The Fifth Sense

They told me he had disappeared. I did not believe them. I was so unaware...

Six months ago, I opened my eyes in hospital. For the first time in 22 years of my life. The congenital defect had finally been defeated, and I could, for the first time in my life, enjoy the sheer pleasure of sight. So many new experiences all of a sudden! Blue, black, green, yellow, moving, standing, gliding, square, circular, triangular, irregular, it was all beyond the stuff of my wildest imaginations! It was my birthday — 5 August, 2009 — in the truest sense of the word.
I saw my parents for the first time. The stunningly fair skin of my mom, the uniquely wheatish complexion of my dad. Of course, it took me some time to even begin to comprehend these concepts — first-hand experience is always a redefiner...

The next week passed in dizzying joy. However, there was a thought constantly nagging at me, and as each hour passed, it only got more and more intense. Where was Akshar? He'd be so happy to see me actually looking at him with eyes, rather than just my imagination, helped by my other senses... And of course, I wanted to see him — how he actually looked... Was he as beautiful as in my imaginations or even more?

Each time I asked his whereabouts to my parents, they simply tried to change the topic, giving feeble replies like "He's gone somewhere", or "I don't know". And I'd gotten quite skilled at detecting people's tones for any traces of untruth. Something had to give way. And ultimately, in the last week of September, it did.

"Dad, can I use your mobile phone?" I asked.
"Why?" Dad replied with a question of his own.
"I want to call... somebody." I was a very rare liar, and it clearly showed.
"Akshar?"
I stood silent. I was caught.
"I'll tell you where he is." His voice rose an octave — always a danger sign. "Tell me, when did you last speak to him?"

I rewound. It was ten days before the operation. He was saying, "Will you — once you are able to see, if at all — I hope that day comes soon — once you can see me... Will you still love me?" And we had kissed...

"About ten days before the operation," I replied to my dad's query.
"Since then, he's disappeared. Even his own parents have no clue about his whereabouts. And please, please — stop thinking about him. You've just got a new lease of life, stop thinking about the past."
Past? And what good is this 'new lease of life' when my very oxygen has been snatched away from me? No, I thought. He cannot disappear — not when I can, now, actually see. I'll find him. Even his parents are supposedly unaware — his parents...

The very same day, at half past midnight, I took Dad's cellphone when he was fully asleep, and dialed — lower-right, extreme lower-middle, upper-middle, lower-right...
After almost an entire stanza of Ya Rabba, the phone was picked up.
It was Akshar's mother, but I didn't have much luck with her either.
"There's no sign of him, really... I know you care a lot for him... As soon as there is any news, you'll be the first to know..."
And again, I picked up the tone.

I decided to visit Akshar's place. Although I had no address, I knew the directions... sort of.
'We've reached the mithaiwalla — now we take a left...' The voice from another universe rang in my head. Seeing the sweets seller, I took a left turn.
After several such directions, I reached E/303, Diamond Apartments.

A boy, probably in his early twenties or so, opened the door.
"Ankit?"
"Oh, come in, come in!" Akshar's brother welcomed me in the house. He was arguably the only person who knew my and Akshar's feelings for each other as well as we ourselves did.
"Tell me the truth — I know if anyone will, it's you. Please."
"Don't make me do this."
"Where is Akshar?"
And Ankit started crying, right before my eyes.
"Akshar is... no more..."

I walked out. And I walked. And then I walked some more.I'd have liked to think that my sensitive ears has failed me for once, but deep down, I knew that it was not the case. I did not cry. In fact, I hardly used my eyes — it was my other senses doing the work of guiding me through the crowded Kolkata road.
When I stopped walking, I reached the place which, I now realized, was the one I'd been subconsciously walking to all along — my birthplace.

The query took only a couple of minutes. And then, I had before my fifth sense irrevocable proof. Irrevocable proof that Akshar loved me.

NAME OF DONOR: Akshar Khanna

Read more...

The Butterfly

Author's Note: This is my entry for the 'Walking In The Rain' contest for Bloggeratti.
Be advised that this post contains content that is suitable for only mature readers. So if you are under 18, or are otherwise immature, or otherwise dislike what is commonly referred to as 'adult content', you aren't advised to proceed any further (on this post anyway).

The cellphone in her hands started vibrating. She was momentarily startled, but then flipped it open and put it to her ear.

“Seven missed calls?!” Akash exclaimed from the other end. “I’m sorry, I was in my lectures — why didn’t you come today? And what’s up, dear? What happened?”
What happened. What a question, Sania thought. And although Akash knew very well most of what had happened, Sania involuntarily dropped into the reservoir of her memories...


It was 14 July, 2009. In all the excitement of her eighteenth birthday, she had unwittingly forgotten her ‘trusty little umbrella’, as she called it, at home. And she had chosen the worst possible day to do so, as the heavens had decided to make up for the late rains that very day.
The lectures were over a couple of hours early — Sania was spared the boring double Physics class as the prof couldn’t make it to college on account of the rains. However, she was extremely apprehensive to step out in the rains minus her umbrella. She felt the rains were a monster, lashing out at everything within sight. The 26 July massacre had only strengthened this opinion of hers. And then, the savior appeared.

Akash.


The guy’s calm, easygoing demeanor had blown Sania away ever sine she set her eyes on him, back in FYJC. As the days passed, her attraction towards him only continued to intensify, until, one day, she was forced to conclude in her diary: ‘This damn guy has totally taken over my life!’

“Hey Sania! Where’s your ‘trusty little umbrella’? Gone off to enjoy the rains?”
Akash had an amazing sense of humor. What Sania really liked about it was that it was tailored for the listener — showing how he singularly cared for each and everyone in his life.

“Well, yeah... it’s breached my trust...”
“Mine hasn’t... may I drop you, mistress?” Akash asked, doing the old-world English movie gesture that usually accompanies such a statement.
Chivalry, that endangered species of behavior... a clear indicator of a sense of individuality — while the world is ditching chivalry, he carves his own niche...

“Um... Sure, why not?” Sania, almost greedily, accepted.
Although they were in the same class since FYJC, it was only in FYBSc that Sania and Akash got on talking terms (adjacent Roll Numbers helped). And, a couple of days ago, Sania had written in her diary: ‘I may be kidding myself, but I think I see a hint of reciprocation...’


“Nice weather, don’t you think?” Akash commented. Due to the presence of Akash, even the weather on the planet Venus would qualify as ‘nice’ for Sania. She agreed. Never before had she enjoyed walking in the rain to this extent. She had heard descriptions of the rain as ‘romantic’; she now realized what they meant. The closeness she had so craved was granted to her. If only it changed to intimacy...

She felt something on her left shoulder. It took her a while to realize it was Akash’s hand. She looked up to him, and their eyes spoke a million words. Although around them vehicles were jostling for road space, honking violently, Akash and Sania were unperturbed, lost in their own world, the pitter-patter of the raindrops adding to their mood...
“There’s nobody at my place today...” Akash said. “Will you come over?”

What happened after ‘coming over’ was something that changed Sania forever. In the rare times that Sania thought of the moment when her hymen finally broke apart, she was filled with apprehensions. However, with Akash’s presence, it was all smooth. Although both of them were indulging for the first time, the apprehensions seemed to slither out of the (closed) window. It was, of course, the emotional connect that Sania cherished more than the physical one. All the same, the experience, to her, was like ‘a caterpillar finally shedding her cocoon to come out as a full-grown butterfly...’ And the best birthday gift she ever had.


But the first-timers had made a crucial mistake...


“Hello, you still there?”
Sania’s mind jumped back to the phone call with a jolt. She had to speak a dreadful truth.
“It’s been almost a month... and I — I’ve...”
“Sania,” Akash said, very calmly, “Tell me.”
And then, the words fell out of her mouth. “I’m pregnant.”
The next thing Sania knew was a powerful slap on her face by her father.


—Two Hours Later —

“Doctor, is she okay?” Sania’s mother was asking.
“The patient is out of danger,” the doctor replied, “but I’m sorry, we couldn’t save the child.”

Read more...