My Mind- stuffed with
memories, both sweet and sour- is like a python cud-chewing its swallowed
preys, mostly the sour ones. The accident a ten-year-old boy met with[ my
neighbor’s son] a decade ago on a New Year’s Day still lingers in my memory,
burns my heart and never let itself eroded by the waves of time. I was then at
Madurai having a short stint in a bank.
To me, until 2001, every
New Year’s Day used to be a day of reckoning and renewal. Like snakes doffing
off their old skins, I would, on that day, get my mind repaired and
rejuvenated, filling it with some make-believe thoughts and promises. To me,
among all the chores that I do on a new year’s day, visiting a temple and praying
to god to paint my future green is a paramount one. But, after a few days, I
would tend to forget both god and family when workplace storms catch me by the
scruff of my neck.
The 1st of January 2001, as
usual, dawned with hopes. My family and I were waiting in a bus station as we
wanted to go to a nearby temple. Standing with us was a small, vivacious boy of
about 10-years-old. He was restless, nagging his mother to get him a piece of
watermelon from the fruit vendor who had pitched in his shop at the other side
of the road. In a split second, the boy got released his hands from his
mother’s grip, started running across the road only to get himself run over by
a heavy laden truck.
He was lying on his stomach under the front
wheels of the truck, bedaubed with blood. Gosh! He was crushed to the dregs.
While his body was mangled, his right hand was seen holding out a crumbled ten
rupee note, the money he got from his mother for buying a slice of watermelon.
‘Muthu”, hollered his mother, ran over to him in one bound and cried her head
off. She fainted soon, unable to bear the sight of her mutilated son. A few
spaces from the boy’s mom stood the fruit vendor in awe and shock.
Soon, all my New Year’s
spirit had waned as I stood dazed wringing my hands helplessly. For one moment
the boy was in flesh and blood, animatedly chatting with my mom and regaling us
with his wits, the other moment he was dead and gone. Hell with fate! We
cremated him later in the next day, and his father lighted his funeral pyre.
12 years had rolled by quickly since the boy had gone to ashes, a small bud dropped on the ground without blossoming. Muthu’s ever weeping mother now got her recouped from the tragedy. Time had healed her off completely. I heard she was seen going to the temples every now and then, and the family was on its rails.
12 years had rolled by quickly since the boy had gone to ashes, a small bud dropped on the ground without blossoming. Muthu’s ever weeping mother now got her recouped from the tragedy. Time had healed her off completely. I heard she was seen going to the temples every now and then, and the family was on its rails.
But what happened to me?
Brooding still over the gory death of the boy, which I’d seen with my own eyes,
I still remain not to get myself reconciled to what had happened. Time could
not dim my remembrances of him. After the boy’s death, whenever I see the 1st
of January every year in the gird of a daily calendar, I begin to think of
Muthu lying on his stomach under a truck with his right hand holding a crumbled
ten rupee note. I don’t go to temples on New Year’s Day nowadays. In fact on the 1st January of every
year, I become gloomy to the consternation of my family as I don’t involve
myself in New Year’s celebrations.
This January of 2013, I was
at Madurai attending a family function. I got up early in the morning, raced
over to the race course road where the boy had met with the accident. It was
still dark and the broad arterial road was lying in respite preparing itself to
face the onslaught of the vehicles and the hustle-bustle of upcoming day’s activities.
Moving slowly to the middle of the road and placing thereat a piece of
watermelon, I stood still awhile, closing my eyes.
‘Amma, I want watermelon.
Give me ten rupees,’ Muthu’s tender voice seemed to reverberate across the
road. I felt like I had a thud in my heart. When I felt someone holding my
hand, I saw a man standing beside me with cut flowers. The man was an old guy,
must be in his mid-50s, sporting a long flowing white beard. He was bald,
emaciated and his dhoti and shirt are crumbled and dirty. I was unable to
recognize him for a moment. However, when he took away his power glasses, I
began to know whom I was with.
Gosh! He was none other
than the fruit vendor from whom Muthu wanted to buy a slice of melon. Even at
that old age, the vendor finds it humane to remember a dead young soul on the
day of his premature demise. The world, I thought, still moves on it axis
because of the existence of such gold hearted persons. God bless them.
Courtesy image: Google
