She did not fail to notice

Author Introduction:

I am Jayashree Srivatsan a.k.a jaishvats and I blog at http://jaishwrites.blogspot.com

I am an Indian currently residing in Singapore with my husband and my little boy. I have always been passionate about creative writing. I started blogging in 2010. Though it was initially for fun, blogging has now become an integral and serious part of my life. I have made a lot of online friends through this medium and that definitely is a huge motivation factor.I aspire publishing my work of fiction in print someday.

Story

It was close to 3 a.m. Malini was seated on the sofa, her eyes exhausted but vigilant. The living room was dark except for the light from the television that kept spraying a myriad of shades across her face.  The volume had been muted. Her eyes were locked on the television screen; at something that was far beyond. The only sound that perturbed the silence of the hour was the gentle rhythmic sounds from the wall clock as its hands kept chasing one another.

 “I am coming home, Malu”, he had said before hanging up. A tear welled up in her eye, slipped over the rim, slowly trickled down and fell on her shawl. She could not recollect how she had reacted on the phone. Had she responded at all?

Dinesh had been summoned when the war broke out. Three months later, an army officer had rung her up to convey the news most dreaded by every woman who sends her husband to the border. Along with six others , Lt.Dinesh Sharma  had lost his life in an explosion. She had been drowned in grief for the first few weeks. But like so many others like her, she had long before instilled in her own self, a preparedness to face the worst and a readiness to harden her emotions when the need arises. She knew that she had to move on.  At least for Deepak’s sake! He had been eleven then.

Five years had passed. Mourning had transformed to memories, which did tug at her heart but the force had drastically reduced with every passing year.

When she had heard his voice again that morning, it had struck her like a thunderbolt, rocking her in a turbulence of emotions. Emotions she felt anew - Shock, Astonishment, Joy; and those that had rocked her life before – sorrow, grief and frustration! Her palpitations had seemed so loud that she thought her heart was about to burst open. Two days earlier the Indian Army had successfully executed Operation Trident - a mission to secure control of the enemy camp where Indian prisoners of war had been held captive. Some of whom were presumed to be dead like Dinesh.

She got up to drink some water. As she crossed Deepak’s room, she pulled the curtains slightly and peaked inside. Her biggest worry all this while had been about raising her son without the shade of a father. ”I knew it Ma. I knew it that Pa was still alive” he had exclaimed on hearing the good news.  In fact he had stayed awake till almost 1 am. Now, he was in a peaceful slumber on his bed, his hands resting over his eyes. Just the way Dinesh used to sleep, she reminisced. And will sleep, she told herself and an elation filled her entire being. 

In the wee hours of the morning when the sun’s first rays cast an orange hue over the entire place, a green colored army jeep screec hed to a halt outside of their home.

Malini leapt from her seat and ran, almost tripping over the edge of the sofa.

The slumped skinny figure that stood clutching the iron gate was hardly recognizable.  His army uniform hung loosely around his body and his eyes bore into hers from his gaunt face. She rushed into his arms and started wailing loudly. He wrapped his arms around her. Despite the overflowing emotions she did not fail to notice the tremor that was present in his entire being. An incessant shiver! His hug seemed to be like that of a child! A child who had lost its toy!

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 “Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh………. I cannot …I will not…………” Malini woke up with a jolt hearing him scream. Dinesh was rapidly flailing his arms and legs and screaming. He took his fingers to his own face. She could feel his nails digging into his cheeks. He started howling like a man in extreme agony.

She quickly dragged herself over him, forcefully withdrew his hands from his face and gently placed her lips over his. Trying to pacify him without taking her lips away, she slowly ran her fingers through his hair. Dinesh gradually calmed down and his movements and screams subsided. He opened his eyes. Wiping the perspiration from his face, he dragged her closer.

“Want to talk about it?” she gently asked.

“No” he said softly.

He had not spoken a word until now about what had happened to him.  Ever since his return he had been living the life of a recluse, almost like a lifeless robot.  He would diligently do his day to day basic activities and would spend hours seated at one place with his eyes closed. But beneath his eyelids Malini could see his eyes moving rapidly. Left right, left right, reliving horrors she dared not ask him.

The first time he removed his shirt, she had almost screamed out loud seeing his scars. Without speaking anything she had embraced him tightly trying to remove the deeper ones from inside in her warmth. Every time she saw them she choked back tears but she knew that she had to be strong now. To get him back! She did not want to trigger any haunting memories. He was already suffering enough.

Instead she tried to take him out as often as she could and get him to mingle with friends and relatives.  She thought it would help. He hated it though. She could understand. There were a few senseless ones who would poke and prod him. In the name of sympathy they would delve straight into the centre of his wounds and dig them further.

“Prisoner Of War? Oh My God! It must have been horrible!”

“Did you ever think you could escape from there? Thank God!”

She herself was irked when people spoke such things. Even if it was of good will, she felt they were being too callous.

As days sped by, he started getting very irritable. Little things right from the salt and spice in the food would throw him into terrible bouts of anger.  Malini knew it was all nothing compared to his own sufferings and she simply bore in silence. She believed that things would become better if only he would open up but that seemed impossible.

Deepak did not seem to fully understand what his father had undergone and why he was so different from the man who had left them all those years ago.  Initially his joy knew no bounds. Slowly he realized that the man who had returned was not the jovial, fun loving dad he knew. He hardly listened to anything that he had to share and was always lost in a distant world.  Whenever Deepak tried to converse with him, he responded in single words and was extremely cantankerous.

One evening they were seated watching the news. Suddenly Dinesh screamed “Deepak, switch off the TV!”

“Why? What’s wrong?” retorted Deepak.

“I said switch it off now!”

“Come on Papa”

“Switch OFF DEEPAK!” Dinesh threw the glass he was holding which shattered to pieces after knocking off a framed picture from the wall.

Malini bent down to pick it up. It was a photo of the two of them together. Deepak, dressed in his father’s military uniform and hat, was seated on a grinning Dinesh’s lap.

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds.

“Mom, we were better off when we thought he was dead” yelled Deepak.

“Deepu SHUT UP!” cried Malini as he stormed out of the hall.

She was furious with Deepak, about the way he was behaving. Though she had to admit that there were moments when she felt overwhelmed too.

Though she was a post graduate, Malini had happily stayed at home taking care of her child till Dinesh went missing. When a position in the HR department of a relative’s textile company was offered to her, she thought of it as a blessing; a way to make their ends meet. Now it meant a lot more than that. She absolutely loved her job and career had risen to a higher position in her list of priorities.

She had taken a short vacation when he returned and then she had to get back to her job. She now had a bigger family to run anyways. The household work, making sure all Dinesh’s requirements were met, shuttling between home and work, managing Deepak’s needs –  she felt like a juggler trying to balance all that life demanded out of her.

At times she felt that Dinesh was way too insensitive to her. After all, she also had suffered!  “But what to expect from a man who was fighting his own internal demons” she reasoned.

She even tried suggesting that he take up some form of employment or maybe start his own business. He dismissed it off saying that he needed more time.

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Three months had passed after his arrival. One morning Dinesh woke up hearing voices of his wife and son from the kitchen.

“Ma, I want some money”

“I gave you your pocket money yesterday”

“That’s not enough ma. I…I need around 5000 rupees“

“What? 5000? What do you want it for?”

“Ma, I can’t give you reasons for everything! Do you want me to give you an accounts book or something? Stop looking at me like a detective okay! “

“Well, I need to know what you want it for!”

“So you CANNOT give it right?”

“Don’t you dare talk to your mother in that tone young man” Dinesh had to intervene.

“Now I get it. You told her not to, is it? Perfect”

Deepak slammed the kitchen door, took his bicycle out and rode off furiously.

“Its his age.  Very difficult phase!”  Dinesh muttered as he took a bread slice and stuffed into his mouth before walking away.

Malini stared after him unbelievably. It was the first time he had said something like that. It seemed so perfect. For a minute he was like her old Dinesh. “You are coming back Dhinu!” she smiled as her eyes welled up.

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It was around two hours past lunch time when Malini received the phone call. She had never panicked so much, not even when she heard about Dinesh’s explosion.  This time she felt that her world was crumbling and falling.  She somehow managed to compose herself and rushed outside the office.

By the time she reached, Dinesh had already come there. The corridors of Deenanath Hospital were enveloped in the quintessential odours of antiseptic and phenyl. He was seated on a bench outside the ICU, his forehead resting on his hands.

 She ran to where he was seated and flopped next to him panting for breath, her eyes desperately looking for answers.

“He is out of danger” he said in an almost inaudible voice.

She rose and peaked inside through the small transparent opening in the otherwise opaque door. Deepak was unconscious but breathing steady and various monitors were connected to his body.

“Oh Dinesh!  Whats happening ? “, she leaned against his shoulder distressed and exhausted .

A policeman approached them “Excuse me, Mrs and Mr. Sharma”

“Yes?”

“I am Inspector Dutt. I was the one who rang you both”

Dinesh and Malini nodded.

“I am sorry about what happened. He has consumed poison. Apparently the school used to stock some rodent repellents in a shelf within the boys washroom. He seems to have somehow gotten hold of it.”

“Poison?” Malini gasped.

“How has his behaviour been of late? Did you both notice anything unusual?”

“I think I am responsible” Dinesh cried.

“Dinesh! No”, Malini  hastily added.

“I tried talking to some of his friends” the policeman continued. He somehow did not give any significance to Dinesh’s self-blame.“Typical teenage problems, sir!  He has been having some inferiority complex. Has been trying real hard to impress some girl in his class! She apparently was in favour of some of the richer boys. These kids are unbelievable! Must blame the movies they make these days”

“Suicide at this age!” Malini exclaimed.

“I am not surprised , Madam” replied the inspector. “Do you know this is the third such case in our locality in the past six months? Teen suicide attempts are on the rise here. For really silly reasons! Fight with siblings, poor marks! Life is something worthless for these kids. “He paused for a second and continued. “ I have to make a move now. I will ensure that no case is registered, I understand how complicated that can get. Take care”

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The door to the room made a creaking noise as Dinesh gently pushed it open with the edge of the tray he was holding. Two tall glasses filled with freshly made orange juice and a plate of biscuits was neatly arranged on it.

Deepak had propped himself against the bed frame. His gaze was fixed on the branch of the tree outside the window.  There was a bird nest on it and the chicks were a rambunctious lot. The adult birds kept taking turns to come and feed them. After four days at the hospital he had been discharged. Like so many others attempting to take their own lives, his decision had been so momentary and impulsive. Now his every gesture indicated extreme regret. Both Malini and Dinesh knew it would be terribly incorrect and foolish to chastise him now.

Malini who had dozed off by his bedside woke up with a start on hearing the noise of the door. Her stress seemed to have gone past her threshold; At least that’s what the blank expression that her face bore, conveyed.

Dinesh handed each of them a glass and sat down near Deepak on the edge of the bed. He took a magazine that was lying on the bedside table and slowly flipped the pages.

He felt his son’s grip on his shoulders. “I am so sorry Pa”. Dinesh gave him a prolonged understanding look and brushed the hair that was falling on his forehead.

“I was stationed in Assam when you were born. The thought of not being near your mother at that critical hour was the worst feeling I have had all my life. And do you know what the best one is? What I experience when I held you for the first time! No,Not you, actually, a photo of you. All, tender wrapped in a blue blanket! She had sent it to me. The feeling that I had when I held that photograph is the best one I have had so far”.

A brief silence followed.

“When men realize that somebody else is at their mercy, they unleash the beasts in them and can go to any extremes. That’s what I realized in all those years of captivity. They derive sheer senseless pleasure in imposing their power on someone totally defenseless.  You have no idea how much misery I had to undergo in that camp.  Beatings, burnings, starvation, sexual harassment, humiliation, name it and it was all there. There was not one day when I did not contemplate taking my own life. “

Malini rose from her seat and came and stood behind him clutching his shoulder.

He gave her a brief look and continued. “Do you know what kept me from doing so? You. Both of you! Something inside of me kept screaming that at me asking me not to sabotage the chances of being with you some day.”

Deepak burst into tears and hugged him tightly.

There was quietness again for some time.

Dinesh heaved a huge sigh.“Dinakar! His name was Dinakar Patel. He was around ten years older than you. We were in the same cell. They used to give him some intravenous injections that plunged him into extreme agony. One night he fell at my feet pleading with me…pleading with…” Dinesh could not continue.

 He took a deep breath. “He could not handle it anymore. He wanted me to take his life and relieve him of it all. ”

Malini and Deepak stared at him in disbelief and horror.

“We had been each other’s only company for a very long time. I…..I could not see him suffer. I did what he wanted. I wrung his neck one night and he was finally at peace. Was it an impulsive act? I don’t know. An army man is supposed to be brave and rigid. Why did I do it? I don’t know. At that moment I was only helping him, doing a favour and I have no clue where it stands in the laws of righteousness. All I know is that the torture is on, every second, every minute!” He said those words in a dangerously calm tone.

Malini cupped his face in her hands and looked straight into his eyes. “Dhinu….” .

“This is it Malu, this is what is killing me!” Dinesh exclaimed and broke down sobbing uncontrollably.

Nobody was aware how long they stood like that-Malini and Dinesh holding Dinesh tightly in their grips trying to get all the pain out. Finally he lifted his head, extended his arms and pulled them both in a tight embrace.

Despite the overflowing emotions she did not fail to notice that there was no tremor in him. No incessant shiver! His hug seemed to be like that of a child! A child who had found its toy!