Come this March, 2010, I shall be up beat with some of my creation with the pen and the ink. Long before I had the key pads to taunt me to type, I had them to express my feelings. Sniffing the daily chores and writing them down in my diary to the frequent short articles derived from facts and fiction, used to make way.
Last year or two, while attending to two of my students, Kathakali and Kishalay, I realized that the fire to make instant stories to children liking, still made me feel at ease! May be the pen is gone and now a days the fingers do ache after a long scribble over the paper [Thanks to the keyboards], the knack to beat the best in instant story mixes and fatakas make me stand out of the crowd. They used to require for their Englsih projects at School and I made them the stories, literally at ease!
Here follows one that I wrote down for Kathakali. The topic chosen was: Start a short story with the line [mentioned in italics] The story was dated: 12/10/09.
ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN
“It is incredible,” he said, “ Yes it’s true. A liar needs a good money to go against me and prove me wrong, for what I say cannot be proved false! It has happened and I am damn sure of it with proof!”
Rishab’s exclamation dropped down some cold sweat down my spine. I am sure, others present in out small tree house in the backyard of Tarun’s house felt the same way. How can that be? Is Rishab upto playing his old prank? It must be, for he is always up to fool us, day in and day out!
Rishab: “I was waiting for Tina near the Burman garage, today. From inside that old dilapidated garage came some peculiar sound. It seemed, as if some one was wandering inside the place.”
Tina: “Rishab don’t make castles in the thin air. I saw you were standing at the place and everything seemed to be in its right frame! Even you didn’t show any signs of concern!”
Rishab: “Dear, if I told you anything over there, you would have given the mystery up, given your nervousness and un-necessarily shrill voice!”
Tina seemed dejected with the comment. I asked: “Rishab. What did you see in there?” We anticipated something very interesting to come by, even though we knew Rishab was a prankster, but we couldn’t savor the flavor of the experience as Tarun’s mother played the spoilt sport and asked the meet of the gang to be called of before time as she would be off to the market. Before we ascended the Tree House, Rishab didn’t forget to keep the spice up: “Will tell you people in the evening. Ok?”
I couldn’t wait for the evening that day. We were all up in our Tree House before 5PM. It was time for the Winter Solstice, hence the days were shorter. By 5PM it was close to darkness. Tina, Tarun, Anjana, Anil, Sushil and myself were present, except for the other two members of the gang. Infact originally we were a group of nine people. Arnab is another part, but he comes annually each year, as his dad has a transferable job. He is another jovial fellow, who is being missed all the time, especially today! But, the man in the limelight, Rishab as well as Shabina, are still no-where to be seen. It was more than half an hour due, but neither Shabina nor Rishab turned up! We felt very peculiar.
Tina was almost on the verge of nervous breakdown when I asked Tarun to ring up both the absentees, Rishab, who would be spilling out The Mystery at Burman Garrage while Shabina, who coincidentally resides close to Burman Garrage! This thought made me feel concerned as well as jealous. “If Shabina takes Rishab and goes into the garage to sniff out the mystery before us”, I said, “I will let her see her ghost out of her body!”
Just then…
That’s the password to open the hatchet! I opened up and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Although I said I will let Shabina see her ghost, a few seconds back, it seemed that she had already seen one!
“What happened Shabbu?!” I asked.
“Ris…Rishab! He is in big danger…!” uttered Shabina.
The sentence stunned us. Tina, who was almost senseless didn’t have any excuse of not being so! Even I felt very sluggish from within, as if something has taken all the heat from my body. The fingers were cold ice cubicles, when I touched Shabina. Her eyes were talking more than her lips. They had in them a different fear of being dead or may be have seen something close to that!
Anil and Shushil caught hold of Tina and carried her carefully down the 8’ tree trunk. I followed with Tarun and Anjana taking care of Shabina.
Once on the ground, Anil said: “Shabina, where is Rishab?” We all looked at her. She was looking at a blade of grass that was protruding from underneath her sandals.
Anil: “SHABBU!!! WHERE is Rishab? Is he in the garage?!”
Shabina nodded yes. Immediately Anil turned and started running towards the gate, when Sushil caught hold of his jacket sleeves. “Wait!”
Sushil turned to Anjana and said, “ Anjana, will you be able to take care of Shabbu and Tina?” Kathy can come with us to the garage. [Kathy, means my nick name which is a shorter version of Kathakali]
Anjana was nodding a yes, when Shabina said, “NO! I will also come. It’s all my mistake!” Anil tried to sooth her down, “ See Shabbu! You have not seen anything! Have you?” Shabina nodded a No as well as a Yes. She said, “Yes, I know how did Rishab enter as well as where he went. He did say that something very grave is going on in the garage underground.”
“Ok. We will let Anjana behind with Tina. The rest will move forward”, said Sushil.
It was 6:45PM , 28th November, 2008 . “Burman Garage” was located beside the stream that passes though our town. As heard from my father, it was a center of huge automobile business in the early sixties and was a very rare example of underground country garage. It also expanded for over 2500 sq foot of total area, with one side facing the stream.
We reached there after a 20 minutes walk. By then the Sun was visible half the way round the globe and the toads were singing by the stream banks. It was misty too and the flash light carved out a path in the thin air. Seemed quite like those laser swords in Star Wars movie series! I thought, “ Its close to a war.”
We will have to squeeze through the small crack present at the West End of the garage walls. According to Shabina, this was the route that Rishab took. Back then she was asked to stay behind by Rishab! “I heard a shout from inside” Shabina said. Then I ran for your aid.
Anil: “Some one stay behind. Just in case!”
After much discussion we said that again Shabina should stay behind. Deciding that, we slowly squeezed our way in. Inside, in the flashlight, we could see old dilapidated remains of cars and chassis. The air smelt damp, due to the overgrowth all around. Peculiarly, there was a small path in the dense bushes that seemed to be accessible. We moved along, keeping our keen eyes all around and ears as sharp as a deer. With timber steps we moved forward, when Anil, who was leading the party, stopped. The stop was so sudden that I missed him and crashed against him.
“Shhh….” warned Anil. “Hear that?”
Everything was silent. Atleast it appeared so, but suddenly I could hear some steps. They were becoming eminent and louder. We tried to take cover, but even the greatest hiding place seemed far from reach. Tarun and I took cover behind an ambassador chassis.
The steps subsided round the corner. There was a distinct silence amidst the Toad’s croak. A number of equations swiveled through my mind: “Do they know we are here? Who are they? Have they noticed our hiding place? How did that do that? Will we be alive!? I miss my parents!!”
Just the Sushil whistled. It was time to move on. We tip-toed towards the corner, where the sound had subsided. Tarun peeped round the corner and couldn’t help shrilling out a suppressed exclamation, “OH MY GOD!”
We hurried round the corner and found to our disbelief. There were two bodies, lying on the ground. One was of Rishab’s, the flashlight confirmed it wound on his forehead and the other couldn’t be identified, as he was turned placed face down. Tarun broke down and so did I, but Sushil and Anil, braver in the pack closed in on the body. They dared to touch the shoulder to turn it around, when the body suddenly turned around and sat up! It took Anil aback and my skeleton came out of my skin when Rishab opened his eyes.
The other was Arnab. “Arnab, you are back?!” shouted Anil.
Arnab: “Yes, back with a bang!”
That night we laughed out of fear or we laughed out of laughter. I don’t know, but it will really need a lot of money to prove us a liar if we say, we enjoyed a lot the surprise a lot!
May be I see the Sun of Art and Enjoyment creeping back into its groove once more!
Copyright: Somnath Paul. Feb, 2010.
. He is a Columbus in Cricket having crossed the 10000 run mark in ODI, entering the 40 test and ODI century mark, has the highest number of ODI in his belt as well as test cricket, has the highest partnership in first class cricket for any wicket, 535 runs, partnering with his friend Vinod Kambli.
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. Played around the 11th September, 2001 incident of World Trade Center plane bash, this film has subtle morality to be taught. Added with some fairy tale spices like people coming to rescue flooded after seeing Rizwan helping the people , the film talks about humanity that can be achieved by the religion!
localized hooligans who has a network of pandemic aura! Their names are like Al-Qaida, Mujaheedins, IRA, Taliban, uul...kul...bull...and many more illiterate fools! Lets come back to the own state and we have the Maoists [Naxals] and the KLO and nearby ULFA to counter! Their idea is always to pester the peace of the mind so that people can itch and itch and itch... too dirty they are...I mean they love so much money like itching! Come On...some evolutions never took place.
babies"...the other one being KishenJi?!
