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Prasanthan. She expected that someday he would propose to her and was all prepared to accept it unconditionally. Her daughter would not stand in the way, she was sure. It happened quite unexpectedly. A famous textile mall offered Shyamala some good business. It was a heavy order which would be hard for her medium size unit to deliver. But they were so impressed by her success that they readily gave her a hefty sum in advance. The first objection came from her daughter who told her that the city people were too big a client for her to deal with. City people always cheated, especially the big businessmen. The consequences would be too much. But she was even more surprised to hear Prasanthan saying the same thing. He said it was not child’s play and that she should also listen to her child. When he said these two contradictory things in the same breath, she found it more curious than shocking. Apart from her uncle who used to speak highly of her daughter, it was only now that someone was showing her daughter more concern than what she felt herself. Wasn’t it more of her child’s manipulation than Prasanthan’s passion? When and how was he lured away from her? Her life was devoted to her daughter. She had made so many sacrifices to keep her happy and settled. But now, when it was a time for herself to enjoy whatever was left of her life, the same daughter was coming in the way. A more free and independent life had come so close to her and now it might just go down the gutter. She was really surprised to see Prasanthan and her daughter agreeing in this as well as in a few other things. When Prasanthan told her that he was planning to go for a movie the next Sunday, she thought it was a Godsend. She asked him whether she could also go with him if he was going alone. He had planned to go with his friends and watch an English movie. But he changed his plans and went with her to watch a Malayalam movie, Nandanam. She chose it because 35

its title somehow reminded her of Lord Krishna. It was the story of a girl who has a neighbour, a young man who helps her get married to the person she dreamed of marrying. Her neighbour is a magician in disguise. Finally, it turns out that he is not a real man but the incarnation of a God whom she worshipped earnestly. Shyamala said it would have been better if the magician was a real man; and Prasanthan said that then the movie would not have had the same charm. She asked him whether he would take her once to the temple that figured prominently in the movie and he agreed to do so the next week. That night, as she lay in bed with her daughter, Shyamala thought a lot about her ill-spent life. When did this child, now lying peacefully near her, come to her? Who did she look like? No one, not even her in-laws, was worried about her daughter. Her parents were never bothered. How long could her daughter be with her now? Other than herself, it was only Prasanthan who was concerned about her daughter anymore. Even that might change when they got married. The better part of her life, which she had wasted on her daughter, passed through her mind. She could still hear her husband cursing her daughter in between his loud coughs. Why was it that she had suffered so much humiliation, teasing, torture and censure for the sake of her child? All for this selfish daughter who never showed an iota of love for her. Her life was never, never really been, hers. It belonged to her daughter. With stubbornness, temper tantrums, anger, jealousy and contempt, she had managed to waste her life, all the time being a timid and fearfully ugly daughter unwilling to come out of her crib, cradle and the dark corners of her bedroom where she played her games, unmindful of herself or the others. Shyamala feared she might even lose Prasanthan to her daughter. He preferred to see her daughter rather than herself. They had become allies against her. Not only them, but others were also scared of the freedom and independence she might come across if she moved to the city and developed her business any further. 36

Even she was afraid of that. Or else, why was she seeking their opinions on each and everything, even when she knew none of them would favour her? Shyamala looked back at her life. It was not all that bad, given the disasters that had loomed large in her life. She had managed to pull herself together every time something had gone wrong, like when her mother died, her father remarried and her young husband died. With the new prospects before her, it could not be any worse either. Shyamala’s right hand which was gently massaging her little daughter’s soft chest came closer to her neck and lingered there. Even though her eyes were still closed, a smile appeared on her lips as if she had tickled it. In a second, she opened her eyes and stared at her. It was only then that she understood the meaning of her smile. Her eyes were like those of a lizard. For the first time, she noticed her squint. The eyes were also bloodshot. She feared that she might stick out her tongue any moment now and suck her lifeblood out of her. She covered her navel with her left hand. Shyamala’s hand had instinctively tightened around her daughter’s neck which looked like a shrivelled umbilical cord. Her skin developed wrinkles and came off in patches covering her entire body with scales. Ashokan was dead right. This was an ugly child. She had never noticed it. The more she looked at her, the uglier she grew. Thank God, Prasanthan never got a chance to stare at her this long. Her limbs were growing and they got entangled like the roots of a banyan tree and long claws appeared at their ends. Shyamala’s left hand was also now clutching at her daughter’s tender neck. She felt the hairs at the back of her neck stand up straight. She was choking. Pain permeated every tissue of her body like a million ice-cold needles driven into her. She was sucked into a massive flood. Everything in the room was whirl-pooling down into the muddy water. She held on to the only life-saving 37

creeper she could find. Her entrails wriggled like a hundred serpents entwining with one another. She had only heard about labour pain but this was surely worse. Her daughter had grown like a monster and filled the room. Then, like a nightmare disappearing behind the morning fog, it blurred from her vision and shrank to nothing but an umbilical cord. It smoothened itself into a beautiful snake, like the ones she had heard people say were seen in snake temples. It slithered out from her relaxed fists and moving up, tickled her arms, neck and breasts, and found its way into herself through her navel and disappeared leaving nothing but a wavy line of goose pimples where it had slithered over her. The huge wave became ripples and the sea became a river, then a stream and then a small clear pool of water on solid rocks. As she lay in it, the freezing water entered the joints of her limbs and disappeared, leaving her on a plain rock which was not smooth but as harsh and rugged as reality. Shyamala thought her head was on her mother’s lap and her husband was sitting at her feet. She started to cough. She woke up after coughing a few times. She turned on the bright light in her bedroom even though the sun had risen hours ago. Bright whiteness filled the dark corners of her room. No one needed the darkness anymore. It looked like any other day, only brighter and pleasant. No one missed her child. And no one ever talked about it afterwards. Only Prasanthan seemed to be missing something. He was rather tense and nervous when he was near her. When Shyamala told him she was moving over to the city, he was quiet for some time. Then, without looking at her, he asked her whether he should arrange porters for her. She reminded him that he had promised to take her to that temple. He sighed and said that there was a direct train from the city to the temple. Prasanthan’s cold attitude gave her a tinge of pain but she had expected both, his words as well as her pain. However, she told 38

herself that she should never forget how helpful he had been in times of need. She should try to employ his niece who would finish her course in fashion designing in a month or two. The first thing Shyamala did after moving over to the city was to place a matrimonial ad in the newspaper. She did not want to hide anything and asked the Copy Editor to add that she was a widow who had never borne a child. He commented that widows with children were in better demand. She thought it would be silly to ask him whether child-brides were also in demand. Sreekumar K, alias SK, is a man for all seasons. After a long innings at teaching, he took up professional translation. He also runs an FB group for critiquing Malayalam short stories, conducts creative writing classes, writes very frequently but publishes very infrequently. He lives in Thiruvananthapuram. 39

TAKE CARE, BYE! Sreekumar K. Since no one had any disagreement regarding the expenses that would be incurred, the resolution to build a new building for the library was passed unanimously by the Vivekodaya Library Executive Committee. Prashobh was happier than anyone else in the committee. It was his father, a freedom fighter and later a war veteran of the Indo‑Pak war, who had donated the land for the library decades ago. Prashobh had declined several times the offer of the executive committee to rename the library after his father. He knew his father would not have wanted that. However, Prashobh decided to donate an amount which was equal to a whole year's salary to the construction fund to be set up for the new library building. He knew his father would have patted him on his back for that. Two months later, when the ground plan of the new building was presented to the construction committee, Prashobh expressed his disagreement rather vehemently. The main hall was too long, extending to the north wall. This meant the Peela Gulmohar tree his father had planted there and which he had watered as a child had to be felled. That was too much for him to bear. He did not base his argument on this personal note, but rather expressed his sentiment that the tree was a symbol representing the pride of the village, especially in spring when the only colour one could see there was yellow, bright, almost luminescent, yellow. But there was no way to avoid felling the tree. Prashobh made another request; let the tree bloom once more that spring which was only two months away. 40

This second request, though it sounded quite impersonal, was not entirely so. Prashobh's marriage was coming up that spring and disagreeing with all his friends, he had decided not to choose any of the new convention centres or wedding manors in the town nearby. He had decided to put up a pandal, a canopy, in conventional style in the library courtyard where he had spent most of his life as a child. His eldest sister's wedding which had taken place three decades ago had been held there. He wanted the Peela Gulmohar tree too to be there as a witness when he was getting married. He wished his in-laws would also get to see the tree in full blossom. The Gulmohar was family to him though he didn't talk much about it. The committee had no problem in granting this request. Everyone thought it was a good idea. There was no one in the village who did not have their memories about the tree and they all felt proud when they saw people from other places on their way to different destinations stop their vehicles to take a good look at this boundless generosity of nature. Sometimes they would come out to take pictures. Nowadays every home had a selfie with the fully blossomed tree looming large in it. Prashobh now faced another problem. He could not find, even in nearby towns, anyone who had the resources to put up such a kind of canopy. Most of them he met had long ago sold all their wares to scrap mongers. There were halls of any size to choose from in any town and it meant no more business for them. Finally, in the district capital, Prashobh found some people who would do that. They did it only for party meetings, any party that is, and they agreed to make some extra arrangements to make it look more like a welcoming site than a campaigning mission. Another problem Prashobh faced was from his friends who wanted to add some glitz and glamour to the occasion. He had wanted to keep it a simple affair. The only thing that he did not 41

want to limit was the number of guests. He wanted to invite the whole village; not a huge task since it was not such a thickly populated place. Surrounded by barren paddy fields and an almost dried up river, this was not a favourite habitation any more and more people left the village than those who came in. Prashobh’s friends told him there should be some kind of a theme which was nothing but colour coordination. One of his close friends was a painter and he explained to Prashobh that colour coordination was not all about using the same colour all over but using compatible colours. As Prshobh found that the man was talking sense, he let it out to him and his friends to deal with the whole affair. Very subtly, Prashobh suggested that he would prefer yellow to be the dominant colour. They did tease him about. His community too kept that colour as its mascot. But they all knew that he had no such sentiments. Everything was going fine when the bride sent a note expressing her desire to have a violet wedding sari. Prashobh said they could override it but his friends told him to shut up. A wedding is a once in a lifetime affair and the sentiments of the bride had to be considered, they argued. Prashobh had to give in. When he asked them whether violet and yellow were compatible colours, they laughed at him. Finally, Prashobh's friends were the stars of the show. The canopy, the seats, the main stage, the rather heavy garlands and practically everything was so well colour coordinated. The cameramen and the videographers met Prahshobh's friends personally and complimented them on their work. Even the bride mentioned it when she met them. That year, people from far and wide thronged the village to see the huge Gulmohar's last blossom. Because, that year, the tree had blossomed in violet. 42

SOJOURNERS Ramesh Babu The salty breeze licked the yellow boils on the skin, trying to ease the pain. The last rays of the sun were about to take leave of Aswathama, the sage. He regained consciousness and walked down his weary path. The boulders below braced themselves against the bolts from the clear sky above. One boulder, jutting out from the tumultuous sea like a wave entranced at its full rise received most of the sky’s fury. Empathising with it, the sea repeated Srirama’s story as told by the Kovalam Poets, the native muses. *** From the balcony of her favourite beach resort, Ima watched the shadows fade away on the sand. As the sun had set, groups of visitors walked back through the narrow causeway from the big boulder. She could see them from the balcony, though, from this distance, all of them seemed to have identical faces. The bolts went on striking the boulders with unrelenting fury. The light‑house on the beach opened its eye dispassionately to the night. Ima thought of going back once again to the big boulder in the middle, though it was quite dark in the causeway now. “Never go there at night. The breakers start as the moon rises.” It was Siddhartha. Ima turned back. There was nobody there. It was only the breeze which had come in from the beach for some rest. “Siddhartha, where are you? Come to me. I have a secret for your ears. My parents are waiting for you in Japan.” 43

A wail which would have become a roar louder than the sea’s rose from her navel and tapered off like a whimper. Ima pressed her face against the railings and whimpered like a small child lost on the beach at night. “Where have you disappeared?” She moved her hand over her bulging belly, groping for a response from within. Fireflies had come out looking for glow-worms all over the boulders now completely in the dark. Like a young girl bereft of her first love, the sea banged its numerous heads on the beach, roaring out sorrowful wails. The doorbell chimed and Ima opened her eyes. Even on this visit, they still remember to bring her coffee at seven-thirty. She had not seen this waiter during her earlier visits. The waiter laid down the tray with a great show of formality and was about to leave. She felt like asking him whether he knew a waiter named Siddhartha. But she didn’t. The sea changed from the dull emerald to treacherous sapphire as the light faded completely in the west. The sea was drenching the wild bushes around the larger boulders now. Its laughter splintered around as sparkling spray and foam. As she was leaving her room keys at the counter on her way to the beach, the manager greeted her with a king-size smile. “Heard you had come, madam. Isn’t your research over yet?” “No. Still some work to be done here at Kovalam. First, I want to find Siddhartha.” “We looked into that when we got your mails. He was here only for a few more days after you left last time. He was not well....” 44

“Not well...? What happened?” Ima’s eyes were filled with worry. “There was a middle-aged lady here named Lilia. She sent him a visa for the States after she left....” “His family...?” “His mother was long dead and all he had was a younger sister.” The manager’s shifting eyes warned her that he did not want to talk much about Siddhartha. Still, she kept looking at him, hoping to hear more from him about Siddhartha. No hope. Suddenly she caught sight of a waiter coming down the steps. It was here, on these steps, that she had first met Siddhartha. He was the one who escorted her from the reception to the room at that time. Later, after she had ordered for a cup of coffee and was about to change, a knock was heard at the door. He came in, left the coffee and the menu card on the table and stood aside. His eyes fell on Buddha and Kerala which she had finished reading and which was now lying on the table, like a discarded soiled rag. She saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. “Man, any Buddhist monasteries here in Kovalam?” “Madam, this is not where people come to lessen their burden. This is where people come for more.” It was an unexpected reply from a waiter. She looked at him fixedly. “I don’t get it.” “If desires are the root of misery, then why should one look for more and more? What is there to seek, find and possess? This land has the mind of Aswathama, who is forever searching for the philosopher’s stone, spellbound by the curse of desire. Oh, sorry madam, here is the lunch menu.” 45

As she went through the items on the menu, she observed him closely. With the due propriety of a waiter, he was waiting to take orders. “I will come down and eat at the restaurant. And, by the way, I didn’t catch your name.” “Siddhartha.” “Hey, so you too are named after the Buddha. Coincidence? No. See, I am doing some research on your philosophy. Can you give me some information on Aswathama and his connection with this beach.” “The manager had told me...” Ima left the French windows wide open and flung herself on the bed. Lying there she called her parents over the phone. As the breeze still breathed the tenor of the waves into her ears, she felt that someone was beckoning to her from beyond the borders of minutes and seconds. Ima got up from her bed and walked out into the balcony. From there she could see in the distance Avaduthurai, a beach on which people, for over a millennium, offer oblation to the departed souls of their ancestors. The ripples seemed to acknowledge her presence in the distance. Ima’s eyes fell on the big boulder jutting out from the sea like a transfixed wave. The shadows amidst the shrubs and the boulders seemed to beckon her towards them. “How am I connected to them in this life or an earlier one?” Attributing meaning to everyday things is a favourite pastime of truth-hunters, she remembered. Ima closed her room and went out to the beach. The vendors did not take much interest in a Japanese woman. She was walking over the elongated shadows which were lying like castaway 46

soiled clothes. They were more interested in the white crowd wriggling and writhing in the sea. She too plunged into the blue jelly and swam in it to exhaust herself. She lay on her back, watching the blue sky. “Katmandu, Pataliputra, Gaya, Saranath…Buddha! I have followed your footsteps and now I have come here.” She finished her bath and walked back to her resort. She washed in freshwater and put on the pyjama and kurta she had bought from Delhi. Her cell phone was ringing. “Hello, Oahio, I am here at Kovalam, God’s own country. This is not the land of the Buddha, this is the land of Aswathama. This will be helpful for you. And, Siddhartha also is here. Not the one from Kapilavasthu who served the path seekers, just a waiter serving the sojourners.” Her friend Oahio calling from her motherland sent spikes of energy all over her limbs. Her fatigue flowed out of her. The mellifluous notes of a sitar accompanied by the nimble beats of the tabla reverberated in the dining hall. She sat at a table facing the sea. “Yes, madam...” “Tell me, what is your Kovalam special?” As she cast about her way down the menu, she was also watching the beautiful smile on his face. He went away and returned in what seemed to be ages for her. As he spread the items on the table, she asked, “Now, when are you going to tell me about the myth of Aswathama?” “Madam, once I am relieved of my duty by evening, I can take you to the last resting place of the Kovalam Poets.” 47

The evening sun fondled her through the French window. She woke from her siesta. As she came down to the lounge with her camera and her note pad, she noticed that Siddhartha had changed into regular clothes and was waiting for her. The beach, resplendent in the golden sun, was crowded with people who were there for a blast. He took her along the footpath on the beach toward the Samadhi of the Kovalam poets. “Madam, this is the last resting place of the Kovalam poets who wrote Ramakatha Pattu and Bharatham Pattu. Legend has it that they were inspired to write poems after they ate a banana given by Aswathama. They are our vernacular Homers.” Ima closed her eyes and meditated. “Madam, have you ever read the Mahabharata?” “Only in translations.” “Aswathama is in the Adiparva and the Dronaparva sections.” “Siddhartha, what have you done? I mean, UG, PG or what?” He smiled at her. She did not see his eyes moistening at the memory. As the breakers roared and broke their heads on a million tissues in his mother’s body, she curled up like a wrinkled worm on a warm beach. She was still hugging him like he was her only solace in life. Her eyes sunk deep in her face charred by radiation treatment had no moisture left in them. His sister was screaming as if she were sharing half of her pains too. On the wall was his father’s portrait, smiling, oblivious of what was happening around him. The Siddhartha of Kapilavastu wanted emancipation from the meaningless intensity of the world’s immediacy. But as a waiter, this Siddhartha means to row over the sea of material dearth. 48

Today, for this young girl, he was a guide telling her whatever he knew. Tomorrow, it will be another girl and another role, probably that of a pathfinder showing the dark alleys of carnal knowledge. Income that did not depend on the outcome, he smiled at himself. “Siddhartha…” He smiled at her from behind the curtains of yesterdays which never seemed to lose their existence. He had a detached expression on his face, like the smile of the Buddha. The sun had turned quite red in the western sky. He watched the late rays colour her face and neck in different hues. “Shall we go and sit on those boulders?” “Sure, madam,” As they climbed on to the big boulder in the centre, he held her hands softly but securely. When she moved towards its tapering edge, he warned her. “This is the pedestal where Aswathama sits meditating,” he warned her. As the immortal sage sat in meditation there, the sea was chanting mantras with its thousand tongues around him. Siddhartha was listening silently. After soaking up the grandeur of the setting sun, as they walked down from the big boulders, he had to carry her in his arms several times. The light-house opened its eye to the dark beach. As she was walking down the beach, all her energy drained out of her. “Siddhartha, you haven’t asked me my name.” 49

“Madam...” “I am Ima.” “Madam, Ima? What does it mean?” “Means the present, the time being.” “Suits you, madam. You are like a haiku on time.” “You read haikus? You stump me every time you open your mouth!” The moon passes in splendour Through its central heavens And I through wretched streets In the fading light, she saw his face lighting up with a smile. He accompanied her to the main gate of the resort. She watched him walk away with rhythmic, resolute steps as if he had rehearsed this several times. The next morning, as the doorbell chimed announcing her bed coffee, she got ready to greet him with a good morning. But it was another waiter. She asked him about Siddhartha. “Madam, it is Siddhartha’s day-off.” She tried to wisen herself up since a waiter was not worth so much of interest, but she still missed something. While she was in the restaurant, the manager brought the tour programme chart. She had wished Oahio to accompany her this time. She suddenly felt sick of travel. She asked the manager to reschedule her tours. When the sun was about to set, she again looked at the boulders. She meditated on Aswathama, the sage who goes walking late in the evenings according to the legend Siddhartha had told her. 50

The next morning, she woke up irritated, hearing the doorbell. “Good morning, Madam!” Siddhartha laid the coffee tray on the table. He still had that charming smile on his face. He had brought a parcel of books with him. “These are books on the Buddhist influence on Kerala life. I have arranged with the manager for a tour package.” “Thank you, Siddhartha” She looked at the pictures on the cover with interest. “This Buddha has a Dravidian face.” “That is God’s Own Country’s interpretation.” “Show me the paths of Aswathama. It might help me in another work. It sounds quite interesting.” That evening he took her to the top of the lighthouse. When the height made her a little dizzy, she held his hands tight. Far in the distance, she could see the beaches adorning the sea with silver anklets. This is the sea where the Kauravas had hidden the sacred diamond to ruin Aswathama’s life which was bound by a curse. The golden frangipani trees on Munippara gave the sage some shade to sit down and meditate. The backwaters of Vellayani were like nature’s question on a platter. The scenery took away Ima’s fear. “Madam?” Ima came awake from her reverie and stared into his eyes. “See the tiny beach just under the lighthouse hill.” She looked down at the white sand far below her among the boulders down, encircled by a stream of lush grass. It reminded her of the Garden of Eden. 51

“This beach is called Cherumannu.” This disappears during tides in the full moon. Later at night, at some mystic hour, as the sea withdraws for some time, this reappears. It will be twice as big as it is now. Then one can use it as a causeway and reach a cave far below this hill. Fishmongers say that Aswathama resplendent in golden light can be seen sitting there amidst a million lamps, entranced in meditation, surrounded by his guardian demons. Hearing this, a million lamps lit up her eyes. She did not feel the sea breeze tugging at her dark brown locks and arousing a million goose-bumps all over her body. She sensed that the storms of thoughts, to which she was much accustomed in her life, were slowly subsiding. That alone was her only thought. “It’s a full moon day. Shall we give it a try?” She looked again at that tiny wisp of a beach which the sea hides and produces as if by magic. The sea, immersed in silvery moonlight, was as restless as a girl bereft of her lover. They waited on the tiny beach. The smile on his face could be seen even in this moonlight. “Siddhartha, you too are a fellow traveller on the way to the Buddha, right?” A sudden powerful wave ran over her feet. She caught hold of his hands as if by instinct. The third wave, even more powerful, rammed towards them. Siddhartha lifted her on to a boulder. As the waves grew in size and strength, the beach slowly disappeared. Resting her head on Siddhartha’s shoulders, she went on watching the little white beach, long after it had disappeared like an insubstantial apparition. It was late into the night, and everything seemed to be the different forms of moonlight sinking into or emerging from it. 52

As the waves crashed into the hidden cave at the cape’s end as if a goddess was blowing her conch, an all-pervading loud drone crested and fell around them repeatedly. As she sat there waiting for the beach to reappear, the breeze lulled her to sleep. Siddhartha reflected that this was what he was to go through that season. A beautiful girl from the land of the rising sun trusted his words and was asleep on his lap as innocently as if she was yet to be born. Last season around this time, on a full moon day, on a different beach, it was a Londoner called Jamaica, licking the exhaustion that oozed out of the sweat pores of his dark brown body. He paid his mother’s hospital bill and his sister’s school fees from what a sojourner paid for a few moments of oneness amidst the fishing boats lined on the beach lit by a sick moon as the sea and the sand looked on. The moon had slid over to the western sky. The waves also followed suit. The little sand beach began to reappear as consciousness waking up from a trance. Siddhartha woke up Ima to watch it. It was only then that she realized she had gone to sleep on his lap. She suddenly sensed that she had never been this attached to anyone in her entire life. She missed the slow ripples in his blood which had lulled her into deeper levels of sleep after she had closed her eyes. She stepped down into the sea, expecting the sea to have withdrawn completely from the tip of the cape. The hiss and gurgling of seawater, as the tide snaked its way down the cragged boulders, made her body go tense more than once. She coiled her hands around Siddhartha. Their footsteps on the sand from where the sea had withdrawn were filled again with water like a snake coiling out of dry sand. Ima saw the cave roof rising above water as the tide bowed its head lower and lower and she waded towards it with forceful, 53

resolute steps. A careless wave tripped her. She disappeared into the foam and surf for a while. Her wails streamed towards him as the waves towed her with a thousand hands into their darkness. He darted forward and caught her by her hair. Before the next wave rolled in, he brought her over to firmer ground. She was shivering all over, more from shock than from the bitter wind, biting her body through the wet clothes. Siddhartha helped her over to a boulder. She was hugging him tightly, to warm herself and to ward away her fear. He took off her clothes, wrung them dry and dried her body. Her creamy body melted in his heat. From his lips, warmth flowed out all over her body sending a chill down her spine. As she lay exhausted with her head on his chest, looking at the moonlit beach, she said, “You took away what was meant for Oahio.” She lay that way for some time, listening to his heartbeat. The sea too had become sedate after being fondled by moonlight the whole night. “Time to say goodbye,” Siddhartha whispered in her ears. The car was speeding along a rugged path, slithering and meandering as if through innumerable births. Ima was feeling sleepy after the long journey. An apparition wounded all over and with pus oozing from its wounds was passing her on the beach. Its feet left no mark on the sands. In the twilight, she recognized its face as that of Siddhartha. As it passed by her, it looked back at her and its hairy hands moved towards her lower belly. Ima shook herself from her sleep. On a hillside, when the car stopped in front of a house, hardly a house, Ima’s heart began to pound faster. 54

A girl opened the door and came out. Ima looked at her for quite some time. Her face had a close resemblance to Siddartha’s. She moved forward and held her hand. “My younger sister, where is my Siddhartha?” Her heart began to pound even faster when she saw the young girl’s eyes begin moistening from the corners. “We don’t know anything now. The visa had come for my brother to go to the States. It was then that we were told of the disease. The sponsor was a lady from the States. She too is no more.” Her eyes were overflowing now. Ima held her hands and made her touch her lower belly. She looked at Ima in disbelief and then her sobs gave way to wails. Ima was trying to suppress a scream freed from the depths of her heart. Opening her hotel room door, Ima flung herself on to the cold bed. She pressed her head to the pillow and sobbed silently. As the moonlight streamed into the room, she went out to the balcony and walked up and down unsteadily as if she had lost her way in a crowd. The moonlight coated the beach with silver. As she watched it dispassionately, her inner ears picked up the chants from around the cave. They seemed to be luring her to the world of the loudest silence and quietest depths of calmness. As Ima went down to the beach, the waves withdrew, leaving the big boulder which had mistaken itself as another wave. This was the time when Aswathama, the sage in the legend, would wake up and move deeper into the cave’s interiors and then disappear for the night. She followed the wisp of fragrance that moved towards the south. She walked to the end of the cape which had been readied for her by the breeze and the fragrance waiting on her. 55

The cave was resplendent with millions of tiny lamps. The Seeker’s eyes lit up with the golden light that drew her into the depths of sweet, eternal oblivion. The sea went on chanting stories of Rama. Aswathama: the legendary sage of Mahabharata who is believed to be wandering in the southern beaches of India forever, looking for his lost head diamond, which was hidden away by the Pandava in a bid for his character assassination. Haiku: A three-line short poem, originally Japanese in form. The quoted haiku is from Matsuo Basho (1644-1694). Cherumannu: A tiny beach which is seen near the big boulders that rear between the two large beaches at Kovalam. This is referred to in the local legends. Ramesh Babu’s strong points are journalism and short fiction. There are already two short story collections to his credit. His script ‘Stairs of Twilight’ has won the National award for the best social welfare documentary. 56

WHEN PEACOCKS DANCE Sabin Iqbal Five peacocks float down from the huge tamarind trees on the brink of the paddy- fields and dance on the mud track as rainclouds turn the sky into the deep blue of the peacocks’ breasts. Noor Jahan, wearing a parrot-green skirt and a deep purple blouse, gambols towards the preening peacocks. Her silver anklets clank, her glass bangles chime and her nose ring sparkles. As Nandilal lunges after her with a longing heart, the birds flutter away, and, to his dismay, Noor Jahan too rises up into the skies, flapping the trail of her bottle-green scarf. For the past six years he has woken up before the day broke with a cool gust of salty sea breeze; before seagulls cried over inky waters, and fishermen tapped on the belly of the their wooden boat, channeling a school of befuddled fish into their net, cuddling the same dream day after day. As he watches Noor Jahan flying away with the peacocks into the skies over his faraway rain-soaked village, a sense of helplessness brewed within him. It is in this surreal serenity—before morning light spreads a glowing aluminium tint over an orange-streaked horizon—that he kicks his heels, sitting idle for a few minutes, pondering about himself. In that velvet drowsiness, he rewinds the faces he came across the previous day, and with a gentle prayer to a deity in a faraway temple, he gets ready for another long day along the narrow streets lined with dilapidating, tiled colonial structures. It is then Nandilal Ronjan Das gets time to run his fingers over the little mole being formed in his right armpit, feeling the soft glob of flesh between his thumb and forefinger, then smelling 57

his fingers to see if they smell of sweat. Once, a European tourist told him that one should not smell of sweat. She told him, sipping a cup of tea he had just served her, that no matter what job one did, a little care would keep the stench away, adding that nothing was more unpleasant than human sweat. Man could stink worse than any animal! Smeared in mosquito-repellent cream and wearing a floral linen top, she stood under a sprawling patriarchal rain tree and enlightened him on the importance of not allowing sweat to form tiny crystals of salt in his underarm hair. She sipped the tea from the plastic cup, often sizing up the ancient tree and looking around at St Francis Church, where Vasco da Gama’s remains had been kept for 14 years before they were moved to Lisbon. ‘Sandra,’ she said, smiling at Nandilal. ‘I’m Sandra DeSouza from Lisbon.’ Her blue eyes were bluer than the sea. Her burgundy hair was in curls. Her armpits were shaved clean, and looked fresher than a slice of cucumber. Nandilal smiled, and gave her the balance. She put the coins into her pouch that was slung over her shoulders. “I’ll see you later,” she said, and walked towards the church. Often he meets the tourists again when they come back after walking around the Jew Street and the Synagogue. But he did not meet Sandra again. Since then he is careful not to contribute to the air pollution of the ancient port town of sweet-smelling spices even though he bicycles almost the length and breadth of it every day, and by the end of the day becomes bone-soaked in sweat. In the predawn dim light he lifts his arms and smells both armpits to make sure that he doesn’t stink of sweat nor does he reek of the cheap perfume he has bought from Hussain’s duty-free shop—to make sure that the Labour Union leaders he interacts with would not brand him a bourgeois, which will adversely affect his business of selling five hundred cups of tea every day to people from all walks of life. 58

“Nandi, bring it fast,” call out vendors on either side of the narrow streets of Mattancherry when they hear the peals of his bicycle’s bell. “Aree Nandi, where were you”, queries emerge from spice and grocery wholesale shops. As he serves tea in small plastic cups, they take a break from their routine—- -shopkeepers stand up and stretch their limbs, head-load workers wipe sweat off their brows and straighten their backs, and accountants take their eyes off the ledger and peer through their bifocals. They hold the tea in the mouth for a moment before gulping it down, savouring each swig, taking in its taste, and often lost in the thoughts it brings. It has always amazed Nandilal how taste-buds bring to life certain chambers in the brain—bringing specific memories to people as they sip their tea. Taste and smell are the bridges to the past. Like, the aroma of soil after the first sweep of rain takes him back to his remote village, thousands of miles away. For the past six years, Nandilal’s tea has kept people in this colonial port town, facing decay and unrest, both refreshed and addicted to the ritual of drinking tea, keeping them connected to a mélange of their memories. Thinking of sweat, he realises how it connects his past to his present—-his homeland and the land of refuge. At night during election campaigns, logos of contesting factions emerge from the walls on which they have been painted, and walk along the highways solemn and silent when everyone in the villages on both sides of the road sleeps, and the candidates snore dreaming of the poll day and victory rounds. All night, while a silvery moon journeys from one smudged end of the sky to the other, pouring out milky light on them, the symbols walk all along the highway in their last chance to remain dignified and true before the day breaks. Nandilal knows it well that tea, much like death, is a great leveler. Tea was not only a social component in the colonial past but it 59

also inspired copywriters with brilliant tag-lines and designers think out of their skin for an awesome piece of genius. Tea runs in the veins of the country, starting from the plantations on the hills, it flows like an invisible river crisscrossing the land, ; the plains, ; and the coast, creating a link among people from all cultures, classes and castes. There is nothing that binds people together like tea. Nandilal knows it because he is in the business of selling tea to hundreds of people every single day. Both the rich and the poor buy tea from him as he strolls by on his bicycle with a steel vessel fixed on the carrier. After the first sip, they are lost in thoughts—it makes them dream or remember faces and places that they have left behind. Tea lures people away to an island of memories, leaving them marooned for a few moments. For some more time Nandilal remains in his bed made with a few layers of palm mats and a knotty cotton pillow, feeling the sea-breeze thinning in through the slits in the blue wooden sill of the tiny Dutch window that opens to the fruity gurgle of the sea. He sits there with sleep pooled in his eyes, while Noor Jahan’s silver anklets clank, glass bangles chime and nose ring sparkles. This time, however, before taking flight along with the peacocks, her hot breath stroking his cheek, she whispered in his ear: “Don’t be like the musk deer, seeking all around what is so close to you.” He couldn’t believe his own ears. In Ismailikka’s store, he asked himself. Then the moist hiss of steam from the large tea pots in the kitchen jolts him back to the real world. At every break of dawn his mother gets up long before he is awake. Some days he wonders how his mother manages to wake up without an alarm clock even after a long day’s work of making over five hundred cups of tea and an equal number of evening snacks. He has always wanted to buy her a small alarm clock from Hussain’s shop, which she can keep next to her pillow on the floor where she sleeps with his younger sister. 60

But every month the alarm clock is taken off the priority list as at the end of the month he finds all the money is spent on regular expenses and those unexpected ones. How quickly each month passes! When he was a young boy, his measuring unit of time was a day—nothing shorter or longer. ‘Tomorrow,’ his father used to say. He knew tomorrow meant the day after the night. ‘Didn’t I ask you yesterday, Nandi?’ his mother used to ask. He knew yesterday meant the day before the last night. It was all clear to him, and he was happy because his measuring of time was not complicated nor was it difficult to calculate. The night was the dividing factor. But now, his time is divided into hours and minutes. He knows that in two hours he has to finish selling tea on the Mattancherry market street, and next two hours he has to be by the jetty, and the next two by the beach. Selling tea is not difficult in a place where everyone drinks tea with a cultural verve. But with a younger brother and a sister studying, he has to meet all their needs. And, his mother makes it a point to save—in Bank of Baroda—to fulfil her dream of building a small concrete house back in their village. But then, an alarm clock is not that expensive. The reason for not buying one is that Nandilal doesn’t want to upset his mother’s biological clock—a habit that she has acquired after she and the rest of the family left the nondescript coastal village of Mirpur in West Bengal to join him at Mattancherry, where a confluence of fragrance of spices reminds every passerby of the trading and colonial past of the port. Nandilal leans back on the lime-plastered wall that has cracks in a few places, showing the gummy brick beneath like swathes of bleeding wounds. Once he cannot trace the everyday dream, he daydreams of taking Noor Jahan with him to Mirpur, the village he had left ten years ago as a fifteen-year-old, on a rainy day when the peacocks danced on the mud track across paddy-fields. Every day when he reaches the Ladies’ Shop by the bend in the road, Noor Jahan stands behind a stack of glass bangles to hide 61

her eyes from Nandilal. Because, she knows that in her eyes he has found love—and, her boss, Ismailikka, knows there is something between the tea-seller and the shopkeeper girl. He doesn’t support any secret meeting between them, but in his heart Ismailikka doesn’t oppose them because he takes pride in the fact that his ancient land has witnessed the joy and tears of many cross-cultural lovers right from the days of the Yavanas, Arabs and Jews who had called on the Kalvatty port looking for spices, and had ended up love-struck and heart-broken. Before Nandilal and his family arrived, before the people of the land began speaking English, there were young men who came on foreign ships, with dreamy, mystical eyes twinkling in hallucinating mix of blue, green and brown, lips ruddy and hands fragrant of oils and perfumes of the faraway exotic land. In the low amber light of lamps, these young men embraced the coy mistresses of the land they arrived at looking for spices, and whispered their desperate love’s intimate yearning to their ears in huskiness of foreign languages that the girls never understood, other than the passion and hunger of love and lust. When they opened their hands, a waft of heady perfumes permeated in the chamber of their secret meetings. From time to time, lovers who spoke nothing but the language of love and desire—some star-crossed, some fortunate—became a part of folklore and eternal love stories. Bloodlines were mixed, languages loaned and acquired words, cultures assimilated, and many lovers died heart-broken and lovelorn and in the unbearable pain of loss. Ismailikka braces for the day when the shy, silent joy in Noor Jahan’s eyes fades away in the pain of separation from the hardworking tea-seller from Mirpur. Nandilal wants to visit his relatives in Mirpur but he is not sure when he can go back to the sodden village and watch peacocks float down from huge tamarind trees and dance on the mud tracks across lush green paddy-fields as rainclouds turn the sky into the deep blue of the peacocks’ breast. These five to ten minutes before he gets out of the rattan bed that creaks at his every turn is all the rest he could get the 62

whole day. He stretches his limbs, cracks his knuckles and turns his head both ways before slowly getting out of the bed to trudge towards the well in the backyard. On his way out, he doesn’t forget to wake up his brother, younger by five years, by violently shaking his shoulder that pokes out of the bed-sheet like a clumsy piece of furniture. Startled, perhaps by the abrupt end of a dream where he too may have been tracking the tinkle of anklets of a strange, petite young girl with colourful bangles wearing a shimmering Rajasthani frock, his brother gapes at the grey darkness in the room before he figures out the familiar sketchy interiors of their house. Once he realises that the girl was a dream and he is sleeping in the little town where every street has a colonial tale to tell, he pulls the bed-sheet over him and goes back to sleep. Instead of the girl and her bangles, he now dreams of a blue-and-yellow kite wobbling and throbbing high in the air. Apart from getting up so early in the morning, Rukmini Bai is happy with her life far away from Mirpur where her entire family has lived for generations. She is happy, and the happiness is often reflected on the single stone on her nose ring that her mother had gifted her—the only present she has ever received in her life if a loving husband and three reasonably obedient children don’t qualify as gifts from Above. Unlike her young sons, Rukmini doesn’t dream of young girls. She sees in her dreams her late husband—Ronjan Das— and her dream is not about any romantic songs that he used to sing when in a mood to cuddle her, but she dreams of Ronjan plowing their ancestral property. She hears quite clearly the plops when he wades through the muddy water, standing on the plow and driving the oxen clicking his tongue. She hears a mellifluous ensemble of sounds: the plow’s blade slicing through the mud and the oxen running in the brown water, and Ronjan’s clicks. If the oxen behaved, Ronjan might break into whistling a Kishore Kumar number, lifting the spirits of all the men and women working in the paddy fields and the peacocks perched on the tamarind trees on the border of the fields; some 63

days he might even hum a Bhupen Hazarika song from the depths of his Bengali heart. Rukmini smiles living in the dream, listening to the songs and sounds, till she hears the sudden cry of Ronjan, clutching his left chest and stumbling over the plow. She wakes up with a start, and tries not to recollect the way he was dragged along the muddy water by a pair of confused and alarmed oxen. Pouring tea from a steel vessel into a tumbler at the stroke of eleven, Rukmini saw through the corner of her eye Ronjan falling over the wooden plank. She threw away the tea and the vessels, and ran towards her husband, screaming hysterically. The peacocks flew away with a flutter from the sagely tamarinds. Rukmini listens to her daughter, Sita, breathing heavily, sleeping next to her. Sita has inherited her father’s love for music, and often sings, taking the whole family back to their days at Mirpur. Mattancherry and Fort Kochi cherish memories of an elderly generation which harbours music and musicians in the heart. The singers, like most of them anywhere in the world, have an inclination to be failures and become alcoholics later in life. Every elderly man at Mattancherry will tell you how they all love Mehboob Bhai, the son of the Fort Kochi soil. Occasionally, Mehboob Nights are good business for Nandilal, and a nostalgic night for Rukmini, who would wipe away a secret teardrop in the dark, wishing her husband were with them, holding her hands when the Mehboob Memorial Orchestra rendered a soulful Kishoreda number. Sitting by the well, rubbing his eyes, Nandilal knows that his younger brother needs another volley of shaking and pushing to emerge from under the sheet to help their mother in the kitchen mix milk and sugar to the hot tea. “Nandi, your tea is ready,” his mother calls out from the kitchen. Your tea—how can one glass of tea be different from the hundreds 64

of glasses of tea that she makes in a day? But he knows, he knows it in his bones, that she makes one special for him. Sitting by the well, leaning on its grey cement pillar with continents of lichen patches, Nandilal takes a swig of that strong, deep brown tea from a glass he has used for many years now. As the hot tea touches his tongue, taste-buds crack open to take in the aroma and the freshness of the export quality tea which the supplier from Idukki has gifted him as an appreciation of regular business. When he drinks that special tea from his mother every morning before he begins selling hundreds of glasses of them, Nandilal remembers his father’s dying moments and how the workers in the paddy-field poured a glass of tea into his stiff, tilted mouth before he was hurriedly taken to a clinic. His last drink was tea. Emptying the dregs in the glass into his mouth, Nandilal gets up and runs the iron bucket with its rope into the well, checking its speed by firming his grip. In no time, the bucket plops into the water at the deep end of the well. He draws it up and splashes the cold water on to his face. The day begins. Sabin Iqbal is a senior journalist-turned festival curator and author of the critically acclaimed novel, The Cliffhangers. He has been an editor and writer in India and abroad for over 20 years. Sabin’s second novel, ‘Shamal Days’, will be published soon by HarperCollins India. He curated the three editions of ‘Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters’, which has become one of the leading literary festivals in South Asia. Sabin’s other positions include: Editorial Director, Kochi- Muziris-Biennale, Senior Editor, Tehelka; Senior Asst. Editor, Business India; Senior Sub-editor, The Gulf Today; Editor, Sports Today. He has also written for Outlook, Open, Cricinfo, The Indian Express, etc., and reported for BBC Scotland. He lives in Trivandrum, Kerala. 65

HANSADHVANI, THE SWAN SONG! Neeti Parti No one really knew when it all began… Perhaps one could ask the Madhumalti. After all they had grown together, ‘flowered together’ and spread their fragrance together. Divya had crawled out of the door, crossing its threshold for the first time that bright day. A tiny bundle of joy! A bunch of ringlets had caught the light of the sun as she peeped out. A diminutive face followed. Sparkling eyes looked all around like a royal princess surveying her kingdom. She liked what she saw and let out a whoop of pure delight as she found freedom on all fours. Madhumalti was a tiny sapling rooted near the door of the hillside cottage that was Divya’s abode. She noticed Divya and whispered a friendly rustle. “Come to me Divya, be my friend!” At that mystical moment, the sun sent one of its Divine Dancing Rays as a blessing upon Divya and the world changed forever, or so the legend goes… Awareness Dawns A strange, undefined bond formed between a girl and a vine. Divya periodically crawled up to Madhumalti and they would share deep conversations in swishing whispers like the susurration of gentle waves. 66

Soon butterflies began coming close to listen to the tête-à-tête, fluttering their multi-hued wings. Delighted, they would form a circle of the most exotic crown upon Divya’s head. Divya would giggle in absolute joy and all the flowers in the garden would open and close their petals in an enchanting rhythm. A cuckoo alighted on Madhumalti one spring day and began to sing of the glory of nature. Divya, now an energetic six year old, was playing in the garden. She was mesmerised by the song and stood transfixed, listening to the amazing rendition, absorbing every note. Instantly, almost naturally, she found herself joining in. Taken aback, the bird began singing on a higher note. Undeterred, Divya picked up the note and raised it a notch. This went on till the girl and the bird began to sing in tandem. Divya began cloning the flexible song learning mechanism of the cuckoo to imitate sounds of other birds. As time went on, Divya began to speak in the language of all beautiful creatures around her. She would often wander into the woods just outside her picturesque hilly village in her quest to communicate with different birds and animals. She would crow with the rooster in the morning, chirp with the sparrows, and chatter with the magpies. So beautiful were Divya’s songs that peacocks began gathering to spread their fan like feathers filling the garden with bright iridescent colours as they danced, squirrels began peeping from the trees above and rabbits stuck their heads out of their cosy homes to listen to the sounds of music. An avid reader and always thirsting for new knowledge, Divya came upon the story of the legendry singer Tansen, one of the navratnas or nine gems of Akbar’s court. She read that his renditions of ragas invoked emotion in nature and he could tame animals and birds by replicating their voice. The story had a deep impact on her and she began to firmly believe that music was her true calling. Music became her life, 67

her obsession. She would pay obeisance to Ma Saraswati and begin her day with riyaaz of the seven notes or swaras - Shadja, Rishabh, Gandhar, Madhyam, Pancham, Dhaivat, and Nishad. Urging her on was her constant companion, the Madhumalti at whose feet Divya would sit. Divya would begin to sing in soft languorous tones and slowly build up the tempo. Madhumalti and the ever-blowing breeze would listen intently for the pallavi or the opening stanza to begin and then join in by providing the rustling beat. The song and the beat would build up as Divya and Madhumalti reached higher octaves and ended in a heavenly crescendo! Such were Divya’s lilting melodies that the earth swelled up with emotion and burst forth in a clear gurgling stream that began flowing along the garden carrying the story of the young, talented singer to adjoining lands. Ushering in Spring Divya caught the attention of the villagers who began to gather to listen to her. Weary travellers stopped by to hear her and felt magically relieved of their tiredness. Everyone noticed that plants were healthier in her garden and the flowers stayed radiant and forever blooming in the enchanted musical greens. There was indeed something charismatic about her. Soon the village head came by. He was a wise old man who everyone addressed as Bapu, an endearing term for father. Bapu loved his little hillside village and constantly thought of its wellbeing. Divya’s talent gave him the most unusual idea. An idea that highly amused the villagers. He decided to invite Divya near the fields to sing Raga Basant Bahar, the compound melodic raga, during the approaching spring to watch its effect on the crops. Divya was moved by the invite but was fearful of the challenge it held. She knew a crowd would gather in order to mock her 68

but she decided to disregard negative thoughts and put her mind and soul into the task. She had a few weeks to practise before she went public with her recital. On the final day Divya carried the sweet-smelling flowers that the Madhumalti had given her for good luck and offered them to Ma Saraswati. Then, she began singing a composition in the twelve matra Ektaal. The rendition awakened the senses of all who were present. The gathering that had collected to have fun at Divya’s expense and had been talking and laughing, fell totally silent. Feeling enthused, Divya followed her initial rendition with a fast-paced composition in the sixteen matra Teental. What followed was truly amazing and something that would become a part of the village folklore forever. The magnificence of Raag Basant Bahar visibly brightened the sunshine, made new seeds sprout, buds open and the entire field fill with colour in a single sunlit sweep! Divya had not only swayed the crowd with her voice, she had performed a miracle right in front of their eyes. Little did she know where this path would lead her… Henceforth, she was viewed as an enchantress! Showers of Blessing At eighteen, Divya had blossomed into a beauty. Her skin was creamy, her hair had found their way to her tiny waist. She tied them up in a loose plait that swayed merrily behind her as she walked like the waters of the flowing stream which flowed in gentle waterfalls and ripples. Music was Divya’s life. It dominated her complete being. So much so, that her normal conversations were like musical notes strung together. Madhumalti kept rhythm with her during her daily performance, while the gurgling waters of the spring would applaud her euphonious efforts. 69

One summer day when Divya was deep into her mellifluous recital, she noticed an unusual quiet. The susurrus beat of Madhumalti had gone silent. Divya opened her eyes and looked at her floral friend only to find she had drooped, was panting and gasping for breath. Alarmed by the situation, Divya asked her the reason. She had to lean forward to hear Madhumalti’s voice, now barely a whisper. “I am dying!” Madhumalti said. “There has been no rain.” Divya realised the land had dried up, her garden was wearing a sad look and the stream had reduced to a trickle. Alarmed, she ran into the village to find that the wells had almost run out of water. The villagers were talking of abandoning the village as they were fearful of the famine to follow if it did not rain. Deep concern tugged at Divya’s heart. She could not let the village suffer. A voice inside her knocked at her conscience to help ease the situation. She felt that Raga Megh Malhar might be the answer but had never sung it in the open. Maybe, it would bring forth the gift of dark clouds and relieve every one of their suffering. She could not let Madhumalti die a slow death. Seeking the blessings of Lord Indra, Divya launched into the Raga. Her voice got carried to the village and a crowd assembled. As the song became intense, so did the sunshine, till it became so hot that sweat began to trickle down Divya’s back. The crowd began to jeer and ridicule. They wanted her to stop but Divya kept singing as though in a trance. Hurling abuses at her, the villagers left. Only the frail Bapu remained. Hours passed and the sun sank. The song continued. The darkness of the night ruled over the skies. The song and the faith of Bapu continued… It was early in the morning when clouds began gathering ‑rolling clouds heavy with rain accompanied by thunder and lightning. The song continued till showers of pelting rain poured down on Divya, till the young and the old came out of their homes to dance, till their tears of joy began mixing with the life-giving drops from above! 70

So happy was Madhumalti that she grew and grew till she covered every inch of Divya’s cottage in an eternal aromatic embrace. Henceforth, Divya was viewed as an enchantress with a healing touch! The Swan Song A soft luminescent glow seemed to emanate from Divya. Tiny white flowering saplings sprang up wherever she walked, leaving a trail of a splendid three-dimensional carpet. Doves appeared out of nowhere to fly over her, announcing her arrival in soft coos! Unbeknownst to her, the tales of Divya’s beauty and kindness of heart had spread far and wide. Prince Shivendra, who was a lover of art and a poet of great acclaim, lived in the adjoining kingdom, decided to see for himself if all he had heard was true. As he rode through the forest, he heard the most haunting melody. Completely captivated, he followed the angelic sound to find Divya singing next to Madhumalti totally unaware of the bewitching quality of her song. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He fell instantly in love with her. It was not long before Prince Shivendra swept Divya off her feet, confessed his undying love for her in the most complimentary poems penned especially for her and asked her to be his companion for life. Divya had never experienced the all-consuming emotion of love. Overcome with affection, she accepted the proposal by singing sweet songs of endearment and decided to be his forever. The date for the royal wedding was set for spring. It was the first day of the weeklong celebration. Wedding songs would be sung all day. Divya stepped out to take the blessings of her closest friend the Madhumalti, who had invited fascinating birds and butterflies for the occasion. They began to sing tender 71

strains of adulation for Divya. Listening to their beat, swept away by romantic dreams, she too joined in. Presently, she began gliding across her garden softly touching each blooming flower with half closed eyes, a smile playing upon her rosy lips. As Divya moved to the edge of her arbour, she felt a streak of warm moisture across her palms, causing her to come out of her dreamlike trance. She opened her eyes to find a young mother cradling an ailing baby in her arms, tears running down her cheeks. She began to plead with Divya to save her child. She informed Divya that a deadly virus had seeped into their village and was attacking the immune system of the children. The village doctor had no cure. He predicted that all the children would not live beyond a week! While the woman was narrating her tale of woe, more and more women carrying their babies began to emerge from all directions, wailing silently, faces wet with tears of helplessness and sorrow. Overcome with anguish, Divya sank unconscious to the ground. She awakened to find Bapu’s worried face looking at her. He began to weep. His chest heaving with sobs, he begged Divya to save the future generation of the entire village. At that moment, Divya’s world changed - her happiness changed to unbearable pain, what was she to do, what kind of a test was life taking? Unable to bear the besieging looks of the suffering mothers, she ran into her cottage and shut the door. But try as she might, she could not shut out the raw fear that she had spotted in the helpless eyes. Traumatised, Divya opened a window of her cottage and reached out to the overhanging tendril of her ever-present, all weather friend, the Madhumalti, to look for solace and advice. Madhumalti wrapped itself around her and spoke to her in soothing whispers. Said she, “Divya, you have been granted the most powerful gift of music. It is your true strength. It will 72

be the instrument to end this suffering.” Thoughts like a raging river began racing through her head. Divya knew that Haridas Swami, guru of Tansen, had helped recuperate one of Akbar’s queens with a life- giving raga. She had read that certain elements in parent ragas control more than hundred nerves in the body and their ascending (aaroh) and descending (avroh) notes govern moods and mobility that play an important role in the therapeutic prowess of music. In particular, energy giving Raga Hansadhwani helped to regenerate cells and bring back energy. Dare she attempt the Raga? She had only six days to prepare. No, no she couldn’t do it. But then the children might die! Strange was destiny - her wedding day coincided with the fateful day the children may cease to exist. Like every girl she had dreamt of the day she would join her soul mate for a journey of a lifetime. She would marry her handsome prince and raise her own family. Her children, the symbol of her love, would fill her world with limitless joy. Her children? What about the children outside? Their lives were hanging by a thread. What was it to be? Her life or theirs? Torn by emotion, Divya ran down to sit at the edge of the rippling stream, unstoppable tears rolling down her eyes into the shimmering water. She looked up at the steady moonshine and sent up a silent prayer to the cosmos seeking heavenly guidance. Almost instantaneously, a majestic pair of snow-white swans appeared in the water. In the moonlight they shone like priceless pearls. Divya knew she had received an empyrean sign! She 73

smiled, accepted her fate with grace and thanked the stars for showing her the path. Time was of the essence. Divya began her practice of Raga Hansadhwani. Prince Shivendra became concerned and arrived to check on Divya but she remained resolute to her cause. Days melted into the night; dawn came and gave way to dusk as music continued to rule the confines of the cottage while mothers with babies in arms kept vigil outside. The sun was setting when Divya emerged on the seventh day dressed as a bride. She looked breathtakingly beautiful in her flame coloured silk lehanga embroidered in a golden paisley design. An exotic necklace of emeralds studded in gold twinkled at her throat, a red Kumkum bindi adorned her forehead but her dark kohled eyes bordered with curled eyelashes outshone the sheen of all that was gold! Divya gave her lover a last look full of love as she sat down to fulfil the call of her destiny. The entire village had convened by now. A hushed silence had fallen over. Having exhausted their tears, the mothers were dry eyed. The young children in their mothers’ laps looked lifeless. Divya sat down in lotus position on the red velvet sheet trimmed with gold that her prince had spread for her at the foot of Madhumalti. The timing was ideal as Raga Hansadhwani is sung in the early hours of the night from 6 PM to 9 PM. She had three hours. She took a deep breath and began singing the aaroh and avroh before adopting the medium fast pulse or Madhyamkala. The pace of the breeze matched the music and helped Madhumalti provide the perfect metre. An hour passed. The undeviating, smooth, unceasing song began to feel like a soothing balm. Then the tempo increased ever so slightly and Divya’s voice became stronger. The wind and Madhumalti detected the change and followed suit. 74

The penultimate hour passed. Almost imperceptibly colour began to return to the children’s cheeks. The last hour was now at hand. Was it going to be a ‘life-giving’ hour? Deep in concentration, Divya did not notice a pair of swans enter her garden to settle down on her left and right as though supporting her from either side. The momentum began picking up with each passing minute. There were only ten minutes left. Every nerve in her neck began to swell with strain. The children started to stir. Five minutes to go… Divya stood up, her arms raised heavenwards, her eyes closed, her song unbroken. All mothers stood up. Almost like a wave - layer upon layer of villagers stood up. The song turned furious in its endeavour. Blood began to trickle from the corner of Divya’s mouth. The children let out a soft moan. Divya sensed the change. She realised she would have to put every bit of her strength into her last notes to infuse life into the young. It would have to be her life for theirs. Her song reached an earth-shattering crescendo. Bubbles of ruby red beads ran down her throat. Divya’s piercing notes hung in the air. She shuddered in her final effort and lay still. 75

Simultaneously the children’s eyes fluttered open. The pair of swans opened their wings, flew a full circle over the openly weeping crowd and disappeared, never to be seen again. Spontaneous fireworks exploded in the skies spraying stars of silver. Madhumalti shed tears of pride in the form of hundreds of scented flowers and covered Divya with eternal glory! Neeti Parti is an educationist, a prize winning poetess and writer, an exhibited artist, an editor and a senior level academic trainer. She is the Pan India Director of a renowned chain of schools. As Founder Principal of a well reputed Senior Secondary School, she received the ‘Award for Best Upcoming School in Uttar Pradesh’. She has contributed to more than thirty anthologies and edited four. She received ‘The Best New Editor Award’ from The Impish Lass Publishing House, ‘The Wordsmith Award 2019’ Certificate of Excellence for Poetry from The Asian Literary Society and the ‘Prassana Jena Memorial Award’ Certificate of Excellence for short story writing among other laurels. She is an RJ and a television artist. She lives in Gurgaon, India. 76

SCENT OF ROSES Geetha Nair G. The enormous Hall was brightly lit. It was filled with finely-dressed men and women. Slaves swung huge fans rhythmically to keep them cool. There was an air of expectancy, of excitement everywhere. She was dressed in brilliant red. Ornaments flamed from her forehead, ears, nose, neck, bosom, waist and ankles. Her long hair was plaited and heaped with fragrant white jasmine. In her hands she held a garland of roses. She moved sedately by the side of her father. A minister was accompanying them. He was pointing out to her the young men who sat on the carved, throne-like seats. He would stop at each prince and speak of his kingdom, prowess, and virtues. She barely heeded his words. They passed by several. Where was the man she had carved on her heart? The young prince with dreamy eyes and curly hair whom she had seen by chance one evening. She had been seated in the royal carriage which had stopped when she commanded it to. The white horses had neighed and pawed the ground while the coachman had striven to quieten them. She had gazed out at the marketplace vibrant with colour, rich with scents. There had been music playing somewhere. It was then that she had seen him. He was on horseback, surrounded by his soldiers. His royal headdress shone in the sun. He had thrown her a long look. It had pierced her and filled her with a sweetness she had never tasted before. A page boy had come running up to her and given her a red rose. From him. From her Prince. She had kept it in her casket, inhaling its heady fragrance until it turned to faintly-scented potpourri. Where was that man she had kept her garland of roses for? She knew he would not miss her swayamvara. Yes. There he was, at 77

the very end, his face turned away from her. They paused near him. He turned his head. She saw that his face was a skull. Red roses sprouted from his eye sockets and his gaping jaw. The garland fell from her hands. She screamed in horror. Several heads were raised briefly. She must have uttered some sound. The exam hall quickly went back to rustling silence. She bent to pick up the pen that had fallen from her hand. What on earth, she thought. Did I fall asleep, then? During the invigilation of a University exam? Incredible. Never had such a thing happened in her fairly long innings as a lecturer in this college she worked in. She was known for her ability to detect and seize strips, scraps and rolls of paper scribbled with formulae, definitions, major points. Once, she had even caught a girl in a knee-length skirt whose thighs were covered in artful script! She could never understand why these misses could not have spent an hour a day studying… But to think she had dozed off! Yet, such slips had been a problem for some months now. In full swing in class, she would reach, gasping, stunned, for a name, a year, a line that she had always known like the back of her hand. It would elude her, stay just out of reach. Once she had walked into the right class and taught the wrong topic. Another day, she had walked into the wrong class and taught the wrong topic. It was very worrying indeed. She got up and resumed her swivel-eyed prowl, starched cotton sari crackling as she walked. What a weird dream it had been! She and swayamvara! It was absurd! And her father; poor, dead, retired bank manager, shabby dresser, wearing a king’s garb and taking her down the prince-studded path! Hers had been an arranged marriage; her parents had chosen a suitable man, she had okayed him and that was that. Her marriage was a satisfactory one. The Prince on horseback must have emerged from her childhood reading. But what of the roses? Where had they fallen from? 78

It was then that her eyes fell on a dupatta that a student had draped over the back of her chair. They did that, some girls, to be unhampered while writing. She stopped at the chair to look at the dupatta more closely. It was white with big red roses all over it. As she looked, the roses started moving swiftly. They converged and became a single red rose. Suddenly, there was a scent of roses in the hall. She picked up the dupatta, kissed the rose and wound the dupatta round her neck. The startled girl gaped at her, and then started to giggle. Quickly, others too started sniggering and murmuring. The noise in the hall seemed deafening to her. In fury, she snatched the written sheets from the girl’s desk and tore them. Now the girl was shrieking. People were running towards her. Then it was she who was shrieking. Everything was strangely silent. Had she fainted and been carried out of the exam hall? She did not dare to open her eyes. O how would she face the consequences of her act? Her unforgivable act? How could she face that poor student, all the others, her colleagues, the Principal? O, the pain of it, the shame of it! She would flee the place and send in her resignation. Slowly, she opened her eyes. Why, she was not in college! She was in bed! She was in a pale blue nightie, not in a sari. The ceiling fan whirred above her. No exam hall. No dupatta. No torn answer sheets. It had been a nightmare, yet another one of them! She heaved a sigh of relief. But where was she? “Just one more injection,” said a voice. She turned towards it. A nurse stood by her bed, holding a syringe. She tried to jump up. Restraining arms pinned her down. She felt the needle enter her arm. She heard the nurse say, “One of her bad days; now and then she has these bouts.” As she slid into oblivion, she felt a fragrance in the air. The scent of roses. 79

Geetha Nair G. is an award-winning author of two collections of poetry: ‘Shored Fragments’and ‘Drawing Flame’. Her work has been reviewed favourably in The Journal of the Poetry Society (India) and other notable literary periodicals. Her most recent publication is a collection of short stories titled ‘Wine, Woman and Wrong’. She is also a former Associate Professor of English, All Saints’ College, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. 80

GREEN DAYS Geetha Nair G. When I go back in memory to that October of my boyhood, I see everything in green. The lush fields of young paddy, the thick–foliaged trees, and the vegetation luxuriating in the second monsoon Kerala is blessed with and in the midst of it all, the pond blossoming in a riot of bright green plate– leaves. I had just turned eight. My mother had brought me to her ancestral home in that little village in the toe hills of the Ghats. In a sprawling, tiled house set in acres of farmland lived my grandparents. My grandfather was dark and loud–voiced. His mouth was always red from the pan he chewed. I was in awe of him. My grandmother, on the other hand, was fair and round and comfortable. She wore a gold chain that had three rows of beads. I liked to count the beads. She would put me on her lap and tell me about my mother's pranks as a child. My mother had come to her home as she was going to deliver a baby soon. I was ecstatic that I was missing three months of class. My mother tutored me every morning but the rest of the day was my very own to be happy in. I had the best of company–Smitha chichi. Smitha chechi looked like the young ladies in the serials my grandmother watched every evening on TV. She was always ready to listen to me and to tell me stories. At night, Smithu would tell me tales of princes and princesses, gandharvas and yakshis till I dropped asleep.I especially liked the stories about gandharvas-those divine singers who came to earth as handsome young men and made young women fall in love with them.“Are there any gandharvas here?” I asked her once. “They are everywhere,” Smitha replied, smiling. She was combing her long, lovely hair. “Smithu, come with me to my Mumbai flat; there are no gandharvas anywhere there,\" I said to her earnestly. But she only shook her head.When I entreated her again, she said, holding my face gently between her palms, “I shall be with you. Not now, but when you are this tall.” She 81

indicated the tall, wooden almirah in the corner with an incline of her head. “You will have a big moustache then, like the one Bhasi the policeman has!”We dissolved in laughter at the image this conjured up. Smitha was a chechi, an older sister, though not really related to me. She stayed with my grandparents as she had only an impoverished mother somewhere far away. All this I had picked up in the talk between my mother, aunt and grandmother, mainly during the commercial breaks in the serials. Little goglets have big ears. My mother had entrusted me to Smithu, as I called her. After lunch, her housework being over for the day, she and I would walk to the hen house at the edge of the property. This was a proper house, an old one that was now used to house a hundred hens. It was part of a poultry development programme that had become popular in Kerala at the time. We carried baskets with us. In every room, hens nested in wire coops with doors. Smithu taught me how to open a coop, slide my hand gently under the clucking hen there and find the warm egg in the softness under her. It was a thrilling and deeply satisfying exercise. I would count the eggs after every hen had been examined and robbed. There were as many as sixty to seventy eggs on most days. An official came now and then to supervise matters. He knew no Malayalam; Smithu knew next to no English. I was the interpreter by virtue of my fluency in both languages. Smithu told me she was grateful I had come to solve her problem. I do not remember his name but I remember he had strange, grey eyes and a happy laugh. He would swing me round and round and then lift me on to his shoulders all the while singing in some strange language After egg–gathering came the trip to our private pond at the eastern edge of the property. She would carry the laundry for the day; I would carry my towel. I loved splashing in the shallows and killing imaginary enemies with my swords of reed while Smithu washed the clothes. I always waited for the part when she would beat the dhotis on the big stone at the edge of the water. The drops of water flew up in a huge arc and then came down like 82

rain. It was beautiful. Sometimes, if the watery October sun was out, I could even glimpse a rainbow. Next, she would bathe me and dry me. All but my legs, because I would spend the next half hour fishing, trying to catch the little grey fish that darted this way and that in the water. Sometimes, during this session, Smithu would leave me to disappear into the thick high grove that edged one side of the pond. She said she needed to pick yellow mandaram flowers that grew there. \"Don't follow me, Ramu,\" she would warn, \"I saw a gandharva there once and the yakshi who kills humans and drinks their blood lives on the pala tree deep within the grove.\" Indeed, I was a little uneasy until she came back; what if a gandharva found Smithu or the bloodthirsty female ghost sailed down from her tree? One evening, as I was catching fish, I heard shouts and shrieks from the grove. The gandharva, I thought, trembling in fear. A figure came speeding out of the grove. It was a woman, her long hair flying behind her as she ran. The yakshi! But it was Smithu, wrapped in the green sari she had been wearing that day. Behind her came my grandfather and an old retainer of ours, brandishing stout sticks. They vanished into the adjoining property. I stood there, knee-deep in the water, terrified. I seemed to have been forgotten. After a while, I ran home. The wrung-out clothes were still on the big stone. My grandfather was already home when I climbed the verandah that led to my mother's room. She hushed me when I asked her what the matter was. Later, I found Smithu wrapped in the green sari, lying on the floor of her room, sobbing.”Who hurt you, Smithu? Was it the gandharva or Grandfather?” I asked her, stroking her tear- stained cheek. My grandmother took me away from there. The next morning I searched for Smithu but she was nowhere to be found. Her bag was missing too. No trace of her remained in that house. I missed her. I missed her very much indeed. An old woman had been hired to help with the household chores that Smithu used to take care of. I no longer went to the pond because the 83

old woman washed clothes at the well. One afternoon, I slipped away and ran to the pond. A green stillness enveloped it. I looked up at the grove. A figure emerged out of it. It was a woman. Her long, black hair was unbound and floated behind her. She was dressed in the same green sari she had been wearing the last time I had seen her, it was my Smithu. I called out to her in joy. But she did not reply. She moved back into the thicket. I could no longer see her. The pond rippled as a cold wind swept over it. I turned away and walked back home. I knew I would see her again. But not until twenty years later, after I flew down from Bangalore to perform the funeral rites for my grandfather. There were many people whom I did not remember or know; mine had been a long absence from my ancestral home. I had also been alienated for years from my parents. I noticed a young girl, slim, long-haired, and beautiful; something about her brought back my lost Smithu. From my aunt, I got to know that it was indeed the daughter of my old, dear companion. I pressed her to tell me the whole story. Smithu had been sent away in disgrace after she had been found with a man in that grove. She went back to her mother, delivered a baby girl some months later and disappeared. No one knew what had become of her. The child was put into an orphanage in the nearby town. Two years back, the girl was brought to my ancestral home, much as Smithu had been brought years back. My parents and sister left for Mumbai after the twelfth-day rites. I wanted to stay back for a few more days. As days went by Seetha, Smithu’s daughter and I became pretty close. One day she took me to the old hen house. Now there were only about ten of them. As if I did not know, she showed me how to open a coop, slide my hand gently under the clucking hen there and find the warm egg in the softness under her. I felt as thrilled as the first time Smithu had taken me there twenty years ago. After the egg–gathering she took me to the pond 84