Broken Hug

PM and The Painting

Rohan quickly grabbed at the stout stick leaning against the kitchen wall and readied himself, his eyes at the door, his grip over the stick tightened. The door opened further and then a face peeped out. A South-East Asian face. Cheek and jaw bones jutted out over a thin, flesh-less face; a long beard flowed down from the chin till his chest. His eyes were almost not present save only a pair of slits. A scanty mass of salt and pepper hair stood out of his head; the skin weather beaten into brownness.

Rohan loosened his hold on the stick and brought his hand down from the striking position.

            The man’s shirt in the form of an Indian fakir’s loose kurta had turned brownish and his loose trousers seemed to have no legs inside. A yellowish-white beaded necklace hung around his neck.

            “What the hell,” Rohan growled. “Who are you? And what are you doing inside my house?”

            The countless questions filled the man’s face with creases here and there. He opened his mouth to speak when he did not know what to say, or rather which question to answer first.

            “Okay, first” Rohan quietened and breathed in. “Who are you?”

            The middle aged man looked calmer and taking a deep breath said, “I stay in this neighbourhood.” His voice was almost a whisper. I have no home but wander here and there…”

            “So? What makes you a guest here?”

            The man gulped. “Your father. Yes,your father knew me.” He paused. “You’re not in good hands.”

            “What do you mean? Not in good hands?”

            “The lady,” and he stopped. “The lady you move around with.” He stretched his neck towards Rohan’s ear. “She will bring your end.”

            “What do you know about her?” Rohan‘s eyes enlarged and his voice took a higher tone. “And what do you know about her, mister?”

            “She… she is cursed.”  His eyes narrowed, and his finger pointed to an imaginary place. “She has the soul of a witch who lived in a house sacrificed by a priest who practiced voodoo. She has been brought here by her father to keep herself away from the black magic priest. But she is still under his grip.”

            “Stop spinning yarns. Listen mister. You are past fifty years, that’s what you appear as, and so I respect your age. But that doesn’t mean you will take the freedom to say whatever you desire. If you say so, tell me how do you know all this?”

            “Young man, Mr. Rohan, I’ll tell you about myself later. I swear on the birthmark on your palm, the half-moon birthmark there, that she will be drawing a hill today. Before she crosses her nineteenth year and steps into twenty, she is potent enough to destroy someone close to her.”

            “Nonsense. I don’t believe even a wee bit of your words. You suddenly appear on the streets and you stay homeless and break open into people’s houses, and I should believe you, eh?” Rohan coughed. “And by the way how did you enter the house? Tell me.”

            “Did I disturb anything in your house? Did I shift anything from here and there? No. I only took four slices of bread from the shelf and drank water from the kitchen tap,” and he pointed at the shelf. “And today you left home in a hurry and so forgot to lock the door. And as I was told to guard you, I came here to tell you what I’ve told you.”

            Rohan looked into his face. The man’s eyes looked clear and washed clean. There was a certain glow. And for a split-second that Rohan’s eyes met his, he began to feel giddy, as if some invisible force was taking hold of him.

            “Who told you to guard me?”

            The man’s eyes were at the kitchen backdoor and he was focusing on the backyard beyond.

            “Your father was a good friend of mine. We were friends since school days. I lost my father at an early age, when I was twelve and that was when I shifted from earlier school and joined Don Bosco. My name is Kaushik Dutta. In school, your dad and I, we used to exchange story books.” He coughed lightly. “Hardy Boys series and the Biggles. After school years, your father and I lost contact. Your father joined the army and I still stayed on. When in college, I had to work to sustain myself and my mother. But she passed away in my second year of college education. I lost interest in life, so left college. And I began neglecting office work. I would take a local train and travel till the end of the destination, and that was for a couple of three hours. And it was when I was travelling to Newstown that I developed a headache. I somehow got down from the train and walked out to the fields outside. On the way I felt weaker and in that slow subsiding stage a blinding flash appeared. I began to mumble I didn’t know what but I could see my past – my childhood playing with my father and my friends; exchanging story books; sports day; and then my tomorrows. Then I saw your father practicing in the morning, in military fatigues, rifle in hand, arms raised, jogging in the jungles as part of their training. I saw my life, homeless…” He paused, taking deep breaths.

            Rohan handed him a glass of water. Pulling the dining chair, he told the man to sit down.   

            “… and now your question: how I know all this. That day when I fell into unconsciousness in Newstown, the ground I fell on, I mean the field; it had trinkets of sparkling colourful metal pieces strewed all over; and they were peeping out from the grass. When my eyes fell on them, I could see an open country road, and standing on the road after a distance of several metres were big prayer flags waving in the breeze. And in each flag my name was written on the top followed by some words. On closer inspection, I found they were predictions of my near future.” He paused again, drank water and bit into the cheese sandwich Rohan had placed before him. “And since then every now and then I get to see what I have to do. And it was a week ago your father appeared in my dream and told me about this new lady in your life…”

            I don’t know how much to believe you, mister.

            “…Be careful of her. She is a shape shifter.”    

*

Charoen lay on the bed and tapped her fingers to a song floating from her cell phone.

            “The traditional North Eastern Music, it’s time you allow your mind-healing strains of bamboo flute enter my soul…” And she closed her eyes and continued tapping.

            She lowered herself to the floor, and touched the tips of her left fingers on the cold marble, and with her right palm on her forehead, she murmured words. In the midst of her murmurs, a whoosh of wind rushed and surrounded her. her fingers began shaking in little jerks and a sigh escaped from her mouth. The sighing continuing, she gradually turned to into a wolf. Next the wolf-like Charoen was lifted and travelled speedily. She left the city and flew over tea estates of Siliguri and flew over mountains and hills of the Darjeeling district. All this happened in the wink of an eye.

Next she landed outside a door of a tin-roofed house with Bidyut Villa designed in teak wood. She stretched her paw on the wooden and wood-brown walls and lifted her right hind legs and urinated. This is mine. Yes, my grandmother had walked me this place in my dream. Charoen closed her eyes and melted through the closed door, walked down the little corridor and stood at the bedroom door. It was dark inside while fro the glass window to the left, the peak of Kanchenjunga appeared dressed in pure white.

There were two beds pushed towards the wall end on both sides. A young man lay sleeping on the right bed, draped in quilt. His snores fell slow and steady, but the room was quiet otherwise. The wolf-like Charoen gave a skilled jump and in a trice was on the other bed. Her soft sighs reached inside the joints of the wooden planked walls and once it came out reverberating all over the room, it collected together and touched the creature; and transformed it into a human being -- Charoen.

She got up, pushed the white quilt away and stood on the wooden floor. She went closer to the other bed and gently rested her fingers on the sleeping man’s forehead. The peaceful sleeping man opened his eyes; he shivered; his face distorted around the mouth; and his forehead creased as if a streak of pain was running through his heart. In a trice he was gasping. His forehead filmed with perspiration in that minus three degrees cold Kurseong weather. Charoen’s hand began to glow as the man’s energy pulled itself out from his body and rested on Charoen’s palm. More and more energy sucked out form the man’s heart and collected into her hand. Charoen next touched her forehead with the new energy in her hand.

The man, in the meanwhile, convulsed from a shivering shock and instantly lay still. His eyelids gradually shut themselves.

Charoen lowered herself, her left hand touching the wooden floor, her right hand on her forehead. She transformed into a wolf and rose up. Next in an instant she was inside the room of the condo.         

            She got up, looked around, smiled and began humming the North-Eastern song. Half way through the song, she increased the volume and got up. Rummaging through her rucksack, she took out the little containers of paints. From the cupboard she gently pulled out the canvas; next she applied the white base colour to the canvas, all the while continuing with her humming. When completed, she placed the canvas on a ply wood and fixed little black clips to the four sides. With the brush kept bitten between her teeth, she stepped a few paces back before studying. “Dry up baby, before I begin to paint.” She placed it on the chair at the balcony, under the sunlight.

*

Did Rohan enjoy the walk to the condominium? The cool breeze of the afternoon touched his face and though he surrendered his mind to the feeling of elation inside him, something tugged within him. The mind is overcast.

He had seen off the middle aged man, the predicting man, the PM, as he addressed him to himself, at the door, before giving him some money. Initially, he flatly refused the cash, but with Rohan’s insistence, he accepted it in an unaccepting manner, as if pleasing a child’s whims and fancies. The PM did speak the truth about the half-moon birthmark on his palm; but that he could have learnt it from Rohan’s dad, or could have seen it while talking. Anyway, let’s see how true his words are. Time will tell. And conversing with himself thus, he shifted his focus.

Up by the stairs to the condo’s first floor, he knocked. Very soon Charoen was at the door. But he face and eyes became motionless. Her hair, made into a bun was pushed to the left side of the head, and a red head band strapped around her forehead and gone behind the ears. Kohl, resting on the edges of her lower eyelids, had enhanced her simple beauty. But something in her eyes, in the depth of the pupils, caught Rohan’s breath. A withdrawn look covered her face as she stood there, throwing him a faint smile and stepping aside. The fingers of her right hand were holding a paint brush. On the table a half-done canvas painting stood. A piece of newspaper covered the glass of the coffee table and on it, several small cans of paints of various colours.

Charoen, beside him, smiled and put her arm around his.

“Please, can you describe? The painting?”

Rohan could only stare. The hilly road divided the two hills. His mouth fell open at the mountain road. Rooted to the spot for a while like a foolish tongue-tied school boy whose body was in school but his mind on vacation, he was lost to everything around, but this scene.

The PM… he said about a painting… hill… she would be painting…

“The narrow muddy stretch of the road snakes itself,” he found his voice at last, “going far ahead; it then divides the grassy hilly sides on both sides.” He paused and looked at the woman standing next to him. “This part of the hill soothes you,” he went on, pointing. “It’s especially soothing because the prayer flag is the point of destination, followed by the hill-top surrounded by a ring of mist. And above the mist you have the sky.”

He turned to the lady. “Charoen, what can be better than a painting ending with the sky as the final destination for your mind; and where you can let yourself loose; let yourself loose to your destiny; in this place you can never grumble but move along. And when you move along, you sing a song, The Ride. And as you sing, you become the master; and because you learn all along the way, you even become the pupil.”  He stopped. “But how come you got to draw this?”

She looked into his eyes, touched his hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze. “This is life,” she said and demonstrated the same withdrawn look. I teleported to Kurseong, your favourite hill station.