story - transcendental..

      = the STORY PAGE

        THE BACH CHILD....

the background...

        A Sunday evening. No one in the house, except the writer - the first person and narrator. The writer has no other feeling or emotions except that of a godly conserving, caring for the others, emotion. The day has not procured for him any sense of hope or joy. The day produced in him instead a state of despair, distrust and disintegration.

        In the silence of the room and his mind, the record is beginning to rotate on the player. For a moment when the music begins he finds time stand still. But then..

               the story

        The camera focuses on the sky, empty, gray sky, moving up, from neck level, in a street in a city. The music of Bach continues. In it there seems some little relieving of the pains for an instant. The view of the sky is brought nearer and nearer slowly. A group of birds are flying, looking silvery, in the morning lights. The camera is slowly turning her eyes down. Back again, the city and the Street. The camera stops when it catches a pair of bare feet waking down the street. They are of a child. The girl wears untidy pajamas and carries a plastic bag dangling on her side, and that is also untidy. Her hair is not washed and not upbraided. Her bag dangling, she walks down the street. Her hair, which is between reddish and silvery flows at the blow of every wind. Her hair, which is between reddish and silvery flows at the blow of every wind. Her little fingers hold a fruit, which is in the act of being bitten every now and then, by her largely opening mouth.   She looks at the fruit closely and gives it a bite, every time, she eats it. The fruit looks like Guava. The music continues. The camera follows her.

          The writer is a bearded man. He has long hair and bright moustache. He looks melancholic, depressed and lonely. He rests his head on the table, helplessly, and the record is turning on. The record steps turns on . The music stops for a minute and then begins again.

        There is the blue sky and there are clouds on it seen reflected thru the surface of a liquid, and where the liquid rests is not focussed until after sometime. The sky is brought nearer and nearer into the view. An eagle flying is focused, which is circling over the viewer's head and is getting down and getting closer to us. The camera recedes from the surface of the liquid. The bird recedes. The face of the first person is see in clearly. The camera includes the liquid, with the first person. The liquid is now seen. It is blood. The music of Bach is sustaining. His emotions are clearer and in black and white. The music is supporting the scene.

     The child is dead. The result of an accident. The child is dead. Dead!!. Through the camera's eye, the dead and crushed body is seen. Somewhere not far off, is the thrown away piece of the guava fruit. And the living face of agony of the first person. Look of care and concern. The camera focusses on the two person. The dead child and the living first person. The first person bends to see, touch, feel and dead child, the remains of a crash. The first person puts his hands beneath her broken neck and tries to lift her in arms. His forehead wrinkles and his eyelashes meet, expressing his deep feelings of grief. He rests his body on one of his buttocks, resting on the heel of his one foot, whose toe rests on the ground.

        He sits thus ruminating, for an hour. A truck comes, passes him by. He gets up and walks away not with her but without her. He has now gone a few steps. He hears another trucks coming and he walks back to her fearing some things. He sits by her. Again, like before, he sits. Gets up, deciding go away from the scene. He goes away. An hour later rushes back to the scene again.

         Music is strengthening the scene. He is arriving, face wrapped up in misery and grief. An eagle flies away from the scene with a bit of flesh from her body. He could recognise nothing of her face now. For he cannot count how many crushed her further.

         The record is played on. Bach is expressing his grief. The writer is gloomy and within him the whole him the whole world is taking shape to the music of Bach.

         He is irritated by the infuriating truck that comes toward him. The eagle still flies in circles above him. He takes her body, not too disjointed for carrying in his arms. His clothes are stained fresh with blood. He looks at the place she was lying. He checks himself if he has left our her.... dreams, wishes, hopes, smiles, laughs, cries... he cries, he wishes, he hopes, he smiles, he laughs. Silently somewhere deep within himself.

He leaves the road behind and goes into the plains arriving at a railroad. He lays her down on the rails and waits. The singles shows green now. He moves to the side where from the train is coming. He lies down beside her.

       It is getting dark; the sky is enlarged on the screen. A star appears in the sky. The star grows in size. The headlight of the train, that comes near and runs over the bodies that have lived.

      The record is arriving at an end. The song is not yet over. A little more to go. Bach has done it. The music and everything from the music he composed and played. The writer is not awake from his dream.

        The back of the train disappears into the distance. Nothings moves. Everything is still. The writer sees an imaginary cube breaking open with dazzling light and the images of man god and woman god appearing and hailing the bodies of the two dead. The bodies of the two lie scattered on the rails. Their images wake up. The smiles that everyone remembers., come back more alive. The first person and the child both join one with the other. Their images integrate each with other. Their images join the wholesome images of the gods. The capsule closes. Disappears.

- D PARAMESWARAN

---- END ------

ONEDAY

It was a winter morning.  I was preparing to see my friend, who was

 working at the maternity hospital.  I went out dressed simple, protected

 form the coldness.  It looked beautiful outside.  Sky and the trees all

 embalmed in snow.  I entered the gate thinking that I could get my

 friend who was also a writer for portico.  I waited in the lounge after

 making an enquiry to a nurse who said she would let me know in a minute if

 he was their photograph of lush nature.  This was in a quiet part of

 the city.  I lighted a cigarette and enjoyed the deep pull give heat to

 my body.  I heard a woman moaning in the distance of two three rooms

 and imagined this was the routine of the place.

For sometime then, there was no sound.  Not a leaf rustled nearby. Then

 the moaning and whimpering started again. It was touched my sense of

 pain and grief.  Because I saw her now in the corridor, the woman who

 cried. She was stumbling. The bulge in the abdomen indicated she was

 pregnant, and perhaps she would give birth to a child in the next few

 hours.  She was crying bitterly.   She was beautiful to look at, and her cry

 made in me a shudder of pain to pass thru.  She turned and twisted her

 body to forget the pain.  She leaned on the wall sometime.  Then she

 felt she could hardly stand that way.  She did everything but not sit

 down.  She carried her body standing will not help reduce the pain.  She

 would not knoe where she was standing or what she was doing to forget

 the pain that overpowered her body and senses.  Her eyes they were

 bleared with non stop crying.  She had made her way to where I sat, with my

 inner voice cursing god first for creating woman different from man in

 suffering, then cursing the hospital authorities, and lastly cursing

 the man who had given her a child.  The pain that I could get in my body

 seemed trivial when I was suffering at the sight of another suffering.

  In this act, my whole body, mind, intellect & Soul was involved for

 finding an escape for the suffering humanity from the suffering.

  Strangely now, she missed her eyes at me as if recognizing me or as if she

 had known me for a longtime.  Her moaning and whimpering did not stop.

  Sink  in the ocean of human misery.  Grief struck I could not bear it

 all, nor could I sit down quietly any more, for now I rose up sofa.  I

 did not know what I was doing.  But I felt she was now consoled, though

 not extricated form her continuing pains completely.  She wore a white

 gown.  Her face was puffed up, of crying.  She seemed to find some

 comfort in another holding her.  But the repeatedly.  And where was I ?

 Helpless I sat with her in my arms.  Like this.   And never so close to

 another’s pain and been a part of it.  I thought so as I sat there

 thinking, with a whimpering the pain seemed to wash my souled friends seen

 me like this, of them.  Or of sanity if sanity was to helping the other

 get thru life.  I found I had some meaning for my action.  I found that

 relationships were of two types.  One created and recognized by man.

 Another ever existing one with the other, blood with blood of the same

 stuff, and created and recognized by the creator.  According to the

 second one, there would be no stranger for me in life.  And yet there would

 be strangers to me, and they would in life.  And yet there would be

 strangers to me, and they would be those who cannot understand the

 already existing relationship of each with the other in any organization.  I

 could not continue to think of philosophy when I found her pains

 increasing for her.  In between her pains she looked at my face asking

 clearly for help that no language could have expressed better.  She believed

 I could help her at that time.  She felt she had a right to expect it

 coming from me.  Hugging to me she tried for a little escape from the

 pain. I tried to console her with words, while she desperately she held

 to me like a leeoh.  I knew she was in sort of a half trance.  And I

 whispered “dear, forget it.  It’ll soon be over”.  Nobody came there

 for another half an hour.  Her attempts to kiss me or find my face or

 hold my face in her hands, brought her my sympathy and my inner grief.

  I imagined that she took me for her husband perhaps and that she was

 needing his care miserably at this time.  But where was this unloving

 man who did not live for her for his life friend, but for himself.  I

 gave her kisses of live and support not wanting to make me a stranger for

 her anymore.  Almost tears coming to eyes I felt I saw her a little

 better.  O Christ! What am I doing here? Is she mad? What am I doing

 giving covert to a writhing pregnant woman by hugs and kisses, sitting in a

 hospital and finding myself better to be truthful rather than shout

 unfriendly words at her, or call a nurse or leave her and run.  Her tears

 wet my shirts and crumpled it.  Her tears wet my face and arms. O god

 am I getting mad?  My inner circle reached a quietness thinking that

 even if she was a madwoman, I did not do her wrong and I only gave her

 solace at a time when she needed it and when none will give fearing the

 shortsighted eyes making up wrong ideas.  I felt convinced I was not

 wrong she was not wrong, either.

               A test of endurance for me.  I did not know who she was, what was her

 name, was she married, where was her husband and such other things.

  These seemed of no use to me at that time.  I found near me there was a

 woman, pregnant and suffering.  There was cause enough  for me to

 console her.  The perception of the event to me was mystic and spiritual.  I

 wondered why she was not given anesthesia, if she had so much of pain.

  I wondered why no nurse came to look for her.  I shuddered to think

 what if the baby was born now.  What will I do?  Will I shout for the

 doctor? Within half an hour she had taught me lessons on how I should

 hold her should her aims increase.  She had taught me those lessons, like

 a baby teaching his mother what he likes and likes not.  I continued

 tell her comforting words.

               Now the nurse appeared at the scene pleading excuse for her delay.

  She said she had forgotten my enquiry in a hurry to attend a delivery.

  And she said with considerable maturity of a human being,  “Excuse us

 for the inconvenience.  Please take care of her for another minute.

  I’ll be right back”.  And she disappeared, saying “If she feels

 comforted, console her please”.  What was the story of this lady.  I

 hoped I would everything cleared when it was all over.  After sometime the

 doctor arrived on the scene with nurse who took her to the operation

 theater.

               I sat there in the same place, not moving a little and noonse was

 within sight.  I tried to think what happened all that time.  A nurse

 appeared afterward,  and told me the operation was over and that the child

 was over grown and was not alive.  When she said the woman  was alright

 I felt relieved as if she was my wife.  The doctor came now and took me

 to his room.  He asked for my excuse for the inconvenience to me.  He

 told me everything. That she could not have anaesthesia due to her

 physical disabilities.  That her not have husband was arriving that

 evening, returning from the far East,  where she was employed then as an

 archaelogist.  A few hours later, I went in to see her.  She had not

 regained consciousness yet.  My friend was not there are I could not meet him.

  But the occasion provided me an experience unique and touching.  But

 the memory of her gripped my mind halting my works on hand.  I felt we

 had lived together for a long time.  I felt her like a unwilted and

mystic flower that radiated into the darkness of a man’s heart.

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