AMIDST THE VALLEYS

I

1

t is August, a week before Daksh’s birthday. It has been cloudy since morning but it was only in the afternoon when Sun was shackled by grey wily clouds crammed full of water.

 The weather is changing these days and the transition from shriveling sultry summer to damp tepid monsoon has always been a time of immense sadness and distress for Daksh, wet and cold weather is not his cup of tea. It was around this time when he lost his sister few years ago, the loss strikes hard around this time of the year. This anguish he cannot particularly explain. A kind of desperation, loneliness, hopelessness, the falling fat water drops from sky seems to bring along with them an unusual; inexplicable bewitched aura that decimates his sanity. It is like a callous killer, a brutal lion ripping apart his peace. The aroma of soggy mud which kindles the delight of every man means the onset of misery to the boy. The thunder of lightning sky which means a time for love to thrive means a final call for the beginning of reticent days to the boy.

The rain has always been ample here.

The first rain drop has tumbled over his face. He is walking back home on another lousy day at school. The weather has worsened and a huge bunch of pedestrians are stampeding towards a roadside Sweet Shop for shelter, some are rubbing their hands for warmth while some effortlessly grinning at the beautiful scenery, A girl is quite worried and calling her family, a mother is ranting her child for stepping into the puddle. Street dogs have found a way in all this chaos by hiding beneath construction vehicle. Breeze blows and there a wave of relief and contentment on everyone’s face as it has undone the scorching heat of the day. People are gratified. With open arms and a big heart they are welcoming the oncoming of the season awaited the most. The smell of delicacies from the shop has served to be the ‘icing on the cake’ and hoards of men and women have lined up to enjoy hot stuffy pies the shop owner has just taken out of cauldron.

A clique of street boys passes past Daksh splashing water from puddle on his School Uniform but there is no response as if this weather, its magic means nothing to him today. He is quietly wading across the overflowing street of the city. Has never been loquacious but silence today is unusual, despite particularly abhorring the weather, he has others reasons to disrepute indradev. The ice-fed air is swirling free and paper boats are now bobbing in a pool near the Sweet Shop, exciting the children, who are now running in the rain, clapping, tapping and jumping with enthusiasm. He walks past this happiness.

It is raining cats and dogs now and people have accelerated their Bikes and windscreen wipers are swinging madly upon the rain-spattered glass of the cars.

He is all soggy and lost. Taking dizzy steps he proceeds further. Completely drenched not by the bewitched rainwater but the despondency the rain drops have cunningly passed over to him, which themselves are now free of the stress but the poor creature. He is walking on the over-flown street, not trying to cover himself up or dodge the raindrops spattering his face.

Daksh has reached home. He lives in his family’s ancestral home on the outskirts of Dehradun. It is a quaint and quiet location hardly a km away from hustle and bustle of the city clung to nature, hoisting innumerable trees busy in a seamless flow of talks with the wily grey clouds as if grappling with them for soaking its branches but then the clouds offer another sop by telling them that it is doing them a favor by cleaning the dirty branches to which the trees naively acquiesce. Life has always been quiet here. You are close to nature, moreover, close to your own spirit and for a person as aesthetic as Daksh; nothing could be more gratifying than that he lives in Dehradun. Despite the limited resources his family possesses.

He lives in a striking bungalow, neither the type in which the affluent lot of the city lives nor the one glistening with overpriced interiors but yet more beautiful in its originality and ingenious at its best. The bungalow has an open backyard from where the lofty mountains of masoori majestically grace the location as if they were always meant for adding to bungalow’s grace and sublimity.

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H

e removes his damp shoes in distaste, leaves them outside and goes straight to his room which shared with Damini, his late sister when she was alive. Maya is having her afternoon nap. She is an ebullient beautiful woman, Daksh’s mother.

Maya has just embarked on a painting career. She is working as a curator in a local Art Gallery and paints as well whenever she finds time from her schedule and has been making pretty good deals selling them to the admirers. Paintings could have only saved her from sinking deep in the swamp of depression, her husband has dug. After the exposure of her adulterous husband, her life has always been distressful and testing, she has been living glumly for the past three years but things have started changing now, she is sane now and has found happiness and a purpose amidst her hopeless future with a treacherous man she once couldn’t live without. Her love life has been ruined. “I will do fine without the scumbag when I will be old” she keeps telling herself. She is not in contact with her parents ever since she left their home.

She never really called them up neither they could care less for a daughter who married a man they disapproved against their consent. Inter-Caste marriage was way too much to take for her orthodox merchant father. She was young then and in love with the idea of love, it hardly made any difference to her that she was a Muslim and Pranav, a charming and handsome jaat boy. She was obsessed; irrevocably in love. Pranav was the heartthrob of their college. Life seemed to be perfect when they confessed their love but she never knew that she would repent for the road not taken.

No matter how much she try to loathe and curse him for the act of treachery but deep inside she still wants things to be the way they were; she wants to be cuddled again his arms; she wants him to cherish and protect her forever as he promised. She misses him, she hates him. This mixed feeling only makes things really complicated for her so she doesn’t give much thought this ravaged part of her life.

 He seldom visits home. Maya never asks for financial help. The only reason for Pranav to visit home is Daksh. He couldn’t keep up with Maya and has insisted a lot on taking Daksh to Delhi with him to which Maya could never agree for she is petrified that her son might end up to be a philanderer if he would be raised by Pranav.

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H

e lies on his bed and is now trying hard to sleep because sleeping; closing the eyes calmly in the silence of his room and surrendering himself to ravages of misfortune seems to be the best alternative to him as if this will preclude him from thinking over and over about the episode at School. He has been bullied again.

It’s been three hours and Maya has returned home from the gallery. She is quite baffled looking at the unlocked house and rushes inside.

“Daksh…Daksh…Daksh, is it you?”

“Um hmm. I am in my room Maa.”

Maya opens the door impatiently and stands there with her hands crossed across her bosom. She gave the boy a look but when he ignored her and went back to his slumber, she couldn’t take it anymore and shouted in indignation she encountered,

“Daksh Malik, how dare you! Get up! Get up! You defiant teenager, get up!”

Maya shook the boy with full strength and after struggling for few minutes Daksh was finaly out of the bed.

“You are overreacting!” ......(contd).