The White Light Calling - 9
Episode: 9
Part 1:
The sun himself didn’t want to see them get separated, for he hurried behind a huge fluff of a cloud.
“Oh Chemba please be safe” Madhan muttered to himself and focused his eyes on the fast fading white spot- that was chemba running.
He knew he had to move fast and he did just that. He could see her form now, whether she was closer now or just slowing down he didn’t know. In a flash she was gone. She seemed to have vanished into thin air. Madhan stopped and looked in all directions. She really was gone.
Madhan’s heart was beating wildly and it threatened that it would stop beating any time sooner. This was new. This feeling was totally new to him.
He was born in a barn of a Native American farm, his granny’s farm. He was brought up as a rugged kid, doing all chores at the farm and learning the traditional values by practice and in the hard way, from both Indian origins.
He was a good sports man (even a swords man in his Cambridge days) a hunts man and an adventure lover. He had seen more dangerous situations than this one.
Didn’t he even escape from a wild boar once, when he was in the woods alone?- and oh! that was when he was fifteen or so. This trip was just a piece of cake for him, at least that was what he had thought until a moment ago.
He was quite sure that all was going to end well or he will find a way to do so.
But, when the moment he lost Chemba, he felt total emptiness coming back at him. Everything stood still, even his heart. A vacuum slowly developed inside him as though he had lost his soul itself.
“Oh! Granny! You must have been a pathetically romantic person. How could one fall in love in just a day?”
“It was not a love at first sight my dear. It was a love that was predetermined. When I saw him first, I felt like I had seen him for years in my life. I felt already like his wife. May be we were a couple in our previous lives and didn’t get enough of it” she let out a warm laugh.
“Love from last birth? Oh please! Gimme a break! But grandpa must have been a real lucky guy or a really hot guy” he winked at her.
His granny laughed at it and said, “Both my dear, he was both. The moment I saw him in his loose pants and stuffy shirt and a very cozy smile, looking hot and soft at the same time, I fell head over heels in love with him and felt as if I had known him forever.”
“you guys dated?”
“Oh that was not called like that back in those days. But we did meet on several occasions, secretly.”
“Cool.. what would you both do? Sing songs like in Indian movies?”
“We just sat there, looking at each other. That was enough for both of us.”
“Oh come on, I am old enough to know stuff. You didn’t keep staring at each other all those years. Well, at least some fights? Didn’t you guys ever have fights and misunderstandings?, I mean you both belonged to very different lifestyles.”
“Surprisingly not, my boy. Though my Mom was English, my dad had wanted to raise me as a true Indian and so the east Indian ways were not so different as one might imagine, although there were few. But those were negligible in front of our love.”
“So how did you both communicate? Who learned language first?”
“It was him. But we never needed language to communicate. A look and a smile was more than enough for us. Take it from me my dear boy. One day you will understand how it is to love someone, and to wake up every day with a feeling that you have found a place in this big earth to call it your home and a soul to call it your love.”
“mm.. yeah I might. Did you feel bad when you left him first?”
“Oh! yeah! That was when I felt the power of the love I had for him. It was like, my heart was being torn into two little pieces. It pained me miserably and I couldn’t bear the thought that I was gonna live without him. I was like “what the hell am I doing leaving him?”. I just wanted to jump out of the train and run into his hands.”
“So, what did you do?”
“I just did that” she laughed. He had laughed that day disbelievingly.
When he first saw Chemba he somewhat understood what his granny must have felt the very first day. But his scientist brain objected to it and asked him to know more and talk more. It argued that it was just a chemistry, a hormonal effect.
But right at this moment, even if it was for a very short time, he understood perfectly well what his granny must have felt that day in the train, may be worse than her.
“What what? Where has she gone?” Smitha asked breathlessly.
“In a moment. We will find her in a moment (or I will die).” He said and scrutinized the scene in front of him. His heart pounded like a hundred mustangs running at the same time. He sharpened his vision and screened the view in front.
“There..” he started running with smitha tagging behind. “where?”she asked doubtfully, but soon shut her mouth.
In a distance they could see a sudden fall in the ground. A very shallow trough filled with murky water and huge tree stood near it. Chemba was kneeling down, looking into something. She was bending down showing her back to them. When they neared her, she heard the sound of rustling leaves and turned towards them.
“There. I told you. You people didn’t believe me. See?”she motioned them towards her.
Smitha and Madhan were shocked at what lay in front of them..
Oviya was lying motionless in front of the dark pit. Chemba sat there wiping off her friend’s face with her hand and was looking for wounds she might have got while running here.
“How did you ..how did you know she was here?”Smitha was still shaken.
“I didn’t know. I really didn’t except that.. I told you about that man in orange. He called me here right? From the beginning, Something like a strong force was pulling me here. First to the stream and from there that man who called me here. When I got here I couldn't find him anywhere, but instead I saw her. “
“She is unconscious. Madhan, can you see what happened to her?”
“what man?” Smitha still looked at Chemba doubtfully. But Madhan had returned to his world.
“Oh I would happily” he said and squatted near her. He really was happy.
Seeing Chemba made him realize and question himself how he had lived without her until this date. He smiled unknowingly.
“What are you smiling for?” Chemba frowned.
“I will tell you some other time, not now.” he said and continued to inspect Oviya.
“And while you are at it, please tell me what could have caused this hallucinations in these people.” she said and pulled out the water bottle from his bag and was about to drink when he snatched it from her.
“What? I am thirsty. You don’t want to share even your bottle with me?” She was furious.
“Oh ! I am ready to share my entire life with you my dear, but not this. If you are not already hallucinating, you will if you drink from this.”
“What?”
“Yeah. It’s the water from that pond.”
“How did..you..was that pond poisoned? And how did you know that? Why didn’t you tell us earlier.?”
“I would have if I had known it earlier. I am not sure even now. But I guess it’s the water that caused the hallucinations. Remember Oviya fell into the pond and when I asked you about it later, you said that she drank that water. Then I remembered vikki drinking from that pond too. When Vikki too started to act weird I suspected that something could have been wrong with the water. I knew Vangs and shekar didn’t drink and I didn’t either. But I didn’t know about you.” he turned towards Smitha.
“No. I didn’t. Even Chemba didn’t drink the pond water” she was still doubtful.
“yeah. I didn’t. So what?” Chemba asked.
“Oh but you did Chemba. You did drink” he said.
“No I didn’t.”
“You drank from vikki’s bottle when we were searching for oviya, because you didn’t have water in yours. I saw it. And vikki took water from the pond. “
“oh lord” smitha cupped her mouth and cried.
“please, stop it smiths. I am not hallucinating right now. If that’s what you are worried about . And even if I did, it was for good that at least I found Oviya.”
Smitha still looked fearful.
