The Play of Reconcilliation

By Dhruva Nandakumar

In a world of life, a dance with death.

As I passed into the realms of nature, leaving behind the chaos in the cramped settlements of the‘urban jungle’, I remembered her smile. My mother. Today was her birthday. The celebration seven years ago remains stained in my memory. How we talked for hours and giggled because we would forget the point of the conversation. Perhaps they were pointless, and we were just there, trying to be happy when reality shriveled and sank. Trying to smile before a setting sun. Trying to dream beneath a starless sky.

She loved to dance. We would dance in the light of the moon. She toiled every day to make sure things were perfect in the house. She would cook delicacies just to see a smile on our faces. Especially my father’s face.

My bubble of beautiful memories shattered at the very thought of him. I pulled up in a nearby chai shop and, enquiring about the distance with the thin youngster, bought a glass of masala chai, some biscuits for the road and a water bottle. He made his living selling hot tea to the barren travelers crossing his path. He came from the untouched jungles of the north- east, at which I immediately pictured serpents crawling the upper reaches of the sailing trees. Where rain clouds are more unpredictable

than the vileness of human greed. The chap smiled faintly at the thought of his family, whom he visited once in a few months. His daughter studied in a nearby government school and his wife worked in the plantations that draped the horizon. Bidding adieu to him, I continued my journey, of what about a hundred or so kilometers remained.

The empty landscape set flame to the furnaces of the devil's workshop, and before I knew it, I was lost in her thoughts. This incident must have happened a few decades ago, but god forbid, will be etched in my memory until the end of time. My mother and I visited a fair in a distant corner of the city. Fluttering balloons and merchants with drapes of exotic lure stood beside each other. In that conflict of desire, my mother chose me over herself. The selflessness of that kind soul might not have been evident to me in the moment, but I reflect upon it to this day.

Her grit is the reason I stand where I am. My flow of emotion and pride was interrupted by the occasional animal on the path, which required the conscious effort of maneuvering the vehicle. After a strenuous drive, I finally reached.

The place of her burial is perhaps inappropriate for her soul. The stone stands on a hill, quite literally in the middle of nowhere. The nearest settlement is a few miles away and the lack of both proper roads and mobile range indicate the remoteness of the region. Freedom Hill, as she liked to call it, was our family’s favorite picnic spot. We gazed at stars all

night, counting them and giving them obnoxious names until fatigue got the better of us, burying us in the stillness of peace.

Her grave overlooks a cliff at the top of the hill, lingering above a vast chasm which once overflowed with sweet water but now runs dry. We were never allowed there as children, and for good reason. The innocence of a child often lands him in atrocious troubles when the forces of curiosity demand control. It's almost as if the child has no other choice but to explore, despite the constant iterating warnings of an adult or the mere futility of his venture.

The trek there, however, was not challenging and I reached the hilltop in about an hour.

I stood there, before her, in silence. Impatient and fidgeting with my fingers, uncomfortably staring at the block letters that spelled out her name, unknowing what to do. I missed her warmth.

Suddenly, a familiar voice greeted me, a voice I tried every day of my life to erase,‘’So you bothered to come.’’ It was my father. Drunk and ragged, he stood before me, showing his greasy teeth as medals of a miserable existence. He wore a brown sweater and held a bottle of country liquor; he wore her red veil as a scarf, reminiscent of someone who pledged searing devotion, not mere love. My blood boiled at his very sight and I clenched my fist, out of either anger or helplessness, I know not.

‘’What are you doing here?’’ I asked, somewhat annoyed by his remark. ‘’She was mine before you could set eyes on her’’, came the reply. ‘’That's why she isn't here now.’’ I said, my voice fading at the end of the sentence.

I turned around, half expecting a sarcastic comment or an aggressive backlash but he simply said, ‘’ I am sorry.’’

I stood still, unable to face him.

‘’I miss her. I feel abandoned. Empty. Empty from the depths of my soul. This sadness, insanity and desolation is just another form of not being able to express my need for love, for care. I have become a mad man, desperately searching for warmth in everyone who passes. The rain that we danced in has become a gloomy ocean. Those drops that feed life have become mere morsels of regret and grief’’, I blurted out. It was the most I had said to him in years.

I could hear him weep, his tears embracing the soil like long lost kin. ‘’I am sorry. I tried my best to save her.We were not on talking terms after her and have turned into absolute strangers today. I miss her too. I loved her too. Dearly. I wished to speak with you, but perhaps my misery outweighed my purpose. What you see is a mere body, my soul is buried in her grave, lost in her touch.’’, he said in a slow tone, like that of a man

who has erred far greater than he can do right and lost far more than he can find.

‘’You killed me when you let her die’’, I whispered.

‘’She didn’t leave alone. She took me with her’’, he wept.

Years of my anger turned to dust. I began to cry like a child at the loss of a toy, or perhaps a sinner at atonement. My ego sank like those doomed vessels at Arginusae. Our confrontation was like a play, of two fabled actors making peace with their intertwined pasts, drinking the mead of loss and perhaps carrying on in hopes of finding the nectar of tranquility. We sought protection in our solitude, mistaking it with either bliss or the abundance of power, or perhaps even worse, the blindness to acceptance. We isolated each other for years, dreading the moment of reunion. We confined ourselves in a wrinkle of time, refusing to move on, inflicting a great deal of pain to everyone around us, repulsing the serenity in letting go. We held on for too long, where my father smoldered his enterprise and I drowned my youth. Our greatest flaw, however, was that we chased silence in a world of noise.

It was as if I could re-experience the beauty of the world, as a new and reformed man. I turned around to embrace my father but saw nothing. Nothing but the gentle swaying of a crimson veil over the ravenous mouth of that endless chasm.

By Dhruva Nandakumar