AQAAB
One
It is said that debts never remain overdue, at last, they are paid. Heard since childhood that trees are shadowy and provide the shelter of shadow to everybody, but here, the strongest trees with tallest branches stood innocently in the shadow of the buildings.
Around two years had passed since the death of actress Sadhna. The air peeping from the sky, coming through the refuge of the buildings, was stroking the trees and it gave enjoyment to that little white dog which was just now kept standing by its owner near the bench and she was jogging on the lawn.
This bank of the Hudson river was very playful and lively. The waves could not get a moment's rest because of the passing of different types of ships and boats and when a magnificent ship passed from there, it looked like a small city floating on water. The world's biggest and majestic city New York's borough Manhattan was covered from all sides by precious, important and famous building. Newly-made World Trade Center with almost 125 floors stood there as high as the sky after the destruction of the Twin Towers. At some distance, the world-famous Statue of Liberty could be seen dancing on the sea waves. In the evening it looked like a 'Kumbh' of stars on both banks of the Hudson. Jersey City on one side and New York City on the other made it look like a wonderland of fireflies. The traffic of boats and ships in between them cut and churned the waves all day. The Sun rose like a jewel from the middle of the buildings here and went into the lap of the very same skyscrapers every evening after playing 'Holi' with red colours to take a nap. The epitome of civilization had forgotten the soil by the use of glazing in the empire of stones. The lawns of green grass looked like carpets of golden-green which were laid out from one end to another. The sky at infinite height did not have the luxury of silence, every second various types of aeroplanes and helicopters produced continuous noise up there. The human statues on the roads belonged to every country and race of the world and made the atmosphere lively the same way as strong winds swaying a colourful garden of flowers.
A few young and old people and even some children either sat on the artistic benches on the riverside or took strolls. Some couples were busy hugging and kissing, extinguishing their body heat. Tasting and licking each other's mouth like a beverage bottle, these people used to sit till late night, sticking public pleasure on the world's forehead. Youngsters on bicycles or roller skates looked like butterflies and moths flying around. Most people's clothes were iridescent arrestors to the beauty of their bodies. Intoxicated candlelight of all colours and sizes flickered on every nook and cranny. Pleasure and contentment came flowing from skyscrapers to the roads. Poverty was unable to be seen even in a picture as if prosperity had subjugated poverty. This was a city of realization and feelings, explanations and thoughts were abrogated here.
Known for spreading the sensation of eminence worldwide, the Time magazine's office was situated only a few steps away. Any personality who received a place on its cover page would get star status in the whole world in just a few days. Though this personality was chosen among those who had already achieved star status. As if stars were turned into a pole star here in a calm and composed manner. The Moon could only be seen from between the buildings only after trying hard. Provided the weather was not humid. The city did not even need the Moon in the sky.
This city had a great speciality. When two people were seen together or near each other, there was an affinity between them. Love was in the city's air. Everybody touched everybody. Revulsion was not a characteristic of this place. As if the world of stones had filled humans with a fear born love. The mind did not want to see anybody' lust in anyone. People treated their dogs like they were a part of their bodies.
Near the World Trade Center, where there were two pools, when a young boy named Tanishk came at midnight after parking his red shining bike, his face was covered with seriousness. This eighteen-year-old boy could not wipe off adolescence from his face yet something had made his fair and attractive face gloomy. He took off his white shoes to put them in a box attached to the bike and picked up a large yellow rose wrapped up in a polythene from the bike's basket and started walking barefoot at a slow pace to come very close to the pool. The sound of water flowing like a fountain inside the pool could be clearly heard in this silence. The names of many of those people who were killed in the aerial attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center were engraved in beautiful letters on the parapets of the walls on all sides of the pool. Tanishk went near a name and placed the yellow rose in its first letter 'M' and came walking backwards slowly while bowing his head down. He raised his mobile phone to his ear to listen to the already recorded voice of the now-deceased person who called him for help immediately after the attack. The helplessness of the voice made his face wet again but he switched his mobile off to keep it in the pocket. He came near his bike. He let it remain parked in the building's parking lot and locked its basket after taking off his T-shirt and lower and putting them in it. Now he was baring it all except for a brief. He crossed the corridor and came at the bank of Hudson. Here, he warmed up and started running along the bank.
As it was quite late at night, only a handful of people were walking on the bank. But whoever they were, they threw a look at this very beautiful youngster who looked like a model. Women stared and men glanced at him and this youngster moved ahead, running fast. This youngster was Japanese. His jet black hair had a golden tinge. His body was light-complexioned and beautiful. In the quietness of the night, he ran like a meteor. With only a small piece of cloth on his thighs.
Tanishk lived in a small room built in the basement of a building at Fifth Avenue. He left his country Japan many years ago to come here and now he belonged here. He did not even know who was there in his family in Japan as he had lost contact with them years ago. When Tanishk was around 9 years old, his father left the family and married a Taiwanese woman. Tanishk did not even remember the name of that woman now who took his father along with herself to Taiwan, marrying him after just a few days of acquaintance. His father left the home in such a way that he never looked here again. Tanishk's mother overcame many obstacles for his upbringing. She sent him to study and fulfilled his smaller needs.
Then a day came when Tanishk had to leave his mother. Tanishk never wanted to remember that day when he left his mother Asanika in that village but sometimes he wanted to remember his innocent mother. And he did.
Actually, after his father left for Taiwan, Tanishk's mother came in contact with a man who came to the village again and again to meet her. Tanishk never liked him though he always approached Tanishk with love. The more he wanted to come near to him, the more Tanishk ran away. Somewhere in Tanishk's little mind, this fear had taken place that this man will elope with his mother in the same manner that the Taiwanese woman eloped with his father. But Tanishk's mother used to be so happy to meet him that Tanishk could never say anything against that man to her. Sometimes he used to feel suffocation. So one day, Tanishk grabbed a chance to run away from home without informing his mother.
Tanishk came in contact with a man named Masru who wanted to go overseas to get a job or start a business. He wanted to take a servant along with him when he found Tanishk. Tanishk was small, naive and innocent and he was also not happy with his family. Soon this man was able to persuade him and one day he left his village forever to come to New York. Masru Osse became like an uncle to him. Tanishk never felt sorrow for leaving with this man because he feared that sooner or later his mother would leave him too. Not only did Tanishk call this man his 'Uncle' but considered him one too. That man never caused Tanishk any suffering. Till the time they were together, he treated Tanishk like his child.
This uncle of Tanishk was all alone. He used to work for a merchant but when he left Japan, he tried his hand at many things. Once he worked in a hotel for a few days, then he found work at a travel company. For a few days he drove a taxi, but never did he let any trouble come near Tanishk. Whatever work he did, Tanishk followed him like a shadow as his assistant. Later Uncle got a job at an office where Tanishk also earned a little money with him. Both of them did not have much difficulty in finding food and a place to live. Tanishk learned a few odd jobs with him.
Even after stepping into adolescence, Tanishk had no contact with his home. He never tried to leave Uncle and go back to his village. It was not that easy.
Sometimes though, Tanishk remembered his home and village. Whenever he was alone and Uncle went out to work, he used to intensely remember his childhood and his mother Asanika.
Asanika used to teach him swimming in the village. She bathed him with her hands and also massaged his body before bathing him. Asanika knew from the beginning that Tanishk was a beautiful and healthy child. She tried that he grew stronger and hard working.
Even in harsh sunlight she used to put Tanishk on a mat and massaged him with her strong hands. But she also took care that fair-complexioned Tanishk does not get dark in the sun. She used to tear huge leaves from a tree in a garden and toiled to sew them in big platelike shape. She had learned this art from an Indian family in the neighbourhood who used to tell her that in India, plates are made in this manner to serve food. Many leaves are joined together in a way that they can be used as plates and then the food is served in them. The Indian neighbours of Asanika used to say that in South India, rice, dosa and idli were mostly eaten on such plates only. Whenever there was a big party in Indian villages, leaf plates were used to serve food to many people at a time. They were thrown off after being used for the first time, so there was no need to wash the utensils. These leaf utensils proved useful in the water-scarce regions too. Asanika had learned to make such plates and she used to make an umbrella of leaves to cover Tanishk from the sunlight. She thought that Tanishk's complexion will not get darkened because of the cover of leaves and the heat will also not affect him. This foliage cover was good for health as well.
Asanika used to massage Tanishk's whole body with her slim fingers. Tanishk liked it very much and by shaking his little limbs and squealing he expressed his joy. His little hands and feet used to get filled with agility and swiftness after oil massage. Asanika worked at a farmhouse near the village and could imagine Tanishk helping her in work after growing up. Tanishk's father came to that farmhouse sometimes and took care of the horses and other pets of the farmhouse's owner.
After he grew up a bit, Tanishk started loving this care and massage of his body and he started getting used to it. His mother Asanika moved her magical fingers on his head, back, stomach and feet along with legs and rubbed little Tanishk's penis on her oily palms to make it strong. When she rubbed oil on it with her fingers for a long time then Tanishk would squeal happily, with his legs dancing and touched his mother's hand with his own little hands. He liked it so much that even after getting tickled by his mother's hands, he did not try to keep them away but laughed loudly. The mother loved her child's laughter even more and lost track of time. With a sheet of green leaves above his head, Tanishk kept laughing. Following his mother, Tanishk opened and closed his privates with his hands and laughed merrily.
Sometimes Tanishk reminisced about his village. When he grew up a little, he started going to the farmhouse sometimes along with his father. His father kept working there and Tanishk played in the farm, in soil or water. Sometimes when his father massaged horses, he looked closely. The horses used to like this affectionate care and
neighed athrill, wringing their tails. One particular black agile horse used to get very excited and little Tanishk ran towards it, eyeing its penis hanging between hind legs. At first, the father would not pay heed but when Tanishk would get near the horse and grab that hanging part, his father would look around shyly and hold Tanishk’s hand to make him let that go.
If there was nobody in sight at the farmhouse, his father didn’t pay attention and Tanishk kept playing with the horse. Since his childhood, Tanishk had received the gifts of love for the animals and the strength in the village.
As Tanishk grew old, some changes started coming in him. At the age of eight, he started feeling shy about swimming naked. When getting massaged by his mother, he tried to keep his childlike frolicking in check.
After a few days, Tanishk saw that at the lower part of his stomach in between his legs, small hair were sprouting which he kept touching with curiosity. Now during the massage, he covered those hairs with his hands and said meekly, "You leave it, I will do it myself." His mother would then take her hands off while smiling. One day during the massage, some women and children of the village came and kept talking to his mother, so he closed his eyes in shame and waited for them to leave. Even with the closed eyes, he felt as if all the children were watching the hair sprouting on his stomach. He did not want to draw their attention by touching there again and again, so he kept lying down shyly. All the tension in his body had gathered there. Until those women had gone, he passed the time somehow. He also decided that he would tell his mother that from now onwards, he is going to massage himself and that too when he will go the pond alone to take a bath. Tanishk hasn’t still forgotten that day.
But the thing that he liked the most was the tickling that his mother used to do in a particular way with her dancing fingers on his chest and between his legs. While doing this, she kept singing and kept making him laugh with the dance of her fingers. He would burst out laughing. The sound of his laughter used to make his face red. His mother would feel happiness in her heart watching him giggle and laugh. Tanishk never forgot that tickle. Even today when he is alone and remembers that dance of fingers, he feels that tickle and a smile makes its way on his face. There was something in his mother’s fingers which wiped away all the fatigue and stress of the body and filled the mind with all the bliss and happiness of the world. When alone, Tanishk would try that vibration of fingers on himself and shudder. He thought that his mother’s fingers have taught this dance to his fingers and opened the gateway of a wonderful world.
After his father left with that Taiwanese woman, for a few days it looked like a plant had withered in Tanishk’s mind. All of his happiness vanished. When he would go to the farmhouse in place of his father to take care of the horses, even they felt his coldness. The black horse’s penis never hung like that again. Tanishk somehow did the job and used to come back from the farmhouse. Everything was in its shell.
Now he had given respite to his mother from that laborious process and even he did not feel like taking care of his body.
Later on, Tanishk felt unattached to his village and even his country. When he saw his mother Asanika getting close to a stranger, he was disheartened. The fear of the possibility of his mother leaving him to go in a world of her own, made a place in his mind. A world where only margins were left for Tanishk.
And then Tanishk started getting lonely. When his uncle would come back to the room, Tanishk would come back from another world. And then he would forget everything. He felt like his father had come back to him again. After coming back from work, Masru Osse would find this lonely partner who was his only family and forget all his fatigue to prepare food for both of them in which Tanishk helped him.
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