Updated: Dec 4, 2024
Draw double lines. Always draw double lines after you finish your work.
My school teachers always said this to our class and I often wondered what it meant. For me, these lines came to signify the marginalisation of the blank space of a page. They meant the end of the text: the end of meaning. Because blank spaces don’t mean anything.
Why am I thinking of what my teachers said anyway?
I’m aware that I’m having flashbacks. At this point that’s the only thing keeping me conscious. I had a terrible accident a week ago and the doctors said that I can’t speak now. Permanently.
You need to express yourself clearly. Only then will others know what you mean. My grammar instructor told this to me once while reading a short story I wrote. In my quest to express myself clearly, I fell in love with the art of writing. I did not have a laptop then, so I wrote on paper and the walls of my house. My childhood was filled with stories from my parent’s childhood. Although the little bedtime tales lulled me to sleep when I was young, they became the fuel to the fire within me. I once asked my mother how she told me the stories in such a great manner. "Storytelling is an art, you’ll learn it someday", she used to say.
The arrangement of the words on a page determines how you perceive the story. The blank space on the screen: the white page staring at you is your chance to make something out of nothing. The ceiling of the hospital room is another white space at which I’m forced to look due to my newfound immobility. Sometimes I twist my body sideways so that I can peep outside the window and watch the snowfall.
It's been a month since I got into the road accident. I remember how I was hurled on my two-wheeler by a truck. I was thrown off from the centre of the road to the side stripped white by double lines. It was a special day for me before it all happened. I was returning that day from a publisher’s after submitting a story manuscript I had been working on for a year.
They have shifted me to another building in the same hospital. My voluntary muscles, although not swift, give me enough mobility. I’ll be in the ‘people with special needs’ category of the story. The window and the ceiling are the same here just like the old room. I feel like I have not moved. Sometimes I write airy letters on the white ceiling: N O W, I try writing several words. But they all end up vanishing from my imagination into thin air. Slowly, my hand gestures gain prominence over my absent speech. I feel powerful.
The new nurse appointed to me is a young woman in her mid-twenties. I don’t know her name yet. So, I will call her “S”. When she first attended to me yesterday, she did not utter a single word, I saw her lips not moving. She entered the room, replaced my bandages with a fresh one, and left. Today she came with white tuberoses in her right hand. S smiled at me and placed the flowers in a little vase on the side table. Her daily routine consisted of mopping my room and changing my bedsheets. S then used to fill my water jug, feed me, and give me medicines.
A week has passed by and I’m looking at snowfall again. My thoughts skip from the ceiling to the snow to the unpublished manuscript. I also wonder why S has not talked to me yet. I wish I could tell her that I can hear. Sometimes I hear several footsteps outside my room and I have slowly gained this special skill of distinguishing sounds of footsteps. I recognize S’s footsteps the moment she enters the corridor. But these are different. I hear two pairs of footsteps. S enters with a tall man.
I hope you’re doing fine. The doctor is in a jolly mood today. She is your caretaker. She can’t hear. She lost her listening ability in a tragic event when she was little. But there is nothing to worry about. She is wonderful at expressing herself. Please bear with us. You are one of the few chosen ‘special needs’ patients working with ‘special needs’ nurses. You are a part of a research project proposed by the hospital.
As I heard the doctor’s receding footsteps in the hallway, I realized that S’s silence was not a mere habit but a fact of her body. This time she carefully arranged the tuberoses in the vase, putting the small ones in front, and the large ones in back. In the hospital room, where the world seemed confined to the white walls, the days flowed with a regular silence. The only sounds that reached my ears were the incessant talking of people, the clinking of crockeries, and the soft hum of the snowfall outside. My new reality- based on my inability to speak and my silent observation of S- felt like a tale waiting to be told.
S's daily presence had become a very comforting ritual. One day she bought a wooden box and kept it on the table near the vase. Then, she proceeded with her daily routine. I was waiting for her to give me a hint or an eye contact. But she said nothing. She kept on brooming the floor and dusting the furniture. When she was done, she came to me and stood beside me. A large smile covered her face- it was the first time we were communicating.
She continuously looked at the box as if waiting for me to open it. I reached out for the box and uncovered its lid. Inside the box were meticulously carved figurines of different sizes. Her eyes were filled with pride as I examined the box's contents. I observed how carefully the human figurines were carved, every body part looked as if real. I looked at her and she nodded shyly. She was very proud of her art.
My respect and admiration for S increased from that day. She knew the importance of work and had the utmost passion for her art. We started communicating more often and I became better at using sign language with her help. I never got to know her story, and how she felt about this inability to hear. It felt like, for her, this ability did not exist in the first place. Each day, she carried on with her chores just like nothing happened to her and never behaved like she wanted to gain attention about this. And I asked myself if S could do this, if she could go on with her life as if nothing happened, why am I the one worried about my muteness? I still had the power to write- the thing that matters to me the most.
Sometimes, we would silently sit and look at the snowfall together, and sometimes we would talk to each other in a language beyond words. My time at the hospital was becoming easy. It was a speedy recovery and on the day of my discharge from the hospital, something remarkable happened. As S arranged the tuberoses in the vase, she placed a white envelope on the side table. The envelope had a logo I recognized instantly- it was from the publisher to whom I submitted my manuscript a month ago. My heart skipped a beat. Could it be?
S caught my attention and gave me a promising smile. She gestured with her eyebrows towards the envelope. Trembling with anticipation, I reached for the envelope and carefully opened it. Inside was a letter from the publisher. The letter was filled with the kind of news that dreams are made of- my manuscript was accepted for publication. I read the words that spoke of the life I desired- future book signings, conferences, the joys of seeing my work in print and various media- a deep sense of accomplishment washed over me. Tears welled up in my eyes as I looked up at S.
Her silent encouragement had played a crucial role in this moment, though she might not have known it. Her care and the way she filled my room with beauty and soft companionship had given me the strength to keep going, even when words seemed to fail me.
A week has passed since I returned from the hospital. A newfound strength has surrounded me. I do not feel bad about myself at this point, and all because of S. I feel I should gift something to her. Moreover, there are some of my things left in the hospital which I have to collect. So, on my way, I stop at a flower shop to buy a large bunch of tuberoses. As I enter the hospital, I go the receptionist, and she hands over some papers, my clothes and a wooden box. I pick up a pen and write that the box was not mine and I was looking for the nurse who looked after me. The receptionist reads the note and gives me a hesitant look. For a while, I try to convince her that the box was not mine and she kept on saying that they found the box in my room. The box that S showed me earlier was already at my home and this, I wonder, would be a gift from S again. The receptionist stares at me blankly.
The nurse who looked after you passed away in a car accident three days ago. She says.
My heart sinks here, right in the moment, and I open the wooden box. Inside, is a figurine of a writer sitting at his desk.
About the Author:
Kumar Sawan was born and brought up in Lucknow. He is a Ph.D. scholar in the Department of English and Modern European Languages, at the University of Lucknow. His works have been published in Rhetorica: A Literary Journal of Arts, Contemporary Literary Review India, SPL Journal, Literary Horizon, Creative Saplings, Borderless, and Teesta Review.
Updated: Dec 6, 2024
Once upon a time and a good time it was lived a happy horse on a misty mountain flanked by gentle brooks which became a river further down the plains. Down the plains where other things happened. The mountain was full of free creatures; birds, sheep, goats, and horses. There were people too, who lived in small huts, who worked all day without hurting anyone, cooked, ate, and sang together in the evenings before going to sleep. Always with a lot of peace. Peace which fell slowly and silently along the hills. There was no need for anyone to be more wealthy or powerful than anyone else. Everyone just listened to and understood each other. And the air smelled of raspberries and ripe plums. The smells grew deeper and hung like a moving curtain as one walked into the woods. Into the woods where children chased butterflies without fear. For there was no fear there. The sun rose and set differently each day, and all the animals and people knew the difference in colours each time. Aqua, amber, musk, magenta; many more. Mixing and twirling together. The horse knew it too. On the mountain everyone could speak to everyone else with signs and movements. There was no need for anyone to know more than the others. There were no secrets or bits of special knowledge which made anyone feel superior or more worthy of love. Everything, from food to laughter and skills, was shared. And the young and the old helped each other grow and live together. Always with a lot of kindness and care.
Sometimes some children came to play with the animals. Their favourite was the horse. For it could run beautifully across the hills like a lovely light. He could gallop and trot across the mountains in different rhythms which looked like dances. Especially under the full moon the horse looked like a beautiful beam of blueness moving on the meadows, the slopes, by the small brooks. His best friend was a small boy who loved spending time up on the hills with him. They spoke to each other, told each other stories, shared fruits which fell from the trees, and stared at stars together. Sometimes the horse would ask the boy to sit on him and they would go for a long run, which felt like flying, spreading wings, swimming across skies. Together, they ran into the woods where bigger animals lived with the darker flowers and taller trees, where nobody feared any attack from anyone else. Thus, they lived, with love, laughter, and tender trust. In the mountains where rains mixed with the lights between leaves, and where children and squirrels shared berries and nuts.
And then one day some men from the plains come up with many machines and money. They first started measuring the meadows with long ropes and scales. They said they were there to build hotels. Places where people from very far away would come and stay, for a few days. The mountain men and women did not understand what this meant. Why would someone come and stay in places not their homes and then go away? The men from the plains said this would bring business, make everyone richer, set up better facilities such as shops and play-grounds. The children were puzzled as they already had the entire mountain to play around. But the men from the plains had some important papers with some important signs so they could do what they wanted. Soon, some very noisy machines with long trunks attached to their fronts came and started breaking everything to make spaces for big buildings. The long, lovely trees were felled and killed and then were quickly taken away by trucks to be turned to wooden furniture for the buildings called hotels which were coming up fast. Then more trucks full of bricks came, with stones and many other things which turned the massive meadows to what the men from plains called construction sites. Suddenly, everything seemed and sounded fast, angry, full of noise. Some men on the mountains were paid more money and given more attention than others and were made to feel important, special, different. Everyone was asked to move, shift, or leave. The men from the plains kept saying soon everything would become stable. That was the new word across the changing scenes and sounds on the mountains amidst all the things which broke and died. Stable.
Then they went for the animals. Many were shot and killed, the ones that the men from plains thought were wild and did not look nice. The children saw many dead friends being carried away in trucks, their bodies to be turned to leather goods or meat. There were papers with signs from important people which allowed this as well. And then it was the horses’ turn. They were chased with ropes and cars, the old ones shot and killed and the new ones trapped into a small place. The boy and the blue horse hid inside the woods for a while, till they were found out by men who grinned with guns on their shoulders. They did not want to kill this horse for they were building something for animals like him, a stable.
Soon some mountain men were given new jobs which promised them a lot of money. The boy’s father became a watchman for the stable. The place where the blue horse was put in to be used later for the men and women who would come to enjoy the mountains. Inside the stable the lights were low; the air seemed sad and slow. The boy would come and bring food for his father and look at his best friend from afar, the blue horse who earlier galloped like a beam of light, now breathing heavily, like everything else, tired and tied.
Soon the hotels were made, the parks were built, the shops were ready to sell. Tall chimneys began to breathe out smoke that turned the mountain skies more grey than blue. Many men, women, and kids came in big cars with bags tied on the tops. And the sun began to rise and set with less and less space to spread. Its colours vanished, leaving just the tinge of slow yellow which came and went at the same times every day. It was all stable.
The men from the mountains, including the boy’s father were made to wear uniform and taught to salute the tourists. And the blue horse wore a uniform too, tight ropes which cut into his slowly ageing body; waiting to be taken out whenever the visiting people wanted to see him or ride him carefully, steaming and stamping in the small, smelly place.
The stable.
About the Author:
Avishek Parui (Ph.D, Durham, UK) is an Associate Professor of English at IIT Madras and an Associate Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. He is the author of Postmodern Literatures (Orient Blackswan, 2018) and Culture and the Literary: Matter, Metaphor, Memory (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). He is the founding chairperson of the Indian Network for Memory Studies (INMS) and a member of the advisory board of the International Memory Studies Association (MSA). He is a writer of short fiction whose work has been published in The Bangalore Review, The Bombay Review, Out of Print, Kitaab, and Borderless Journal, among other places.
Updated: Dec 6, 2024
She checked her reflection in the wardrobe mirror, now somewhat dimmed with age. Was this indigo too deep a blue? After all she was not family, but those who remembered would shoot covert glances at her. She would be observed and commented upon…She pulled out the bottom drawer of the old wooden wardrobe for a pair of sandals and winced. Lined up were several pairs of uneven shoes and sandals…the sole of the right footwear always about four inches thicker than the left. All made to order, heavy and ungainly. As a young girl she had often lingered in front of footwear stores, eyeing the myriad hued dainty creations on display. She was slim and willowy then, and had often fantasised about wearing a hugging pair of jeans. But even that fantasy was rudely jolted when it came to footwear. No, she was condemned to wearing concealing long skirts. Later, when she joined the bank, the regulation sari came as a relief. At least she was dressed like everyone else, and nobody would give that swift downward glance that had made her cringe in school. As she locked the door a wave of panic hit her. She paused for a moment to let it pass, and then shouldered her bag and resolutely walked down the drive.
‘Almighty God, Father of all mercies and giver of all comfort, we gather to give thanks for the life of our dear departed Ashish Mondal’ intoned the pastor. ‘Ashish Mondal’, she had heard and spoken that name with so many conflicting emotions for so many years. This perhaps was the last she would ever hear it mentioned…
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Once her mother heard that a young man, Ashish Mondal, of their own faith and denomination had been transferred to the branch where her daughter worked, she had swung into action. She suddenly recalled old friends who lived in the town he was posted in earlier, unearthed details about his family from superannuated pastors, badgered her daughter to find out his future prospects in the bank and then to invite him home. The drawing room of their old colonial bungalow was spruced up, the best crockery and cutlery fished out and displayed to welcome Ashish Mondal on his very first visit. Her mother was determined to like him, and Ashish overawed by their colonial bungalow—its sprawling compound and prime location—was polite and subdued. He came over again and again, and when the engagement was finally announced no one was really surprised. Suddenly she took centre stage at the bank. Ever little new detail in her appearance was noticed with squeals of delight by her colleagues, Neera and Mrs Naidu. Every meeting with Ashish Mondal after bank hours was graced with the appellation ‘date’ and she was merrily ragged and teased. ‘Look! She is blushing!’ ‘Where are you buying the ring from? Go to my jeweller…’ She blossomed under the affection and attention. Happy halcyon days! But she was uneasy even then. The more she interacted with Ashish the more she was struck by the sharp difference in their attitude and principles. She would suddenly wake up at night, her heart pounding, palms clammy with sweat. Something was not right. She needed more time. ‘Jitters’ laughed her mother gaily, caught up in a whirl of wedding preparations. Nakul Singh, the notorious builder, started frequenting the bank and Ashish was often seen in his company, when one sodden monsoon afternoon she went up to the terrace to close a skylight and saw a sleek black car parked flush with their boundary wall. In the car was Nakul Singh and Ashish was with him, gesturing expansively towards her home. Some of his earlier pointed questions now made sense. But the clinching evidence came when she overheard him talking to someone about measuring the compound of their bungalow some Sunday when she and her mother would be at church.
‘You won’t even let me die in peace’ screamed her mother and then sank back sobbing ‘what will become of you?’ when she heard of the broken engagement. But something greater than the engagement broke too. The bond of unreserved affection between herself and her mother was broken forever, and henceforth her mother kept herself aloof in a way that was heartbreaking. The laughter and teasing in the bank too had been replaced by awkward silences and pitying glances. Somehow, it was generally understood that it was Ashish who had jilted her.
‘….He was very hospitable’ said Alex Masih, mopping his bald pate and perspiring nape with a large chequered handkerchief. It was difficult to eulogise a man who was known to have been biggest fraud in town. A man who had spent five years in jail for fraud and embezzlement. Someone whose palatial home and swanky flats had been attached and sold. A criminal. Ashish had entertained politicos, officials, auditors and accountants in style—the ‘hospitality’ Alex had just mentioned. A gold bracelet and sundry chunky chains now adorned his expanding person. He changed his car every other year. And every year when the audit came around there was an avid expectation that he would be finally caught out, though it never happened. Managers came and went, well pleased with Ashish Mondal and his massive contribution to the growth of the bank…. The years that bought ill gotten prosperity to Ashish were not unkind to Shalu either. As laborious year succeeded laborious year, she steadily moved up the promotion ladder. She had lost her elfin slimness, and her once silky sheet of hair was now grey and cropped. She had gradually moved from shared workstations to exclusive cubicles, and finally to the manager’s swanky office. And then --the Year of Audit, she always thought of that year as the Year of Audit. When the auditors came, she merely let the documents do the talking, concealing nothing. Questions turned into interrogation, suspicion into allegation, allegation into proof . And then all hell broke loose.
Ashish Mondal hit back as only a man can. He declared that she was taking her revenge for the engagement he broke off so many years ago. He hinted at other torrid relationships that had never existed, and detailed lurid encounters that had never happened. That year she would come into a room and there would be a sudden silence. At meetings male subordinates would sprawl in their chairs, heads together, their voices murmurous, their faces adult and expert, glancing covertly at her while retailing stories to the young probationers. She faced it all alone. Her right leg was now unexpectedly her best ally, for those who wanted to support her through these vile vilifications would refer to her disability… “Who would…you know? She can scarcely walk!”
‘My conscience is absolutely clear. Otherwise, I would never have attended this memorial service’, she thought.
The pastor was now giving the benediction. ‘The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you’ She covered her head with a wisp Chantilly lace, once intended for the trousseau that never materialised and bowed her head. ‘The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.’ The peacock-hued bit of lace slipped off her grey bowed head and fell to the floor as gently as an unheard whisper, an unanswered prayer, a sigh.
About the Author:
Professor Sarvajit Mukerji is a Professor at the Department of English, University of Allahabad. His areas of interest are Ecocriticism and Feminism. He has published around thirty papers in national and international journals. His book on T.S Eliot, The Poet and His Times was favourably reviewed. His paper published internationally, entitled “What I Learnt from Bridget” on the celebrated novel, Bridget Jones Diary, was published in 2019. Recently, his work, “Junoon: The Anglo-Indian Connection” has appeared as a chapter in Literature Across Mediums.