Lost And Found

IT IS A TRUE STORY WITH NAMES CHANGED

"Because brothers don't let each other wander in dark alone."

The night was creeping in gradually. I got up from the bed, I had been tossing from one side to another but couldn't catch a wink of sleep. My wife Meenakshi looked beautiful in her sleep. The moonlight was defining the contours of her face and adding hues of gold to her aura. A fringe of her golden tresses dancing on her rosy cheeks probably was giving her a tingling sensation that was reflecting in the creases of her forehead. I carefully fixed it and moved out of the room. Splashing some water on the face I looked at the mirror and tried to feel the subtle details of my soul. I saw the image of Suraj in Aryan today, Aryan my son.

Grief and guilt both were walking hand in hand in my life and each day they were claiming a scoop of it. A melange of thoughts had veered into my mind as I stood in front of the mirror laying my soul bare to it. I took out a cigarette from my pocket and lit it, probably to incite the flame of my thoughts or to reduce my soul to grey powdered ash. The rings of smoke moving up in air took me down to dark alleys of memories. where there were arrey of painful memories, the grief of loss, and unsutured wounds. It's not that I am stuck in the past or I haven't moved on, it's because no passage of time can heal it or lessen the pain. It will always be there veneering my inner lava. I closed my eyes and found dwelled within my soul a little boy, that boy is my brother, oh how much I hated him then and how much do I yearn for him now. Flashes of childhood flickered through the corner of my eyes.

The decades of 80s

I and Suraj were twins, born to Maharaj Kishan and Sarla Koul in Kashmir. Life was beautiful in my village with the sound of gushing water, the aroma of pine trees, vibrancy of saffron. And when the rays of the receding sun would kiss and touch the blossoms of almond trees in the heart of spring against the backdrop of snow-capped mountains, the meltdown of that surrealistic moment is only to be seen to believe.

My grandmother had fondly named us Suraj and Prakash as we were identical twins, our names too were epitaph of our inseparable entities. From sharing of the womb to sharing of books ,clothes,room , hobbies ,interests and thoughts.

We were two sides to a coin. Life looked like a painting made on snowy mountains with sprinkles of saffron.

And then came the doomsday 19th January,1990.when all the colors of nature failed to please the human instincts. The color of blood was mixed with all the hues of natural colors.

The sky was painted Red. Our adolescence was being corrupted with fanaticism.

We had to leave our homes. We shifted to Jammu.

Part III

Life crumbled like a house of cards before our eyes, our home squeezed from sprawling bungalow to just one room. My grandmother could not cope up with the cultural and climatic changes and passed away. We still gathered ourselves and stood straight in the face of destiny. Suraj and I finished school and college.

We desperately needed jobs to help our father as his income was not suffice for the family.

We decided to try our luck in Delhi and one fine day we left home in search of greener pastures. Our mother asked us both to take care of each other.

We reached Delhi and rented a small room in Rohini sector 60.as it was the best possible choice for our pocket. We were sure whatever life throws at us together we will make the best memories out of it, there would be bad days, sad days and days that will test our resolve but not tear it apart. We were knocked down by life and now was the time to get up and move forward.

The climate of Delhi was arid and tormenting. But still, we refused to play a victim to it, we refused to be victims of unfairness, negatively and pessimism. Contrarily we wanted to be the survivors of the unfairness of life.

I can still recall the pain I had felt when I bought a glass of cold water for Rs.2/-my subconscious had started calculating the value of that gushing cold water rivulet that flew in the backyard of my home in Kashmir. The pain of that thought had made a warm drop of tear tumble down my cheeks and mix in that glass.

Managing ourselves in our shoestring budget was a life lesson. But still, we both managed and got jobs. We would leave by 8 am in the morning and return by 7 pm in the evening, then cook to eat chat and sleep. It was a beautiful time as all we had was each other, no mobile computers or tv. Even then we were creating normalcy out of our chaos. With him by my side, I would always think is solace something more comfortable than the arms of my brother.

One fine day we both left for our jobs I came by 7 prepared the dinner and started waiting for Suraj. I took a book and started reading it, It was almost 9, he is late and must be famished, I diverted my thought, and arranged the dinner on the table. Time felt slower, every minute felt like an hour and an hour like a day. It was at half-past 10. Till now I was brushing away the thoughts which were poking my mind.,But now I was perspiring, panicking.What if no,no, no, I refused to listen to the devils of bad omens sitting in my mind and went to look for Suraj.

I looked for him everywhere but with no results.

The pain of wait and disappointment were taking the life out of me.

The next morning I went to his office to enquire, they replied that Suraj was deputed to the Noida branch of the office for some work and he was supposed to leave after winding his work. I found that he never reached that office. I searched everywhere around, in hospitals on roads. And then I lodged a police complaint. Fatigue fear anger exhaustion and intertwined melancholy had struck me hard. Bereft of the strength to bear this alone I called my father from Jammu. We both made police station our second home. But all attempts to search him turned futile. The police closed the case.

Father couldn’t survive this blow he breathed his last longing for Suraj.

My life turned into a series of losses Home, Suraj and now Father. My mother became senile. My heart had crumbled into an infinite number of tiny pieces. The demon of guilt was strangling me from inside of my body. But my heart was not ready to accept that Suraj is not alive, he had not gone forever, he had only walked away from me for a while.

Succumbing to the plans of destiny, I returned to Jammu to be with my mother.

Part IV

I was trapped in guilt, to lessen the pain I cocooned and buried myself in books.

Soon I got a good job in a company and married Meenakshi, Aryan was born three years after our marriage.

Fifteen years have passed since that fateful night, but the darkness of that night still haunts me. Time would heal everything, I was told but time could never fill the hole Suraj had left in my body.

Today I have a big bunglow and possess all the luxuries and comforts of life, but still my soul and heartaches. The demons of my past were feeding on my today and wearing me down. Until I heal the wounds of my past, I am going to bleed.No amount of pleasure or luxury is going to bandage my wounds eventually it would ooze out and stain my life. I had to stick my hand inside and pull out the core of my pain.

I have to make peace with my memories.

The butt of cigarette burnt my finger,and brought me back to present .With lightning speed, I got up found an old family picture of me and Suraj and posted it on my social media accounts.Captioning it "To My Brother My Soul."

Time passed at it's usual pace days weeks months and a year passed.Aryan was in class eighth now.

One fine day when I was in the middle of a meeting I got a call from an unsaved number.

"Hello,Am I taking to Mr Koul." Yes, I replied,

Mr.Koul, "I am Shah Nawaz a freelance chef", ok" I replied ", What can I do for you Mr.Shah Nawaz", I felt a sense of distaste in my mouth, least interested in continuing the talk,I put the phone on speaker and continued my own work "Mr. Koul, I visit the local and preferably remotely located dhabhas of a State to understand the tastes of authentic local food"."Hmm." I replied "This time when I went to Dholpur, he continued, for my work, I went to a dhabha, very far away from National Highway. There when I opened my social networking site on my laptop. A photograph posted by you reflected on my social media site may be due to some common Kashmiri connection. Me and one of my friend started talking in our mother tongue Kashmiri language. An old man working there, heard us and saw your pictures on my laptop he was incoherent in his speech but he talked in Kashmiri, and he behaved weirdly seeing your photo clapping and dancing. The people who knew him said, he is a mad person,who cannot talk ,doesn't even know his name. Locals call him Madho, But the spark in his eyes which I felt when he saw your photo melted my heart, it made me find your number and call you. I am sending you his location".

And the phone snapped.I was so dazed and flabbergasted that I couldn't hold my phone and acknowledge his generosity.

Each word he uttered was garnished with concern and humanity, triggered waves of hopes.

Beep, A picture came on the phone,Same eyes same smile.I was silent completely silent, nonplused for a moment perhaps my senses were bracing my heart for the impact.A lone drop of tear rolled down my eyes and fell on my mobile, I clutched it hard like a child pinning his all-world on it.Then the very next moment there was a Tsunami of emotions My heart was pounding I cried" My brother is alive", I had lost him, I showed that picture to everyone around, I cried and laughed at the same time.I felt insatiably thirsty, gulped two glasses of water to clear the lump emotions had created in my throat.

Next morning we started early for Dholpur. It was around 300 km from the heart of Delhi.It took us around 5 hours via express Highway. Bereft of the strength to talk I delved in the skewed graph of my life.

We had left the highway now Katcha rasta had come.It was a lackluster village with hues of grey and green only.Meenakshi guided the driver with the location that the angel stranger Shah Nawaz had sent.

Within minutes we were outside a dhabha.

I couldn't muster the courage to come out of car,my legs were trembling,my hands were shaking.

An old frail man in almost tattered clothes dishevelled persona. Yes that was Suraj, my brother.Waggeries of time had made him old.I hugged him kissed him and cried. He kept mumbling my name in his meek vague voice.

We started for Delhi in the evening thanking the dhabha owner for taking care of Suraj for so many years.

The next morning he was admitted to Apollo hospital where he underwent a number of tests which showed that he had some head injuries in the past which became the cause of his incoherent speech and partial memory loss.

Perhaps on that fateful day, Suraj was hit by some truck or trailer. In order to escape any police case the driver took him in his truck and dumped him in Dholpur.This was corroborated by the dhabha owner too that Suraj had some head injuries when he came here.

After recuperating in hospital for ten days I took Suraj home.

His eyes were heavy, perhaps due to the effects of tranquilizer or perhaps due to the innumerable sleepless nights he had.

I laid him on bed he closed his eyes as if wanted to shut the past.

The sight of his face brimming with serenity assuaged my soul. His eyelids calmly rested against his eyes, spreading the blanket over him, I realized he had tightly held my hand, I calmly sat beside him watching him sleep like a baby who is united with his mother after a long painful separation.

I held his hand tight and thanked God, thanked Shahnawaz, for making me realize that a good person does not belong to any particular religion or faith, they actually belong to humanity.

My heart was full of gratitude towards the stranger savior Shahnawaz.