FF: A Heap of Broken Images, PT-8, PG-9 - Page 3

Okay, I just love this story. I love the suspense. It's leaving me on the hook all the time. Can't wait for it to continue. Please continue very soon.

PART-4

A breeze lifted of the river and blew over him, cooling his heated body. It was a little cold, a little wet...there wasa hint of moisture in the air...but the clouds invariably burned off by noon and then there it was again, the dishonest nursery blue of the sky that made the world look childlike and pure, the loud impolite orb blaring at him like a man laughing too loudly in a restaurant... ...He remembered the poem, his favorite...it was so much close to him as if written for him only... ...

The First Sorrow... ...

The path by the shadow of the forest is now covered with grass.
On that deserted road, someone called me from behind.
"Don't you recognize me?"
I turned back to look at him.
"I remember you, but do not recall your name."
He said, "I am the sorrow who came to you when you were twenty-five."
The corner of his eyes revealed a spark of ray, just like moonlight on a lake.
I stood there, surprised.
"Back then, you appeared like a dark monsoon cloud. Now, you look like a golden idol. Have you lost the tears of that day?" I asked.
He didn't say anything, just smiled. I realized everything was contained in that smile.
The clouds of the rainy day had learned to smile like bright sunny days of the summer.
I asked him, "Have you preserved my youth of twenty-five?"
"Yes, I made it my necklace. Not even a single petal of the spring's garland had fallen."
I said, "See, how I have shriveled with age. But my youth is still adorning your neck, as fresh as ever."
He slowly put that necklace around my neck and said, "Do you remember, that day you had said, you don't need consolation, you only want sorrow?"
I shrugged a little. "Yes, I did. But it has been so long; I had forgotten about it."
"But the one within you hadn't forgotten. Now, you must accept me," he said.
I held his hand and said, "How wonderful you look!"
He smiled and said, "That which was once sorrow, is now peace."

{Rabindranath Tagore…a perfect example of personification, Tagore is simply mind-blowing…}

But unlikely he hadn't forgotten anything...not even an iota of thing...

His ocean blue eyes took the in the vast Arabian Sea... he had always loved it, since the time he fist stepped on its moist sand, touched its harmless waves, floated in her lap...he loved her, the ever-increasing sea, and it loved him back, offering herself to him...she became a friend he with whom played, his mother who pacified him, a silent listener when he had the world to accuse and curse, his guiding light who made his life less burdening...he had smiled, giggled, laughed, cried, wailed...in its soothing grains of sand... and she had looked upon him with a pair of kind eyes... ...

His still vividly remembered the day when he was asked to play in the garden in front of his small wooden villa in Mt. Abu...a man had visited them...for the first time since he knew...

"Thank you of coming Uday...I am really grateful..." Krishna said twitching the end of her sari, highly nervous and restless, not able to look into his scrutinizing gaze...

"Don't look at me like that..." she muttered...

"Why did you leave Krishna...??" came his mournful question...Krishna kept quiet, tears already forming in her eyes...waiting to be shed...

"Jai...he is my son...our son...isn't he..." he said getting up, kneeling in front of her, he held her clasped hand...

"My son...oh my god!!!!" he uttered in disbelief...Krishna looked at his radiant face; he looked more handsome with those white strands....

"That morning...when you left...I was broken...I searched for you everywhere...but you had vanished into thin air...God Krishna...I can't tell you how much I longed for you, waited for your return...but you never came..." he said holding her hand tightly...

"I was pregnant uday and I knew you can never leave your family...and I also knew that you loved me...I didn't want to make it difficult for you...I didn't want you to make a choice..." she cried...

"Why didn't you stay back Krishna...why didn't you ask me your right...why didn't you fight..."

"Because I loved you...truly..." Krishna said spreading her palm on his cheek...uday stumbled down, sitting on the floor like a man who had lost everything...indeed he had lost everything... ...

"I am sorry..." he said placing his head in her lap...

"Forgive me..."

"There is something I need to tell you..." Krishna said...uday looked up...

"You and jai will stay with me now...that's it..." he said firmly...she smiled weakly...

"The reason I called you after almost more than ten years is..." Krishna gulped down not understanding how to tell this truth to him...

"What is it?? You are scaring me..." he gripped her hand...

"I am suffering from blood cancer...I will die anytime soon... "There was an acoustic silence between them...

"I...I will take you abroad nothing will happen..." uday rambled in a frenzy...

"Uday...uday listen...its last stage...and nothing can be done...so please...leave it...just listen..." she said cupping his face...

"Jai...I am worried for him...take care of him...I don't want anything else...nothing ...just take care of him..." the intensity in her voice shook is insides...mounting his guilt even more...

"He is my son... "uday said staring into her eyes... she bent and hugged him tightly...

Later...Krishna called jai... ...

"What were you doing...??" he snapped at her angrily...

"I am sorry....I was talking to...Mr. Walia..." she said...jai gave a curious glance at the stranger roaming around in his house... he frowned seeing what he was doing...he was watching his childhood photographs, HIS PERSONAL PHOTOS...jai jumped towards him, snatching away the album from him...startling both uday and Krishna...

"JAiii..." Krishna yelled aghast but her son's rude action, he was always a polite boy...

"This is MY A-L-B-U-M..." jai said closing it, sending the message clear and loud...carrying it inside...uday grinned looking at Krishna's way...

"He is definitely my son..." at that very moment she could see the sparkle in his eyes...

"How...how is kiran...??" she asked after a lot of hesitation...

"Same as before, even worse...as if I care..." uday said irritated...

"Don't you have any children...?"

"A girl, not at all like her mother...she is my darling...her name is anu...you want to see her..." uday excitedly took out his mobile showing her the picture of his six year old daughter...

"She has your eyes..." Krishna said...uday leaned forward pecking her cheek...making Krishna blush...

"You still blush the same...you are still so pretty..." he said...

"I missed you..." he said in a melancholy strain...

"MAA!!!" jai's scream made them jump apart...

"Why is he holding you???" he came marching towards them, pulling out Krishna's hand from his...

"Jai dear...listen..." uday tried to talk to him...

"I am hungry maa..." jai said turning his face away...

"Come, let's have dinner..."

The dinner was a very quiet affair...with only the sounds of cutlery reverberating...

"Are you papa??" jai asked naively...all of a sudden...astonishing both Krishna and uday... uday smiled affably towards him...

"Jai...woh..." Krishna fumbled...

"Yes son...I am your papa..." uday said...

"Where were you??? Ma cried for you so much...I don't like you..." saying jai banged the spoon over the plate and left in a huff...

"Jaaii...wait...sunoo...beta..." Krishna got up running after him...

"Krishna wait...I told you he is stubborn and mad like me... let me talk to him..." uday said going inside jai's small room...

"I am sorry...look I hold my ears..." uday said... jai peeped at him through the corner of his yes...

"Shall I do sit-ups..." he offered...

"100..." came jai's grumpy voice... uday hid his erupting smile...and started doing sit ups...

"Uday...what??" Krishna came in shocked at the scene...

"My son has punished me Krishna..." uday said...jai giggled a bit...

"3...5..." uday counted...

"It 3...4...not 5...don't cheat..." jai said standing before him, with his hands on his hips...

"6...7...8...9...10...fast..." jai said counting further...

"Beta....papa's legs will pain na..." Krishna said, jai pondered over the fact for sometime...

"Okay, stop... but you will play with me...chess...and carom...and cricket...and football..." jai said with a cute smile, uday's eyes watered...

"Yes...beta...of course..." uday pulled into his arms, hugging him to his chest tightly... Uday stayed back, forgetting about everything else...

The next one month was the best days of the lives of the three of them...until one night when Krishna's health worsened...coughing blood she died in his arms with a smile...jai was inconsolable...

"Jai...chalo beta..." uday said as he picked up the luggage

"Why did ma go...???" he sobbed...

"Beta, ma was very good, the most beautiful person...and God is very alone...he needs good people...that's why he took away ma..." uday said patting him...

"I hate God!!!" he declared...

He had never turned to face him again, he kept his word and was still keeping it...God was nothing for him, a void, a falsehood who everybody pretended to believe... there was no God and life had proved it to countless times...every time he tried to think that maybe yes, somewhere an Almighty existed, every time something happened which strengthened his atheism... ...

He turned his feet to leave... ... walking...time had come to make things happen and not wait to let them happen...he had to plan everything meticulously...every move should have to be calculative and shrewd...

"Sir...sir..." he heard someone call him...

"Yes..." he turned around...

"I think this is yours..." the young man extended wallet...

"Oh!! I think yes..." jai said searching his pockets, he had taken out to give some money to the beggar, it fell down supposedly...

"Thank you..." jai said amazed by the man's honesty, anybody would have taken it away stealthily...

"Somebody else would have taken it away..." jai said keeping the wallet carefully inside...

"One can never achieve success by cheating someone...my amma says..." jai looked at him for a second...

"What's your name...??"

"Pushkar Shukla...?"

"What do you do...??"

"Searching for a job, slow down and all, lost my job..." pushkar said...

"Work with me..." jai said...

"Sir...come...let's have a chat..."

"By the way my name is Aprajit Deb...you can call me AD..." jai introduced himself...

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Why would Jai want to introduce himself as Aprajit Deb, Intriguing.