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Megh Raj Adhikari.
Teaching English at Ambition Academy, KTM.
9841459457
adhikari.meghraj@yahoo.com
Lo! Baba! You’re crying.
The gorgeous morning savours the greetings of prodigious sun beaming with its gentle beacon.
How effortlessly it pervades the atmosphere and gives the entire phenomena a potion that brings
everything back from the somber recess of the night into a renewed vigour. The whole nature gets
enthused with delight at the decree of hope the rising sun brings with it. The eerie void that had
engulfed the entire nature during the night slips away meekly.
My eyes are spread, in sheer wonder, across the panorama unleashed by the autumnal morning.
Sometimes, my spirit hops at the sight of the dove, perched on the clothesline stretch across the far end
of my courtyard, wooing his demure beloved who flutters her wings every time the dove thrusts its beak
into her feathery neck. And at another instant, my eyes are glued at the golden waves of the paddy field
rejoicing in the gentle thrusts of the morning breeze. Almost a mile away, towards the southeast of my
house, there is a solitary mango tree in the midst of the paddy field. I see a small girl enjoying in a swing
suspended from one of the branches of the tree. Sometimes she climbs down the swing to give her
teddy a chance but, perhaps, unable to resist the urge to cling herself to the swing, she takes the teddy
away from the seat and climbs herself onto it. Elated as I am, my eyes decline to move away from the
sight of the innocence at play. While I am relishing the juvenile merrymaking of the child, my feet
inadvertently begin to dash through the paddy field. When the girl catches my sight, she waves at me
and begins to run towards me.
“Baba……..Baba……”
She stumbles and falls to the ground, and my heart squirms. Upon reaching her I catch hold of
her, embrace her and kiss her all around. A powerful whirlpool of filial affection rages inside me. My
eyes unleash a tenacious current of saline stream down my furrowed cheeks. I wish I could absorb her
into me lest the malicious fate strips her off me again.
“Lo! Baba! You’re crying.”
“Where have you been, my Balike? Baba missed you so hard, you know?”
“Baba! I am now in such a beautiful place, you know. All things that I dreamt before, when I was
here with you are there. And you just need to make a wish; your wish is granted in no time. Baba you
must come with me to see.”
“Balike, did you miss me there?”
“I have so many good friends there. They are not like Bune. They don’t steal my teddy there.”
She sounds as if she belongs elsewhere. She is preoccupied with the wonderment of her new abode. It is
not atypical, though, of a child of her age to give into the enticement of a fantasy land, but this twists my
entrails.
“Now you have come, you don’t go away from baba, will you? I will buy you a new teddy when
Bune steals. I will buy as many as you wish. ” I try to tempt her not abandon me, out of my reasonable
apprehension of losing her once again.
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I am hurrying home from my job of an office hand in a neighbouring Village Council. Balike’s
patience must have worn off its last ounce, waiting for me. Her excitement soars higher in the sky when
I carry her every Friday to the nearby weekly-haat. I carry her on my shoulder, her leg around my neck,
knotted at my breast, her hands twitching my ear in her attempt to keep herself in balance. And, at the
haat, when I buy her cotton candies, her hawa mithai, her delight meets with the horizon. The most
enticing part of this sojourn for her is the prospect of arousing envy in Bune with her exaggerated tale of
candies, all the different varieties of candies.
“Baba……….Baba……..” She runs for me when she sees me cycling my Hero cycle home.
Upon approaching me, she stretches her arms, a gesture bidding to climb onto the cycle. I climb
down and hoist her onto the seat. And reclined on the seat of the cycle, she envisions herself the queen.
God must be in His absolute altruism when he conceived her for me. She comes into my world
as the sun comes at the day break and illuminates my life with gaiety more than I cherished for. I feel in
her mischiefs traces of my childhood. And her tantrums induce me to relinquish the norms of maturity,
but to indulge myself in her miniscule universe of silly ventures. Balike has inundated my otherwise
banal life with an elixir of revitalized zest. Absorbed in the piety of my daughter’s frivolous errands, I
barely imagine the dubious nature of fate which is designing something otherwise for both of us. I am
oblivious of the imminent catastrophe befalling upon us in disguise of a mysterious ailment which denies
my Balike any further breath of life.
A couple of days are there for her fifth birthday and I bring her a small bicycle. She shows great
enthusiasm learning to ride it. I am assisting her in her herculean feat, giving support to keep the cycle
upright while she pushes the pedal. All of a sudden she falls off the cycle, unconscious.
At the hospital, doctors fail to diagnoses any ailment. The medical staff’s assiduity falls short in
detecting the root of her enigmatic lifelessness. For two days, she lays, devoid of life, under the
intensive care of the hospital. She seems to be clinging to a thin filament that connects her to this world,
to me. Opposite the ICU ward, I sit on a chair, breathing but living no longer. I think of the
incomprehensible sport the God plays in human life. On an occasion He bestows us a world more
sumptuous in delight than the world of fantasy, yet on other He mercilessly adjourns all the
gratifications we have cherished so much endearingly.
“Rob me off my life, oh God, but spare hers.” I entreat Him, “Don’t squash the bud. Let her
bloom and flourish in the spring garden of life”
“She is no more. We are sorry. We tried……..” Two days later, a doctor comes to me, weighed
down by the inevitable defeat engineered beforehand by the damned fate.
I decline to hear the words. I decline to accede to the foreboding truth I am subjected to for
good. Everything clots inside me. Some hands are prodding me but my inert self denies reacting. I am no
more.
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What a gracious morning it is today! My beloved, my Balike comes back to her father. I embrace
her tight fearing she might slip away from me once again or something of an enigma might engulf her
again into the void, unreachable to any living soul. After a while I loosen my embrace and begin tending
her hair which has grown scraggly overtime.
Balike, wasn’t there anybody who did your hair? Look! You have gone thinner too.
While we are engrossed in our chitchats, a forceful hand begins to pull Balike away from me
with enormous strength. I struggle to hold her back but in sheer futility. I struggle for quite sometime.
Eventually, I no longer keep up against the All Powerful hands. She is snatched away, once again.
“Give me my daughter back. Oh, God! Please.”
“It’s not your daughter, it’s the teddy. Your daughter’s. I am done enough of your crazy feats. I
committed a grave mistake bringing you back home from there……..” There is my wife prodding me,
reprimanding. And. I see her standing beside my bed, holding the brown teddy my Balike adored the
most.
The End