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The ideal situation for such storytelling, as preached by the many authors I grew up reading, always involved an elderly person as the storyteller. He narrated his stories, his life experiences in most cases, to a group of scared children. Invariably the power would be out due to the heavy rain and storm that raged on. There were so many storyteller dada, dadu, uncles in the Bengali literature I grew up loving that I could easily compensate the lack of one such elder in my life with them. My childhood was so influenced by them, that I could easily hear a child’s cry in the crack of a lightning and see a veiled woman in the wet shadow of a banana tree. In this post however, I am going to play the role of, say an elderly dadi, a grandma that is, the storyteller. And in my jhuli tonight, I have a tale which is, yes, you guessed it right, from my own experience. Make sure: you have your pakodas and steaming cup of tea ready, you wouldn’t need to use the bathroom in next five minutes and most importantly the lights of your room are turned off. And now, here comes the story: In the year of 2004, the summer was particularly hot in the campus of the engineering college of Kolapur. The black fumes that rose from the ever burning six chimneys of the neighbourhood power plant looked a little more menacing – pitch black against the clear blue sky. The beautiful half circular lake that kept the huge campus separated from the mainland was drying up. The greens of the Kadam flower trees and the Eucalyptus trees that surrounded the campus looked dull as a thick film of carbon particles from the power plant coated them evenly. The students were pretty much toasted that week as the heat wave barred them inside the hostels. By the time it was Saturday almost all the students had gone home for the weekend. Only few from far off places scattered the hostels in a room or two. Three such first years, roommates actually, a little adventurous, ventured out early afternoon just after the lunch was served. They strolled amidst the Eucalyptus trees, scorched by the sun, past the white fence, by the bank of the lake. They were alone for everyone was either gone home or taking a nap after lunch. Only a cuckoo cuckooed on in a monotonous tone. The placid water, its fearsome depth gone, looked safer, almost inviting to take a dip. Indeed, few villagers from villages on the other side were dipping their heads in the water. They looked tiny for the width of the lake was vast but yet they were there as a reassuring presence to these three strollers. One look at each other and they knew, all of them, that they wanted to take a plunge. A conforming nod at each other and they all stripped off their clothes and jumped into the water. The water felt so cold, so soothing against their hot skin. They laughed loudly exclaiming why they hadn’t tried this before! After all, rules were meant to be broken, weren’t they? They swam, lapping up the water happily. They didn’t remember how long they had been in the water, because the water was hypnotizing against their burning skins. They noticed only when the bird’s cuckooing grew louder and urgent. They laughed at the bird and screamed back mocking its voice. The bird’s call grew more persistent. It was only then they noticed that one of their friends was drowning – rather he seemed caught in a whirlpool that pulled him down. The one closest to him lunged forward in an impulse to grab his friend, to pull him out. The drowning boy too reached for his friend and all his desperate hands could find was his janau – the sacred Brahmin thread that went across his chest. He pulled it hard, as hard as he could, without noticing that in his effort to survive he had already killed his friend as the thread had cut deep in his throat. The third friend in his helplessness was torn between saving himself and his friends. After few seconds of desperate pondering he chose the latter while screaming as loudly for help as he could. This attracted the villagers’ notice. They too started screaming. All these, combined with the cuckoo’s frantic calling may have alerted the guards for they reached just as the boy reached the shore. He was holding the drowned boy’s hand tightly who in turn still held the janau in his iron grip. When they were rushed to the hospital, two of them were unconscious and one was dead. All the doctors in the power plant’s hospital tried their best but they couldn’t save the second boy as well – he had drank too much water. The third boy survived but he developed a far gone stare, he didn’t speak, he just looked at people. Sometimes he laughed – probably happy about his survival, while some other times he cried, howled hysterically – probably remembering his dead friends. That’s what the doctors said anyway. His nearest relatives came and took him away, to keep him safe under their care till his parents arrived. But the others students were blissfully unaware of the tragedy that was taking place. Most of them were cocooned at that time in the comfort of their homes. Those few who were in the campus knew but they didn’t feel like telling others about it. Not yet anyway. They spared them another day of ignorance. It was probably the first time in the college history the news didn’t spread through like fire in the dry wood. Nevertheless the news did spread. As the dark of Sunday evening fell, as the flock of students started coming back to the campus, they all knew. But it was such a hard truth to take in! Some of the first years, the deceased’s friends, ran to their room to cross check if this was a huge practical joke! But nobody could touch the bolted unlocked door. It was as if an invisible force threw them back. Then, around midnight, the storm started. To be continued…Love
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Riot of Random
