Rahul Bhandare

Drama

3  

Rahul Bhandare

Drama

The Unseen

The Unseen

4 mins
137


I woke up that morning with the cold harsh winter of Sangorpur seemingly invading all my senses.

The field visit for my company Solar Solutions had been a great learning experience. But I had also grown weary of this winter.

As I daydreamed my way out of bed, suddenly someone desperately began pounding on my door. Feeling alarmed, I quickly opened it.

Shevanta Tai, the elderly lodge owner was almost in tears.

“Sir, sir. Te gele. He is gone, sir!”

Uncertainly I offered her a chair.

“Tai, tumhi kay boltay? What are you saying? Please calm down and tell me everything…”

Shevanta Tai almost crashed into the chair and held her head.

“Your colleague sir, Mr Arun Thote, has passed away.”

For a few moments, the world seemed to stop making any sense. How could this be? I had seen Arun’s jovial chubby face just a few hours ago. This lady must be mistaken. She must be wrong!

As if understanding my thoughts, Shevanta Tai looked up.

“It is true sir. Arunji stayed late in the Daporli village, in…in a certain part of the village, even when we had warned him not to. He was one of the people who lost his life when some villagers attacked that part of the village.”

Reality seemed to be twisting and turning like a slithering snake. A riot in Daporli village? But I had been there, I had met those people!

My mind slowly escaped to a time when things still made some sense…


The muddy paths in Daporli were often blocked by stray cattle, curious children, haystacks, and various kinds of dung. But with the sun rays warming my face, I was in good spirits.

So far I had spoken to over a dozen villagers, trying to understand whether they would be interested in my company’s solar lighting scheme.

All of them had been only too eager to learn about the technology and how it would help their village. I could sense in the villagers a thirst for progress. The teenagers loitering at the back curiously absorbed everything I said. The proud mothers in sweat-stained sarees pressed me with the most questions. Even the village elders listened patiently with their heads tilted, trying to make sense of my urban Marathi accent. These were people, I thought, who represented the Real India. I was pleased to see them eager to embrace progress and change.

Slowly I made my way across the muddy path towards the rickshaw stand. That’s when looking around I noticed that the last few miles of the village appeared visibly different – more shoddy and almost weather-worn, with ragged huts of the most simple kind.

I wondered why this was so. Then I noticed two men dragging the carcass of a cattle.

The stench of the carcass seemed to take all the warmth out of me. I hurriedly walked away towards the rickshaw stop…


“Sir? Sir?”

Shevanta Tai gently placed a hand on my shoulder and I returned to my terrifying reality.

I nodded at her.

“I…I am okay Shevanta Tai. But how did this happen? How could it happen? The people of Daporli seemed so friendly!”

Shevanta Tai’s expression grew dark.

“Yes, they are sir. But not to everyone, certainly not to their own villagers.”

Suddenly she shook her head.

“Sir we can discuss all that later. Now you must collect the body from the police station…”

Wearily I again nodded. In a daze, I walked out of the room to complete a task I didn’t fully grasp.

How were my feet moving? How was everything so normal? How could the universe simply behave like the death of Arun was a mundane occurrence?

My thoughts and emotions swirled into a fog through which I managed to get to the street and take a rickshaw to the police station. Trying to escape the cold wind, I sunk into the darkest corners of the little rickshaw.

My thoughts turned to Daporli. What had Shevanta Tai said?

Not to everyone.

Thinking back, I realized she was right. There had clearly been a part of the village that was not quite a part of the village. Even I had not taken out the time to meet anyone there.

Why didn’t I approach the men holding the carcass? Why didn’t I tell them about the technology that they clearly needed so much more than the other villagers?

In the distance, the sun was rising but its warm rays failed to soothe me.

The hours ahead, even the months ahead, would be bleak. I would have to get through them somehow.

But after the immediate formalities and before my return to Mumbai, I knew that there were some things I had to do. There was a part of Daporli village that I had chosen to ignore.

I had to return to it.

THE END


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