chapter 3: Damn!The Dame Lost its e! (chap1&2n below)

CHAPTER 3:

68, Albany Avenue,
The Annex, Toronto,
Canada.

He opens his eyes. He sits up and shakes his head in desperate jolts that could have only one plausible explanation: serious attempts to shake off the still image of those pleading green eyes. It confuses the hell out of his stirred soul; this woman who deserted him so long ago is now fighting back into his very being. His soul feels heavy, as if struggling to stay afloat amidst the musty beads of anxious perspiration on him, his pajamas and his sheets.


The oak wooded cozy room is so gilded in detail, so quiet and charmin that it oozes with ultilmate opulence. Right now, it seems like a room he never had been in before.Tall ceiling, original wide oak mouldings, large oak crown dentil casting, oak picture molding, oversized 6'H oak window, oak doors, and beautiful original art work making this a splendid, cozy cocoon. Red and green holly hues

predominate the colour scheme, interplaying antique silver and beautiful Old World fabrics. Various dramatic, hear-wringing stills, straight out of his camera, adorn differnt pockets of the wall spaces.

The blue velvet curtains are drawn close and he couldn’t really say night from day here. The night lamp feels like a faraway star, its light so soft and golden. His groggy eyes search for the familiar clock on the opposite wall, in order to jerk away the haunting image of those damning eyes. The hands of the clock are almost aligned in the same line; crawling towards 6 pm.

He jumps out of his bed and into the real world, pulls open the blue curtains and stares into a beautiful skyline. Ah, Beauty! The cavalcade of absolutely perfect shots zips across his mind. ‘One hell of an amazing panorama! I simply must find a spot as bonnie as that waterfall. It would imbue the Innu documentary with a haunting melancholic strain ,’ he thinks.

The evening is fast losing itself to darkness. He suddenly remembers that Amelia, the maid had asked permission to retire early, on account of her grandson’s poem recital. Every brain cell calls to mind the cherubic face of his little ducky, Ila. She is the only woman who is privy to the real Dharesh; his heart, soul, values, camera, and life concoct an ‘in the flesh’ ode to his little elf- the only one who ever looked beyond Darry, a name most people knew him by.

It is her bathing hour now. He walks into her room. She is neither at her desk nor in her big blue tent. Her little rustic bed is also neatly tucked into temporary emptiness. He quickly pushes opens the adjoining bathroom door that stands slightly ajar. For a minute, his limbs go into a state of unjustified rigor mortis.

Ila lies fast asleep in the little bear-shaped tub. The Little Twig citrus-rosemary scented bubbles have somehow found their way a little above her tiny nostrils. The tiny bubble keeps popping in and out of them. Her eyes remain shut.

Dharesh shakes himself out of his temporary rigidness. He stumbles forward with flailing arms, steadies his torso right above her, pulls her out of the bubbling mass of water and carries her to her bed. Every coherent thought escapes his frigging thought process. He lays both hands on her chest, one above the other in a cross forming pattern, in an effort to thrust out any water that might have been swallowed.

For a heart stopping moment, there is absolutely no movement. Then, his heart lurches out of his mouth and dives back just as quick. ‘Papa,’ she whooshes, as he finally pulls her in a huge bear hug, simultaneously letting out the huge aching pressure that had almost exploded in there. The symbolic cross he just laid on Ila by chance had probably saved them both from an imminent, horrific accident.

Jalsindhi, Madhya Pradesh,
India.

Two huge invisible hands take her by the sagging shoulder bones. She continues staring into the vast emptiness. The nonentity forcibly draws her out of her floating reverie. She stares on.

Suddenly, the pain in her chest sends out a shooting pain that reaches her toes in one spine chilling shot. She expectorates the congested water in one huge cough, followed by two smaller ones. Completely exasperated, she wonders what pushed her into this benumbing experience.

‘Toya, what happened to you? I’ve been looking all over for you,’ screams Lolita at the top of her lungs. She puts an arm around Toya and helps her out of the water. ‘The forest is ours. The soil is ours. The waters are ours. We will drown, but we will not move an inch,’ is the slogan being rammed out of the raging bodies around her. This is what had pushed her over the cliff and under the waters. She once againventures into the waters with inexorable resolve .

The police are very close. All of a sudden, she begins speculating on the faraway boat and the invisible hands. Her hand goes flying to her mouth. She swallows it all into her trembling body. While swallowing, the larynx usually closes to prevent the swallowed material from entering the lungs. And right that second, her slogan gets trapped in her larynx as she swallows ‘him’ in.

The posterior cricoarytenoid, quite abruptly gets incapacitated on both sides, reinforcing the inability to pull the vocal cords apart, causing her a breathing difficulty of a different kind. The familiar yearning gnaws at her. She is engulfed by his loving, strong, masculine presence; as strong as it had been the last time she saw him, on that fateful day- May 15, 1992.