Skip to main content

Emptiness

Fiction

“Hey, aren’t you Karia?”

The question woke up Scaria from his reverie. He looked at the intruder for a while. “Hello, Jose.”

They were meeting after many, many years. Scaria had left the village half a century ago when his family migrated to North Kerala. He was a migrant ever since. As soon as he completed his plumber-electrician course, he left home to take up a job in the Gulf where he lived most part of his life. He married Cecily who was a nurse in the hospital where he worked as the plumber-electrician for a while. In the autumn of their life, they returned to live in Kerala. Their only daughter was married and Cecily spent most of her time with a Charismatic prayer group which was eminently active in the village and nearby towns.  Scaria was very religious too. Religion helped fill the emptiness which he experienced time and again in life. But God alone could not fill the void. That’s why he decided to visit his old village, the place of his childhood memories. Memories fill the void within. Can they also tear you apart?

“I was trying to recall the granite hill that was here,” Scaria said to his childhood friend.

“Stone mining. They made the hill vanish without a trace,” said Jose. 

“A lot of things have changed. That bridge over there, it used to be a three-foot wide wooden thing with some planks missing in between.”

“We used to run on it and jump over the gaping emptiness!”

“So much change!”

Jose invited his old friend home. “Have a cup of tea with us, at least.”

Scaria excused himself. He wished to spend a little time there looking at the emptiness that reigned where the favourite hill of his childhood had been. Climbing that hill up and down, up and down was his beloved game as a child. Sometimes one boy or another would chase him. He was not interested in the chase anyway. The climbing itself was his passion: up and down.

His life went through a lot of ups and downs after that. The usual ups and downs of life. Some estrangement with Cecily. His daughter’s love affair with someone whom she met on a Facebook chat. Her marriage and eventual fading away from his life.

This is life, he contemplated. Everything is so evanescent, even a granite hill.

He had come back to his childhood assuming that hills lasted beyond humans. Can a little faith bring back a mountain? A little dynamite can move a whole mountain!

Cecily must now be preaching to her prayer group about the power of faith to move mountains.

Can you move my mountain here, Cecily? Can you? Can you at least make the emptiness bearable?






Comments

  1. Anita SabatMarch 7, 2019 at 10:47 PM

    Philosophical story.
    I am alarmed at the way our mountains are disappearing. Future generations will not know the beauty of mountains if all are blown away by granite for selfish motives of the builders. Who gives them permission to raze? Aren't these public property?
    Sadly, we cannot rebuild or remake or restore certain things...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMarch 8, 2019 at 6:08 AM

      A lot of environmental degradation has taken place already because of human greed. We are paying the price too. See how the climate is changing.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In this Wonderland

I didn’t write anything in the last few days. Nor did I feel any urge to write. I don’t know if this lack of interest to write is what’s called writer’s block. Or is it simple disenchantment with whatever is happening around me? We’re living in a time that offers much, too much, to writers. The whole world looks like a complex plot for a gigantic epic. The line between truth and fiction has disappeared. Mass murders have become no-news. Animals get more compassion than fellow human beings. Even their excreta are venerated! Folk tales are presented as scientific truths while scientific truths are sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. When the young generation in Nepal set fire to their Parliament and Supreme Court buildings, they were making an unmistakable statement: that they are sick of their political leaders and their systems. Is there any country whose leaders don’t sicken their citizens? I’m just wondering. Maybe, there are good leaders still left in a few coun...
12 comments
Read more

Death as a Sculptor

Book Discussion An Introductory Note : This is not a book review but a reflection on one of the many themes in The Infatuations , novel by Javier Marias. If you have any intention of reading the novel, please be forewarned that this post contains spoilers. For my review of the book, without spoilers, read an earlier post: The Infatuations (2013). D eath can reshape the reality for the survivors of the departed. For example, a man’s death can entirely alter the lives of his surviving family members: his wife and children, particularly. That sounds like a cliché. Javier Marias’ novel, The Infatuations , shows us that death can alter a lot more; it can reshape meanings, relationships, and even morality of the people affected by the death. Miguel Deverne is killed by an abnormal man right in the beginning of the novel. It seems like an accidental killing. But it isn’t. There are more people than the apparently insane killer involved in the crime and there are motives which are di...
7 comments
Read more

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

When Cricket Becomes War

Illustration by Copilot Designer Why did India agree to play Pakistan at all if the animosity runs so deep that Indian players could not even extend the customary handshake: a simple ritual that embodies the very essence of sportsmanship? Cricket is not war, in the first place. When a nation turns a game into a war, it does not defeat its rival; it only wages war on its own culture, poisoning its acclaimed greatness. India which claims to be Viswaguru , the world’s Guru, is degenerating itself day after day with mounting hatred against everyone who is not Hindu. How can we forget what India did to a young cricket player named Mohammed Siraj , especially in this context? In the recent test series against England, India achieved an unexpected draw because of Siraj. 1113 balls and 23 wickets. He was instrumental in India’s series-levelling victory in the final Test at the Oval and was declared the Player of the Match. But India did not celebrate him. Instead, it mocked him for his o...
6 comments
Read more

Whose Rama?

Book Review Title: Whose Rama? [Malayalam] Author: T S Syamkumar Publisher: D C Books, Kerala Pages: 352 Rama may be an incarnation of God Vishnu, but is he as noble a man [ Maryada Purushottam ] as he is projected to be by certain sections of Hindus? This is the theme of Dr Syamkumar’s book, written in Malayalam. There is no English translation available yet. Rama is a creation of the Brahmins, asserts the author of this book. The Ramayana upholds the unjust caste system created by Brahmins for their own wellbeing. Everyone else exists for the sake of the Brahmin wellbeing. If the Kshatriyas are given the role of rulers, it is only because the Brahmins need such men to fight and die for them. Valmiki’s Rama too upheld that unjust system merely because that was his Kshatriya-dharma, allotted by the Brahmins. One of the many evils that Valmiki’s Rama perpetrates heartlessly is the killing of Shambuka, a boy who belonged to a low caste but chose to become an ascetic. The...
8 comments
Read more