A Cacophony that quietens me...

By Pritha Lal,
Springville, Utah, USA
Yes, that is the best way to describe my City of Joy – Kolkata. I have never been able to find a definition of what this city means, or has meant to me over the years. I was born here, spent the most beautiful moments of my infancy and childhood here. However I have never lived here for too long and currently this bustling metropolis, where several centuries coexist, remains more of a holiday destination where I come home to my parents every few years.

I welcomed 2013 in this city but was unable to find the right words for a status update for my FaceBook Timeline that could capture what I felt on January 1st 2013. The new year unfolded in my home town, where I was in the most beautiful company of the most important people in my life, my parents, my child, and my husband. I was slightly jet lagged and out like a light on 31st night by 8 pm and spent a good part of 1st at a place very dear to my heart, the Cossipore center of Ramakrishna Mission.

We had rolls from Zeeshan the previous evening and I had the funnest time confusing the kid making the rolls as I could barely contain my excitement while choosing between the “double egg mutton” or the “double egg chicken” and then finally settling for the “double mutton kathi kabab” or some such DECADENT blissful bit of heaven wrapped with extra “lonka and pyanj” ( chillies and onions ) in the ever familiar white paper that gets soggy with the oil but never gets stuck to the roll !!!

I digress, but I always do when I think about this city. Every road our car traverses, every little by lane I walk with mom when we go to the vegetable market, every cross walk, every sidewalk, every traffic light we stop at, every sight that greets me fills with a strange kind of calm even though at times the cacophony can be deafening. It is strange that I never seem to hear the honking or the car behind us or the auto rickshaws rushing past the buses that swerve through the streets to pick up the passengers at the bus stop before the next bus gets there. Instead my mind and my heart get lost in what my eyes see or rather, don’t see.

The slightly misty glass jars with blue tin covers that have “naan khatai” biscuits find their familiar spot on the road side tea stalls where the tea seller, is bundled up to keep himself warm in the slightly chilly Kolkata winter, in a coarse large checked woolen shawl. He has a big aluminum pot ready on the wood fire or a small burner. The Pakka chai (much boiled and spiced tea) is ready to be served in little earthen pots.

The car turns and one sees the colorful saris hanging on lines in balconies. You see a young couple walking with their fingers barely touching and you know they are stealing a few minutes off work, or college to catch a movie or just visit the food court at South City.

It is the faces of people that pass by outside the window of my car that fascinate me even more than the various artifacts. These are the faces I see when I am at an Emporium in Dakshinapan or dining at a mall. These are the faces at the bus stops and auto stands. These are the faces at Belur, Dakshineshwar and Kalighat. These are the faces of my city. A woman in her mid twenties or early thirties, without the familiar vermillion on her forehead or the “loha” in her left wrist. You know she is unmarried, probably taking care of various familial responsibilities and finding her moments of joy in being there for others rather than living a life she may have dreamed of. There is a peace in her face, a silent calm in her quiet demeanor, a steadiness in her gait that has come with time, maturity and the ability to hold her own through it all.

A middle aged man I noticed tried to get on to a moving bus but was unable to, as the bus moved way, I saw he had a cane. The pace was a bit much for him I guess. I was fascinated by the expression on his face as he patiently waited for the next bus, his tenacity intact, his brow furrowed with thoughts much deeper than his cane or his inability to make the last bus. He has a family to go home to it seemed like. He held a small plastic bag with the familiar cardboard packet of mishti, probably something he is taking home to his kids for an evening jol khabar.

No, my city is not about squalor or poverty, it is about life. It is about finding life and living it no matter where you are. The SUVs with the Rayban wearing owners stand side by side at the traffic lights with a couple on a bicycle. The bright orange shidur clearly indicating the newly married duo are residents of some district in Bihar. While the Rayban wearing and Coach handbag carrying couples speed off in their Fortuna, the biker babe and her beau meander into the smaller lanes, her bits of tinsel on her bright red dupatta resplendent in the evening sun.

There are too many images. There are too many memories. Every lane we drive through tells a story of the residents who live in that “para” or neighborhood. Every line on the face of an older man or woman, every giggle coming out of the school “van” rickshaws assure me that the stories of this city will live forever. Each time I come back to it, I will partake of this joy by being a mere spectator, or a listener or maybe sometimes I will have something to say. There is a cacophony of sounds around me, as the new Londonesque ” Trifala” street lights installed at “Didi’s” orders brighten up the streets. Yet in the midst of it all, there is music. These are not just the strains of Rabindrasangeets or Adhuniks at every large crossing or intersection. It is the music of joy in your own heart, the kind that only this city can offer in its own unique, inimitable way.

So do I have a new year update of resolutions for my timeline. No really, I donot. Kolkata and every nuance of this city teach me each and every time to live and make each moment count.

The “naan khatais” are not going up taste any different on the 1st of Jan. Nor will the lives of the maids who take the 5 am train from Canning to come make our homes spotless. The door man at the Taj will open the gates to you just the same and at the end of his shift will take the majestic uniform off, don his clothes and take the bus back home. No, nothing new and earth shattering will happen on the first of the year simply because the city renews every day. If you can feel your spirit do the same, there is your moment of quiet solitude amidst all the noise.

Afterwards

By Ankita Chatterjee
Singapore

Starry nights, fairy nights,

Trivial to rationale, to the maverick it is divine nights,
Beads of experience adorn eyes in a flush,
Often transform in smiles these flowery nights.

An oft-heard lullaby formed crevasses of delight and dreams in a room that opened to towering condominium buildings, half obstructing the calm, moonlit waves of the China Sea. Aaliya lay on her side, patting her two year old son to sleep. She could hear boisterous laughter across the three barbeque pits downstairs. In her apartment ten levels above that she struggled to see the entire galaxy of stars, bumping into sights of concrete and granite and withholding the narrow getaway between buildings that spanked the jewels of nature.

Infinite was your potential when you set foot on earth,

Infinite is the ocean from its birth,
Infinite the journey of the cargo ships whose start and finish is invisible in that narrow crevice,
Infinite your dreams, without demise.

 Aaliya’s eyes kept closing in a stupor, then barged open.

“Are you awake? May I sit with you? I know you are displeased. I know I am regretting. But my hand and chest pain badly. I think it’s still bleeding,” the man at the door spoke in whispers. Aaliya sprang up. “Is it? Arpan slept off a while back. Why don’t you sit here? I might try doing a first aid while we register at the hospital.”

With a wry smile, he glared at her. “Do you think it is needed? Do you think that will help?”

“Why will it not help, Shubhra da?  At least the bleeding will stop. Oh my God! Look at your shirt!”

Aaliya jolted up to fetch the medical box…and stopped. A stream transpired from her eyes in form of that divine gush that purifies the heinous sin… and she broke onto her knees. She embraced him, sobbing perennially as her grasp of him became tighter.

“I’m sorry, Shubhra da. I’m sorry that I let the distance between you and me, exist. I know it was you, my eldest and closest sibling, who built the wall. But I could have broken it. So, what if you pained your parents and married out of choice. So, what if you spilled me out of your circle of confidantes like a speck! So, what if I longed to talk to you on phone, a call that never came. So, what if the colour of our blood suddenly changed!

Aaliya’s nose snuggled in the crease of Shubhra’s shirt and fresh, greasy blood smudged onto it. Shubhra shrugged a part of his hand that looked dismantled and continued, “Pain is a small word, Aaliya, the one you are talking about. Weren’t you my closest always? How could I beseech you! The parents you debate for are my God. How did you believe I would desert them! Yes, the day I married my wife, I cornered myself. I left you, my pride. I shut the world to me.”

Aaliya stared at his eyes. They were small as ever; a notch not more expressive than they always were. The mole on his left cheek was blatantly black and scary.

Fear deceives prudence

Fear of loss and acceptance.
Fear drills a pit of pain,
Fear struggles to hide in vain.
If pain is what you thought I gave you,
Look deep in me how I hid you,
Touch my breath and feel how I heave you.

Vague expressions met Aaliya yet another time. She wouldn’t dismiss their meeting this time. She carefully lifted Shubhra’s hands and placed them on hers. Slowly as she wiped some blood stains from upon his trouser, Shubhra stiffened.

“Couldn’t you ever call me, Aaliya? Didn’t you ever want to know why and how I back stepped in my life? Weren’t you surprised this couldn’t be me? I waited for long. I waited for your phone call. I was scared you might never forgive me. I told my wife every night how precious you were; my tiny sibling, my compassionate compatriot of crime, my once only dream. Why didn’t you reach me? I didn’t betray your friend to marry my wife. She perhaps didn’t want me anymore. I held so much in me, secured and untold in my heart. But Aaliya, now I can’t. My ribs are broken. A couple of them split my heart open. I’m bleeding. I cried for help, but see it’s bleeding still. Everything is rolling out. My heart cannot hold anything. It is empty.”

Aaliya snatched his dismantled fist, pulled out a pillow case and pushed it against Shubhra’s chest. “The blood will stop. Does it hurt?” She lisped and fumbled, pushing in an entire pillow to his chest.

“Let it go, Aaliya. Let it go. It hurts me no more. My grudge I held for so long streamed out a while back. I love you. Always have. Like that every drop you shed from your eyes, these droplets of blood take me closer to infinity. I shall soon enter that narrow getaway between buildings. I shall soon be the immortal cascade in your mortal world.”

A concoction of moments

Question your integrity.
How complex your perceptions were.
I swept a corner in my heart,
It is all in simplification.

Aaliya opened her eyes slowly. She felt her eyelids heavy and her heart light. The narrow getaway shone under the light of a huge cargo shipment. The splitters of the sea made a reclining noise. Her son tossed on the bed and the alarm clock was yet to beep. Aaliya would begin another banker day of hers and her husband shall soon join them after his business trip. Aaliya watched the cargo ship pass, not knowing where it embarked from, sailing into infinity.

Two years after her eldest brother met with a road accident and all her dreams crashed, she was finally begotten of the haunt. Sudden answers transpired in an abrupt introspection that subconsciously began that fatal day when after a lapse of three years of miscommunication and distance, a cruel reality dawned on her.

Aaliya smiled in her pain. She knew now that time was lost; that introspection could fetch the clarity that was so oblivious earlier; how a part of her shall always remain indebted to this night and how she would never stop missing Shubhra.

Times when droplets of water roll into a steady rush,

Drenching into a synthesis,
How impregnate Earth is with a bounty of untouched thoughts,
Ones that etch divine experiences.
In this ethereal cascade I often immerse to be enlightened.

That Year

By Kunal Sen
Goa, India

There was a night when we lied besides each other
And our lives changed
But before that
In a colony of refugees
Our love was just another thing we had in common
Like a shared clothesline

You had nothing but your blessed good looks
Your boxer's nose and your Mousumi Chatterjee teeth
Even your shadows were beautiful
Your lashes gave you away
We owned a song
We tainted a room, and a town

You had tried to put me together
Piece by piece by piece
And I was flattered and scared at the same time
Not because you were a stranger
But because by then
You were not

You had given names to my fingers
"This one is Benimadhav
The little fellow is called Eravath
Then this here is Tommy-Tit-Tot ..." you used to say
Kissing the tips
As though baptizing all the children we never had.
 

Blue Oblivion

By Ananya Mukherjee
Singapore

Aaditya Singh Chauhan had not been keeping too well, of late. He was touching seventy-five this March and these years of struggle of trying to keep the kitchen fire burning against all odds, material and spiritual, had drained him completely. I had always known him to be a strong man in the past, but I saw him withering slowly with each passing day, his weak bones giving in to the realities of age and unable to cope from the harshness of nature, Aadi, the fighter with the Rajput bloodline was unwillingly yet eventually succumbing to acceptance and withdrawal.
 
It started early last summer when Aadi, still considering himself an energetic artist, spent an entire afternoon restoring a mural near the portico facing the lawn. It was the blue façade that could be seen directly from the street corner of the neighbourhood we lived in for over forty years now.  Not much had changed in this sleepy quaint county in the north of England over the years, except that the neighbourhood, once bustling with the shrieks of cars horns and bicycle rings, the peals of childish laughter and the aroma of freshly baked food from country kitchens had submitted to an evitable acceptance of old age and solitude. The once wide streets had become narrow and unfit to hold the dreams of the young and most of them had moved south, leaving the county quieter than usual or desired, only for the aged parents, the immovable structures and the immobile associations. It was only during thanksgiving, Christmas and the Easter weekends, when life would rewind to several decades and the sleepy county would suddenly rise up from its pervasive silence. The homes would spring to life with children and grandchildren.

During such a visit last Easter, Joyee, our first born, an established designer in this part of the world now, raised her eyebrows to the blue mural in the middle of a family lunch in the garden. The exact words she used were “Such a shame!” as her eyes inspected the mural that once defined the identity of the home we had built together. And that pointed criticism was directed at no one else but her own father. Unlike his feudal background, Aaditya was an esteemed artist who specialised in murals, one of the best of his times and his work of art could be seen all across England and other parts of Europe and Asia. For a man whose creations were celebrated over the continents, having a worn out mural on his own county home was perceived discreditable in the eyes of his own children.  
Joyee was harsh, but she was right. The mural had peeled off in places, the colours had weathered too many storms and in its present state, the once brilliant piece of art looked like a sad caricature of its lost glory. Aadi had taken the criticism a bit too strongly and started working on restoring the mural with a speed and vengeance I dreaded. He toiled through the afternoon suns, without food or sleep for days, recharging the dead wall with an energy that seemed to take every breath out of his own old lungs. My protests fell on deaf ears. He was not ready to listen. 

"I need to finish before the rains come back and wash away my first strokes,” he was determined. 
And just when the last corner of the top right was ready for the first stroke of paint, Aadi slipped, fell from a shaft and broke his back. That moment in our lives left the mural unfinished yet finished the man forever.  Aadi got back on his feet after few months in bed and long painful hours of physiotherapy, but the strength in his body was gone. He could move slowly and after much effort, the exercise of a mere physical movement would tire him so much that he chose to sit quietly by the window doodling on a scribble pad or listening to Bach, his favourite since he was in school. 
Then one night, when the wind was whistling through the backyard trees, and the temperature had suddenly gone down a few degrees, just as I was cleaning up after dinner, a car pulled up into our driveway. On any other night, I would not have opened the door to any visitor at that hour but the tempest brewing at my doorstep led me to do the unthinkable. I opened my home to a stranger. 
The first things I noticed in him were his deep blue eyes. He must have been in his mid-thirtees, well-built and of average height. His Asian features were well crafted. I must have looked curious for he started immediately in crisp British accent. “Sorry to be bothering you so late but I need a shelter for the night. The storm would not let me drive any further and all the motels that I have crossed so far have no room. Yours was the first house that I could see from the street corner as the lightening shone on a mural on that wall.  You are not obliged to help me, but if I can park my car here and stay till the storm passes away, I would be grateful.” I stood at the door with suspicion written all over my face. Aadi was hardly in a physical shape to protect me, and I was an old woman anyway. What if this strange man with the second most sparkling pair of blue eyes I had even seen turned out to be an imposter?   He perhaps analysed the expression of doubt on my face and flashed out an Identity card. “Look, I am not here for burglary if that is what you are scared of. I am an architect and I have a site to view in another location, hence I am stuck in this county. I have no interest to rob you of anything.  The moment the storm stops, I will leave. If you believe in me, you could let me in, or I will find another shelter….” “Wait,” I stopped him in the middle of his sentence gaping at his identity card.  “What did you say your name was?” 
“Aakash. It’s an Indian name. You are Indian too, are you not?” 
“And your full name?” I probed returning the card to him.  
“You are quite an investigator. Well…if that helps you, my name is Aakash. I have a surname but never used it.” 
Aakash! My mind was going into a timeless retreat…scenes unfolding one by one, drying my throat and pushing a canon of tears into my tired old eyes. 
“Come inside, Aakash.” This was the second time in over three decades that I called out that name. 


“You can stay till the storm passes away.” I mumbled in submission.
He smiled and thanked me for my kindness. I looked away. Those two blue eyes and the name were too much of a coincidence to happen all at the same time. 

“It is really safe for an old lady to live alone here?” He said examining the living room and settling down on the couch.
“My husband and I have been living here for 40 years. He is not keeping too well but we can manage fine,” I replied. “Would you care for some tea?” 
“Oh, that would be fantastic, thank you.”   
"I did not know we had visitors so late in the night,” Aadi was leaning against the living room door. 
I hurried to support him and he waved his hand, signalling me to stop. 
“Yes, young man, what brings you here?” He asked with undeniable authority.
Before the stranger could speak, I stepped in, “Aadi…his name is Aakash. He was caught in the storm and is here till the storm withers away.”
“Oh, I see. And were you so caught in a time warp to be taken by a name, my dear, that you allow a stranger to come in at the middle of the night?” Aadi looked at me straight in the eyes. I felt injured just where only he knew the scar was and left the room.
The night that I had buried along with the blue mittens, the toys, the bottles, the tiny pairs of overalls, towels and memories in the backyard several winters came back in a flash....
 “Mrs Chauhan, you have a baby boy. His eyes are as blue as the sky. He looks like a prince,” the nurse had said beaming. The Woodlands Hospital down the road had registered his name as Aakash Singh Chauhan. 
Tired after a difficult surgery, I had barely had the chance to hold his tiny body close to mine and nurse, but those eyes like sparkling sapphire glistened even as I embraced him and repeated his name…”Aakash.” Yes, he was a prince, my little prince. Little had I known that it was the last time I would see him….
On that fateful night, a fire broke out in the Woodlands Hospital nursery charring all new borns and young children to death, marking it as the saddest day in the  history of this peaceful country. For several of us, like me, it scorched their souls beyond repair. 
“Can we have some more tea?” Aadi had begun a conversation with the stranger in our house who had the same name as my dead son.
“Which part of India are you from?” 
“Well, I am from the North but my family has lived in England for many years.”
“Ok. Where you born in England?”
“Oh yes. Here…actually…er..somewhere around here. You know some place called Woodlands Hospital?”
“Ah…all our children were born there too till it caught that miserable fire. So did your parents live here?”
“Well..ah..I am not sure.”
“You seem very young. You could not have been born too many years ago. What’s your birth year?”
“Look…are you not getting too personal?”
“No, why can’t you tell me when were you born?”
“Of course I can tell you when I was born. 80…. Erh.. 8 August 1980.” He stammered. 
“Impossible! You are lying…and what’s that you are hiding behind you?”…Aadi’s voice was rising.  “I will call the police. You are a bloody imposter..” 
“Nothing…” he shouted back…”Stay off…..”he pulled out a gun.
 I stood frozen watching the two men in my living room. This man, who I had given shelter in a storm, who had the same blue eyes and name as my son, was born on the same day, same year in the same hospital as my Aakash, and was pulling a gun at my husband?
“But my Aakash is dead. He is lying cold and dead buried in that little garden facing the blue mural. He has been dead for almost 30 years.  How can you be him??" I wailed letting out a scream….collapsing on the couch.
“Jesus!” he said and dropped his gun. His entire demeanour changed with that word.
He paced a few steps across the living space, and stopped to look at Aadi.
“Look, I am not who I said I am, but I am not an imposter. I am an officer of the Scotland Yard. Here’s my true identity card.” He handed out an identity card from his shirt pocket. There was a photograph of the stranger in police uniform.
Aadi looked away, holding me firm in his arms.
“For security reasons, we often pick up names of the dead, registered names of children such that we can operate incognito.  It is not the best idea but it protects our identity for a bigger cause. I am really sorry, I did not know that Aakash was your son. I was given his name because his eyes matched mine. I am really sorry.” With that, he picked up his car keys and left.
The wind was still whispering through the trees, the tempest lashing at our doors, as we held each other staring into the darkness, and catching glimpses of the blueness of the mural as it shone in the occasional lightening, reminding ourselves that the death of a child does not kill the fearless protectiveness of a parent….they continue to be parents, in life and after…

The Sweet Melancholy of Love

By Kartik Arora
India

Life starts with birth
I started living it only after you came.

I led a simple life
each day no different from the other
Because till that day
God would never bother

One fine day
When my turn came
Fate got mischievous
She played a small game

She got you in my life
And then it was never the same

She put you somewhere high
Where my arms would just reach
I would jump high to touch you
And then take the fall

I tried, I jumped
To touch you strong enough
I tried to cling to your outstretched hands
Finally you pulled me up

Life had never been so vibrant
Full of so many colours
Yes, It would now never be the same
But I didn’t know, that this was just a game

Lightning struck
And our hands separated
I tried to hold on
But you pushed me away

I fought the storm
And found my way
Your heart had outplayed fate
I saw you waiting for me
And now were to stay

Fate was beaten
She couldn’t accept the affair
She had sworn now
She wasn’t going to play fair

It was her game
She made the rules
With the universe at her disposal
Death just one of her tools

You had already been played
I was to played at dawn
I went in acceptance as death came
Unaware, he is just a pawn

The final move had been played
I realised, when he went for you instead

I begged, I cried
to take me along
I watched you rise from my side
As death sang his song

It hurt too much to be alone
And I said now no more
I punished myself again and again
causing pain to my soul

I was to go and on
Force death to show some pity
Make him pull me to its side
And take me to your Heavenly city

But Death didn’t come
To take me on the ride
For this was a game
There were rules
And I had to abide

I lost all faith in Him
I was about to turn my back

When,

“Wait” God said, “ For I have a plan”
I believed, I hoped.

I kept looking through the door
I saw you go further
Each day a bit more
I would think of you and wonder
Is life worth waiting for?

Finally the time came

I set out on the magnificent Journey
Holding hands with Death
I let go of all the agony
As I took my final breath

I came face to face with the Divine
I felt wronged for he had lied
He had promised to save me
To send some sunshine
I was kept waiting till my tears dried

I yelled at him and asked him

“You took her away from me
Was this your brilliant plan”

He replied with all the calmness of the eternity

“It was a game fate played
one I always despised
Matters of the heart
even leave me surprised

Death brought her here alone
He told me you still had time
“He can’t do it himself” he said
“It’s not in his time
But if life was too hard to live
Ending it won’t be a crime”

I had to make up for what I did
You had to be together
I had promised

I ordered Fate to let the dices roll
As I now took control
I asked it to set the wheels in motion
To keep you there
To push you to the hole
Fate was puzzled
It had no notion

I explained

To push him to the limit
And to pull him beyond is my plan
A mistake has been made
which needs to be set right
I have to bring them together
As soon as I can”

We may not have lived our lives together,
But the end is still right,
After death, my love, we unite.

The Avataar

By Ananya Mukherjee
Singapore 

In the beginning, there was just nothing; only a vast expanse of deep aquamarine, ripples and floating shadows of abundant liquid exuberance. The ocean floor danced in a magnetic slow motion, caressing the tip of pale pink coral beds, gurgling into the purple reefs and gushing out through the secret crags, sweeping a school of bright orange goldfish.  Something moved with them forming a shape, edged by a strange aura; floating, gargling, rippling in the fantasy, and slowly took a human form.  A soft, pink, delicate human body floated up....and called out...Mama.

Siya woke up startled by that call and instinctively touched the bulge of her abdomen. Almost at the end of her third trimester, with only a few days away from the expected date of delivery, her body felt very heavy. She stroked her palm gently across the swollen bump. It was a baby boy, they had confirmed only a few weeks back. The very thought that he was growing inside her with each passing day, breathing what she inhaled, hearing what she heard, and perhaps feeling what she felt filled her with a strange mix of contentment and longing for his presence. She pressed her hand tenderly down her abdomen. For a moment, she did not feel any movement. Then, as if anticipating the yearnings of her desperate search, he obliged her with a kick. Ouch, it hurt, yet left her with an overpowering affection.

It wasn’t morning yet so she had some more time to catch up on sleep before going back to the buzz of the newsroom. Siya’s maternity leave had not started yet. As a single mother, she knew she would need all the time in the world once the baby came. She was even considering a sabbatical. Her own parents lived thousand miles away and were aging. It wasn’t possible for them to offer any childcare services. Also, they were not too pleased with Siya’s determination to go for artificial insemination and bear a child alone without a male partner. She was their only child, young, attractive, glamorous and successful. The very idea of single parenthood sounded bizarre to them. 

“You are only 35. Why don’t you marry a nice man and have your own child instead of carrying someone else’s baby in your womb?” Her mother had argued.

It took Siya a while to convince them that it was not “someone else’s baby”. It was hers, an extension of her being, nurtured inside her with her own flesh and blood. But her parents were still unsure. Wasn’t adoption a better idea if she wanted to cherish the bliss of motherhood, they questioned. No, she wanted her own child, she had put her foot down. And without a man in her life! After a few unpleasant relationships, especially her last complicated commitment with a senior colleague, she had decided not to be in a long-term commitment with any man. The question of marrying a non-existent “nice man” therefore did not arise.  Yet, she wanted to be a mother, desperately wanted to conceive and raise her own child for a long time.

Naturally, when a gynaecologist friend convinced her a year back that she needed no man to fulfil her dreams, and artificial insemination was not rocket science, it took her little time to decide.  Despite no support from her family, Siya went ahead with the idea. In due time, a sperm bank was contacted, and on a scheduled date, she was inseminated by a donor who chose to keep his identity under wraps. Siya was happy with the arrangement as she had neither the interest nor the will to know the biological father of her child. It would only invite more complications, she rationalised.        

Another sharp kick broke through Siya’s reflective mood. She pulled a pillow and sat upright, as her back was beginning to hurt now.  She could feel a numb pain in the abdomen and a sudden pressure growing in the pelvis. Then a wave like motion resembling a strong menstrual cramp seized her body. It lasted a few seconds and then came back again, till it almost became a norm. Then gradually the length of the contractions increased and the gap between their intervals lessened. Siya realised the time had come. Between contractions, she started to focus on the breathing exercise she was taught at a pre-natal workshop she had attended and called for an ambulance.

The next few hours went in a whirlwind. Before she knew it, the amniotic membrane ruptured and Siya went into labour. Whilst the doctors waited a few hours for the dilation to reach the right measure, amidst excruciating pain, Siya who was lying alone in a dull labour room saw recurrent visions of her dream in aqua blue. It was the same swirling ocean, masquerading in a riot of floating colours—pink, purple, crimson and Prussian blue. She swam with the fluid’s magnetic motion, falling into its unfamiliar charm until it drew her to a cul-de-sac, She felt her own body rise and swell above the water and then sensed a free falling like never before. It was close to midnight when the uncontrollable agonising pain reached its climax and Siya heard the baby cry out.

Siya was still gasping for breath, when she caught the intrigued expression on her doctor’s face. Something was not normal. It was not the post childbirth scene she had rehearsed in her mind where the doctor and nurses would be congratulating her for giving birth to a healthy child. There was darkness on the faces of the medical staff surrounding her. She tried to read the expression.  It was one of bewilderment and nervousness. The nurses had the same look in their eyes and the uncertainty of their appearance frightened Siya.  Assimilating some energy, she asked, “Is everything alright?”

“Ah..well.....yes, Siya. There is no sign of distress. He’s perfectly fine, I think, but...” her doctor replied, handing over a little bundle smeared with blood and mucus.

Her mouth fell as she gathered him in her frail arms. His tiny gentle angelic face was well defined with a pair of large eyes and a small pointed nose. He looked healthy, well formed and his head was full of dark curls.  Only his skin had the colour of a bruised plum. In fact, the prominent bluish tint was so dark that it looked almost purple.

Coming to terms with the unanswered mystery of the unpredictable blow that changed the complete dimension of her dreams was difficult, actually much more difficult than Siya had ever imagined. She tried to find answers to the many questions that tormented her mind and agonised her soul. Why did he have to be this way? What was wrong with him? Was his condition life threatening? Was it genetic? All she had wanted was a normal healthy baby.  Why did God have to do this with her?

Unable to find an explanation and fearing that she might go into a post-labour trauma any moment, the doctor had taken away the baby boy immediately and raced him by ambulance from the maternity ward in the hospital to a bigger research and medical laboratory in another part of the city.  A team of doctors had begun to investigate the case. In the beginning they assumed it was a case of abnormal haemoglobin or an enzyme deficiency but the results were negative. Two days of test results produced no explanation why a seven pound healthy baby boy who showed no signs of foetal distress exhibited such an unusual disorder. 

Though unable to pinpoint to a particular reason for his unnatural blueness, the team had ruled out possibilities of a heart disease or any blood or lung disorder. What no one ever found out was a medical condition called hereditary methemoglobinemia where the absence of an enzyme called diaphorase from the red blood cells could lead to such a blueness of the skin. Due to the enzyme deficiency, the blood of these victims has reduced oxygen-carrying capacity. Instead of being the usual bright red, arterial blood is chocolate brown and gives the skin a bluish tint. Hereditary met-H, as it is called, is caused by a recessive gene. In other words, to get the disorder, a person would have to inherit two genes for it, one from each parent. Somebody with only one gene would not have the condition but could pass the gene to a child. Siya must have carried such a strain without her knowledge and what seemed like a cruel joke played by destiny, the unidentified sperm donor had the same. The result, thus, was a blue baby.

“His blood is just a little closer to the skin,” a colleague had sarcastically remarked while paying a visit to the new born in the hospital. The thought of the social stigma that her son may have to grow up with in a world that was accustomed to see only men who were either white, yellow, brown or black was intimidating Siya. Where would her blue child fit in? 

Ever since she came home from the hospital she had tried to retrace the sperm donor in an attempt to know if there was any genetic disorder in the donor that might have led to this peculiar condition. The sperm bank having pledged confidentiality to the donor, revealed no further information than that he was apparently a healthy man with no such evident disorders. She consulted all the doctors, researchers, social anthropologists she knew but found no satisfactory answer. While some literature directed her to a certain blue family called Fugates in distant Troublesome Creek, Kentucky, others misled her to the Tuareg nomads of Sahara desert in Africa. The skin of the desert herders are known to turn blue from the dye they use in their clothing. But how the Fugates or the Tuareg tribesmen could correlate to her child was still a mystery. Whilst the malady of the soul ripped Siya apart, the little one was, of course, oblivious to the uniqueness of his appearance.

She looked at him sleeping peacefully with his fingers curled on the baby cot she had specially designed for him ever since she knew he was coming. The moist afternoon sun filtered through the blinds and fell on his forehead. It shone like specks of gold dust over his little frame. The purplish tinge had begun to fade into a more uniform hue of blue after the first few weeks. In some places, the skin was so light that Siya felt she could almost see through it like alabaster. With the tiny sunlit dots shining on him, he looked as if he were gilded in soft gold. The black curls fell on his rounded little forehead, accentuating the blueness of his porcelain skin. She stared at his contented innocent face and thought she saw him smiling in his sleep. Babies often converse with gods when they sleep, they said.

 Just then someone rang the door bell. It was Maya, Siya’s domestic help for many years.

“Why are you so late? It’s already afternoon. What took you so long?”

“Arre Didi, there is so much traffic these days. You know I come from so far away. And then my husband also came back last night, “she added with a shy smile.

“Oh, that joker of yours! What does he want now?” 

Maya’s husband worked as a part-time comic relief in low grade circus companies that travelled in small towns across the country in weird looking buses with strange and ugly faces painted on them. Ram Prasad was an incorrigible bloke who came back jobless after every few months to torment Maya and live on her savings. Once he had finished with what Maya had worked hard to save, he came home drunk and often ended up being abusive. This was a routine affair that Siya had observed over the years. She had told Maya several times to get rid of him but Maya had protested with a logic Siya could not refute. “Didi, in our society, one single woman cannot survive alone. Men are like vultures. They will tear me and my children to pieces if I leave him. In your educated and rich society, you can do what you want but my world is different.”

“Hmm. So what does he want now?”

“Nothing, Didi. You know him. He has been kicked out again for stealing money from his boss. Now he has nowhere to go. I can’t let him die on the streets,” she said picking up the used feeding bottles.

“How’s Munna? Is he sleeping?”

“Who?” Siya retorted with her eyebrows raised.

“Munna...baby...your baby! You haven’t named the poor fellow anything as yet, but I call him Munna and he responds, you know.”

“Please, babies at this age don’t respond to anyone or anything. And he’s definitely not Munna. I will decide on a name soon and let you know.” The thought of labelling her precious son, the dream of her life with the commonest Bollywood stamp “Munna” irritated her. But then, Maya was right. After she got the hospital registration certificate that said “baby boy” Siya had been so caught fighting her own distress and disappointment that she had not christened him with any of the names she had on mind. As she recapitulated, Siya felt guilty of her negligence now.

She dialled her mother’s number and told her she was organising a naming ceremony for her son and wanted her to give him her blessings. Much as her parents were against the concept of artificial insemination, they were horrified by the reality that their grandchild displayed such an abnormality. Their rejection wore no mask, and her mother refused to participate in the official and religious christening of what she now called the devil’s creation. Siya hung up crying, frustrated that the nearest of her kin had so ruthlessly ousted her from their lives.                          

“Auntie, can I come in?” Neha, the neighbour’s chirpy four-year-old daughter was peeping through the door that Maya had forgotten to lock.

“Yes, please,” Siya said as she tried to hide the moistness in her eyes. In a frilly pink and white dress, Neha looked like an ice-creme candy doll straight from the shelves of a toy store.

“Can I see the baby? What is he doing? Won’t he play with me?”

“Yes, of course, Neha. He’s sleeping now, but you can see him. Come with me.”

Siya held her tiny hand in her own and led her to where he was still sleeping with a smile on his face. 

“Why is he so small? How will he play with me if he’s so small?”

“He’s only a few weeks old, Neha. Let him grow up a bit, then he will play with you,” Siya broke into an affectionate smile.

“But why have you painted him blue, Auntie?” She peeped further into the cot.

Siya’s jaws tightened. “I didn’t paint him Neha. He was born that way.”

“Why was he born blue? Is he like Shrek?”

Neha’s curiosity was beginning to irritate Siya now. “Shrek was not blue. He was green. And Shrek was an ogre. My baby is a human being like you and me. Now if you have seen the baby, you can go home or play with your friends.”  The poor child was taken aback by the harshness of Siya’s tone and ran away at once.  She regretted being rude to a little girl almost immediately but her patience with speculations about her son was weaning. 

Neha had left the door slamming aloud startling the baby in his sleep. He curled his lips and began to cry. Maya rushed to him picking him up in her arms, and started pacifying him as Siya watched on looking defeated.

“Didi, he’s hungry. Just hold him and I’ll get the little one some milk,” Maya left him wailing in her arms.     

“Siya, are you home?” Her colleague Jenny was at the door.

“Oh yes, Jenny. What a lovely surprise! Please come in.” 

Jenny was a young reporter who had joined the newsroom a few years back as an intern under Siya. Ambitious and reckless, Jenny could go to any lengths to get a story. Though Siya never quite liked her personally, she was an asset to the team. Jenny’s untimely visit surprised Siya. What was further suspicious was the way Jenny was staring at her son. It made Siya uncomfortable.

“How have you been Jenny?”

“I am good, thanks Siya. How are you doing? Must be difficult managing a baby alone!”

“Oh we are doing perfect together, aren’t we love?” Siya said putting the nipple of the milk bottle in his hungry mouth. Maya stood behind the two looking angrily at Jenny.

“Didi...please don’t feed Munna in front of others. People have evil eyes, you know. Let me take him inside while you talk to her,” she whispered hoarsely.

“Hmm. Take him inside, Maya. Once he finishes his drinking, give him a lukewarm water wash, powder him well and change his clothes. And no kohl please! I don’t want my son to look like the babies down the streets.”

Siya turned to Jenny and asked, “What brings you here? Are you not working today?”

Jenny looked around hesitantly. “Well, Siya, there is a buzz in the newsroom about the birth of your son. You know we understand there has been a mishap, but we all want to know more. I just wanted to ask you some questions.”

“What? Are you so short of ideas that you need to make a story from my own personal life?” Siya couldn’t believe her own colleagues were trying to commercialise her despair. Jenny’s insolence seemed unpardonable.

“No, no, don’t get me wrong. There have been speculations of all kinds. Some say, the baby has a lung problem. He won’t live long. Others are talking about an abnormality in conception, or maybe that he has other features that can reveal he’s not really human like us....maybe he is from another world, another planet, an ET of sort?”

“STOP!!! What do you mean? My son is a Martian? He has horns? Did you see any? How dare you? Is this a Hollywood 3D flick? Have you gone out of your mind? ” Siya’s voice and temper were rising beyond the civic norms.

“You are getting me wrong. There’s a great story here,” Jenny tried to convince.

“Story? Damn it, it’s my life. Get the hell out of here before I call the security and throw you out,” Siya was standing now and shaking with rage.

After Jenny left in a rush, Siya locked the main door, bolting it from inside, flopped down on the living room couch and closed her eyes.  What did she do to deserve this? All she had wanted was a child of her own!        

“Didi, my husband has come to take me home today. Can I go a little early? I have finished all the chores and even Munna is happy now after drinking his milk. He will fall asleep in a while. Then you can also take some rest. The ayah who comes for the night shift will be here in two hours. You can manage till then, can’t you?” Maya was standing at the foot of the couch tidying up the pleats of her saree. Siya did not have the heart to say no to her.

“Ok. Call him inside. Put baby to sleep first and then go. And don’t be late tomorrow morning,” she said in a tired voice.

The noise of an object falling shook Siya. “What happened Maya?” She shrieked and what she saw left her jaws open. Like a woman who had been taken over by some uncanny power, Maya rushed out of the kitchen chasing Ram Prasad out of the door hurling abuses at him. In one hand Maya was holding Siya’s son close to her chest. In the other, she had a long kitchen knife pointed at her husband.

“What is this? What is going on, Maya?” Siya panicked.

“The rascal! The devils will feed on your rotten corpse!” She shouted as Ram Prasad ran out of the main door.  “He came to tell me to take Munna away and sell him off to those bastards in the circus. Says they will pay good money for a blue baby. I told him to get out of my sight if he did not want his throat slit. The scoundrel that he is, Didi! I never thought he could come down to this level,” she was panting furiously.

“Oh my God, what are you saying, Maya? He came here to kidnap my child?” Siya’s head was reeling. She grabbed her wailing son who was now wide awake from the commotion and violence around and broke down.

“Didi, don’t fear the evil. Don’t give up hope. It’s not your fault. Munna is only little different but he’s still your own. God only made him this way. I am not educated like you. I am only a simple God fearing woman. Didi, let’s take Munna to the temple and get the Lord’s blessings. He will protect your son,” Maya tried to offer all the consolation she could.

Siya’s maternal instincts were stronger than her indomitable modern independent spirit. As a self made successful professional, she never needed to bow before anyone, and religion was the last thing on her priority list. Yet, when it came to the intimidating fear for her son’s life and security, she gave in to an ordinary illiterate woman’s advice. When Maya took them to the nearest temple in the neighbourhood that very night to plead the deity to save the child from evil eyes, Siya did not question her intent or actions. She mutely followed the rituals that the priest suggested, exposing her son to the world for the first time since his unusual birth. Standing next to her as she offered her prayers was a dreamy eyed little boy with what looked like a down syndrome. He kept staring at her son with a strange look in his eyes, as if he saw what others could not, as if he saw beneath his skin. Siya was beginning to get rigid, fearing more assaults for the little one, when the boy’s mother pulled him away and apologised to Siya.

“Sorry, he doesn’t mean any harm. My son is not very well.” Siya thought she saw tears in her eyes as she said the last words. The boy refused to budge and when his mother insisted, he cried out “kaaaan..ha....”pointing a finger at Siya’s son. Siya felt a lump in her throat as he repeated,”Kaaan...ha... kaaanha.... kaanha”

Why didn’t she think of this before? Kneeling at the altar of the Supreme where all powers merged and disseminated as one, with tears rolling down her cheeks, Siya picked up her son, the dream of her life, the extension of her being, kissed him on the forehead for the first time and softly whispered, “Kanha...the avatar of the strongest and the most positive force in the world, the emblem of truth, love and beauty –the blue God, yes, that’s what you will be called henceforth. Welcome to the world!”