Online-offline....a few excerpts...

Some excerpts from 'Online-offline'...my second work of fiction (yet to be published though...)

Chapter 15
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Then suddenly, there was light. Strong and piercing rays of light blinded her. She felt as if the sun had come down to shine upon her. She thought she was wide awake, standing in the midst of an unknown forest with long pine trees reaching upto the sky which had been just painted azure by the God. She was so much enthralled by the calm beauty of the place that she felt within her an irresistible urge to explore it. So she started walking briskly, turning her eyes to each and every object. She walked faster and felt the yellow and worn out leaves making crumbling sounds under her busy feet. Then she thought she heard a distant rumble of water flowing somewhere. She ran to the direction, brushing past tall trees with algae grown over them. Soon she arrived at a clearing. She saw a stream meandering through the woods and near it, sat a girl, dressed in a white gown with satin borders. The girl did not see Anu for she was sitting near the stream, with her back towards her. Anu walked towards the girl in white. The curls of brown hair cascading down her shoulders looked very much familiar to Anu.

Anu called: Hey You!

The girl turned around and the face of the girl left Anu speechless for a while.

The girl’s face strangely resembled Anu’s. The same eyebrows, the same lips, the same complexion, the same eyes…

Anu thought as if she was looking herself on the mirror.

‘Goodness me! You…you look like me!’

Anu shouted almost.

The lookalike smiled.

‘I’m you’

She said as she stood up.

Anu looked at her white long skirt and bare feet.

‘You’re me? What’s that? A puzzle?’

Anu asked still in a maze.

‘Yes…I’m you…yourself’

The girl answered, smiling benignly.

‘How that can be?’

Anu asked.

‘Why not? I am you…your inner self…’

‘Really?’

Anu asked definitely thinking the girl to be a madcap.

Anu scrutinized the face. The girl’s face was much more radiant than her own, making her look younger.

‘Hey! You look younger than me…’

Anu stated.

‘That’s because your inner self is younger than your physical age…’

The girl in white answered.

‘Okay…for a while I take your claim as truth…now, tell me, why you are here?’

Anu asked, curiously.

‘I want you to rediscover yourself…’

‘Rediscover? Myself? How?’

Anu was confused.

‘Follow me…’

The girl in white started walking towards the stream. She walked effortlessly as if her feet were not touching the ground. She almost glided on the thin air that separated her bare feet from the earth and leaves below. Coming near the stream, the girl sat on a stone and stooped to cup out water from the stream by her right palm. Water was dripping from her palm, continuously. Then she slowly extended her cupped palm with water towards Anu.

‘Drink…from my hand…’

The white robed girl said.

Anu looked at her palm. The water in her folded palm looked brownish.

‘Drink…’

The girl repeated as if she had been waiting for ages to make Anu drink from her palm. Anu neared her mouth to the palm so that the brownish liquid touched her lips. There was a strange aroma in the liquid. Anu thought she knew the sweet invigorating smell. She sipped.

The liquid watery thing left a cool sensation within her mouth which gradually reached her throat and bosom and her belly.

‘It’s lovely!’

Anu said and sipped on till the liquid was no longer there and the palm went dry.

‘Want some more of it?’

The girl asked.

‘Yes!’

Anu said almost jumping to her toes.

‘But you need not to pour water from your palm…I can have it myself’

Saying this Anu dropped her two palms together into the stream and cupped out the liquid. She drank it. The smell was as sweet as ever and the cold sensation was much more pleasant. She felt the water soothed her soul. She felt blessed. Anu cupped out more water and poured into her mouth till she felt she was blissfully satiated.  The girl in white sat there on the stone and watched her drinking madly like someone who was dying for water.

‘How do you feel?’

The girl asked as she kept on running her hand on her strands of brown hair.

‘Fine!’

Anu replied.

Actually Anu was having a strange feeling. She felt as if she was in a very pleasant place with no cares or worries. Her mind was completely blank. She felt calm within and without. She felt that the world is a very happy place and human existence only enhances happiness. She felt that the trees, the leaves, the stream, the water, the silence, the sun rays,-all were there only to please her, to make her live for long, to make her happy.

Anu felt so happy that her jubilance gushed forth through her eyes. Tears of happiness rolled down her rosy cheeks.

‘Who are you?’

Anu murmured.

‘I’m you…your happy self’

The girl said.

‘My happy self?’

Anu asked, bewildered still.

‘Yes…you are happy and my work is over’

The girl said.

‘You came to make me happy?’

Anu asked.

‘Yes…To make you happy with the world…the real world’

The girl stood up and descended from the stone.

Anu walked towards her mirror self.

The girl took Anu’s hands into hers and whispered:

‘Don’t look for happiness outside…look within yourself and you’ll find that…’

Anu looked into the girl’s mesmerizing eyes. They were deep and yet so emotive.

‘What should I do? Please don’t leave me…’

Anu cried as she pressed her palms into the soft feathery palms of the alien dissembler.

‘Your mind is what the world is…it’s virtual and at the same time it influences the real…so be in the best of your mind…I’m sure you will…for you’ve taken the elixir of life…as far as your future…you have true passion for something watery and aromatic and intoxicating…be a sommelier…that’s your life…’

‘A sommelier?’

Anu asked feeling rather somnolent.

‘Yes…’

The girl said and she took away her palms from Anu’s. Anu tried to tighten her grip so as to hold her back, but the girl’s hands slipped. The alien self of Anu walked straight into the stream and when she reached midstream, her body was already half immersed into water. She walked still and her body got lowered and after few minutes Anu saw the girl’s brown hair floating and then, after few more minutes that was gone. The girl got drowned into the water of the stream. Anu rushed down the water. The cool stream reached her knee. She waded through till the water reached her neck and she felt she lost her touch with the bed of the stream. She lost control and slipped. The water shut her eyes out as it entered into her through her mouth and nose. She panted. She thought she lost her senses, for the second time.

Chapter 26
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It was late in the evening when Moni came out of her office room and gave some necessary instructions to Kevin before she started walking down the footpath. There was a chill in the air. A light breeze was blowing. Moni wrapped her ears with her dupatta and waited for the auto at the stand. There was no auto. Moni waited. The mist mixed with the smoke coming out incessantly from the passing vehicles had created a kind of smog. The smog was not heavy but it would become denser for sure with the descent of the night. The headlights of vehicles looked a bit smudged in the smog as if someone had being using the water paint brush over the whole scene. Moni looked around. No one was there at the stand. Are the auto rickshaws observing a bandh today? Bandhs are like malignant diseases in this part of the country. They spread fast catching you unawares.

Just then, like a god sent chariot, piercing the smog there came an auto rickshaw with its yellow round headlamp jerking like that of an one-eyed monster. Cyclops…Moni thought and she waved her hand customarily. The auto stopped right in front of her. There was a single male occupant at the rear seat and the driver was there as usual holding on to the scooter like handle bar of the vehicle, peeping his head out, with questioning eyes. There was music too blaring loud. FM radios are now part of the auto journey. You can never miss them. They are there always to entertain you even if you don’t like to be entertained. 

Chapter 35
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Ved pulled the car over at the gate of the Botanical gardens. It was 1.15 p.m. Together they chose the gardens because it was the nearest place which Sonai had never visited.

The Bicentenary gate with a black plaque mentioning the date and the occasion was there as usual. Ved read the plaque. July 15, 1994 was the day on which the bicentenary gate was inaugurated by a Central Minister.

That means the garden was made way back in 1794, by the British perhaps…Ved thought. This thought of standing in an ancient place with a lot of ancient trees around brought a sense of wonder in Ved. He had visited this garden only once earlier, when he was a school boy. But then there was no plaque mentioning its age. The black plaque was placed on a red brick wall and in front of the wall were red pots and vases and tubs of flowers. The garden looked peaceful, serene. There was, of course, the Sunday public in picnic spirit, loitering around. But the garden was vast with a lot of trees and the crowd looked sparse compared to the vastness of the garden. Walking down the path Ved and Sonai first came to a group of trees which looked like big reptiles lying on the ground. Sonai was so curious that she just ran towards those trees and reaching them, started to look at them with wide eyes.

‘Hey Dad! Aren’t they wonderful?’

Sonai shouted.

Ved had already brought out his camera and standing a few yards away from the cluster of trees lying on the ground like reptiles, he was setting his focus right. The trees were really fascinating. They were kind of palm trees but they got bent from their roots touching the ground and again they rose up, like reptiles looking up to the sky.

Sonai stood looking down at the roots for some time. Then she gradually went nearer and touched the trunk of the trees.

Sans flash, Ved set the focal length at 2.8 and ISO at 200. Holding steady, suppressing his breath, he pressed the shutter and all most at once realized that he done a wonderful thing. He had moved on, leaving aside all his indolence and mental blocks. He realized he had once again started treading the path he liked the most. This realization gave him a great joy. Seeing Sonai climbing the trunk of the trees with excitement all over her face and the sun falling on her hair and the pink hat that she wore and the trees and the green grass, Ved felt the joy of breaking free from all shackles of morbidity and hopelessness that crept into him after Mayurika’s death. He felt he had started to reclaim his life.

Joie de vivre! Ved shouted and ran towards her girl.

‘…Everything is derived from joy, is nourished in joy and finally returns to joy…’

Ved recalled the lines suddenly, from Upanishad ,as he took his baby in arms and kissed her.

Chapter 46
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All these thoughts, a sort of journey down the memory lane, made him so much lugubrious that he actually jumped out of his cot in the dark and began searching for his potion…the bottle of liquor…he found several of them, but they were all empty…he got more frustrated. Out of frustration, he came out of the room so dark, opened the wooden door with a mild push and stood on the verandah only to see light. The mist, the fog, the chill in the air, all came rushing onto him, as if they would embrace him. He felt numbed. But this numbness soothed him in a strange manner. He just looked at the nature so wild, and the sun coming out in the softest manner possible. He thought after coming to that place, he, for the first time, realized the beauty of the place. He gradually descended from the verandah and strolled across the undulated land to reach the concrete slab. The slab looked shiny and wet. Ramakant coughed and spat before he chose to sit on the slab. He sat down facing the gorge and the distant clumsy hills. He sat silent, blank. The silence of the place enveloped him gradually. The place was so silent that he could even hear the mere rustle of leaves quite distinctly. He could hear dewdrops falling. He could hear the somberly sounds of gongs emanating from some distant monastery even. He sat. He was not thinking anything for thinking about himself and his life spent made him restless. He just wanted to sit that way as long as he could. Only one image, however, came to his mind. The image of a little girl playing in his laps…peeing, pooping, puking…a little baby…soft, gentle eyed…the image of his little Anu. Suddenly Ramakant Agarwal felt like vomiting. His throat suddenly became heavy as if something was trying to get out of his body system. He tried to hold it back. But he could not. He vomited. He vomited ill smell of liquor and pork. Soon after the vomit, he felt heavily weary. He felt sleepy. But the vomit…it smelled bad. He suddenly realized that by vomiting he had made dirty the place so clean, consecrated. So he thought he should cleanse his own vomit. Now this thought was completely new to him. This thought was so new and strange and comforting that he was himself amazed by the mere thought. He got up and walked up speedily to the cottage, brought out two buckets straight from the bathroom and poured the water. He felt he needed a kind of a broom to cleanse the place spick and span. So he went in again and rummaging the storeroom, found a small broom. He broomed the slab and poured more water and broomed till his heavy body shook and he felt warm and sweaty. He also realized he was not so physically fit, for he felt panting. He felt he had grown fat all over his body. He felt his heart was thumping a bit too fast. He felt his legs were weak and his head was spinning. He fell.

Chapter 50
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‘When one dies one is acquitted of all sins, so don’t worry…but other people like Mathur and Sultan Singh are alive…they would be hunted down and booked…I will come down to your place after the funeral…to ask you and your mother some routine questions…and my heartfelt condolences to you and your mother…’

The Inspector said as he patted Anu’s shoulders, at the hospital, before going away.

Anu was sitting speechless, tired, lonely, on the wooden bench of the lobby of the government hospital at Siliguri.

Only one scene kept on repeating in her mind in a cyclical manner, as if it was played in the auto-repeat mode…

Suddenly Ramakant opened his eyes…it was so sudden that Anu who was carrying his head on her lap, all the way, as he lied motionless and still, on the backseat of the van, got a terrible shocking jolt…as if he had awakened from the dungeon of death…his eyes looked still…no batting of lids…nothing…as if a dead man was watching her…then she shook him hard…shook him as if she wanted him to sit up and talk to her, thinking him to be cured of his brief unconsciousness and comatose state…then she shook him again, causing him to utter a groan, indistinct, inaudible…Anu dropped her ears down to his mouth…so that she could hear what he was trying to say…he groaned for the second and the last time…this time it was a bit prominent…Anu thought she heard the word-‘Shukriya…’(meaning thanks in english)

‘Shukriya…’

That was probably the last word spoken by him last late evening, as the van sped through the winding road, cutting through mist and fog and darkness.

‘Shukriya…’

That was the last word uttered by the man who provided the seed to her mother so that she could be born.

That was too hard a word for her to come in proper terms with. When a dying father expresses thanks to his daughter, with his head being rested on the daughter’s lap, it is always too hard a thing for the daughter to accept that impassively. So Anu cried more, shaking her dad, mumbling incoherently:

‘Why? Dad? Why? It is okay…look I’m here…to take you to the hospital…look dad…look!’

But the man, closed his eyes soon after that, as if he woke up only to say that. His face had no signs of pains. In fact it looked like he had gone to take a very peaceful sleep.

That’s how the seed thanked the plant. That’s how probably all seeds thank their plants, seeing the plants full grown, mature, with branches spread out, standing tall, on their own, facing the challenges of life…