From & To Sathish #5 - Page 73

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT23BKqZizc

Avan, Aval Adhu 243

“What we've got here is failure to communicate ” is a quote used in the 1967 film Cool hand Luke.

One day, someday in the future, if and when the world comes to an end due to war, I am sure that many leaders who are in their final moments of life will think, ' I should have reached out. I could have reached out and made an attempt to talk or say something and maybe my enemies would have stopped and thought about it before pressing the button, that had, " Doomsday " written on it. That red button when pressed launched a thousand Nuclear missiles and plunged the world into extinction.

Many a time in our very own lives we face situations where our very own finger is hovering over those red buttons called " anger, strike, retaliate and accuse " and almost all times we do press one of those buttons and then the person we are fighting with will press their own buttons and soon the situation escalates into open war and you find yourself as sworn enemies. Years of friendship, memories of love and sacrifice are all lost and are soon forgotten and smothered by the fog of anger and hatred.

There had been a few times when Ravi had lost it. Really lost it and had descended into that " Kill or be killed ' mode but thankfully, Madhu had been present in all those situations. The first time was when Meenakshi verbally abused Madhu in high school and Ravi had nearly killed her. Madhu had stopped him and asked, ' An eye for an eye. Anger against anger. Have you stopped and thought about the reason for her anger? She is behaving in such a way because she loves you and probably loves you more than I love you.'

The second time was when Ravi found Meenakshi with a few men who were faithful to her rich and powerful father Dharmalinga Thevar bullying Madhu and had angrily slapped and beaten a few of the men who had not retaliated because they knew that their boss loved Ravi more than his own daughter and the daughter loved Ravi more than she loved herself. Her anger would have been swift and deadly.

The third time had been on that fateful night when all hell had broken loose and Meenakshi had tried to kill Madhu and it had taken all of Ravi's strength and patience to separate her and by that time her brother had landed up and the situation had gone from bad to worse.

Ravi sat in the darkness of cottage No.7 and recollected Madhu's words that she had spoken in Bengali.

' Premika, ami tomake balobhasi. Apani ekati mahana atma. Raga ragera samadhana karate pare nase etara yogya naya. Ekhana na, Kakhano na. My lover. I love you. You are a great soul. Anger cannot solve anger. She is not worth it. Not today. Not ever.'

He remembered those final words on that fateful night that Madhu had whispered into his mouth, into his soul.

'Bhalabasa mane niramaya karara janya hatya naya. Love is meant to heal and not to kill.'

Her words immediately filled his body with love, patience and energy and he asked Gayatri in a very soft and kind voice, ' Choices. All of us are given choices at every point of our lives. Multiple choices for any problems and situations that we humans face in our daily lives. We get the same multiple choice questions when we sit for our exams and yet life and exams are so different. The questions in our exam papers have multiple choices but sadly have only one right answer for which marks are given. Wrong choice and zero marks. Life too is a sort of exam, a daily exam, in which difficult questions are asked for which we have multiple choice answers but cruelly there is no single right answer that will solve all the problems. Every answer is right and wrong and comes with its own evil and good and in the end, we have to, forced to, make a choice and hope and pray that will end up doing more good than bad.'

Gayatri's face that was raging in both anger and confusion now relaxed a bit as she looked at him with questions filling her eyes, ' What are you trying to say here, Ravi, that life is complicated and that one can never be really happy and live out their life in peace and harmony?'

He smiled, ' I am sorry Gayatri but these are all too powerful and profound questions that nobody can answer and even if they answer it will not work for everyone.'

Wiping the tears that were bursting out from her eyes, ' If you loved this woman so much, why didn't you go in search of her? Why didn't you track her down and see if she was okay and why didn't you keep in touch with her and finally marry her when the time was right?'

' I tried had and in the end, I did.'

She splurted, ' what? you did and then?'

Ravi smiled sadly and turned away and looked at the darkness that now lay all over Kodai hills and had laid a thick evil-looking shroud of a Fog.

' It took me two years. But, I managed to track her family down ' and looked at Gayatri, ' rather her relations in Kolkotta. Her mother had passed away and Madhu's father was ailing with a weak heart. It was he who told me that Madhu had gotten married to somebody very well off and was residing in Mumbai.'

Gayatri looked at him and the sadness in his face and voice threatened to break her heart into a million pieces. She asked him, ' why, why didn't you go to Mumbai? Why didn't you fight for her? Why didn't you fight for the love of your life and get her back?'

' Too late, Gayatri. It was all too complicated' he paused and looked at her, ' I was just 20 years old then. Tell me what could I have done? What could Madhu have done?'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSu9MxbMb8M

Avan, Aval Adhu 244

“Most people think of fiction as a wildly creative art form. But this just shows how much creativity is possible inside a prison.”

You need both hands to clap. Wrong. One can slap their face silly and still produce a loud clapping noise if not a slapping noise. It takes two to Tango. Wrong again. Two people will look good when they tango but two legs are what is most important to tango and dance to start with.

Hands clap hand slaps. Two to tango and two legs to even begin to tango. These are stories from my own prison that is my own creation.

Two become one in love is a myth. Maya. A purported truth that is a big fat lie and yes, that big fat elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about for it is a sacrosanct topic. Two come together under the aura of love and marriage if they are lucky and if not they may also come together as lifelong prisoners with one inside the jail as a prisoner and the other outside as the jailor. Sadly, both look at each other through the bars of the jail door not realizing that there are gaps through which they can reach out and touch, talk and communicate and thus lessen the burden of their self-imposed imprisonment.

The anger slowly fizzled out from her soul and the void left behind was slowly consumed by an unknown and unbearable pain. Along with her anger, sympathy and self-pity that she had been feeling for herself leaked out and along with the pain came empathy for Ravi and for her stepmother Madhurima.

Daksha reached out and gently gripping Gayatri's shoulder, patted it and said, ' Let it go, baby. It's all water under the bridge and there is no point in opening old wounds and hurting ourselves.'

' Maybe you are right, Ducks. But, water does not flow away for it soon evaporates up into the atmosphere and condenses and falls back to the earth as rain. Everything is a cycle and is a process of recycling.'

Partha smiled, ' Gayatri, it would have been a good analogy in this situation but unlike water coming back, there is no chance of time coming back.'

She smiled sadly, ' Parth, time too like water flows and sometimes time can be rewound and set right and set back to where it belongs.'

Ravi who had heard enough looked at Gayatri who was barely visible in the pitch black darkness and asked her what she really meant and where she was going with the topic that concerned the past about him and people concerning his life.

' I don't understand a few things about you and Madhu, Ravi.'

' What don't you understand, Gayatri? It is getting a bit tiring ' and he looked at her with pleading eyes, ' please, tell me why are you so curious about what happened 25 years ago and how it relates to our current situation?'

Gayatri bent her head and whispered, ' Maybe someday you will understand. But please, for now just answer my questions.'

Ravi exhaled his impatience and slowly inhaling fresh air stared at her and wondered loudly, ' I am willing to answer any question that you will ask of me but my question is why you want to go down that path that has been shut and buried in time and in the past. Why burden yourself with details and answers that have no relevance to you or to this situation?'

Gayatri stumped by the question tried desperately to search for an answer that might satisfy Ravi and the others who were now both looking at her.

Daksha herself who had been gently playing and toying with Ravi earlier in the day, shook her head in confusion. ' Ravi has a valid point in his question. So, tell him and us where you are going with these questions, Gayatri.'

Shrugging her shoulders, she said, ' If it had been any other situation, like for example, if Ravi is guilty of cheating on you or if he had been keeping in touch with his old flame while carrying on with you, then I would have joined you and helped you in asking him even more pertinent and serious questions. But, this is about a person he has not seen in 25 years and has not even the slightest clue about her life. Past or present. So, why torment him and in the process torment yourself by digging up old graves and old wounds?'

It was Partha who came to Gayatri's rescue and it was he who threw her a lifeline.

' Ducks, Ravi, this is our Gayatri. There must be some reason for her to even start on this rather delicate topic and maybe she is feeling insecure or threatened by the memory of Madhu though she happened 25 years ago.'

' Thank you, Partha ' Gayatri said gratefully and then looked across the short dark length that separated her and Ravi and said, ' I get it when you said that you were only 20 years old and I can understand how devastated you must have felt when you were told about Madhu getting married. But, did you stop and think as to why she got married and the reasons behind it and that too at such a young age? I mean 20 is all okay and legal but still, here you are, still single and still pining for her when she got married a short time after leaving here and leaving you.'

There was pin drop silence in the darkness of the cottage and even the world outside fell into an absolute state of silence as if the entire universe wanted to know the answer to the question.

https://youtu.be/x2fDzz_myyc

Avan, Aval Adhu 245

“I am a strong believer that fate exists. That, everything happens for a reason. That the people we have in our lives are in our lives for a reason and not just by accident. There is always meaning. Explainable or unexplainable. There is no such thing as luck. We are all here for a purpose. All we have to do is believe.” Juansen Dizon

Ravi had not needed Partha to justify Gayatri's questions for he was a firm believer in that saying that there is always some reason behind everything that takes place. He had known from the beginning that she had some specific purpose for probing his past life and had humoured her until now. But, enough was enough for now the questions had shifted to the reasons for her sudden marriage.

Ravi had never been a gossip monger or the bitchy type and definitely not a judgemental type. But, they were not the reasons why he told Gayatri that he had no more answers to her questions about Madhu and his past with her.

' No more answers or don't want to answer or are you just feeling plain old uncomfortable with my questions, Ravi?'

The slight shrug of his left shoulder and the way he held his head when he replied were enough to alert Partha and Daksha to the possibility of his irritation evolving into something darker like anger.

Partha who had just moments ago supported Gayatri now told her in no uncertain terms to end her questions.

' Gayatri, please, for God's sake. Enough of your questions. This is neither the place nor the time for it and also you have no right in nosing into his past and that too right in front of us. If you want to know more, please do it when you guys are alone and if and when Ravi is willing.'

Ravi smiled and thanked Partha and told Gayatri, ' My answers are right there in your question, Gayatri.'

' Okay. So, I will assume that you are not uncomfortable talking about your past and by that very assumption of a person of your calibre and stature that means you are hiding something from me.'

' Maybe, but it does not concern you or anyone else for that matter. That is between me and her and will be until I am gone.'

His words were clear and perfect in their meaning and yet it hurt her badly. Gayatri's conscience told her that she was dipping her feet in dangerous waters and that she had no right to do what she was doing to Ravi and to herself.

If only everybody listened to their conscience and followed its advice, the world would indeed be a paradise. But we humans never fail to abandon both conscience and consciousness and live out our lives in a state of unconsciousness and blame it on fate, destiny and lest I forget, GOD.

In the bony confines of her skull, Gayatri's brain was hard at work in trying to find ways to learn more about what happened between Madhu and Ravi and why she had gotten married to her late father.

' It's too late ' she thought as she weighed the happenings of the past few days in which she had met the one person she should have never met and had gone to stupidly fall in love with and here they were stuck with each other and with no place for her to run and hide.

Gayatri decided that the best option left to her was to keep her head down and get out of the situation and fly away to a far off place and never return. Maybe, that will be the best for me and him and for everyone concerned.

With her mind nearly made up as to how to proceed, Gayatri proceeded to drown herself in sorrow, anger, and curse life that had betrayed her by making her fall in love with the very man who was also loved by the one person she respected and loved the most after her late parents. The one person who had withstood all her tantrums and verbal abuse and had healed her with her love and patience.

Gayatri remembered the many days spent in the hospital when she had been admitted after suffering a miscarriage by injuries caused by her ex-husband Siddarth.

It had been late in the night when Gayatri's eyes had flickered open and she had woken up and had found Madhu holding her hand and with her head resting on the bed and singing softly that same familiar song that she used to sing for her father and had done so every day as disease slowly drew them apart.

Tiredly, she had asked Madhu what the song was and who had written it.

' This song was written by the great man Tagore, Gayatri.'

' I have heard this song sung by Amitabh ji for some film. I am not sure what the name of the film was Madhu but I remember it had Vidya balan in it.'

' Correct, the name of that film was Kahaani.'

Gayatri looked at Madhu and said, ' Thank you for being here and thank you for everything, Madhu. I don't know how you can be so kind and gentle with a person who has treated you so badly.'

Madhu smiled and replied, ' Gayatri, your father's blood runs in you. But, more than that, I know and have known that you are really a gentle soul and it is only out of pain and insecurity that you lashed out at me when I and your father got married.'

Gayatri started crying and Madhu had gotten up and hugged her gently and rocked her like a mother would rock her baby.

' How is it possible, Madhu? How can you be so kind and so gentle despite all that you have gone through in your life?'

Stepdaughter and stepmother gazed at each other and Gayatri had asked her, ' What gives you so much strength, Madhu? Where does it come from, all this immense patience and energy? '

Gayatri remembered now what Madhu's words really meant when she had said it back then.

' I carry a light in my soul, Gayatri. I carry a sun that burns bright in my heart and will do for eternity. Ravi ki kirano mere saath hai.'

In the darkness of cottage No 7, Gayatri looked at Ravi and now knew what and who Madhu had meant when she had used the word Sun all those years ago in that Mumbai hospital. For in Sanskrit, the sun is addressed as Ravi and Kirano meant rays of light. Sunlight.'

The song Madhu had sung now came to her soul and she knew what it meant, really meant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d9QOzkxMKU

Jodi tor dak sune keu na ashe,

Tobe ekla cholo, ekla chalo, aekla chalo re,

Aikla cholo re,

If no one answers your call,

Then walk alone,

(be not afraid) walk alone my friend.

Jodi kue kotha na koe,

ore o re o obaghaga, keu kotha na koe

Jodi sobai thake muhk phirae , sobai kore bhoye,

Tobe poran khule,

O tui, mukh phute tor moner kotha,

Ekla bolo re

If no one talks to you,

O my unlucky friend, if no one speaks to you,

If everyone looks the other way and everyone is afraid,

Then bare your soul and let out what is in your mind,

(be not afraid) Speak alone my friend.

Jab kali ghata chaye,

Ore o re o andhera sach ko nigal jaye

Jab duniya sari, dar ke age sar apna jhukaye,

Tu shola banja, Wo shola banja, Jo khud jal ke jahan raushan karde,

Ekla jalo re.

When dark clouds cover the sky, When darkness engulfs the truth,

When the world cowers and bows before fear,

You be the flame, The flame that burns you and banishes darkness from the world,

(be not afraid) Burn alone my friend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r94gSTyH2cM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4pLqznEe3I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT97HNm935Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyrNPsT_d-g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SttVoJ_8N8