The War Souvenir

Waking up in the middle of the night, his lips dry and his throat parched, he wonders if it is the silence in the apartment that scares him more than the constant sounds of war. His mind always alert, was suspicious of the lack of sounds of distant violence: the dull thuds of mortars as they hit the dry earth and the silence that always follows as life extinguishes in its wake.

             The bedsheets under his palms feel warm. The fan whirring above him helps dissipate the thick air of the room and he can feel each muscle in his body tense and battle ready. He tries to control his breathing; picturing his lungs filling up with air as he breaths deeply and then emptying like a deflated beach ball as he exhales. And as he feels his breath slowing down and his heart that had been pacing like a wild animal in captivity calming down, an image flashes and then explodes in a deep corner of his half-awake mind. 

            Now, he has no control over the shivering that envelops his body like a wet blanket wrapping him ever so tightly in concentric circles as he feels the world around him going into a dizzying whirl. He scrambles to his feet and rushes to the bathroom. But before he reaches the toilet the contents of his stomach explode from his mouth; falling on his naked upper body, on the dirty clothes lying on the floor and on the white tiles of the bathroom. There’s nothing he can do to control the force of the spasms that keep wracking his body. The room is filled with the acrid smell of bile and semi-digested food. Weak, he now sits on the floor his head bent to the inside of the commode. He knows that the worst of it has passed.

             After a few minutes, he stands up and then walks to the sink and cups his hands under the tap to catch the water before he splashes it on his face. It feels cool against his skin and for a moment he indulges in this simple pleasure. As he sees his reflection on the mirror he notices the dark circles under his eyes, and the leathery look of his skin as it stretches over his cheek bones. The arrack he had drunk earlier in the evening had left him dehydrated and he knew that a headache would now follow in the wake of the vomiting. He splashed more water, this time over his thick curly hair, some of which started dripping down the sides of his temples. Looking at the floor of the bathroom he wondered what to do with the mess. As his body dry heaved one more time, he decided to wait awhile.

The living room of the small apartment was bathed in the blue light from the street lamp outside the window. Familiar objects seemed ghostly and intimidating as he started walking slowly to the small kitchen in one end of the room. He opened the fridge door and looked inside. It was empty except for four plastic bottles of Coca Cola and Fanta. That was the doing of his roommate who seemed to have a penchant for forgetting half-empty, fizzled out bottles of soda in the fridge. He had never bothered to complain since he spent time at the apartment so infrequently to complain about this odd habit. But now, he cursed under his breath as he felt his throat dry and papery. 

            Still no water. He opened a cupboard and took out a glass tumbler and filled it with water from the tap. As he drunk the water he realized how changed he had become from the man who had returned to Sri Lanka almost two years ago. His refusal during those first few months to drink water unless it was bottled now felt like the actions of an amateur. There had been looks from others around him as he insisted on gulping down from overpriced bottles of water in a country where most couldn’t afford the luxury. He had been stubborn, refusing to see his own impracticality. But then like many before him he had learned soon enough. 

               He recalled the feeling of rebellion as he acted against his parent’s wishes who had been blind-sided by their son’s decision. The sound of his own voice ringing true in his ears as he told his parents his plans to return to the country that they had left almost two decades ago. The look of frustration and fear in their aging faces that he chose to ignore as he explained to them his reasons for leaving his steady job. He had been completely confident in his own destiny.

             The glass still in his hand, he walked to the sofa and sat down suddenly feeling exhausted. His limbs felt numb as if he had been walking too long without rest. And in his stomach, he could feel a dull throbbing pain. In the blue shadows of the room he wondered if his mind was to blame more than the alcohol. There was a feeling that he was fighting a losing battle. Disillusionment seemed to have taken root unbeknownst to him somewhere deep in his psyche. What he had experienced in the war zone had chipped away each day at his naïve optimism. 

          He kept the glass on the table in front of him and let his body sink into the sofa, feeling the texture of the material rubbing against his exposed skin. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Maybe sleep would finally come to him and take possession of his overwrought senses. In the quiet, he heard a train passing on the tracks that ran behind the building. He remembers a memory from his childhood. Of waiting for the sound of the train to signify that everything was normal. The smell of the moldy cramped room that he had been told to hide in adding to his fear as he waited in the darkness. And just beyond the fragile safety of the walls, the sounds of men shouting angrily in the garden. He had bit into his forearm as he controlled his urge to scream for his parents. And all the while he had waited for the sound of the train, its familiar rhythm to serve as a sign that the horrors had been dissipated by the very magic of its banality. 

             His parents had left Sri Lanka a few months after Black July taking with them whatever money and possessions they could to build a new life.  The violence in the city had erupted so suddenly that it had taken a while for them to understand that they were being hunted like animals. By the time they had gone to a Sinhalese neighbor’s house to find refuge, the billowing thick black smoke from burning stores, houses and bodies had dominated the skyline. It was a week later that they emerged from hiding only to find that their house had been spared but that the family’s livelihood had been destroyed. The jewelry store that his father had taken pride in had been looted and consumed by fire. Instead of rebuilding their business his father had decided to do what many Sri Lankan Tamils had decided to do that year; join the exodus out of their homeland. Even as Kavi left behind everything familiar, the smell of the dark storeroom would become the only keepsake that he would carry with him for the rest of his life. And when he was finally too old to recall the details of what he had experienced, the ghosts of his trauma would remain with him like a hidden scar. A macabre memento from a distant past.

The next morning, he woke up to the noise of the fridge door shutting abruptly in the kitchen. He felt his body respond to the shock of the sudden sound, even though his mind felt muffled and cotton-woolly. Somewhere in the kitchen he could hear his roommate mutter to himself as he opened and closed the cupboards in what felt like an endless search. 

“Hey………Kavi! Do you know if we have any bread in the house?” Daniel yelled at him from the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. 

“Huh?  I……. I don’t think so, man.” Kavi managed to say groggily.

“Shit!........I’m starving.” 

“Why don’t you go to the bakery close by……. I’m sure they will have bread.”

“Too lazy to do that man!” Daniel whined. 

             By now Daniel had walked towards the sofa, his skinny legs sticking out from underneath a pair of boxer shorts. He was wearing a polo t-shirt, the collar of which was frayed. The scraggly beard on his lean face gave him a look of being strung-out. Having grown up in Colombo, Daniel had taken it upon himself to introduce Kavi to all his favorite hangouts during the first few months of their acquaintance. At first, Kavi had been amused with his roommate’s enthusiasm but before long he had grown tired of the cavalcade of colleagues and friends that Daniel introduced him to each evening. And when he was finally assigned to the work at the government hospital in Jaffna, Kavi’s enthusiasm to start his work in the war-zone had taken Daniel by surprise.   

“Do you really want to go work in a hospital in Jaffna?” Daniel had asked in disbelief over a cold beer that he had been nursing in his hand as he held a cigarette with the other. They had been sitting across each other on plastic chairs in the small balcony of the apartment. 

“That’s what I came here for. I thought I’d be there already but there’s so much bloody red tape even if it’s to provide much needed help.”

“Geeze man, you sure are a saint.” Daniel rolled his eyes exaggeratedly as he looked at the railway tracks just beyond the wall of the apartment building. Protecting the tracks, a wall of giant granite boulders stood as the only barrier against the crashing waves of the Indian ocean. The air smelled of brine and dust. 

“I came here to do a job. The sooner I start the better.” Kavi had said matter-of-factly.

Daniel took a satisfying drag from the cigarette and let out a low Sheeeeesh from between his lips.

“I know plenty of buggers who come here for humanitarian purposes and decide instead to have a good time……… enjoy the warm weather and the cheap booze.” Kavi was unsure if his roommate was displeased that he had indeed turned out be one of those buggers who kept his promise. His interactions with Daniel always left him feeling a little unsure about the moral compass of the man with whom he shared an apartment. But then again who was he to judge.

“You look like crap.” Daniel said looking directly at his roommate now. Kavi’s deep set eyes looked hollow and dull and his cheekbones stood out underneath his sun-burnt skin. 

“I know……bad food.” Kavi said as he shrugged his shoulders and tried to stand up. It was an easier explanation than the truth of what had happened to him in the night. Immediately, he felt dizzy, his body struggling to support its own weight. He wondered if his roommate believed in ghosts. The ones that did not make spooky sounds like in the movies but stood at the periphery of one’s everyday life. Their silent unmoving stare directed at your very soul. The ones that did not jump-scare you when you least expected. Ghosts with glowing brown skin and almond eyes that made one want to see the bottom of a bottle of arrack like a melodramatic hero in an old Bollywood movie.

That kind of ghost.

“Maybe you should see a doctor…….” Daniel said absently swatting a fly that had settled on his arm.

“I’m okay…….” Kavi waved his hand to dismiss the suggestion. 

“Oh I forgot, you are a doctor.” 

 Kavi smiled weakly. 

“Don’t you have family in Colombo? What if something happens to you?”

“My parents will be notified.”

Daniel nodded his head satisfied with Kavi’s answer. 

“Well now that you are up, do you want to join me to get something to eat?”

Kavi nodded his head to say yes.

It had been only two weeks since Kavi had returned to Colombo when the images of the terrorist leader’s body had begun to flood mobile phones and TV screens. Kavi had been sent back with one of the last convoys of injured civilians sent by boat as the army closed in forcing the terrorists and their civilian hostages into the narrow strip of land between the waters of the Jaffna lagoon. He remembers the smell of the sea spray that had hit his face from time to time as the boat cut through the choppy waves once they had left the lagoon. 

           The photo of the dead man. The fleshy brown mustachioed face, now pallid and waxy seemed oddly out of place lying amidst a patch of brown mud. Dull and boring, bereft of the terror and loyalty he had commanded while alive. Just another body among many other’s in a battlefield that had been littered by both combatants and civilians. Each connected by fate to that one moment in time. The dead man’s uniform had been miraculously untouched, the serial number “001” clearly visible on a card clipped to his chest. 

        “The bastard’s finally dead.” Someone said in English as Kavi studied the image on his phone. Kavi had turned around to see who it was only to be met by the dead-stare of a middle-aged man. Kavi had smiled awkwardly and turned back to his phone. But soon enough there was the sound of firecrackers being lit in different parts of the city. There was a celebration of sorts. The war had ended.  But Kavi felt a shudder run through his body like a quick-silver snake. The ending of war was not the beginning of peace. It was simply a lull in the movement of the multitude of cogs in a tireless machine.             

           Kavi had lasted longer than others in the war zone. He had somehow managed to not break down each night after a day of treating toddlers with wounds pockmarking their young faces, their eyes glazed, while flies swarmed around them. He had managed to not stare into empty space after days of reassuring grandmothers holding the malnourished bodies of orphaned grandchildren in their laps. The children far too young to have watched their parents being killed by a shell that had fallen next to where they slept the night before. Many like him had returned from the war zone physically intact but mentally marked; their gaping wounds visible only to a practiced eye. 

           What he had not realized was that he had returned from the war zone with a ghost in tow. His own souvenir of the war. While others returned with spent bullets, photos or terrorist propaganda posters, Kavi had returned with a memory of a love and heartbreak that had been fleeting. A mere blink of an eye.                                                                          

            For Kavi, it would always be the teenage girl who died in his arms, her face decorated with an intricate pattern of shrapnel wounds as the shell exploded next to where she had laid down to sleep for the night. He would always remember her smile, the dimples forming at the corners of her mouth when had she bid him goodnight only a few hours before. He had helped the girl and her grandmother make a crude stove and light a fire that produced the dancing light that fell on her face as she watched him closely. Even after he had returned to Colombo her face had haunted him as he drank beer from a thick frosted glass in the backyard of a colleague’s house. There was talk of the civilians caught in the cage; a vice grip between the terrorists desperate for a trump card and the military intent on winning the war. There was nothing that could make him forget her. Padma; her beautiful dark brown skin and black hair, almond shaped eyes and youth had made her stand out immediately among the sea of faces that evening.

              As Kavi chatted with her grandmother he found that they were the only remaining members of Padma’s family. Her parents had died over the years as they moved from temporary shelter to yet another as the fighting between the army and the Tamil Tiger terrorists forced them to flee in search of safety.  Padma had said that she no longer remembered what her home had looked like in the small village outside of Jaffna town. And all that remained were the stories told by her grandmother. 

              Her parents had both been school teachers. And even though her parents had pleaded with the Tiger cadres who had come to their home one morning to spare her brothers, there had been no mercy. Only the blunt end of a rifle butt as they were beaten while their children were pushed into the back of a lorry. Padma had only been spared because she had been a toddler; her legs still chubby and traces of her infancy on her round cheeks. Her brothers who had been ten and eleven years old were deemed strong enough to carry a rifle and kill. They were never heard of again. Their childhood stolen from them that morning and their parents left with the void of their lost children and the inferno of their guilt.

                Padma, had come under her grandmother’s care when her parents died. First, her father had been gunned down by an LTTE carder as he tried to help another man who had been brutally beaten for talking back. And then her mother had been killed by a shell that had exploded next to her as she walked to the Red Cross medical tent in the refugee camp. Her reaction not fast enough to escape from the flying shrapnel that cut through her internal organs, leaving her face frozen in a permanent expression of surprise. 

              Kavi remembers the look on Padma’s young face as she listened to her grandmother retell their story. The furrows on her forehead as she controlled the tears welling in her eyes and the look of age-old pain in her eyes. He had not been able to suppress the waves of guilt that had risen as he listened silently. His own life as a young boy uprooted and then forced to grow up in a foreign land seemed a life of privilege in comparison to the trials of Padma’s life. 

Overnight Kavi and his younger sister were transplanted in a new country among people who looked and spoke nothing like them. And for the first time in their lives they had experienced what it meant to be alien, what it meant to have the wrong kind of skin color and speak English with the wrong accent, what it meant to not know how to eat with a fork and knife the right way or what it meant to not know that you needed to dress up for Halloween.

              At first they had lived in other people’s houses; relatives and friends who opened their homes to them. They suffered the indignities of being permanent guests in someone else’s house. Of being the poor migrants who had just arrived in America, and of being those who had to be taught how-to. When his parents were finally able to afford their own apartment, to find jobs to afford the rent, food and clothes it had been almost three years. After a few more years Kavi could no longer recognize the young boy who stared back at him from old photographs. Instead of the wide-eyed wonder of the boy biting into his first slice of apple pie, the eyes of the teenager that looked back at him in the mirror had become jaded. It was the worldly look of someone who had experienced rejection and loneliness. 

                Growing up he had been determined to erase any signs of being a foreigner; a deep shame overcoming him every time he was forced to talk about his childhood in a country that was fading from his memory. While his parents seemed determined to preserve all that remained of the life they had left behind, Kavi and his sister Sonia refused everything that resembled that very life. And when they met other families like them, their stories identical as they retold each painful detail. The looks of sadness and loss the same as theirs during those first few years of leaving Sri Lanka. His parents would embrace those new-comers to exile, opening their home to little-known countrymen. Kavi remembers feeling ashamed for those families as they gazed wide-eyed at the sprawling strip malls and the abundance of American supermarkets. The role-reversal somehow making him feel even more uncomfortable with the knowledge that despite his fashionable sneakers, his clothes and his cultivated taste in music he would always be only a degree away from being just-another-immigrant.

 That night as he watched the families gathered in the field; huddling around their fires, their belongings close to them; Kavi knew that the void he had felt was that of the loss of home. Strangely enough not the home he grew up in but the home where he had left a tiny yet significant part of his self behind as his family joined the exodus of Tamils. He also realized that Padma, her grandmother and all those who found shelter on that field, were also that part of him that he had lost so long ago.  They were the home that he had been looking for most of his youth.

With that thought he had entered the bunker; hardly more comfortable than the open ground yet several degrees safer from flying shrapnel in the event of a shell blast, and settled in for the night. As he dozed he thought about his parents, imagining them the way they had looked in old photos from before they had metamorphosed into successful immigrants. There had been a look in their eyes that seemed to say that they belonged, that had transformed over the years in the faded colors of those same photos into a deep regret. 

             But before he could barely begin to dream artillery fire had ripped through the night air, the familiar shrill whistle of the incoming shells like a harbinger of death. And as the shells impacted and the ground and the coconut tree trunks of the bunker shook, the screams of the people who were injured and those who were scrambling for safety mixed in with the shrill whistles of even more shells that rained on the field. 

             His first instinct was to scramble out of the shelter to help those who he knew would be seriously injured, their wounds proving fatal to them if not attended to immediately. But as he crouched towards the entrance someone grabbed him by the foot. It was the UN security officer, a former infantry colonel from Pakistan. It was he who had suggested that they build a bunker with what material they could find. 

“You are no help to them dead!” Khan had screamed. “There’s nothing you can do but wait for the shelling to finish.”

“But those people are completely exposed in that field out there……there’s no shelter for them. We have to help!” Kavi said his words drowned by the sound of yet another shell impacting the ground.

“No! You need to stay. You need to be alive……. there’s more people who need your help.”

“But this was supposed to be a no-fire-zone……these people thought they were safe and they could rest for the night.” Kavi screamed in frustration beating his fists onto the earthen wall of the bunker they had dug earlier in the day. 

“Its war, Kavi.” The colonel’s tone was of grim resignation.

“Whoever is sending those shells are killing innocent civilians……. whether it’s by mistake or not, its fucking murder!” Kavi said feeling the muscles in his jaw hurt as he controlled his anger.

            Impotent, Kavi waited for the first signs that the shelling had ended. And before anyone could stop him again, he quickly crouched out of the bunker to the open field. In the east, there were slithers of crimson clouds. It was close to dawn and yet the air smelled of smoke and burning flesh. The field that a few hours before had been filled with families preparing a simple meal for the night; chatting among themselves, rocking their children to sleep and finally settling down to a night of respite from their troubles was now a burning, smoldering hell-scape. Everywhere he looked were the dead, the dying and the injured. There were moans and sudden screams of those who had been wounded, and mingling with them there was the continuous laments of those who had survived. 

                By now the rest of the team of the Red Cross officers had also emerged from the bunker, their faces dazed as they wondered where to start. After a few minutes of walking, Kavi realized that he was stepping on bodies that had scattered throughout the field; a mutilated arm, a dismembered leg. Blood and shrapnel dotted the three jeeps that had been parked next to the bunker. As he looked at the single wood-apple tree that had stood in the field marking the spot where Padma and her grandmother had camped for the night, he saw what at first glance was a child’s plastic doll. But as he gingerly stepped closer he saw that it was the corpse of an infant, her body thrown up into the branch of the tree from the force of the blast. He dry-heaved uncontrollably. 

              It was then that he saw Padma; barely alive. She was moaning in pain. As he ran to her side he quickly assessed her condition; there was nothing left to do as she bled to death from her misshapen limbs. Her grandmother lay next to her, eyes closed, a look of peace on her wrinkled face. Kavi sat next to Padma and held her head on his lap as she looked at him with eyes dazed from pain. What had been her clear young face was littered with shrapnel wounds forming a grotesque death-mask. Her breathing was shrill as she struggled to catch her breath, her face ashen from the blood draining from it as her heart fought to keep her alive, and spasms racked her body as it slowly gave up. 

             As he held her head tenderly, for a moment he thought that she recognized him as a weak smile spread across her face. Controlling his own rush of emotions, he smiled back at her.

“Padma, you are going to be okay……. rest now.” He said in halting Tamil, his voice soft and kind. But as the next spasm tormented her weakened body, he knew she would die. As she drew her last breath he wondered what sins he had committed to possess that knowledge. To know that her life would ebb away to nothingness. That she would die without the knowledge of peace nor a glimpse into a different future. 

Magical Circles

Arundati woke up to the dream of the garden, the garden of forking paths. As she sat up in her bed she felt the t-shirt she was wearing was damp and sticking to her back like a second skin. She looked up at the ceiling, the blades of the fan above her was an indistinct blur of white. The soft rustle of loose paper on her desk as they danced to the waves of air flowing down from the fan seemed distant. She imagined a whirlpool of air being pushed down towards her; a violent cone of energy enveloping and consuming her. And then an image flashed in her mind. It lasted less than a second: a man consumed by an explosive, fast burning fire, his own skin and flesh providing the fuel, his arms flailing helplessly as he falls to the ground. At that very moment the hairs on her body stood at attention and her heart raced, thumping against her rib cage like a maddened animal trying to escape. Her mouth opened to scream and instead of sound what escaped from her was the soft screech of her breath leaving her body and the hoarse sound of her pain as she stopped breathing. As her body fell back onto the bed, she inhaled her next breath, tears started flowing from her eyes; large singular globules.

This was still a good day.

Gone were the days when she woke up to physical pain, visceral surging through her body as she woke up from her nightmares. Gone were the days when she could barely will herself to get up from bed, her limbs feeling like iron rods weighing her down. Gone were the days when her face felt numb from the crying and intermittent screams that her body produced all day long. Gone were those days.

But still there was no peace for her. The very thought was the furthest from her mind, like an unknown path that lay ahead yet completely invisible to her. She had no knowledge of it. For now, all she could hope for was a lessening of the rawness of her pain.

Tragedy. Tragic.

Those were the words she kept hearing all around her. They enveloped every breath she took and walked by her with every step she took. Those were the words that described her now. A creature to be pitied and sighed over. The subject of conversations and morbid ruminations. That’s all she was reduced to.

Arundati. Arun.

Where was she?

Lost.

No, just somewhere between loss and survival.

Once upon a time, somewhere among the many forked paths that had lay ahead of her, she had chosen this one path.

Arundati had woken up one morning to the decision that she would not step out of the confines of her house. Surprising her parents with her decision at the breakfast table, their bread and tea going cold as they looked at her determined face making a proclamation. Her mother had attempted an argument only to be stopped by a touch of her husband’s hand on her forearm and a look in his eyes that said “don’t”. There were tears as Arundati spoke, sitting in her eyes like pools drowning her vision.

“I won’t be going to work anymore. I’ve already written an email to my head of department. I won’t leave the house for any reason. All I ask is for you to understand my decision. It’s for the best.” She looked at her parents, their surprise struck faces looking at her silently. As she waited she watched the expression on her mother’s face as she opened her mouth to speak and her father’s gesture, and she knew they too were in pain. There was silence for a few  more minutes, the only sound the steady murmuring of the kitchen fridge. A sound that would have normally gone unnoticed now seemingly deafening in the dead air of the room.

“Arundati………” Her father began. “……… if you want to stay home for a couple of weeks and take it easy, I think that would actually be a good thing. You don’t have to quit your job for that. Take a vacation. And if you want we can go somewhere out of town. You’ve hardly taken time for yourself since….” Her father stopped short of completing the sentence and looked down at his plate.

“Thaththa, I’m not talking about a vacation. I’m talking about never stepping out of this house.” Arundati said, her voice tense as she spoke the last sentence.

“What do you mean? You are going to become a hermit? Quit your job, cut yourself off from your friends and family?” Her mother finally spoke, words spilling out of her mouth uncontrollably.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I mean.” Arundati said, locking her gaze with her mother’s. There had always been tension between the them, an existential friction between two very different beings. As a teenager, she had envied the relationship between her mother and elder sister, Nirmala. But as an adult she had come to understand and accept the fragile peace she had managed to achieve with her mother. And when she had told the family of her relationship with Gemunu, there had been a sea-change in her mother. The match between her and Gemunu had been perfect in the eyes of her family. Her mother had doted over the young man that she had brought home one Sunday afternoon for tea and who had then continued to visit her parents frequently ever since. For what felt like the first time in her life, Arundati had basked in the approval of her mother, the glow of it overshadowing the roughness of their relationship up to that moment.

But once again she felt she was at loggerheads with the woman who gave birth to her.

“You cannot make decisions like that. Don’t you know it affects everyone? Everyone!” Kamalini said, controlling what she knew to be anger bubbling inside of her. It was a strange emotion; her love for her youngest had always been one that was tinged with a stain of regret. Arundati had always been the one to question her and challenge her place as a mother. Unlike her eldest child, Arundati was unpredictable, her fiery nature unbridled at times had made Kamalini question her worth as a mother. They had always fought, sometimes openly but more often in the form of a war of attrition, each knowing the other’s weaknesses all too well. Neither a clear victor, leaving them both frustrated.

“I know, mother. But this is what I need right now. All I’m asking is for you understand my decision.” Arundati said, this time her tone softer and compliant. She looked to her father who had been silent all this time.

“Thaththa, are you on my side? I need you to understand that this is the best decision for me. I can’t explain every bit of it but I need you both to have some faith in me. To trust me for once.” Ravi looked at his daughter and close to his heart he felt a knot gathering. It was a strange tangle of love and anger: love for his suffering child and anger at the circumstances of her life. He simply nodded his head, his own emotions flooding his mind.

“All I ask is that you let me be. I won’t bother you. I have some savings that I will use if I need anything. Although, I don’t expect my expenses to be considerable.” She continued matter-of-factly. She avoided looking at her mother and addressed her father exclusively. He had always been sympathetic to her and had at times played the role of the peace-maker between Arundati and her mother.

“I can’t let you throw away your life like that, Arun. I understand you are in pain but becoming a hermit is not the way to go about things. You have your whole life ahead of you. You are still…….”

“Stop!” Arundati said, her voice sharp, stopping her mother short of finishing her sentence. She stood up from the breakfast table, the piece of bread on the edge of her plate falling to the ground from the force of her movement.

“Arundati…….” Her father called out to her as she climbed the stairs. There was no loud bang as she closed the door of her room, only the silence that flooded the house as both parents stared at the food in their plates, each lost in their own thoughts. It was a silence that was consuming the house, masquerading as a substitute for loss.

Arundati.

She filled her days with silence and solitude, hardly stepping out of her room even for meals choosing instead to have her food in her room or in the night once everyone had gone to sleep.  The only thing she seemed to enjoy was the peace of her nightly meals; the whirring sound of the fridge keeping her company as she ate the morning’s leftover bread and seeni sambol, a spicy dish of caramelized red onions mixed made with turmeric and red chili flakes; an unlikely mix of sweet and spicy in a dish so humble. It was a strange act of solitude; her consuming of food. Her tears stained the white table cloth on the kitchen table. The taste of the food mingling with the punishment she felt she deserved.

There were days where she wondered if he had transformed into a spirit and had taken possession of her. Lying in her bed in the darkness, there were nights where she imagined a great weight upon her chest, paralyzing her, her mind struggling hopelessly to escape from whatever it was that was keeping her captive and then in a flash she would see his face. The face of the man she was to marry, the face of the man who would have been a father of her children. And then the great weight would be lifted, liberating her. It left her confused. Had he indeed become a restless soul that had taken to haunting her or was this her mind fueled by sadness falling apart in chewable bites? Would there be anything left of her at the end of this ordeal?

She had asked her mother to take away all the photos she had of him from her room. Next she deleted the photos in her laptop; her mind cold and angry. That’s what she felt in those early days. Anger: at herself, at the men who set off the destruction, at her family and at Gemunu. And at the end of that; coldness. It took a week for that numbness to melt away into grief. The effects of the sleeping pills her family doctor had prescribed fading away leaving her stranded with her own sorrow.

She still remembers clearly, speaking with clarity through her tears and screams, begging for something to relieve her of the pain. Her mother hugging her tight as her father dialed the number of the doctor. The look of terror in his eyes as he watched his child breaking at the seams.

She also remembers the oblivion of sleep, as her tired, tear stained body fell asleep for what felt like an eternity on the living room sofa. She also remembers hearing soft whispers as her mother and sister kept vigil over her. And finally, there was the memory of waking up and knowing that her heart was still broken and that Gemunu was dead.

Gemunu.

He was not an exception. There were many who had died that day. The bomb had ripped through the lobby of the busy shopping center; indiscriminate and punishing. The ball-bearings packed into the explosives fanning out like a macabre show of power, moving through skin, bones and soft organs finding their way onto the columns and walls, lodging themselves in strange patterns that would remain for weeks after. Yet another act of violence, yet another show of might. Fifty-three souls in total. Not counting the thousands upon thousands that had become statistics in a civil war that had spanned three decades. Yes, he was not an exception. But then. He was her exception. As the news of the bomb blast started flooding in, someone called her father and told him to turn on the TV. Arundati stood transfixed in front of the screen, as the images lighted up her face. As if struck by someone she had picked up her phone that had been lying on the dining table; that’s when she saw his text message. She immediately dialed his number and listened to the dial tone.  Then she saw the image that made her drop her phone to the ground. It was of a man flailing helplessly as his body was consumed by fire only to fall on the sidewalk, a burning heap of human flesh. And she knew.

She knew as her mouth opened to scream his name, over and over again until her voice became hoarse from the effort. She knew as her body fell to the ground and as she curled her body up into a tight ball of pain. Her mind realizing and not realizing at the same instant. Her mind accepting and rejecting at the same time. Every cell in her body flooding with pain.

Yes, he was not an exception. But he was her exception.

Gemunu with his dimpled smile and easy laughter, his unruly curly hair and his love of crème caramel. He had taken her by surprise that day as he spoke to her, the sound of the band playing eighties favorites as the wedding guests began to dance with gusto, with the confidence of a man who seemed to know what lay ahead for him. They were an unlikely paring; with his calmness, next to her fieriness. Or maybe it was the best possible match for each other. For the first time in her life she had felt accepted for who she was and for the first time in his life he was forced to shake the conventions of his own thinking. When he proposed to her, he did not even have a ring to give her. He had been mulling over it, considering the best moment to ask her only to be completely taken by surprise by his own impulsiveness. The next morning, they had gone to a jewelry shop to buy a ring, both giddy with happiness. The bright lights overhead and the glittering baubles in their glass boxes in the jewelry store intoxicating them with their sheen. She had chosen the simplest of the rings, the one that shone the least. He had protested at her choice but then let her choose.

Gemunu with his easy laughter that spread to his eyes. There had been no coercion. There had been no threats. She had chosen the path that lead her to this moment. The moment where her life had come to a standstill.

The moment where she cried at the subtle taste of stale bread and something else, as she choked on every bite that she took savoring the spicy-sweetness of the caramelized onions burning the surface of her tongue. The solitude of the kitchen table and the gentle whirr of the fridge her only companions. The memories of sharing the very same flavors with the man who she watched burn to death, somehow felt like a penance than a pleasure. The food devoid of its former glory, every bite an act of punishment.

This was where her life stood still.

 As the minutes, hours and days melded together Arundati and her parents fell into a strange but familiar pattern. With that the questions fueled by curiosity, phone calls of inquiry and family gossip died down as well. This was as close to being normal as they could ever be. The only break in the routine were the visits by Nirmala. It was only when her children visited that Arundati would come down to the living room and spend time with the rest of the family. Amid her chatter with the children, her parents and sister would exchange glances, seeing glimpses of the young woman they knew. But once her nieces left the house Arundati would retreat to her room and shut the door behind her.

The first time she noticed a change was after one such visit by her sister. Playing with her nieces she could almost forget Gemunu, his face blurring amidst the noise and playful chatter. She had also noticed the looks on her parents’ faces, a glimpse of hope as they watched their child seemingly normal. But once the children had left and the house settled into its old familiar silence, memories of Gemunu would come back to her with added force, as if those moments where she didn’t think of him were being compensated.

It had started gradually: the tingling sensation around her nose whenever she smelled food, the feeling of dizziness around familiar smells and finally the flashes of images in the early hours of the morning. They were subtle enough that she was unsure if they were imagined or true. As her sensitivity to smell increased, so did the intensity of the images she saw in the pre-dawn light of her room. By the time she became completely aware of a change within her, she had already come to understand the onset of what she would experience.

She would wake up covered in sweat, only to have her body paralyzed as she watched an image flash in front of her. The smell of burning flesh and smoke lingering on even after it had passed. For the rest of the day the scent traveled with her, a steady, haunting reminder of what she had witnessed.

That morning she had woken up, her cotton t-shirt stuck to her back like a second skin. It was still dark outside and as she waited for what she knew was to come she looked up at the ceiling. As her eyes got accustomed to the dark she could make out the faint circle made by the white fan blades as they cut through the air in the room. She imagined a whirlpool of air being dragged down towards her and she at the center of the turmoil.

And then she saw it.

A man consumed by a fast burning fire, his own skin and fat providing the fuel for the flames that were engulfing him just before he collapsed onto the sidewalk and then into nothing.

It was brief but this time she knew it was not a memory. This time she was sure she had been present at that moment in time. She had felt a burning sensation in her nose from the smoke and her ears had caught the sounds of mayhem; screams of pain and shock and the steady sound of human flesh and objects being consumed by the fire. She knew this time was different as she smelled her hair and her clothes, the undeniable smell of burning flesh imprinted on them. And all she could do was scream in silence. Her pain too strong to be contained and her body too fragile to respond.

After that, there was only oblivion. A vast nothingness.

And when she woke up from that soft, suffocating nothingness she ran to the bathroom and turned on the shower. As the water started trickling from the showerhead all she could think of was how to wash away the smell of smoke from her body. Taking off her clothes hastily she stepped into the shower cubicle and the cold water. As she watched the water slide off from her body she thought she could see it turn black as the residue from the smoke and ash was being washed off her. Once she was out of the shower she started to walk to her bedroom, a trail of water dripping from her wet hair and body. It was her mother’s reaction standing at the top of the flight of stairs, that made her realize she was completely naked. Arundati let her mother wrap her in a towel and take her to the bedroom. For the first time in weeks she had allowed her mother to touch her. She waited patiently as Kamalini dried her body and hair; both women silent as they allowed each other a moment that was primal; the bond between a mother and a child.

“Amma……” Arundati finally said as her mother looked at her face searching for answers. “I’m okay.”

“Okay? You were standing naked, dripping water in the middle of the corridor a few minutes ago. How can you be okay?” Kamalini said standing up and walking to the chest of drawers that contained her daughter’s clothes.

“I will be fine. It was just a passing moment……You don’t have to do this Amma.”

“What do you mean? Taking care of my child?” Kamalini said handing her a t-shirt, underwear and a pair of old jeans.

“No, the worrying. I will be fine. This may not be what you want me to be but I’m comfortable with who I am. Doesn’t that matter?”

“Then, who are you Arundati? Where is my child? The one who could fill up a room with her presence, the one who could make everyone smile even if they didn’t want to. Now, it’s as if you only want to take up as little space as possible.”

“I don’t know where she is, Amma.” Arundati said, her voice small and childlike. Kamalini hugged her daughter. Arundati’s naked body somehow even more fragile than Kamalini could remember, the bones protruding and her skin papery.

“Whatever it is you are doing……please stop it. We need you back.” Kamalini said facing her daughter. Instead of responding Arundati kissed her mother on the cheek, a gesture that was rare between the two women. When Kamalini left the room, Arundati allowed herself a moment to cry for herself and for her mother.

But somewhere deep inside her she knew that she was to revisit that day many more times in the days to come. She knew that this was simply the beginning, that she was drawing ominous magical circles in her mind. She knew that despite her own efforts she was caught in a spell, one that she could not break. And somewhere deep in her mind she thought she heard a voice that told her that it was okay, that it was okay for her to let go, to finally allow the loss to consume her body and mind. Loss of herself the only cure to her malady.

The Seedlings

They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds. - Mexican proverb.

Arun

He still remembers crouching behind the sofa, his hands shaking as he listened to the voices of the strange men that had come to their house. He was in a pair of shorts and a cotton t-shirt, a faded image of Superman that he liked to place his hand on as he fell asleep. Arun had wanted to wear one of his brother’s instead but his mother insisted. He also remembers his mother pleading, her sobs intersecting coherent words. There was only coldness in the voices of the men who spoke. Finally, he decided to peek, conjuring up courage to see what was happening. That was when he saw his brother for the last time. Krishna had stood tall and defiant as he was asked to go with the men to the police station. The men who were standing under the dim light of the porch looked ominous, their faces barely human in the shadows. But, there was one figure among them that would haunt Arun for the rest of his life. At first he was unsure of what he was seeing. The figure did not seem to have a face and instead all he could see was a featureless brown mass. It made the hairs on his arm stand on end. The boogeyman; the faceless, featureless monster of his nightmares. And before his young mind could understand anymore he heard the creature talk, a simple yes. Between the screams and shouts of his parents, his brother was dragged away, his skinny brown body flexing as he struggled to free himself from the clutches of the men. All Arun could do was to lie on the floor and curl himself up into a ball, his six-year-old mind trying to make sense of what he had just witnessed.

It was only years later that he found out that the boogeyman he saw that night was real and not a figment of his childhood imagination. Unlike the creature of his nightmares, this bogeyman was tortured and coerced into giving up names and nodding yes to identify his comrades. Arun also found out that these young men were made to wear a gunny sack on their faces to help them be anonymous, with just two holes for their eyes to see the unsuspecting victim. This was the bogeyman that walked silently through the Wednesday market on the main street of the village or through the muddy tracks of the town fair grounds, his mere presence cutting a pathway through the crowds, a miracle of sorts. Looking back, he remembers that it was indeed a strange time. A time of horror and bloodshed that had become part of everyday life; bodies burning on a funeral pyre of burning tires, the smell of burning flesh and rubber floating through the air as children walked to school, neatly placed decapitated heads around a pond of lotus blooms. An adult now, he still remembers the fear that was constant and running through his veins, the uncanny feeling of nights where the lights were extinguished on the whim of a group of men.

Not even fiction nor imagination could make up the strange disconnectedness of those times.

Krishna

His body now lay under layers of soil, leaves, branches and debris. He was now one among seventeen. Not a sign left of the blood, the pain or the fear that gripped those young men as they waited for death. Not a sign was left of the rush of adrenalin and mad frenzy of the men who stood, their hands shaking as they prepared to shoot the men in front of them, some not much younger than themselves. Not a sign. All that was left was the memory of the earth that bore the bodies of the seventeen young men, their flesh and bones becoming a part of the soil that wrapped them, their essence mingling with that of the soil around them.

They were the remnants of that strange time, stranger than the strangest of fiction. They were the proof that would not go away.

And they bided their time.

Arun

He smiles now as he sees the wall of his bedroom. Time stands still as he looks at the layers of photographs covering the wall next to his bed. Even after all these years his parents had not removed them from the wall, leaving them to yellow and age unmolested. A part of him wishes they had erased all traces of his lonely adolescence, but another small part of his heart was grateful they had not. Arun sat on the bed and faced the wall, looking carefully at the collage of randomly placed photos. He was looking for something. It was a photo of a young girl. Gently, he started to lift and move the photos, discovering layers underneath; a chronicle of his obsession.

In those days, he had been searching. Searching for the brother he had lost. Fueled by the deep shadows under his mother’s eyes and her unrelenting hope that Krishna would return, Arun had started taking photos of crowds. His own fragile hope that Krishna’s face would magically appear in a photo, changed but recognizable, and his parents finally exhaling that breath they had been holding for years thereby freeing him to breath on his own. But before his mind was consumed by his search, there had been a photo. It was of a young girl, not more than twelve years old, her hair lighting up in the afternoon sun, her eyes crinkling as she smiled for him. The girl next door who had been his friend through the years his parents searched frantically for their firstborn, an unlikely refuge from his own sadness and loss. When he had felt like a ghost, his parents looking right through him their own grief overwhelming their senses, it was Indira who had helped him feel like he was not a mere figment of his own imagination.

He still remembers taking the photo. The camera had been a gift from his uncle for his birthday, an expensive gift for a boy his age. His parents were stunned into silence as he was presented the camera, his uncle refusing to listen to their arguments about the expensive hobby. It was he who had provided Arun with the money when he needed to buy film or when he wanted to get the photos processed. It had been his uncle’s way of helping the teenager who was visibly suffering from the effects of his brother’s disappearance. The camera in turn had given Arun a means of contributing to the search. But more importantly it had given him a space to be himself, removed from his parents overwhelming sadness.

When he finally found the photo, it showed signs of being forgotten; the edges were bent and the color washed out. Yet, there she was, her smile somehow shining through the years. Arun smiled as he walked out to the living room of his parent’s house. Everything looked just as he had remembered as a teenager, the only difference being the flat-screen TV that he had bought for them when the old one had given out.

“Hey, I found it!” he said cheerfully as he held up the photo. His parents smiled and the young woman sitting on the couch with them turned around. She was blushing as she walked towards him, taking the photo in her hand.

“Oh geeze!” She said as she stared at her much younger self, the awkward grin and crinkly eyes of the young girl smiling in the photo.

“What do you mean? I took great photos even back then……your photo was one of my first.” He said taking it from her hand. She rolled her eyes comically and stuck her tongue out.

Arun wanted to kiss her then but, he resisted remembering that his parents were in the living room with them. Although he no longer lived in the same house and owned a small thriving business of his own there was still conventions he had to follow.

“She looks even prettier now.” Said his mother, smiling at the young woman standing next to him.

“Thank you, Auntie!” Indira said grinning, a slightly more adult version of her smile on the photo.

For the first time in his adult life Arun could feel things falling into place. Meeting Indira had been the catalyst; their chance encounter at a mutual friend’s birthday and their almost instant recognition of each other had rekindled his teenage affection for her. And to his surprise she had been the first to confess her feelings to him. And over the course of the year that they had known each other he could glimpse into the years in between her family moving away and their reunion, to the woman that she had become, shedding away features of the young girl he had known to becoming the woman he would fall in love with.

“Do you still think of Krishna?” She had asked him, only a month after they had met. Her boldness had taken him by surprise and he hesitated to find an answer.

“Yes……. I still do.” He had finally answered.

She had touched his arm gently, her face conveying that she had already known the answer.

“He will always be a part of your life.”

Arun nodded his head in agreement. Even though he had decided to stop his obsession of finding his brother, there was still times he would find himself scanning a crowd, his heart leapfrogging as he waited for a moment of recognition. He would then check himself, berating his own naivety. His own child-like hope of seeing Krishna again never giving him a chance to completely find his peace.

“You just need to accept that truth. It might help you move on.” Indira had said.

“I have moved on……” He protested.

She simply nodded in disagreement. At that moment, he had felt found-out as if she had invaded a deep private part of him without his permission.

Krishna

The hillside where the young men lay, the grave’s existence long forgotten had become a site for the expansion of the village temple. It had always been part of the land of the temple but for as long as anyone could remember it had been left to its own devices, the trees and the undergrowth running their roots ever deeper as the decades passed. Long forgotten, the land had been able to keep its secrets secure. But It was one of the men weeding the undergrowth that had hit a human skull, cracking it with the strength of the blow of the shovel. He had been trying to root out a large Castor tree that had grown unheeded, its roots running deep into the rich ochre soil. It was hard work in the mid-day sun, sweat pouring from the sides of his temples, he had been getting frustrated but once he realized what he had accidentally struck his expression changed to that of fear. There had always been rumors, spoken in the safety of one’s home, among family. Like many who lived through those strange years of the country’s history the man too had learned to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to what he saw and heard around him. Everyone was complicit, even though many were not ever aware of their complicity. Caught between the government and the insurgents, ordinary people like Mahinda had no other option but to remain silent and hope that their sin of complicity would never be found out. That the horrors that he had witnessed and ignored would not visit him or his children in the future.

Quickly he squatted next to the skull, and started to move away the soil, much more gently this time. Once he was completely sure that he was looking at human remains he looked around him, as if he had been found out with his own secret. He placed his hand on his forehead and wondered what he should do. Around him the other men were busy, their arms and legs moving in coordinated movements as they cut through the thick undergrowth beneath the Rubber and Teak trees. They seemed to be unaware of his discovery. After a few minutes Mahinda decided to call out to the man working closest to him.

“What is it?” The man asked, his dark black hair matted with sweat.

“Come and look.” Mahinda said, almost hissing his words as he attempted to not alert the other men.

Jagath walked towards him, his curiosity now aroused by the expression and urgency shown by Mahinda. There had always been talk about the fact that the temple grounds held a hidden treasure left there by one of the noblemen of the village as he fled the advances of the bedraggled British army making their way to Kandy. Those had also been times of complicity and violence, each aristocrat vying for a foothold in a country that was about to become a British colony.

“What is it?” he asked again, this time his voice almost a whisper as he looked at the earth that had been cleared by the other man.

“It’s a skull.” Mahinda said, his eyes bulging as he said the words.

“What?” Jagath said in disbelief, his daydreams of hidden treasure dissipating into the humid air.

“Look…….” Mahinda said and pointed at the white bone emerging from the ochre earth, one empty eye socket staring into nothing.

That was when Jagath looked with alarm at the man next to him. He too was reminded of the stories that the empty land had been used as a sight for a mass grave during the insurgency. It had been 1987 and he had been a seventeen-year-old and like many young boys his age he was aware of the sentiments of rebellion and violence that was surging through the country. He knew that his parents had been fearful for his life, that he would become yet another statistic, one among many who had disappeared during that time. He had survived, mainly due to the machinations of his mother who had sent him to stay with a distant relative in Colombo, hoping that the life in the city would ensure that he would stay away from the company of the young men who had organized themselves in the village. He had left the village early one morning, catching the train from Kandy to Colombo, leaving behind his family and his friends, wearing what he thought was his cowardice as close to the ground as possible. When he returned to the village almost five years later, he had been thankful to his mother who he realized had saved his life. Some of the young boys he had grown up with had not survived that strange time, their bodies either burnt in pyres or buried without a trace.

“We have to tell the head priest of the temple and we shouldn’t do anything more. This is no longer our business.” He said to Mahinda.

“Whatever you say……let’s go then.”

The two men started walked briskly on the narrow cleared path through the undergrowth back to where the temple premises began. They quickly removed their worn rubber slippers and started walking barefoot over the thick white sand that covered most of the grounds. The sun had heated up the shiny crystals and it was almost unbearable to walk. The two men skipped over the heated sand, their soles burning at every touch and when they finally arrived at the building that housed the rooms where the monks lived, they sighed in relief as they stepped on the cool ochre earth. A young monk was sweeping the veranda. He looked up at the sound of the men panting.

“Yes?” He asked calmly.

“We need to speak to the head monk please……. it’s something important.”

“Is someone injured?” the monk asked, the broom motionless in his hands.

“No……. but this is important……please.” Mahinda said, speaking between great gulps of breath.

When the chief monk of the temple finally came out to meet the men, they were calmer, the initial rush of adrenalin had died down and they were now left with anxiety. The gravity of what they had discovered sinking in, both men stood silent, each contemplating the implications.

“Reverend, you must come……. I……we found a human skull.” Mahinda spoke as soon as he saw the monk appear at the doorway.

The monk, an elderly man who stood taller than both Jagath and Mahinda, took a deep breath. There was an expression of acceptance, as if the news that the two men just gave him was somehow a confirmation of his own deep seated worries. He simply nodded his head and started walking towards the edge of the temple grounds. Jagath and Mahinda followed behind him, their footsteps stumbling as they tried to keep pace with the stride of the taller man.

Arun

He had been at his favorite kottu shop when he saw the news broadcast, the images of the unearthed mass grave flashing on the TV screen mounted on the limited space of the wall facing him. It was a small shop; an oddity that provided both food and a random selection of groceries. He would drop in after work for a cheap cup of sweet cardamom tea and a couple of spicy vadai’s before heading to the annex he rented, the spiciness of the food complementing with the hot sweetness of the tea. It was a perfect way to end his work day. As he watched the images on the screen, something inside him stirred, an instinct. The first thought in his mind was Krishna. He stood up and walked closer to the TV. The loud chatter of the customers and the constant clanging of the metal blades hitting the metal hotplate as it chopped and mixed the pieces of roti, vegetables and meat that became the kottu to be served, assaulted his ears as he tried to listen to what was being said on the news. He felt frustrated as he failed to discern anything being said on the TV. Arun, walked out onto the pavement and called his parents. It was his mother who picked up and instinctively he knew that his mother that had already seen the news. She had been crying.

“Did you see…….”

“Yes.” She said immediately.

“I’m out and I couldn’t hear anything that was being said on the TV……this place too noisy.”

“The grave is in Kandy……. for now, they have only uncovered five skeletons but they think there’s more….” She continued, her voice becoming shaky as she spoke.

“Amma……” Arun said, his heartbreaking as he knew that his mother was enduring the loss of her eldest once more.

“I’m okay. If you can come home…….”

“Yes, I’m on my way.” Arun said.

As he hailed a tuk tuk from the busy street, he sighed deeply. The traffic was heavy on the Galle Road, and as the vehicle wiggled its way through cars and honking busses carving out the fastest route to his destination, Arun could not dispel the thought that his brother’s body was in that grave. Maybe this time around his family could find a means to move on, to find an existence that did not revolve around loss. For once he admitted the sense of relief he felt at the thought but, it was soon followed by the guilt that came inevitably in its wake. How could his thoughts be so selfish?

Krishna

As the chief monk of the temple started walking past the workers to the clearing where the skull was found, there was a deafening silence as everyone stopped their work and wondered what had happened.

“It’s here Reverend……” Mahinda walked ahead, and pointed at the root of the Castor tree that he had been digging out.

Immediately the monk bent down, his ochre robes touching the soil as he looked closely at what had emerged from the ground. By now the rest of the laborers were standing in a circle around the monk, with Mahinda and Jagath in the front row. There was an air of anticipation as they watched and waited for the monk to make a declaration.  And when he finally cleared his throat, there was a hush as everyone expected him to talk. Instead the monk simply stood up and looked around.

“Listen, there’s nothing more to see here……it’s not some macabre show. There’s human remains here and no matter who it is we have to show respect to the dead.” He said touching his forehead as he spoke.

“Do you think it’s from the times of the kings………maybe buried treasure.” One of the men quipped.

At that the monk looked angry as he scanned the faces of the men to see who had spoken. He took a deep breath.

“No…. it’s not from the times of the ancient kings and I doubt there’s any treasure here. Those are all legends told by our old folk, there’s hardly any proof to their stories. But, ……. what you see here is the remains of the times we live in, the horrors that we have all witnessed in this country. It’s a from a time when there was hardly any rule of law and violence and fear was the norm. So, don’t you dare disturb anything here………it’s out of our hands now.”

“But…….” Jagath said.

“I’m going to inform the police……. it’s their job now……. it’s their macabre job to figure out what exactly happened here.” At that the monk started walking back to the temple. The men moved out of his path respectfully, but as soon as he walked passed they started talking among themselves, their mingled whispers sounding like insects buzzing in the distance. While the other men talked among themselves, Jagath kneeled beside the skull. He touched its surface almost tenderly, imagining it belonging to a human being, a being made of flesh and blood. He thought about the young boys that he had known in his youth, those he left behind as he sat on that train one chilly morning thus, changing his fate. His vision started to blur as he felt a heavy burden fall upon him. And he could not stop the tears of loss; they were tears for an entire generation of youth whose frustrations and dreams had become the weapon for a few who craved power, and they were also tears for his own youth forever tinged by his sense of guilt at being alive to see the future.

Christmas Fireworks

From the window of the top floor apartment the city lights in the distance seemed to shimmer and stretched forever. On the highway that twisted by the looming apartment building, a never ending stream of cars. And at random moments the sky above the city bloomed with fireworks. People were celebrating in the city. It was only a week before Christmas, and inside the ample living-room of the apartment the consecutive rounds of tequila were starting to take its effect on the guests. The laugher and talk were at a fever pitch. By now people had already formed their cliques; their mini-tribes for the purpose of the evening. At times it seemed as if they were competing for space in the room, each speaking or laughing louder than the other. The cold breeze that came in through the open window did very little lighten the combined smells of perfume, food and alcohol.

Arundati smiled back at her husband as he waved at her from a small group of people at the far end of the room. She had made herself comfortable in the love seat next to the large tree covered in shiny baubles and fairy lights. No one it seemed wanted to be close to the Christmas tree. For her it felt like a bright refuge, the light  providing her with a way to hide in plain sight. She had already done her round of introductions and had nodded and smiled at the fact that she did not speak much Spanish. And now she was happy to watch her husband laughing and smiling; his grin wider and his jokes funnier in his own language. He was comfortable and she had learned to find her own comfort in seeing him in his own element.

There was always someone in parties like this who would want to speak with her in English, a hint of an American accent peeping through as they asked about her country. “So you speak Hindi?” They would ask smiling, finally finding something they could related to in the foreign woman they were making conversation with. She always felt a tinge of sadness as she eventually disappointed them with her lack of knowledge of that language with her brief practiced explanation that people did not speak Hindi in Sri Lanka. But of course, she had seen countless Bollywood movies and she could tell you plenty about her appreciation of the formulaic beauty of that cinema.

She loved her husband; there was no doubt theirs was a happy marriage. The fact that neither of them had ever felt a strong allegiance to their countries and cultures had helped them find a common ground in their marriage. Their common rootlessness had helped them find their grounding in their bond with each other.

Arundati had always prided herself in her chameleon abilities; blending in when she needed to, hiding in plain sight. But what she sometimes did not admit even to herself was that there were moments of loneliness; moments that reminded her that maybe she didn’t always do a good job of blending. That indeed, people did see her despite her best efforts.

“Are you okay?” Her husband walked towards her and asked. She could see the familiar look of concern in his eyes, almost apologetic for speaking in Spanish.

“Yes.” She smiled widely.

“Do you need anything? I’m sorry you are not getting to participate too much.”

“I’m enjoying myself. Don’t worry about me.”

“Are you sure?” He asked again as he glanced back at the group that he was with before.

“I’m fine.” She kissed him on the cheek. As he walked back to the animated talk in the group she started looking around the room. Was there anyone else like her? There were always outsiders in a party irrespective of language; someone who didn’t completely belong.

Sitting close to the window was one of the newcomers to the group. Arundati had already been introduced to him. Rohan; his name had stood out like a marker.

She had noticed the look of relief in his face when he realized she spoke as little Spanish as he did. A not-so-secret fraternity of language-aliens. And when she said her name his face lighted up.

“No, I’m not Indian. Sri Lankan…..close enough right?” She had laughed. The flash of disappointment on his face was not lost on her.

“Yes.” He had smiled exaggeratedly.

She had watched him moving across the room walking from group to group, his laugh louder than it needed to be, his friendliness spreading thicker than it was needed.  He was trying to make friends. At one point she heard someone openly making fun of his accent, emphasizing the roll of the “r”s. She waited to hear some protest from him but there was only his loud laughter.

There was always loss in blending in.

Rohan was now holding a bottle of beer in his hand and the expression on his face resembled defeat. Had he finally decided he could not find a space among the groups of people at the party; the circles they were standing in too close that he could not get a foothold? She felt an urge to walk up to him and strike a conversation but she hesitated. Should she risk being exposed? Her place next to the tree suddenly feeling comfortable.

Arundati instead looked beyond him to the city skyline; the monstrous spread that was Mexico City. A city that she now called home, a far reach from where she had grown up in. She was grateful for the days she felt she belonged, but she also knew the sense of smallness she felt; the city around her overwhelming and enveloping.  A giant succubus that feasts on the spirit of millions of migrants for its own lifeblood.

Once again there were fireworks lighting up the sky. Now they seemed small and lonely; acts of rebellion of individuals declaring their presence on the canvas of the hazy night sky. And as she moved her gaze away she instead caught the eyes of the man sitting next to the window. But this time she felt a jolt of electricity in her body. It was recognition. She was exposed; her loneliness, her vulnerability and her alien-ness. And in his gaze she saw who she was. She was the outsider.

He smiled weakly at her. She instinctively touched the soft protrusion of her belly. Will the life within her be treated with kindness- this complicated mix of races- Sri Lankan, Dominican and Mexican? Or will she lose herself in her otherness? Forever an alien, never finding that foothold.

By now the other guests had started to notice the fireworks, gathering closer to the window. She could no longer see Rohan who was engulfed in the newly formed group. But it also meant that she could no longer see beyond the window. Her husband was walking towards her again. He was smiling.

“Wanna go see the fireworks?” he said.

“Sure” She stood up carefully, feeling vulnerable. She was about to be exposed again.

Arundati touched her belly. Would this new soul within her do better at finding her place than her mother? In the least would she know when she was exposed as an imposter, a chameleon? Or would she be one of the brave lighting up the sky with fire even if it was for a brief moment in time?

As she got closer to the group she saw Rohan. He was smiling again, his confidence regained. And in that moment he was blending in; once again part of a group. He caught her eyes  and she realized that he could no longer see her. She too had once again camouflaged herself, a shape-shifting survivor.

By the time she could see outside the window to the skyline the fireworks had stopped. The crowd had already moved on, their interest satiated. And she looked out into the shimmering darkness and felt loss. She understood that rebellions and individuals could not last forever. That was a happy dream that would never come true.

Her husband was calling her name. Dinner was ready and the food was being served.

At that moment Arundati made a wish for her child. She hoped that her child would not be born a dreamer. But as she was turning around to walk back, she saw blooms of fire lighting up the sky again. And she sighed deeply knowing that this time her wish would not be granted. Maybe there could still be room for dreamers. Maybe the world would still leave space for the aliens, the outsiders, and the chameleons.