The breeze felt like a mother’s caress on her cheeks. She
realized that she was getting engulfed in a sense of peace here on the shore of
the Bay of Bengal. Something she hasn’t had in almost a year. It filled her
with hope for the future. She could feel it giving her the strength go on. To
live.
Not for the first time since she arrived here at Velankanni,
Mary could physically feel the burden of her past, the ones that were bogging
her down, being lifted away. Sitting at
the seashore now, she was thankful she made this trip.
She looked down at the two kids lying on either side of her
with their heads on each of her laps. Nakul the elder, was her life. 9 years
and already showing the same qualities of the man she fell in love with. He had
his father’s eyes which were full of joy and kindness. She remembered that it
was his father’s eyes that she first fell in love with. She also remembered
looking into those same eyes on that fateful day, when life left them.
One of Nakul’s better qualities is unconditional love for his
younger sister Jyoti. It was for her third birthday that they made this trip.
She has been stuck with a series of ailments recently. Though none of them were
major concerns to the doctors, a mother always worries. And this trip to the
Lady of good health was mainly for her benefit. But Mary now realizes that the
healing was needed more for her than for her daughter.
Things have been a struggle since Satheesh, her husband
passed away. God had cut short her father’s life 11 years ago barely year after
her wedding. And her mother’s 2 years later. Satheesh filled the void she felt
then with a lot of love and happiness. With God blessing them with 2 wonderful
kids, life was bliss.
Then one rainy day all that changed. She was late that day
and was rushing Satheesh to drop her at her office. She could still hear him
scolding her for her tardiness. Before he could complete what he was saying a
dog ran across the motorbike. Satheesh swerved to avoid hitting it and lost
balance. They both fell to either side of the vehicle and she saw with horror
the truck heading straight for him. She clearly saw the panic and terror in his
face as he put up one hand almost as a reflex action to stop the impending
disaster. That’s the face that wakes her almost every night now.
But today all that feels different. She has a job. And
combined with Satheesh’s foresight to have a life insurance Mary knows that
financially she doesn’t have anything to worry about. But emotionally she knows
she was a broken woman. Until today.
Today she is filled with hope. She knows she has to live for
her kids. She has to move on and fight what this world has to throw at them for
the sake of her children. She has to be both father and mother for them; protector
and sustainer. She has to fight the doubts creeping up in her mind even now.
And she is not confident her resolve will hold the next time the nightmares
return. But she resolves to give it a try, which is more than what she has done
since Satheesh left them.
She was lost in her thoughts when she looked down again and
saw that Nakul was wide awake and looking up at her with that infectious smile
of his. “Amma, do you love me or Jyoti more”. This is something he asks all the
time. And she answers him the same way she always does since he started asking
it. “I love you both. But you are my best friend”
She knows he is not jealous. But there seems to be an
insecurity in the boy about competing for her love. She believed he would get out of this as he
got older. But Satheesh’s passing seems to have made this question a bit more
frequent than she would have liked. It’s almost as if the boy is trying to
cling on to the one thing that is constant in his life.
It was almost absently that she looked up and saw something
strange. The sea which was calm and serene just a few minutes ago, seemed to be
receding more than normal. Even for someone like her, who has lived near a coast
all her life, this was something of a first. It was more out of curiosity that
she stood up picking up her daughter. She ignored the protests of her daughter
irritated at being woken up by the movement. She now noticed that boats which
were floating on water before were now on solid ground. She couldn’t help but
let out an exclamation of surprise at the sight she was seeing. She noticed
that some people were heading towards the beach, their curiosity getting the
better of them.
For some reason she didn’t join them. Maybe it was the fear
of the unknown that stopped her from doing it. She would later recall that out
in the horizon, she saw that the sea was turning. It was coming back with the
ferocity of a separated lover. The first time she sensed danger was when she
saw that the size of the wave was getting bigger and bigger. Where it seemed
inevitable that it would rush ashore to where she was standing. She grabbed her
son’s hand tightly and started taking a few steps back almost instinctively.
But the wave was coming in faster and growing in size every inch that it moved
forward. She turned and yelled at her son, “RUN!!!”
Her back towards the ravaging force of nature, she was trying
to run as fast as she could. But with Jyoti clinging to her neck, a hand
supporting the child and another holding Nakul her progress was limited. It was
Jyoti’s scream that she heard before she felt like being shoved from behind by
a giant brute. The force of that wet impact threw her off-balance and pushed
forward where she fell face first. But instead of land what greeted her was
water. The force dragged her under momentarily, twisting and turning her and
completely disorienting her. She had lost all concept of time or direction and
was just barley managing to keep coming up for air from time to time. Managing to
get some air mixed with the dark graying waters of the ravaging sea. Somehow
she had still held on to her son through all this. But, her daughter came loose
the third time she came up for air.
With growing horror Mary saw her daughter beginning to be
swept away from her. Something in her knows that if the child moves any further
way, she may never see her again. With an extraordinary strength of will Mary
is able to lunge towards her daughter and just manages to get a hold of her
dress. She pulls her scared, screaming between chokes, daughter closer. Her
son, whose face is writ large with shock and terror was almost dragging her
down in his effort to keep his head above water.
Mary could make out that they were getting dragged further
inland from the coconut trees which dotted the sea shore passed by her. At one
point the water seemed to have lost some of its intensity and Mary grabbed on
to a piece of rope that must have been tied to something anchored to the ground
because it held when she pulled at it. But she didn’t have the strength to hold
on to it with one hand as her other hand was still holding on to her son. That
along with the weight of her daughter on her neck made her let go.
Mary was reaching out and trying to grab at something,
anything, that she could. She reached
out and grabbed what she realized was a tree branch. She dragged herself and
her children towards the branch and wrapped her free arm around a sturdier part
of the branch. But she knew that the struggle is far from over. She knows that
the sea has a rhythm of its own. Every wave that rushes in has to go back. The
onward rush of the sea had become a crawl now. She used that time to wrap a leg
around the branch too. It was a miracle that she still had her daughter around
her neck. It could have been out of pure fear and survival instinct. But the
child held on to her mother all her might. She tried to pull her son closer to
the branch and thought of hoisting him on it. But she didn’t have the energy or
the strength to do that.
And then the water started receding.
Mary held on with as much strength as she could muster.
Holding and clinging on to the branch while still holding on to her son.
Praying that her daughter would not let go of her grip. But the receding waters
were get stronger and stronger. Mary was getting hit by all kind of debris, but
the tree served as good protection from some of the larger ones that would have
surely knocked them out otherwise.
But Mary realized that the struggle was far from over. He
daughter was tiring and her grip around the mother’s neck loosening just a
little. Mary realizes that she will have to use her other hand if she has any
hope of saving her daughter. She is faced with a dilemma that no mother can
face. She has to choose which of her children she has to let go. She tries to
look at her son. The son who had absolute terror on his face. And Mary thought
of Satheesh on that day.
Mary resolved not to let go of either one of them. She
continued to fight. But her daughter’s grip was loosening and it was only a
matter of time before she was going to be pulled away by the sea. Mary looked
one more time at her son again. Their eyes met. And she lets him go.
Mary grabbed her daughter just as she was about to completely
loose her grip. Without her son Mary now had the leverage to get a better grip
on her daughter and the branch. She was now able to wrap both her legs around
it and held on for dear life.
She doesn’t remember how long or how
many times the waves crashed forward and went back like this. All she remembers
is that they held on and didn’t move for fear of what would happen otherwise.
He daughter had lost consciousness long time ago and Mary herself was barely
conscious. Sometime later, after the sea seemed to have satisfied its anger,
she looked around to see absolute destruction and tragedy all around her. She
saw debris and bodies devoid of life being washed away into the sea, as if the
sea was trying to clean up the damage it had caused. The lifeless bodies
floating by brought back the thoughts of the son she had let go to his fate.
Guilt hit her like the tsunami that just affected her life. That guilt and the
fate of her son overpowered the last vestiges of strength she had and she
slumped into unconsciousness, defeated.
=======================================================================
When Mary opened her eyes again, the first thing she saw was the
roof of a cloth tent. She saw a bulb hanging from the top on an electric wire.
For a few moments she didn’t have any memory of what had happened to her. She
saw that there was an IV drip being administered to her. She saw her daughter
in the bed next to her. But as soon as she felt happy to see her, the memory of
her son and the associated guilt returned. “What have I done”, she thought. The
guilt hit her just like that first wave did. She cursed the idea to come here.
She cursed the gods that granted the health of one child only to take the other’s
life in return. “What sin deserves to be punished like this?” she silently asks
the Matha for whose blessings she had come to Velankanni.
Mary and her daughter were in the make shift rescue center
for a day before the doctors told her they were healthy enough to go. She had
checked every bed there to see if her son was there. They still had injuries
sustained from the ordeal, but the doctors were understaffed to deal with the
calamity that has befallen this small town and had to prioritize their
resources for those who needed more help. Some of the nurses even told her that
she and her daughter were extremely lucky to have only sustained such minor
injuries. She didn’t tell them anything. The nurses didn’t understand why she
would break down completely when they say this.
But Mary doesn’t leave. She sticks around hoping to hear any
news about her son. He manages to get herself and her daughter into the cramped
temporary rescue co-ordination center. Which has started looking almost like a
refugee center with relatives of victims searching for any news of their missing
loved ones. With the cries of anguish outnumbering those joy every passing day.
Every day Mary goes through a pendulum swing of emotions when she scans the
list of survivors and the list of dead. She always scanned the unidentified
dead bodies the last.
On the 4th next day since the ordeal started, while at the
rescue center, news started trickling in of survivors in another part of the
town. She learns that these are mostly children who are unclaimed by parents or
relatives. Mary rushes there hoping
against hope that her son is in there. With deafening heartbeats she looks at
the list of names posted outside. Her heart sinks when her sons name is not in
the list.
Despondent and on the verge of losing all hope, she is at a
loss as to what to do next. “Have you checked the local hospitals?”, the Officer
at the rescue center asks. “Some of the early survivors were taken there. Since
they were unconscious we didn’t get their names. A lot of them were on the edge
of life and we never got around to collecting their data”.
Hope rekindled, Mary goes to the hospital taking her daughter
with her. She is told of a boy who gained consciousness that very day after
fighting for his life the last couple days. He had washed ashore at a remote
part of town and it was the local fishermen who found him. They took him to the
local clinic who gave him first aid and then had him transferred to the local hospital.
The boy’s description matched that of Nakul.
Mary rushes inside and see that it is indeed her Nakul. She
grabs him and hugs him with all her might. She feels an indescribable sense of
relief and happiness at having found him. She thanks the God who has been
merciful to her at least once. But something feels odd. Mary doesn’t realize it
instantly. Its only later that she realized that Nakul is impassive to all
this. He is not returning her hugs. Tears seems to be rolling down his eyes but
other than that, Mary doesn’t sense the happiness he should feel at seeing his
mother again.
“Amma, do you love me or Jyoti more?” That’s the questing
which ring in her head at that time. She wants to explain why she did what she
had to do. That it wasn’t preference. It wasn’t lack of love. But she can’t
find the words for it. What words would explain to him what she had to do. What
words would make him understand what she went through.
The future that looked so hopeful a couple of days ago looks dark
to her. It scares her more than ever. She worries if Nakul can live with what
she did. She worries if her son will forgive her someday. She worries if her
son will ever trust her to not let go again. The
future looks back at her, smiling monstrously with its hidden mysteries.
