The Miracle Boy

 

In a sleepy mountain hamlet, there was an orphaned boy named—sorry nicknamed—Yamdoot, meaning the one who carries out the errands for the God of Death.

Within a couple of months of his birth, both his parents departed for the other world. One of her buas, his father’s sister, lashed by a storm of pity for the infant, took him under her care. But then death seemed fond of this new arrival in the world. Within a couple of years, three deaths struck the thatched cottage by a gurgling water channel in the foothills.

Now whenever the little one cried, she thought the angel of death was singing a dirge. So her lullabies changed to cursing words and her fondling fingers adopted the shape of claws that seemed eager to smother him to death. Few of her goats and sheep entailed their masters, which was enough to convince her of the child’s ill-omened presence.

Despite many protestations by one of the boy’s mausis, mother’s sister, she somehow managed to cast away his ill-omened shadow from her cottage. Now the onus was on this mausi, but she herself by now eyed him with suspicion. Nonetheless, any chance of kicking him away was belied by her husband who would laugh at her superstitious nature.  

“Death has its own invisible, secret ways to pick up the targets. Why should we club up that thing with the presence of this little poor one?” he would laugh with his simple farmer’s logic.

So the poor child got some semblance of love from the farmer who cultivated his narrow striped fields contouring along the hillside and took his herd to the pastures further upslope. The mausi, however, was a fussy lady, so to save the poor boy from the bombardment of her tantrums, the kind uncle often took him along while he worked in the fields or went up into the pastures with their small goat herd.

Thanks to the unrelenting hard work of the family patriarch in the coming years, they seemed to prosper from the parameters of a self-sustaining economy. However, the mysteriously unfolding canvas of happenings is ever under the risk of being bespattered with the callous colours of tragedy. So again the mildly glistening colours of normal luck were swiped away by the coal-black colour of tragedy.

He was around eight by that time and like so many occasions had gone with his kind and gentle uncle upslope with their goat herd. It was a windy afternoon. Bulbous heaps of white clouds were being carried over the peaks by sighing mountain winds. A goat calf tumbled down a precipice bordering the sharp turn of the goat-track along the hillside. Panic-stricken it bleated for life and got stuck up in thickets grown over a little ledge overlooking the sheer rock-fall which appeared almost vertical from above.

Taking enormous risk on his own life, the herder climbed down to the precarious projection along the slope-fall. But then there is a threadbare distinction between life and death. Death which is ever so near, always appears too far to our hopeful eyes. This time it struck both the master and the tiny animal. The poor fellow had unfortunately went down the steep cliff-face just to accompany the helpless animal in its journey to the other world. While the day was closing its shutters upon the tiny hamlet, the boy’s profuse cries and endless tears carried the news to the village.

His status as the carrier of doom and destruction had been confirmed again.

“I always knew that you’ll take our family up to the snares of death. But his senses were betrayed by your innocent looks. Hai, hai, see, whom have you carried to the dank cellars of death?” his mausi almost accused him of murder.

Further, she flatly declared that in order to lift the pall of death from her house, she was required to dispel his ominous shadow from her hut. Of course she did it summarily.

Where was he to go? His own village seemed to be the only choice. So a tired, hungry and wearing tattered clothes our Yamdoot approached his own village in the cradle of a tiny vale. In contrast to those around him with fair colours nurtured by the mountain climes, this poor orphan had dark colour. This coupled with his pitifully brooding features made him look almost synonymous with the nickname he carried on his poor head.

His grandfather still survived. However, he had long since handed over the baton of patriarchy to his only surviving son. The old man was thus ongoing like an old sack in a musty corner in the barn; ever trying to make himself handy in the scheme of things energetically devised by the younger lots. He failed very often nonetheless. So he could have had no role in helping his unfortunate grandson. Now, we draw out our conclusions from the blatant order of happenings and mishappenings—still priding ourselves for braininess?!—so his uncle and aunt flatly refused to give him shelter.

When nobody came forward with a helping hand, an old, childless, widower farmer came up with his lurching gait and hesitating proposal:

“I’m ready to keep him as a helper. Even if what is said about him is true, I need not worry much because the deadly eventuality is sure to strike sooner or later!”

The boy thus started to stay with the patron farmer. Despite his ill repute, which destiny had smeared him with, he grew fast and strong. Since old-age helplessness is weightier than mountains, the farmer’s debilitating energies seemed to be soaked up by his young companion’s strong limbs. People did criticise nonetheless. The prevalence of the rumour about the boy made them oblivious to the fact that their fellow peasant was really old and his lurching gait and sagging steps had in fact already, and naturally, accelerated his pace towards the final destination.         

“This time Yamdoot will snare the old man. The death-attracting magnetism in him will focus Yamraj’s deadly gaze on the old man’s cottage!” the commonest among them refrained.

However, a surprise was waiting in the wings. Before the sowing season, with the boy’s help, the old man had cleared his stone-infested plot of land. Their wheat turned out to be the best in the village. The goats too gave beautiful, healthy calves. The tiny flock of sheep had a thick wad of wool. The mulberry tree in their yard became almost a juicery with so much droppings that both of them could even choose to survive on mulberries only.

“Fattening the chicken before luring him to the God of Death!” they had plain vestiges of jealousy.

Yamdoot was twelve by now. It was perhaps the best season of his life enjoyed by the farmer; coming at a time when the sky had dusk purple curtain over the clouds and shadows were lengthening. Nonetheless, all is well that ends well. Basking in this late life glory, the farmer one day declared Yamdoot as his heir apparent.

First childless and then a widower at an age when his joints had started to complain, the farmer’s tale had been that of dispirited work—just enough to earn him two meals a day—and unmotivated look at the sun of life, childless and wifeless as he was. Whenever he got serious over any matter concerning his well being, people got almost pinpricked and said:

“God has been kind enough to free you from the worries of rearing children and nurturing lineage. Nothing will be left of you after you die, so why do you take all this trouble?”

Now, but, all his sorrowfully sulking monologues got this happy stopover. All in all, his tragic tale ended on a happy note which lasted for three years. He died peacefully with the fifteen-year-old boy by his side.

The villagers had started the countdown for the old man’s departure a long time back, expecting the event to happen sooner than later. Still they jibed:

“Didn’t we tell you so!” thus adding one more mournful feather to the boy’s nickname.

We almost make traditions of our attitudes. So without going much into the details, even the little ones who hadn’t seen the tragedies themselves, smartly adopted the established view that he was called Yamdoot for good reasons. He thus remained an outcaste. However, he was a strong, healthy-limbed and handsome-featured dark boy, who could earn his morsels from what he had inherited from his foster father.

Robbed of any further chances that could exemplify his ill-omened image, bound by the tradition and myth about him, their eagerly suspicious eyes started connecting him to everyday mishaps. So, many a time, a lot many cursed themselves as unlucky if they happened to see his ill-fated face in the morning. But shackling all myths, if something good happened, it was ignored. It didn’t qualify as something odd.

At any place, at any given time, problems and mishaps are bound to crop up naturally now and then. Whenever these happened, people mulled their heads, thinking whether they had been unlucky enough to see Yamdoot’s face early in the morning that day. So it became a myth that if you see Yamdoot’s face as the first object after getting up in the morning, the day will inevitably turn disastrous.

One day, the most influential person in the village started lamenting that it was Yamdoot who was responsible for his bad luck since he saw his face as the first thing in the morning. Later in the day, as the man claimed, his ox-wagon laden with farm produce fell into a precipice on its way to the sleepy town market beyond those ridges in the mazy distance. Inconsolable over his loss, and hell bent to find a scapegoat for the economic tragedy (since he couldn’t find some other means to do it), he accused Yamdoot as the harbinger of doom and destruction for the village.

Following the tradition of hate against him, self-substantiated and biased on account of their own logic, on the testimony of now and then occurring chance mishaps, they managed to throw him out of the village. Accepting his fate as he had always, the young man set up his tiny hut upslope beyond the arable land of the village and shifted there with whatever possessions he had inherited from the old farmer.

Early youth can make or break one. If you find yourself and your capabilities positively related to the society around, you acquire some voluntary, involuntary guiding principles. He was but all alone, a tiny inconsequential speck in the mountainous terrain. All his memories related to that kind old farmer, whose visage anchored him and saved him from the dispassionately heaving waves drifting along in the bay of society.

Thus exiled, he had all his time to himself. That very loneliness and solitude seemed to make him, to wispily guide him along a forlorn path towards a vague destination. During those undisturbed, long, tranquil hours, the silently and broodingly flowing spirit gave its full energy to his occupation. He nurtured his few duties falling between his plot of land and the goat and sheep herd with such unflinching devotion that it became a happening world in itself.

His isolated days had a marvellous monotony. He was but immune to the vacillating, waxing and waning fortunes of the nature around. The striking dawns, beautiful clouds suffused with multiple colours at dusks, autumnal surrender, spring’s rejuvenation, winter’s frigidity, rain’s mirth, storm’s fury and breezy lullabies were just simple facts of life to him. He simply looked at these with his eyes only, while his mind slowly, unhurriedly mulled over his daily routine, which he was required to follow strictly in order to survive as a self-surviving entity. Over the years, his heart had been put behind the smoke-screen of his nickname.

His patch of cultivable land was away from the others. Working there he could see the silhouettes of farmers working in their striped fields along the ledges carved out of the gentler slopes. He never looked at them with the purpose of particularly watching or observing them. Only his chance eye-shots fell on their forms from a distance. It is however another matter that some eager pair of eyes watched his shadowy form from a socially safe distance. If we had a chance to have a close-up of those eyes, we would have seen a glint of sympathy and concern in those beautiful big eyes.

If we unrelate good looks from the fairness of colour—with white at the ruling acme—we could easily see traces of genuine handsomeness on his broad, squarish face. He was a strong-limbed lad of eighteen now. Perspiration drops on his body glinted like stars on the face of dark sky as he worked under the sun, clad only in a piece of linen cloth draped as a dhoti covering him down to lower thighs.

Fondness grew with changing seasons and the fleeting patterns of nature. There was a big bale of emotions and feelings buried safe in her bosom. Whenever she shaded her eyes with her hand to have a look at him, the agony of her pining heart touched a new high. The girl stole as many chances to steal as many glances at him as was permitted by her circumstances. Since the days were passing just like before, her eyes bore vestiges of desperation now.

She was the daughter of the very same person who was the chief mover of the scheme that dubbed the poor boy as the harbinger of doom for the village’s common fate. The early adolescence of a girl, but, is not driven by such calculations, rather she looks at the world against the background of musically soft chanting by an exuberant, excited heart. Her heart looks at the world differently from behind her beautifully vaulting bosom.

When he was turned out of the village, there was a torrent of sympathy and love through the vast, spacious halls in the secret palace of her heart. With the passing time, and he completely immersed in his solitude defined by that disgraceful sobriquet, this love blossomed to the extent that she could no longer bear the situation’s stagnation at the same point.

Love when ascents the acme of its graph, turns one bold and decisive for the leap of faith. So this mountain maiden, pining for her lover, set out of her house on a stormy night. It was an early winter sky laden with black clouds enjoying itself through lightning and thunder-clapping. Though dead afraid, she took hesitant but definite steps towards the alluring destination. Thoughts about him acted as a guide and torch.

His hutment made of logs, grass, reeds and mud was surrounded by a low stone fencing. On the right to the entrance was his cattle shelter made of roughly-hewn stones and a roof of uneven loggings. The low sloping thatch covering the sleepy air over his head was visible to her suddenly in a flash of lightning as she crossed the small fencing. Its dark bluish spark sent a rambling tremor through her heart.

Till now she had been drawn like a helpless, hooked fish by the cord of love through the delightful waters of youth; but now after coming so near to him, the fluidity of her flow was stuck up on the threshold of shyness and hesitation. After all, there was no formal prelude to love between them, holding onto which she could advance and declare her love straightway. Their eyes had never met which could have sent that secret message in the language of heart to arise feelings at his end. So the big mound of emotions for him which lay in her heart now seemed weightier than ever.

She got puzzled and scared, for he seemed standing unconcernedly, without having the slightest hint of the heaving sea of her emotions, at the farthest end of earth. Unable to think what to do next, she sat by the hard support of a cold stone and stared at the tiny, dark structure. Sitting there she gave the hardest of pulls to draw her out of the marshy, muddy waters; but the more she tried, the more distant, unconcerned and faded became his unmindfully busy dark silhouette.

Still younger, she had stolen sympathetic glances at him during his stay with the old farmer. But despite thousands of urgings by her heart, there was hardly any moment when she could claim that he looked at her with particular attention. And even that was almost three years ago. In the meantime, even that real life image had been taken over by his slowly, unhurriedly moving outline in his plot of land at a distance from the village. From a distance his outline was darker than the swathes of night. Darkness had claimed his identity completely now.  

Sitting there, doubts and apprehensions clouded the crystal clear rays of genuine love and passion. ‘How will he behave at her sight?’ the thought sent a chill down her spine.

She now fully realised that it was totally out of control of her girlish heart’s ability to further advance on the love-path so directly. With a pining heart she decided to leave. Still she couldn’t persuade herself from not leaving behind something which the swipes of coincidence might arrange in a way that he may get some clue to her heart’s agony. Her one-sided love was dying to spread its fragrance in the other half of the bond.

She had an unornamented plain brass bracelet on her fair wrist. Wincing with a bit of pleasant pain, she pulled it out. It being just a small article, she could not drop it anywhere. A plank served as the hut’s door. It appeared a suitable point where she could be sure of it not missing his eyes in the morning. But his dog may bark! Her heart was racing with excitement. It had to be done nonetheless. In the heart of her hearts, she even wished that the dog barks, thus waking up the master and leaving both the strangers face to face.

With her heart in her mouth, she noiselessly stepped ahead. The dog was but sleeping soundly with the master inside. As she put the bracelet in front of the closed door, she felt a soothing sensation of victory; it being the first firm step on the path authoritatively charted out by her heart.

Next day, as he opened his door to a supposedly similar dawn, his eyes caught sight of the bracelet. He was quite surprised because the first instinct told him that it had been placed there deliberately to catch his attention. The oddity of this event struck him with some force. After all, he had been completely isolated from that mountain village and was living in his hutment like an outcaste.

It was a girl’s bracelet. He knew it from the size and the make of it. Any other heart would have jumped with excitement after laying hands upon a bracelet purposely left at his threshold by some unknown but interested girl. However, his separation from the village had been complete and even in the wildest of his dreams, he could never have thought that any girl would dare or care to come this far to his place.

As far as he could remember, he was not in a position to recall even a single face that could have some interest in him. So his mind just explored other possibilities which could have resulted in its chance placing by his door. And after years he was imagining/thinking about something that didn’t fall in the customary fold of his almost otherworldly—as far as the human society was concerned—pursuits.

Right from his birth, his imagination had been thrown into a ditch, so his reflections over the possibilities were rather few and, even these sounding totally extraneous, he struggled to think still further. After that the disinterestedly lurching wood cart of his imagery got stalled in the muck of uncertainty along the desolate path; and he left it there; and after a couple of day’s drudgery of thoughts, gave up the pursuit altogether.

From a distance his silent lover now eyed him with more care, concern, worry and urgency. Her heart struck with sobbing pangs. There was no change or deviation from his earlier silently brooding and detached demeanour as it was visible from the distance which she somehow managed to steal on one pretext or the other during the day.

Already she had taken some hesitant but concrete and bold steps on the love-path. And further unable to bear the love-pangs and the situation’s killing stagnancy, she once again decided to visit the place of her lover during the dark night. This time she was already aware of her inability to carry out the love mission and its message directly to the destination. So again she decided to leave behind something that might catch his attention, putting some serious reflections in his unconcerned mind. With an exciting, soft smile she decided the object must put some ripples in his heart. It must be something that will serve as a symbol of her undeclared, unknown love.

During a country fair held at the foothills, where she had gone visiting the previous year, she had purchased a little vial of cheap, strong perfume and a lipstick. With all the girlish dreams and desires of a lovely future, she had kept these safe and unused. Her slender fingers shaking with excitement, she took out the rickety trunk which her mother kept to store the bridal accessories for the occasion of her marriage. Taking out a beautiful embroidered and filigree-bordered handkerchief, she put it under her pillow along with the perfume vial and the lipstick.

The moon’s first crescent had started shining in the misty vault of the sky even before dusk. With an amusing and solacing sigh, she ogled dreamily at it. The mist was rising; the light was fading; the stars were surfacing and the crescent’s paleness was turning to a bright smile. Each moment appeared laced with hair-tickling possibilities and softly-sashaying loveable uncertainties.

Traversing across that dewily vaulting starry sky, the moon set before midnight. In a world that criminally sabotages the lovers’ moments, the darkness becomes the perfect accomplice turning invaluable servicer for the love’s cause. Stealthily availing this service, she set out like a cat taking every precaution with each step.

She held the perfume vial in the tiny pocket on the inner side of her bodice. It was just the size of her little finger. Strongly perfumed liquid in it felt the pleasantly stormy soufflés of her heart passing through her firm girlish breasts. Her breasts’ soft tissues were in hilarious agitation against the hardness of the little perfume container. The hanky was tucked on the other side of her bodice. She held the lipstick in her hand as if to gather courage from her grip.

Her virgin love of yonder—which is hypothetical in the sense that the lover is just lost in the thoughts (almost metaphysical) of that sweet personage—was now silently, harmlessly heaving with passion and physical yearning. Her heartbeats went onto scale newer heights as each step took her nearer to the cottage of her lover.

She stopped at a distance from the enclosed hut. Its existence was indicated by a lone tree standing in the middle of his little courtyard. With still more furiously beating heart, she pulled out both things from her bodice and sprinkled a few drops of perfume on the hanky. This done she inhaled it deeply as if she was inhaling the whole essence of her lover.

Quickly she put on lipstick on her lips. It was a strong red colour. She wanted a thick layer, so grazed it quite roughly against her rosy lips. Then overpowered by the strongest of lovely desires, she carefully kissed the hanky, holding it on her straightened palm to leave an imprint of her love and desire for the lonesome creature. In the dark it seemed as if she was kissing his hard, weather-beaten, darkish cheek covered with fluffy, sparse locks of virgin beard.

The dog was, but, today in the tiny barn shelter. She heard its sleepy growl as if some goat had stepped onto its tail. She thus decided not to enter the yard. Taking as much precaution as she could manage under her fear, she approached the wooden cross-bar put across the opening in the fence. Then with nimble finger-work, she tied the kissed and perfumed hanky with so much slowness and scared ease as if she was afraid of arousing the littlest yawn by the sleepy fragrance layered upon the soft cloth.

A lover’s smelling power is less than a dog’s; for the faithful friend of man is known for this faculty only. The master found his pet sniffing the object in the morning. He ran to untie it. And he was right in running for it. It was no simple rag; rather beautiful, scented piece of cloth. The fragrance seemed to run the errand of love. He smelt it and a strange sensation hit him for the first time in life. He held it at full length and the earth almost shook under his feet. The imprint of love sent all his senses into a strange jumblement.

Overpowered by shock and surprise, he leaned against the stone fence. His finely modulated features against their swarthy background struck a note of awesome query. Holding its two corners by finger tips, he held it against the early morning freshness and stared like it was the eighth wonder in the world.

First the bracelet and now this one! No, it cannot simply be a coincidence. His mind seemed to vouchsafe and the pangs of strange excitement sent a tremor across his hardy, muscular body. Then, inevitably, the adolescent man’s heart too sent the message that it was a female’s ornate wipe-cloth...and...and the lips! His heart leapt to its highest octave.

He went inside and fetched out the bracelet casually put on a wooden chest. Now he reflected over these with more from heart. And as the heart’s imagery is manifold diversified, colourful and exhilarating than the mind’s, this time unscaled emotions and reflections entered his lonely being.

He was a forlorn young man, almost unrelated to the world. So these emotions subdued him with unusual weight and power. While stoically busy in his oft-usual chores, his mind now mulled over the secret of the bracelet and the handkerchief. Pulled by these anchoring thoughts, many a time now, he looked towards the village; but on the next thought turned his face with a force as the memories came hurtling upslope. How criminally they had mistreated him!

Till now he had been almost oblivious of their condemnation of him; mostly believing it to be his fate, for this is all he had seen while growing up. However, now the two objects had connected him—even though in an intriguing way—to the humans around. He felt the pangs of victimisation. And once this feeling of victimisation arose, he determined that he too would shut the door in society’s face with as much force as it had been doing since he was born.

Since there was no other way for the redressal of the wrongs against him, he decided to vent out all his grievance on the night-gifts from that unknown human—and a female he was sure now—by throwing these into the mountain brook that gurgled nearby. As he raised his hand to throw the objects, his heart felt the weight of it. After all, he was a human being. Having failed to accomplish the task, he returned even more brooding, sulking with a heavy and uneasy heart.

Now however hard he might try, he just couldn’t get rid of the thoughts about that unknown human being who intentionally—he was sure on this account also—left those things in his yard; thus, in the way, breaking all the taboos related to him. Tormented by such thoughts, many a time, he kept awake during the nights in the hope of busting the secret.

During those forlorn moments in the dark, as if lying on a watch-out to meet that person, he would feel a pleasant prick at his heart, ‘What if it turns out to be a girl from the village!?’ He tried to deny this possibility even though the things mathematically proved that it was sure to be a girl. The more he tried to shut out the thoughts, with more force these came striking at the closed doorway of his suffering heart.

His silent lover also knew that his position in the society forbade him from making any advancement on the queries put forth by the things left by her. She thus realised that she will further need to follow the commands of her suffering heart in order to reach some initial, feeble milestone on the love-path. As a girl should do under such circumstances, she gathered the tit-bits of his routine. She did it cleverly without arousing anybody’s suspicion about the love fountain bursting inside her.

Many things being vague, one fact was assuredly known that he took his herd upslope for grazing. After those nocturnal forays, now was the time to let the love-crystal shine in the broad daylight. She was overpowered by a peculiar love-gripped admance against the furious whiplashings of doubts, fears and inhibitions arising out of her status as a young maiden on the path of making her love known to the pearl of her heart, the man whom the villagers had forsaken.

It was late autumn. The sun shone brilliantly over the wind-fallen canopies of trees. The sultry evenings were impregnated with the distant calls of winters. This morning was particularly calm and cool. The sun showed all the promise of a bright sunny day. Cool breeze struck the peaks and seemed singing a lullaby to the littlest of fluffy piece of cloud standing almost still in the vast cradle of blue sky.

It was a love adventure in broad daylight. Taking great care to avoid meeting anyone in the intended direction, she took a long and circuitous route and then turned in the targeted direction at a safe distance from the mountain village. Every step turned her bolder than earlier. However, it was a long walk and it was noon by the time she reached the place where she hoped to find him with his grazing herd.

Who can, but, properly estimate the exact twists and turns of a mountain clime? The day which seemed full of sunny prospects suddenly nose-dived on its early-morning promise. A huge dome of black cloud raised its foreboding appearance from behind a ridge. Its peal of thunder was particularly warning. Rising like a challenge against the sun, the force of lightning distinctly flashed even at the noontime. As any girl would, she shook with fear and nervousness. The soothing breeze soon turned into a storm.

Prompted by the weather’s theatrics, the silently suffering doors of her heart were opened and like a drowning human clutching at saviour-sinews, she yelled out his nickname with the full force of her feminine vocal cords; though at the same time feeling the pangs of guilt because the name was almost a stigma which the poor boy carried on his lonesome existence. She was ashamed of it but there was no other way of addressing him to draw his attention. Her almost sobbing cry pattered against the rocks and vanished somewhere, while the fearsome cloud almost eclipsed the day to make it almost night-dark.

She shouted with more force and more urgency, moving her nimble steps in all directions. There was but no response. Now she shouted and cried in between and called him as if they knew each other from yore and had talked to each other many, many times. Against all these unexpected, fearful uncertainties he seemed the one acquainted since time’s start and the only support to her. The peal of thunder was almost unbearable and lightning flashed—so near—with the propensity of burning everything.

Then the first big raindrops began to fall. There was a lull for a moment and with all the capacity of her throat, she shouted once again before being put to silence by the strike of a big drop on her head. There upslope at a distance, he had faintly heard one of her shouts. Now it was confirmed to him that somebody was calling out for him.

More importantly, it was a girl’s voice. His heart’s inner voice that was trying to convince him of the possibility of a girl leaving those two objects in his yard in the dark, now opened the floodgates of excitement. It was a completely new sensation, entirely unlike what he had experienced in life since his birth. And like the one who had been unrelated so far, but suddenly found the pole star of relatedness, he hurried down-slope almost beating his herd along the way.

The fury of the rainy storm was almost unprecedented in the region. Not knowing how to address the caller, he just kept on shouting, as he hurtled down:

“Yes! Yes! I’m coming!”

Fearing for life, she took shelter under a tree and kept on calling him as loudly as was allowed by her feminine force. Then he arrived along the goat trail; his arrival pronounced by the new high of thundering and lightning. Their eyes met for the first time! Time stopped. Rain, thunder and lightning fell into poor background. And all the untold stories were told; all questions answered in a moment; all secrecy was busted; and all mysteries were laid bare. The language of eyes is no slave to words and time. Both of them knew that they were lovers.

Like a sparrow escaping the claws of an eagle, she ran and took shelter in the safe confines of his muscular arms. New height of his love-struck heart was absorbed by the peal of thunder and a terrible flash of lightning. All melted, they looked into each other’s eyes from so close. Distances had vanished. She had got him. Her locks wet, her fair colour over her delicate features shone with the vibrancy of a bright star against the background of night. His big eyes said all his tongue could not.

They were completely drenched in water. Still he tried to shelter her from the wetness, thunder and lightning. Taking her to the tree, he put his wet blanket on the muddied earth and made her sit on it. Then looking at her with utmost devotion like she was a Goddess, he rose and drove his herd under the tree around them as if to protect her from all the dangers in the world.

All the pent up emotions in his hitherto sealed heart now rained more stormily than the rain. Still he couldn’t mutter a word. As a symbol of what went inside his heart, he just put forth the two prized possessions with him: the two little things which tortured and soothed his lonely being at the same time; the things whom he had so many times tried to throw into the pebbled brook, but after each such failed attempt clutched them to his heart with more love and passion.

His fingers shaking under the throes of his heart, he held both the night-gifts in his hands in front of her face. She was flushed with shyness. There was a look of both question and answer on his face. With a shy, feeble smile she nodded. All the stormy noise didn’t exist for them now. It was perfect silence and loneliness for the love-whispers to hear each other even though the lovers didn’t speak a word.

“I...I...had no other way of declaring...my...” she stopped, blushed and hid her face in his chest.

A gust of warmth sashayed over her cold, wet body and she slid herself still closer into his torso. Unprecedented tremors passed through his body. He the outcaste and now so close to humanity, so near to somebody’s care and love. It was overpowering. He held her with such softness as if he was handling a butterfly.

“For nights...I...kept a watch...” he put up an effort to talk like a normal human being after almost endless loneliness in the world, “to...to find out.”

There was again a tremendous peal of thunderclap and she sneaked into the safety of his bosom. “I entered your heart...rather intruded!” she muttered from behind the cosy secrecy his chest.

He ran his fingers through her wet locks. It was like he was caressing society; touching humanity. She could distinctly feel his heartbeats even against the background of thunderous events around. She put her soft palm on it to absorb and assuage his pains.

“Your heart beats faster...due to fear or love?” she pouted.

“It beats for both. Fear for us and love for you.”

“So like a true lover, you wander with love-gifts in your pocket!” she whispered coquettishly.

“These and you are more of a dream to me. Hardly believable or even imaginable,” he sighed.

“So you dream too. Have you ever dreamt of women?”

“Yes...but no...not that way,” he hesitated, “society cannot rob one of dreaming!”                                                 

“I often dreamt of you. But even in dreams you appeared as distant as you look from far away in the village while working in your field,” she sounded cosily complaining.

“So you watched me from a distance. Sometimes my heart leapt suddenly with joy. It must have mysteriously felt the touch of your eyes.”

“As if!” she gave a little slap on his chest.

Their talk and whispers were beyond all natural and worldly storms now. However, the storm too wouldn’t give in. It went on aggravating to disastrous limits in proportion to the sweetness of their heart to heart talk and soul-solacing deepest depths of love and passion. They, but, were now immune to all the noise around.

They were at the peak of their youth. He was beyond the pale of society and forlorn to the limits a human being can bear. She loved him with the passion of a fully ripe girl. The love-bond brought them nearer and nearer till all inhibitions melted and were washed away along with the rivulets let loose by the torrential rain. Deep rumblings of the clouds turned them deaf to all social admonishments. Flashing light made them turn their eyes from the judgemental society. Individualities melted and they became a unit catalysed by love.

As they tightly embraced each other, forgetting themselves, they were groping into the innermost depths of each other. They beat the storm in their kisses, caresses and fondling to reach the inmost recesses of each other’s heart, soul and bodies. The herd, meanwhile, jutted around the tree with animalistic fear and strange detachment.

The peals of thunder looked capable enough to break the mountain. Lightning seemed eager to burn the wet forest. Many a time, the strokes of lightning reached almost to kiss the tree’s foliage, followed by hellish noise. But they were oblivious to all this. In those precious moments, he was busy in removing that archaic separation which had kept him aloof and away from the normal human relations and emotions.

With each silently, pleasantly suffering grunt and esoteric moan, all that debris of fate and society was washed away. He forgot what he had been made out to be; leaving him just a human being burdened with the garbage of fate and its bearers on earth. Though he was making love to her; but his body over hers appeared more like protecting her from the treacherous weather.

The fate had played a sudden, decisive, unexpected role in his life. Today too it played its startling card. Like lightning it had struck those around him, sparing him unscathed and making him the scapegoat as the bearer of that nick-name, the carrier of ill-fate, a veritable agent of death, Yamdoot.

Today too the bolt hit mercilessly.

When both of them were in that mesmerising, forgetting state of oblivion, when all being is scattered to the vectors of infinite bliss and joy, the fate struck again. The lightning strike seared through the tree’s foliage. However, this time he was lovefully arched over the loveliest thing for him in the world and bore the brunt of this bolt.

He convulsed with the last jerk of life that took her body and soul to the farthest end of oblivion and pleasure. The peak of exhilaration and ecstasy! Forgetfulness!

He indeed was a miracle boy.

The strike was so harsh that even the ring on her finger and the silver pendant around neck vaporised, being atomised. However, the stroke of pleasure was still bigger and overpowering. She felt no pain, just the lightening strike of pleasure. The calamity and ecstasy had coincided. There were burn marks in place of the ring and the pendant. And he had been freed from the cage of his ill-omened nickname.

The tree’s foliage was intact, so was the herd which was now running, bleating in all directions. She with a few scars on her body was crying over the body of her lover in her arms.

She made no effort to bury the incident and thus escape from the clutches of a scandal. For the sake of her dead lover, she told the story with details to draw him out of the chains of that ill-omened name. And they laughed at her as the one with a fallen character and then having gone mad.