Rebirth

[An attempt at a short story. Which you see, eventually didn't turn out to be all that short ! Not even sure if its interesting enough to keep you on, till the end. Give it a try, nonetheless.]

"Raghav. Raaaaaaghav !", yelled his mother from the kitchen in the ground floor. In his room on the first floor, totally engrossed in giving the final touches to his latest painting, Raghav did not lend an ear. After a couple of failed attempts to gather any response from her son, Lalita limped into his room cursing her arthritis problem, which had affected her life very badly of late. As she entered his room, she saw on the canvas, an explosion of hues of different shades and intensities. She stood there for a couple of minutes trying to garner what her son had just created. Raghav, though, was oblivious of someone’s presence in the room and went about his task rather absent-minded. Having failed to fathom what the painting was all about, she asked him, "I have never been able to understand your paintings". At this moment, Raghav suddenly turned around, as if he was jolted from a deep sleep. Lalita continued, "Really, tell me what is it on your mind, that you paint these? What’s wrong with you? Will you tell me what’s that supposed to mean?".”That’s left to your imagination, maa", he replied callously, wiping his hands clean that were soaked with colors. "Ah! Abstract art, you say? An “intellectual painter”, are you?” the sarcasm was evident. “Now come down for lunch. And you better respond to me the next time onwards. I cannot keep climbing the stairs every single time, just to call you".

As Lalita was coming down, she saw Ram, her younger son climbing upstairs. Raghav, it seemed like, was staring into nothingness, as Ram entered his brother’s room. Ram turned around and glanced at the canvas. It was a painting of stark contrasts. On the left hand side of the canvas, he saw the face of a beautiful woman. She had expressive eyes, with long flowing hair. The background too had everything positive about it. A glowing sun, lots of colorful flowers, children playing around cheerfully. On the contrary, the right side of the canvas portrayed exactly the opposite. An old woman, who seemed like a nonagenarian, complemented the beautiful woman, completing her other half of the body. There were dark clouds all around. On one corner, a volcano was erupting, threatening to vaporize everything that came in its course. Ram just stood there, trying to decipher the painting. He went closer to Raghav, who still looked like he was not in this world. Ram put his arms around his brother’s shoulders. Neither said anything.

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon. Raghav, along with his parents and brother, was having lunch at “Annapoorna”, a nearby restaurant that the family used to frequent. Mr.Shastri’s cell phone started buzzing midway through the lunch course, playing out the gayatri mantra as its ring tone. He looked rather concerned as he was speaking, and did so, mostly in monotones. "Yes. I will be there in 30 minutes". Everyone had stopped eating by now, and was a little anxious. "My colleague, Satyanarayana, who recently underwent angioplasty, expired an hour ago. I can no longer eat. Lalita, you go home along with Ram. Me and Raghav will proceed to the hospital", said a rather pale looking Mr.Shastri. They reached the hospital, believed to be one of the best for treating cardiac problems, in less than twenty minutes. The hospital authorities were packing the body to be handed over to the family of Satyanarayana. Raghav stood outside the ward, along with many other people who had gathered by now on hearing the news. Soon, Savitri, Satyanarayana’s wife came out of the ward, supported by her sons Mani and Subbu. She was inconsolable, as she headed towards the car. Raghav was watching all this, as a strange and uncomfortable feeling started to engulf him. Meanwhile, an ambulance was ready in the basement to take the body home. The body was completely wrapped in white, from head to toe. Raghav also lent a hand in shifting it into the ambulance. "Please be careful, not to hurt him" pleaded Mani, the elder son, as his father’s body was being put into the ambulance.

By the time Raghav and Mr.Shastri reached Satyanarayana’s home, the body was already placed in the hall, with Savitri sitting right next to it. "Why did you do this to me? Why have you deserted me like this?" sobbed, a totally drained Savitri, as those around her, tried to console her. Raghav stood in one corner of the hall witnessing all that was happening. The last time he had seen death was that of his paternal grandfather, more than sixteen years ago, when Raghav was all of eight. "Please light a lamp there, and keep it burning for the next ten days”, the priest who came in to do the rituals, was telling one of the relatives. Mani and Subbu now entered the hall after the customary ablutions. “Now repeat what I say, and please try to do so without crying”, the priest requested them. He recited a few Sanskrit shlokas that Mani and Subbu repeated. Subbu looked weaker of the two, as he could not hold back his tears every time he saw his father. Mani managed to put a brave face, but his voice trembled every time he spoke. Raghav now stood there with moist eyes and a lump in his throat. He saw the faces of all his loved ones, their bodies wrapped in a white cloth, lying there, lifeless. Mr.Shastri, Lalita, Ram, and then Raghav himself. The eternal truth of life, he felt, was death. Everything else pales in comparison. Nothing probably, is as permanent and as invincible. As Raghav was getting more and more poignant with his hallucinations, the priest completed all the rituals. The body was now to be taken to the Shantinagar crematorium for the cremation. Raghav saw someone whispering something into Mr.Shastri's ears. "Raghav, as per Hindu customs, a brahmin should not enter a crematorium while both of his parents are alive. So you take a rickshaw home, while I go along", spoke a visibly upset Mr.Shastri.

Raghav was no longer himself, after this incident. For the next few days, all his actions were only mechanical. He seemed lost somewhere. Death, they say, can bring about smasHaaNa vairagya- a temporary sense of worldly detachment, following the demise of a loved one. What Raghav was going through, though, was something deeper than that. His very core seemed to have transformed. All his insecurities, his fears, his pain, no longer seemed significant. He seemed to have transcended all these, and yearned for something more. Seemingly, the awareness had begun to set in.

It was a new moon night. Raghav was on his terrace, staring into the dark sky. A few clouds present, had even masked the sparse but twinkling stars, suggesting that the entire earth was wrapped within a huge black blanket. As he stood there watching, unknown to him, a sense of calm descended upon him, and his lips played host to an enigmatic smile - one, which probably even he couldn't understand. With his new found peace, he came down into his room. Clipped a spotless white canvas on to the board, and held the paint brush in his hand for one last time. He was just about to paint his final sketch.

It was half past seven in the morning. “Raaaaaaghav!” Lalita's voice disturbed the unusual silence in the house that day. There was no response, as was the routine these days. "Ram, just call that brother of yours, for breakfast". Ram, having just woken up and all groggy, entered Raghav's room. His brother was not to be seen. Ram looked around everywhere, from the terrace to the backyard. But saw no signs of Raghav. He came back to his brother's room, to check for one more time. What looked like a new painting, now caught his alert eye. He came closer to the canvas and started studying it. He could hear M.S Subbalakshmi’s rendition of the Vishnu sahasranamam start playing downstairs. After a few minutes, he spoke, "Ma, appa, can you please come here to Raghav's room?" Holding the day's newspaper in one hand and a cup of half finished filter-coffee in the other, Mr.Shastri came in, slowly followed by his wife. Both stared at the canvas for sometime, and as was the case with them always, were unable to understand what was painted there. "What's this Ram? Where is Raghav?" Lalita, with a hint of nervousness in her voice, broke the extended silence in the room. Ram handed over a piece of paper he had found clipped to the canvas, to Mr.Shastri. "Why don't you answer me?" Lalita was demanding Ram. "Dear Ma, Appa and Ram", it was Mr.Shastri's voice now, as he began reading from the piece of paper. "I have a confession to make. I've never led the life you have wanted me to. I've never been the ambitious kind, the one to go after success. I've always felt I probably never belonged to this place, to this world. I was not meant to lead a "normal" life. "Normal" as in, getting a decent job, getting married, having kids and you know, so on. At the same time, all these years, I didn't know what it was meant to be, either. For all I knew, there was a sense of hollowness within me that refused to get filled with anything I tried. It was a vortex that was sucking me into its abysmal depths. But now, I think I know what it is all about. I've realized that, this sense of void I possess is because I know very little about myself. I've been a stranger to myself all along. I've even tried to let go of these feelings and behave normal, many a time. But isn't, the very idea of letting go of a thing, also holding on to something? After much deliberation, I've decided to go on a journey of self-discovery. Don’t get me wrong. I seek no god, nor nirvana. To me, these are only terms that have no universal meaning; expressions, which each one must define for oneself. And, I choose not to define them. For presently, my ignorance is about something far more pertinent and important – my own self. And so, I am on a quest to understand it better; without any prejudice, any bias". shantakaram bhujaga shayanam padmanabham suresham, vishwadharam gagana sadrusham megha varnam shubangam... the CD player could be heard rendering now. "For this, I seek solitude. I don't know where I am off to, and for how long. I know I've failed in my duties as a son and a brother, and apologize for the same. Ram, please take care of appa and ma. Ironically, it was the death of Mr.Satyanarayana that brought about these changes in me. It was a death, which gave me a new life, a new purpose. It paved ways for me to look at life, in manners that I had never done before. In essence, it was my rebirth. With sincere apologies...” The letter, at the end, bore Raghav's trademark signature, which he also used to sign off his paintings.

Mr.Shastri finished the reading, with his hands trembling. More so, it seemed like it was his heart that was trembling. He stood motionless, unable to hold those tiny droplets of water that managed to trickle down his cheeks. Lalita wore a stunned expression on her face. Ram looked like he had resigned to the fact. As though, he saw all of this coming, in Raghav's earlier paintings. The three of them, then looked towards the canvas again. Suddenly, all of it made sense - the silhouette of a man ascending a funeral pyre at one end, and an infant crawling out of it, at the other.