Everybody Knew

By Sudipta Das

Everybody knew. The father knew. The brother knew. It was not a question of how, rather everybody knew that everyone else knew and yet everybody pretended that anyone else didn’t know about the lump. When a motherless lump is formed in a family, be it in somebody’s breast or anywhere else in the house, sooner or later, everybody will have their fare share of anxiety. The reality could be far from norm, but if one lives in it for too long, eventually it becomes the way of life.

After a great number of years, when a blue whale came hastily to live through, it didn’t understand the odds of the lump and nor did it get the chance to ponder if truth be told. It came so fast sacrificing the deep water and all its perks in the hope of salvation, went straight from an establishing shot to an extreme close up like a Ritwik Ghatak movie. Gradually every delusion it had wore off, over the years, the blue whale could be seen going back and forth between deep water and lumpy household, and posed a great deal threat of not showing up whenever it went back to deep water.

The most recent development is now this ever growing lump was involved in a marriage and blue whale couldn’t do anything to refrain from this unrealistic act with its superficial attempt. Rumour has it, the marriage was consensual but with a little bit of trepidation on lump’s part. But what’s done is done, now this lump will have an extended family knowing very well of its guilt and woes. And like a responsible adult, this eloquent lump tries to scream at its loudest on special occasions, especially, when there is a crowd involved. But the thing about crowd is, even if everybody whispers in a crowd, it would still amount to a screaming echo.

By Sudipta Das