Jagged Pages

Flipping through the pages of her diary, Pushpa reached a page she always had avoided reading. With the grey in her hair overshadowing the black and a pristine white Sari hugging her would-have-been-stunning-30 yrs ago figure, she was lying down on the cranky swing at night. The stars were looking at her from the sky and she was finding a star amongst all of them. A star who she knew had been gracing her diary’s half torn page since almost 25 years. She always read her diary but the moment her finger felt the torn page she shut it close. But tonight was different. The swing swung in steady motion and the night stopped growing dark but Pushpa still was looking at the page, feeling it with her somewhat wrinkled hand. Putting her spectacles on her teary eyes and wiping those tears before wearing her specs. A jagged cloud covered the full moon, snatching away with it whatever of the blue moonlight that was soaking the wide backyard of Pushpa’s ancestral bungalow. She looked at the empty terrace which was looking at her blankly, with a strange sorrow in its environs.

“Why did you not tell me before, Pushpa? Did I not you with all my life? Did I not give you all the happiness you ever dreamt off? Did I not just love you with all my heart? Why did you not tell me Pushpa..?” he had said with tears in his eyes.

“I didn’t know myself…” she had said.

“Can you not live with me anymore..? Has that night changed the entire dynamics of our relationship?” he asked her with a glint of unmistakable hope in his wet eyes.

He was standing on the terrace. It was a no-moon night. They had been married for 5 years then. Wearing a white Kurta and a distinctly visible scar under his right eye, he was looking at her standing a few steps behind him, in her mauve colored Sari, her neck down and a succinct guilt in her body language as her hands kept fumbling with each others, lips pursing tightly against each other and eyes, stoic.

“It’s over then.” He said and hugged her tight. He looked into her eyes and was about to kiss her before he sternly turned back.

“I didn’t know myself, Shri…” she said.

“I wish you did...” he looked back and smiled.

Before she could blink her eyes, he jumped off. That was the last time he hugged her.
It was 30 years back. She’s been wearing a white Sari since then. What happened that night was what was written on that torn page of her diary.

She had tears in her eyes as she looked at the terrace then looking at the ground, where Shri had fallen straight into an iron rod which the construction guys had erected. The rod had pierced straight through his heart. Swoosh and he was gone. His heart bled as he died. It was bleeding ever since he read that diary page and tore it before reading the end. The moment he had reached the page’s end, he stopped tearing it.

“Is this… true...?” he had asked her, terrifyingly shocked at the revelation.

“Yes”, she said, without an iota of doubt in her mind.

He slammed the diary close and paced towards the terrace. She followed him, her mauve Sari fluttering as she ran behind him.

The torn page was fluttering. The cloud had moved, the moon lit up the backyard again. She sighed and started reading.



27th October 1973

Tonight was the weirdest night of my life. It shook me out of a few misconceptions I had been living with, sleeping with. When I boarded the train compartment of the Mumbai bound train, mom was weeping as usual. She always cries when I leave. Mothers are bizarre creatures; they cry when they shouldn’t and become stern in a situation that would bring anyone to tears. Dad came into the compartment with me. A first class compartment is quite a luxury. I was thinking about Shri as I was sitting at my window. He loves me so much. I always wanted to have a person like him to spend my life with.

I could hear the compartment door slide open. A heavy looking black suit-case was pushed in and was followed by its occupant. Our eyes met. Smiles were exchanged. I got back to reading my Mills n Boon which I have been reading after I married Shri. I can see him in all the romantic heroes in these novels. My fellow passenger was pretty modern looking, gracing these newly arrived trousers; I don’t remember what they call em, but Rajesh Khanna and Zeenat Aman have made em a rage amongst college youths. That movie also has made the college kids go in a frenzy trying drugs and all. The country is going to the dogs. Why do they make such movies? Anyways the kid with me offered me a wafer which I couldn’t refuse pushing us into a conversation. We were similar individuals with similar backgrounds and problems. My marriage though happy isn’t satisfactory in a certain way and I know the problem lies with me and not with Shri… there’s something that gives me that emptiness every time we…

The clock had hit 12 and we had come closer. Our hands holding each other and we continued to talk. I was shocked when I got to know a few things about my fellow passenger, stunned would be the word. I didn’t know how to react. I left that hand for a tense moment. But I was convinced that it was not wrong. It was just natural to get attracted. Some people land up in bad marriages which are good. And then love is not the only thing.

I went with the flow allowing a stranger to kiss me, feel my body and play with it like Shri never had. The fingers, the lips and the very passion exuded in every little touch were making me feel like a woman for the first time in my life. I never knew that I could feel this much. The train continued to speed on. So did us.

4 in the morning as we lay silently in each other’s arms, Pune arrived. The stranger got up and bid me goodbye. We exchanged addresses for further communication. But did I do the right thing? Shri loves me so much…

“Don’t feel sad Pushpa. Sometimes you never know” the stranger looking at me through the window as the train steamed out of Pune Station.

“You are right. I never knew. I can never forget you” I said, holding that hand till the platform ended.

I kept on looking at that unclear image till my eye could catch it. She was beautiful. Sukanya was rich, born and brought up in the States before she came to India for a vacation and caught the same train as mine. She was different and she told me about it. I was also the same, just that I never realized what it exactly was.

It was just that I never knew that I was a different kind of a woman. How do I tell this to Shri? He just loves me so much… God. Help me.

I will write to Sukanya tomorrow.

Tough day. The night would be tougher. He seems to be in the mood tonight.

-Pushpa.


With tears in her eyes, Pushpa closed her eyes. She reclined on the swing, pulled another blanket and closed her eyes thinking about the last thing she ever spoke to Shri.

“I didn’t know myself, Shri”

She never knew. She never wrote to Sukanya again. She never approached similar women. She stayed like any other widow would.

Maybe it was Shri’s love that kept her from doing so.
Maybe it was her way of saying, “I am sorry, Shri”.

Something she wanted to tell him in person. He never listened. She fell asleep on the swing, the terrace still staring blankly at her and one particular star shining brighter than the others.

-Nikhil Mahajan

Two Minds - 2

Lakshmaiyyah could not believe what he heard. Sometimes you don’t feel like trusting your senses and sometimes you feel that there weren’t any senses at all. He was experiencing what can be labeled as the juxtaposition of these two feelings. He could see a hundred dreams; rather unfinished tasks come crashing down in front of his eyes. His farm which was swept away by the waves could never be brought back to birth, his daughter would remain unmarried, maybe for the rest of her life, his house would fall in a few days, though it sustained the Tsunami, it would definitely not stand another scant rainfall.

“Stand aside man. The name’s not in the list. You don’t get the money.” The commissioner shouted, disturbing Lakshmaiyyah’s thoughts. Wiping those three odd tears which had been trickling down his eyes with his unclean brown handkerchief, he stepped aside.

“My wife died. Parvati Nair…” the next man in the line said. The commissioner got back to looking in his sheet. It was a job for him. Looking at the serpentine queue standing in front of their eyes, the commissioner’s two assistants were smiling sarcastically. Maybe they were thinking about how people came flocking to collect money for the death of someone so close to them and return home smiling after they get it.

“I used to think death makes people sad. Now I know, it gives them a reason to be happy.” one of them said as Parvati’s husband hugged his small daughter tight and rushed back home, relieved, after getting the compensation money.

“It makes them happy…” Lakshmaiyyah said, because, “It gives them another reason to live…”

The commissioner who had turned a deaf ear to the assistant’s comment looked at Lakshmaiyyah, zapped a bit. The assistants smiled and looked away.

“Death doesn’t have to breed death. It propels life to move on. My son’s death doesn’t make me happy. But this money does, rather, would have, because… it stops me from seeing my wife and daughter die…” he almost shouted and walked off, his white lungi shining whiter because of the sunrays. After looking him walk off, the commissioner cast an angry glance at the assistants, who promptly put their necks down in fake apology. Another silent moment later, he looked at the long queue ahead of him, smiled, and said, “Next”. “Queues have to move on. So does Life.” He thought to himself.

The sun had risen after long. The sea looks beautiful when the sunrays bounce back after clashing with the surging waves, creating a collage of vivid imagery of light and the seven colors. The pristine beach was shining a bit, the white sand and the blue water, the yellow gleaming rays of the sun, making it eloquent and silently beautiful. Lakshmaiyyah was sitting on the beach, with his legs folded and palms pressing against his forehead. Totally clueless about what has to be done next he could feel the lukewarm wave hit his weathered, cracked feet.

“You don’t exist” he looked at the sky. He was talking to the God he now knew didn’t exist. A starfish came near his feet, with another wave, spiraling him down memory lane.

“Appa, how many fish stay in the sea..?” little Rama had asked him, standing on the beach, as a tiny starfish had hit his tiny feet along with a wave.

Sitting in the sand, with his feet stretched and eyes closed, head pointing sunwards, Lakshmaiyyah was baffled at this question. He didn’t know how to answer it.

“Appa tell me…” Rama demanded a quick answer, making Lakshmaiyyah open his eyes.

“There are as many fish in the sea, as many stars are in the sky” his sister had answered the question before Lakshmaiyyah could provide little Rama with a more logical answer.

Rama was a bit baffled, before he realized his sister had made a fool out of him. He ran behind her, angrily as she fled towards the boat standing at the shore, through the gushing waves.

“Don’t run into the deep, Rama…” a smiling Lakshmaiyyah said.

“Aye Iyengar!!! Saab wants to see you” one of the assistants shouted from far, bringing Lakshmaiyyah back to the present. He nodded and began to get up looking in the direction where Rama had chased his taunting sister as another wave hit his feet.

The wave had become warmer. And Rama had gone too deep in the sea to hear him again.

Wiping his tears with the by now totally wet, brown handkerchief, Lakshmaiyyah approached the commissioner. The queue of compensation seekers had ended and the commissioner was far more at ease, reclining at his chair, sipping freshly brewed filter coffee from a yellow plastic mug with Vivek Oberoi’s photo across it.

“Sit Lakshmaiyyah” he said, softly.

Lakshmaiyyah obliged, sitting on the ground, looking up at the officer.

“See, now Rama’s name is not in the list. So there’s no way in which you can get the money.”

Lakshmaiyyah shifted in his place a bit uncomfortably.

“But”, sounding profound the commissioner continued, “There’s a small kid who you might adopt. He was found at the coast of the next village. The government provides 30 thousand rupees to the person who adopts kids who lost their parents. You seem to be a good man. You will take care of him.” He stopped, taking another sip from the mug.

Lakshmaiyyah was silent for a moment. He didn’t know what to do.

“Look, you lost your son. This kid lost his parents. He will complete your family. Treat him as his own. And then he gets with him the money you need to get back to your feet” the commissioner said, gauging Lakshmaiyyah’s state of two minds.

After a few moments, Lakshmaiyyah said, “Ok, I will take him home”

“Good then, he is there, sleeping on the backseat of the jeep. He was on a heavy dose of sedatives in the hospital. Sign these papers and take him with you.” The commissioner said matter of factly getting up from his chair and handing Lakshmaiyyah a 30 thousand cheque and some papers. Lakshmaiyyah took the cheque and signed the papers, his hands trembling a bit.

Lakshmaiyyah hesitantly started walking towards the jeep. He looked up in the sky and opened the back door of the jeep. As he looked at the child sleeping, with minor bruises on his face, he couldn’t believe his sight.

It was his own Ramakrishna in the jeep, sleeping peacefully in a blue-black blanket. With an unusual euphoria visible across his face, Lakshmaiyyah picked Rama up and kissed him on his cheeks and hugged him close to his chest. The kid was too under sedatives to notice his father’s outburst of love.

But as the moment of euphoria faded, Lakshmaiyyah felt a pang. If he told the commissioner that this kid was Ramakrishna, he would not get the 30 thousand rupees. But if he went off silently, he would get Rama as well as the money. He had two options, either sharing his happiness with the kind commissioner, who gave him the chance to adopt the kid or walking off with the cheque without thanking the man who gave him his kid back. One option was stressing on his needs, the other was playing with his integrity.

Lakshmaiyyah had never experiences the battle of consciences before. With his two minds battling against each other, racing to get their own things done, their own thoughts succeed, Lakshmaiyyah was getting pulled between the two consciences, with little Rama sleeping cozily near his heart.

But the money was necessary. He would need the money even more now, as Rama was back. Lakshmaiyyah decided to walk off silently. As he took his first step from the jeep, Rama opened his eyes and looked at him, smiled and said “Appa…” in a very sleepy, saccharine voice, before sleeping again.

That one word broke the dam of tears which Lakshmaiyyah had built in his heart. He wept uncontrollably, kissing Rama every time a lump came up his throat. He knew that he had to thank the commissioner. No money would ever get his away from the guilt if he didn’t express his gratitude.

He rushed towards the commissioner, with the cheque in his hand. Before he could speak a word, the commissioner spoke,

“You can call the kid Ramakrishna, Lakshmaiyyah. And you can have the cheque” he smiled.

Shocked, Lakshmaiyyah said, “Sir, You knew..?”

The commissioner looked at him, smiled and said, “Go home Iyengar. Your wife and daughter are waiting”

Lakshmaiyyah stood there baffled as the commissioner turned and walked away. He looked at him walk away and then looked up in the sky.

“You do exist” he said, smiled and turned back holding Rama closer leaving behind the beach alone. Gleaming, shining and smiling, in the newly risen sun.

- Nikhil Mahajan.