by Sanchit Garg
He didn't ask anything after this. I believe he felt that I had my doubts on him about Vijay, that there was something he didn't tell us.
After half an hour or so, I sat next to my father on the ground. My mother, with the help of Mohan, had dressed father in white kurta and dhoti. The ladies surrounded my mother as if they thought they needed to console her, but all they were doing was to make her uncomfortable. Though mother had been happy yesterday, I could see little tears rolling down from her eyes and everyone else was looking at her with strange eyes, like why isn’t she mourning. She should be crying 24*7. As these people can never be sad or happy with anyone else’s life. My eyes were heartfelt too, but what could I do, there wasn’t enough for me to do anyway.
After some time, I stood up, asked Mohan, Sudhir and Jagdish Bhaiya to accompany me to lift father and place him on a stretcher made of wood, so we could take him to the intended place where we could put him to rest and burn his body. We took father’s arthi to the shamshan area and me, being the elder son, had to take the tough initiative to put his body to flames. He just burned lifelessly, like he didn’t even matter. Just what is death?
People are born, people die, in between they live a life that doesn’t matter anymore, other people are left with their memories, sometimes nothing too and those just fade away little by little into the abyss.
We collected the ashes after he was burned so that we could wash them in a flowing river later on. Later, everyone just walked back to their homes. One or two people who were still left, accompanied us to our house and then they too walked away.
No one could lessen our pain, the more anyone tried to console us, the more it hurt.
A week passed, then two and a month finally, but it felt like my mother’s smile was just fading away because my father never came to take her. It felt like she was eventually finding out the truth that it was just a dream, and in reality, he was long gone. I wanted to blame myself for everything, but in fact, she was the best mother I could have asked for. I knew that she had made a lot of sacrifices to make sure that the three of us, me, Mohan and Purnima had a good life and we did until I just went ahead and ruined it all.
Purnima was coming too often hoping she could lessen the pain and be with familiar faces, at least what was left of them, but one day I told her not to, I told her to focus on her child and be happy with whatever she had in life. By this time, she was already pregnant with another child, and though my mother had told me to ask her to adopt the child, I just couldn’t. My future was clouded, and there was nothing I could have hoped to gain much. I wasn’t even sure if living with me was safe anymore.
Another month passed, and my mother was becoming more and more miserable. She had already stopped praying. Most of the days, she would just stay in her room, on the bed or would just keep still, as if thinking or dreaming something. She would come out of her room only for freshening up or for food, as and when Nandana called her. At times, Nandana or I would go to her room to stand there for some time, even try to talk to her or hope that she would talk back, but she didn’t.
There was this sadness on her face, inside her heart that was ripping herself away. Like a termite eating her from the inside, knowing that she had to live alone for the rest of her life as her faith in my father was fading away. Other times, she would get angry, not eat anything at all and then, we had to try hard to get her to eat or at least drink something. I could feel that things were about to turn much worse as time passed.
Mohan and I continued at work, though we knew how much we missed our father and how hard it was without him. He was part of our support system, both at home and at work. He was a person who always spoke his mind even if it felt that he was bound to hurt someone else by the truth, but he still did it. I never had this quality, and it was something that I loved and admired him for. Not everyone has the guts to say harsh words. It’s like never keeping anything in your heart, let all emotions come out in that instant. But for me, it’s like one day, my heart and my mind would burst from these dreams and thoughts, and I just wouldn’t be able to do anything, anything at all.
Purnima would come and sit beside mother, hoping that she could console her somehow, but she couldn’t. As there was no one at her home to take care of her son, she would bring him too, but he would just rush to Nandana, and she would play with him and show that she was laughing. But I knew that deep within, she was only pretending to be. I felt horrible at these moments because when he would go away, she turned back to being sad. She must have felt a pain, a longing that was hurtful.
Sometimes, it may be that she doesn’t feel anything like that, and it is just my mind making these thoughts up to give it a meaning, but her eyes and her face, they didn’t lie or do they do that too?
I just don’t know. At times, I just don't realise what I want to do and is what I am doing going to help me or turn me much worse. Most of the times, I am just outraged and want to take this anger out somehow. Like a defence mechanism to cope up with the pain, but I don't know how to do that.
A week later, before going to work, Mohan walked up to me.
“Brother! I am not feeling well today.”
“Okay! Take a rest for the day. I would handle it somehow.”
Without thinking about anything else, I went to work. It was a stressful day for me, working alone when it was already hard without our father.
Nandana, Mother, and Mohan were left at home.
I didn’t get any weird recurring dreams, they had more or less stopped the moment Purnima’s child was born. Sometimes, I would get them in a blue moon, but not that frequently.
After work, I came back home at around 6 in the evening, an hour later than usual, totally stressed out and about to fall off at any moment. I knocked on the front door, but it was already open. I pushed the door and walked through the gallery towards the hall. It was partly dark inside, but somehow I could make of my surroundings. I headed straightaway for the drawing-room. As I was about to enter it, my foot hit on something. I instantly looked down to check what it was, only to find my mother on the floor with her eyes open and her back halfway touching the wall and halfway touching the floor, bent in a C shape.
I was startled, “What happened, Mother?”
She didn’t reply.
I shook her this time, “What happened, Mother?”
She didn’t reply or say anything and was about to cry. I looked around for any signs of Nandana, but it felt like she wasn’t here. I was about to call for Mohan when I saw him slowly walking out from the kitchen towards his room. I knew something was amiss with my mother.
I yelled, “Mohan! Come here, quick!”
I sat down on my knees and took mother in my arms, but she just wept. She wasn’t speaking, nor was she moving her hands or feet.
“What happened, brother? Why were you calling me? What is mother doing lying on the floor?”
“Do you know anything about what happened to her? And where is Nandana?”
He gave a side glance, “No, I don’t. Last I knew she was in her room. Bhabhi went to Sister’s house. But I don’t know anything else.”
He didn’t like mother much with how much attention she gave to me. It was like no one loved him enough. So, he just didn’t care much about anyone else.
Then the thought of the ghost came into my mind, maybe it is back again to kill my family. After my father, now it came to kill my mother too, but I came back at the right time and saved her. What if father had come back to take her away, but I stopped him from doing that? Mother would hate me now.
Instead of taking mother to a hospital, only these thoughts came into my mind.
screamed, “Mother! Who did this to you? Please tell me who did this to you?”
“She kept looking at Mohan.”
“Please tell me, Mother, before anyone else dies, please give me some sort of indication, tell me who did this?”
I don’t know if she heard me at all or not. But she moved her hand slowly and a
little bit towards Mohan. Seeing this, I was shocked, but Mohan, he just stood there as if nothing had happened. I knew he was cold, but this cold made me suspect him now. Did he have to do something with how mother was at that moment?
Flashbacks came into my mind. Is he the one who killed everyone? Is there no ghost? But, a mother would never point towards her child. So something is wrong. Is he taking revenge on me for the day when I slapped him after his teacher complained to me about him at school? My mother used to pray a lot, so maybe it was due to her prayers that she didn’t die and was just damaged or maybe Mohan didn’t want her to die but wanted her to experience more pain for loving me more than him.
I just kept on processing my thoughts, but all they did was point towards Mohan. It was all his doing. I looked at Mohan with dead-serious eyes, trying to put all the culpability on him and it felt like he was indeed the culprit.
Mother just kept crying and pointed at Mohan, and then it just clicked to me in an instant who was the one responsible for all the tragedies in our life. But what about my dreams? Maybe he had something to do with those too.
I didn’t look at my mother enough now; all I could see was her hand, which just pointed towards him. He may have killed Jai too because no one had seen him. But what about Amira? Clearly, Mohan was in town while we were in the village packing up. What if he came back and did that? What if he had put blood marks on Purnima’s house to make it look like ghost work? What if every day when he comes to me, to give me a glass of milk, he adds something into it to make me go crazy and due to that, I started getting those ghastly dreams? What if he killed father too…? What if when he disappeared in the hospital, he had gone to plot something, what if father would have been alright, but he could have told us his plan, so he killed him again? But why did he leave mother and just what did he do to her?
In the most serious tone I have ever been, I yelled at him, “Mohan, how could you do this?”
Did he do this because everyone loved me more and not him?
“Why did you kill everyone?”
He was shocked, “Kill! Who did I kill? What are you saying, brother?”
“Don’t lie to me, you double-faced snake? You have destroyed my life? You have killed everyone I ever loved, and now you did this to our mother too? How could you do this to her? Didn’t she mean anything to you? Just what do you want from me? Can’t you just go ahead and kill me, if you resent me that much?”
“I didn’t do anything? What are you saying?”
“Then how come I find out mother like this and she is pointing towards you, in her miserable condition? How come you and mother are the only ones in the house, and now something bad happened again? Hell! Why do I always find you at the scene of crime?”
A tear rolled down his eyes, “Brother! Don’t say this stuff. You know I am not wrong. It is the ghost or someone else, I am not the one guilty. Please believe me. You’re making a mistake.”
I cried heavily in anger, “No! Don’t lie to me. I know there was no ghost, there was no such thing as a ghost. It was only you, and I am not making a mistake now. It was you, goddammit… I know you have been playing with my milk, mixing in some chemical in it to make me hallucinate and have those uncanny dreams. It was you who killed everyone, my poor kids, father, mother, everyone. You are evil personified.”
He just kept standing still with little crocodile tears in his eyes.
By this time, Nandana came back and rushed to us after hearing screaming voices.
She inquired, “What is happening here? Did Mother feel asleep? And why is she not in her room?”
I yelled, “What happened? Well, shit happened. Mohan was about to kill mother too…”
“Kill and Mohan. This is not possible. He’s just a pitiful child.”
“Not possible. Ask this killer. He’s the one who killed everyone, Jai, Amira, father and now mother too. There was a murderer in our house, and we never knew. I had my suspicions about him since the past month, and I know enough now to conclude that he is the one.”
A tear rolled down her eyes, “Please no… Don’t do this. Don’t make it to be him.”
“But it is. I finally found out that all along it was this vermin who killed everyone. Why did you do that?”
He cried, “I didn’t!”
Saying this, he just ran into his room and locked it from the inside.
I shouted, “I don’t know what to do with you. Just be in your room and never show me your face again. I would believe I never had a brother, to begin with.”
I tried to run after him, to catch him and beat him out, but Nandana stopped me.
“Don’t do that. There must be some misunderstanding. For the time being, we need to take mother to the hospital.”
I looked back at my mother, and she had already closed her eyes. Please tell me she’s not dead. Please, God, save her somehow. I quickly lifted mother up, and Nandana supported her with me to take her to the car. With my mother and Nandana seated in the back seat and mother’s head resting peacefully on Nandana’s lap, I entered through the driver's side, and we drove off to the town’s hospital.
In the next 30 minutes, we were there. Nandana helped me take mother inside through the entrance, and I requested help at the reception, wherein the receptionist called two ward boys to take my mother to the Doctor’s room. I told Nandana to wait near the reception area and together with the ward boys, I walked to the Doctor’s room. Once there, the doctor checked her pulse, did an E.C.G. and various other tests in the next half to one hour. But it looked like he was baffled. He went outside and came back with one more doctor. After 20-30 more minutes passed, it still felt like something was amiss. The first doctor walked up to me and told me it was a case of acute paralysis.
“Are you sure, doctor?”
It felt to me that they were confused.
“Yes, we think it is.”
I scoffed, “You think?”
“Well, many diseases take some time to show themselves up, but the symptoms are of paralysis. By this time, we believe she won’t be able to walk, talk or move her hands. She can probably only eat and see for the time being.”
I pleaded, “Please do something, anything. Please make her fit. Please! She’s all I have…”
“If we could already, we would have. All I can do is recommend some medicine, and then it’s up to her and fate as to when she would get better and back on her feet.”
Her fate? When did the doctors believed in that?
“Don’t worry! She would get better with time. Just take care of her and give her more fluids.”
This line by him gave me a sense of relief, so I just moved out of the room and walked back towards the lobby to request the receptionist to send the ward boys again to get mother back here.
Nandana came running to me, “Is she okay?”
“Yes! She is. She had a paralysis attack, but the doctors told me that she would get better with time.”
Hearing this, she wasn’t happy nor sad. How could she? It felt like we had lost both our parents, so soon, and now I had a brother who I couldn’t call my own. Once home, I would beat him up and get him to his senses. He needs to give me an explanation as to why he did it. If I was really at fault, then he should have just killed me and let everyone else live happily, but no, he had to go and kill all the people who loved me and whom I loved way more than myself. When he doesn’t talk much and keeps to himself and his room, is it the time when he’s planning the way ahead, to give me a life worse than anything? Just because I slapped him. Well, he changed after that. He never smiled after that time, or maybe it is due to some other reason that I just don’t know anything about.
I had never thought that Mohan would be the one to destroy us. He even tried to kill our mother. Well, she’s verbatim dead inside, just like a helpless doll waiting for life to end. All her privileges have been taken away, it is in this moment that she can’t even pray, just nothing is there which she can do.
The ward boys bro
ught my mother to the reception area; Nandana and I took her to the car, holding her from both her hands.
I drove back home. My mother was already asleep due to the shot the doctor gave her, but Nandana managed everything flawlessly as usual. She didn’t even let a single jerk reach my mother’s head. We arrived back home in around 50 minutes as I drove slowly, so as not to make it hard for her to manage it all, but a few bumps were still as usual. The road was horrible and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do enough.
I parked the car and Nandana helped me to take mother inside. Once there, we let her down flat on her bed.
It was already late, but Nandana asked me something, “Would you like to eat something?”
“No! I don’t think so.”
I wasn’t in the mood to and then she didn’t have anything at all, either. I walked to Mohan’s room to talk it out with him, plausibly beat him and find out the truth, but his room’s door was still closed. I banged on the door, but he didn’t open it.
I shouted hard at it.
He replied in a sad and tearful voice, “Please! Leave me alone!”
I was still angry and kept on banging, but hearing this, Nandana came due to the surfeit sound and took me away into our room.
Nandana inquired, “Hey! What happened? You okay?”
“Mmm… I don’t want to talk about it. I think it’s a mistake that we moved here. It doesn’t feel right.”
“You remember why we moved here in the first place.”
“No. I know…”
“We can turn this around. We can.”
Deep down, my mind couldn’t concoct a scenario where Mohan could have orchestrated such a murder, but it was beyond bizarre. I always felt that he was wronged.
Was it these beliefs and his delusions that eventually drove him to kill everyone, including the cow, or was it an act of the ghost? I don’t know. One thing I knew was that he needed to answer my questions.