Beyond The Water
(Translation of Hindi Novel - Jal Tu Jalal Tu)
(7)
Kinjan himself lifted the plate, it was still hot. He looked from the corner of his eye, the mother had hit him but looked uncomfortable, she was looking at the wound again and again. Kinjan knew his mother was so tense. She could hurt herself as well. Hence he checked himself and did not open his mouth. Very silently he slides out of the room like an innocent pigeon who does not know why the eagle had attacked him.
When the door-bell rang , Rasbi was putting a proper bandage on kinbjan’s forehead. Had it been at some other time, Rasbi would have jumped with joy as she opened the door. But Kinjan’s wound was heavy on her heart and she could not even laugh properly. Still seeing her expression Kinjan too looked at the door. A very short follow who due is his long heard looked like a Muslim was there.
He told Rasbi something, looked at Kinjan’s wound and turned back but Rasbi beckoned Kinjan and he joined her at the door.
Actually Rasbi had given an order to buy a house which Kinjan did not know. The new comer had brought the horse and had tied it to a nearly tree. Kinjan looked surprise but Rasbi was already expecting it and had also taken lesson is riding.
She went near the horse and stroked it in a caressing gesture. The horse seemed to recognize her and ticked her plan.
Rasbi wanted Kinjan to rest for a while but he went out saying he would be back soon. She was a bit relieved too because the wound did not seem so deep after all. With light feet she entered her home as besides herself and her son she had to make arrangements to feed the horse as well.
It was late afternoon but Kinjan had not returned, Rasbi wasn’t much worried because she very well knew where he was, still, he had not taken anything since morning and it was almost evening.
Just as boys want a ride on scooters as soon as it is in the house, Rasbi was longing to ride her new horse. She could pretend that she was going to call Kinjan.
She reached the river bank and from a distance could see the tree on which the flag was hosted. The yellow and saffron coloured ball shaped boat was already there. Kinjan, Ernest was already there with three or four friends, Rasbi hid herself to see what was happening.
After a while two women arrived there in a car. One of them was earring an adorable small Brazilian dog wearing goggles and a silk scarf. She took Kinjan’s hand in her hand and kissed it. Rasbi did not know who they were and what their object of coming to this place was. She made a bad face and was certain the women had not come to stop Kinjan from going on his mission. The way they were kissing from Kinjan’s hand again and again alarmed her. Was Kinjan going to start his dreaded journey? The boat was ready, his friends were there and the women were there to cheer him up.
Suddenly she had her doubts. May be Kinjan was really going on his expedition! She felt As if a current had struck her. She also remembered Kinjan did not have his lunch; will he go hungry on this last journey? After all she was his mother. Will she not come to see her at this last minute?
Rasbi felt as if a terrible earthquake shook her whole being. Still she did not have enough courage to go there in front of those strangers. Try to stop Kinjan and give him a piece of her mind. She held her tears, hid herself behind a tree and kept on watching just like a spectator. She hoped against hope, if God was bountiful with his blessings, let him give success to Kinjan. But the thought of Kinjan’s success evaporated as soon as it came into existence. The gigantic amount of water that seemed to fill the space between sky and the earth was spread before her eyes like a met silver screen.
What was all this? Rasbi`s whole world was collapsing!
She women and friends were seeing off Kinjan, waving their colourful handkerchiefs. His yellow golden saffron huge ball like boll like boat rose up and down in the shallow waters near the river bank.
With a sharp shriek, that was like that of a torlured animal Rasbi was riding reck pessly in the opposite direction. All sounds were lost in the roar of the flowing water just like all the hopes of Rasbi.
The speed of water in the mid-current of the river was much more in comparison the shallow water near the bank Rasbi was to dally confused, no destination! No aim! She was just aggressively fighting against everything like Lord Shiva performing his deleterious lethal Tandava. No one knew a comer broker away from a distant sun had fallen giving rise to polarization. What would be saved and what would be lost only time could tell. The endless water just continued in downward movement like a cursed hermit, unaware of everything, who had been designated to want the whole world created by god.
Even the flocks sparring the sky couldn`t check themselves from casting a glance on that magnificent boat. At was a testing time for the prayers, good wishes and messages on posters pasted on been before the commencement of the journey. A huge poster that had Kinjan`s photograph flow around like a kite. At had the inscriptions. “When we go back from this world, our god in heaven, white welcoming us, will not count the number of breath we have inhaled on this earth but will try to read the inscription we have written on the chest of this earth by leaving the sign of our footsteps on it.” The poster flying around the green forest also had a school prayer written on it in Kinjan`s hand.
The sky did not want the sun to photograph that awful moment so it dimmed the sum with one or two handful of clouds flung on it. The whole universe held its breath for a moment. No midwife had ever cut the umbical cord that joined a mother with her new born babe like that.
Rasbi, riding on her mare fanatically ran desperately here and there. She wasn’t an expert in riding. The path was rough and roads totally deserted. But perhaps the Arabian mare knew it was a mother of life and death for the new mistress who had just purchased her, she continued to run parallel to the huge colourful ball like boat, in the same direction, where the waves were propelling it.
Rasbi, unaware of the bridle, the seat, was not ever looking in front of her or what lay ahead. Her gage was fixed on the book. Soon the huge globe like boat would reach the edge from where it would go down with that alluring waterfall into the abyss and keep on floating on clamorous riotous rowdy unruly waves. It was the testing time. Rasbi rembered the last glimpse when she had seen her adventurous son and the puppy getting into that boat.
As she saw the boat falling on waves like a playful butterfly, she felt like was taken out of her body, her eyes seemed to turn into stone.
That evening many people saw the saffron coloured tamarind shaped small fish that emits smoke from its body and creates confusion between the shallow and deep water by discoloring it.
But when Rasbi saw that fish in a whirlpool at a little distance from the main waterfall among high rising waves her vision turned to stoue.
For many hours she just sat there like an insane person alone, her gaze fixed on that canal like pool. When she saw the yellow saffron coloured sheet of fast flowing water as if it had been torn to pieas and looked thread bare she reached the bank as if in a trance and jumped into the water.
She had made her own grave under deep water. Perhaps she was doomed to be served as food for acquatic creatures.
Next day a news item was published in a small column of the local newspaper, ‘Kinjan had failed in this mission.’
***
It was quite late. The parents were surprised that children, who usually to bed early were so engrossed in the story the grandfather was telling that they were not aware of when noon turned into evening and evening into night. Everyone was so curious to know the end of Kinjan’s story that they forgot their hunger and thirst. The children and their parents had gone round Buffalo City, had seen all the place hence they felt there had been an incident and the episode was right in front of their eyes. After this break the grandfather himself realized that his quests had not had anything since noon.
It was then that the door opened and the two sisters who had left the Indian family at their grandfather’s place and gone to their nearly flat entered with a big basket that contained a sumptuous dinner.
Soon everyone was round the dining table, she sisters were telling they had tried is cook the vegetables in Indian style. That added to the curiosity of the children. They were feeling hungrier. Food was accompanied with a flow of conversation. The younger sister said she never forgot to look at the next the grandfather had himself prepared and put on the branch of the tree in front of his house whenever she came at the weekend. The grandfather always said there would be eggs in it one day that would automatically appear everyone was interested know, how and when!
But the little Indian girl did not want the nest be mentioned. She remembered how the box that had a picture of the nest on it became ablaze and with diffidently her hand was saved from getting burnt. The dreaded memories came flooding it her mind and haunted her. Her eyes became red and she got fever. The mom was worried but she did not think it proper to tell the grandfather and cause anxiety to the old man. She just tucked her comfortably into bed and joined the others who were inquisitive to know the details of Kinjan’s story. They were full of compassion for the mother and son and could not take them out of their mind.
It was beyond imagination that a girl born in an Indian village had to change her name and religion and destiny brought her to gulf Countries and them with a new name and god sent fate she had landed in a country like America. She account of Rasbala who became Rasbano and then Rasbi was hair raising.
When grandfather came to know that the little girl had fever he went to see her.
They gave her some medicine. Not only the grandfather but her parents also thought that sitting constantly at one place and hearing a story intently had tired her hence the temperature rose slightly. After dinner the sisters said an intimate good night to the guests and left them as they had to report on duty early next morning.
In spite of his advancing years, the grandfather wasn’t tired at all so the couple and their son joined him. Mother asked her son to go to bed but he said no head to her instructions and continued to sit with others. They sat quietly for some time then the boy broke the silence. “Nana, did Rasbi Aunt see her son’s dead body flowing in water?”
Grandfather was a little hesitant, did these guests really want him to continue the story in these late hours? He saw the same curiosity a parent’s faces hence he picked up the thread again and continued, “Rasbi fell into water and died. She went to the other world where it is not easy to search someone. We think all those who die go to imagine we come to this world and stay here for fifty or hundred years and are about a thousand willion in number but in that world we have been going for crores of years, our number being in billions and trillions. It is just not possible to look for someone and find that person and yet….
***
