A Worthy Life

Nothing changed about Vikram, during a epoch span of almost four years, who lay like a vegetable on the foldable bed in Cabin No. 11 of Sri J.J. Naidu Hospital, bound to the tubes and pipes galore. His zealous eyes, blinking in quick succession followed by an undue hiatus, suggesting a faint forgetfulness and unmatched intrigue alike, were the only moving organs of his frail form. In a stark contradistinction to his being, everything outside the window always moved and changed in a predestined fashion. In this change there was indeed the sense of freedom due to the ability, of those who moved, to do what they willed. In that way they tormented Vikram, reminding him of how indetachably he was tied to his still fate. But the brazen optimist, that Vikram was, he saw beyond the obvious and noticed how the sun always set at the same distant horizon outside his window, the myna couple alighted at the window near that bed at dawn and chirped loving confessions to each other. But they eventually flew apart in obedience to bereaving obligations, for their survival. He thought of hundreds of men and women who seemed perfectly free, but ran to their mundane servility every day and how even the seasons never changed their course, even if they were beyond the restraining mortal bounds. He had taught himself to believe that nothing in this word enjoyed absolute freedom. Every entity and being is inescapably tied to its destiny under nature's command. This gave Vikram a delusional sense of relief as he considered himself similarly placed as all those perceived free creatures and therefore considered himself no less free. Despite such an insensitive interpretation of their purpose by Vikram, the seasons displayed their kindness to him, by offering themselves in a minuscule yet significant ratio to his senses, who otherwise remained deprived of similar pleasures inside the air conditioned cabin. When the rains beat against his window panes, he tricked himself into reminiscing moments from yore when he too had let hundreds of heaven's drops spray on his face. When he saw the winter forcing everyone into increased layers of clothing he too stepped up his ask for woolen stuff to keep him warm. Though the ones he requested , knew very well that it was a gimmick inside a cabin adequately warmed by the ever humming room heater, they nevertheless obliged him . And in the summers he would often pretend to be irritated at the heat, which barely presented itself inside the cool ambience of his cabin.

Over time, Vikram's condition had gotten better and then worsened back. When Vikram was rushed to Sri J.J. Naidu Hospital after his tryst with misfortune on road, he was unable to move a limb, except for his eye lids which blinked to an abstract stimulus felt only to his deepest sense which miraculously remained unhurt and uncrippled by the peripheral damage. The doctors had written him off keeping nobody in any fantasy land about his condition. But who has ever fathomed the mysterious ways of life. In a span of only six months Vikram had shown a remarkable zeal to get better. His fore limbs had shown intermittent signs of sensitivity and exhibited progress in their sensory motion now and then. But still the doctors could say nothing with certainty about the likelihood of his recovering to a state as normal as before his accident. Since they were aware of the equal probability of his slipping back into a condition which could be worse than the one in which he was priorly. Their fears won as Vikram's condition alarmingly deteriorated within the next couple of months. Most of his body parts stopped responding to treatment. Visitors often witnessed his relatives sobbing just outside the cabin where life played a heart shattering game with his frail and motionless body. Finally on the last Sunday of October, that year, when winter was just around the corner and he was due to finish his fourth year on the same bed, doctors gave their final word concerning his survival. The prospect of being unable to take back their son home after waiting for almost four endlessly long years, shattered his parents. Their twenty two year old son was going to die and there was absolutely nothing that could change this reality. They cursed their sordid fate howling and screaming in utter agony.

But Vikram had other plans. He wished to ensure that he'd survive even after his death, after his life was over. When opportunity presented itself, he seized it with uncanny enthusiasm. He agreed to donate his eyes post his death, at the first instance when he was offered the choice to do so. A part of the reason why he decided on doing such charity was that he was filled with a sense of a vague purpose to see all that he had missed in those four bed ridden years of his life. No one could talk him out of it. He was determined to stay alive after his heart stopped beating. And what better way of going about it than through eyes, the doors to this picturesque world. He'd often fancy about the quintessential treats for eyes, those hued phenomenons of life that he never paid attention to when he was living a regular life. He would, for hours, dwell in those colorful, scenic places that everyone said, existed outside his cabin. It wasn't like Vikram hadn't seen places with vibrant natural imagery. But he believed that his short life robbed him of so much more that he could have witnessed. In donating his vision to another, he pretended to be motivated by an outright desire of serving his own self, howsoever implausible that may have sounded, rather than any intent of being kind hearted and charitable towards the needy. But deep down he was naturally relieved and gladdened by the joy of being able to give someone his eyes back. Laying on that bed, bereft of motion for so long, he had realized the value of relishing life, in his own inability to do so. Vikram dissented when life was nicknamed a gift because nobody knows how good or bad, fortunate or unfortunate, pleasant or horrible, life would ultimately turn out to be. Vikram thought of life more as a chance. A chance at experiencing things, good & bad, loving and hateful, pleasant and horrid, sweet and bitter, comical and frustrating. Diagonally opposite experiences, all of which fill life with undiluted fragrances and make it the mysteriously complex yet worthy experience that it is. He was overwhelmed with a sense of immense pleasure when he thought of donating the source of all that experience, his eyes, to someone who so desperately needed them. Experience was all that his vibrant soul sought for within the confines of his withered mortal frame. Oblivious to the engulfing grief that his folks succumbed to, Vikram lay still, his breathing body rising and falling with a tranquility uncommon to those at the gates of death, his eye balls dancing inside his fast shut eye lids, causing a wonder among sympathizers with regard to the subject of his dreams.

Vikram wasn't offered a choice. They came together like a surging deluge hurled at infinity sans order or destination, like prison breakers running hither tither, never to return. He saw a string of flashes beginning with those of his memorable childhood days spent mostly in his grandfather's jestful company, his first trek with his father, his mother's embalming glance, faces of his friends who never left his side in good and bad, his beloved Labrador barking impatiently, his father's bike which he stole to give his high school sweetheart a ride, their first nervous and naive kiss on it and then it came. Excruciating suffocation gripped him. He sensed difficulty in breathing, he could no more afford to play the hero who did not feel any pain. His eye flung wide open, filled with blood and an unusual amount of redness, and his mouth went gaping and gasping for air. His quintessential smile had deserted him. In that numbing  momentary pain he saw the everlasting uncanny smile on his grandfather's face telling him "Everything will be fine, I'm here now". Then in a suddenness known to birds who rocket away at a gunshot, Vikram's life flew out of its mortal prison. There wasn't much wailing heard around the cabin, for their sources had bankrupted themselves with time.

Days later, when the frequency of consoling visitors had declined in Vikram's house, two men, who appeared like father and son came searching for somebody to it. One of them pressed the door bell. Vikram's father answered it and as he powerlessly pulled the door open, he froze upon seeing what he saw. The effect was not similar though on the other side of the door. Vikram's father suddenly appeared to well up with anger and palpable resentment. He kept pushing the man, refusing to hear him, till he had pushed the man to the gates. He wanted to shout out loud, but before he could say a word, the man before him sunk to his knees and touched his feet. He went on and on, relentlessly offering his apologies. He begged Vikram's father for his forgiveness stating how much he hates himself for what he happened. He began weeping inconsolably. Vikram's father was indeed, for a moment swept by a feeling of kindness, but turned his back by saying "Forgiveness is not mine to give". He tried to keep upright his grieving structure as he gradually began walking back. The man behind him shouted "There's one more thing Sir, please, you've got see this...please Sir." And then it struck Vikram's father as he abruptly halted. He took ages to turn around. The man and his companion had now moved inside the gates again, and they were just behind him. Upon turning about, Vikram's father looked at the boy. Moistness welled up in the old man's eyes. He was speechless, as there was no word in any language, that could have expressed what he felt in that moment. 'Is that.." he blurted. "Wait, this can't be...Are you serious?....Did Vikram know..?", he continued, unable to conceal his stifling amazement. The child's father was nodding approvingly all along. "Being a father myself, I knew you would know... And Yes, Vikram knew where his gift was going" he assured calmly. This time, the child touched the feet of Vikram's father. No part of the latter's body moved. The father son duo walked out as he watched their frames dissolve in the throng.

His wife came out and asked him to join her for the evening tea. Noticing her husband looking at the blank distant, she walked up to him and slowly slid her hand upon his hung shoulder  and queried softly 'What happened dear ?' Just then a flock of tired birds flew past their heads, returning to their hanging abodes & awaiting kins, and the dusk seemed not far away. Vikram's father turned to her and said "Nothing my dear" forging a smile from his heart as he battled to escape the flashes from that fateful night when the man who just left their house had rammed his car into their unsuspecting son thereby irretrievably crippling his spine. It all made sense to him now. Vikram didn't want the man's son, who also lost his eyes in that incident, to suffer for his father's deeds and the moment he knew he wasn't going to make it, he made sure that his eyes went to that boy. It didn't matter anymore if one casualty of that night could not be salvaged. He ensured that the other got back his precious vision and  his life. Vikram may have died after living a short life, but it sure was a worthy life. Needless to say he'd also won the deal of immortality, for he'd be eternally remembered by the boy and in the memories that he'd pass on. Remembering his wife's question Vikram's father thought to himself "How could I tell you my love, here stood the man who caused the life out of our son and with him stood the boy who looked at me with the eyes that our son gave him." and glanced at the heavens as if to say " I'm proud of you."

                                                                       
                                                                                                       *********



("A Worthy Life" is a work of fiction and any resemblance in it, to any person, incident or place is purely co - incidental)

The Life and Death of Afreen

Today, at 11 A.M., Afreen finally succumbed to the bites, blows and burns caused by her father. The report said that she suffered multiple convulsions and ultimately died of cardiac arrest.  Three months was the duration of the life she lived or let's say suffered. She was brought to the hospital three days ago with burn marks and multiple dislocations in her neck. I'm looking at an old clip which shows her delicate and small structure tubed all over, her chest rapidly rising and falling, while she is unconscious, lying on a hospital bed about twenty times her size. Her mother has put her head near her daughter's legs. She hasn't left. I had almost begun to pray for her recovery, when I realized that the clip is from yesterday. I pull myself back to reality,  to today, where she is dead.

 I don't want to see it. Its so painful. Yet I see it. "Baby Afreen is no more". The headline goes on & on & on... I feel a hole growing inside my guts. I helplessly fight my brain,  and try not to imagine scenes of her and her father.  She was his daughter. An incarnation of his, maybe a female, but his continuation nevertheless. 

I am angry , I am helpless, I am burning & I'm welling up. Fictitious visions of a beautiful life that Afreen could have lived, torment me beyond tolerance.

Hello world, my name was Afreen,

I was born to love and hatred akin

I did not know pain, 

But then I was bit and beaten

I did not know smile

I could never do it for a while

Life started and ended before I breathed

Like some numbness it prevailed

Faint voices of my mother

Crying to fight my torture

The man who brought me here 

Was the same who banished me forever

I was created by him

Somehow I never got to see him

His hands were all so unkind

How could he kill his daughter's body & mind

They hated me from the day I cried

They hated me for the body I carried

I could not even know why I was born

Some evil in some past I must've done

I was greeted with frowns,

They thought I would let them drown,

Never gave me a chance

Never wanted me to keep balance

I could not know your Earth

Its green and its past

I could not make friends

I wasn't afforded that much sense

I will know not what is a hug

A pleasure I was supposed to get a lot

I will know not the birds, the seas, the skies,

My world started and ended with cries

I could not kiss my mother

My lips were shut forever

Before my hair could learn to curl

They were dragged to satiate some call

Teeth were sunk in

When kisses were to be left on my skin

I was welcomed by pain

Unfair ! I underwent it in vain

It all became too much

One day to a ward I was rushed

Tubes galore were slided

Though silently I chided

My mother sat there looking & praying

She often stopped to fancy me playing

I knew my mother's pain

She too swallowed it in vain

I did't even know how to pray,

The hands that hated me night and day ,

Were the ones that ought to have taught ,

A beam of mercy desperately I sought

My mother, I worried what would happen to her

I knew I was nearing to say 'adieu' & come back never 

Ever believing, ever hoping to revive and take me back

I'm so sorry ! I wish we could have run more than this small track

I had to go, the angels could wait no more,

I wish I could tell my mother, its a better place that I'm travelling for

God must know what he does and what he says,

I've heard He works in mysterious ways

My body was broken in places

A new life, Yet counted were my days

But my heart broke then

When the healers rushed in

They must have noticed I was leaving

Broke mid way my mother's praying

She howled and held and kissed and prayed

She begged, I know not who, but onto her prayers she held

I was growing cold, she must have known

She held me close with her tears rolling down

Those arms where up I had woken

Now held me again when I was being taken

Then...it snapped, that chord that tied

Me and her, My life was over, in her arms I died.

                                                                              -  Afreen

Death Had Come

I woke up from a slumber
Felt as if I had been sleepin' forever
Somehow I didn't turn around
Else I would have broken into a shout


I felt no weight to carry
I felt the absence of worry
Yet when I wanted to touch
I couldn't get anything in my clutch


Supposed to fringe on frustration
On being subjected to this derision
Nothing I felt  though
Calmness prevailed somehow


I glided through space
I left no scent nor no trace
I recalled scenes from last night
Hazy memories of some fight


Since long I had a habit
To go through the paper tit by bit
The world's news was no more needed
I wouldn't have read even if they pleaded


Then I saw the birds staring
And stood still without moving
I heard them speaking
Felt something in my head was creaking


I thought of the garden ahead
And found myself transported
Who said anything about walking ?
It isn't blabber, what I'm saying.


I could hear incessantly
Words spoken endearingly
Somebody calling me somewhere
Blended in the invisible thoroughfare


Barked the neighbourhood cur,
As I walked to its near
Reassuring me of my existence
Returning some of my lost sense


I said Hello as a friend passed,
I jumped out of its way else he would've dashed
Knowing not how to react
I fumbled for the wall of my flat


I knew I was a loner
It was difficult for me to be a talker
Ask the people walking by
Questions full of 'What' & 'Why'


Stuck with these thoughts I sat on the step,
Just then I saw all my friends shouting for help
They had gone past the door
I saw a few crouching on the floor


I eased past them and reached my bed 
And found my motionless head 
Nothing around had changed
Save the fact that I was dead.


                                                                                 Anupam


(This poem depicts the poet's imagination of the events his soul witnesses after his death without realizing the fact that he's dead. That realization dawns when he follows his friends to his dead body inside his house ).