The Visible and The Invisible- Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

DIVINE INTERVENTION

The minutes crept by as I waited for the divine intervention in my hapless life at the railway station. The grasshoppers were chirping in merry as if mocking me. And the bats were screeching and flying in the sky in an erratic pattern. Beside me on the stone bench, Raj was engrossed in himself.

A tall creepy man shouted at me, “Go home already! It is dangerous to lounge here by yourself at this late hour.”

I thought of ignoring him and staying in my place for a while. But he reached me in no time with his long strides.

“Don’t you hear my shouting? Go home now.” His rough firm voice caught the attention of some of the passengers at the station. And his persistence got on my nerves.

In return, I yelled irritably, “Don’t I have my freedom to do what I like? Hoe your own row!”

My throat strained and I coughed few times. I think I really set him off that spelled trouble. So, I uttered an apology and got on my feet. Raj was in a fog all this time.

“Raj, c’mon, we will go,” I called him. He smiled in response. His appearance hadn’t changed much in a year. But he seemed very young to my eyes.

“Who are you talking to?” the tall man gave an expression of befuddlement.

“With myself,” I said and put my foot long on the path along the track that headed for the near railway gate. It was hundred meters away from the station, where the railway line intersected by the Permalpuram road. After some distance I checked back, the tall man was gone. I calmed with an out breath.

“You cannot move all of a sudden like that. I am listening to my favorite song. You should have stayed there longer” Raj mumbled.

“Where did you hear the song?”

“That tall man’s phone played that song” he retorted.

I smirked at him, “You Chum! Flippant always, I am happy being with you Raj, thank you…thank you very much.”

We walked few steps wordlessly. The train blew its whistle and the wind carried its smoke in its direction.

“Yudhi,” a girl’s voice called.

The sound seemed like that I was constantly hearing it within my mind; in my dreams. I was delighted upon hearing it. The smile edged on my lips. The footsteps were drawing closer. I quickly spruced myself up. The clouds showed the door and the moon silvered. I turned unhurriedly towards her.

”Yudhi, so we finally met,” She smiled.

I was over the moon. The train departed from the station.

She came closer and lifted her head. Her blue eyes were the same even after all these years; still longing for the love. She appeared more fabulous; was like a painting on a fine texture with the broken color and the focal point was her curvaceous eyes. Her loose hair had coiled dramatically and the skin color had paled greatly. I felt keyed up and sweltered in the intense heat around her. I could hear my own heart throbbing.

“Hi…” I opened with a grin.

She suddenly slapped me. Oh! I cried out in pain. Before I recovered from the first impact, she blew the second one strongly on the same cheek.

“Ah! What the hell is wrong with you?” I rubbed my cheek.

She didn’t answer. Her head was down and both her hands were holding something tight. Tears dropped down from her cheek on her hand.

“Sati” I called intimately.

She moved no muscles. I stepped back out of her harm's way.

“Sati, I hate-- I hate the love that brought you here,"

She gazed up.

“--And keeping you out of my reach”

Her clutch on that thing was released and it fell on the ground. But her eyes carried no more love only frustration and anger.

I pulled myself near her and said in a pretend huff, “I have forgotten your face as my memories faded away. I can only remember your tender eyes, lashing eyelids, spellbinding smile, seashell ears, long narrow nose, and redden cheek, even though I couldn’t bear it as a whole in my mind.” 

I intended to push aside her hair that was swaying over her face. But, she brushed me off. She turned back and began to move as if she was starved of words.

“Sati, Sati “I pleaded.

She left without a heart. The power resurrected and the street lights diminished the moonlight. I was alienated. I wondered, rejoiced, bewildered and suffered because of her. It was the usual dialogue of boys in love. Whatever, I had never experienced that. Between our two visible hearts, the unexpressed love had always been invisible. I made up my mind not to follow her, as I had enough that night. I had dreamed about this moment, but I never thought this sort of end. Life is unpredictable.

“Life is predictable if you understand its way of course that it is random” Raj quoted again.

“But still it is unpredictable” I annoyed.

‘Yes, unpredictable but not unflinching, yet we can fight” He formed in a fine tone.

His words lifted my spirits, but it was too late, her silhouette had disappeared. The thing that she dropped; flattered in the gust. I took it before it flew off. It was a blue colored envelope wearing the letters ‘A MARRIAGE INVITATION’ in the middle along with a welcoming quote, ‘HOLDING HANDS IN HEAVEN, NEED WISHING HANDS’ in a golden ink.

“A marriage invitation! Is it hers?” Raj exclaimed in shock.

His question must be counted. If it is true, what I will do. My dreams seemed to dissolve. But I couldn’t affirm his thought that it was hers because--

“The envelope is empty”.

“A cover without any card inside, what does it imply?” he rasped.

I examined it for any details of the couples. I found only the crinkle and wet patches on it rendering the pain she had. It was because of me, I made her wait for four long years. She should have lost her hope and accepted the marriage proposal put forth before her by her parents.

“It means she doesn’t want me in that great occasion!” I said.

I was not crying, but, suddenly, I sensed the wind was cold on my cheeks. My legs ached as well as my heart. I felt it would be better to go home now. We sauntered; neither of us opened our mouth on the way. I bid an adieu to him. He disappeared into the darkness.

I don't believe that the love would occur only once in your life. At every moment, when I looked at her eyes, I fell in love with her. And each time, my love for her deepened more and more. It was not simple now to erase all that memories and emotions at once. But I could. All I wanted was to meet her once again and say goodbye by looking straight in her eyes.

The trees were relishing in the rhythm of oncoming monsoon winds. No other sound predominated at the quarters and no heads were seen outside. The lights were turned off and the stair-case was dark. I grappled to reach the abode at the third floor, without stumbling. The door wasn’t locked. I pushed it, making no noise.

The home was not big, but we contented to live within. In the living room, a 32 inch LED Panasonic television and a wall clock were hanged on the wall straight to the door and on the adjacent one was a concrete shelf: On the first rack books, belonged to my father, were stacked together with a pile of daily newspapers, on the next, tool-kit, followed by six boxes were placed, each contained important bills, notes, visiting cards, photos, mobile chargers and medicines and the bottom rack was spared.

Everyone was in slumber on the mat made up of a dyed special grass. My father brushed his shoulder and turned around in sleep. Neither his well-built body nor his hazel eyes was tired of serving the family and society. He was very honest, kind and generous. He loved us more than how he loved my mother.

Uday, my companion even before I was born, was crouched on the mat like a baby. We never concerned about how many friends were around us, we played even the eleven men games, we two alone. He always stepped forward before I placed my foot and induced the courage within me to live, to enjoy and to experience the life.

“Doctor advised operating my throat. If I lose all my blood in surgery what will you do, Uday?”

“Yudhi, you need not worry; I have enough blood to give you”

I simpered over our childhood conversation that abruptly flashed through my mind. We both had written our last semester exams on mid-May and were waiting for the results.

Beside him, my mother blanketed her distresses and desires in a sleep. The only relations she had were us. She was very responsible and loving. For a degree holder, the house works might be tough. Her tanned complexion reflected it.

At almost right was Kulali, the one who had all knowledge about me, Uday, our friends and teachers. She was a good friend. Her thin voice never supported her in our squabbles. We always won. When the sun rises, everyone would wake up in an atypical box covered with mirrors where each one sees their own mirage, dreams and hallucination of hatred around them. The vast blue sea (family) had dried up into a desert (fallen apart) now.

I closed the door and crept to the other room. The dining table and the refrigerator resided at one corner and other by a cup-board of clothes and a book shelf erected near it. Oxford, Lexicon, Brilliant English dictionaries, civil and mechanical engineering academic books, entrance exam question papers, and Tamil and English novels occupied their seats in the shelf. The time was eleven. This terrible night left me completely fatigued. I slept on the tiled floor.

“You are not supposed to go, Pay heed to my words, Uday,” my mother’s truculent voice echoed.

“Mom, I have to go to the gym before seven o'clock, but it is already seven here.”

I stunned, "The time is seven! I am dead today”. I had to be in the Tirunelveli new bus-stand for the trip at five. I forgot everything in the yesterday’s mess, Oh! God, please save me. I arouse and sought out for my father’s cell-phone. He was not at home. My mother’s phone was near the window in the living room. I flew the coop with it.

I could hear my mother’s order to Uday clearly from the terrace “No, Kulali’s fiancé will arrive at Tirunelveli soon, receive him at the bus-stand”.

I phoned Ethan, a bambino at an average height with beard and mustache, but he was actually a romantic genius. The slicked down hair, dewy-eyed, round face, fair smile and apt body made him more charismatic.

“Hello! “He answered.

“Hello! I am Yudhi, I am sorry that I slept…”

“Hey relax, we postponed the trip to Wednesday as our faculty advisor called us for receiving the course completion certificate today at our college,” he explicated.

“No one has informed me about that”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter now… anyway congratulations”

“What for?” I puzzled.

“For the marriage.” he giggled.

How he acquired the news? Did anyone spy on me yesterday? Definitely, it can’t be. Maybe he was blabbering about my sister’s marriage.

“Oye, you can convey your wishes directly to my sister, not through me,” I said.

“Don’t pretend like an innocent. I bet you know whose marriage I am talking about,”

I was baffled by his lame joke, “Ridiculous! Leave it aside and pick me up at my home,” I ended the call indignantly.

I brushed my teeth and bathed in next thirty minutes. I donned a black jeans and fine striped casual green shirt. I sleek down my hair and wore my black watch. My mother was slicing vegetables in the kitchen.

I uttered, “My faculty is distributing course completion certificate today and I will join you soon before afternoon.”

She kept mum and even her squinty eyes didn’t turn. I walked out after a sip of tea. Ethan in a sandal formal shirt and a black pant was waiting with his blue glamour bike on the street. His eyes were wild with anger. He threw a card over my face.

“There is no point in your fury on the phone. Look at the marriage invitation card that you sent,” he shouted.

“Nope, I haven’t sent any, we have not started distributing my sister’s marriage invitation card yet” I said.

“Not your sister’s, it is yours!”

“Mine, that’s insane!” I flustered.

My eyes caught a glimpse of the words in golden ink on its blue envelope, ‘HOLDING HANDS IN HEAVEN; NEED WISHING HANDS’