Broken Smile

Monsoon was here to foster environmental harmony and rekindle human spirits. All the colours available on a painter’s palette were on display on the vast canvas of the sky. The spectacular skylark clouds approached as the harbingers of rain. The sky’s apron was dark grey when it was drizzling; it turned silvery grey when gentle showers turned to heavy downpour. Clouds low and high; clouds in different cottony sculpted swathes; in different sizes and shapes. In the mornings when the sun lurked around the horizon these reflected a golden sheen; in the forenoon when the sun was curtained by high veiling of clouds, the lower bluish-grey fabric reflected half the usual brightness. In the afternoon pale grey handed over the baton to most exciting interplay of cloudy colours in the evenings. The atmosphere washed of its linen during the day, now the setting sun virtually changed these vaporous hangings into a vast kaleidoscope of colours. Baleful of clouds and colours in the sky’s lap.

He liked this particular interplay of cloudy colours in monsoon skies: scarlet, purple, chocolate, orange, reddish orange, yellowish, and numerous other combinations. He often marvelled at the interplay. He mused about the unknown painter. Nature. He knew it was nature.

He stayed alone and even on nights did not miss the shades of dull white and black. In mid-September the monsoonal sojourn extended into autumnal sultriness of retirement like he felt about himself at this stage of life. And on this full-moon night, fluffy white lumps of milky clouds shone against the background of rain-washed bluish dark sky lit here and there by the brightest stars. The moon shone at the acme of its shape and brightness. He had companions in these beauties of the night. Staring into the distances of the night sky, he felt related to some destiny somewhere at the farthest end of the universe. Gauzy, lacy, transparent fabric of these clouds was drawn like a curtain; and when it passed over the moon, the full-faced beauty smiled through the veil like a shy bride at his excited bachelor self. A sort of lunar rainbow! A silvery hallo around the celestial beauty, fading into yellowish band, followed by a purple one. The night too had colours. He was happy while spending sleepless nights on his solitary terrace. On fluffy, broken cloud pieces, the moon threw yellowish and purplish dye as these fleeted forward driven by easterly monsoon winds. These and other such spectacles were his playmates for old age.

The much-pampered Chau Chun, as big as a leopard cat, fed on his affection and full-cream milk, was snoozing in his lap. It was afternoon. The sun must have been halfway across the perpendicular and the western horizon. A dark sheet of cloud hung horizontally, passing the sun just below its lower ring. Caressing the cat on its sleepy head, he heaved a sigh and looked at the spectacle and stopped for a moment in telling the story to the sleeping cat. A fountain of light burst down like a bright column of stage-light. The easterly breeze carried very low fluffy dark-grey clouds. Against the brighter upper background these appeared smoky puffs of a steam engine. As these passed the bright column of the sun’s flashlight their smokiness became prominent. The unmindful pampered cat did not mind interruption in the story. He was telling the stories of his life. The story of a leopard that came his way while he was walking in a mountain forest.

“You go your way and I take care of my path,” he confidently instructed the big cat, purporting to brag to the little cat and admonishing the little one not to mess with him.

During his heydays he had the guts to look straight into the eyes of a leopard without showing any signs of fear so that the big cat just moved away. He gave a loud burst of solid laughter as he concluded the story and started another about the bullying monkey whom he had reprimanded like a little child and the monkey had just retreated shamefaced.

He really liked his cat and believed in its ability to sense the paranormal. He was equally fond of its lazy sleepy ways. “If cats do not sleep for so long, their predatory instincts would chuck out at least some of the species!” he proudly explained sometimes to the neighbour. 

It was a musty autumnal twilight. A desultory breeze blew across the Doon Valley. Day’s white and night’s black mixed to produce standard grey of twilight. In the yawning despondency, the thickly wooded Himalayan foothills, tiny ridges, rilled vales—a teasing bonsai of the mighty Himalayas—stood in tired silence. A big, vertical column of cloud stood alone in the sky like a skyscraper. The sun had dived deep beyond the hillocks; and this cloudy tower seemed to stand on its toes to have a look at the day’s eye. The upper reaches of the cloudy column still reflected the faint ochre of the downed sun. It thus hovered over the tall strands like a big bulb. But then the sun dived still deeper below the horizon and the fluffy vapours handed over their last sheen to the folds of the autumnal night.

Chau Chun slipped out of his hand and he saw it crossing the compound wall and jumping into the forest’s welcoming greenery.

“Haa haa sala hunter! Can’t help it. Feed him the best malai in the world, he but still needs to go on nocturnal forays!” he laughed at the feline creature.

Many times the big cat just slipped out only to come at day-break next day with more love and more pampering at the master’s feet.

Situated in a broad bowly depression at the foot of mighty father’s Shivalik hills, the little nature’s cove had Mussorie facing in the north at the crest of high ranges like a proud queen. Crisscrossing the tiny villages and hamlets the road circuited along the scattered peace of the area. Jakhan, Johri, Sinaula cradled in the lap of this bowl basking in impregnable peace. Along the road there were little general stores, tailor shops, mostly run by womenfolk, surprisingly little doctoring shops of registered unregistered medical practitioners, and PCOs. The rural community as you moved into the forest away from the main Mussorie road looking cosily safe in self-sustaining mode, and what is more important living in peace. Clouds got a full chance to vent out their rainy ecstasy here upon the welcoming canopy of broad-leaved sal forests. One would feel blessed by the atmospherics when enclosed by the wispy, dense, foggy strands of stratus and nimbostratus clouds stuck up in a little spur and thereby losing their essence in melting, surrendering abundance.

This little heaven, starting from Rajpur road at Jakhan, didn’t give even the littlest clue to the veritable peace and tranquillity lying undisturbed a couple of kilometres into the forest and tiny hamlets. He was moving into this peace. Vehicle noise from the road to Mussorie died after him. He was headed to the forest. He walked with a limp. He had carried a scar on his left leg for the last 20 years, non-healing in nature and asking him to live another day with reinvented determination, take one more step at the cost of more pain. More than the pain in leg, his heart was aching. Chau Chun hadn’t returned.

Tiny tidied neat homes, bungalows of retired army officials, local faces showing mild mongoloid features, undisturbed flora and fauna, it was all spread around him with the sense of normalcy like you expect on any day. But Chau Chun was not to be found.

“O Sahab...O Sahab...for God’s sake don’t walk so much!” he was harked at from behind.

With a resigned sideway glance he looked at the follower and slowed down for the person to catch up with him.

The follower was a very strongly built stocky old man. Now he was a peculiar mass of muscles mired in ageing pulp. From looks and the way he wore his clothing anybody would have dubbed him a lunatic. However, it wasn’t really so. The concern that he showed for the limping man belied all such possibilities. He was carrying huge sacks in both hands. His right leg tied in a rag was badly lacerated. With stony nonchalance to his condition he was carrying on his march towards his destination to the next hamlet. He knew the sahib. On more than one occasion he had received some retired ware as a mark of the kind man’s large-heartedness.

The old man took a vow to find Chau Chun even if it meant looking every nook corner in the bushes of the forest around. The master but knew that nothing sort of a personal search will satisfy his aching heart.

He walked on calling Chau Chun, Chau Chun. He wanted the cat back at any cost. He just couldn’t afford to lose this axis of his fatherly affection. The sky will lose its colours if he didn’t find his pet, a family member rather. He searched and searched, and returned all tired with the fatigued rays of the sun at the day-end.  

It was raining at night and he couldn’t sleep. Unable to stop himself he set out in the dark to find the listener to his stories. It was windy and a gust, not showing any respect to the elderly, blew away his umbrella, leaving him open to the storm’s fury.

The next day found him sick and the wound still worse. In semi-consciousness he was telling the stories of his youth, when he had been healthy and was not alone because he participated in the mundane mad race. His muffled words. Nobody to hear. Not even Chau Chun.