of human skulls and black demons with dark red hanging tongues, popped up outside the bus window suddenly and kept banging against it. These gave me the creeps. There was a funeral procession on the road and a crowd of people were shouting and singing. The bus was inching forward through this. People were holding posters of these bizarre images attached to long poles and dancing with great revelry around the corpse kept in a hearse. “Mone, mone…….”, came a shrill voice from somewhere outside. I was stunned. I couldn’t believe I heard it. Wasn’t that Gracy Aunty? I looked outside even when I knew it was meaningless to look for her. Suddenly a police officer appeared from nowhere and cleared the road for the vehicles to move. I took a sigh of relief as we moved but still remained stunned. There was another heavy bout of rain, and the water kept slashing through the windows as the wind was strong.
The rain had just abated while I was stepping out of the bus at the Hospital Block stop at Vakathanam. I checked my watch and realized that I was late for the prayer and decided to move forward at a faster pace. I had to negotiate puddles of rainwater before I made it downwards on the steep slope heading to my destination. There was no proper road in place in this route and the path was riddled with stones and loose gravel. On walking further down I reached a flatter terrain with flooded paddy fields on both sides. It was a long stretch ahead. Although I loved this sight, my mind was preoccupied with the quietness. The village remained pristine but really quiet. Normally there would be three or four persons walking on that path anytime, but there was not one soul there. Very far away, I could just see two people working in the paddy field. Since the community here was close knit, I assumed that most of them would have assembled at Aunty's home and that was probably why there was no one around.
The main road where I had got down from the bus, which was the route for buses, trucks, cars, scooters and bikes, was the only place around which we got to see some humans more frequently. There were a bunch of shops there. Since the houses were all built on the hilly terrain, they would be on either side of this main road or progressively deep down at lower levels, from where the paths from the main road led to. I was on one such path. Vehicle movements on the main road was sparse as transport buses came in at the space of about thirty minutes. We could spot the yellow and black dual-coloured taxis go by. It was the 1980s and only the very rich could afford a car then and cars were rare in this part of the world. Scooters and bikes went by once a while, but what we could see more were cycles. However, there was a long circuitous wide road that ran about four hundred metres away from Aunty's home which these vehicles could take. But on this path that I was on, most made it by walk. Cycles were not practical here unless someone had the enthusiasm and the energy, for some unknown reason, to push it up the slopes, and only a select few owned scooters.
The emptiness of the space around me gave me an eerie feeling. But I still moved forward. I spotted a murder of crows. As I got closer, some of them stepped away and there lay a huge dead bat that they were feeding on. Some of the blood had seeped into the water in the paddy field. What a ghastly sight! But what was peculiar was that all the crows were staring at me. Their eyes were intimidating. I moved forward on my path looking back and I saw all the crows take a few steps towards me together. I could feel the chill running down me. The chime of a church bell from somewhere faraway came as a soothing wave. I hurried and there came a few bends in the path, leading to a space away from the paddy fields, with trees on both sides and the crows went out of sight. I could sense an undulation that I was going through. Every shock that I went through was followed by a wave of calmness. It was as though two invisible forces were constantly around me in a tug of war. But why? I didn’t know.
My feet took me further ahead. I could see the Aunty’s house at a distance on the right. On the left side of the path was the huge wall of laterite stone hewn out and chiselled from natural earth with houses further on its upper level and on the right below the level of the path were houses at the lower level. I could not see any human activity on that whole stretch ahead. I turned around and could see the path through which I came, making a bend to the left at a distance and till that point I could not see anyone either. I looked up and saw the sky darken again with menacing clouds. “Mone, mone……”, came her shrill voice again from that house. How could it be her? I could feel a freeze running through me like an ice wave and suddenly there were howls of dogs from the neighbouring houses. I could not see them but their howls were reaching a maddening crescendo and then right there in front of me about ten metres ahead, several clusters of coconuts fell and splattered their debris all over the path. I wanted to run, but I did not know where to head for and in a sudden move, I ran for the house.
I took the steps down to the house. The space leading to the courtyard of the house was strewn with flowers and bamboo leaves. It struck me that they would have already moved the corpse. I stood there and hesitated for a moment. On the left side, I could see the rubber trees and the thick vegetation running down the slope behind the house. Just when I was about to turn back, I saw a middle-aged woman standing in the middle of the greenery on the slope ahead. Wasn’t she the same illegitimate woman who had already left this world? I wondered. I couldn’t believe that she was standing there. “Sit inside my son. Don’t stand outside. I will be there soon”, she said waving her hand. I looked towards the door of the house and then at the spot where I had seen the woman, and she was gone. I froze. A light drizzle started, and I slowly stepped into the house, expecting a few people to be there inside. The hall was empty with flowers and bamboo leaves strewn all over the floor. A lamp was burning in the corner, its wick tenaciously holding on against the wind that was blasting through the windows. The windows were banging with the wind constantly mauling them. I was tired and tense and so I sat on a chair that was close to the door through which I had come in. The hall was huge and far down at the opposite end was the entry to the kitchen and through it I could see the door to the outside with lush greenery beyond. The door was left open and was banging with the wind. I could see lush greenery through the windows too. And through one of them, while it was still banging, I could see a woman, with her hair left down and wearing a full white saree with green embroidery and thick fluorescent red stripes walking through the thick greenery, moving away from the house. Wasn’t she Aunty? I wanted to run and meet her, but I was terrified, and I hesitated. She looked exactly like her although I couldn’t see her face fully.
My eyes turned towards the far end again and there appeared a black cat that was abnormally large. It sat at the door and stared at me with its mouth wide open and brandishing its teeth. It was a threatening sight, and I felt my pulse racing. The intensity of the winds increased, and I could hear tree branches abrading against each other and lashing against the house. I nervously waved my hand to drive the cat away, but it moved closer and sat and again did the same thing with its teeth. I could see blood stains on its lips and around its mouth. "Mone, mone……”, came her shrill voice again from the greenspace on the side of the house. My pulse was racing. I knew that something was about to happen, and I got up and moved quickly to the door. And then it all happened in a flash. As the cat made a quick leap towards me, and I was still dashing for the door, a merciless wind came in and the roof that was right on top of where I had been sitting, came crashing down and crushed the chair and the cat. The next moment, all I knew was, that I was running for my life heading for the gate. I tripped on the steps running up to the gate and rolled on the path and looking up at the natural laterite stone wall, I saw five black dogs, behind a low wooden fence, barking and exhibiting their teeth in a terrorizing demeanour. They were at a height of about fifty metres and that’s probably the only reason why they were hesitating to jump down on me. With a sudden realization, I got up and ran further down the path I had come, aiming for the circuitous road that lay about four hundred metres ahead, hoping to bump into someone and get out of this epicentre of horror. I gave it all the strength I could muster and ran. I could hear the dogs running in parallel on the higher ground and barking and the rain was coming down again. At a distance and much further down, I could see the higher ground tapering down and coming to the level of the path on which I was running, and I was sure that if I could not outrun the dogs by a large distance before they reached that point, they would be all over me in a matter of minutes. Harnessing a mountain of faith from within me, I ran and soon realized that the path that I was on was getting wider. I could hear a church bell chime in the distance. Suddenly an open jeep showed up through the greenery on the right. It was approaching from a little wider path on the right side and was about to enter the path on which I was running. At the entry, just before the vehicle turned, I almost crashed and fell on it, and it came to a sudden stop with a jerk. The wind was still blowing hard.
The man at the wheel just ordered, “Get in”. I was not sure what to do but being zapped of energy and with my heart pounding and thinking of the dogs, I took a risk and got in. He drove the vehicle forward. He had a huge moustache, a long beard and a scar of a peculiar shape on his forehead. There were two other men in the car, and they were all in full white attires of different types. The man at the wheel wore a white kurtha and white pants. The others wore white shirts and white jeans. We had moved ahead and when the jeep took up good speed covering a good distance, I could see the pack of dogs come down the road from the point where the tapering slope from the higher ground had merged. They persisted chasing us even though the distance between us kept increasing. I hesitated for a moment and then was about to give him the name of the church, but even before I had told him, the vehicle had taken the turn and was moving in that direction. I was tense and couldn’t think about it. We lost sight of the dogs after a few turns. What a relief!!
We were on the church road cruising through the strong wind and had just driven past the church and cemetery where the burial was probably happening. The road was familiar to me as Aunty had taken me to this church many times. I had pointed to the cemetery and indicated that I had wanted to get down, but the vehicle was still speeding. In a flash, my eyes spotted a woman with her hair all left down and dressed in full white, with the same green embroidery and red fluorescent stripes walking through the thick greenery, beyond the rubber trees. Was it a true sight? Yes it’s Aunty. She is always there for me. And just when I was thinking, a huge tree that was about thirty metres ahead of us, slanted and came crashing down on the road. The vehicle stopped suddenly, and I jumped out. I ran tracing the route backwards and spotted a crowd inside the cemetery assembled around a pit. I ran towards it without looking back and made my way through the people who had assembled. Lying there in an ornate coffin was Aunty draped in white with the same green embroidery and red fluorescent stripes. She still seemed to have a remnant smile on her. I had tears flowing down while I was still tense. I couldn’t believe she was no more. I yearned for all the love that she had showered on me. I suddenly turned back to see if the jeep and the people in it were anywhere around. They were nowhere to be seen. The pit that had been dug out for her had some rainwater in it, but it was not to the level of being an obstacle for the burial. The burial finished in the next fifteen minutes. The whole place was muddy with puddles of rainwater. As the crowd was slowly thinning out, I could see the tombstone of the other woman who had got entangled with Aunty’s husband. On it lay a few dalylilies and crawling millipedes. A millipede was still on the first part of her etched name on the tombstone, as though it was stuck there. Lucy Simon was her full name. And there, right in the middle, between Lucy’s tombstone and the place where Aunty was buried, stood John Uncle. I met him and spoke to him and expressed my condolences. He consoled me as I broke down again.
I saw a millipede crawling onto my shoe, and I came back into the present. What a churning it was, like a hurricane of thoughts rushing through. I saw a little boy run through the bunds of the paddy fields at a distance. His mother was calling out to him “Mone, mone……………”. He kept running through the embankments with the assurance that come what may, his mother was always there for him. “Sir, the car is ready”. I turned back, dropping my half-consumed cigarette into the paddy field. My driver looked tired, but enthusiastic to move forward. We moved further, stopping at a tea shop for some refreshments and then headed straight to my friend’s house in Kottayam. It took some time for the memories of Vakhathanam to subside and though these memories brought in a tornado of tense moments, it also brought in showers of assurance and showers of care. It felt good to believe that for every evil force that is directed towards us, there is always a good force that will step in and protect us.POEMS OF LOST LOVE
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2 comments:
Gripping thriller!
@Anonymous: Thank you very much for your reading.
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