The Witness

Hi! I am back after sometime and this time I have a story to tell you. This story dates back to pre-independence times. Nevertheless, it always has remained one of the most thrilling stories I have ever heard from my Grandpa's collection (My Grandma also used this same story several times to keep us quiet when we were younger). My Grandpa was in the Police Department and he always told us stories enriched with his experience in the summer evenings when there was a power cut and we kids couldn't run about the house. Well let me try to do justice by narrating it to you now...

I belong to the state of Orissa. In those days in Orissa, when most of the state had not seen development and was mostly full of villages, incidents of the sort that I am going to narrate weren't surprising. My Grandpa was a police officer in a nearby town where this particular case was filed. A lady had committed suicide after killing her baby, following a family quarrel. There were no witnesses to the case except for a hand-written letter from the lady which specified the reason of her drastic action as a quarrel with her husband.

Grandpa set out for the village to assess the situation himself. The route to the village involved a small wood. It was around 45 minutes before he could reach the village that a lady clad in a simple red-bordered white saree along with a baby tied to her back (with a cloth, as most tribal women do) appeared on the road. She was carrying a bundle of sticks with her. When she saw the police jeep, she seemed to be asking for a lift. Grandpa stopped the vehicle in front of her and asked her to get in. She seemed pleased to have been relieved from the long walk to the village. She sat very quietly in the Jeep with her baby and bundle of sticks and wiped her face from time to time to remove the sweat accumulating on her forehead.

After sometime, when she had overcome her initial shyness and apprehension, she asked, "Going to the village, Sir?" "Yes", was my Grandpa's short reply. "For the suicide case, I assume", she enquired again. "Yes" said Grandpa. "Well Sir, I also live in the same village, you can drop me at the entrance and I will walk down to my house", said the lady and Grandpa replied with an okay. But the lady seemed to have gained courage during this short dialogue, for she continued, "Pardon my ignorance sir, but do you have a witness to this case? As far as I gather from the local people around, no one knows or has seen anything to confirm the suicide". My Grandpa was slightly irritated yet at the same time inquisitive about what this lady knew regarding the case. So he gently asked, "You are right, there is no witness to the case. But you seem quite interested! Tell me what do you know about all that has happened. Did you know the lady or her family members?"

That was it, the lady just wanted to be asked and she bubbled out with what she knew.

"You see sir, the woman who committed suicide, was a childhood friend of mine. We were married at the same time and whenever we met we talked about our married lives. The last time I met her, she was in a very sad plight. The couple never was in good terms. She had thought that after their baby, things would improve. But the drunkard husband she had was hard to change, let alone improve. He was so engrossed in drinking that he hardly cared about the increasing responsibilities. He even stopped going for work. It was then that my friend started picking up sticks, as I do now, to make ends meet. But her drunkard husband used to snatch away all her meagre earnings to get him a drink. At times he used to thrash her so hard that she couldn't come for work. She once told me that she wanted to run away for the sake of her baby. But where can a woman of our caste go Sir? The world outside is pretty bad. That is why I am surprised that a woman of our caste, who had the courage to even think of running away from her husband's house, could actually commit suicide??!! Somehow, I feel that the husband must have given her a death blow from which she never recovered. On realizing what he had done, he would have hung her body. He must have killed the baby too and written the letter. The wretched man he is, this is very expected of him. Oh! Yes Sir, I must mention this. This should have struck me earlier! My friend and I never learnt to read or write. I guess that solves your case."

She had had a mesmerizing effect on her listeners, for she was the one who pointed out to the driver that they had arrived at the entrance of the village and she wanted to get off the Jeep. While getting off, she gave the directions to the victim's house and said, "Thank you for the lift Sir. I think I have told you enough about my friend. In case you require me again, try finding me here at this point. However, I feel I won't be required". She picked her baby and bundle of sticks and vanished around a bending of a kutcha road that probably led to her hut.

Grandpa reached the site of the suicide. Many people were gathered there. Some people were holding the drunkard husband who had vanished from the scene probably to get another drink, for he was still in a drunk state. Grandpa examined the people and the husband and walked inside the house to inspect the dead bodies.

And lo & behold! The woman who hung from the ceiling was none other than the woman Grandpa had just given a lift to. The dead child was also the same child she carried with her. He found the letter too. The woman wore the same red-bordered white saree, her hair was undone and she had the same tikka on her forehead like the lady who had asked for the lift.

Grandpa came out and without a word handcuffed the husband and took him along with him.

On the way back he thought to himself, there could be no better witness to this case, could there be?

I had this story first published in my engineering college magazine in the year 2002. My friends then had appreciated it. One of them in fact called me up from her home after we had passed out from the college just to check if this was a real story. (She hadn't had the time to go through the college magazine before that). Well, I can only say that I took my Grandpa's word for it. I hope you find this story interesting too. Do put in your comments.

Smells!

Introduction: This essay was composed by me 8 years back when I had just started my hostel life in my engineering college. Apart from the engineering subjects, we had a few non-engineering subjects, one of which was, Language. In the language syllabus, we had to read this novel by Somerset Maughm called 'Cakes & Ale'. There was this particular line in the novel on Smells being nostalgic, which inspired me to write this short essay. Let me know if you like the essay and if you were convinced that indeed smells can take you deep down the memory lane!

Among so many gifts given to us by the Almighty, the power to sniff and smell is one of the most wonderful gifts I feel. It is probably the most valuable gift even according to Mother Nature. I say so because, we see among us people who are blind, deaf and dumb. But ever heard of anyone who can't breathe and smell?? Breathing and thus Smelling becomes the essence of life.

Smells can be of different varieties namely, pleasant, sweet, irritating, intoxicating, nauseating and last but not the least Nostalgic as well. Yes, I say Nostalgic and I will explain why I say so in the course of my essay.

Whether it is the aroma of a delicious dish being cooked in the kitchen, or the faint perfume of rose in teh garden or the intoxiccating fragrance of wet earth after the first shower of rain on a hot long day, smells are just wonderful. And the best role that smells play is take you long down the memory lane. Yes, nothing can take you back to the old days as fast as smells can. They can be so nostalgic at times that you just find yourself lost in the old days.

Life has become so fast these days that it becomes immensely impossible to rest and think about yourself, or the past. Smells play an important role during such times. The summers for this year just left us around the corner. The initial showers of rain brought with them the beautiful fragrance which in a moment used to take me back to those days of my childhood when I could hardly resist the desire to eat earth everytime it rained. I could immediately see myself hiding from my mother and nibbling away bits of earth.

I spent my nursery school days in Kolkata, the city of delicious sweets, especially the Sandesh. My mother used to offer Sandesh as Prasad in her daily worship of the family deities. She used to put a piece of tulsi leaf on a Sandesh piece for performing this ritual. After the Puja, she used to distribute the Sandesh with the Tulsi leaf between my sister and me. I used to love the smell of the holy leaf on the sweet-piece. Somehow, the smell signified purity to me even in those early days of my life. After a few years we moved from the east to the south and lost in touch with the delicious Sandesh. Just a few days back we had some friends from Kolkata who brought with them these sweets and my mother offered Prasad to the deities in the same fashion as done some 15 years back. When she gave me the Prasad with the Tulsi leaf, the smell of the Tulsi on the Sandesh was so powerful, that I found myself in my nursery school days in a jiff; more obedient to my mother than I was these days, innocence filled my soul then. The purity associated with the lovely smell was so strong that I actually went into introspection and motivated myself to become a better person in life.

My grandmother is no more alive. She was a brilliant cook. The best thing that I liked about her cooking was the preparation of this traditional Oriya dish called the Dalma. She prepared her special Dalma only on auspicious days. The whole family knew that there was something special about the day when the aroma of her Dalma used to fill the whole house. Everyone loved the dish in the house. And somehow we took it for granted that Grandma will prepare the dish, whenever such days dawned. Grandma left us and we realised, we never learnt the magic of creating that beautiful dish. Several of us tried our own methods. But we failed and failed miserably in our attempts. However I thank God, that He gave us the power to smell and thus remember that delicious smell which also brings back with it the old bygone days.

Smells don't remind of any particular occassion. They bring with them a whole period of days. Right now I am in my youth. So most smells remind me of my childhood days, days at school and my teenaged days. Very soon I would be finishing my studies and will settle down with a job and family and there will be certain smells that will take me to my college days of fun and growing up and what not. Then when I am old, there will be certain smells which will remind me of my own youth and my children's childhood days.

Smells will remind me every part of my life. But it is indeed astonishing that after death I will not be able to smell life.

Now, isn't that injustice??

Structures!

Recently, we had this class on developing our presentation skills wherein our instructor was trying to drive home the point that the closer a presentation topic is to your heart, the better the presentation. To prove to us this point she asked us to choose a topic that we were passionate about and speak about it to the whole class. She guaranteed that the passion and flow of energy would be really high if we were sincere in choosing the topic we were passionate about.

Having said so, she asked the class to break for leisure. During the leisure, like everyone, I also started hunting for the topic I really found close to my heart. It was a difficult job. I, for one, find many things in life very awe-inspiring and thus easily fall in love with little things in life. I loved my campus, I loved the academic buildings, I loved the student villages, I loved the flowers, the birds, the rain, music, movies, literature, certain people, jewels, cars, well the list is endless.

But we had to speak about just one topic. Whichever topic I chose, I felt I wasn't doing justice to the others. So I thought if I could find something common among all these things so that I could speak about one topic that would encompass all. It seemed even more difficult a job. But I decided to give it a try. I looked at the palatial building that was my institute. I looked at the cars of the professors parked at some distance (gorgeous vehicles, I thought). I looked at the big trees with the flamboyant coloured flowers, whose huge canopies served as roosting places for many varieties of birds. Beyond these trees I could see the magnificent lake that had refilled itself with the recent monsoons. I looked at things closer to me. I looked at the diamond ring I was wearing and the graphite nib of the pencil that I was holding to jot down my points. Eureka! I knew what was common among all these:) Any guesses??

Well, the one thing that I found common across all these things was STRUCTURE. Yes, Structures and that is what I spoke about.

What gives variation to the different things that we see? How do we differentiate between a
Honda City and a Toyota Corolla? What differentiates a parrot from a peacock? What differentiates the Microsoft office from the IBM office? Why do the rose and lotus not look alike? Why would things be so different if it were not for the various structures that each one has?

Thinking about Graphite and Diamond! well both are nothing but allotropic forms of carbon! And what differentiates them? but their structure at a molecular level? Anyone could be a Miss Universe, but her brilliant figure gives her that distinction (else you could see someone like me contesting for the post).

Speaking about more intangible forms as Music and dance and art. Well had it not been for the octaves in structure it would not have been music but cacophony. Had the dance steps not fallen in rhythm to the music, then it would be just another form of jumping around. And had the lines and curves not been drawn properly with some structure in mind art would be just another form of a conglomeration of dots!

You could say air and water are structureless. well yes probably. but at a molecular level? would you still call them structureless? You could still argue, what about our thought processes? there you are it is a process right? so the thoughts also follow some structure. May be a particular trigger leading to a particular thought!

In fact the only thing rather being that I can think of without a structure is GOD. (Yet some religions do give him a form as it is almost imbibed in us that everything has to have a structure). But isn't it so wonderful then, that someone so structureless, so nebulous, is actually the creator of so many structures??!!