Tremor

TREMOR, 1st Episode

Writer's name - Anirban Majumder

1st Episode:

Vikku suddenly felt an uneasiness as he took a turn. That day, he was sleeping alone. Actually, he prefered to sleep alone. He turned twenty six just few months ago. He enjoyed being grown up and always aspired to sleep alone. He knew, after marriage he would never get a fortune to sleep alone and to do whatever he would want to do. He, literally pressurized his mother to go and sleep along his granny in her room only. It was thirteen long years after he had lost his father. Truthfully speaking, Vikku's father, Nirmal had commited suicide by drinking pesticides and swallowing sleeping pills. Vikku was only a school going boy then. Several years had passed and the river Ganga had witnessed so many changes in the surroundings, just where Vikku along his mother and granny had been living. Vikku passed out of school. Then he completed engineering. Hence, at the end, he had been pursuing MBA in a private institute.

Vikku really didn't know how and why he woke up as he usually slept well and it would be a tough task to make him open his eyes as he slept. An uncanny sound, may be the sound of a trembling sneeze or a sudden chill in the September air that was quite unusual made him feel strange and he took a turn keeping his right knee tightly against the pillow that could be used for placing the waist or knees on a soft, cosy support. A warm air emerged out of his nostrils. He swallowed in mild sleep and suddenly one of his eyes fell near the partially open window. An oblique shadowiness along milky white coloured moon light sneaked onto the cot keeping its presence prominent. What did he see?

Who was standing there while keeping the face slightly bent towards him. A sudden jerk at the middle of his chest, he could feel and his heartbeat thumped against his chest. He slept just wearing a bermuda hence his upper portion was bare but he bathed into a stream of perspiration. He saw his dead father, his spirit that stared at him constantly.

Through his half closed eyes, he gazed at the silhouette of his father. His father seemed to have sported well trimmed beard along a finely maintained moustache. Vikku remembered, his father had never sported beard while alive. His eyes looked soft with a twinge of gloominess. Vikku clearly noticed tears rolling down through the cheeks of his father who also wore a plastic-rimmed spectacles. The silhouette seemed to be static but his eyes were full of expression. He stooped his head very close to his beloved son. Vikku pinched himself to understand the truthfulness of the possibility of his father's presence long after his death. It was his father and yes he came, quite silently, merely almost after thirteen long years after his sudden, untimely demise.

He just stared at his father's silhouette and wanted to ask, "How are you, pa"? But no sound came out of his dry throat. He clearly felt his tongue that seemed without a drop of moisture. His body lurched so as to pull out his voice so little it might be but it couldn't. Was he afraid or nervous? He even didn't have any answer to this question. But, if it was someone, it was his father or his departed soul. What might he been saying by stooping his body so closer to Vikku? According to Hindu mythology, a departed soul especially after an abnormal death doesn't get calmness and discomposure before it perishes until the son or daughter of the deceased offers a "pind-dan" in a certain place called Gaya. It's in Bihar. Vikku thought that his father's soul had not attained its calm to perish. He couldn't think any more. He closed his eyes tightly. He tried to stop his breathe as long as he would be able to do. Had he kept his eyes open, may be his father's silhouette would have instructed him to go for his long desired 'pind-dan'. One goes to Gaya to offer 'pind-dan' and pray to God so as to give calm to ones ancestors' souls. Why hadn't he followed the rituals? had he tried to prove that he was a maverick? Whatever it may be, he decided not to open his eyes. Long after, slowly and strangely, he blinked the eyelids and opened his eyes. What did he see? He only found a vacuum there. Where had his father's soul gone? There was no trace of him. He must have conveyed his message through his nonverbal countenance. His grimace was dismal. Had he disliked any behaviour of his young son? Thousands of thoughts caused a state of perturbation in Vikku's mind. He must c***k the riddle.

The rest of that night, vikku went on thinking of the whereabouts of his father's soul. Had he been in great discomposure? Till now, Vikku remembers the day when his father left for office but didn't return home at night. The whole night, his mother had been waiting for her husband. Vikku slept with snoring and didn't have the slightest idea that his father would never return. The next morning, when he woke up and came to the washroom with a brush in his hand, toddling just like a kid as till then he was in a comatose state. His mother started crying bitterly saying, "Your father didn't return last night'. He got shocked and felt a tremor of sudden excruciation in the left of his chest. He gaped as if he had watched something outstanding on a Circus-show. He had no language of pacifying his mother.

Gradually, the number of visitors kept increasing in his house but nobody could say where his father could have gone. At last, one acquaintance rang the door bell and Vikku sprang up and ran towards the balcony to see who it was. He bent towards the ground-floor from the hanging balcony of their ancestral-house that his paternal grandparents had got built long ago. He saw a face upward that was of a bearded man who he had seen earlier. The man was one of the scout trainers in his school. Why had he come? He had never visited Vikku's house earlier. Not even Vikku had seen the gentleman near his vicinity. Only, he had seen the person on the school playground during his training sessions. However, he came running inside and informed his mother and uncle that his scout trainer had been waiting downstairs. His uncle trotted through the stairs to open the gate. Vikku rushed to the balcony to listen to their suppressed talks. He bent outside the railings of the veranda to overhear their whispers. He guessed, something ominous must have happened. Were there minuscule drops of tears in the corners of his uncle's eyes? Did he try to hide a choke that split his throat into pieces.

It was right. His uncle declared, they would have to visit someone's residence immediately. Vikku's aunt had already come. They all hired two rickshaws and set out for the unknown, unwanted venue that had already written at the age of thirteen of Vikku that he would become a boy whose father had died so early. While going by rickshaw, he tried to conceal his worries by chattering things of waffles with his aunt who was next to him on the rickshaw. Finally, the rickshaw halted before a house that sprawled across an area studded by huge mango and jackfruit trees. The shadow of them seemed to have strangled the yards and atmosphere of the house. A number of people stood here and there and a police van was stranded nearby. His mother broke down into a loud, groaning cry without even looking at her husband's corpse. They entered a room and found the man lying unconscious with his chest towards the ground on the floor. A dollop of stool lay on the floor just beside his body that was awfully stinking and attracting flies that buzzed over the dirt. The man had consumed pesticides accompanied by sleeping pills. Vikku even couldn't believe his eyes. The policeman in khaki uniform interrogated with his mother and went away. Vikku only snorted slightly and remained calm and quiet. That day, he grew up prematurely but permanently and it wasn't supposed to happen to him. They all came back and the deadbody was sent for post-mortem.