Sheryl Varghese

The Question picked up is: Who is Sheryl Varghese?

 

Sipping the coffee, Ms. Charu Mani Oomen started checking the books. The cover of the fifth book intrigued her.

It was a beautiful abstract painting of a woman with no eyes but had tears, nose, and lips. The paining sorrowful feel in the face absorbed her full attention. She started staring at the painting.

Few minutes passed. Charu lasts herself in the painting and only the Tears, Nose, and Lips from the painting started dominating her brain and mind. She could not tolerate the agony, that the picture sprinkled upon her heart.

Further minutes passed. Charu became captive and she could not relieve her from the painting. She started realizing an intermittently superimposing face, on the ears, nose, and lips, like a flash in a movie. Again after a few pauses, she thought that this superimposed face was seen by her somewhere! The repeated revelation of the face ensured that she has seen this face somewhere! But, where was it? And whose face was it?

At a point in time, she felt that it is none other than her face!

‘My Face..!’ Charu wondered, thrilled, excited but at the same time became very scary!

How can it be?

In a book.. in a book published at least fifty years back.. in a book, she has just bought from shop.. in a book she never read before.. how can her image be there?

Again she glued her eyes on the painting. And the ears, nose, and the lips readily flashed the face - her face - and went into silence again as tears, nose, and lips!

The annoyed Charu slowly got up and saw through the window of her room. The beautiful and green Garden outside her Kerala Cochin house through the window gave her a mysterious look! The mild breeze blew heavily creating a dreadful environment.

Charu came out of her room hesitantly and saw around. It was a very big house - rather a big bungalow. At least 50 rooms were there in that bungalow. Charu herself has visited only a few of them in her lifetime. Most of them were not opened at all for years together. The bungalow was fully surrounded by the Greenish trees, plants, and bushes for about ten acres. There were no servants to take care of the surroundings of the house. It gave a weary look. This is one reason, which made Charu dislike living in that house and flew to a different environment. And hence she went to Newyork to study.

No one is there in the house except herself, the servant-maid, the nurse, and the grandma in the bed without any consciousness!

Her unintentional walk took her to the outside of the bungalow. A ‘hizzy..’ noise was blowing around. As she walked on, she could hear the murmurs, ssSess.. and various unheard sounds from around, which gave deadly shivering. She took all the efforts to avoid the walk and go back to her room – but – absolutely in vain. Something dragged her out and out. again and again.

The unexpected interference of the animals and creatures like a rabbit, snakes, hedgehogs, chameleons, ‘onans – (oriental garden lizard)’ threatened Charu and warned them to get away from the path, but, which she was unable to obey.

It was nearing darkness. Suddenly she saw a man with a bushy hairy face showing his white-yellowish stained teeth. He was a few yards away from the compound wall. With his lusty voice he asked in simple local language which meant ‘shall I come in.. or can you come out.. we will go to heaven. I will take you there.. ‘

Charu was trembling and wanted to vanish from the place for which she could not even initiate an action.

In about a few minutes she was near the bungalow gate. And she started walking inside the bungalow. 

On her aimless walk, she was compelled to pass through the kitchen. Then she thought that she will take the servant-maid with her to beat the fear.

This servant-maid was newly appointed. Hence she was not familiar with her. She could not talk the local language. She talked in some peculiar language that Charu could not understand. However, she made her accompany her to stall around the house. But Charu herself was not knowing why she should go around.

After about a hundred meters of the walk, Charu saw the door of a big room open. Charu cautiously stepped into the room. There were a lot of broken shelves, old worn-out wooden cupboards, and termites eroded wood structures. There were a lot and lot of old black and white photos, old paintings, caricatures, canvas paintings, sketches, hand renderings, and so on.

Most of them resembled Charu! In a few pictures, she saw the scribblings which spelled MV02FK09. Suddenly she remembered the same scribbling in the painting she was seeing from the book. She was shocked. How can this scribbling exist in the book she purchased from a shop outside as well as here in this long unopened junk room. What does it mean? In a few more images she could see the numerals ‘8998’ which is a palindrome.

By the time she was going through those images, she felt a vacuum in and around the room. And the servant maid who came with her to the room was missing.

Charu slowly and fearfully came out of that room. With utmost effort, hitting here and there through many rooms, she reached the kitchen.

The servant-maid showed her Twenty-seven and half teeth and laughed. She conveyed in a sign that she rushed back to cook dinner for that night.

Charu ate the two ‘chappathis’ and a little ‘subji’ the servant maid brought to her for dinner. It was night and might be around 10. Charu conveyed through signs, to the servant maid, to come and sleep with her that night.

The servant-maid nodded her head affirmatively and left. But even after more than one hour, she did not turn up. Charu, who was grassing over the same mysterious book, started walking towards the kitchen for the servant maid. But she was not there.

On the way back, she was crossing the closed door of the big room of her grandma where she was lying ill.

Something drove Charu towards that room. She touched the doors. And it opened very easily. Surprisingly she saw her grandma sitting on the bed comfortably. The reason for Charu’s surprise was, that, right from her visit, the grandma was fully unconscious and could not see her granddaughter.

The nurse could not be seen anywhere nearby.

On hearing the mild noise of the door, the grandma lifted her face, saw Charu and gave an affectionate smile, and moved her head up and down, inviting her Charu to go near.

Charu went to Grandma. As required by her, she sat near grandma’s head side pillow. The grandma, with her two rough hands, groped on the chin of Charu and did ‘drushti’ sign (nullifying the evil eyes on Charu) around her.

In a slightly shivering but strong voice, the grandma started enquiring about the wellness of Charu. After an exchange of a few formal queries, the grandma asked Charu about the book she was holding in her hand.

Charu’s face became a little bright. She showed the book and its surprising contents like Charu’s face, code, etc., She also explained her photo room visit in the house and the existence of similar images, codes, etc.,

The grandma after passing a moment, asked Charu,” Is the Author of the book HIIH. Charu said, “Yes”.

The grandma started explaining, “Dear Lovely Charu, fifty years before, HIIH was one of our managers. At that time, your mother was around 10 years and he was very affectionate to her. However, due to an illness, he could not continue working and was to leave. During those days, I heard that he used to draw thousands and thousands of different types of images of your mother. In each image, he entered MV02FK09 as the identity of the creator. In the later part, on the images which he drew after your mother’s death, the image looked sorrowful. That is why he depicted tears, nose, and lip expressing utmost sorrow in the face. In the later part of his life, he has sent thousands of such images to your grandfather. He was impressed by the creations and stored them in a separate room, which you have visited today and saw.

HIIH used some of the images as a cover image in the books he released during that time. What you have seen is one such book. All this information came to our knowledge only just before his HIIH’s death.

“OK grandma.. how does this image resemble me?”

“It is because you are exactly a printed copy of your mother!”

“Well, grandma. What is the relationship between ‘MV02FK09’ and ‘8998’”

Well, dear Charu, it may look silly but this is what HIIH, told me during his final days.

In MV02FK09’,

MV stands for MOVE;

02 stands for 2;

F stands for FROM;

K stands for 1000;

09 stand for 9;

K09 stands for 9K which in turn is 9000

So the entire ‘MV02FK09’ means ‘Move 02 From 09K’. This means ‘Take away 2 from 9000 which is 8998.’

“Fantastic grandma. And what is 8998?”

“ 8 stands for 8th alphabetical letter H and 9 stands for 9th alphabetical letter I. So 8998 stands for HIIH which is his name.”

By God’s grace, the grandma was fine. The next day Charu took the blessings of the grandma and left for Newyork.

In Newyork…

Time Square! One of the most popular locations in Newyork. As it was becoming dark, the Time Square was blossoming like a heaven of the earth with beautiful and colorful lights. There were hundreds of unimaginable size LCD screens exhibiting enthusiastic and bright scenes. On the slope in front of the clock towers thousands of people were sitting and enjoying the environment. The share details running around the NASDAQ building were creating a thrill among shares loving tourists.

Ms.Charu Mani Oomen who was rushing out of a big building, in Time Square Area of Newyork was stopped by one hand. It was her close friend Ramya.

Ramya introduced her friend standing nearby with her. ‘Hey, Charu! She is a professor in your college. You can take any help from her’.

‘Hi, Mam. I am Charu!’

‘Hi. Charu. I am Sheryl Varghese. Don’t worry! I will take care of you!’

‘Mam.. you are from...’

‘I am from Cochin. Daughter of the famous Artist and Writer HIIH’

Charu was astonished!!