Sunday, May 18, 2008

The man with a helmet


After a daylong journey, I got down from the super fast bus, on the side of the national highway. The midnight was over. The national highway could not sleep due to the fast flowing vehicles, sharp lightened eyes in the, in front, and flew away with reddish eyes, at the back.
The road turns left is the way I have to go. No auto rickshaws were parking at the bus stop, as usually happens. Some Lorries and occasional vehicles turned this way and disappeared quickly at the turning.
I waited for an auto rickshaw, which will surely come, no doubt. But my waiting extended for a long time but there was signal of no auto rickshaws coming.
I was actually tired. I wished that I should lie to my bed and sweep in to fast asleep and that expectations remained, as a dream. No auto rickshaws entered to the spot to rescue me.
Suddenly a bike came turning to the side road. The rider was wearing a black helmet. His body was covered with a black overcoat .He has worn black shoes, and handcuffs also.
The bike stopped a few yards away. Without turning his face, he just turned his hand and invited me with a gesture. I thought that that might be an acquaintance of mine. I rushed forward. I tried to realize his face. But he did not remove his helmet. I sat at the back seat, the bike rushed forward in an over speed, with a grunting sound. He was an expert rider. With a fearful humming sound, the bike leaped through the sharp turnings and gutters through darkness.
I tried to speak to him. But all my questions were unanswered perhaps due to the sound of the bike my questions were unheard by him. The huge speed of the bike, however did not affect my balance. Within a few minutes, I felt that a long way had been covered.

It was a heavy dark night. The black trees on the roadside flew back. He never turned the bike on the gutters but nothing happened. I was in a fear mood. Riding with a stranger in the late hours of a darkly night whose face even cannot be seen, and he speaks nothing, is a strange experience, that also in an over speed.

Unexpectedly he braked the bike. The bike stopped was a junction. I awoke from a trance. I realized that it is the junction, I have to get down. Ofcourse he might be an acquaint of mine, otherwise how he would know my bus stop.
“Thank you very much,” I said, “Would you please remove your helmet? I would like to see your face. Because without my request you give me a lift in these late hours”

The man slowly turned his face towards me. His arms moved like a robot’s arms. He removed the helmet. A roar from the down earth heard.

That man had no head.

I saw nothing and heard nothing but thunder balls and lightening.

He put back his helmet and ride away. I did not see anything. Only the red eyes of the bike in the back side. That red light remained as a dot for a long time.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

The nun, worn the veil of rain





Books were not my only weakness, but it was an indivisible part of life. To visit bookstalls, stare at the books; take them in hand and fondling them for a long time forgetting the outer world, was my hobby.
It was a burning summer noon. I was inside the shelter of a bookstall. I happened to see a book from the dark part of the shelf and it was a book on “rain” titled “the veil of rain”. At first sight, I thought it is a collection of poetry.
But, it was a study of rain, rain spread in literature. The first work regarding rain in the language, and who is the author? I was surprised, it was a nun. “Sister Cicila Maria”

I bought that faded yellowish colored book. Actually, it was waiting silently, patiently, after a long time my touching with my fingers and amazed eyes, awakened it.

Now I am sitting at the coffee house.the book was waiting in front of me as an unsmelt flower awaiting to be opened by the fresh reader. The book is quite unattractive I thought. But I liked it as a lovable old aunty of mine. I looked outside.
Wonderful, it is raining outside the glass wall. A heavy rain in extreme summer season.

I kept the book somewhere and forgot about it. After a few months in a cold and misty December night, I recovered from the shelf accidentally.
I opened the book to the winter…started riding through the letters with my eyes…cold freeze caressed me through the window. The cold became hardened and the strong slap of the raindrops fallen on my face. It was raining in the misty December night.
I stopped reading.
On another shiny day, I continued reading of the book. There was heat and sunshine and I expected the rain. But surprisingly nothing happened. On the roofed terrace lying on the chair, I completed the book. A beautiful blend of poetry and rain, I liked it very much. Then I came back to the bio-data page of the author, Sister Cicila Maria. Suddenly rain dropped to the page. Unexpected rain showered to the page of Cicila’s life story. I was not at all taken aback, but actually, I was awaiting the raindrops. Rain continued for sometime. The cold air embraced me. The rain continued its murmur of something through the leaves. I sat on the terrace for a long time chewing the lines, the raindrops ,..suddenly I thought why should not I write the sister regarding her book. Why can’t I write a letter to her! At that time a visitor came, and I went downstairs.
On the next day I took the paper and started writing to her;
“Respected Sister Cicila.”
I started writing first words.
The calling bell told that there is a visitor for me. I went downstairs, chatted with the visitor. Suddenly rain started scattering through the window and soaked the paper.
The sky became darker and there was a drumbeat of thunder and sky started showering its love through raindrops. Watching the rain is a marvelous past time and rain is an obsession for me.
The rain stopped its chanting. I went upstairs. The letter was soaked with rainwater, shrunk to as wet kitten.

Any way I wrote and sent the letter to the address of the convent and got a phone call from the convent as a reply. I decided to visit the convent.

In the visitors’ room, the mother superior of the convent talked to me about sister cicila, her activities, hobbies and character. Sister was a voracious reader. She loved the flora and fauna around the surrounding and had a great passion for rain. Rain always inspired her and watched rain through the window for hours in a trance. But she died a month ago the day on which I decided to write a letter to her.

On the day when most of the inmates were
Away for a Bible convention, she wandered around the vast compound. Cherishing the plants and flowers. Meanwhile the rain started dancing among the flora. As an after-effect she was affected by pneumonia and admitted in the hospital and died after one week.
On her funeral day it was throughout down pouring. She loved rain accompanied her to the graveyard.

We stood prayfully before the marble tomb of sister cicila. I put a red rose on the tomb. Some raindrops scattered on the flower and the tomb, or I felt so?

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

THE DEAD MAN'S MOBILE PHONE










It was hardly one year I went to the house of Vijay. We never contacted even through those days. However, we were connected through a wave of friendship between our hearts, I was sure.
The night has worn its dark long rob. I was participating in a cocktail party conducted by my best friend on the eve of his marriage. I was actually unaware of the passage of time. I felt the night was so young. After a spree of bout I started from there to home.
Escaping from the jam in the city, I entered into National Highway. There was another jam just before the bridge. I waited behind the long line of vehicles.
Suddenly I saw the side road. It was the way to the house of my friend Vijay. How long back I had been to his house. I thought. My bike turned to that road and leaped through that way. The road became narrowed and ended at the bank of a river. On the side of the river was the house of Vijay. The gate was seen locked and there was no light inside or on the road or in the nearby houses.
Vijay and myself were college mates. I used to come to his house, those days. There is a huge mansion opposite Vijay’s house. That mansion was locked for years since the inmates were abroad. We used to go to that house, sit on the large verandah and have long talks about literature, our beloved subject and occasionally have some drinks. Vijay had a habit of using narcotics and I was dead against it. I used to advise him against his bad habit. He will just laugh.
I stopped in front of his house. I took my pen torch and lit to the yard. The yard was full of dry leaves showing that no one is living there.
I took my mobile phone and dialled Vijay’s number, but there was no response. I walked forward to ask at the next door but there was no light. I looked at the watch and it was midnight!
I continued dialling and all the calls were “failed”, even then I continued dialling.
I decided to return back. I walked towards my bike. Suddenly the phone was on line. Vijay’s cell responded it was ringing. A feeble sound from far away place answered.
“Hello Roy, this is me Vijay”
“Hello Vijay I am Roy where are you?” I shouted. I heard a sound of tempest from his phone. A vibrated weak sound answered.
“Hello”
“Hello Vijay where are you now?” The tempest stopped. A voice as if from a distant planet heard. Now the voice is clear.
“I am here Roy, inside the compound of this mansion, opposite you.”
Somebody pulled me into that compound. I opened the old huge gate. The gate opened with a roar of a beast. There was thick darkness inside the compound. Huge trees stood like ghosts. Through the weak light of stars, the mansion looked like a monster. I walked inside the orchard.
“Vijay where are you?”
The dry leaves murmured in protest under my feet.

“I am here Roy - under the soil where you are just standing.” I was shocked.
The voice as if from a grotto continued.

“I am buried here under the soil. I am murdered”
A terrible wind blew in my ears from the phone.
Again the sound from a cipher spot…..unclear sound from a vacuum place…

“Roy I am sleeping under the soil as a dead body. I was killed and buried here.”
I heard a huge sound of an explosion, Vijay’s cell exploded, it felt so.
I returned back to consciousness. Yes I am here in the midst of darkness and fear, in a dreadful place. I was mad with fear. I don’t exactly remember what happened after then. I somehow came outside and started my bike and managed to run away and reached home and became unconscious. When I woke up, I was in a mental hospital.
How can I disclose this incident to other? If they remove the mud in the compound and see nothing is there they will say, it was just a hallucination of mine, under the influence of liquor. And if otherwise, if it is seen that his body is actually lying there…….. Oh ..I couldn’t just imagine of it. So I am keeping mum and people call me
“He is a mad man”, “who seen something horrible somewhere in the night”.