Un Omicidio.

Click here to read the third episode. 


04. Tejasvi…!



All Antonio thought throughout was proved to be wrong.  When he saw the face in real close, it was a man he used to see everyday and he knew him, or he thought he did. But the face seems to have an unusual thing, it had a killing grudge attached to it. For some reason Antonio thought he might have had a chance to get out of all this without anyone getting killed or getting fatally injured. It’s a clear misunderstanding that’s what it is. This man doesn’t even cast out a curse to anyone, let alone killing.
 The man with the knife in front of him had his ID card peeking out of his shirt pocket. The name there read Shyam Gopalnath in bold letters. And the closer Antonio went, more baffling things went on to be. Shyam Gopalnath’s eyes were closed!
                                                                    ****
It took me about three days to come out of everything and reach a normal state, to go to office, to sit in the bus back to home and to get into her arms like the way I do every day, in a peaceful way. It was rather a compulsion to come out of that shock as it was the 20th birthday of our kid Tejasvi. Malvika, I know, had great plans for the day. She wouldn’t go to the office, she will spend the day decorating his room. She will get all those toys he played with while growing up, the toys he never played with, out of the cupboard and scatter it all along the bed, even though it’s quite obvious he wouldn’t want to play with them anymore.
I can hardly contain myself whole day today. I want to be at home with her for this day, same as every year. But something important had come up and I couldn’t say no to a warm and pleading voice of my manager who called in the morning. I had come to the office and struggled to complete the work as soon as I could. It was however 12.30 in the afternoon, when I could rush out of the office and hire a cab home. I know she will be tiptoeing by now, running all over to get things arranged and decorated.
She had that usual warm smile on her face when she held the door open to me, the kind of smile that leads me to believe everything is normal and peaceful. She was dressed in her best and there is hardly anything prettier than her on the planet! I could see my dress neatly pressed and placed on the sofa. She rushed me to have a bath and by the time I got out I could see the small tricycle that Tejasvi never used once in life, placed in the center of the hall and on top of it was a cake with 20 candles glowing on it.  A tripod grimly held an enlarged photo of Tejasvi, the only photo that we ever took. He was only a baby boy, perhaps two days old when this photo was taken. A large garland of flowers placed which covered all most whole length of the photo. Tejasvi never actually lived with us to celebrate even a single birthday. It’s been twenty long years and I could still see the tears rolling down Malvika’s eyes. Some scars hardly heal, even at the hands of time.
 “Tejasvi, beloved son of Shyam Gopalnath and Malvika Shyam rests in heaven” said a small carving in the board below his photo. And next to it were the photos of Malvika’s dad and my parents, smiling warmly to the camera, also engulfed in thick garlands of flowers.
                                                                             *******
The old man now could see the board hung loose clearly and he was somehow relieved. A part of his mind never thought that he would never make this far, sitting there on the bench, he as though for the final time got the photo out of his coat. The kid in that photo was charming, at least it appeared so when it was taken. It was a bright sunny afternoon when the photo was clicked. The kid’s birthday, well, technically the day the old man found him, so he had come early to the home and the kid was elated with sheer joy. The kid, whom the old man had named as Mark, was getting better of a human being day by day.
You could sit next to Mark and not be bored for hours. He had one of those intense brown eyes, which would connect to the souls of the person he engaged conversation with. Mark’s presence always meant that the environment had a thing of joy and celebration to it. Perhaps he was everything that the old man could not be in terms of charm and wit, in terms of empathy and kindness. Sometimes when people put their everything into something, that something becomes larger than they are, that ‘something’ defines what they are and what the better part of their characters are. The old man essentially had put everything he had in raising the kid.
It was a big book of photos; Mark’s photos right from the day old man met him, the gift that Mark got for his fifteenth birthday. ‘Gods were chitchatting on a bright sunny morning when they laid eyes on my miserable life. And you were there, roaming around in the streets of heaven. The gods thought it’s a good idea to send you down to lift me out of misery, and they were right for once in my life. You came and my life blossomed in ecstasy.”… the old man would say whenever Mark asked how he ended up in his home.
“Thank you man!” Mark patted on the shoulder of the old man, a boyish grin on his face.
“You are all grown up now, almost a man!” Heavy and dark voice, the old man seemed less old.
“Yeah, Not as ancient as you are though!” The kid had this thing about him, pulling the old man’s leg as and when he wanted to. And the old man never minded, though he would go on chasing the kids playing in the streets for the mere reason that they tried to mimic his gait awkwardly.
“You know you are special right!”
“Oh! I know, now please don’t start those stories of gods chitchatting and banishing me from the heaven, please!” Mark hung on to the old man’s shoulder loosely from sideways. A smile on the old man’s face and it exposed all, all the satisfaction he had about life. An expression filled his face, which would resemble a man, who had lived his life the way he had wanted to.
And then the photo was clicked. With Mark being unable to control his grin while shuffling through the book he had just got as gift, old man had clicked it. Light was warm and cozy. It spoke of the day it was taken every time you look at it. It was complete and amiable, triggering the emotions of the day.
Old man shook his body trying to get out of the cloud of memories from the past. He shuddered and resumed his walk towards the Antonio shop. From this distance he could see the shadows of two men in the shop. Quite common at this hour, people who are buying drugs would hang around. But it was something else. The two shadows seemed to be in a state of agitation, one was sitting and the other who appeared like Antonio stood next to him, essentially trying to explain the other bloke something.
Some distance less and now the old man clearly could see the face of the other man. He felt as though a part of him was sucked out of breath. He felt somehow that Mark even though dead for two years now was snatched from him again. He could see Shyam in distance, who was stroking his head in disbelief. The old man was looking at him after twenty long years, and by the look of the two chaps in the shop he knew something was wrong and somehow he felt the need to scream out loud as if it would avoid the inevitable.
“I didn’t snatch Mark from anyone!”
***
It was a terrorist attack on the hospital when Tejasvi was born. Everything went haywire and by the time the dust settled down, all we ever held close to us were gone. Malvika’s dad was sleeping outside in the corridor. He had refused to leave her even for a second and was killed. He was shot right at his head and had this dreadful expression on his face.
My parents were shot at the doors of the room and poor thing Malvika had hidden herself inside the closets. She was utterly shocked by the time I reached the hospital. Blood everywhere, people crying and dreams lay shattered on the floor everywhere. Terrorists, while they kill people, make sure that the people whom the dead leave behind also suffer for the rest of their life. Huge processions followed, world leaders condemned and it turned out they had killed around fifty altogether. Nothing that the world did or said created any difference. The pain was just too much to get over with.
Tejasvi, whom we named after he was dead, was never found. All they could give us were parts of his body which they deemed to be his. His death created a hole so black and empty that we could not even think of moving on. A few hours of atrocity from them and the world was such a terrible thing to live in.
Apparently Tejasvi was in an incubator since he was yet to get settled into the environment. He never got settled. Or at least that’s what we thought till that shocking thing I encountered with, happened. Tejasvi did live and was there somewhere while we were mourning his death year by year.
                                                                                                                     
                           

Un Omicidio

03. The Old Man…!

It’s a big abandoned building. Somehow it has been left in the early stages of construction, like a painting never finished. Far from the city, it is covered with thick greenish bushes on all the sides.  It has three floors, including an open terrace. You can see the surroundings, standing on the terrace, nothing but a wide outstretched field of bushes. It takes people, at least thirty minutes to reach here from the main road, in any forms of transportation, not that people would want to come here. This place is unattractive, only characters like him would stay there.

He rests with his eyes half open, staring at the horizon, the sun settling for the day. There’s not much of the furniture except an old wooden bench and a cot with some torn cloth on it. He sits with a divine calmness, a sense of realization dancing on his face, which only comes when you have enough number against your age column. Some unknown animal, perhaps a wolf howling in the distance, the wind blowing through the field, night crawling through the entire sky and land, but still it’s all silent. He hardly changes his position and keeps staring. And then came the rain and the mud which was dried up in the day is all wet with water, giving the air fragrance. The old man seems to smile now.

In the muddy hump near to him in the vicinity of his gaze is an old photograph. Its edges are torn out and unless you have seen the picture back in the days it was in its good conditions, there is no way you could identify the person in it. As the rain intensifies old man takes the photo into his hands and he rubs it against his old coat, his expressions relaxing now that the photo was nearer to him. A lightning struck somewhere nearer to the old building he was in and the night had a thing about it. One of those nights in which, if you feel the air around you, you know something is going to happen.

                                                             ***

It was late in the morning next day when I woke up and it turned out I had severe fever. The doctor who lives next door had come in his night pajamas and was sitting at the edge of the bed and Malvika stood looking at me in horror. I had passed out last night and it was in the night that Malvika had realized that I was not asleep, it was unconsciousness. She then ran to the next door and the doctor had come last night also. Once I woke up the doctor spoke first.

“Hey! Boy, wake up. We have been starting to think you are dead”.  The doc had this kind of smooth and warm way every doctor has. I wonder how he says ‘I love you’ to his wife. Wouldn’t she feel she’s been treated like one of his patients, if he uses this tone! I couldn’t think much about it since the moment doc finished Malvika was all over me, hugging.

“Malvika, you might want to slow down a bit, lest he will go into hibernation again” The doc winked at me while speaking to Malvika.

“Oh! Am sorry.” She separated from me and sat near me with her hand resting on my chest tangled in my hand.

“Speak to me doc” I uttered my first word after last night. My mouth tasted bad and I utterly felt like brushing my teeth.

“Well, you fainted yesterday, nothing to worry about although. We will just increase the dosage of medication you have been receiving for your condition.” The moment he said ‘my condition’, I sort of drifted backwards. The faint smile on my face vanished and maybe because of the drugs that I was given, I had forgotten what had happened yesterday. Malvika could make out the difference in my face and she spoke.

“I will walk you out doc then, you must be getting late for your day”

“Oh! Yeah, sweetheart.  I should be get going now. Will come and see you in the evening champ” he patted on my knees and walked out with Malvika.

When she came back, she hurried towards me and placed her cold hands on my forehead.

“Are you alright? I must have never told you that you walked out that day, oops! Why am I telling again, am so stupid” and she did that thing with her nose, tilting it little downwards. Oh! I am so lucky, of all the people she could have married, she decided she will end up being caught in my life for the rest of her life. Amidst all those confusion and pain, I wanted to kiss her nose, tell her how much I owe her for being in my life. Instead, it was something else that came out when I opened my mouth. As I do always I surprised Malvika and myself in the process. She hugged me tighter and I could tell she was petrified from her way of breathing.

“I didn’t kill anyone!”

                                                         ***

 The old man stretched his muscles, in attempt to refill strength, well,whatever was left of it. He will walk till town now. His eyes lit with perfect glow, he walks till the end of the bushes and start of the town. Its 12 o clock in the night now, that’s what the old clock above the humungous building in the town, has to say. He walked till that street. He was shaky, but it was as though some purpose was holding him up. He certainly looked like a man under inspiration and purpose. As though to regain his breath, he stopped and sat on the old stone bench in the footpath adjacent to the big road which had spread across the streets.

He was muttering something under his breath, only if you stood close to him you would get to know it was “Revenge…!”  He had the photo out in his hand now, but put it back since he feared the rain would destroy it. It was the photo of a boy, all his life he never thought any good about anybody around him, but this kid was an exception.

He was one lost kid when he was young, homeless, orphan. He had lost hope in everything and as a last resort he had joined the army. He thought it would help him cease his loneliness. He thought out there in the army everything was justifiable and he would find a solution for everything. He would get to know why he had lost everything in his life. A kid he was and he somehow believed in this theory. Although he didn’t find any answers in the army for his confusions, he had spent his life in peace. He had been part of a few major wars that his country had fought and he thought he’d finally reached the stage of calmness in his life.  But once he was out of the army due to his age, he reached the stage where he had left his life when he joined the army. It was then that he found the kid. Covered in some cheap sheath, the kid was smiling at him when found it stuffed in some corner of a random street that he had no idea about. He at first ignored the kid and went back to his business of wandering and looking for the places where he can get free food. But somehow he came back, took the kid and went on. The boy gave him purpose in his life, something he never had in entire life.

The old man raised a fine young man out of that kid. He would work for daily wages and get money for the kid. The kid never disappointed the old man. He was one last hope for the old man and as though someone above in heaven nodded and sent the kid down, he was one true angel for the old man.

As the cliché goes, good things never last forever. Everything was fine until the kid joined high school, when everything seemed to fade away. At first the old man didn’t know what was wrong with the kid. Finally, he came to know that the kid has been on drugs and as all the other things in life, it was too late when the old man realized that the kid was no longer the boy he raised. He had lost the kid and he was left with nothing. 

When the old man was sitting on the stone bench, he remembered all these things again, as though he was getting ready for a battle. From the corner of his eyes, he could see “Antonio’s Shop” written on an old sheet and hung as a board.