CHAPTER ONE: A BIRTHDAY GIFT: THE DARKNESS IN THE LIGHT: SOPHIE NO 1 It was a day when I was sleeping on my beautiful bed, which was white and cottony, plain white actually, with the fluffiest pillows ever, one, lying under my head, and the other one, with a teddy bear corner, held by my soft Vaseline-stained feeble hands, but tight in grasp, in seek of secure warmth and comfort. My hairs were oil stained, blueberry-oiled, a formulation brought from an American firm, the one in which my father was the owner of. He was a scientist and i guess, i was born in the richest family ever. My house was palace-made, with gold pillars supporting the walls, and beautiful gold-plated-silver-handled-tight-chained chandeliers were present, hanging from the walls, dancing in the beautiful air of the air-conditioned mansion of a home. I was used to all these riches. They were of congenital nature to me. And i never wondered about these riches much. But I knew that I was blessed by all of these riches and was lucky enough to be a part of the family of the riches. Richness leads to spoilt nature. I was of that sort actually, until I walked finally on a slum-street after having a fight with my boyfriend. My name was Sophie. I was eighteen. Actually today. It was my birthday. I had just woken up from the sleep of dancing fairies. I was sleeping quite well. I was playing around in a beautifully lavished garden with candy-trees, and muffin-bushes and pear stained fruits with designs of smiling faces. There were angels in the air, with small transparent wings, beautifully dressed in pink coloured cloaks and they had a smile which would touch even the ‘sadest’ of the ‘sadest’ hearts which were stained in this world. And there was a big brown heavy structure in the garden, the oddest one ever. I looked at the peculiar thing which was somehow sensed by my sixth sense. I thought it was a monster. I turned my vision towards the odd object. It was a banyan tree, but not a normal one. The hanging aerial roots were still, even though my long hairs were moving in the fine-blowing breeze. The ‘oddity’ revealed withering leaves and fungoid branches. The roots started falling one by one as i looked at the withering abomination. WITHERING DESTRUCTIVE BEAUTY ADMIST NATURE’S PARADISE. The roots started falling, one by one, one by one. ONE BY ONE. ONE BY ONE. THEN TWO BY TWO. THREE BY THREE. All the roots, the freaky hanging roots vanished, revealing a bark of the tree, a peculiar bark it was. I frowned, I got my throat, I couldn’t control myself. I couldn’t. I puked. It was too much. The bark had a cavity. The worst cavity ever. With crawling worms. The necrotic abomination was bleeding blue and red all over. Bloody necrotic bark of wood. And the smell which was given off was of the bloody odour of a decaying corpse of a street-mouse. I puked even more. I turned around in sober. There were no fairies. The garden started decaying now. In a full fledge. “Where are the damn fairies?” I screamed with dread at the empty decaying space. I was turning mad. A whole lot mad now. Suddenly, I felt my foot start shaking wildly. I felt it growing numb. I looked down. My feet had worms all over it. And the smell was hypnotic. I screamed. “HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! * The air conditioner was still on. The aroma was of sweet jasmine. The maids of the house had scented my room. Like all the other days. I was still on my bed. But I had broken up with cold sweat and helpless tears. I couldn’t realise reality. It took me a couple of darn minutes to come out from the shock of the nightmare which I was through. A traumatic nightmare it was, though. The characteristic ring finally was recognised by my ear-nerves and my eyes reached out to the source. IPHONE 5S. I looked at it. 10 MESSAGES. MESSAGES OF RELEVANCE. M 3. PAPA. DEAR ONE, I HAVE GIFTED YOU A MERCEDES BENZ ON YOUR 18TH BIRTHDAY. IT’S TIME YOU GOT YOUR LICENSE. YOU ARE A GROWN UP NOW DEAR. I AM SO PROUD TO BE YOUR FATHER, SOPHIE. I LOVE YOU. BYE. TAKE CARE. WILL REACH HOME AT 8.45 PM, TYO CELEBRATE YOUR BIRTHDAY PARTY. M6, M7, M9, M10- SHONA( MY GONNA BE HUSBAND). AWWW, MY LOVE, WISH YOU A SWEET HAPPY BIRHDAY. DO COME TO KFC AT 12 AM. I HAVE ARRANGED THE FULL HALL. THE FULL RESTAURANT HAS BEEN BOOKED BY YOUR PAPA FOR US TODAY. NO PUBLIC INTERFERNCE. JUST YOU AND ME. I MISS YOU BADLY MY LOVE. I CAN’T STOP MESSAGING YOU. I JUST CANT. CALL IT OBSSESION, ADDICTION OR WHATEVER. I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU AND I LOVE YOU. I LOVE YOU AND ONLY YOU.................................UUUMMAAAAHHHHHHHH( THE DRAGGNG FLYING KISS......AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW) This was my boyfriend. The obsessed freak. I really do adore him. He is pursuing engineering in aeronautical sciences. A brilliant lad. I felt loved a lot with his special messages and his obsession always made me feel wanted for, craved for. But actually, this wasn’t the definition for a relation. I hated it. Obsession without understanding. The repetition of the three words-I LOVE YOU- over and over and over again. Please, damn this obsession, I need a break. But he had called me and I had to get ready. It was already ten. I really had to get ready. Breakfast and a glass of boiling milk, boiling since it was yet on a heater, was placed near the table of my room. Breakfast had ham and Swedish sandwiches’ with cheddar toppings. And there were three eatable-talcum’s as well, coffee, bourn vita, and tea. I could select anyone to be put into my milk. My preference. My rules. I loved my life. But what was to be made about the damn dream. I never had a nightmare like this before. What in the damnation was the freaky dream all about? I was feeling choked and guilty, somehow. I took the I-phone in my hand, the sweetest perfect-phone ever and messaged papa a sweet ‘THANKYOU’. But as for my boyfriend, I ignored his messages. He was obsessed with me. He wouldn’t leave me ever in my life. I had him in the palm of my hand. And then, I was a hell lot committed with him. Commitment I never broke. And he was perfect. I was the dominant part of this relationship. I could crack jokes and be mean to him and go for shopping with him. He would never mind me. He was my cute-obsessed gonna-be husband. Ha! This relationship did give me the desired pleasure. The best thing was that both our fathers were best friends from poor backgrounds. They had committed to a blood oath that they would make their progeny combine and marry each other if it were to be a girl and a boy. I was the girl: Sophie. He was the boy, the addicted, the going to be husband of this girl: MISS INDIA. I loved to call him that. Ha! The mean sort of pleasure! * I had a bit of breakfast and left the rest. I loved to waste food. A lot. I wished mom goodbye as I took the driver and took the keys of my new Mercedes Benz. I had told the driver to come to the car, just to show mom that a driver would drive me to my destination where my boyfriend-MISS INDIA, would be waiting for me. I ‘shooed’ away the driver as I reached the car and mom was out of my sight of vision. I ignited the Mercedes, whose engine didn’t even show the symptoms of being started- it was the smoothest car ever. Just then, a drop of water fluttered through the air, aiming to the dashboard, but shielded by the bullet-proof front window. Suddenly, the wiper was switched on, automatically, just to the reaction of the water droplet, which was from the pipe of the old gardener. “The most sensitive car ever!” I said to myself. “69 lakhs. Best buy!” I again said to myself, grinning. I reached KFC after 15 minutes. It had a close sign, but the lights were up inside and I could see that two of the staff were working inside. I walked towards the automated door, which opened up, since automated, one side of the door dragging the CLOSED sign along with the glass. I laughed a bit. HILARIOUS ROMANCE. All the tables were removed and there was just a big table placed in the centre of the hall. Glasses of VIRGIN MOJITO and VANILA BLUE were placed in the shape of a heart at the centre of the table and the sight and the atmosphere was romantic in its feeling and view. And the smell of chicken being cooked had even stained the air, the chicken being dipped in the secret spices and condiments, with filtered corn flour coating and the finest oil, giving the fine brown texture and the hypnotic aroma. I WAS HEAVENLY DISSOLVED. Suddenly, a hand caught me from behind, and lips touched my neck. Who the hell was it? I felt weird. Not even MISS INDIA was allowed to kiss me. I turned around, my hand fisting themselves for the punch on the neck-lover. It happened. The punch was placed perfectly near the cheek-region. I had planted it well. But then I realised it was MISS INDIA. How the hell did he turn Romantic in this absurd manner? I smelled him. That bitter smell of wine touched my nostrils stimulated them. “Are you drunk?” “You are my drug!” came the appealing response,. I slapped him hard and rushed outside. I was crying now. He had promised me that he would never drink. And he was drunk now. Promises broken. How the hell could I trust him now? He had broken his promise. I had started hating him now. I walked away and just kept walking, disgusted! * CHAPTER TWO:A TEACHING REVEALED: SOPHIE NO 2: DARKNESS YET HAPPY. It was dark now. I am talking of my dark days. A lot of sadness. Yet I have that smile on my face. YET. My father was murdered in a brutal fight, my mom died last week of a viral infection, and now, I guess it is me, the next in line to be dead. I don’t regret my life. I have enjoyed my life to the fullest. My hairs are displaced, shrivelled up, here and there. I am in torn rags, my ribs not well developed at all. I am seventeen, today, I guess, as I heard it from some guy selling newspapers on this dusty street. 25th October. The day I was born. Not in a hospital. But at home. In disastrous conditions that I don’t want to explain. My mother was my only support. I used to work with her in different homes. We earned only three-hundred rupees a month, and we used to have meals only once a day. They used to call me Sophie, at a place I worked. They were generous to me, but harsh at times. I didn’t receive the required education, but I was a hard worker. Supporting my mom and me. Until she became the victim of an infection. And the poor didn’t have any money to suffice the need s of medical people. I guess, I had read somewhere, that hygiene is required to live a life without infection. But our home was beside the pig-stained gutters, the sewers, where all the faecal matter from royal homes came. Maybe this was the reason. But where else could we go? We used to live in the aluminium-foil home, and we used to sleep on the mud. The floors were of mud, not glittering marble. The landlords would come and knock on our doors and would strangulate us to remove our dirty-yet-beautiful-in-our-eyes home. They tried and tried. But mother cried and cried. But after her death, they got rid of me and my home. I have been resting on the footpath from two days after the breakdown of my home, my sweet aluminium foil home, where my mom had her lost memories of my drunkard father, who was murdered in an unspeakable incident by the same landlord. For the same reason. For land. For the land that was covered under the aluminium shades. Even a square feet of land was costly these days. The landlord’s seeked free-profits, by strangulating our already strangulated lives. I had that internal hate for these bloody landlords, but I was helpless now. I had been developing various diseases, I guess. I could feel my breathing patterns vary day by day. The acid in my stomach churned and churned and churned and churned. Churning. LIKE MY CHURNED SOUL. And I felt my end approach. I closed my eyes just as someone’s sober touched my failing ears. I looked out. The face looked at me, with disgust. But somehow, her face changed from the disgusting smile, to whole lot of sympathy. “Girl, you were our toilet cleaner once upon a time! What has happened to you?” Sophie saId, jovially. I didn’t respond. I felt sympathy for the first time in my life. I knew this girl. She was Sophie. Her father had named me Sophie as well. In her childhood, I used to go to their home. I used to play with them. She was like my sister. I loved her. They had guided us on hygiene and stuff. But we got separated. Mom had stolen the golden vessels of the house. An FIR was filed. The police found the golden eggs under our aluminium foils. They tortured mom. They beat us. And I wasn’t allowed to work back at this home, the palace-home, degraded by character due to my mom. And thus I had been separated from this Sophie. I was the living example of the negative side of this girl. I felt feeble. I had fungal infections all over my skin, even my hairs were withering. “Like the withering roots of the banyan tree! “said Sophie No 1. As if reading the mind of me. I was amazed. It was as if she was my other half. As if we were meant to meet today, on this very day, on the day my soul would be set free, from this world. Everything has a positive side and a negative side. Like the rich and poor concept. If there was good, there would be evil as well. It was a relative concept. Rich and poor, good and bad. There wouldn’t be a definition for good without bad being in existence. It was true. These universal concepts were storming my head. I guess realisation comes only once we reached the last stage of my life. I accepted my fate. MY FATE. MY DESTINY. I HAVE TRIED MY BEST TO LIVE IN THIS WORLD. Sophie was screaming and crying now. She looked shocked after seeing me. She shook my body towards her, touching my fungoid skin all over, brushing my hairs, teasing me a bit. Care which I had never ever received in my life. I didn’t even deserve it. I felt this way today. I felt happiness, of the real kind, seep into me. This girl behaved so nicely with me. Then it happened. I felt breathless. My stomach churned and churned and churned. I felt breathless now. Then I started getting nauseated. A lot of blood seeped out of my mouth, a hell lot of it. COUGH. COUGH COUGH. COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH. I felt my intestines come out and then I slept well, hearing the cries, the ‘horrorific’ cries, of the girl, my sister, my so called SOPHIE NO ONE. CHAPTER THREE: SOPHIE NO 1: REALISATION. HARDSHIPS. SYMPATHY THROUGH EXPERIENCE: All the blood and mucus had come on my skin. My boyfriend had come along. He looked at me. I ordered him to take us to the nearest hospital. She was announced brought dead. It was a sad day for me. I had known this girl. I used to play with her in my childhood, oil her hair, and share my toys. Tease her. Tickle her. Laugh out at funny jokes. She was named SOPHIE NO 2. By my dad. Until one day mom came to my room and said.... “Sophie, my darling, from today, you will be sent away to your grannies place in turkey. You will complete a year there and then come home. I was small then and I had missed her. I was emotionally attached but my emotional attachment had faded away, after a year. I didn’t even remember her. And here she was, now, dead, the cause being tuberculosis, the opposite side of my life. I regretted this day, and hence now, against my father’s wishes, have started working in an NGO which serves the poor, with a mission: AVAILMENT OF PUBLIC SERVICES TO THE POOR. But as I seeped into this field, I discovered the fact that the full system was corrupt. Nothing could be done. Balance between good and bad. Even roses have dangerous blood-pricking lavishly stained hidden thorns. - PRATIK BHAT AUTHORS NOTE: I HAVE JUST HIGHLIGHTED A CONCEPT WHICH IS BROUGHT IN THE SHIVA TRIOLOGY SERIES. OM NAMAH SHIVAY: THE UNIVERSE BOWS OWN TO SHIVA. I BOW DOWN TO SHIVA. BALANCE BETWEEN GOOD AND BAD. A SUGGESTABLE READ FOR ALL LITERARY ABSORBENTS. TRULY. DEDICATED TO SAUMYA AND MY BROTHER, PRASMIT, WHO IIS A BETTER WRITER THAN ME. WRITTEN ON 1ST AUGUST, 10AM TO 12.38 PM. TRULY. EDITING INCLUDED. YOURS TRULY, PRATIK.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 05:05:54 +0000
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