Abhijit Chakraborty- Nov 2020

In Search Of Heaven 

Abhijit Chakraborty  

It is the time of the morning. Narayan is holding the big pebble in his one hand and the other hand is looking at the river which is running violently among the zigzag rods of the mountains. Nobody is there to ask him any question, so he is there to give the answer if somebody would ask him anything. Just a few hours ago , sudden rain wiped out the morning brightness, and now a gloomy atmosphere covering the bedsheet on the mountain and the river. Rain soaked road is silently moving towards Rangpo,but no one is there. Whether or not the people are afraid of moving out of their home or not is not clear, not Narayan Thapa, but in the last 6 months, there has not been any ruckus among the people, as tourists, their vehicle hardly made any inroads in their place. But during this time Narayan was moving from one mountain to another in search of his own dream seeing the beauty of the Nature how it could transform his eyes from the bluish sky to dark red mountain tops. 

During his tour of six months he discovered so many moments of reckoning, when he has been amazed by this silent beauty of the mountain which is becoming more silent with the advent of lockdown. Sitting by the river , he was feeling that he could catch himself in the eyes of the pebble lying under it, he picked up twos and threw into the air like a boy of ten who wishes to play with Nature. 

But yesterday when he reached the home after 10 days of roaming here and there, not in searchin the food, but looking for unseen changes of Nature, he found his mother was in pain with high fever. His mother wished to say something , but could not say. 

''Ma, what happened? Why are you doing this? you knew I came back'' 

Mother could not say anything. He knows that during his absence for more than ten days his mother has to arrange food for him, walking towards a small  market where she could do something as a daily labour and earn money. She has a small grocery shop, where tourists used to stop or take some food or tea. They spend their lives beautifully, and Narayan  was also doing his job, but now instead of stopping his life he chose to expand it. He was going to each corner of the mountains searching how the mountain looks like with the changes of colour,time and places. 

Narayan's mother did not want to disrupt the life of his son. When she felt that he would go for  long days, she often called him, 'Take this money and food.'  

He was not surprised at all, but yes he was surprised yesterday night when his mother did not respond to his call, 'Mother, ma'. His mother could not open her eyes , but from her face of pain he would realize his mother wished to see the last moon. He knows how her mother often stared at the night looking at the moon hours after hour. He opened the door, window of his little hut. Mother could not open the eyes but Narayan could see in the middle of the night how the sound of the river created the silence in his mind and he wept at last.  

Today when the sun came out, the police reached his hut and asked for the body of his mother. 

'Why?'

'Your mother might be infected with corona'

He cannot believe his ears. My mother! How! They tried to take the body out of the hut, but he resisted. Only question he is asking is 'Why?' 

When he understood that his mother had been working in a shop near a dam where people from Siliguri often came for a visit, he was surprised by hearing the struggle made by his mother only for him. He has not got his mother's body for cremation. He slowly runs with the police jeep which carries the body of his mother. It is a 2 km zigzag journey, and he knows the route despite the fact that he follows them. At first the police station then they will carry the body to the nearest hospital which is 15 km away. The police station is just beside the river. When the jeep stops leaving the driver of the jeep, everybody is busy with formalities of the body and the paper, Narayan slowly reaches to his body, snatches it from the back of the jeep, uncover it from the plastic, and throws the body into the river and jumps into it. When everyone realises it, they also jump to save Narayan, but his mother's body has been washed away far. Coming from the river, he is smiling on the face of the police - 'Now, Nature wll search whether she dies or not. Let her go to visit the room of God'. He takes a pebble and points to the mountain exclaiming 'Tomorrow, tomorrow, from tomorrow I will be searching my ma for heaven' The river flows as it is but the rustic eyes of Narayan feels that he is waiting for the day to over.