True Tenacity

I was born to serve although I have never been in servitude. Amma told me when I was young that there were worse ways to live. I could have been born to those ladies who painted their faces and waited in dim lit corridors. I could have sold my body or sold my soul. Amma took my deaf sister, Malli, and me along to the only houses where our presence was grudgingly accepted and in these houses, we were fiercely instructed to do nothing but sit in a corner and watch, never to speak. One girl followed my mother’s instruction out of necessity, and the other out of obedience.

Watch my mother ignore her ailing back and sweep out the dusty countryside to where it belonged. Watch boys my age sit in front of color televisions, glued to the motions of animated figures that did not look like them or speak like them. Watch girls my age with dolls that their father had only recently bought them and then watch them refuse to engage me while I sheepishly held my hand out for their older unremembered and shelved memories. Watch the women of the household hustle through a revolving door of emotions, from lamenting their marriage to gushing about their newest diamond earring, and from bristling at the news that a neighbor’s incompetent child had been admitted into a prestigious school to pacifying a principle with the latest overwhelmingly negative reports on their children’s inadequacies. I would also watch the men of the houses on their days off, lifting their children into the air one at a time and handing them crisp rupees so they could buy bottles filled with rich, brown, bubbly liquid. I had never known my father. As was consistent with the parables of children similar to me, those not as fortunate as the offspring of my mother’s employers, fathers usually disappeared a few years after endowing with a baby, the wives forced on them by society’s rules. If they did not leave voluntarily, they were usually killed while in a drunken stupor, weaving along poorly lit roads that hosted somnabulant twenty year old truckers with a need for speed.

                

I learned my mother’s trade while watching her. As I grew older, my mother’s employers would allow her to have me help complete the household duties. While my mother scrubbed the tiles in the bathrooms, I would rinse the crusty dishes in the sink. While my mother cut fresh vegetables and bloody chunks of meat, I would mop the floors with lemon scented water. Malli remained a spectator and grew content idling in her own thoughts as we washed the windows and hung out freshly washed clothes to dry. As the Patel family or the Reddy family or the Mehta family sat together on their ornate dining tables and passed along saffron infused basmati rice, cashew flavored chicken korma, lightly spiced raita, and the obligatory accompaniments of pepper papad and raw mango pickle, I would look up at my mother’s sad, tired eyes as we shared yesterday’s cold, hardened, chapatti and the watery remains of the leftover dal in the lunch boxes the children brought back from school. Amma would make me wrap up half our dinner in a kitchen trash bag on days she felt most exhausted, just so she wouldn’t have to cook porridge to feed us at home. You may ask what my mother did with the money she was earning and why we were never bought new clothes or unassuming toys to play with. She was saving. Her money was supposed to do nothing else but accumulate until one day she could buy a modest house and own the land it sat on. It was a way out for her and her daughters to hose down the revolting stench of poverty that clung on to us like white did on rice. After all, homeowners could never be considered poor.

               

I was twenty when my mother decided I should bear children of my own. For this to happen, I would need a man of course, a man I could not fall in love with but rather a man chosen by my mother and her extended family. Selvan was his name. When I first met him, I immediately noticed his kind, brown eyes. Sensing that committing my life to him was not an easy prospect to grasp, he asked my mother after our first family meeting whether he could take me to the flower garden and spend time alone with me. Time he hoped would help him cement my trust in him and my trust in the entire, arranged, process. We strolled leisurely among fields of marigold and sunflowers and stopped to watch admirably as the sun slowly set beyond the horizon. I was immediately taken by Selvan’s poetic discourse about his family. He talked about his brother who had placed number one in the state for mechanical engineering. His brother supported him and his parents with his excellent job in Bombay. He spoke of his parents and how devoted they were to each other and how he wanted us to raise a family like they did. Love each other like they did. Here he was, Selvan, a stranger before this afternoon, but a partner soon after. Before we were married, I dreamt many wonderful dreams. Of Selvan providing for me and giving me the beautiful children my mother so desired. Of opening his own tailoring shop and us affording a home sooner than Amma – a home that would be the envy of the village.

Selvan’s brother was driving his parents to see the latest Rajnikanth movie. Selvan couldn’t join them because he had a tailoring project he had to finish for a client the next day. The futile combination of slick tires, a muddy road, a carefree driver on the other side, and bitter luck killed every one Selvan cared about before he met me. In the days that followed, he decided that the only way to counter his soul crushing grief was the conspicuous partaking of voluminous liters of palm alcohol. He stopped going to work. My visions of our glorious future disappeared as I realized that he, somehow blamed me for their death. Night after night, alcohol was his only appeasement. The pale, clear liquid that gave him comfort every night would quickly turn him into a monster. Lakshmi was conceived on one such drunken night where my mother’s incessant demands for grandchildren created an apt and extremely convenient excuse for him to forcibly take me. A few months later, I learned that Lalita, Malli’s child, was similarly put into my deaf sister’s womb because Selvan knew she wouldn’t scream. I could yell, of course, and I did every night as he admitted to liberally spending the money I was forced to give him to present to our neighbors that he was indeed a provider. He would respond in kind, meeting my verbal blows with wild, animalistic swings at whatever part of my body he could connect his fists with. Lakshmi and Lalita witnessed this cycle every night and could do no more than cover their eyes and whimper, wishing daylight would take away the night sooner.

                

Lalita lived with me because I did not want her to grow up like her mother. If Malli couldn’t communicate with her daughter, Lalita would lose the need to verbally communicate and invariably become as mute as her mother. Malli begrudgingly agreed to let her go only after our mother, old and unable to work any longer, thought it best that Lalita live with me for I was far more capable than her of fostering Lakshmi’s education and the hope of her future. By then, Amma had realized her dream of buying a house and rented one of the rooms to a visiting blacksmith. The rental income would more than pay for Malli’s comfort and hers. They grew closer, Malli and my mother - Malli dependent on my mother for monetary survival and my mother dependent on Malli to perform simple household duties and keep her company. I was no longer very needed. I had two little girls and a slobbering adult to take care of – it was unfathomable in Malli’s eyes why I would even want to let go of my responsibility to the children and she made sure my mother agreed. While they celebrated with my cousins, my uncles, and my aunts, I worked over the holiday to build up our continuously depleting monetary inventory controlled by Selvan. One day, after many Pongals had passed on by, Malli would knock on the rickety door to my hut and hold up a piece of paper while brightly flashing her pearly whites. Malli would be deeded the house on my mother’s passing. Our mother had decided Malli would need it more of course; unfit to hold her own in society because of her handicap. Malli held her head up high – in her eyes, she always believed she was the superior sister and this act simply confirmed it. I protested briefly. Amma refused to listen.

                

Malli had been born gorgeous and she had a complexion fairer than freshly squeezed milk from a cow’s udder and even more so than the flower that bore her name. No wonder that soon after our mother decided to walk into the ocean one Friday morning, her only successful suicidal attempt among the many that her old and maddened mind conceived, Malli found suitors from all over the state, all eager to bed the deaf beauty and her newly deeded prime plot of land. The suitor that won the battle of the bachelors, Ramesh, was a leading professor from Dolours, Trichy’s esteemed school for the deaf. Not only could he communicate with Malli and deliver on her erratic and demanding whims, he carried the Mudaliar name on his business card. Malli had entered the higher caste –

Amma was right about the house after all.

Malli and Ramesh quickly became a power couple. Ramesh started a school for the deaf in our town and with Malli at the helm, people arrived from all over the state to enroll their children in the school. Malli’s rags to riches story had been glorified in every Tamil newspaper. Surely, if a deaf girl from the lower castes could become the master and commander of a successful school, others could easily follow in her footsteps. The moving pictures that played in cinema halls showed characters playing greater odds than Malli had to in order to win.

Surprisingly, Malli did not ask for her daughter back. Considering Ramesh could serve as more than an ample caretaker, Lalita might have realized greater possibilities with him and his wife. Perhaps Malli did not want to face the society’s wrath of mothering a bastard child. Perhaps she had resentfully accepted in her heart that Lalita would never leave my side.

The day that changed everything began quietly. I was getting Lakshmi and Lalita ready for school when Malli made her surreptitious entry into my home, startling me as her unplanned arrivals always did. Malli had brought a new present for Lalita and as she stroked Lalita’s oiled, dark hair, she asked hastily whether I was indeed using the money she was sending me to buy ingredients that made up Lalita’s favorite foods. I answered wearily in the affirmative and I knew Lakshmi could easily predict her standard follow-up request. Usually, I would angrily usher Malli out of my house but on that day, I smiled and gently told her I always did as she asked. Lalita was intelligent enough to understand her mother’s pettiness and stared at her mother with fiery eyes as she left our home in slow, shuffled steps. Before she closed the swinging bamboo gate that was imagined to be our front door, Malli looked disapprovingly at Selvan passed out in his usual corner and the bareness of our modest home in its ever squalid surroundings.

That same day, after I returned from the home of my newest client, a white-skinned couple who had emigrated recently from a land I could not pronounce, I began lighting the wood fire to cook lemon rice for my family. The fire felt good on my callused hands. The last few days had been a little chilly. I had bought a fillet of seer fish for Lalita with Malli’s money – I knew however that she would end up splitting the piece into two and giving the bigger piece to her little sister. Selvan had not returned yet from his daily sojourn to the local toddy shop with his friends. We were eating and laughing merrily about the impassioned pleas Lakshmi and Lalita heard on their way to school – political propaganda that was always ridiculous in its earnestness – when Selvan stormed into the house in a drunken fit of rage. Murugan, one of Selvan’s friends, had made a lewd remark and had told Selvan that everyone knew Lalita was his actual daughter. He believed I was the tale-bearer, that I had told Murugan of Selvan’s wicked tryst with my sister. He came at me with every muscle in his body eager to appease his rage. I grabbed the kitchen knife and implored him to stay away as I backed myself into a corner. This ploy usually worked but when Selvan kicked away a screaming Lalita who had wrapped herself around his leg in an attempt to drag him away from me, I knew my time had come. I closed my eyes and gingerly waited for the blows. Selvan stumbled as he approached me, his mouth breathing out wretched fumes of intoxicants, and as his heavy body fell toward me, I watched the dreaded result in motion slower than life itself. Selvan landed squarely on the knife whose handle I had pressed close against my chest but whose blade welcomed flesh.

                  

Selvan’s blood flowed out without mercy onto our hut’s muddy floor and colored it a vivid shade of maroon. He died quickly but not before shrieking many times in agony. Within minutes, neighbors had stormed into my house and together stood aghast, shivering hands covering their wide mouths. As I stood there, shaking profusely and dripping with blood that was not mine, the only ones who came near me where Lakshmi and Lalita, who were hugging me as the neighbors alternated between checking on Selvan and looking at me with curious discomfort. I welcomed the inevitable. Within days, although the police had confirmed my account of Selvan’s accidental fall onto my instrument of death and Lakshmi and Lalita made impassioned pleas to every one concerned of my need for self-defense, I was banished from the town for bringing morbidity and unwanted notoriety to the area, something the panchayat said would be hard to overcome. Nobody listened. Nobody wanted to hear my story.

We walked away later that evening with two bags over each of our shoulders.  Just as streams of forgotten sand were whispered away by our unapologetic feet, Malli and Ramesh watched the shadows accompanying our bodies disappear into the sunset. Malli had tried desperately to wring Lalita’s strong fingers away from my hand but she had refused to let go. A mother of two I remained.

                

It was only a little firecracker. Or so I thought. I offered to help light it for the child of one of my new clients. I had made my way to Chennai and the black skies broke out in furious technicolor during this time of the year. Diwali – the festival of light. Boom! It was the last sound I heard before the firecracker burst through my inner eardrum and took from me the only asset I had that Malli did not. Soon enough, I was no use as a servant. I was of no use as a mother. We couldn’t afford treatment and I became resigned to my fate. Our fate. Lakshmi and Lalita could do no better than care for me until I died. They would become servants too – a cycle I once thought could be broken would meander in its usual, devilish fashion. There would be no happy ending.

And then, millions listened.

Millions responded.

Lalita had met a writer in college, a writer who took a curious interest in her story and an even bigger interest in mine. Lalita’s diary helped. A diary she had kept from the first days she learned the language. A language she wouldn’t have experienced had I not taken her away from her mother. A language that flowed from her mouth and her ink to the welcoming ears of her friend. A language that moved from the cerebral cells of their minds through the fingers of his hand onto the screen of his machine. From that machine, my story, in Lalita’s language, travelled onto a hundred more machines. Soon, the story found other languages with which to spread itself, like water in streams, rivers, and creeks desperate to find its way to the nearest lakes, seas, and oceans. As a rousing finale, my story was transformed into a language that needed no written medium and demanded no acoustic quality – a medium that appealed to the very organ that pictured it all – a silent film. I had finally found an audience.

I watch the neighbors from my past now as I sit in a house bigger than anything they have ever seen before. My eyes would continue to watch just as they did when I was a child, unaware of where life would take me. Unaware that even though my mother had made me a servant, my daughter would make me a queen.

Perhaps, Malli would want to scream, just as she did the day her daughter was conceived.

©Govind Mohan – http://govindmika.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Bones

Mullan. That’s what my father named me. Mullan Menon, in full. I can picture my father having a heated conversation with the nurse in charge of filling out my birth certificate. “Yem”. “You”. “Yell”. “Yell”. “Yay”. “Yen”. “Mullan”. “Got it?”. The nurse, in her pristine greens, looks flabbergasted as she frantically tries to comprehend my father’s thick Malayali accent. Giving up, she would shove the forms on to my father’s arms, crossed in perfidy to his smiling head. Left; Right; Left; Right; my father’s head would bob in uncertain approval. “Sir, Could you please write her name down for me. I did not understand any of those letters. Yell? What the hell is yell? I need alphabets, Sir. Do you speak a lick of English?” My father was used to similar tirades from buxom bartenders at the drinking hole closest to the store he made his living in, while he made his daily request for ‘wheesikey oan dee roaks’. He smiled and accepted the hospital forms with such an alarming alacrity that the nurse walked away in a hurry, sans a louder whimper. ‘University of Pennsylvania Hospital’, proclaimed the form, in a dramatic header. My father surreptitiously wrote down eleven letters in a frantic haste onto the parched sheet of hospital paper, lest my prying eyes revolt and zap fire onto the parchment. Six letters that would torment my childhood. Five letters that would always cower in shame. Mullan Menon. Mullan, in my father’s Malayalam, meant ‘pokey, pricky bones’. I was sickly looking at birth. My father would, in a few years, tell us at the dinner table that the doctor felt like he was pulling out a bag of bones. He told me that was why my mother cried so much for the nine months I was inside her. If my father was ashamed about creating that dastardly name, I wouldn’t have the wildest clue. He certainly made no bones about it.

I was five when I really couldn’t take it anymore. They’d jeer. All of them. The Whites. The Blacks. The Hispanics. The Asians. I despised my alarm clock for waking me up from my dreams. I would always dream in color. The real world, on the other hand, dutifully reared its ugly head in monochrome. I remember seeing a Discovery channel show one day about fish. How they only saw a small section of the color spectrum and spent most of their life perceiving life around them in shades of grey. That was the day I stopped eating my mother’s always splendid fish curry. Anybody who had ever sampled her Karimeen, her Mathi, her Ayila, or her Veloori spent days on end lauding her with unblemished glory. She would stock up on her ‘Malayali Malsyam’, as she liked to call it, every time she saw a special at her favorite Korean supermarket. Jung Lee, the portly man who cleaned and cut the fish she picked, always used the same black marker to write “Malsyam for Mrs. Menon” on the brown bag stocked with fish he handed her every visit. And she would smile, unfettered by the fact that entrails and other nasties clutched on for dear life to Mr. Lee’s black marker. She smiled a big, white, toothy smile just like the ones the dead fish had as they stared at you through Mr. Lee’s murky glass shelves. For my mother, on her third visit, had taught Mr. Lee that ‘Malsyam’ meant ‘fish’ in Malayalam. And Mr. Lee never forgot.

They’d snatch at my long ponytail and drag me through the sand in the playground. “Don’t you ever straighten your horrid hair, freak?” That would be Ashley. I loved staring at her luscious blonde hair when she had her back turned to me. Did I envy it so? It was always straight, always perfect. The wind, in all its goody glory, would try its hand on handing out a severe dollop of revenge. As she ran past the trees, her hands outstretched in a feeble impersonation of an airplane, the wind would vomit its fury in a deluge of brashness. Alas, the wind always failed. Ashley’s hair, without fail, would always plop back into its unnatural state of perfection. Ashley would then raise an eyebrow at the sky, as if petitioning for a rematch so she could crush nature’s frail attempts again. I loathed her beauty more than I abhorred her abuse. She was the ring leader of the rat pack. Created by the devil to be his servant on the ground just so he could watch in fascination as a child was slowly broken. The devil would designate Matt, Justin, and Vincent to be her minions.

There was nary a day when they wouldn’t obey her will. I would be pelted with stones just so Ashley could see if I bled red. When liquid the color of a million sparkling rubies gushed out of my forehead, they’d kick sand onto my face in a confused attempt to stop the deluge. I would lay there screaming, clutching at whispers of sand as they hurried out of my lifeless fists, until a gentler soul would carry my bony body to the school infirmary. On kinder days, my ‘boxes of glop’, as Ashley called them, would be spit on as I held back a rivulet of tears in a shabby attempt at bravado. My mother’s exquisite cooking, rice, spiced vegetables, and brilliantly cut chicken samosas, could easily be the envy of a parade of school girls in my home country on the other side of the world. My lunch, pre-contamination, always smelled like a smorgasbord of gastronomical greatness. However, with large helpings of Justin’s saliva mixed in, as Ashley clutched her stomach in uncontrollable laughter, suddenly my lunch’s ethereal beauty disappeared into thin air. Ashley would then reach into the dark crevices of her evil mind and pummel me with the K.O. punch. It was a song, beautifully renditioned though remarkably deranged.

Snarky, ugly, Mullan!
Beastly, freckly, Mullan!
You are so boney, you should be so lonely,
You’ll never be one of us, Mullan!
And I would then hear a cacophony of cheers. Ashley, Philadelphia’s finest citizen, would provide her audience with her customary bow. And always, her hair stood still.

Every day, I would run back home in shabby disarray. My mother would console me as I pleaded with my father to bring up my suffering to the school. My father would stand helpless as he watched me storm back into my room after he enunciated the single word I did not want to hear. “No”. He claimed he was being persecuted by immigration officials, that they wanted him to leave the country. To rouse trouble at school could portend disaster. I would have none of it of course. My world was collapsing and the candle in my heart that burnt so strong the day I was born was now reduced to a whimpering excuse for a flame. I was all alone in my quest for survival. My heart was weak but my spirit was stirred. I dreamt a beautiful dream that night, as did the fish I so loved. Only we knew how we would capture back the light in the real world the next day. We dreamt in full technicolor, the fish too, just to be safe.

After school on the day before the brightest of days, I turned left rather than turn right. Going right would have led me to my parent’s modest house in South Philadelphia. Going left, though, would lead me to Mr. Lee’s supermarket. It was not his supermarket of course, belonging most likely to a South Korean business tycoon. I liked to think of it as his, however, for Mr. Lee would soon be my savior. My portly knight in shining armor. As I crept up a step-ladder and faced Mr. Lee, he would glance at me knowingly, as if auspicating my sinister visit. As I was requesting the fish I so desperately wanted, I said a silent prayer for the sacrifice the fish had to make. She had come to me in my beautiful dream the night before and volunteered herself for my most sacred mission. Selfless, I would name her, and I promised to recite her name with furious vengeance as I carried out the deed. Mr. Lee took out his delightfully filthy black marker and wrote four unforgettable words. “Malsyam for Mrs. Menon”. Mr. Lee never forgot.

Mrs. Menon was delighted to hear that my friends at school no longer made fun of her cooking. I wouldn't eat the fish I brought her from Mr. Lee's store but if she could soak it in her special sauce, cardamom, ginger, coriander and all, Ashley, my best friend, would surely be delighted. I promised my mother I would teach Ashley the way. Selfless was a tricky little thing after all.

I waited patiently for Ashley and her minions to walk into the cafeteria on the day of days. The brightest of days. They arrived every day with suspicious punctuality and today was not an exception. Ashley strolled toward me with the arrogance of a sinner and smiled that deathly smile. Just as she motioned Justin to come over to my table and do her vile bidding, I raised my palm up and calmly challenged the enemy. I laid out a crisp $20 bill on the table and told her she could have my money if she took a bite out of my Malsyam curry. Of course, Ashley was not Mr. Lee. She didn’t know what Malsyam meant. I told her she had nothing to be afraid about, all I wanted was for her to like my mother’s cooking just as much as I did. I mean, to her, it was just a giant plop of brown in an ungainly lunch box anyway. Ashley, being Ashley, said she would take my silly challenge up any day. I watched in gleeful delight as she took a giant bite out of Selfless, all 350 bones included. As Ashley clutched at her throat in anguish, I yelled out Selfless’s name over and over and over again for all of the school to hear in a booming oratory of madness. Stinging barbs pierced through Ashley throat as blood, fiendishly violet in color, spewed out of what was left of her punctured vessels. Selfless’s biggest bone dutifully punctured the roof of Ashley’s reviled mouth and slit her inner recesses like a knife sliding through butter.

Six seconds is all it took. Six fascinating seconds that I would never forget. “Mullan!”, I yelled out. “Mullan, you filthy insect, is the type of fish that can decimate you. Toothpony is its English name. Pony up, pony up, pony up your innards you pretty little princess. Mullan, you precocious tyrant, is also my name. The name you deboned into submission every second of my two years in this school. The name that will always live in infamy.”

Finally, her hair wrinkled up like dry grass under a deathly sky. Horrid. Freakish. Ugly.

Mullan. Six letters that would torment my childhood. Six letters that would reignite my life.

I was the architect of chaos. In full technicolor.

©Govind Mohan – http://govindmika.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Blood and Sand

Brian woke up with a curious sense of uncertainty. He had earned bragging rights among his peers for being the most stable and secure, never overwhelmed, never underwhelmed. Not on this morning though. The morning he was looking forward to on all mornings except this. Playtime was over, a brutal and bloody street fight showcased as a war between nations had commenced. The United States must be defended. Brian’s hands were shaking as he grasped the glass of water near his bed. Steady now soldier. Tighten your stomach and the butterflies that are betraying your reputed sense of calm will be destroyed by noxious volumes of bile. As his heart slowly eased back into a gentle state, Brian walked over to the room he shared with Beth. They had been engaged for a few years now, though you wouldn’t know it from the missing ring on Beth’s long, frail finger. Beth was understandably enraged when she heard Brian was to commence his tour of duty in Iraq the next day. Brian barely made a living packing grocery bags full of organic, overpriced vegetables, health food, and fortified water for the affluent, snobby yuppies that lived along the Main Line. And he would now have to leave Beth to fend for herself and for their three month old son, Vincent.

It was nearing 10 A.M. now and Brian hoped to share a single, solitary, and loving moment of togetherness with Beth before he left. Brian wanted to tell Beth she would manage just fine, the army recruitment center had told him that she would be sent a monthly stipend and that she would be given an adequate amount of food stamps and government assistance. She was still fast asleep though, Vincent cradled in her arm, and she looked so peaceful. Brian walked over to Beth and slowly eased his head forward to kiss her forehead. Beth woke up, startled, and to Brian’s pleasant surprise, she hugged him furiously and began to weep. Brian kissed her and told her he would be back soon - the war would be over in a few months. He promised Beth he would marry her as soon he returned. In a touching display of acceptance, Beth reached for the silver engagement ring lying on the floor, humble in its appearance and yet so deeply extravagant in its message. She placed it back on the finger where it best fit, and Brian knelt on one of his knees, kissed her hand, and asked her to support him and to wait for his return. Beth nodded silently as he smiled and wept - words were unnecessary in an intimate moment that Brian hoped to cherish forever. He lifted Vincent out of his bed and placed his necklace, a crucifix on a single silver strand, over Vincent’s tiny shoulders. He then bid goodbye and walked down the winding pathway filled with trailer homes just like his, looking only at his fragile shadow as whispers of sand deserted his ragged boots.

*-----*

October 13, 2008. Brian was now a grand eight months and four days into his tour of duty. Her face had kept him awake all night. Those deep, brown, frightened eyes had pierced his soul as he frantically waved his hands in desperation. “It’s okay, it’s really OK! I am not going to hurt you”, Brian bellowed. She had turned ghastly white and only managed to clasp the frail boy closer to her chest. It was only when Brian had dropped his M4 carbine did the fiery look in her eyes give in. Brian was given orders to perform a routine search mission for insurgents in the Marj district and as Freddie and him had barged into the hut, a woman draped only in a glowing blue nightgown had shrieked and rushed to protect her son. Freddie and him swiftly began searching this very humble home and found no one worthy of the insurgent title. The woman, obviously petrified but too afraid to scream again, watched intently as Freddie and Brian concluded their search. Brian knelt down, reached into his pocket, and offered the boy a Snickers bar. Brian turned his rigid finger back onto his own chest and proclaimed – “Brian”. It was then that she spoke. A beautiful earthy voice engulfed the dark room. As the flickers of a lonely candle betrayed her face and probed it out of the blackness, Brian stood transfixed. “Aida, is my name. I’m a widow and this is my son, Abdul. My husband, Amir, an English professor at Baghdad College was killed in a Shi’ite mosque attack three months ago, this very day. He was not your enemy but after the invasion had destroyed us financially, spiritually, and mentally, he was also not your friend. If you need any other information, you will have to come by tomorrow when I am dressed. If you need nothing else from us, please leave us in peace and walk out sans the contempt and arrogance with which you barged in.” She said this in an icy vein and her eyes had grasped his with an unyielding will never to let go. Gone was her listless fright, swiftly replaced with brilliant confidence and a piercing glare. Brian staggered out with Freddie following close at his heels. He whimpered an apology and slowly shut Aida’s door, but not before he glanced once more at her ethereal beauty.

It was Brian’s innocence and sincerity that won her over. His rugged, handsome face surely helped but Aida would not admit it, never in a million years. He had brought her an enormous basket of fruits, fruits from home and some that were devilishly exotic. Cantaloupes and oranges, bananas and figs, strawberries and blackberries, apples and prunes. He even brought her Alphonso mangoes from India. Amir had told her that as a student in Varanasi, on the banks of the river Ganges, Alphonso mangoes were a prized lot. Amir would save up enough to buy a few during the peak of the mango season and experience himself pulled closer to God. The Alphonso’s nectar, Amir had told Aida, tasted sweeter than honey and its aroma was renowned to engulf you in utter ecstasy. Amir had always told Aida he regretted she never had the opportunity to try one. Now, as Aida plucked the golden fruit from Brian’s coarse hands, she was completing Amir’s wish albeit leaving him shrinking smaller and lonelier in his sandy grave. Abdul was delighted with his family’s new bounty and Brian laughed boyishly as Abdul held his palms out and said “Please”. While Aida was putting Abdul to bed after the incident on the previous night, Abdul, a mature six year old, had told her not to worry and pronounced that he trusted the white man. Somehow, as she restlessly tossed over multiple times in her bed that night, Abdul’s words reconstructed her mangled mind and became unnervingly reassuring to Aida. Now, only the next morning, Aida could see why. After Brian neatly stacked the fruits on the stone ledges precariously balanced on Aida’s makeshift kitchen wall, he got down on his knees and clasped Aida’s hands in his. Normally, Aida would be taken aback – she was not used to a stranger touching her, especially a man in a world of men dedicated to scorn her as used goods. However, Aida let Brian weave his fingers between hers and immediately, she felt a vivid bolt of light, power, and energy shift passionately from the inner recesses of her brain, through her heart, and down through her feet. He apologized to her, over and over again, as he told her for as long as he was on duty in this town, he would take care of her and Abdul. Even though Aida did not need Brian’s help, his reassurance was strangely calming and zealously quixotic.

A few weeks in, they were hopelessly in love. Brian would hold Aida’s hands in the same strong, yet comforting, grasp as they walked through the markets every Saturday morning. They would act completely oblivious to the death glares from passersby even though inside their hearts, they knew an imminent danger always loomed low. An Arab woman walking hand in hand with one of these infidel liberators? An Arab woman who had only recently lost her husband to a raucous, shattering, inferno? An Arab woman with a son to develop into a servant of Allah one day? Such callousness! It was a pitiful disgrace and one that would not go unpunished by Him even during the superlative rhythm of several thousand suns. Brian arduously endured the sight of Aida walking with him dressed in hijab, Abdul skipping around always a few feet ahead of them. They would send Abdul away to play soccer with his friends near the U.S. military complex and five minutes after he bounded away, Brian worked feverishly with his hands to get Aida off her cumbersome clothing. There, in the stillness of the desert heat and the cacophony of the neighboring markets, they would transform into one. Rivulets of sweat curiously cleansed their bodies in a pristine, composed fashion and abolished the vile depravity of the outside world. Suicide bombers, honor killers, religious fanatics, merciless invaders, foreign presidents, prudish families, and ghostly husbands all disappeared as Aida capitulated herself into Brian’s world and him into hers.

*-----*

Brian was nearing the end of his tour of duty. Obviously, Aida grew more nervous as the days passed. Brian wanted to take her back to his country but he was having problems processing her paperwork. They spent the nights holding each other tight, assuring each other that everything would be alright. However, Brian had not told Beth about Aida yet. He did not know how to, and he had not told Aida either that he was engaged to another woman and had a child of his own. He loved Abdul as much as he loved Vincent and he was resigned to spending the rest of his life with Aida. She gave him strength and energy like none other and Beth would just have to understand. She just had to.

Abdul grew more irritable as well; he hesitated going out to play with his friends because he wanted to spend more time with Brian. Sensing that, and against his squadron leader’s advice, Brian would take them both to see the faces of modern Baghdad – the newest supermarket on the west end of the town, the circus that had opened up a mile across from where Aida lived, and even the latest movie theater on occasion. They would argue though, Brian and Aida. About where they would all live, if the weather would suit Abdul and if he would make friends, if Aida would be accepted by Brian’s parents, and if he would love her as much as he did now. Their arguments only brought them closer and Brian knew he held in his arms someone special, someone who’s faultless skin he could caress for hours at end, someone with an immaculate face God couldn’t even perfect, someone with flowing black hair that could make the rivers weep, someone who’s perfumed flesh engulfed him with sweet intoxication, and someone who’s absence would drive him insane and permanently blinded.

Abdul was playing soccer with his best friend Fahad when the troopers surrounded them. Within a punishing few seconds, one of the soldiers had grasped Fahad by his collar and demanded to know where his father was. Fahad was kicking and screaming but being only three feet tall, he was no match for the monster threatening to choke his neck. Abdul watched in bewilderment as the soldiers he had grown to love suddenly turned into a pack of rabid wolves as they dragged Fahad through the market, away from him. Strangely, the soldiers had paid no attention to Abdul and it was perhaps by accident but almost likely on purpose. Brian was not one among the wolf pack and this pleased Abdul; Brian was his mother’s best friend after all. Slipping and sneaking, unbeknownst to the wolf pack, Abdul followed Fahad as he was being hauled through the throngs of hell, screaming vociferously for mercy. The wolf pack finally stopped at an abandoned hospital and lifted Fahad onto a crooked bed. Abdul hid behind a wispy white wall that was riddled with bullet holes; patient yet anxious about his best friend. As the soldiers continued to question Fahad about his father, supposedly a jihadist leader who had killed four Americans using a remote detonated IED, Abdul saw an image he would have selflessly immolated his eyes not to see. From the shadows of the misty darkness emerged Brian, shaken yet stirred. Abdul watched in guiltless awe as Brian took aside the leader of the wolf pack and discussed the situation animatedly. His mother, she must be warned! Brian was as evil as the wolf pack; he was probably pulling all the strings. They had captured Fahad and they would soon go after his beloved mother. His mother was the only person who held him close just as the sound of nearby bombs ripped his eardrums to shreds during an everyday afternoon. His mother was the only person who sang him some of his favorite melodies just as a blitzkrieg of shrapnel flew by his window every night. Abdul raced home only to find his mother missing; she was most probably at the market but he couldn’t be certain. In a flash of despair, he would go warn his uncle Ahmed even though Ahmed had not been nice to Aida since Amir’s death. He was Amir’s brother after all. For Ahmed to see his brother’s wife in the haunting clutch of another man, a murderous infidel at that, was too much to bear every day. Ahmed consoled Abdul and told him he had nothing to worry about – Brian would be taken care of. Seven hundred meters away, Brian stood over the decimated body of Shaun – the leader of the wolf pack. To break into a child’s heart with such atrocity was an act filled with vile cowardice and Brian would not stand for it. A kick to the stomach, an upper punch into his jaw, an elbow into his temple, and a furious twisting of his neck was all it took. Son of a jihadist or not, Fahad was a child. Brian apologized to Fahad and wiped away his tears with a damp wash cloth. A snickers bar was all Fahad needed to burst into a forgotten smile. Fahad had to run and tell Abdul quickly how good Abdul’s adoptive father, Brian, was. Brian had saved Fahad.

*-----*

They arrived in the darkness, white silhouettes piercing the night sky. Ahmed had told Salim, the leader of the local Sunni militia, about Brian’s location. Seven men came armed, assault rifles draped over their droopy shoulders and for good measure, curvaceous swords flung over their backs, flashing like diamonds on a sultry, sunny day. Two men stood over the terrace of the house nearest to Aida’s; they would gun down the infidel without mercy if he were ever gifted the rare prospect of escape. Two others would stand guard behind Aida’s hut, to prevent the foolish couple from even thinking of using their makeshift window to escape into an unforgiving, yet new, world. Ahmed and Salim would carry the torch of Allah and face down the infidel themselves; Salim’s bodyguard – the seventh crusader – would provide healthy backup. It was nearing three in the morning now, surely Brian and Aida were fast asleep. It disgusted Ahmed that Aida would even fathom such a thought of giving up her body, once reserved only for Amir’s eyes, to an infidel, an occupier, an invader. No matter, they could face their hellish wrath together for all he cared. Abdul must be saved from Aida’s liberalism; he must grow up strong and become a servant of Allah just like his real father Amir was.

It was over in a matter of seconds. For a trained soldier, it was laughable how little resistance Brian provided to their attack. The story might have been different if Brian had reached for his weapon instead of attempting, in vain, to protect Aida from their bullets. Either way, in Ahmed’s eyes, it was pleasant to think of his prey as weak – it would make his story all the more appealing to the rest of the militia. After a three count, they had stormed in through the thin wooden door of Aida’s home. Reprehensibly, there lay the white man and the golden girl, holding each other tight in a solemn embrace as they slept wishfully, dreaming of their faultless existence in a country on the other side of the world. Aida was scantily clad in a shimmering nightgown and this enraged Ahmed. It was truly an abomination for a mother to lie next to her lover while her young child slept in the next corner, no doubt ashamed of his mother’s existence. Brian and Aida would wake up startled as God’s chosen trio burst through the door and raised their weapons in unison. During the next second, in what seemed like an eternity to Ahmed, Brian swiftly swiveled his body to fall over Aida and simultaneously raised his palm upwards – a laughable attempt at protecting himself and the body beneath him. Seventy three bullets rained on the twitching, powerless bodies of Aida and Brian during the next few seconds, tearing open their sinewy muscles into fragments smaller than grated cheese and shattering their permeable bones into a million tiny pieces. Abdul would also wake up, lunging at the militia and especially at the man he trusted to protect his mother. A booming shove was all Ahmed needed to send Abdul flying across the room and into a stack of vessels, to be knocked out for five precious minutes. Abdul would be fine; Ahmed did not need him interfering in an act of God he was not mature enough to understand.

Abdul would wake up a definite five minutes later. His uncle was carrying him away from a house that did not resemble his mother’s anymore. Streams of blood crisscrossed the ceilings and the floors while the ghastly, mutilated remains of his mother and her friend lay abandoned and alone in the center of the home. Too exhausted and overwhelmed to speak, Abdul cast his eyes one last time on the only person who loved him indubitably.

Six thousand miles away, Vincent was using his tiny legs to walk for the first time. Beth looked on and wiped away a tear. Brian would surely be proud.

©Govind Mohan – http://govindmika.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Metamorphosis

Bitter sweetness of indifference,

shrug off inhibiting cocoon

Wings poised,

readyflight with uncharted winds..
I am inside her. A pungent smell overwhelms me but oddly, it does not irritate. The smell wakes me up when my mind flutters into existence, as it does every day now. I cannot see and I cannot hear. The odor is the only feeling that keeps me company. I do not know what my purpose is just yet. That is probably because I cannot move. Discoveries are only revealed when one makes an effort to seek it. I have not had that privilege just yet.

My surroundings have been thawing away minute by minute. I remember the moment I first realized existence. I was bound so tight I found it difficult to breathe. After my second awakening however, the strings that had bound me tight released some of their mighty grip. I spent days interpreting their graciousness. Was it out of pity? Were they only teasing my fragile mind, soon to shatter my false hopes of freedom and grip me tighter than ever before? Before long, I realized that the strings themselves had no power of their own. They were being guided by a higher power. A power unseen but a power that reeked of love.

I can feel the breeze now and the unnourished air has an aroma that is so refreshing. A few of the strings clutch on for their own individual last gasps. They must know by now that they have served their purpose and it’s time for me to move on. Miss me the strings shall, until another spirit discovers existence. Some of the strings will die, scorched by the searing heat of the sun. Most will return back into their shell and remain observant. To find and envelope a new lost soul, a naked spirit released from the gates of heaven or shunned from the cages of hell. I feel exhilarated at my proximity to freedom. However, no longer will I be protected. The strings imprisoned me, guided by the astuteness of my mother. The strings also cosseted me, blanketing me from the sun and feeding me water and food through their own pores. Selfless, they were thus deliberately ignorant of their pain and sacrifice. The last of the strings slithered away from their futile clinging. I am but a child, tip-toeing my way into the unknown.

……………………………………….

The shadows always seem to haunt me. I have tried walking in the dark to see if the shadows vanish upon realizing the enormity of black. Even the almighty sun cowers at her mere appearance, hiding behind the white, sacred light of the moon. Never peeking out until the dark says goodbye to the world after her mandatory twelve hours have passed. She was the gatekeeper to the haunting doors of hell and to displease the dark would be unwise indeed. Drift away into avoidable thoughts, I must not.

The wings have begun to weigh me down as I run through numerous days of awakening. Days become nights, nights become days, and the only constant is the repeated awakening from my dreams. Daily. Unvarying. Unavoidable. I do not know why my wings have started to feel heavier but it must be because the corruption was not sudden. Those nasty devils found their malignant way home inch by bitter inch, like nails that slowly pummel their way through a freshly painted wall. I wish I had fond memories of the innocence of the years that have gone by. Instead, all that my wings bear are guilt. Void of peace. Hungry for salvation.

As a youngling, I tried to spark conversation at the meeting grounds. The elders told me to. The grounds were a foreboding place at first. None of the other creatures fluttered their wings twice as was always done before conversing. A rookie mistake, the elders later said. It was the duty of a youngling to bow his head before addressing those who were born before him. I made many friends after mastering this silly ritual. The hierarchy bothered me more than it did the others. I could never quite grasp the concepts the elders taught me. Respect? The younglings were the future – if anything, the elders would logically be the inferior species. Honesty? The creatures who waited until the hunters brought back the harvest were ridiculous fools. Us, the select few, knew the hunters only brought back ten percent of their winnings. They consumed the rest with brutal lavishness on their measured, hearty way home. Stealing from the hunters and poisoning their hearts with misery satisfied me more than the food did. The elders were an abomination and a danger to the world as it existed. Only a swift, competent termination would be the solution.

I had persuaded even the uns, the youngest of the young, about the urgency of our task. The elders were archaic and incredibly restrictive in their thinking. They had taught us the mastery of warfare but had ignored the advancement of strategy. They had painted our wings with wax in order to armor our flight, but were strangers to the deviousness of evolution and sharper teeth. They had helped the dragonflies build their nests on all the trees along the border but did not foresee the dragonflies’ jealousy of our hunting bounty and their consistent hatred of our kind. The elders were loving but the elders were weak. It would require a monster to annihilate the very creatures that embraced him for who he was and taught him all he knew. The younglings and the uns would be the easiest to manipulate. I was a monster. I was their God.

We used the blackness of the night. Lava infused wax would do fine to protect the fragile bodies of my soldiers. I had seduced them into blood-lust and all that mattered now was their skill. The elders were our enemies and we would strike them where it hurt the most – the depravity of love and trust. It would be easier than I initially expected. Most of the elders were murdered in the split seconds between their delicate dreams and forced awakening. The ones who resisted did not last long. The haunting shockwaves of betrayed sight obliterated the elders’ souls before the younglings even commenced sinking their canines into poignant hearts.

……………………………………….

The air was stale but if it has been any sweeter, I wouldn’t have noticed. The riches that I had gathered were of no use to me in my decrepit state. After the massacre in the sacred forests, I had assumed power and authority over all of wingdom. None of the elders were spared and we became a younger, more radical nation. I kept some of the younglings close to my side but I began losing my trust in everybody else. They were all after my power anyway, waiting to usurp me of my rule. Soon, I began to order mass executions. The dragonflies helped cremate the dead as there was not enough land to bury every traitor. We were near the end of our civilization but none of my appointed queens would bear me any offspring. Everything was wrong and the neighbors were closing in with their armies. Passionately furious, I would order the slaying of every one of my hundred wives. The elders had diplomatic relations with the leader in every landmass surrounding our borders but because the elders were all dead, the murderous wretches would soon recognize conquest of the lands they had earlier promised to never attack. We were at world’s end and I could not bring myself to care.

The darkness had taken over me. I was powerless under its spell and it has caused me inflict pain and sadness among the many. I yearned to feel the strings again, sheltering my body and strengthening my mind. Wishful thinking though it was, bring a smile to my face it did. I had lost most of my strength and regretting my past did not renew a single aching muscle. I sensed movement. The dragonflies were here. I was to be put to death today and the final chapter of our existence would turn its final page. They led me to a pit bathed in bright, white light.

……………………………………….

The truth was nauseous in its blinding insanity. I was a subject under common surveillance ever since my first awakening. Created to serve a single purpose; a living, breathing time bomb. The answer to all the jealousy the neighbors had to endure as the elders built a prosperous nation. I had lived all my life in a fish bowl. Scrutinized daily by the brightest minds the neighbors could gather. The stench I endured during the first few days of my birth should have given me my earliest clue; there had to be something wrong with a disturbed awakening. My creators had probably sensed my inquisitive disbelief. That’s where the strings would come in. They soothed my body and therefore enchanted my mind. I would soon be far removed from acknowledging my dubious existence and questioning the forgery of my environment. The elders in my world were genetically altered dragonflies, serving only to temporarily substitute for the real elders in the outside world.

Every creature I had encountered was an individual unit of a massive lie; serving only to act as fearless characters in an elaborate screenplay. The crime I thought I had committed had not actually happened. My actions within the fish bowl and detailed analyses of my mental patterns had unlocked a deadly secret. I had invariably planned every single minute detail of the extermination of my species, and my every move was analyzed with intricate detail. The dragonflies and the other neighbors now knew how best to kill the elders. Strategy that had evaded them all along was now handed to them on a silver platter. All they needed to do was to understand our kind. I was created to give them that kryptonite. Soon armies of my duplicates would be built and sent to the necessary areas that would have to be conquered; the elders would be betrayed by their own.

I had served my purpose. Death was near and there was nothing I could do to warn my brothers of their impending doom. The dragonflies thanked me for my service as if it was my choosing. I had lived a malevolent life and the revelation that it was all an elaborately constructed hoax did nothing to soothe my sorrow. The strings closed in as they said they would. No longer were they silky in touch and pleasant in smell. Their malignant, gnarled edges tore open my skin and their corrugated edges served to bleed out every last sliver of my life. For the second time in my existence, the pungent smell enveloped me. I have failed you, my brothers.

Soaring higher than before,

wings full tilt, lofted

More esoteric form of self born,

alchemy of human metamorphosis resounds

©Govind Mohan – http://govindmika.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

Luck and the Irishmen

A bumbling young fool. Pa always called me that. As I made my way through the bustling Dublin traffic on my way to work, I thought of all things past and how they made up the present. I lived on Bride street and no matter how much Dublin had progressed with its government aided public transport, I loved the walk I had made for thirty seven years. Open my wooden door on Bride Street and breathe in the sausages and the Irish coffee. Walk down to Patrick St. and offer my head and knee to the Lord. St.Patrick's Cathedral. The birthplace of worship in all of Ireland. Strolling by would be a mother pushing a baby carriage, oblivious of all salient beings except her little daughter. Hand in hand would a couple walk, eager to break away on their own paths after a frilly night of incessant argument. An old tramp serves pigeons their daily bread, the same loaf that was given to him in evening past. All at St. Patricks. All creations of God.

A sharp left at High Street and as my fellow walkers and I stroll pass Meath Street, High bequeaths Thomas. A finger touches my head, chests and heart before it meets my cracked blue lips. The father. The son. The holy spirit. This was a ritual I particularly enjoyed. As a street changed its name by the mere crossing of another, so could God change your soul through the interference of one another blessed servant. Pa had left us when we were seven and Ma was thirty four. Brian, my twin brother, had left us soon after. Cancer they called it. Ma, in all her desperation, never forgot her will to serve all life. My brother would go but Ma would want another to live. So would I.

I passed Tommy drinking coffee at the McFadden Tea Stall on the right. As always, as was customary, Tommy waved and smiled like a thousand flashlights. He and I did not know each other but ever since he joined the Guinness workforce, he has always smiled loudly for twenty years past. Tommy was an awkward kid. Not many liked him for he never hung out with the rest of us when we went to McGuillens on Friday nights. He was a slow, sombre soul and did not show any emotion except when waving and smiling at me. I tried to approach him and talk to him on occasions but he never did respond verbally. He only nodded his head left and right, up and down. And smiled. That deep beautiful smile.

I was always an angry kid. Angry at my father for attacking my helpless mother on first instinct. Angry at my brother for being sickly and a permanent inhabitant of the deathly hallows. Angry at my mother for taking my father's abuse without so much as a little whimper. Angry at God for making us all wretched and poor. I would show my anger at none of them however. I took it all out on the rest of Dublin. Immigrant children would be beaten with my favorite log of wood and thrown into dumpsters. Bread and eggs would be stolen from the neighborhood grocer and tossed into the River Liffey. A waste, considering my family went hungry on many nights. When Brian died, Pa had already left us. With no source of income and no hope left, Ma turned to a poster. And a boy in Vietnam.

Thang Nguyen wanted to live. The Humanity Council on Arbour Hill promised redemption for all problems past and hope and love for all events in the future. As Ma had dialed the number on the poster, she whispered a silent prayer for Pa and Brian. She loved them and never did think about the sorrows of her past. The Council told her to come in for a meeting and look through brochures of people who were in a worse state than her around the world. She took me along because she did not trust me to take care of the house. Little did I know that Thang would change my life forever. Sophia, the sister in charge of the Humanity Council, told us that Thang would need a kidney to survive and they were looking for compatible donors in the first world. A sample of tests later, I was convinced with very little prodding that saving another body could save my own soul.

The operation was a resounding success. I was a perfect match and that was disturbingly surprising, considering all that led to it was a single, solitary poster. In a matter of minutes and bloody instruments, my body lost a kidney and Thang was brought back into life. A Red Cross airplane transported the organ packed deep into a milky ice pack. It flew magically into Cao Bang province, a vast expanse of land bordering the great Chinese empire. On the banks of the Bang Giang river, white faces and silver knives plunged deeped into Thang and after a bloody mess of bile and purple veins, he smiled for the first time in eleven years. Thang closed his eyes and thought of his faceless savior. A multiple hundred miles west, I felt my heart beat easier and felt the golden warmth of the sun and the stars take over my body.

Ah! Reminiscing the past always brings you closer to the present. It was twenty minutes past eight now and I was well in time for work. I crossed Rainford St. and as I entered the barracks of the Guinness Storehouse, my employer for the last thirty seven, I waved to Tommy. He was at his customary spot, loading barrells into the trucks. I worked in packaging, ensuring the barrells were full and that the quality was up to snuff. Every time I turned around bored, Tommy always had an eye on me and I never knew why. Sometimes it would become a game - I whipped my head around quick just to see if he was looking. He always was. Creepy in an odd sense. He was like my watchdog. It was the same today. As I marked the barrells and lifted them from the belt, Tommy kept peeking in. All I did as I always did was wave.

Should have listened to Ma. The sweater was cursed, she had always said that. A few minutes past nine and I could hear screams and moans. The blood was pouring on to my face now as my right hand, fingers already severed, was being dragged into the very conveyor it had worked on for ages infinitum. My hand was still attached to my body and I could sense the end was near. Soon I would be dragged into the infamous Dubliner Fermenter, a monster with four massive blades that churned the beer day and night, fall and spring. Thank you Ma for all the love and I forgive you Pa for all the hate. Brian, I shall see you soon, my love.

Tommy pulled me out. Tommy risked an arm and a leg to save me. As I was being carted in to the ambulance, he whispered the Holy Novena and told me everything would be alright. I pulled through and gave Tommy a smile as a symbol of holy gratitude. There was nobody but Tommy in the hospital. He held my arm as I rummaged through pain. He wiped away tears as I thought of family past. He fed me my porridge when the nurses were not concerned. He was an angel in disguise and a lot more in heart. On a Saturday morning posing as a cold wintry day is when it all made sense. Tommy showed me pictures. Of the rain trees in Cao Bang. Swimming in the Bang Giang. His mother proudly showing him off to their neighbors.

Tommy was Thang. Thang was Tommy. He had smuggled his way into the Irish wetlands and in the fashion of Celtic gratitude and redemption, wanted to serve me life just as I had done. I got better and Tommy felt the same sunlight seep into his heart. He needed that feeling and it had finally come.

We would be soul mates forever.

In colour's hieroglyphs of mystic sense,
It wrote the lines of a significant myth
Telling of a greatness of spiritual dawns,
A brilliant code penned with the sky for page. -

Karmoyogin. Canto One: The symbol of dawn.

©Govind Mohan – http://govindmika.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

The El from 69th Street

Seven U.S. soldiers killed in Ramala. Maddy took a quick glance at the television screen as he shoved the last piece of pancake into his mouth. CNN said the same things these days. It was always a bombing, always a suicide, and always Americans losing their lives. It angered Maddy that there were so many dying. He had begged Nicole not to go. Patriotism ran deep but nothing counted in a guilt-ridden war. Iraq was in shambles a few months back just as it is now. However, Nicole was steadfast in her trust of the President. The spirit of her country. The lives of her fellow people. She called on occasion but Maddy always feared for her. Brian was only six and missed his mother in the guise of an orphan. To Brian, Maddy was only an afterthought.

The yellow bus snaked its way through the lively streets. It was a searing summer morning and Philly was bustling with activity. Maddy stepped out into the street with Brian clinging onto his shoulders just as the bus halted to a distinct stop. “Off you go, my love”. Brian shook off Maddy’s kiss as he tumbled up the high steps. Maddy would wave goodbye in spite of Brian’s indifference. Sometimes, Brian’s friends would gesture back out of pity. Nobody did today. Maddy slowly shuffled back in and closed the baby blue door. He changed into his yellow overalls and kissed Nicole goodbye. A photo to replace her horrid absence.

The El was aberrantly sluggish today. Every stop seemed to take longer and Maddy felt a mounting sense of frustration. Jung docked his employees half their hourly wage for every minute they were late. And Maddy was never late. He couldn’t afford a pay-cut this week. Silvio had imposed a direct threat on Brian’s life and Maddy would not risk non-payment. He would need all of Jung’s charity this week.

30th Street Station. Maddy was half way there. Students, nurses, accountants, and every other Philadelphian conceivable swarmed into the already crammed train. Maddy scanned the crowd like he always did and noted something different. An Arab. Just like the ones CNN always interviewed. He was wearing a head-scarf too. Maddy had heard on the news that the terror code had been elevated. Subways and buses were always latent targets. “Hogwash!”, Maddy would allege whenever Nicole talked about the imminent peril immigrants brought to the United States. At this moment however, the Arab was a threat and Maddy felt it deep within his blood.

The El began to empty out as it made its way through the city. As the train accelerated out of Suburban Station, Maddy managed to get a clearer glance at the Arab. He was dressed in grey and had a spotless white headscarf. He appeared to be breathing heavily as rivulets of sweat streamed down his bullet ridden face. Odd. It was pretty chilly inside the car and to sweat was quite unfathomable. His face was sickeningly brown. Like a tanning machine subject gone bad. The Arab appeared to be working on something but Maddy did not have a clear view. He picked up his toolkit and made his way to a seat two rows behind the Arab. Much better.

Shock and awe. Maddy was immensely surprised nobody else had noticed what the Arab was doing. The Arab looked to be working with an electronic gadget of some sort. It had a row of four red lights that were blinking furiously and a set of color coded wires that snaked around a metallic box. A pair of scissors was feverishly snapping away at singular points. His perversely long brown fingers twisted the red and the blue together just as his teeth clenched the already knotted yellow and black. Maddy had seen this simulation before at the movies. A bomb. A Muslim suicide that would send innocent Americans into a vile, fiery death at the behest of a terrorist. CNN would report this story for weeks and then Philadelphia would forget. The world would move on as a single, solitary memoriam would have the ungratifying task of remembering the dead. Brian would be all alone. An orphan at last.

Market East Station. The police would need to be warned soon. Maddy stumbled as he heatedly searched for his phone. Thankfully, his signal strength was respectable. Maddy rushed to the back of the car and dialed 911. “Hello…Yes…There is a Muslim with a bomb on the 8am El out of 69th Street. Excuse me? Yes. I am positive. POSITIVE. Light black hair, grey suit, 30’s, white headscarf. The only Arab on this train. Yes. Yes. I always sit in the 3rd train car. Yes. Somebody intercept the train at 2nd. I’ll round up the passengers. Yes. I will be safe…..Hurry. Please.” Maddy gestured toward two construction workers and told them about his call. They would need to confront the Arab.

“Inshallah. Nahi. Nahi. Yeh bomb nahi hai. Oh Allah. Allah. Allah hu Akbar Allah.” Maddy’s face was burning up. The man refused to offer them the contraption. And the lights were blinking faster every second. Gibberish. That’s all he spoke. Maddy grabbed hold of the Arab’s arm and the construction worker attempted to grasp it out. He was pretty strong. Suddenly the Arab started flaying his arms. He was standing now and pointed the contraption at Maddy directly. A direct threat. Screams from the other passengers. The Arab was making circular gestures now. This was a bomb and he meant to use it. It would explode upon detonation and nobody dared go near the Arab. The train screeched out of 5th street. One stop to second. Maddy did not have much hope. His hands were shaking now and it was only a matter of time. Nicole, I love you. Brian, I love you. The words would barely come out.

2nd Street. The train stopped but the doors refused to budge. Maddy threw all his weight onto the door but to no avail. A loud thumping of a million footsteps. The police were here. An officer quickly broke the glass with his baton and rushed into the car. A hundred hands moved in unison as a hundred fingers pointed in one direction. At the Arab in the corner. Crouched into the fetal position and violently shivering.

“Put the bomb down Sir. NOW!”.

“Allah….Allah….Allah hu Akbar”.

Four M-16’s had their sights set on the Arab. A single click and everything would be over.

“NOW Sir. Put the bomb down NOW.”

The Arab stood up just as sixty bullets pummeled their way into his body within seconds. No scream. No agony. Gallons of blood. Maddy watched in slow motion as the Arab sunk into eternal sleep. It was over. Maddy was a hero.

“Rahim! Papa!”. Maddy watched in disbelief as Wasim popped his tiny head out of the city cab and rushed to the ambulance that carried the Arab. A woman followed, panting and screaming in utter desperation. Wasim? Brian’s best friend? Maddy inched his way to the medical personnel that were laying a white sheet over the Arab’s body. Wasim was strangely clinging on to the man’s body and refused to let go. It took two officers to pull the woman and the boy away. As they sat in the waiting facility, Maddy approached the officer in charge. The Arab’s son and the Arab’s wife. Maddy felt heady and nauseous. He walked past the police car and sat down next to Wasim. The tears formed unending rivulets but Wasim was not screaming anymore. In his hands, he held the metallic object. Maddy’s bomb. Maddy’s eyes opened wide and he felt the earth fall under him as Wasim spoke. “Papa couldn’t afford to buy me the fire engine Brian got for his birthday. This was his solution”.

Wasim laid his head on Maddy’s shoulders. Sans fire engine. Sans father.

©Govind Mohan – http://govindmika.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.

An eternal fire

Parvati stormed into the palatial courtyard. King Dhruv had met her first in this now lifeless boulevard. He had told her how much he loved her and proudly talked about the wealth she would be privy to if she married him. The money did not concern her. She was born in modest circumstances and gold plated coins never did point their wretched and selfish fingers at her. Her ailing parents demanded most of her attention and her brother earned enough to keep the food warm and her parents alive. Dhruv and her were married the year after they had first met on the boulevard of false promises. The days and weeks were emotionally and physically satisfying until the others came into the fold. First it was Radhika. Then it was Shreya. Not long after came Pavitra. Ria followed. And so did Laira. Gita was supposed to be the last. Until Sheila finally rounded up the pack. Eight women. Seven days. One woman did not get her heart recharged every week. And this week it was Parvati’s plight.

She would refuse to be one of eight. Sixteen women in the near future was a distinct possibility. Dhruv had an insatiable appetite for unsullied flesh. It was time to leave. It was time to go back and serve her loving parents. She conversed with Dhruv and patiently listened to his childish tantrum. He would have none of it ofcourse. He promised her death by firing squad. Parvati would have to wait and bide her time. As she sullenly made her way back to the queen’s quarters, she reopened the note her servant had given her in the morning. It simply said “To the woman who will always be admired and adored. From the boy who may never have her".” On the back was an address. Parvati would go. Alone. She was notorious for making rational and secure decisions. Not this time. A lover patiently waited in the drunken expanse that made up Dhruv’s kingdom.

Mandakini washed her hands and set down the bronze plate her husband used. Arjun would be coming home soon and dinner was taking longer than usual. A silent drop of sweat made a slow, sacred descent down her tired face. She had nursed her baby son for most of the day. When the baby had finally closed its miniature darling eyes, she began mixing the dough and rinsing the vegetables. Arjun demanded something special every Wednesday. Physical abuse was the norm. A whipping was the exception. And if dinner did not satisfy his usually inebriated mind and body, a whipping is what she got. The fact that the vegetables were taking longer to cook was terrifying. Her fragile body was at its breaking point. If her son was to become a successful merchant someday, he would need his mother’s nourishing.

Arjun slammed the door shut. He was obviously in a bad mood. He glanced quickly at his son and then shook his head in disgust. Mandakini quickly removed the vegetables from the burning fire and faithfully served her husband. One scoop. Two. Arjun then roughly pushed her away from him. Mandakini creeped back into the darkness. She mouthed a silent prayer and closed her eyes for two minutes. As she slowly opened them she caught a reflection of the chaata. Time felt like an eternity before the numbing pain finally took over all the nerves in her body. A single stroke. Deathly pain. Blood from the recesses. A sufferer’s shame. Arjun fell asleep soon after the alcohol completely warped his brain. Mandakini prayed this was the night. She silently stripped herself off her rags and donned her husband’s clothes. A distraught soul staggered out into the nectar-sweet night sky.

She took him into her arms. He kissed her forehead and nudged her ears with his nose. He kissed her chin and in excruciating slowness made his way two inches to her lips. She bit his lip passionately and drew in the silent stream of warm red. As their tongues interlocked in an exhilarating embrace, she looked into his brown eyes and immediately drew comfort. He breathed in her fragrance as he brushed his tongue on her neck. Three subtle vertical strokes was all it took to feel her cringe in his arms. He traced his long fingers down her spine and tiptoed patiently to her breasts. He cupped her left while he gently circled the right with his puckered mouth. She grabbed his hair, drew his face to hers and kissed him with fervor and unblemished passion. Then began an uncompromising descent into his deepest secrets.

Dhruv did not suspect a thing. Parvati always left in the dead of the night and her faithful servant kept a constant lookout for spies and Dhruv’s numerous confidants. Dhruv questioned her new found happiness once but was immediately appeased when Parvati told him it was only because she looked forward with fiendish excitement to spending every eighth day with him. All was merry and happy until that fateful day in November. Parvati was coming back from the royal baths when the king’s chief minister blocked her path and told her that Dhruv was dead. A peasant woman had shot at him while he was on his weekly hunt. She had escaped before the royal guards could catch her. A massive hunt was organized nevertheless to find the killer. Blood rushed into Parvati’s head. As first wife, she would be forced by societal and religious custom to keep her husband company as their souls made their royal journey into the underworld. There was no escape.

Parvati was dressed in red. She looked beautiful even in the face of impending death. The procession snaked its way slowly through the city streets. Dhruv was being carried in a gold-plated chariot and thousands of people threw rose petals and tulsi leaves at his body.
Parvati walked a few feet behind and she received the same adolation and attention. She had wanted to see him before her final moments but he was nowhere in sight. It was futile – she had not heard from him in months and he had probably given her up for good. Just like Dhruv once did. Death would not be easy and all she wanted was to smile in a solemn moment of happiness before her soul wrenched itself away from the physical. Dhruv was laid on a bed of the finest sandalwood. Thirteen logs would suffice to take the couple into their next life. Parvati crossed her legs, folded her hands, and took a final respectful bow at her subjects. The head priest brought forward a shapely log of oak and lit it on fire. With a gracious sweep that signified finality, he set the pyre ablaze.

Parvati silently watched the flames surround her and caught a familiar figure in the background. Mandakini? She had come to say goodbye! To Parvati’s complete and utter surprise, Mandakini hastily took off her clothes. Arjun’s clothes. In stark nakedness and in full view of the public’s disbelieving gasps, she made seven gracious steps and stepped into the burning flames. The royal guards immediately recognized her. The peasant who had the audacity to kill the king. Parvati shrieked with delight as she embraced her in loving submission. The boy who claimed he would never have her. Her man. Her woman. Her blood. Her soul. As the fire burned away their flesh, Parvati looked into Mandakini’s brown eyes and fell in love again. They would be together forever. Hiding was no more an option.

©Govind Mohan – http://govindmika.blogspot.com. All rights reserved.