This is a
story, with a few people in it. The people are ordinary. Their lives are
ordinary. The story is about...well let’s see what it’s about. All I can tell
you is it has a little boy in it.
There was
once a little boy, you see. He was plump, dressed in shorts all the time, did
not like to study and spent his time reading books. His mother used to tell him
stories too; but she had an annoying habit of leaving them unfinished. So, he made up endings to stories all by
himself. Usually, they were happy endings. Some, were sad. Most were simple.
The first time someone ate ice cream and had a cold. The first time he went to
his grandmother’s house and she treated him to Dosa from Udipi’s.
Now, much as
we’d like our little boy to remain little; sadly it isn’t so. As time passed
the boy grew up. As he grew up, his mind expanded. He became interested in
music. He became a fan of some English group with a very strange hairstyle and
took to crooning songs at the top of his lungs. He started to take those
stories he had written in his youth more seriously and began to compose. He
also found he liked to tinker with things and to take things apart.
But then,
one evening, the little boy saw something. It was a glimpse rather. A tiny
pulse of light. The boy was confused. He could not understand what he had seen.
The truth is, he hadn’t seen anything. He had felt something; rather he had
sensed someone. But who?
The little
boy kept growing, because Time kept passing him by. He kept reading and he kept
talking to people. His father, his mother and his grandmother. One thing the
boy never understood however; in spite of having grown so much is why people
went away. I mean to say- there they were just a few days before and then they
sort of went off. They left bodies behind, but then those bodies were not them.
The bodies were shells. Where had the people gone?
The boy also
remembered glimpsing that same something or someone each time someone went
away. Sometimes, he could even tell when someone was going days before they
actually left.
And so the
boy wondered. Where were all these people? He knew where people came from, he
knew about something called “souls”. He subscribed to the belief that “souls”
existed. If so, where were the souls?
Then, one
day the little boy looked up. He saw stars in the sky. He also felt that
someone near him. The little boy realized what he was seeing. He was seeing
everyone who had gone away, looking down at him and smiling. His grandmother,
who was the first to go. His dog who followed some years later. And most
recently, his great grand uncle.
And when the
little boy sleeps at night, sometimes he dreams of bad things. He remembers
pain. He remembers fears. But then, sometimes he also dreams of the people who
have gone and the boy smiles. One day, the little boy, will no longer be called
little; and will also go away. He will go up above and he will smile down at
another little boy, just like him.
I hope that
boy smiles back.
The Bilge Master