"Resilient Echoes"

"Resilient Echoes"

In a lush valley surrounded by rolling hills, the village Vasantpur was placed there, a place where nature's rhythm kept the natural quietness. Their lives were simple, filled with the earthy scent of tilled fields, the laughter of children, and the warmth of community.

The villagers were the strong and humble, and love reigned among them and their surroundings. That harmony, though, was broken a specific monsoon season. Instead of that the crops be alive and flow with the rivers, the rain, which they usually expected to be their friend, brought them disaster, the villagers. They had to encounter hardships that had never been seen before. It poured without end, as if the heavens themselves were mourning. Every new sunrise, they all were aware of the fact that the rivers have a bad smell and it was weird to see them so somber and frightening. Once it was the raging torrents that the gentle streams that wound through the village turned into day by day, and their waters were filled with dark and foreboding feelings. It was not only this but also the dzi of the land they were in, which opened its mouth and ate them up. With fear and horror repeating inside their minds, the villagers fell on their knees and fervently prayed for the rains to stop.

   In a night with the sky enveloped in its inky black armor and the air shrouded in an atmosphere of peril, the mountain above Vasantpur suddenly made a low, unnatural sound—a sound that reverberated through the valley. The unfortunate incident led to the mountain side breaking off, instantly causing disappearances and deaths as massive land was carved away from the mountain. The village, once a busy place, now it was buried under tons of mud and debris, so nothing was seen except for the absolute darkness the night.

Despite all of this destruction, there was a small noise that rose amidst the calm, homespun, and brooding atmosphere—a sob, very light but thrilling. Below the pile of leaves and rubbish, a boy by the name of Aarav was trapped, all by himself, and bewildered. He had been dreaming of his grandmother's lullabies as his brain sleepily processed the event when it happened. His grandmother was the one to take him into a world where the gods spoke and the heroes acted. So, those stories were his only solace in the pain and darkness.

Every part of Aarav’s body was in pain, and his tears made their way through the mud on his cheeks, but he never lost hope. He had heard his grandmother mention many times that hope was the most potent power in the world, and it could overcome even a terrible stormy weather or a dark night. He cried, his small voice carrying far and bouncing off the walls of the silence that he was no longer acquainted with his home.

The rising sun led rescue workers racing to the area still mulling over what they would see. They went into the wreckage thoroughly, with grimy and wrinkled hands, searching for and giving shout-outs to those who were still alive. When they heard Aarav's voice they had a new determination to work with, they could not allow the idea that someone might have lived there to avert that they stop. At last, when they extricated Aarav from the debris, he squinted in the pale light of morning, his tiny face muddy and teardrop-marked, but yet alive. The rescuers, who had been fed up by sadness, saw a glimmer of hope was kindled in their hearts. This little child, helpless but at the same time capable of endurance, was an anomaly—a sign of the continuation of life in the face of total devastation.

Stimulated by the growth of his bond with the other survivors Aarav was admitted to a town nearby where they were his caregivers. They held him in their arms, calling him so because they saw in him someone who still belonged to the town they had lost. Vasantpur used to be a village that existed but got buried by the earth; yet, it remained in Aarav’s memory and was alive in his tales—these tales that were probably shared by his grandmother and are now being enjoyed by his new family too.

At night, the crowd would sit around Aarav, while he was narrating the events of bravery and endurance. He would suggest that they found solace in his words, and in the plain statement that Vasantpur was still there as long as they remembered. The village had been claimed by nature, but the soul of its people was preserved, and the history of the village was kept alive by this courageous little boy that managed to live through it all.