I become miserable when I am nearing the end of a book I have loved so well. I try to stretch my reading of it, so that I have more time to spend on it. However, the last page has to be read sometime, and the book has to be put to rest sometime. The story however, or the story-within-a story becomes a part of you forever.

Margaret Lea is met by a surprise when a letter arrives in her name from the country’s most celebrated author Vida Winter, who seeks her out to recount her story. As a biographer, Margaret knows that other biographers would die to get an opportunity to write Miss Winter’s story, but then the fact that she has been chosen of all the people, comes as a huge surprise. Margaret has not read a single work by Miss Winter and she does not know anything about the author except that she is an acclaimed author and that her work has been translated into as many languages as possible. Why did then, Miss Winter choose just Margaret to write her story? Perhaps it has got something to do with Miss Winter’s Thirteenth tale of “Change and Desperation”.

Margaret assists her father in the antiquarian second-hand book shop and the only thing she may have in common with Miss Winter is her love for Victorian classics. Lured by deep curiosity, Margaret makes her way to the outskirts of Yorkshire where a lonely house stands amidst the moors. What Margaret discovers through her meeting with Vida Winter is a gossamer of stories woven with a delicateness of a cobweb. If not treated carefully, all would be lost. Thus, in recording Miss Winter’s narration, Margaret not only discovers a bizarre tale concerning a pair of twins but also, of a house drawing its final breath, and of people who arrive and never leave, even if they do. Through her connection to Vida Winter, Margaret finds the courage to see her own truth, meet it upfront and learn to let go.The Thirteenth Tale tells a tale of malevolent love defined by the need to possess.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield came to me with no fuss at all. It came as one of many books I usually order online. I had read a summary and was expecting a regular historical Gothic fiction. What met me, was a breathtaking surprise, something entirely different. Something uniquely individualistic which changed the way I look at stories, for always. As Setterfield states, everybody has a story to tell. However I feel that along with a story to tell, one must have a talent to tell the story. Otherwise, the essence is destroyed forever. Setterfield for one, has an incomparably beautiful talent of telling a story. A story which seems to have come to her rather than she having to come to it. For, such unique is her story telling that I have come to believe that the characters of The Thirteenth Tale, as genuine, real living persons who lived and who are still living their story, continuing from the point where the narrator left, and that we were only given a glimpse.

The use of exquisite language is one its major strengths which contributes immensely to the literary tone of the novel . With an affinity for Victorian romances and sensations, I found a similarity between Margaret, Miss Winter and myself. I could not contain my excitement when I came across my favourite books such as Jane Eyre, The Woman in White and Wuthering Heights.

There is a thing in common with these classics and The Thirteenth Tale and, that is, the air like element the protagonists possess, where they are floating aimlessly, everywhere, like air. Their vagrant souls are in search of a safe harbour, a place where they can finally feel at home. Like Jane Eyre, Anne Catherick and Laura Fairlie from The Woman in White, and Catherine Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights, the young Adeline and Margaret possess a hint of air like element, a sense of lacking direction in life and are overwhelmed with the melancholy of loneliness. Thus, I think that the female protagonists of The Thirteenth Tale share a similar sense of displacement with the heroines of the above mentioned Victorian classics. Readers who love Jane Eyre, The Woman in White, Wuthering Heights and other similar Victorian novels, will, I assure you simply fall in love with The Thirteenth Tale.

Some readers may argue that it is a bit stretched and that it becomes tedious as it goes. It may be so, for readers who are expecting a fast pace historical Gothic thriller. However, this is not a thriller, and there is a difference between a Gothic novel and a novel with a Gothic tone. This being the latter, sets the mood of the story in a Gothic fashion while narrating a melancholic tale of that terribly lonely, cold and lost child within us all, in search of the warmth of home and hearth.

Play List for The Thirteenth Tale

Thirteen – Big Star
The Quiz – Hello Saferide
Get Sick Soon – Saferide
On My Way Back Home – Band of Horses
Is There A Ghost – Band of Horses
Secret – The Pierces
These Photographs – Joshua Radin
Waiting on the World to Change – John Mayer
Back in the Saddle – Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
In Praise of the Vulnerable Man – Alanis Morissette

In the land of rain
Monsoons in the North-Eastern part of India can be extremely cumbersome with nothing but endless stretches of rainy days and nights for months and months. Moist, mouldy rooms and the ubiquitous smell of half wet clothes, are what greets you in every household in the hills during monsoons. Imagine, having to live under incessant showers of rain for most part of the year? We did. We laughed and we lived and we played under outspread umbrellas and duck-back raincoats and heavy black gumboots. Were we happy? I think we were partly oblivious to the future and partly vague about our short pasts, but then we lived in the present. The present was all that mattered to us, and what a glorious present it was! Yes we were happy! We were the happiest that anybody could be.

What do you want to become when you grow up?
We were oblivious to the future in the sense that we did not care much about tomorrow as we did about today, except for the fact that it was compulsory for all of us to know what we wanted to become when we grew up. Thus like parrots we would recite and re-recite words ingrained into our delicate brains after having the vividest of ideas of what we wanted to become when we grew up. Doctor, Lawyer, Police, Businessman, Princess, Teacher, Singer, Actor were scores of ambitions presented by eager piping voices.

I remember saying that I wanted to become a writer, but then something happened. A revelation. Ever since I’d seen our music teacher’s stocky, podgy but very agile fingers glide over the piano keys during singing lessons, I wanted to play the piano. Now, piano classes in our school were only given to boarders (ones who lived in the school, therefore highly privileged) and as a day-scholar (ones who only attended school over the day, therefore less privileged), I, of course stood no chance. Piano playing however, did happen to me later in life, in a different school under different circumstances and the experience was to last a lifetime.

When people asked my brother what he wanted to become, he’d say he wanted to become a business tycoon; wash the town clean and shiny and build a house of gold. I can still hear the sound of his voice, the intonation when he pitched his tone with excitement as we sat with our friends on the front porch of a rental house on a Sunday morning; the landlord’s oldest son asking us one by one what we wanted to become when we grew up. This was a recurrent situation because once in a while, which was quite often, someone or the other would ask us what we wanted to become when we grew up. Everybody would have their turns and everybody would share their aspirations with loud confident voices. Once the question of our inevitable futures would be passed around and once the questioner would leave us, fully entertained by our unwavering aspirations, we would run forth into the heap of sand collected on the playground, climb on it, digging our feet deep into the cold, damp sand, screaming, laughing, playing. Or, we’d invade the hedges on a witch hunt with branches in our hands for swords, get stung by nettles, graze our knees shouting slogans nonetheless for the witch to come out from her ambuscade – the serious ambitions of teachers, and police officers and pianists and tycoons safely tucked at the back of our heads, ready for the next time it needed to be plucked out. When twilight descended and when a choir of voices would reach our ears beckoning us homewards, with heavy hearts and hushed goodbyes we’d go home to long hours of maths, science, language, literature home-work.

Rain in our lives
We’d trudge up to school every day, which lay on the other side of town and as it rained every single day from end of May up till September, our duck-back raincoats and our heavy black (poor rubber) gumboots also became a part of our uniforms. Thus each morning, we’d gear ourselves with our duck-backs and gumboots, and with the rain usually falling with a soft patter uninterruptedly for days at a stretch, we’d launch into a long walk to school. Sometimes, during the afternoon, an angry gale would turn the soft patter into a potent thudding on the open umbrellas and into a ruthless swishing on top of our raincoats, pricking our faces under the duck-back hoods like furious little pins. Walking home then, would be most inconvenient and it usually took us double the time to reach home. However, the promise of warm dry clothes and hot food would urge us to carry our little feet at a steady pace under the weight of rain-filled gumboots. During vigorous rainfalls and thunderous weather, when roads were transformed into small streams, schools never closed as if they, the school authorities, had nothing to do with the danger of a child being swept away by a gushing drain. But then we were the adventurers who had neither the foresight of a likelihood of an impending doom, nor the capacity of grown-ups to conjure up quibbles regarding the cursed monsoons.

We kept right ahead, going to school, coming back from school, and yes, stopping by our favourite little shop to buy pickled tamarind, or roasted horse-grams or, sometimes even spicy potatoes. For us, it was a celebration, a victory over one more day of eight periods packed with tedious, uneventful classes, where the apathetic teacher buzzed on and the chalks squeaked on the board, and where we copied every single word from the blackboard. What pure joy it was, to stand under thick glassy cords of rain, licking the papers once we’d eaten up our sweet and sour savoury treats. It was natural for the shopkeeper to use papers from old scribbled notebooks as wrappers and it was natural for us to lick away the ink from old doodles, along with the gravy that stuck to the paper.

Bag-Lady & Lunch Man
We had one adult shepherding us to school everyday. Our bag lady. An older woman was paid to carry our bags and to bring our lunches to school while it was still warm. My brother attended a boy’s school located high up on the hill in the remote outskirts of town, to which he was taken by a school jeep, and his lunch-man, our own toothless bag-lady’s toothless husband, came everyday along with his wife to pick up our lunches. Sometimes I wonder if their poor dead souls are still carrying bags and lunches to school, for I am sure they are no longer alive. They did their jobs with such dedication and with such seriousness, that I wonder if their ghosts are still carrying ghost bags and ghost lunches from the past. Sometimes I wonder why I never concerned myself with the prospect of meeting them after I left school and moved on. Sometimes I wonder why I never considered slipping some money into her leathery hands and said thank-you, but then, when you’re six or seven, you are quite egocentric, and charitableness is hardly a virtue to be found in a child.
My brother and I talk about them sometimes and reminisce their tobacco stained smiles, deeply lined faces and raspy voices .

Rain and Assemblies and Teams
After what was a long and tedious climb uphill, we’d finally reach school with our gumboots sloshing with rainwater and cold water dripping down our backs, just in time to hurry off to the assembly. Sometimes the nuns would allow us to dry ourselves by the fire in the kitchen, sometimes, we were simply ushered into the assembly soaking wet . Assembly as we were told was the most important part of the day and if owing to some reason we missed the assembly, we were gently shown out of the door. What comprised of such an assembly would be, students standing in long rows in an ascending order depending upon one’s class and one’s team. Yellow, red, blue and green were the teams that the students were divided into and each student belonged to one such team. A list of hymns would be sung in ear-splitting chorus, teachers standing in a single row facing us, scrutinizing us like hyenas scrutinizing a lion’s leftovers. The principal standing on a slightly raised platform would begin her morning speech and as we shifted our weight from one leg to another and as we flew with our thoughts outside the window, we’d only see the principal’s mouth opening and closing. We’d hear nothing but the sound of our fanciful flight.

Upon arriving late for an assembly, we’d simply be asked to leave. Then a long affair of letters to the parents would start, which in turn was required to be signed by our parents. There were two gravest tribulations in my life back then. One of them was, carrying a warning letter home for my parents to sign, the other was standing in files of two to receive a report card.

When I’d hand such a warning letter to my parents, and when I’d see the shadow of disappointment flicker on their faces, I would get all tangled up inside and then I’d hate myself for having stopped on the way with my friends to play with a pair of new born pups. On account of missing a few assemblies and failing in few report cards, my friends and I were not supposed to be seen playing together in school but, what they didn’t know was, how devious we were, how much of wiseacres we were. We’d concoct plans, via hand-passed letters, and we’d sneak off outside the school premises during lunchtime, as heavy rain made it impossible for others to spy on us, and we’d meet secretly under the canopy of one of the raincoats, only to plan more secret meetings. We were inseparable. The four of us. But then the nuns started getting all frantic about our foursome. While we had wild adventures such as leaving school premises and venturing on to one of our friend’s house to play with her kittens; while we came back into class after lunch dripping from head to toe; while we related ghost stories to each other illustrating it with our hair pins on the aluminum table tops; while we created our own script and wrote notes to each other in the middle of a class; while our report cards suffered inexorably and our progress in class got stunted, the teachers found a way to warn our parents and sever our ties.

Despite the teachers’ warnings and parents’ admonitions, we stuck together, for, we believed that we were always going to remain closely bonded and linked forever through our stories and our mischief and our aspirations. Of course we hadn’t the least bit of an inkling that time would be our own swollen, monsoon ridden stream that would wash us away apart forever. But then, who could have stopped us? After all we were the adventurers and the musketeers and the water babies and the little women. We were like the monsoon rain. Unstoppable, incessant and sometimes aggressive.

When the world happened to us
Monsoons clawed the hills with landslides, sometimes sweeping away small hamlets perched on top of the hills, sometimes sweeping away the roads, isolating us for weeks; and sometimes puddling our homes and drilling our roofs, but our lives carried on. At home or at school, we defied and denied the impediments that the monsoons threatened us with. Thus we traipsed on with our own secret enterprises and confidential trysts the contemplation of which brightened our spirits to no bounds. We didn’t know what other children did in the rest of the world but what we did in our world was undoubtedly the best. That was our deepest conviction. Until one fine day, when the teacher had a surprise for us; when pen-pal-ship descended over us like balloons packed with confetti. When the balloon did burst, thousands of surprises floated unto us from another world, where children did none of the things we did. Letters had arrived with colourful stamps and they were read with such enthusiasm by the teacher. They were full of questions like, “why do people in your country carry bundles on top of their heads?” “What do you do for recreation?” “Have you read Uncle Tom’s Cabin?” “What is your favourite TV show? Do you like M&M’s?”

That was the day, I began to dislike the downcast sky, constant pouring and pattering of the rain because I was suddenly made aware of the rainbow on the other side. That was the day I saw the dirty puddled roads, old crumbled ruinous concrete buildings everywhere, that was day I smelled the fetor of wet stray dogs all around me. That was the day I was assured that there was much more to be found than what we had got. That was the time when my brother and I started penning letters to pretty names and smiling faces – pen-pals, they were called, who were located half way across the world, and we’d begin our letters with, “I am sure this missive of mine will strike you like a thunderbolt.” A line opener that we had picked up from a book on letter writing. That was the time when the world stretched its menacing claws and tore apart our monsoon sky exposing us forever. Things were never the same again.

 Image by: www.deviantart.com

Playlist for this Story (Spotify)

1. Sadness is a Blessing – Lykke Li
2. I Follow Rivers – Lykke Li
3. Unrequited Love – Lykke Li
4. The Longer the Waiting (The Sweeter the Kiss) – Anna Ternheim
5. Feel Like You Make Me – Cary Brothers
6. Holding On and Letting Go – Ross Copperman
7. Taxi Cab – Vampire Weekend
8. The Cave – Mumford and Sons
9. Shangri-La – Yacht
10. Oxford Comma – Vampire Weekend

13 is a number that, from the beginning I had no personal attachment to. 3 was my  favourite number, my birth number and therefore, closest to me. But then, 13 started popping into my life in the odd combinations of roll numbers in schools and colleges, as in 013, the numbers of candies I would randomly pick would count to 13 (this has happened to me at least thrice so far) – Don’t worry, all those exams I wrote with 013 as my roll numbers always ensured my progression. Never my digression. I happened to pick up this novel called the The Thirteenth Tale on the 13th of December which I didn’t realize until I saw the date I’d started reading it, in my account at Goodreads.com. However, the most significant incident that connected me to Friday the 13th on a positive note forever, was the birth of my second son. He was born on the 13th of February, on a Friday. That was the day, when paraskevidekatriaphobics (that’s what they are called, people who are phobic to Friday the 13th), stood on one side and I on the other, for real.

Besides, I don’t believe that numbers and days can be evil. Coincidence is the second name for superstition. If an incidence of a similar nature occurs more than once, out of sheer co-incidence, then a superstition is born. Humans have an uncanny knack of recognizing such coincidences, turning themselves almost rabid with fear if that particular superstition turns out to be negative, as the one such as Friday the 13th. Be it a day or a date, or a time, you are either hugging it or running away from it based on your superstition about it. Nevertheless, the material I have presented to you bares little or no significance to those who are mortally afraid of Friday the 13th.

In the eastern hemisphere  of the world however, this occurrence, in history, carried little or no significance at all. The easterners are, or rather were in the past not particular about Friday the 13th. Now, owing to the profound influence from the  west, a growing multitude of people in the east have begun to behave particularly odd on this day. They do not travel, do not inaugurate offices or businesses, they do not commence a project, do not meet friends, do not marry, do not have name-giving ceremonies, or any other kind of ceremonies for that matter, and in some cases, people do not even leave their homes.
For most modern day people, the fact that Friday the 13th is perceived as a spooky phenomenon, has an immense lot to do with the Hollywood slasher film, that involved a horribly disfigured (both physically and mentally) young man called Jason Voorheese, who goes on a slashing rampage at Camp Crystal Lake. Ever since then, as Friday the 13th arrives, many singular thoughts go back to two names, Jason and Camp Crystal Lake. However, as I mentioned before, Friday the 13th has been superstitiously considered inauspicious in the Christian calendar mostly because, Jesus and his 12 apostles met for the last supper, adding the number to 13. This collection of 13 people supping together proved most unfortunate – Jesus was exposed by his 12th apostle Judas Iscariot, which in turn led to his crucifixion, which fell on a Friday. Thus, a connotation for ill omen, Friday the 13th continues to strike a maniacal sort of fear within a superstitious heart.

Some historians claim that patriarchal Christianity saw the matriarchal Norse paganism as a threat and branded Friday as a black day because it bore the name of the most strong female Norse goddess Frigg. Desperate to strengthen their hold over northern Europe, Christian priests denigrated Frigg as a witch and spread the rumour that she would fly to meet her coven of 12 witches, making 13 in total with her presence. Thus, the day of Friday the 13th came to be embellished with all things evil, unfortunate, vile and distrustful.
There are many other stories and beliefs professing the negatively prophetic significance of Friday the 13th but in a Christian world, the incidence of the last supper and Jesus’ crucifixion on a Friday holds strong.

Despite bizarre insinuations, my relationship with Friday the 13th remains undoubtedly an open one. 13 is a regular number as any other number such as 12 or 18, and Friday is as good as any other day. Some occultists believe that number 13 stands for power (I like what comes next), neither good nor evil; just pure energy, entirely on the hands of the user as to what side it chooses. It is for the “power” that number 13 is associated with, which makes it disreputable. All numbers have spiritual meanings attached to it and 13 is no exception. Rather than having an adverse notion about the number, it is more beneficial to accept number 13 or the single variation of it in the form of number 4 , on an optimistic note like how the author Pittacus Lore did when he wrote the young-adult novel called I Am Number Four, which was recently launched as a Hollywood film with the dashing Alex Pettyfer playing the lead. (p.s. in numerology, there are only nine single numbers and all other double numbers simply add up to make one of these nine numbers)

Next time someone around you mentions Friday the 13th, you can tell them it’s not Friday the 13th that portends  bad omen, but their own pessimistic attitude and blind superstition that lends an impending anticipation of doom to the day. Remember the story of  it-will-happen-to-you-if-you-believe-it?
Friday is my favourite day and 13 is my special number and it shall always be.

“The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.” – Sir Francis Bacon

Images from deviantart.com

Playlist for this article (Spotify)

Surrender – Angels & Airwaves
Moon As My Witness – Angels & Airwaves
The Revelator – Angels & Airwaves
Inertia – Angels & Airwaves
Dry Your Eyes – Angels & Airwaves
Behold A Pale Horse – Angels & Airwaves
Closer – Kings of Leon
Guns & Horses – Ellie Goulding
Waiting for the Sun – JayHawkes
You Are My Religion – Firehouse

I spoke to god the other day,
as to my window he made his way.
Pattering wildly on the pane,
in small droplets of rain.
One drop two drops and three more drops,
a tired face of an old man it was.
A steam of smoke rose as he sighed,
shook his head, and closed his eyes.

Hey you! I wildly cried,
welling tears i tried to hide.
Go back to your heaven,
to your safest haven!
Sit high and mighty on your throne,
while your world reaps what you have sown.

There, there, you, he said,
I’m old and weary and good as dead.
Few believers I have, left in hand,
the rest of you, my ways have banned.
I turned my back on you a long time ago,
your pleas I ignored, I laughed at your woe.

Look around you! I managed a smirk,
look at what has become of your work.
Making merry in your heaven were you not?
when by a crafty nature this world was bought.
I knew you were there, up there, somewhere,
when darkest of wars was upon us declared.

I ask not for your forgiveness, he sighed,
nor for your kindest words I pine.
I was young and foolish, and bored I was,
to resurrect the beast for mirth was the cause.
little did I know that his sinew was ten fold,
and a twenty his brilliance, to which I was sold.

you left us to butcher and be butchered I wept,
you enjoyed your wine, while thirsty we slept.
We were the ones who, each day prayed,
waiting for you, our saviour, we never swayed.
Until the day when all was lost,
when disease and war and darkness was cast.
When innocent mothers were but seized,
with black rage, smothered their infants aye! they did.
When dearest of friends slaughtered one another,
for miserly gains and for that hunger for power.
When families festered from within,
and carnal passions drove them into sin.
When diseases became an incurable spite,
when malignant evil ate us from inside.

I beseech you! stop your rant he bellowed,
I come not to hear the evils I bestowed.
Upon you and your kind, my lost kingdom,
for, amends I cannot make since the worst is done.
Despise me, loathe me, spite me if you must,
but hope, there is, if you still know how to trust.
What’s done thus cannot be undone,
to renew your faith you must but learn.
The victory of darkness over light shall persist,
the triumph of evil over good shall exist.
If you but clamour and grumble and groan,
instead of finding a way to stand against this storm.
aye! the very storm I raised for thee,
in the foolish pursuit to test my own creed.

Thus to the hellion I sold my soul he cried,
the pleas and love from my children I denied.
I cannot be saved but then, shall you,
of this I assure you, as I bid adieu.

With a mighty thunder, raged on the rain,
with a fury of thousand knives my remonstrance was slain.
The face on the pane I watched as it dissolved,
and from his rue he was thus absolved.
I watched on until i could see nothing at all,
then  to the altar I went and lit a candle.

He thought he was number one
he rode untamed like a hurricane

He thought he was the only one
he would not, could not, stop to think

He thought he was ever desired
barged in wherever he saw fit

Chorus
The man who thought he knew best
was the man who’d never lose
the man who thought he loved best
put a knife thorough many lives
The man who thought he knew all
was the man who had no clue at all

He thought he was magical
in a world of the practical

He thought he was most beautiful
A Narcissus lived surrounded by mirrors

He thought he was immortal
until the day he lay dying

He knew he was thus far from best
when not a soul bid goodbye

Chorus.

Having lived together for twenty five years, he had grown used to her in a way that without her, he felt like a piece of puzzle lacking a counterpart. Not that there had been any kind of great love that transpired between them, but there had been love nonetheless. It had been a love marriage from the beginning for which he had even gone against his family, because she came from a caste, a notch lower than his. For years, his family had disowned him wanting nothing to do with him or Geeta, not even when a son was born to them. In the beginning, Geeta had not complained, but through the years, each time, rumours about her in-laws blaspheming against her reached her ears, she had often flared up pelting acrid retort against Hari’s parents.
Four years later, when Hari’s father passed away and they had gone to pay their respects, no one in the family had uttered a word of objection against them. Hari and Geeta saw that time had certainly put a lid on the bygone, for they had allowed Geeta and Hari to mourn together with the rest of the family. Geeta had reveled in the knowledge that his family had finally accepted her as the eldest daughter-in-law. As articulate as she had been, she had impressed them during their first meeting itself. Playing a key role in many of the religious rituals, family dinners, birthdays at her in-laws’ place, Geeta had been favoured well by Hari’s parents and siblings. Whenever an occasion arose in Hari’s parents’ house, Geeta had been fervently sought after. Gradually, Hari’s family had also acquainted themselves to her sudden fits of temper, which she had fully justified saying, one should  never harbour ill feelings within one’s heart. One must spit it out immediately so that one’s mind and heart may not be corrupted by vile thoughts. In time, everyone in the family got used to Geeta’s spiteful mouth but it had never bothered them much because Geeta also had a warm and forgiving heart.
The priest continually chanted a string of prayers as he poured small spoonfuls of hydrogenated fat into the burning pyre as Hari stared remorsefully through the tears that swam in his eyes. The month of April never failed to bring strong gusts of wind that left a fog of dust in its wake. This time too, the April wind blew with much zest but here, at the concrete cremation square by the turbid stream, all it could do was rage up the pyre urging it to consume the remains of the body without any loss of time. Thirteen days of mourning had begun. Thirteen days of living a life of an outcast in the temple along with his twenty two year old son, would soon begin after a ritualistic bathing in the river, shaving of their heads and of being clad in white from head to toe. Hari and his son would have to mourn as tradition required the husband and the son or son’s of the deceased, follow the stringent rules of mourning. It comprised of cooking one’s own food, sleeping on hard ground, wearing only white, which lasted until the thirteenth day of the passing away of a parent/spouse. Only food devoid of any salt, spices or oil was allowed to be consumed. Some strictly ate only boiled rice but since Hari suffered from low blood pressure and since his son refused to eat saltless food deeming it illogical as far as mourning for his mother was concerned, they decided to include some salt in their food. The rest of the rules were obediently followed, after all, that was how tradition would have it. That was how Hari would have it and that was how Geeta would have wanted it.

It was only a mild stroke. Hypertension was what the doctors had said. After the initial unconsciousness, she had woken up filling Hari’s heart with hope. During the time she had been unconscious, Hari had watched his wife’s still body and unmoving lips warily. It seemed unnatural for Geeta to lay so still and quiet. She had talked even in her sleep. Hari was suddenly filled with a yearning to see those eyes open and those lips part in conversation. It was then he realized how silent his world would be without her. It was then, he realized how withdrawn he was from the cordial engagements of the world. Without Geeta he had no one connecting him to people, relatives, even friends. She was his medium into their lives and their spaces. She was his mouth-piece who made things comfortable for him whenever they were visiting friends or relatives. Whenever a question was intended for him, she would quickly reply with “he says” or “he means” and then he would simply have to look at her direction, smile and nod and he was often saved from the tediously long and harrowing conversation. A mixture of desperation and melancholy overwhelmed him and he felt like he would die along with her if she never opened her eyes again. He simply would not be able to endure the sound of the world without her voice in it. Then, Geeta’s eyes had fluttered open but little did he know that he had her only for that single day. He knew she hadn’t known either, because she would have said much more.

Geeta was an open book and without fail, her heart and mind always willingly reflected on her face. It was with great ease that her friends and relatives read her thoughts. Perhaps it was because of this open trait, Hari had loved her although he had never expressed it verbally. Even when he was courting her, he had silently done it through letters and cards that came with poems. Initially they shared a quiet life. She would wake up early, make his breakfast and lay it on the table for him. He would go up after her, drink his tea left by his bedside, take a bath, eat the breakfast meticulously laid out for him and then he would leave for work at the electricity board. He would hardly ask her how her day went when he came home in the evening. Instead, he would drink his tea in silence while she would fuss around their son, chiding him into doing their homework. She always came late to bed quietly climbing onto her side, while he had already reached the comfortable moment between wakefulness and slumber. Sometimes he would hear her murmur a thing or two about a gold necklace that one of his friends from the neighbourhood had gifted his wife, but by the time she said anything else, he was already  pushed into the oblivious world of sweet slumber. He never remembered her birthday. Not that she remembered his birthday either but she never forgot their anniversary. When he came home from work,  and the house was filled with an appetizing smell of chicken curry and sweet incense, when the new table cloth had been laid out on the dining table and,when a bunch of roses decorated the god’s altar, he would often be struck with the guilt for having forgotten their anniversary.

During the initial years of marriage, she had not cared to hide her disappointment and had attacked him with a volley of angry words each time the talk of their anniversary would arise. With time, she stopped expressing her distaste because of his indifferent attitude towards the idea of celebrating , but along with that, she stopped cooking him his favourite meal on their anniversary. Gradually, the new table cloth ceased to appear on the table too but the bunch of flowers continued to decorate the altar each year. That was her way of commemorating her fond remembrances to the day she had bundled up her clothes and slipped quietly from her home, to begin her most anticipated life with Hari.
The flames from the pyre, that had a while ago risen to a towering height, heating the faces of the onlookers, slowly diminished, and the intolerable carbonized odour of cremation gradually faded away. The crowd of watchers thinned as each walked away after placing a hand on Hari’s shoulder in a consolatory gesture. Hari witnessed his wife turn to ashes. In a matter of just few hours a lifetime had been reduced to handful of glowing embers. His eyes watered again, but this time it wasn’t because of the smoke. “Listen!” Geeta’s voice boomed in his ears, and he suddenly jolted turning wildly around. She had never addressed him by his name. She had always said “listen” when she called out to him.  “Listen!” she whispered this time and then there was silence. His son was staring into the last of the glowing embers, unmoving, and Hari realized that it was only he who had heard Geeta’s voice. Suddenly an excruciating sadness flooded his insides and without a care, he burst out with a loud howl. Hari’s son almost fell on the ground in the sudden shock of seeing his father’s uncommon plight. Uncontrollable waves of sorrow rocked his body back and forth as his son rushed forwards and held him tight. Not a single word except Hari’s mournful cries invaded twilight that evening. The priest gestured his son to hurry because on the other side of the river, a crowd was waiting with a body laden on their shoulders. It was time for another cremation.

Once the fire died down, and the ashes collected, Hari looked at the urn and wondered how  little a space Geeta now occupied. The living and the breathing, the flesh and the blood were all diminished into a handful of dust. Death had a frightening way of diminishing people into just a fistful of ashes and, to a memory that would in time fade away into the farthest recesses of one’s mind. The sky had already turned crimson making way for the impending darkness but the jargon of traffic roared continuously and Hari found himself returning slowly to the world that still held him. Not so far away someone was wailing and he saw that it was a young man under the weight of perhaps a dead father or a mother or a young wife, whose body was soon going to be laid for cremation. Hari twined his arms around the urn, holding it delicately against his chest while he and his son were gently ushered towards the concrete steps for the ritualistic bathing by the sullen river. However, there was still time before the obscure waters drank the final remains of Geeta’s life. There was still time, before the thickness of time slowly blotted out the sound of her voice that resounded with such great affection in his ears as of now.

Image by Drocan (www.deviantart.com)

As much as virtues such as beauty, kindness, patience and  forbearance are assigned to a female nature, vices such as gossip, slander, envy, prejudice etc are also ordained to the female sex leaving the male species overall neutral. My point of argument is to claim that there is and should be no attribute determined on the basis of sex. Men or Women, we are both humans and are equally equipped with virtues and vices that recognise us on a similar plane.

Coming back to “intrusive natures”.  As much as it seems to be the crux of human nature,  a picture of a nosy person (armed with an array of chisels, drills, crowbars and shovels), bent on digging his or her way into a friend’s misfortune, only for the sheer want of knowing what the friend is hiding, is not a welcoming picture. Some people make a living out of digging into people’s secret lives – why else would we have private investigator-ship or tabloid journalism ? Bringing a particular kind of crime to light by probing, is an entirely different thing. But, probing into other people’s lives, where you are not welcome is – although not a statutory violence – an offense nonetheless.

Therefore, as Caroll claims that the things we most want to know about is usually not our business, it is highly unappreciative to make it our business to excavate into other people’s guarded worlds. While we feed in other people’s misery, misfortune, we forget to acknowledge the degree of our own miserable selves. In the feverish pursuit of the knowledge of other people’s whereabouts, we sometimes bring our heads together in discussing people who are not even present, not realising, that it is the very same group of people who will be talking about us as soon as our backs are turned.

We are quick to point fingers and blame the others for our misfortune but we equally pretend not to notice those three fingers pointing back at us. It is  thus a matter of simple pondering, why we human beings are ridden with a curiosity of such magnitude, that we simply must know; that we simply must discuss the fall of a certain person and disparage the rise of another, when he or she is not even present amongst us. A disease, the contagion of which we cannot escape – an affliction that we all deny that we are a part of, yet cannot help lending our ears to that juicy bit of gossip floating about.

We are the biggest and the only existing walking contradiction. We make resolutions, only to break them a month or so apart. We make promises only to break them when we no longer feel its weight. We listen to others but we already have a preconceived notion at the back of our heads. We say we agree with what our friends or acquaintances say, but as soon as they turn their backs, we disagree. We say that we never gossip or slander, yet we are insinuators of biggest gossip that might destroy the reputation of someone we may know closely or remotely. We are as much smooth operators, as ones with the roughest and most insensitive edges.  We are our own worst enemy, for we destroy the likes of ourselves without even flinching, pretending to not have possessed the knowledge, that we have launched a trusted person’s downfall by simply spreading it.

Slander by Anonymous Americas.

Twas but a breath–
And yet the fair, good name was wilted;
And friends once fond grew cold and stilted,
And life was worse than death.

One venom-ed word,
That struck its coward, poisoned blow,
In craven whispers, hushed and low–
And yet the wide world heard.

‘Twas but one whisper–one,
That muttered low, for very shame,
The thing the slanderer dared not name–
And yet its work was done.

A hint so slight,
And yet so mighty in its power,
A human soul in one short hour
Lies crushed beneath its blight.

Images taken from www.deviantart.com

(Dedicated to the hearts in a place of darkness where the festival of light barges in obtusely)

“Please let me go home. Please take me home!” I wailed  but my entreaty echoed only within myself. Outside I had begun to look like a corpse, stiff and still. It wasn’t my mind that shut off first after all. I sobbed, screamed, begged, prayed but not even the birds that perhaps flew over me, heard me. Then there was a break. Through my shut lids I saw something glowering from a distance. The dull point of light grew sharper and wider until it was so close to me that my eyeballs burnt behind my lids and the warmth from it melted the layer of frost on my face. I was being carried was the last message my mind conveyed. Then darkness and silence descended over me making me forget myself.

When I could open my eyes after a long lapse of time,  the lids were sealed and in the struggle to see where I was, much of my eye lashes were ripped from its roots and what I thought was tears, was actually blood trickling down from my bruised lids.“At last!” came a voice from behind. Without finding time to let the ambience of the room soak in, I swerved around with sudden fear gripping me. A man stood in the further corner of the big empty room facing the window. I raised myself and gathered the thin blanket around me as if it were an armour. I did not even want to think what my outward appearance was like for I knew that I must have never looked worse. He didn’t make an effort to turn around and look at his captive but continued gazing outside the window. “Had a long sleep eh? Do you know how long you have passed out?” A gruff voice scratched in my ears and I focused my eyes to make out the silhouette of the dark shirt stretched tightly on his back.

“ I…where is Oskar?” I fumbled, upon which I heard a low chuckle. “So you do remember Oskar then?” he said turning around and coming towards the lighted space of the room. My vision was still indistinct from all the trauma I had suffered. I beheld a tall man dressed in black, with very dark hair but his features, through a persistent film of fog obstructing my sight, I could not really make out. The voice however was unforgettable and familiar because it had a certain gruffness in it that vaguely rang a bell somewhere in the corner of my mind. Yes! I had heard that voice. But before I could clear the doubt fully in my head, he was sitting beside me, the air around him suffocating me. “Yes you have heard me before. There is no surprise about that. But seen the true me, you have not. For disguises I have many.” The shock and stress I had suffered in the near past had transformed me into the likes of those who doesn’t seemed to be astonished or petrified by anything at all, for here I was, the truth of my horrendous experiences nearly forgotten, admiring the fine face that now looked gravely at me. I was cast into a sea of lull and I even felt a faint smile spreading on my lips. It felt like I was sedated because those urgent pain in my muscles  disappeared as I looked into a face that was so beautiful that even the film of unsteadiness couldn’t impair my vision longer. A perfectly knitted dark brow that arched up in a way that it could both be menacing and keenly observant at the same time. Below the brow was a pair of eyes that were most striking in its molten creamy green colour of a summery sea. “Wh-who are you?” was all I could manage.
“Who I am, and why you are here are not the answers I am obliged to give to satisfy your curiosity.” I realized that he spoke with a hint of old fashion accent that was not common any more  and what was peculiar was that the way he spoke reminded me of  Kings and queens of bygone days that were neatly portrayed in today’s films.

The arrogant response was enough to make me realize that I was a mere speck of dirt, an ugly fat pimple-headed teenager, an awkward entity form a world much less complicated than this one. “Oh you poor poor little girl!” he added with a grin tugging at one side of his lips that gave away how unsatisfied he was with his find.  Then he grabbed my arms and said through clenched teeth “If I had been given a choice, I would only be most happy to leave you precisely where I found you. But no! The rest would not have it so.” He then let go of me and turned muttering to himself. “Oh dear father, father! Why this?  You could have done better”. He left the room and as he walked out of the door he turned back and said “Food will be sent to you in a while. You need to gather your strength for the purpose you are here for. Upon completing that particular purpose, you will be escorted back to wherever it is that you came from.”Thank God he did not see the tears of indignation that had begun to pool in my tired eyes. “poor…poor girl was it?” I thought and once you have your fill of whatever you have to do with me you will send me back to what was it again? Wherever it is that I came from?” A mixture of anguish and anger found its roots within me and grew steadily without a hint of being abated. I would have thrown things that I could get my hands on as a ventilation of my anger, but I didn’t because first of all the room where I was being held captive had only an ancient  dark-wood bed that I was sitting on, a small bedside table of rococo finish and a larger one by the window which also bore the same resemblance. Secondly, I couldn’t budge those things so I ate my own anger, chewed on it, munched it between clenched jaws until hot tears of vexation flew down. After all I was a nobody who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. I was very certain that it was not me they wanted. Oskar had kidnapped me by mistake. This had to be a mistake. I was never meant to be here. End of discussion.

I knew I was doing it again – casting dirt upon myself, humiliating myself often when I stood face to face with someone who seemed dauntingly beautiful or accomplished in many ways than I was. My mother would often grumble at how insecure and hesitant I was of myself. I couldn’t help it. I had always been embarrassed of myself no matter how many inspiring stories I may have read or heard. I never felt important in the big scheme of life. I was after all a tiny speck of dirt, an awkward teenager who found beauty in the morbidity of Poe’s Gothic stories and poems. I was extremely sure that these  beings or whoever they might be, have been seriously mistaken. They perhaps meant to grab Sofia the most popular girl in my class. Everybody wanted to be like her, look like her, walk like her and attract boys like her. The  only thing she was bad at, was studies but who cared about studies? It mattered to no one except the teachers when I aced in all my subjects, but that hadn’t done anything to change my “nobody” status. In fact I had an affinity to all the nobodies, so my group of friends had basically consisted of insignificant characters that are merely in the class to make it full.

The door creaked half open and I was jolted out at once from my piteous day dreaming. No one came in for a moment. The door remained open. “Hello? Who’s there?” I croaked. “M-Malin? Is that you?” A laboured whisper filled the space between me and the door. “Oskar? Oskar! Is that you? I’m here, come in,” I whispered back. Then slowly from behind the half closed door Oskar emerged appearing battered and bruised. He staggered heavily towards me and I was able to hold him before he sunk on the floor. His breath escaped his mouth in short bouts and he held the left side of his chest tightly with his right hand. He blurted short choppy sentences as he coiled on the floor with his head on my lap.
“C-close the door! I had to c-c-ome to s-s-see y-you,” he spoke with great difficulty. I didn’t  know what i could do to make him feel more comfortable, but before I dragged him up to the bed, I went and I shut the door. He breathed laboriously as he said, “I’m done Malin, this is the e-e-nd of me.”
“Hush don’t speak, calm down first”. I urged trying to see where his injury was the worst. Gently removing his hand from the left side of his chest, I was struck by shock when i saw a blue black mark singed on his shirt, and upon closer examination I saw that it was not only his shirt that was singed blue black but his skin had been charred deeply with a hole in the center the mouth of which was filled by black ink like liquid that bubbled and sputtered as I stared at it in complete horror. “Who did this to you? Wh-what happened?” I questioned in one breath.
“H-he made y-you run away fr-from m-me, fr-from the veh-vehicle. Be-because I-I was c-close to te-telling y-you th-the t-truth.”
His chest heaved again as he fought to catch his breath but instead a similar kind of black liquid oozed from the side of his mouth.
“H-he k-killed m-my Anna t-too.” Speaking was immensely difficult for him but he continued. “Y-you’ve g-got t-to run a-away fr-from th-this place, fr-from him.”
“Oskar please just calm down. You will get better. I’m sure.” these words sounded hollow and empty like a false promise, but those were the only words I could find. I fought away the tears as he looked at me with his pale blue eyes and touched my hand with his.
“I-I’m sorry, f-for br-bringing y-you here.”
“No, don’t Oskar, don’t talk, rest please. I need you, please, don’t leave me here.” I felt desperate watching his life seep out of him, and I bent down to hold him close. When I opened my eyes, he was gone. Those pale blue eyes had frozen in time forever. They were fixed at a point on my face and ceased to waver any more. All colour had left his lips except for the black liquid that coagulated now at side of his mouth. He had an expression of having wanted to say much more but was silenced forever in the midst of a sentence. Here lay the man who had robbed me from my family, who had kidnapped me and taken me away perhaps never to be returned to the familiar light of my home grounds, Yet all I felt was sorry for him. All I felt was a wish that I had known him better, asked more appropriate questions and tried to read all his gestures. I realized that I had grown much more closer to him than I had ever imagined. I knew I needed him more than ever now but I also knew that this was a wish that would never be fulfilled. Oskar was gone. He was dead. His human existence had been tampered by entities of the unnatural kind bringing death unto him in the most unnatural way. Why, and how I was linked to this aberrant chain of events, I had no clue and neither did I have any zest left to uncover the truth that the connection held. I simply wanted to go home to my uncomplicated simple life that consisted of delicious home cooked meals, of Poe’s stories, of my comfortable room and a life that consisted of my parents’ occasional fuss.
I meant to stand up when I realized that one of Oskar’s hand still held on to my shirt. I enclosed my hand lightly on his, and eased his grip. While I did that, I noticed a small crumpled piece of paper in his hand. Kindled by sudden curiosity, I pulled the paper out and unfolded it.

You have to leave here at once. I am sorry that I ever brought you here. Do not trust anyone. Specially him.
-Oskar
Those words were painstakingly written and the letters were faltering at places. The pen had met the paper with such roughness that the paper had given away at many places creating a deep dent tearing it where the pen had struck. I stood by the window as I read this abrupt missive. He had been meaning to give it to me but he had had no time. I looked at Oskar’s body covered in bruises but peaceful was how he looked now.  All of a sudden a wisp of smoke started rising up from wound in his chest. Dark grey thin wisp of smoke that slowly twirled upwards. I watched the scene transfixed with utmost wonder. Then there was a deafening blast which made me cower and bend low in an instant, holding my head between my arms. When nothing more happened, I looked up and saw that Oskar’s body was gone. There was no sign of him ever being there. It was as if he had never come at all. His body had simply disappeared while my attention was robbed by the sound of the blast.

To be continued...
Read Chapter 4 here

This is my interpretation of John Donne’s poetry The Sun Rising

busy old fool you unruly sun! 
why do you do this? is this fun?
you come barging in through windows
 and curtains and my open doors,
stinging my eyes and scalding my soul!
Love is dependent neither on your season nor your time
You disrespectful egotistic slime!
Why don’t you instead go and rebuke, torture and torment
lazy school boys and crude men to your heart’s content!
Go to the royal house announcing the day of the King’s ride
tell the country ants to begin harvesting far and wide.
But us you cannot touch since love knows no season nor clime
nor days, nor hours, nor months which are all but fragments of time

Why should you even think, why even assume
that your beams are venerably strong, full of powerful illume
All I need to do is wink and there you are, clouded and eclipsed
But I rather not wink to lose sight of his resplendent face.
If you are still not blinded by his, my love’s radiant eyes
then tell me this when we meet again tomorrow in late light
that if all the world’s treasure lie quietly where they are
or if they lie in my bed replenishing me, satiating my mortal desire
Even if you ask the kings whom you met yesterday
“all treasures of the world in this bed lies” they’d say

If he is all the countries, then I am all his queens
nothing else is real to me it seems
compared to what we have, conquering countries is but a play,
honour’s a mimic, wealth an illusion, and everything else a cliché
You dear sun you are only half as happy as we are
Since the world now in our bed rests, and that may sound bizarre,
In your old age, my love and I and our bed the world
makes your duty lighter by warming us as we lie here curled
Shine on us and you shine everywhere
thus making this bed your center and these walls your sphere.