Thursday, August 19, 2010

Untitled 3 (A short story?)

The door opens with a creaking monotone. 10 years. It's been 10 years since anyone has enterd this room. This used to be his mother's room.
Mother. The word doesn't bring back much happy memories. Shouts, counter shouts, obscenities, abusive behaviours, hurled between the two sides like ultra-modern missiles.
He moves and stands near the giant window. He opens it. From here, nine storeys above the world, everything is so small, minute, unimportant. When he was a kid he used to measure how much time his spit would take to travel the nine storeys. 4 seconds, surely not more than that.The day Maa jumped from this very window, he had thought, how much time did Maa take to hit the hard, ignorant world below?
He leans over. Does the world look a bit larger? Not really.
4 seconds. What can you do in 4 seconds? See your whole, pathetic life lying like a Kolkata Sewer system map before you? Regret all the decisions you ever took in your life? Feel the sudden urge to live your life once again? Start to love your children once more? You can do a lot of things in these 4 seconds.
He took 1 hour. After Maa committed suicide, he just needed 1 hour to decide, that he is going to go away from this house. Go away forever.
And so he did.
After 10 years he has come back to this city, to his home. And he has come back only when he has been assured that no else is left to disturb him.
Baba is dead. He passed away two days ago. Heart attack, or stroke, or something of that sort. Shona Jethu had called him up and requested him to come back, for the mukhagni. So he is.
Baba is dead. Just like Maa was. No more need to come back to this *darned* city anymore. No more need to receive disturbing calls, like he has for the past 10 years. In the end the frequency of these calls reduced significantly, but they did come. No more requests to come back. His umbilical cord has snapped, atlast.
A gusty wind hits his face, and rids the room from its dampy stink. He looks around the room in the artificial twilight. Much hasn't change. It's obvious Baba never entered this room, and so did not the servants. He remembers Baba once told him that Maa still lives in this room. He doesn't doubt Baba. He always knew Maa would never be able to leave this house, leave Baba. Maa is still there. He can feel her. He can sense her smell, the typical smell, which every mother has.
Memories. He feels scared. He comes out of the room, and locks it tight.
Bolted. Now they can't disturb him anymore.

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