Two lines and the Doppler theory

The rules of the contest was to write a 1200 word story using these five words-

L-plate, Railway track, Padlock, Dog, Scissors. I am the only Indian in this anthology. This is what I wrote:

The brewing storm of the late afternoon amplified the desolation, concocting a perfect setting for hapless souls like myself to wallow in retrospection.

            I walked along the railway track. Taking the left rail first, I balance-walked, hands stretched out, foot-by-foot, until I counted 300 strides. Then I switched to the right rail. 1-2-3-….. Piggybacking came happy childhood memories, the excited shrieks and hysterical giggles as we struggled to balance as if we needed L-plates dangling from our necks. We’d count how many strides one could do at one go.... I shut it out. Walking on the rails at such times was a cathartic exercise I desperately needed... It succeeded in arresting the unregulated flux of thoughts and unbidden memories. 

            This lonely track passed through a roofless tunnel of stonewalls and was more than a screaming distance from the lonely highway. The air hung with the scent of wild flowers and-….I tripped on the 122^nd step, at the unexpected commotion. A dog came running towards me, yelping! I followed as it turned around and sprinted along the track, which now turned sharply right. I almost tripped over a man lying on the track as his black Labrador circled around him, still yapping!

            He was as surprised as I was to find another human being in that lifeless place. I was also cross at his presence as he was also hampering my agenda.

“What do you think you are doing here?” I demanded as if I had the sole claim to the misery of the place. “Get up!….Don’t you know?... A train is due on these tracks in a few minutes from now.”

            “Get lost..” He said gruffly, turning away but not getting up.”Of course, I know that!”

            “You mean-?” I was staring down at a potential suicide. Other telltale signs began to dawn on my senses. The unshaven, devastated face, the shabby clothes, shifting vacant eyes and most pitifully, his bankrupt soul. Empathy flooded me.

            “GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE...Leave me alone...,”he bellowed in a trembling voice that beseeched company. Catch-22! Should I honor his choice and leave him to die or assist this unhappy soul out of despair? Had I ever known him, his life, disappointments and travails, judgmentally enough to sermon him against taking his life? I had to get my perspective right. Sort out life’s philosophy in less than twelve minutes!

            “Attempting suicide is culpable....” I started, fumbling for words, groping for any rationale in my own miserable life that would bolster my voice with enough fervor to talk him out of suicide.

            “I told you, don’t bother.” He spat out. His tears began to flow freely now. I realized I was crying too. I had found a soul mate: someone caught so deeply in grief, justifiable enough to run away forever.

            He then went quiet. Spread-eagled on the tracks he was oblivious to anything other than his despair. 10 minutes. The swish of grass, the strange cries of unknown insects and was it from memory that I heard laughter, in abandon? I saw the first star and realized that the tornado was passing off.  

I lay down on the track beside him.

            “What on earth?...so you’re going to kill yourself too?” It was his turn to feel exclusive kinsmen ship with misery.

            “……….” Honestly, I was yet undecided between yes and no.

            “Now this is ridiculous... get off the tracks. Someone this young can’t be that unhappy….I-” I wanted him to get it off his chest. “ Lost everything... Wife left me for a richer man... kids don’t know me... I got fired and now am disowned because of a crime I never committed. I have no one-NO ONE! Got that? At least let me die in peace.” My storm was passing. I could see the clear, beautiful sky, the winking stars and the stealthy moon. I wanted him out of his tempest. 8 minutes.

            “Now, you shut up. What right have you over my life? Young, eh? Are you blind to this frail and battered body? Of course you wouldn’t know the pain of surgery, chemo and worst, of the knowledge that you MUST let go, even if unwillingly.” I saw the first glint of emotion in those feelingless eyes.

 “Are you dying of cancer?” He began trying. I had to drag him.

“Yes. And believe me; the mental agony is worse than the physical pain.” I let him listen to my trembling voice and stare at my tear-filled eyes.

“But man, I’m not even free to make my own choices any more. But if I could, well, do you think you would see cowardice here...” I blinked, hoping he’d read my words and not my eyes…. “Don’t you see man, you are still free…You’re alive and can make a choice to die, if you want to…but I…I’m dying...with no choice...Can’t live even if I hungrily wanted to….” I choked…That was the closest I had ever come to self-realization or confession.

“You know, you are right!” His storm was passing...“Yes, I have freedom over myself.... I can live all over again.” He was nodding as we heard the whistle of the approaching train. Six minutes to get off the track.

“Well, get up.” I stood up, thrusting out a hand as helplessness engulfed him. I then discovered in horror that he had chained himself to the rails with a padlock!

“Oh God! Gimme the key.’ My hand hung in mid air. “The key, man!”

“I threw it away into the bushes.” He was desperately rattling the chain. I looked over into the bleak darkness that engulfed the bushes and found a pair of rusted scissors Absurdly, I tried prying the chain links with it and alternately yanked at the chain.

As the hum of the train began to grow, the dog came on to the scene, breathless. I hadn’t even noticed it was missing. But then, he dropped the key by me!

Snatching it, I knelt, fumbling at the lock as the train came in full view. The next blessed second he was thrown off, free!

His dog was all over him in his joy, as I lay exhausted by the side of the running train. School days came rushing back.

‘How do you shorten a line without touching it?”

“Draw a longer line beside it!” Whose line was longer? His or mine? I had lengthened his and also mine. I had been scouting these tracks with a parallel intention:but for our encounter, I would have succeeded today. For the present, we had equalized.

“What’s the Doppler Effect?”

“...The pitch of the whistle of an approaching train gets louder, and as the train passes off, the pitch fades off too!”  The pitch of desperation...the darkest moods...The crescendos were passé. An hour ago, there was nothing except the hounding loan sharks..Mother had left, succumbing to cancer even as I had suffered alongside her, throughout. Deeply enough to convince him I had cancer!

But for now, the air had cleared. This man was the sane breath that blew off my frenzied pitch, averting me from being a casualty on these railway tracks. I had pulled him out of his despair. I wouldn’t be going back, but he might still.. But at least for today, we were alive. 

   

Goodness befalls...

An obscure autumn leaf

Suffers a lingering glide.

Melding into a beggarly heap

To parch,fragment

under alien strides.

The gold on its wrinkled vein

Tumbled into her wanton hair.

Laughter long ousted by pain,

A lonely, callous node its only souvenir.

So does goodness drop away

Into oblivion, used-abused and heedless.

Bestowing its beauty along the way,

mirth into anguish and colour to bleakness.

Quenchless humour in its shrivelled frame,

the fall leaf ponders , on its way to base.

Autumn is here, soon spring will claim

her stake to nuzzle on Nature’s face.

Then will I breed

as a million green stipules.

Birthing as stubbles

that burst into flower, fruit and seeds.

So must innate goodness grow,

one withered leaf to countless viridian sprouts.

Forgiving yesterdays for expectant morrows.

A godsend shower punching rainbows about!

Welcome the tender after-pangs

of such a selfless deed.

For some call it Bliss.

A blessed path where by hangs

an unobtrusive prayer along a trail-less lead.

Bless that laughter of the guileless child,

for bliss is a gift for gifting smiles,

So said the autumn leaf, beguiled,

As it floated over thorns and stiles!

Sibling Revelry

Being born In April was an unacceptable accident that could never be helped! For, the school closed for summer vacation by the end of March and so, every year I could never celebrate my birthday with my classmates. It was indeed a renting heartburn to see my friends, born during the ‘‘school-open’ months, enjoy their birthdays. Coming in colorfully dressed, a casual brandishing of their box of chocolates worked magic. The birthday girl became the best friend of every other girl in the class from at least two days before; got enviable veto powers on so many matters...I was sad it never happened to me. I did attempt to try a solution. With my mother.

“Amma, Can’t we prepone birthdays?  Example..my birthday. The school’s always closed at that time. Do you think I could wear new clothes and distribute chocolates on the last day of the term instead?” 

“No...no! Birthdays are never celebrated in advance...it lessens your life span!  In fact, it is a good practice to observe birthdays after one-two days of the actual date. It enhances longevity.”

However, one blessed year, when I turned nine; the school announced holidays from the second week of April, letting me celebrate birthday with my classmates. Pre-celebration celebrations became more exciting. Back then, we never shopped for pre-stitched dresses. My skirts, blouses and frocks were tailor-made perfect fits. My mother made the best dresses. For this birthday, I was wearing a Kanchipuram silk long skirt- Peacock-green with gold and orange border with a puff-sleeved blouse also of matching gold and orange. There was only one bangle store at the corner of the next street where I shopped for matching bangles, nail polish and ribbons. On the eve, after dinner, was the henna program. My sister and I sat patiently as my mother adorned our hands with henna. Since it had to be kept on over-night, we had to lie still in bed, careful not to smudge the henna. We always ensured we didn’t drink any water after dinner for the fear of having to go to toilet and spoil the henna on hands!

The next morning my mother washed my hair, braided two long plaits. Adorned them with jasmine flowers after she got me dressed. As I was admiring my red hands, my sister walked in. She was also dressed in her new Kanchipuram ensemble- magenta with green border long skirt.

‘Hey! Where are you going today?” I asked.

‘Why? To school of course!” She said happily inspecting herself in the mirror.

‘But amma, it is my birthday and only I can go to school in colour dress. She must wear uniform!”

“Yes. But she will sulk and cry if only you wore the new dress!”

“But what if the teacher refuses to let her in?”

“I don’t think she will. Besides the school is due to close in a few days...look at her-“And sure enough my sister stood there, all of five years, pouting and admiring her profile before the mirror. We couldn’t break her heart.

Even as we left, I was still un-sure. But the thought of my cronies all over me and the teacher pecking my cheeks succeeded in blanking out the problem at hand. The little problem, however, oblivious to the tension she had created stepped out onto the street with me.

“Hold onto her..Don’t let her run across the road..Sit her in her class before going to yours...” my mother called after us. Swishing out long skirts and sucking on an unending supply of chocolates from my bag, we ambled along the two-kilometer sojourn to school. Dropping her off at her class, I entered mine to shouts and squeals of wishes. They admired my dress, fingered my dainty earrings and anklets, tinkled my bangles, with a constant eye on my bulging bag that contained their chocolates.

Prayers said, the class-teacher asked the girls to sing the birthday song. I stood beaming, facing the class, while they sang throatily. I basked, enjoying for all the previous years I had missed this privilege. As they clapped nine times, I went to my bag and got out the chocolate tin box. Large, red and round it carried double the number of chocolates that might actually be needed. “I have to give two to this friend, three to my best friends, two each to all teachers and oh, the ayahs always take two and the office staff....” I had bloated my figures to my father the previous evening. I had sifted the green wrappered Parry’s chocolates at least a dozen times before he admonished me.”There won’t be any left if the two of you kept popping them in, pretending to count and re-count!”

And so the chocolates crackled at their wrappers as I held the box to my teacher. ‘God bless you,” said Mrs.Shanta as she picked two. I began distributing starting from the first bench. The delight of sharing a cheap chocolate on birthday has no parallels ever!  And so was I, so immersed in the best wishes of all my buddies that I missed when someone said, ‘Shantala, your sister!” Only when the murmur grew louder and someone nudged me, I came out of my trance and glanced at the door. Sure enough, she was standing there. A tiny doll, head hung and shoulders slumped. I stopped my chore midway and hurried to her.

“Hey! What happened?”

“She sent me out!” She said with brimming eyes and stained cheeks. “She told me that I can’t wear colour dress if it was not my birthday!”

“I told you it was not allowed,” I said at which she started crying softly.  ”Ok...Ok.Dont cry.” I looked back and there were at least a dozen curious pairs of eyes and craning necks wanting to see what was happening. ”Shhh...Don’t cry! Will it help if I come and talk to her?”

“No.”

“Ok. Would you like to come and sit in my class? I could ask Shanta miss for permission, you know. She is very sweet.” I was not sure if she would let my younger sister who was in first standard sit in the fourth standard class. But I was willing to try.

“No.”She said and I was beginning to get scared. For I could sense what was coming next. Yet I did venture boldly. ”What do you want to do then?”

“I want to go home,” she said and my heart began to sink. She wanted to go home meant she WANTED to go home! She was only a baby and did not know her way back and that meant I had to escort her back home...and again comeback to school! I had not yet finished my birthday celebrations that I was so looking forward to!

“Sweetie, I still have lots of chocolates left. I could give some to you. Don’t go to your class if you don’t want to. Sit here and when the school gets over, we can both go back...Ok?” I had to try all enticements.

“No. I want to go home,” she repeated in that dead timbre voice that always heralded a tantrum.  “I want to go home....” sensing my indecision she came out with her ultimate one-liner-“I want amma....ammaaa...mommeee” she began whining and crying. The next instant, Mrs.Shanta and all of my class was by us. She only doubled her pitch.

“Shantala, take her home child,” the teacher said much to my dismay. I was expecting that she would refuse to send me amidst class. Helpless and at a loss of words I could only manage to ask –“Can I finish distributing the rest of my chocolates?”

“Yeah. But be quick.”

Gone were the giggles and abandon when I resumed with distribution. I went along lugubriously, holding the box before each girl, all the while keeping an eye on the frame sniffing and leaning at the door.

And so, I stepped out of the school compound with my sister in tow. I had to drop her, then comeback, for I had not yet given away chocolates to other teachers, office staff and ayahs.  The hot April sun beat down on us as we dragged our feet. She was suddenly very cheerful and frisked along. “Hey, don’t leave my side...come here, hold my hand,” I pulled her wondering why she could not have been half as happy inside the school. And then, I suddenly noticed.

 “Where’s your schoolbag?” She stopped. It occurred to her also only then. ” Uh! I don’t know. Maybe I kept it in my class...let’s not go back akka...I don’t want to go to my class.” I knew now she would refuse to go to school for the rest of this term. She loved home and amma far too much and jumped at the slightest excuse to absent from school. “OK. I’ll pick it up later today.”

Finally, we reached home. She squealed in delight and jumped into my mother’s arms. “Oh poor baby! Did they send you off? How cruel! I’ll talk to your teacher tomorrow,” my mother started grumbling about how heartless they could be to send a five-year-old home for not wearing uniform! But those were the rules though.

“Amma, I must go back.”

“But by the time you go, it would be the last period.”

“Yes. But our bags are there...” I tried not to think how my day was ruined. I ran back to school, but even that took time because I had to cross a railway track, climb up the twenty-eight steps to the bridge, cross the main road and run up a further four blocks. I reached class panting and sweating. I pulled out my chocolate tin box just as the final bell went off. The classes were dismissed and children, teachers all spilled on outside...I could now never go to one person and hold the box. There were so many out there and I had not that many chocolates. A few sympathetic friends still hung around me...I gave away the rest of my chocolates to them. I couldn’t take them back..After all, I had got them for my schoolmates.

For the second time that day, I was on my way home-two bags, one on either shoulder. As she wasn’t with me this time, I let myself cry... 

Moored boats (pastels on cartridge paper)

No insurances in love...

NO INSURANCES IN LOVE

“Hello?”

“Hello! Ma!”

“Ravi! How’re you son? How is Usha? I was hoping you’d call.”

“We’re doing fine. How are you and papa?”

“Hmm… Carrying on….I wanted to discuss a matter with you.” Phone in hand, she hobbled across the hall and gently closed the door of the room.

“I had something to discuss with you too. Where’s papa?”

“Gone for a walk.” She hoped he had not heard his father’s incessant coughing and wheezing.

“Oh!” A shroud of darkness suddenly blinded her, forcing her to slump on the sofa. A cavernous voice was asking, “Ma, I had sent money through Western Transfer, instructing papa to invest in specific shares. Did he do it?”

“He must have.” She hated talking about dollars. It had magnetism enough to separate the only son from his parents.

“Can’t a software engineer do well here, in India?” she had asked.

“Maybe, but my career prospects there will be brighter.”

She had then refrained from recounting the number of good job offers she had refused. “I don’t mind settling for the second best. I need time for my family too. My son’s future is equally important to me,” she had maintained then.

 Her past…his future…present imperfect.

 “What did you want to discuss?” she reminded him.

“You know Usha is due by June end. Could you come over for the delivery and stay with us for a few months?” She had guessed this would be coming.

“Can’t she come and deliver in India?”

“She can. But we want the baby to have American citizenship.”

‘Oh!...I suppose we could come…but not for too long.” she agreed not wanting to disappoint him.

“That’s wundderful!... But ma…dad may have to stay back in India.”

“Dad here and me there?!  Who will take care of him here? He needs someone to take care of him..and why can’t he come?”

“Umm…his multiple medical problems-“

“So what? He will suffer them there as he is doing here.”

“No. That’s not the point... He won’t get medical insurance.”

“Uhm...So?”

“Maa..If he gets sick here and needs hospitalization, insurance wont pay. I will have to shell out money from my pocket.”

 She recalled a similar situation.

“Mr. and Mrs. Ram, I’m sorry. The accident has left your son with multiple fractures. He will need three to four surgeries over the next six months.”

“Please go ahead Doctor.”

“The cost may run to a few lakhs… have medical insurance for him, do you?” He had looked at the desperate couple with sympathy.

“No. There is no insurance, but we’ll try and manage. We want him back, at any cost, fit and healthy.” He had said, not sure from where they could garner such fancy money. She sold her jewels, he worked overtime, they pledged their Life Insurance bonds, borrowed from their provident fund and took personal loans ignoring the exorbitant interest rates…..

“Ma?”

“Yes, son.”

“I could ask someone to take care of him in India while you are here.”

“Who?”

“I’ve talked to an old age home…they seem to be caring people.” He had zeroed in on their final destination.

“OK. I’ll talk to your father.”

“Thanks ma. Take care!” He had forgotten to ask her what it was that she had wanted to discuss with him.

She smiled as she set down the receiver. In the next few days, her son would be refusing to have her in USA as well. “Mrs. Ram, you seem to be having a serious problem…Ummm…suspicious of a cerebral 

tumor. Could you come for a CT scan this Friday?” the doctor at the hospital had told her yesterday.

Three is a crowd (Pastels on paper)

Inheritance

Is that the hallowed barn
where Mary cradled Christ by morn?

Or a prison vault, weather worn

where Devaki’s Krishna was born?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But that steadfast juggernaut

trudging up stairs so austere-

certainly, that is you-Mother dear!

Mounting ill cut pathways

over unnumbered ages.

As Diti and Aditi; Devaki and Kunti,

as Yashoda and Mary; Kaikeyi and Gandhari.

As Sita and Khayadu; as Ganga and Panna.

As a multitude of unsung faces and aliases.

Unchanging abyss, yet diverse shrouds

of mettle and calm with love endowed.

Tireless, thankless oft-times you resurge

from a barren to a bountiful place.

Or probably you did a magic forge

mutating pockmarked boulders

and dry waning creeks

to green, singing boulevards

embraced in Love’s mystique.

Yes. That’s you, mother.

Delight and devotion on an immortal face,

arms spread out in a solicitous gather

as the halo spreads across Time and Space.

Those fatigues astutely camouflage

bruises and scars on the samuranis personage.

Flowers in place of guns-

you redefined the way wars must be won.  

And thus at times, my world angles upside down

dangling at weak ankles, giddy and desolate.

Unkindly hauled by the hands of hardy Fate

disguised as an Au Pair, vile with a venomous frown.

In a jerky flash, my mind recalls

your saga of strengths and dogging resolves.

Suddenly I’m on my feet again;

fighting, carrying on your eternal campaign!