கதை சங்கமம் 2021

புது எழுத்தாளர்களை வரவேற்கிறோம்! New Talented Writers Welcome!!!

The Dazzling Stone Chapter 2

Daisy Josephraj

Active member

CHAPTER 2 “ARE YOU A DOG LOVER? COME WITH ME!”

“Humph!!! What happened to you, Mam? Are you bitten by any beach dogs? No, it can’t be! They don’t even have the strength to bark, then how could they bite? Did you bite them; they seem to have some hurt feelings in their eyes?”

“Hi Mister, have some sense, your talks do not tally with your actions!” Her reply was smeared with salt and pepper from her temper. Prem just brushed away her duplicate anger and with a mischievous laugh he asked,

“What you want My Fair Lady? do you want my help? I am at your services!” Saying that he stood upon the ground like a gentleman with his hands, in his rough jeans pocket and with a naughty smile in a procession on his lips.

With her lips curved in a laugh, she replied, “come with me immediately, you will witness an excellent scene of your lifetime!” She pulled him without the knowledge of holding his palms in a tight clasp... and he too in his elevated state of mind didn’t feel her soft palm rubbing against his palm.

There he saw an excellent scene of his life. On the beach sands, under the canopy of a giant tree, there was a broken cart, and behind the broken cart, he saw a scene that broke his heart and stopped its rhythmic beat. A wondrous scene unfolded before his eyes...

There he saw a puny-looking mother dog lying on the ground, with her six puppies suckling its mammary glands for milk. The brownie mother dog looked lean and sick but was feeding its beautiful puppies who were hale and healthy. He caught struck by that show of love.

“OH MY GOD! It’s a beautiful scene, without his knowledge he took hold of her fingers tightly in his palm while his whole body was shaking in happiness, fear, and joy. He began to express his thoughts in words by composing some simple lyrics

“What a beauty, what a beauty,
It is Nature’s creativity,
In its lovely forms and colors,
One is in an unblemished white
just like falling snow from the sky;
Two like its mother covered in roasted brown
One is sprinkled with black and white
Dots of words we print on a canvas sheet;
And two more covered in all shades of colors!
In a mixture of Brown black and white!


Prem was unable to stop his blabbering, “I wish to kiss those puppies, and cover you with millions and millions of thanksgiving kisses for showing me this beautiful scene.!” Which made Nila blush. And with a stammer, she asked,

“Let your gratitude wait, first answer me sir, who will feed this orphaned mother dog? She can suckle her babes only when she is fed!” Prem was completely stumped

‘A modern girl who looked a millionaire is posing such a question to me. Is she a lunatic like him on the same scale!?’ He thought and then replied,

“Hurrah! It’s a very good question, Dogs like rice and water with chicken pieces, cooked in a pressure cooker, and will relish that delicious food along with the chicken soup and they will kneel down and bestow hundreds of thanks at your feet by waving their tails eternally to show their love!

“Hi! You seem to have very good knowledge about dogs?”

“Dogs are not my family Gods, this is simply a knowledge I gained from my mother, this is how my mother used to cook and feed my pet dog Harry when I was a kid. My pet was a Pomeranian breed, and he was my darling sweet pet!!! Whom I loved the most than anyone else in this world. Do you know what a cutie, beauty, he was???

He was a naughty cutie Pomeranian,
Looks like a snow-white beauty, mingled
With snow and furry drops, as if fallen accidentally
In tiny droplets of snow and fur;
The whitish fur coat spreads like a carpet of snow;
He always rolls his twinkling black pearl pupils
On the white marbled Floor of his eyes,
And his rosy nose will always smell the outsiders
As foreigners, and they need his entry visa
To enter our house!
He jumps and runs like an Arabian horse with
His oscillating Bushy tail always shook my heart.
But on a sunny Sunday, he went under the Wheels
Of a car, and splashed the blood on the road,
And broke my heart into hundred fragments!!!


“My little pet Harry was always following me where ever I went, like Mary’s little lamb; he will walk, run, jump and dance with me; he will sleep only after encircling his little hands around my neck; but on that fateful day he was running on the street to catch up with me, shaking his curved bushy tail like a curly white bottle brush; but..., ended like the tomato ketchup on the street...!

Alas! he went under the wheel of a car, which ran fast, his blood was splashed on the road and I got only the remains of his flesh. Even then, those old memories brought some tears to his eyes. After that, we stopped having pet dogs. I don’t know what connection I have with the dogs, but I feel they are all related to me and I have some debts to be repaid!” Prem stopped short of his narration after giving a full-fledged picture of his pet Harry to Nila.

“Maybe you were a dog in your previous birth!” She replied and continued

“We shall meet tomorrow in the early hours, and as you said I will prepare and bring chicken soup!” and asked him,

“what will be your share…!?” He doubted if that modern girl in her jeans pant and T-shirt would prepare the chicken soup? but at the same time, he enjoyed those dancing earrings as she shook her head while talking and he replied to her in an awestruck tone

“I will bring a bowl to pour that soup with your special lunch for the dogs!”

At once his poetic mind started typing some lyrics in the virtual laptop keyboard fixed in his mind without her knowing it.

“Her crescent shaped forehead from the North
To the curved red jaws to the South,
Enclosing two upside-down hairy brackets
Ending in the black needles in a curve ready to prick,
The thief, robbing two black pearls rolling like
Freshly caught pond fish jumping in a china dish!
Below comes the geometrically curved bridge
For a nose, with a shining black mole adorning
The junction of the red lake lip
Hanging like two orange pulps filled in a closed bracket,
And the high raised cheeks blushing
Like dawn and dusk of the sky above!
Sliding down the neck which aligned with her
Beautifully carved chiseled-out figure!
And his eyes became a drawing canvass!
But coolly she was bidding farewell
And shredded his heart into fragments!”


She Bid farewell to him saying, “I will come with the soup and you bring a bowl, and we will meet tomorrow at dawn, and with those words of a nightingale, she left and he looked stumped to the floor.

She just crossed him; spraying the aroma of a girl in her full bloom, reached the parking slot and with ease, she pulled her sedan and drove away within a wink of an eyelid.

Until then his mind was playing as if she were a barbie doll, and his mind crash landed to the real world only when she disappeared from his eyesight! He was stumped not only by her beauty and compassion but also by her fluency by which she drove her car away.

Still, he was relishing on his saved files about Nila, replaying from the first episodes. On that day after her departure in her sedan car, he asked himself,

‘What is happening in my life, A beautiful angel on the brink of her womanhood had come to this beggar boy, and was speaking fondly, with a caressing look!
'Is all my birth stars and zodiac signs, standing in a good position looking in the same direction of Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn, Mars, and the sun.'

‘Why this unwanted attraction towards this damsel!?’

‘Yes, my dear foolish boy it’s a natural attractive force!’ Prem heard a voice call from a dog, but he did not mind that dog’s voice. But still, he heard that voice.

“Soon the day will come when you will be freed from all your flaws, faults, and sins of your birthday chart and will be influenced by all nakshatras and Rasi for a prosperous time to come!”

But again he ignored that inner voice of a dog. Because his heart was filled with that evergreen angel who came accidentally into his life on that evening!”

‘Today is it a day of magic’ he thought.
He wanted to run happily on the seashore with hundreds of balloons filled with fresh air and that angel clinging to his pants. ‘Hi! Boy, when you take to the skies see to it that your pants don’t come off when she clings to you!’ Again the dog was ridiculing him, But he just ignored those teasing voice calls which he started hearing very often now.

So he decided to carve out a sand sculpture on the vast expanse of the sea sand lying like a sand carpet on the shore floor. She lied on his lap like a laptop he imagined and he started chiseling out her figure on the sands while his mind was typing the poem in the virtual keyboard in the brain by pressing the keys of the alphabets composing a new song and saving it in a new file named My Angel!

The sand sculpture started from her forehead and ended with a bindi on her forehead. His mind and hands were in sequence and after completing the handy work he called Bhairavah the God of the Dogs to guard the sand cast.

“You go I will take care!!!” Again he heard a dog’s voice.

He felt that his pet dog Harry was talking to him. With a jolt in his heart, he looked suspiciously all around him with great expectations to see if someone resembling his pet dog could be found but he was disappointed!

Now his mind went for that mother dog with gratitude for helping him to find his damsel. Soon he went there and with excess care, he constructed a kennel for the mother dog with those broken pieces of the old cart.

He supplied the mom dog with milk and biscuits from the meager balance amount he had. Now his excited mind got settled down peacefully and it was almost eleven at night when he reached home.

His mother Chitra welcomed him with a ridiculous comment as he entered his house.

“My dear Sheepherder, have you finished your rescuing work for the day? how many lives did you save today?

“Seven! One mom dog, and six puppies!” on hearing those answers, his mom’s eyes got filled instantly.

“Why you are transformed like this my dear boy? I will not say what you do is wrong, but life will not end with the seashore or the dogs you feed and save.

You need a goal in your life, Those orphaned dogs will not give bread, butter, or any positions in your life. Don’t you feel sorry for your mother; I was waiting for you anxiously all the time looking at the entrance!”

Really he felt very sorry for his mother, and he knew very well the love she had for her firstborn prodigy! Though he was a grown-up man at the age of 25, he was still a child to her. That child made his mom sit on the floor and laid his head on her lap saying,

“Mom I want to share my story! But before that, it's my fervent request that you desist from waiting for me if it gets very late! Don’t wait for this useless kid, You have your own family duties and official duties, you are not an invalid officer like me, Daily morning is like a whirlwind you have to complete your daily chores, and rush to your office!”

Prem’s mother Chitra was serving in the Government as a Scientific Officer, and his father Lakshman was an Officer in the Ministry of Railways. Prem’s mother interjected,

“Please Prem forget those dogs, I don’t know what bad Omen has entered my son’s soul in a span of twelve months!?”

“I am alright mom, I am not possessed by any dark force, just my mind is in vacillation and is in search of some unfulfilled work which has to be accomplished in my lifetime. I feel I am detached from this world, but I had a very different experience this evening ma!” and he started relating the evening sojourn with an angel of a girl of his age. His pupil danced in excitement when he narrated the story.

“I could understand the story you related about that girl, let her bring a change of mind in you because I couldn’t decipher the pain and unfulfilled feel you have in your heart! I feel you are traumatized by some happenings in your past life. At this adolescent age of yours, it is very natural to have a fluctuating mind. But I wish to say only one thing Prem, “Focus on a single path in front of you and at a goal that you want to achieve!”

“Will you give me a helping hand mom in my endeavor?”

“Instead of putting the whole faith on me, you can believe that unknown angel you met today. Though my heart is filled with affection and love for you, I am happy in this prison of love for your, dad, you, and your two sisters. I am enslaved to you all. I cannot break from the shackles of my family bond and come out to support you, but your mother’s cooperation will be always there for you.

That motherly love will be a shield of protection around you, my dear son!” She took a long breath and continued,

“But that girl seems a correct match for you as both your hearts are beating in resonance with the same frequencies of compassion for all suffering lives in this world. Though she seems to be a millionaire with a modern outlook having different goals, follow her advice to mend your path. Don’t lose my daughter-in-law for any cause!”

For this Prem answered with a burst of warm laughter,
“Within seconds you have chosen her as my bride and accepted that girl as your daughter-in-law, I think you have completed all the rituals of your son’s marriage within a blink of your eyelid without even matching our horoscopes!?”

His mom answered him with a peal of scintillating laughter, “I am your mother Prem! I can understand the deepest chambers in my son’s heart, just by seeing a twinkle in his eyes... today I could see a completely changed man in yours, I need no power glasses to read your eyes bubbling with love for that girl. I can see the future in your eyes don’t ever leave her hand!”

“Even then you are a too fast mom, do you think your son can fall in love at first sight!” Chitra replied to him again with a smile,

“The flashes of real love come within a second, it does not need ages to fall in love with anyone!” his heart accepted that truth, as the impressions of that girl seemed written with a spot of indelible ink in his heart!

“I feel what you say is correct mom, maybe her compassion towards the poor sufferers might be the cause! Soon I will find out the faulty structures in my heart, just you give me one more year, will come back to you as your loving son of yesteryears. If you can’t be the ship you be the lighthouse for my ship. I will ponder over everything which happened in my life, I will set right the cause and effect and will set a goal for my future.

“You mean to say you will go somewhere leaving your mom and family behind?”

“Yes! A World tour on a fishing boat!!” Now Prem heard the same voice, with a giggle! ‘Who is this naughty teaser?! Am I becoming mad hearing voices!!!’ Prem started shivering!

Prem started answering his mother in a shaky voice!

“No, mom your son will not go anywhere, as I can never survive without every day’s loving kisses from you, and a ball of rice from your loving hands! You are Ch... choo...sweet mom!”

But that lovely affectionate scene got severed by the entry of his dad Lakshman into the scene!

“Has the falling rain of affectionate scenes between the mom and son got completed? Don’t unfurl your loving umbrella at night Chitu, the sun is not shining and the rain is not pouring, give some good advice to your son along with your lullabies!” He was poking at Prem with sarcasm by indirectly teasing Chitu!
 
Top