The Father

The place is quite at a distance from Mohan's house. Except a variety of wild insects and a narrow rivulet of dirty water, there was a serious scarcity of the existence of life. The moon was full and the big trees around were castings shadows three times bigger than their sizes, covering the place fully where Mohan was standing. It was to take left from the main road, then a very large field of wild thorny shrubs and at the end of which there was a narrow slope that takes one down. Standing on the end of the field one can only see the leafy heads of multiple trees. The slope is a secret way, mostly unnoticed. The wall where the slopes ended was curved and had an inside entrance. After entering the curve one can find that secret place like a cave curved for hiding treasures, surrounded fully by trees and not much invaded by human feet. Mohan was very familiar with the place. His father had taken him there to show the uncanny beauty of nature's secret places.

Down there Mohan was panting hard. The melted hard work that he was doing was dripping through his sideburns. The dirty rivulet was making babbling sound and the wild owls hooting far-off now and then helping Mohan to stay conscious. Except those infrequent noises everything was as still as the two bags that Mohan had carried with him. Like two big silvery grey stones, the two bags were placed carelessly. Mohan started his second round of digging with the shovel. Nature was aiding him greatly in his mission as the earth was as soft as a cake there. He sat again after digging a while, casted an asquint look at those two bags and bent his head in between his folded knees supported by his hands. He remembered how his father used to threaten him to leave him at the place if he did not act obedient. When his mother died, he was devastated emotionally and did not feel like sitting in the garments shop of his father. His father would leave him for hours and would not return until night. One day when he refused to seat in the shop, his father lynched him with belt and left him wounded at that place Mohan was sitting now. The punishment took a huge toll on his health. He begged and cried whole night to be rescued but it was not possible for anyone to hear the sound coming from that distant curve. The fear engulfed him completely and with passing days his fear of the place turned into a strange liking for it. He secretly started visiting the place to find respite from his father’s torture. One day when he returned home early, he found his father in his bedroom with a woman. He felt disgusted and came running to this place, cried for hours. The next day his father was found dead mysteriously at his own shop. The death brought complete freedom in Mohan's life. He started living life on his own terms but making living had always been a problem to him. Success never stayed longer with him. An owl hooted nearby and Mohan got startled. The imprints of bewilderment said it all how his conscious self had made a bunk. He looked at those bags again and resumed digging almost immediately.

The digging was done. He hurriedly moved to the bags, knelt down and hesitated for a moment. The sweat drops dripping through his sideburns felt like insects crawling slowly down from his head. He wiped his face with the sleeves of his shirt and opened the bags. Everything was intact. He removed the staffs one by one. The wind was very quiet that night but as soon as Mohan removed the things, a gust passed by moving the thick shadows of the trees and letting the moonlight enter the place. The blue beams fell on the two faces lying on the soft muddy ground-Joy and Rati. Mohan saw the lighted faces of his children and stared a little. His eyes were glowing like burning fire balls of hell-full of fire but engulfed by darkness. Those eyes seemed strangers to his sweaty face. Except the eyes the face had poor patches of a helpless father but the eyes were of a murderer who had killed his own two little babies. Joy was eight and Rati was six. Mohan checked the pulses again and made sure that those were real corpses. He took one body and threw into one hole, then took the other and threw in the other in the same manner. Without even looking at them, he covered the muddy graves hurriedly, collected all his staffs and left the place almost in no time like a flash of lightning. He was thinking nothing while walking back to his home. Suddenly he stopped and thought what he would tell his wife about the children. He had taken them out for a late night circus. Mohan sat on the road and stared at the sky like a dead man. All of a sudden he looked at the surrounding of the place like a mad man searching for food and sprung to feet and started walking again.

His wife opened the door. Worry was obvious on her face and she asked almost immediately after opening the door,

'Where have you been? Why so late? We were so worried.'

Mohan walked in and hung the bag he had taken with on a hook next to the door. He was just about to remove his shirt when he turned shockingly and posed the question,

‘We?'

His wife replied, 'Yes, we. I and the children.'

The same hellish glow returned to his eyes and his wife continued unnoticing,

 ‘They have been waiting for you all the evening. Rati has got an A+ in drawing. She was waiting eagerly to show you her trophy.'

 Mohan listened numb.

She chuckled more, ' Rati has prepared a long list, too. She needs some brushes and colours for her drawing classes. Take her to the market on Sunday. Joy is still waiting for his new shoes. Get him a new pair, please.'

While arranging the plates for dinner on the dining table, Amita said all these in one breath. When she was done, she noticed Mohan had not replied anything. She paused and turned to check on him. Water was spilling out of his eyes. One could not say if he really was crying. His eyeballs were thrusting out of their places. His mouth was running like an abnormal person. Amita got scared and ran to him,

 'What happened, Mohan? Are you not feeling well?'

 Mohan was numb, only his eyes spoke. Amita couldn’t understand.

She probed again, 'Mohan, are you okay?'

He rolled his eyes like chanting some spell and grunted,

‘The children? Where are the children?'

 Amita, completely perturbed, replied patently,

‘Where could they be, in the bedroom, asleep! What's the matter?'

Mohan immediately ran towards their bedroom. On reaching the door and seeing the bed, his feet stumbled and he was about to fall when Amita hold him. She helped him to bed and fed a pill kept on the drawer of the side table. He calmed down almost immediately and fell asleep. Amita thought Mohan must be very tired of work as he works really hard in an iron factory. His work was to hit the hot iron constantly to give them shape. The hitting and the heat both had fatigued not only his body but his mind, too. In spite of working inhumanly, he was unable to meet the need of his family and she sometimes taunts him, too, of incapability. Amita left him with the children on bed and sat on a chair in the hall. It was around 3 at night when she closed the main door and went to bed.

Later that night Mohan suddenly woke. He was feeling very uneasy and hot. All what happened previously started coming hovering over his mind and he felt a severe headache. While he was holding his head out of pain, he heard as if his son was saying to his daughter,

'Don't tell mummy anything. We will keep it a secret, okay?'

Rati promised, 'Okay. I won’t tell anybody.'

Mohan sat straight and looked at them only to find them sleeping hard beside his wife on the other side of the bed. He looked at the three in fear for a while and went back to sleep almost sweating.

At morning he rushed to the place where he had dug the graves of his children last night. He forgot to take anything with him and started digging the ground fanatically. He did the digging for almost half of the day but found nothing. Like a mad dog-angry and confused, he rushed back to his house. While crossing the courtyard he noticed the shovel that he had left last night. He took the weapon along and shouted in fury. His wife and children came out. Mohan went straight to the kids and roared,

‘Who are you?’

The kids turned white like ice in fear. They were literally shaking and caught their mother tightly who herself had turned pale seeing the shovel in Mohan's hand. She mustered some courage and moved slowly trying not to catch his attention. Coming close she tried to calm him down by holding his left hand while keeping her eyes on the sharp edge of the shovel on the right. But in a strange pang of fury, Mohan snatched his hand from hers and pushed her hard. The children have started crying loud. The tears and the cries acted as fuels to the fire burning in Mohan's mind. He held the shovel with both his hands and moved towards the children like a wounded bear. His wife crawled fast and tries holding his legs. Mohan stumbled frontward. His hands touched the ground first; with a bang the shovel next and finally his head fell and stuck in one edge of the shovel. His fiery eyes remained wide open. The blood that was boiling inside took a few minutes to come out and spilled all over the place. Mohan's body looked like floating on the rivulet of his own blood.

It is dark but the moonlight is enough to show her way. Amita is walking fast holding the hand of her son. Rati is asleep on her shoulder. She was looking back now and then to make sure no one was after them. At last she reached a house and knocked. A man opened the door and Amita smiled. She blurted gasping some breath,

'We managed to come. That was close enough.’

The man smiled back and let them in. Amita entered the house with her kids. She took her children to a room, lulled them to bed and came back to the hall where the man was sitting. She was about to say something when the clock struck three with three long and noisy bells. They both kept staring at each other and their eyes smiled.

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