An Abandoned God
‘No’ yes, ‘No’ is an adorable word. It is the password to the golden path of circumvention. This is the word she used consistently. Ahhh! Words. She loved words. Words created a surreal, phantasmagoric cosmos; the one in which she was unscathed from the atrocities of the de facto corporeal world. This kingdom was hers to conquer. She harmonized here. The warm first love of her ardent heart was a man, a man of words. A man of smooth Belgian dark chocolate words. When he stranded her, he ate his own words and advised her not to fall for them again. She was torn apart!
ScrEEEEch…….
The carcanet of lucid musing was shattered. The ‘NO,’ the limp napoleon complexed ‘Übermensch,’ rose flavored ‘amour’, ‘fureur’, ‘amatore’, ‘schmetterling’, narcissist ‘czarina’ struck the metallic parquet and lurched along the crisscross engravings like mercury balls spilled from an obsolete thermometer. The dilapidated Uttarakhand Roadways bus Annie was travelling in had halted. At a yet more retrogressive roadside food outlet.
“Dhaba.” That’s what such places were called in north India. North India…… because she had rarely traveled alone towards the south of country. “Dhaba” was a queer labyrinthine word actually. She stretched her legs as far as the squalid framework of the bus allowed. All these years of her graduation she had traveled in these pathetic roadways buses. From hostel to home from home to hostel. To and Fro, like a pendulum.
“BLACK MANGO HOTAL” boasted the creaking board, towards the corner of the board was painted ‘RAVI’ in a stylish font and brightest blue. “Black Mango,” “Naturally Cold," “Royal Nashta;” the peculiarity of name was mutual among the dhabas along with their amusing spelling errors. Annie dragged the filthy plastic chair under the shadow of the mighty Ficus religiosa. The profuse number of red colored threads tied around its branches authenticated its sanctity. Every time she had stopped here, on her way back home, the number of these red threads had increased, just like the wrinkles on her mother’s face. Increased but not discerned from the older ones. She imagined how the naïve young girls from a near by village would have come to the sacred peepal tree on the occasion of Baikunth Chaturdashi. Chanting the tongue twisting orisons, pleading for an easy-on-eyes, Shahrukh Khan or Shahid Kapoor facsimile, urban, wealthy husband. And the newly wed ones must have prayed for an angel faced baby…… ugh…… make it a baby ‘boy’ (being precisely gender specific from the very beginning of the prayers helps!). Annie smiled to herself thinking if an old peepal tree could actually be a fiduciary match maker or if it could somehow impregnate a woman (and that too with specified sex fetus).
“Ek Thanda (one cold drink)!” The intricate carcanet of phantasm was shattered again and this time the gaunt women wrapped in their gaudy festive clothing splashed into soil, sardonically smiling at Annie. They had their chastity over her adultery, their adamantine faith (in God as well as the peepal tree) over her skepticism and synergistic agnosticism. Annie felt her heart maneuvering to her pharynx, choking it! The crimson serum flooding her mouth. “Madam!! Thanda. “ A crass, rustic adolescent voice annihilated the demonic mirage. She stared blankly the fidgety boy waiting for her to pick up the bottle of ‘Appy Fizz’ from the tray, so that he could return to his nagging master.
The dormant evangelist who had somehow burglared into her, raised his head, as she watched the boy run away. “He is young, very young! Why is he working here? He should be in school.” Fizzzzzzzz…. The stream of sparkling apple drink ran down her throat washing off fiery red gore and drowning the evangelist. “Haaa! School!” Annie mocked the evangelist. “School could never teach him about the mangled human slime. He’d spend all his time learning the capital of a god darned country! Instead of some practicable modus operandi for survival in a poverty ridden country like ours. He is better off here. In a school he‘d be like a Jew in Auschwitz. Fucked!”
The sedated mobile phone vibrated violently in her pocket. Daddy calling, Daddy calling, Daddy calling. The screen threatened, flashing and vibrating rhythmically. It was the fourth time in last eight hours. Annie closed her eyes, and the world dropped dead. No!!!, it didn’t. The metallic body of phone unceasingly made the pitiless trrr- trrr sounds against her finger rings. Annie despised mobile phones, even more their mundane ringtones. She hated sweat, over milked coffee, obnoxiously optimistic people, sleazy flirtatious men, Gandhi, dainty shades of pink, colored hair, pseudo intellectuals, flawless women too. But of them all she hated mobile phones the most, rest of them were fiascos. But mobile phone: this malignant nemesis had trespassed her impenetrable world of wild orgies of literary debauchery, like a melancholy drunk soldier.
‘Tick’ fine sound of lavish accessory. A lively “Hello, precious!!!” was reciprocated with a dull “Hey daddy.” “You’d be reaching by six?," “yeah” “okay, I’ll be there to receive you.”, “okay.” Often Annie wondered if her father was the only man in the world who could ever love her…… Whatever else she was unsure of in this despicable world, her father’s love she was not. His love smothered her, even tormented her masochist, sadist soul. But the naked waltzing truth was, He loved her. And she loved him back. Quid-pro-quo. He was the terminal nexus that tethered her to society. His blind affection had comatosed her metamorphosis into an embodiment of assorted freedoms. However hard she tried she cold not renounce her only fount of love. Ma was there too, her love: pristine and chaste; but a woman can never love a woman in ways she could love a man. Even if the woman was her mother. Somehow, a queer feeling creeps in and sabotages the womanish romance. At least it was so with her. Annie’s mother had exempted her of all expectance. She just was there in Annie’s life as another mere mute spectator. One was “God” who lied on a tattered creaking charpoy in one of the decaying dens of her cranium. He for some clandestine reason had refused to estrange her, he clung to her like little puppies do to their mother, even when the bitch shoved them away. So, this was only what she could cater him with: a dingy cell in the gloom of her twisted mind. However, he was sans souci. He just lay there in his immaculate white robe, knavishly grinning at her forlorn status quo. Huh! The Abandoned God, The God That Failed. He twisted and turned in his charpoy, the fatigued charpoy made squeaking noises. The Abandoned God staunchly smiled, as if the world would fall into its centre if he ceased smiling. Annie loathed smiles, she looked away and sipped. Fizzzz…. The Abandoned God was bubble wrapped and evanesced.
The strenuous bus journey had endowed her with an achy spine. Annie pulled out the book, the black alphabets floated in front of her eyes, her surreal ignis fatuus was here “ A Collection Of Russian Short Stories”. Story 2. ‘The Cloak’ by Nikolai V. Gogol. She’d read this one before, she’d been struck by ‘Akakiy Akakievitch’. He nudged her while she swam through his life, reminding her of how the people around her, the people she loved had eroded out of her life like silt on banks of a river running bonkers on ecstasy. The doors of aloneness and loneliness juxtaposed and she always collided into the one she wanted to eschew.
Hoonnnnnk! Honnnnnk! The boisterous horn of the ram shackled bus snatched her thoughts and commanded her to leave the tranquilizing penumbra. She got up like a docile cadet and loitered towards the bus. Sighed! Left leg up. Right leg up…. Up the metallic parquet again. An acquainted anodynic diffused into her ears. Aaaahhh!!! Mohammad Rafi.
“Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye toh kya hai?
Yeh mehlo, yeh takhto, yeh taajo ki duniya”
What is this word to me even if I can get it?
This world of palaces, thrones and crowns.
“Jala do ise phoonk daalo yeh duniya.
Mere saamne se hata lo yeh duniya.
Tumhaari hai tum hi sambhaalo yeh duniya.
Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye toh kya hai?”
Burn this world, set it on fire.
Remove this world from my sight.
This world is yours you take care of it.
What is this world to me, even if it can have it?
He chanted.
The belittled maligned ‘Abandoned God’ flexed on his creaking charpoy. But he was not smiling any more.
Esha Varma is a 21 year old free-thinking hippie caught in romantic era. She has immense interest in literature, western classical music, impressionist paintings, ballet, and most of all poetry; for her art in any form is meant to be worshipped. Residing in the picturesque Victorian town of Simla (India), she dreams of moving to Paris and becoming a full time author.
‘No’ yes, ‘No’ is an adorable word. It is the password to the golden path of circumvention. This is the word she used consistently. Ahhh! Words. She loved words. Words created a surreal, phantasmagoric cosmos; the one in which she was unscathed from the atrocities of the de facto corporeal world. This kingdom was hers to conquer. She harmonized here. The warm first love of her ardent heart was a man, a man of words. A man of smooth Belgian dark chocolate words. When he stranded her, he ate his own words and advised her not to fall for them again. She was torn apart!
ScrEEEEch…….
The carcanet of lucid musing was shattered. The ‘NO,’ the limp napoleon complexed ‘Übermensch,’ rose flavored ‘amour’, ‘fureur’, ‘amatore’, ‘schmetterling’, narcissist ‘czarina’ struck the metallic parquet and lurched along the crisscross engravings like mercury balls spilled from an obsolete thermometer. The dilapidated Uttarakhand Roadways bus Annie was travelling in had halted. At a yet more retrogressive roadside food outlet.
“Dhaba.” That’s what such places were called in north India. North India…… because she had rarely traveled alone towards the south of country. “Dhaba” was a queer labyrinthine word actually. She stretched her legs as far as the squalid framework of the bus allowed. All these years of her graduation she had traveled in these pathetic roadways buses. From hostel to home from home to hostel. To and Fro, like a pendulum.
“BLACK MANGO HOTAL” boasted the creaking board, towards the corner of the board was painted ‘RAVI’ in a stylish font and brightest blue. “Black Mango,” “Naturally Cold," “Royal Nashta;” the peculiarity of name was mutual among the dhabas along with their amusing spelling errors. Annie dragged the filthy plastic chair under the shadow of the mighty Ficus religiosa. The profuse number of red colored threads tied around its branches authenticated its sanctity. Every time she had stopped here, on her way back home, the number of these red threads had increased, just like the wrinkles on her mother’s face. Increased but not discerned from the older ones. She imagined how the naïve young girls from a near by village would have come to the sacred peepal tree on the occasion of Baikunth Chaturdashi. Chanting the tongue twisting orisons, pleading for an easy-on-eyes, Shahrukh Khan or Shahid Kapoor facsimile, urban, wealthy husband. And the newly wed ones must have prayed for an angel faced baby…… ugh…… make it a baby ‘boy’ (being precisely gender specific from the very beginning of the prayers helps!). Annie smiled to herself thinking if an old peepal tree could actually be a fiduciary match maker or if it could somehow impregnate a woman (and that too with specified sex fetus).
“Ek Thanda (one cold drink)!” The intricate carcanet of phantasm was shattered again and this time the gaunt women wrapped in their gaudy festive clothing splashed into soil, sardonically smiling at Annie. They had their chastity over her adultery, their adamantine faith (in God as well as the peepal tree) over her skepticism and synergistic agnosticism. Annie felt her heart maneuvering to her pharynx, choking it! The crimson serum flooding her mouth. “Madam!! Thanda. “ A crass, rustic adolescent voice annihilated the demonic mirage. She stared blankly the fidgety boy waiting for her to pick up the bottle of ‘Appy Fizz’ from the tray, so that he could return to his nagging master.
The dormant evangelist who had somehow burglared into her, raised his head, as she watched the boy run away. “He is young, very young! Why is he working here? He should be in school.” Fizzzzzzzz…. The stream of sparkling apple drink ran down her throat washing off fiery red gore and drowning the evangelist. “Haaa! School!” Annie mocked the evangelist. “School could never teach him about the mangled human slime. He’d spend all his time learning the capital of a god darned country! Instead of some practicable modus operandi for survival in a poverty ridden country like ours. He is better off here. In a school he‘d be like a Jew in Auschwitz. Fucked!”
The sedated mobile phone vibrated violently in her pocket. Daddy calling, Daddy calling, Daddy calling. The screen threatened, flashing and vibrating rhythmically. It was the fourth time in last eight hours. Annie closed her eyes, and the world dropped dead. No!!!, it didn’t. The metallic body of phone unceasingly made the pitiless trrr- trrr sounds against her finger rings. Annie despised mobile phones, even more their mundane ringtones. She hated sweat, over milked coffee, obnoxiously optimistic people, sleazy flirtatious men, Gandhi, dainty shades of pink, colored hair, pseudo intellectuals, flawless women too. But of them all she hated mobile phones the most, rest of them were fiascos. But mobile phone: this malignant nemesis had trespassed her impenetrable world of wild orgies of literary debauchery, like a melancholy drunk soldier.
‘Tick’ fine sound of lavish accessory. A lively “Hello, precious!!!” was reciprocated with a dull “Hey daddy.” “You’d be reaching by six?," “yeah” “okay, I’ll be there to receive you.”, “okay.” Often Annie wondered if her father was the only man in the world who could ever love her…… Whatever else she was unsure of in this despicable world, her father’s love she was not. His love smothered her, even tormented her masochist, sadist soul. But the naked waltzing truth was, He loved her. And she loved him back. Quid-pro-quo. He was the terminal nexus that tethered her to society. His blind affection had comatosed her metamorphosis into an embodiment of assorted freedoms. However hard she tried she cold not renounce her only fount of love. Ma was there too, her love: pristine and chaste; but a woman can never love a woman in ways she could love a man. Even if the woman was her mother. Somehow, a queer feeling creeps in and sabotages the womanish romance. At least it was so with her. Annie’s mother had exempted her of all expectance. She just was there in Annie’s life as another mere mute spectator. One was “God” who lied on a tattered creaking charpoy in one of the decaying dens of her cranium. He for some clandestine reason had refused to estrange her, he clung to her like little puppies do to their mother, even when the bitch shoved them away. So, this was only what she could cater him with: a dingy cell in the gloom of her twisted mind. However, he was sans souci. He just lay there in his immaculate white robe, knavishly grinning at her forlorn status quo. Huh! The Abandoned God, The God That Failed. He twisted and turned in his charpoy, the fatigued charpoy made squeaking noises. The Abandoned God staunchly smiled, as if the world would fall into its centre if he ceased smiling. Annie loathed smiles, she looked away and sipped. Fizzzz…. The Abandoned God was bubble wrapped and evanesced.
The strenuous bus journey had endowed her with an achy spine. Annie pulled out the book, the black alphabets floated in front of her eyes, her surreal ignis fatuus was here “ A Collection Of Russian Short Stories”. Story 2. ‘The Cloak’ by Nikolai V. Gogol. She’d read this one before, she’d been struck by ‘Akakiy Akakievitch’. He nudged her while she swam through his life, reminding her of how the people around her, the people she loved had eroded out of her life like silt on banks of a river running bonkers on ecstasy. The doors of aloneness and loneliness juxtaposed and she always collided into the one she wanted to eschew.
Hoonnnnnk! Honnnnnk! The boisterous horn of the ram shackled bus snatched her thoughts and commanded her to leave the tranquilizing penumbra. She got up like a docile cadet and loitered towards the bus. Sighed! Left leg up. Right leg up…. Up the metallic parquet again. An acquainted anodynic diffused into her ears. Aaaahhh!!! Mohammad Rafi.
“Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye toh kya hai?
Yeh mehlo, yeh takhto, yeh taajo ki duniya”
What is this word to me even if I can get it?
This world of palaces, thrones and crowns.
“Jala do ise phoonk daalo yeh duniya.
Mere saamne se hata lo yeh duniya.
Tumhaari hai tum hi sambhaalo yeh duniya.
Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye toh kya hai?”
Burn this world, set it on fire.
Remove this world from my sight.
This world is yours you take care of it.
What is this world to me, even if it can have it?
He chanted.
The belittled maligned ‘Abandoned God’ flexed on his creaking charpoy. But he was not smiling any more.
Esha Varma is a 21 year old free-thinking hippie caught in romantic era. She has immense interest in literature, western classical music, impressionist paintings, ballet, and most of all poetry; for her art in any form is meant to be worshipped. Residing in the picturesque Victorian town of Simla (India), she dreams of moving to Paris and becoming a full time author.
