The Silence that refuses to be silent.

A Friday afternoon, the Lake Michigan looked bluer and clearer after the rain through his window;One of those days when he wanted to shut-off from the world.He avoided all the invites of his friends and decided to stay back and finish “From Heaven Lake”, a read long pending …..

A distance away he saw a curly haired girl walking with a bunch of shopping bags and an umbrella; least bothered to catch the scarf that flew off from her ……h

The admiration he had for her in the past was still there within him, covered over now like a bandaged wound, not yet healed underneath and perhaps still easily reopened…….Did she even exist in any corner of the world….If only someone could tell ……

She was never still for even a second….
The hustle-bustle of the house would vanish when she was away….
Always pacing or talking with hands, never still, standing, sitting, he would find her forever in motion….
Maalavika …………..his Maalu chechi……
She was the prettiest thing he had ever seen……Long black curly hair, large eyes which always carried a twinkle…… Smart, so much that she never had to search text books to answer his questions…She never scolded him when he got down the dirt unlike his mom and aunts…
Forever smiling and giggling……….


A summer vacation without Maaluchechi…. he couldn’t even think of one…
She would act like boys did, shoot marbles, climb trees, flick grandpa’s keys and drive all the kids to the river side…… and if anybody said something which she did not like, she would go right after them, she didn’t even spare Grandpa, she wasn’t afraid….and that made her “The Hero” …she was his "Hero"…

A job so far away…..he didn’t know how far………..very far away they said……
She had called home before she left….

“Next time when I come there, I will take you and Meenu to Vega-land……and that’s a Maalavika promise…..Shhhhhhhhhh… don’t tell anyone, Pack your bag and be ready …alright…….” And he heard her giggle.

“But Maaluchechi……..Achan??”

“Ill get the permission…I have got a job now” giggles “ok…Shhhhhhh”

“When will you come?……… Will you come back soon??”…

There was a pause….and then she replied…“hmm…
lets say 2 years, when you finish your seventh exams ok…When our tree blooms ………….bye now…Maaluchechi has to go”

Bip bip bip…
And he was left dreaming about Vega Land and all the fun rides……

He received many yellow postcards from the school announcing his results and the date, the school would reopen….
Secretly he kept his bag packed to go to Vega land…..



Every vacation passed quietly there after ………
Still he hoped, smiling and giggling his Maaluchechi would come one day and take Meenu and him to all the fun rides he keeps watching on the television…

Once he got a reply from grandpa that he had disliked instantly when he enquired when Maaluchechi would come home- “she doesn’t have time to go meet her parents ,and you are dreaming about her coming here for a vacation; in this remote village…she will not come …… …” Grandpa had shook his head and laughed with tobacco in his mouth.
He had seen Veliyamma breaking into tears when Meenu once asked about Maaluchechi

As he grew he realised it wouldn’t be pretty if he tried to know about her……. He never asked anybody anything after that……

Everyone seemed to have forgotten Maaluchechi now;
Summers’ passed and the violet flowers bloomed …..…. reminding him of her; and a promise……

She would be somewhere, living on some heaven lake……he believed…..
He still kept her, he never had the heart to tell her not to be there…in that corner of his heart……………

“We have passed out of the town center and are in the residential outskirts. Small mud houses with walled compounds go past, a grape trellis flung over a courtyard, an occasional tall sunflower raising its head over a wall......”
he stopped reading; closed the book….
And walked towards the window ……

Was she alive somewhere in those mud houses……….if only someone could tell him……………