English Literature – Juvenile Fiction ☆ The Tide of will – Part-15 ☆ Dr. Amitabh Shanker Roy Choudhury ☆

Dr. Amitabh Shanker Roy Choudhury

Brief Introduction

• Birth – January 18, 1955
• Education – MBBS (IMS/BHU)
• Publications – 4 books (2 in Hindi, 1 each in English and Bengali) and two are yet to come.
• Translations – Books and articles are translated in English, Odiya, Marathi and Gujarati.
• Awards – CBT awarded stories and novel, “Kamaleshwar Smriti Katha Award (2013, 2017 and 2019)” by Kathabimb.
• Honour – “Hindi Sevi Samman” by Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Wardha (December 2016). 

☆ Juvenile Fiction ☆ The Tide of will – Part-15 ☆ Dr. Amitabh Shanker Roy Choudhury ☆

The Silver Lining.

The night had started putting off its lamps of stars, one by one. The moon had lost much of its lustre. The dark veil of the night was being withdrawn gradually. The night like a bird was flying away. Bye! The canvas of the sky was slowly being painted crimson. The young red sun was smiling in the east. A new morning was dawning on the earth.      

The chirping of the birds on the branches of the trees was sending its call, ‘O the children of Adam, it’s time to wake up!’

As was his habit, Narayanan was already awake. He started doing his daily chores but only mechanically. His mind, hovering somewhere else, was not in his deeds. He didn’t feel any urgency. Too much of time was there in his hands. But it saddened him.

He washed and changed. Then he picked up a copper pot from the prayer room, filled it with sacred water of Pampa and came out in the courtyard to worship the sun. With folded hands, looking at the sun, he whispered the Sanskrit shlokas from Sam Veda –

O sun, the eternal light, the power!

You are red like a hibiscus flower!

Please wipe off our sins, I bow and pray,

From my mind keep all the darkness away.

The words were spoken mechanically, lifelessly. Like a child, away from his mother, he was doing everything with a heavy heart.

Suddenly two little arms gathered round his neck from behind and he was startled. Someone leaned over him and whispered in his ear, ‘Please, appupan, I’m sorry. Are you angry with me? Won’t we go to Alappuzha today?’

Like our wicket keeper Dhoni, diving for a catch, with the speed of an arrow shot from a bow, Narayanan turned around and his face was brightened up. The old appupan gathered up his kuchumol in his arms, ‘I’m sorry too, my darling. I shouldn’t have done it. Well, quick, quick. Now get ready and let’s fly away.’

And really the two flew away from their home within no time. Exactly like what happens in the movies. As if the two were two friends meeting after a long time.

No one for sure could say that Kumaran was an exponent of Kathakali, but the moment he saw them he bowed and touched his forehead with both of his hands like Hanuman, the monkey god of Ramayana, and said, ‘Oh Shri Padmanabhaswamy, please have mercy on us! Only you can save our boat from sinking!’ He was all smiles from ear to ear. Or, should we express in a different way – his smile spread from Gujrat to Guwahati of his face.

The grandfather and the granddaughter duo was amused too.

‘Oh, we can’t waste a second.’ Kumaran got into his track suit, ‘Let’s start. One, two and three…..’

The training was begun again.

As the story of Mahabharata says about guru Dronacharya, the trainer and his disciple Arjun, the archer, Gayatri was labouring hard under the eyes of Kumaran. And her appupan was the driving force behind her. As the wind fills the sail and the boat goes sailing, he would always say to her, ‘Gayatri, yes you can do it.’

Every morning he would give her coffee with lots of milk. Next he would carry her on his cycle to the ferry point. Again on cycle to the stadium of Alappuzha. On their return he would massage her legs with warm coconut oil and all that. Like an affectionate mother he would keep a watchful eye upon her. Even at this age he was always full of energy.

If some day Gayatri would refuse to drink whole of the coffee, ‘Oh appupan, it’s simply milk. I can’t drink it.’, he would protest.

‘What do you say? It’s hundred percent coffee only.’ Narayanan would try to convince her.

She would laugh whole heartedly, ‘Appupan, you’ve been a math teacher. How can you say, this is hundred percent?’

Some day he would buy cashew, raisins, some other dry fruits and all for her.

One day even Mani, her father, complained jokingly to his mother, Lalitha, ‘I too was my father’s only son. But just tell me amme, how many times did achchan bring all these things for me or my sahodhari (sister), his only daughter? Ha, ha!’

Ananthi too complained with a cluck, ‘O god! You being her father, how could you be so jealous when she gets the gifts from her appupan?’

And that day Gayatri herself presented those dry fruits to his father with a smile, ‘Oh, here they are. Take these from me, achcha.’       

Kumaran reminded them every other day, ‘The Thiruvananthapuram inter college competition date has been announced. Day and night we must think of this only. Mental preparation is as much necessary as the physical fitness.’

Naturally Narayanan’s mind was always occupied with this. One night, in his sleep, he started dreaming. Probably due to his day long anxiety he saw in his dreams that Gayatri was drowning. He shouted in alarm, ‘Mani, Kumaran, where are you? Get hold of her. Oh she is drowning…. Save her.’

Gayatri was sleeping in her grandfather’s room, on another cot. She woke up with a start, ‘What happened, appupan? Why are you shouting?’

‘Oh, it’s nothing. Just go to sleep.’ Narayanan felt embarrassed. Such an awkward situation it was.

But how could Gayatri go on sleeping there? She was a bit scared. Silently she sneaked from the room and crept beside her acha amma in her bed.

‘What happened my queen? How do you come to me at this hour of night?’ she took her in her arms, ‘Could not sleep or what?’

‘Oh, don’t ask you. Suddenly appupan started shouting in his sleep. I was terrified. God only knows what his dream was and who was drowning!’

The old lady guffawed noisily in her bed and said, ‘Oh, was it? This is his old habit. Now let me tell you what happened when for the first time I came to their house as a new bride. One night while we all were fast asleep, he started shouting in his dream, ‘Thief, thief. There he goes. Catch the burglar. Don’t let him escape. Oh!’ Naturally I was very much terrified, you see. Just a few days back I was married and as usual I had lots of gold jewelleries on me. I woke up and started crying, ‘O, Krishna! Where is that thief?’ And just see the fun. Your appupan then says to me, ‘Oh, there’s nothing to worry. Why don’t you lie on the bed and try to sleep?’             

‘But I charged him, ‘Why don’t you go and see where the thief has vanished?’ He simply smiled and said, ‘Don’t be crazy, it’s nothing. There is no thief at all.’ He ducked his head under the sheet and started snoring as was his wont. But how could I sleep? I was just a young girl then, just a few years older than your age. I was so scared that I came out from the room but standing in the middle of the house I was at a loss. Where could I go? The house was full of all the relatives and I hardly knew anybody. Ultimately, I crept inside to sleep beside your appupan’s mother. Next day when everybody came to know of this they burst out into shrieks of laughter. The neighbourhood women started making fool of me. They said, ‘Hey new bride, was there a thief last night in your room? Of all things what did he take away?’ And they jeered at your appupan, ‘Narayanan, be careful in future. Someday the thief may steal your bride and fly. Better never close your eyes at all, throughout the night.’

Gayatri put her arm around her grandma snuggled her head onto her bosom and slept.

Contd…      

© Dr. Amitabh Shanker Roy Choudhury

C0ntact: Care Dr. Alok Kumar Mukherjee, 104/93, Vijay Path, Mansarovar, Jaipur, Rajasthan 302020