Maya (Divinity Within)

By RAM GARG

Hope leads a young poor girl, momentarily dispirited of injudicious command of law, through capricious intrigues of the palace, before she sets out in search of an non-existent one-eyed ant, an acculturating oddity that proves to be the ultimate answer to her dream. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: RAM GARG
• Release date: Jan 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386635567

Book preview

‘an excuse has no destiny, whereas, the coffer of hope is never  empty.’ 

1.The Accusation   

The weather had changed, of a sudden, from the velvety softness of a clear cool day to the somber heaviness of impending rain, whorls of grey clouds suddenly forming mountainous patterns in the eastern horizon. Mrs. Gabriel Huge, a middle aged and angular faced common looking woman, of a frail physical structure, rued the transmutation. Though accustomed to such an erratic behavior of the climate, she had an unexplainable premonition that the current sudden change was indicative of some unpleasant happening. Still an hour from the daily routine to feed the birds, she decided to pre-pone the schedule. Birds would not mind an early supper. Picking up the feed can, she turned around, heading out of the small hutment, but stopped mid-way. She had forgotten the hat, the feathered hat, a gift from her late husband, decorated with colorful feathers of rare occidental birds, collected over a period of more than a year, he had told.  She had never, ever since, stepped out without wearing it over her small head, not when he was alive, or later, for more than a decade since.    

The sun was playing hide and seek, the shimmer of the glow, pleasantly warm of its unhindered rising, a short while ago, had turned reticently pale of the influencing grey shroud. Draped in a knee-length sleeveless green looking frock, another one of husbandly gifts that had long faded of the over-use, and walking down a few steps to the wooden pen, just in front of the small hutment, she watched with solicitous interest, for a long while, the playful jumping of the birds, fifteen in all, a dozen chicks, a pair of hens, and a cockerel. She had counted and added them up right, only an evening before, a weekly chore she would never miss, ever since she had taken up raising of the birds, for a living, post the man’s unfortunate and untimely demise. Presently something was amiss, she believed, but could not immediately relate herself to. On an impulse, she started counting of the birds afresh, starting with the chicks. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twe........... But no, the twelfth bird was missing. A little concerned but sure of having reached up to the exact number only an evening before, she searched around, up and down, left and right, from one corner of the small wooden pen to the other, but to no avail. She ventured a recount but could make up only up to eleven. Her right hand went to the iron latch, to confirm that the door was securely bolted from outside. Genuinely worried, she, looked up to the cockerel, momentarily, only if it was aware of the whereabouts of its ward, before turning around, if somehow, the chick could have flown out. But there was no trace.

Panicked of the loss, she raised alarm, shouting, Thief, thief, inviting immediate attention of everyone in the near vicinity, a few of them, both male and female, running out of neighboring hutments.

A youngster laughed, almost mocking, Huh, a thief in the marquee of the impecunious he bleated, and what did he thieve, the embellishment of the silver bowl, I suppose, or, perhaps, the plumage has lost one of its colors

The discretion was appalling. Everyone looked concerned of such petulance, seemingly reprimanding the youngster for his unnecessary barb. Someone asked, Where is the thief?

The aggrieved stared back at the gathered small crowd, for long moments, as if trying to venture a guess. The thief is in the ill-bred morals of someone of us, the impious I must label him, who has the temerity to steal one of my chickens she finally complained. 

The youngster interjected yet again, smiling, continuing in the same contemptuous mode. What a huge loss, Mrs. Huge, a treasure, I suppose he sneered, again inviting reproving stares.

A conically-nosed bespectacled man of average height, supporting a self-assured kind of subtle look, stepped in as the self-appointed loss enumerator, How true, young man, a treasure it sure is, for true worth of a chick is best reflected in its future ability to lay an egg, everyday, raising hundreds of chicks in the days to come said he, admonishingly agreeing with the intransigent.

Everyone around, including the complainant, were impressed of such highbrow hearing interpretation. Oh, the wise man, sir, how well-versed you hear! Mrs. Huge praised. But, alas, we, the unlearned, know little of the grammar of value, the worth of which a poor widow has been robbed of. Would you, oh kind sir, agree to stand by the code of behavioral purgation, acting as the moderator, to lead us to the right track of the thief, whosoever he is, and to conclude punitive proceedings against the agnostic before the close of the day, so that it is the humble me, the victim, and not the thief, who sleeps In peace she requested, beseechingly.

The man hesitated. Well, I am not sure, err.....perhaps, you made a mistake in counting of the chicken he sounded uncertain.        

The woman was not amused. Sir, you accuse me of frivolity she objected.

Oh no, Mrs. Huge, I certainly do not. It was simply a thought, in case........ the man thought it better not to complete the sentence, purposely, adding, but I need to have a whiff, some inkling, to lead us further on the course.

Suppose someone saw some other one suspiciously loitering around in the open, earlier in the day someone from the gathered crowd voluntarily suggested, looking squarely at each one of the small group, if the idea would really stick.  

But before any other one would pick up the insinuating gimmick, a commonly dressed young girl, seemingly in her early teens, protested. A friendly visit to the birds does not make the visitor a thief she said, purportedly admitting, unsaying, having gone up to the wooden pen sometime during the day.

Unsolicited admission raised eyebrows, everyone eyeing the girl with suspicion. Friendly? the victim to the loss asked, understandably aggrieved of the logic.  

Of-course friendly, Mrs. Huge, to thank the cockerel for his crowing at 14.0 O’clock in the afternoon, the time I am told to have born, fourteen years ago, supposedly to wish me well on my fifteenth birthday. 

It heard to be an unusual explanation, beyond the sane reach of general belief. People generally viewing it as cleverly put loquacious percipience of the girl, either to give words to her imaginative sense or to distract the proceedings at hand. Mrs. Huge, the complainant, was forthright in rejecting the repartee, now directly accusing the girl of thieving. Oh, I should have guessed, it could be no one else but the Wilkins, with their ulterior penchant for deviousness, celebrating an occasion on my expense squawked she.   

The freshly nominated moderator, however, considered voluntary admission in the light of factional neutrality. Only that what meets the eye is the truth, Mrs. Huge. As no one has, as yet, formally adduced, in such words, having seen the girl in the act of thieving, she cannot and must not be faulted with, on this count he clarified, inviting sudden outburst of a frown from one end and of a sigh of relief from the other, both of which were short-lived, getting deranged inversely, a minute later when he completed, but a moderator, an appointee of the treatise of reason that he is said to be, has a wider spectrum to scan that includes the length and breadth of averment of the accused as well, if it is grounded in the notion of acceptability, contrary view to which marks impairment of the truth, in proportion. What did the girl just aver, mystically propitious though the text heard, ought to undergo examination of such realism. Did the bird really crow at 14.0 O’clock in the afternoon, as she did state, to wish her well on her fifteenth birthday? Did some other one too heard the untimed crowing of the cock? Again there is, as yet, no eye, or ear, account in substantiation. In the background of immutably held belief that a cock generally crows at the day break, and in absence of some validation of girl’s averment, I am constrained to hold her guilty of falsehood, in part, an incrimination that, by implication, includes the guilt of thieving. He waited, for a minute or two, gauging for reactionary outburst if there would be any, before adding, The delinquent, however, has a right to proclaim innocence, but only if she can convene support, not an oddity of a make-believe, the like of which we had been a witness to, moments before, but tenacious of the bearing, to make us presume otherwise.  

Satisfied of the exegetic pronouncement, and no contrary testimonial being offered, Mrs. Huge prayed for the equivalence. "in discharge of the rigors this poor widow has undergone in