Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Tathastu...(May it be so)

Special Thanks to:
* Shailesh for giving me the name for this post...may we have many more of these wonderful discussions !!!
* Sanat for giving me the idea of a sequel to 'The Flight' Too bad..I couldn't name it 'airborne ghost' though :p :p

The last rays of the sun glared at him through the ventian blinds. He raised a weary hand to shield his eyes against their wrath. The fine beads of sweat on the back of his hand entered his eyes and became one with his tears. They stung his already bloodshot eyes. Pull down the blinds, his mind told him. But his body refused to obey. He was a bundle of wrinkled shirt, alcohol breath and bloated cheeks dumped uncerimoniously against the wall in the corner of the room. The remnant of whatever had been a cellphone held tightly in his hand, the jagged ends of the plastic casing making ruby red satin ribbons on his palms. The half-empty bottle of whisky had done nothing to ease the pain. God......why dont you let me die ? he screamed with his face upward. The wooden ceiling answered him with a familiar creak.

And through the alcohol-induced haze, he could see the face of his mother. The bindi on her forhead perfectly round. her eyebrows doing a ballet when she laughed with him, writhing with the agony of the tandav when she scolded him. But now they were just lying in their place..motionless..lifeless..dead. As though the 5 years of her death had finally caught up with her image in his mind.

"Amma...Karthik hit me with the bat...why doesnt he just die. Then he wont trouble me na". "Kanna...you shouldn't say such things. There are tiny angels all around, who say 'Tathastu' and what you say will come true". "But Amma, I want it to come true...." The eyebrows frowned in slight worry and then smoothened themselves out in silent admonishment of the child.He was five then. But the image of the tiny angels with their gossamer wings floating in the air making words come true, had etched itself in his heart.

When he was seven, his grandfather died. The teary eyed mother tried to explain the event to the saucer-wide eyed boy, Taata has gone to god. He has become an angel now. But what the wailing ladies and stoic men of the house failed to notice was a shrill seven year old voice So Taata will also be able to say Tathastu and make things come true, Amma ?

The last ball of the innings...two runs to win. "Lil' angels...please make us win"...and they had obliged with a 'Tathastu'. It had been his magic word guiding him through the tough tests, nail-biting cricket wins and the occasional fights where the other guy ended up with a bloody nose. A carelessly made wish would be hurriedly followed by a quick slap on one's own face followed by a "please..i didnt mean it" look at the heavens.

All those moments of reckoning flashed in front of the eyes now. A reel...moving fast...then slowing down...to that moment..to that silent prayer...each syllable of the answer ringing in his ears...pausing for a second before moving ahead. He buried his face in his palms, seeking solace in the criss cross patterns of lines on his palms, which had brought him here.

"Yes ma...what do we have here...aah let me see. Your son. Hmm....19 year old you say.....engineering second year ??? good good....one must indulge in education. Okay kid, show me your left palm. You are very stubborn, aren't you ? The Dhanaresha is very long. You will have a fine life. But do not forget to keep your mother in luxury. All these young kids...go off...to foreign lands and forget their amma and appa....Bad...very bad"
" Will...will my son go abroad too ?"
" Yes...why not ?why not ? His education line is very strong...he will go to America very soon"
Palms were read...palms were greased...palms were folded in respect....palms were pressed to the lips in pride and affection.

"May my son be happy in America. May he not fall prey to the vices of smoking,
drinking, and all the foreign women who trap boys of good families with their fair skin and rose-pink lips". And while incense sticks burned and panchamritam was offered to the gods by the frantically praying mother with a kancheevaram saree in downtown Madras...the cigarette burned in one hand while the other clutched a can of Heineken..the eyes checking out the fair skinned damsels in the nightclub in downtown Chicago. The angels did not bless the mother with a 'Tathastu'.

The tape moved faster now. Amma's passing away...the cracking voice over the phone conveying the news of the heart attack. The dull pain..rising again in raging flames...only to be calmed down by the deluge of alcohol.

And then Anne had come into his life. Maybe a creature with gossamer wings had muttered the magic word in all those lonely evenings when he wished the fingers held wisps of shampooed hair and milky-white skin instead of the Marlboro.
American..23...2 past relationships..parents divorced..party freak....strong interest in Indian culture..she had captured his world.

Anne...whose face now filled the screen of his mind....a closeup..the lips parting in a smile...the wisps of golden hair getting into her eyes. He raised his hand to get the hair out of her eyes. He loved the way she smiled when he did that....in all the 5 years of their relationship. But she didnt smile now..she turned her face and walked away...the gold of her hair burning against the last rays of the sun.

The tape moved faster...that evening...the fight..the abuses..the work pressure, the hurled book, the sobs, the hugs....she was walking away....the call...the buzz of the airport in the background.....the beep of the voicemail...the news announcement.......

Blank...the screen was now blank. The cell phone dropped out of his relaxed fingers. The bottle of Jack Daniels stood empty....the last rays of sun had vanished behind the ventian blinds.....blind..the smell of darkness mingled with the sweat on his back....the wall was damp.
The bloodshot eyes peered from behind the palms. She was an angel now...with gossamer wings....making words come true....her pink lips smilin...just the way they had when he told her about his tryst with the winged-creatures and his belief in the magic word.....part glee....part mockery...and sheer amusement....Tathastu she whispered into the hollowness of the room.

9 comments:

Ojas said...

Amazing – as always! I still wonder why my cooked up stories always amused you… You are a damn good storyteller, but never let your talent shine in those vetti days! Maybe you could have given some food to your imagination and came up with some better stuff than me and shailesh. Good story (and… with a good name, from one of my clan members :)

cYb0rG said...

May your posts forever be as enthrallin and engrossin as this one... "Tathastu" !!!

Neelam Prabhugaonker Shetye said...

@ojas: well pard'ner..as they say it takes one storyteller to believe another :p :p
i guess i was jus too vetti in the vetti days to write somethin !! :)
Now...i just wait to get down to bloggin..what a relief from the slavery....:)

@cyborg: Hmm...your gossamer wings are pretty...but the horns are showin from under the halo :p :p

Anonymous said...

Beautiful...have you read 'The Namesake' by Jhumpa Lahiri? - similar stories...and quite heart-rending too...

H.S. said...

@neelam...a story which really touches.infact..,this concept of 'tathastu' is something very close to heart when i was a kid:)

Neelam Prabhugaonker Shetye said...

@jay: thanks son :) haven't yet read the namesake. But absoultely loved the interpeter of maladies....very tocuhing stories.

@hems: hey hems..its close to my heart too :) thats why thot of this whole story....i kinda still believe in it :p

Murali said...

M'lle Milaaam - T'es impeccable! C'est un bon histoire :-)

Neelam Prabhugaonker Shetye said...

@damak: merci beaucoup monsieur pour le comment !! (dont know wht they call comment in french :p)

Anonymous said...

brilliant... just brilliant! :) one of those extremely rare cases where a "sequel" actually lives up to the original :)