Abstruse

By Kalpana M. Naghnoor

Bangalore, India. From author Kalpana M. Naghnoor comes an exhilarating
tale about a seven year old child. He grows up with adversity stalking his
life and loneliness ensnaring him and yet his quiet charm capitulating, every
situation to his advantage.
Abstruse unfolds the life of Brij Raghavan, adopted son of Director General
of Police, in Bangalore. Ever since he was abandoned by his mother Sherlin at
Shanthi Vilas, the palatial abode of his father, Brij has a grouse with destiny.
His fathers wife never fails to insultingly remind him of his bastard status- her
game of one-upmanship rather disconcerting. His father will not let on
that Brij was indeed his biological son for fear of losing standing in society.
Ironically the adopted status convolutes into emotions rather promiscuous
and Brij fi nds his step-sister falling in love with him.
Brij follows in the footsteps of his father and joins the police force. He
submerges his hurt feelings and plunges himself into work. Yet the accolades
that come his way sound bitter. Brij works harder until his success at meticulous
deduction and cracking of crime is coffee table conversation. Then like life
was again in conduit with adversity there is a huge disastrous explosion - the
mercenaries have signed in!
Read to fi nd out in this uplifting tale of love, loss and the complications life brings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 11, 2009
• ISBN: 9781465327062

Book preview

ABSTRUSE

Kalpana M. Naghnoor

Copyright © 2009 by Kalpana M. Naghnoor.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

41285

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Glossary

To Sis

Heera

and

To friends

Arun

Rukmani

Shabari

Sheela

Vaishali

Vidya

I’m grateful to Mr. Anil Kumar and Mr. K K Nanjappa (Deputy Superintendent of Police Retired) for their essential inputs, to Dr. M A R Khan for the medical lexicon I have confidently used, and more importantly to Mrs. Shameem Khan who served the delectables, helping me savor the jargon, which is otherwise a tongue teaser.

* * *

His green eyes narrowed as he once again read through the neatly handwritten sheets of paper. Brij Raghavan shook his head in disgust. It had happened again. Ever since his posting in Bangalore, at the bureau, it was the eleventh time for which he had come up with the right deductions toward solving a crime, and yet once again the credit had not come to him. Will it ever? He wondered for the nth time. Damn Prasad! He cursed. His swarthy complexion was like the contradictions in his life, of strife and no returns. People wondered at his green eyes and dusky skin, Brij could hardly elucidate on his father’s indiscretions, he would just quip away their inquiry as quirk of fate. He simply filed away the sheets as he had done in the past. He then opened the vault in the wall, carefully hidden behind a painting with very ornate frame of gold filigree. It contrasted well with the rich cerise color of wall emulsion.

He placed the file in the vault, locked it, and set the painting into position. Satisfied, Brij swept a glance at the entire room. Beautiful things surrounded him—invaluable books, objects d’ art—curios and there was plenty he would eventually inherit, but what he was desperately looking for was credibility in life and on the work front. On the work front, he had had that before his transfer to Bangalore from Alleppey, but now it remained elusive and denied much like his very own identity and existence. His existence, the very first recollections of it often haunted him like a bad dream . . .

* * *

Chapter 1

He was seven and faintly remembered the small young woman, his mother. Rather surprised by the memory as always, because he was such a tall man and to have had a mother so short and delicate, petite in every way! Well, another contradiction of life. His father too was not tall in the least! Five seven at the most and slight of build, he had just about made it into the police force.

Sherlin, his mother, had dared to present herself at High Grounds—Shanthi Vilas the palatial residence of Jagmohan Raghavan, with her seven-year-old son. The man, his father, had smoldered while his legally wedded wife had looked down with reproach. Brij had stood uncertain, uncomprehending the turn of events. He had just stared at the crimson velvet drapes, which dressed the big, massive french windows. The pale gold sash was left to hang loose, which would have otherwise held the drapes in soft folds in the day. The walls were cerise, a color he had gawped at in awe. Its deep richness had held him mesmerized. He had stood transfixed for a while until two very curious girls had looked intently at him. Brij felt self-conscious and uneasy. It was then he realized that his mother was not beside him. His eyes quickly scanned the vast room. There! He sighted his mother in another room behind a stained glass door, explaining to the man, his father as he learnt or deduced? It was all very confusing. Ironically the prospect of having finally seen his father had invoked no enthusiasm from him. The image of a father the seven-year-old had conjured up did not fit. It was a big letdown, the first of which life was to offer.

Brij watched his mother explicate to his father. Her words did not carry to him though. He simply watched her as her head bobbed and shook now and again in explanation, her blond curls shaking too. She looked frail and helpless. Her eyes seemed to plead for a little understanding; she appeared so small and defenseless. Jagmohan, Brij noticed, was melting. Finally the man seemed to agree. That was evident from the nod of his head; however, he was not too generous with it. Yet it seemed to relieve his mother. She smiled and turned to look at Brij from behind the stained glass door. She smiled at him, the smile of a woman whose petition had been considered valid and granted. Then again, she seemed a little tired from the exercise. Brij had simply stood there, his confusion compounding, with the girls blatantly staring at him. Their eyes growing defiant that he should be there at all while their mother, Paru, was indignant about the entire proceedings. She seemed even more angered when she noticed Sherlin smile, relieved.

Brij had watched a very resolute Sherlin approach him. She patted him on the head and opened her mouth to say something; it was evident that it was difficult for her to string the words together. Tears flooded her eyes. She seemed to choke with emotion. Brij had simply stared at her; he couldn’t help the tears that were streaming down his face. He was reacting to his mother’s unexplained predicament, uncomprehending the trauma that was wrecking her, and was alarmed that it meant that something terrible was to follow! But what? It put a certain fear in him. His anxiety doubled when his mother asked him to sit down on one of the sofas. The girls now glared even more angrily than they had before. Paru seemed resolute to kill him, or so it seemed the way her eyes bore into him. But his mother had stayed calm. She went out for a moment and returned with the bag, the bag that they had packed that very morning before they had arrived at ShanthiVilas.

Where are we going? Brij had wanted to know.

You are going, she told him.

Where to? he asked.

To where you actually belong, she said rather mysteriously. A certain thought glazed her eyes. She seemed lost in that conviction.

Is it a nice place? he asked.

Very! she said rather too deliberately. It had rung false.

Brij had looked at her skeptically, but she was quick to divert his mind with the packing, then the small journey and to where he was now seated in this strange big living room. Everything had happened so suddenly, it was difficult for a seven-year-old to comprehend why the things that were happening ever needed to happen; the events were too out of the blue for him.

He had simply watched his mother leave. He had looked on with disbelief that she should leave him there at all. There was no strength in him to protest; he was too stupefied by it and resigned to his fate as a hapless child would be. As he had sat there taking in the incredulity of the situation and feeling slighted that he should have been dumped like that by his mother, a manservant Thippu arrived on the scene. He was there to show Brij to his room. Brij rose slowly and followed the man up two flights of stairs, and at the landing, they turned left. From there across a spacious corridor and to a door, this led to a very large terrace. To the extreme right, on the terrace, was a small room. Thippu opened the door; the room smelt musty. It had probably been shut up for years, dark and damp with a very small window that threw in very little light.

Put your bag down, he said. Have you eaten? He wanted to know.

Brij shook his head.

I’ll get you something.

The man sauntered off. Brij waited, but the man never returned. Brij looked around the room, uncertain about what to do and hoped Thippu would return soon.

The light in the terrace grew faint, and a while later, it was dark. The room was even darker. Brij looked for a switch to turn on the light; he groped around for a while, and then when he found one, it did not turn on! He walked across the terrace to the door; it was locked. He returned to the room. He was hungry. But with every passing hour, his anxiety grew, and he felt a bad taste brew in his mouth. Until he couldn’t take it no more, he retched, and the bilious fluid spewed out. The room smelt odious. He groped around to find a toilet to rinse his mouth, but the room led to nowhere. Brij just curled up in a corner; mercifully sleep rescued him from further dread.

A faint hazy light swept through the room. The early-morning chill was enervating, and it only made him want to pee. Brij once again looked for the bathroom. He realized that there was none. The room was full of old odd things. A broken cycle stood in the corner. A couple of bald tires that looked collapsed. Old mattresses were piled up one over the other; they smelt very damp. Baby cradles, suitcases, used food processors, and other things lay strewn all over. Dust had formed a gray cover over most things in the room. He walked outside and went to one corner on the terrace. He spotted a terrace drain, obviously meant to duct out the rain. He first looked around. He noticed that the door, which led from the terrace was still shut. He unzipped and peed. He felt relief surge through him as the pressure in his bladder reduced considerably. Just as he was almost finished, he heard tittering. He turned his head to look. The two girls were there, with the door ajar very slightly; they were laughing at him. Brij froze in embarrassment. It only made the girls giggle more. He stood uncertain, then a voice called their names and the door shut. Brij was alone once more, locked out.

Whatever happened to Thippu? wondered Brij. He had seemed to be the gentle type; then why had he not come with dinner the previous night, still why had he not brought a little something to eat this morning? It was most confounding that he should be expected to stay all day in a room, without food. It made him wonder at his mother. Why had she left him here? How was this place better than what he had been used to? He missed his corner in the room, the one he shared with his mother. There were occasions when he was asked to leave the room. But that had been only for an hour or so. Then he would be allowed in, once his mother had finished talking to the uncles who visited on a daily basis. His mother often cried on those occasions. The uncles were always sympathetic. Her fragility always made them want to console her. They were always good to Brij too and generous with gifts. Then why did his mother want to leave him here? In this awful room, alone and hungry!

Would he be allowed to meet his mother? He wondered again. Would he ever see her? His queries began to scare him. A life without his mother was unthinkable, and yet here he was alone without her and with no clue as to what he was doing there in the first place. Why did his mother want a better place for him when they had all along been happy together? Would he be able to see his friends again or even go back to school? He desperately wanted to be back in familiar surroundings and to the things he had always done. He began to panic. He wanted to get out of there. He walked out of the room and across the terrace. He banged on the door that led in from there. He banged on it with all his strength, but it did not open. Exhausted, he slid to the floor. He shut his eyes. He was vaguely aware of feeling very warm. Then the cold breeze tingled his skin. Darkness was folding in, and finally he just slipped into a dreamless sleep. He awoke once more, deeply aware of being confined, and then again obscurity swallowed him.

The smell of spirit lingered in the air. The smell was a very unfamiliar one. Even as his mind awoke to the fact of its unfamiliarity, Brij sat up jolted from the memory of the dark dirty room. He was even more nonplussed by the stark walls of the hospital, the hard and somewhat high bed. He was rather apprehensive to find himself in another unfamiliar place. But he relaxed a bit when he saw Jagmohan hover over him. Brij looked at the man.

I am your father, the man had stated, standing beside his bed and staring down at Brij.

Crazy and alarming! Brij was apprehensive. But the man seemed concerned. Was that a good sign? he wondered. He needed to know if this man was indeed his father; then did his concern mean that he could be trusted and relied upon? Yet up until that point in his life, his father had never figured at all. But there were no answers at the end of his queries. How was he ever going to know!

Jagmohan looked at the anxiety writ on his son’s face. It felt strange to be looking at a son, who he had no idea existed. He hesitated at first and then slowly placed his hand on his son’s forehead. He dared to pat the boy’s head. Brij seemed to respond. The boy smiled a teary smile, a smile of uncertainty, and his green eyes clouded.

Everything will be all right, Jagmohan promised his son without much conviction.

Brij nodded. They would probably be. It appeared as though Jagmohan’s will could command eventuality to happen in the way he wanted the outcome to be, or so Brij presumed. Consoled by the presumption and in the hope that things were going to be just fine, Brij relaxed. The tension left his face. He just stared at his father, though not too comfortable in the newness of their relationship.

I didn’t know you were locked up in that room.

Brij remained silent.

I had asked them to show you to the guest room, his father explained. I had a flight to catch to Delhi, I presumed Thippu would look after you. Besides I was too bewildered under the circumstances, I was taken unawares… The words petered down.

Jagmohan realized that his son had not asked for an explanation but only looked to him for support. He would have to give it to him, but how? How was he going to accept this child as his? How would he explain his existence? How was he possibly going to tell the world that he had fathered a child with a prostitute and that the child was now seven and here!

Brij now looked so comforted. He had reposed his faith in him, his father. Jagmohan realized that he could not let his son down. But neither could he expect his family to accept him. He felt caught in a dark endless predicament, yet he knew he had a responsibility to keep. Son, the word seemed to resonate sweetly in his mind. Son, he savored the word, it had a nice ring to it. Finally he did have a son! Finally! Thank God! Paru will have to accept it. She will have to! he decided.

The doctors have said you could come home in two days, Jagmohan said to Brij.

Two days! The thought scared Brij. But his father had said home. Hadn’t he?

* * *

The cerise walls once again held him mesmerized. Brij watched it run along the vast living room and through the corridor above the ebony paneling. He followed his father through the same corridor to another spacious room with no definite purpose, except that it connected the corridor to the steps that led to two floors above. His father led him to the first floor.

Your sisters’ room. He indicated to a closed door in mention.

One more flight and they came to the corridor that led to the terrace. His father opened another door and led Brij in. The room was very large. The walls were a pale green. The curtains were deep emerald, and the floor carpet matched it. The sheers were a lighter shade of beige. A huge, king-size rosewood double bed stood against a plain wall. Lamps were neatly placed on either side of the bed on matching bedside tables. Spacious wardrobes ran the length of the room on one side while a huge, life-size mirror dressed the wall opposite. Likewise the bathroom too was large with green glazed tiles to offset the marble floor. A green tub invitingly stood on one side of the bathroom. Brij had never bathed in a tub before. He was looking forward to it.

Thippu came in, and instinctively Brij recoiled; he edged closer to his father.

Don’t worry, his father assured him.

Brij nodded. He didn’t quite know how much faith to repose in those assurances. The last time he had trusted Thippu to return with food had been in vain. Now the same man, lean and bent, was obviously deputed to care for him. Brij was again in a quandary! Trust him or not? he wondered. But Thippu seemed to ply with his father’s instructions. His demeanor was servile and willing to please. He seemed in a state of readiness to be commanded. His eyes were a warm brown and his skin several shades darker. He ran a bath for Brij. He laid out the clothes on the bed. He went away promising to be back in a jiffy with milk, and he was! Brij drank the milk.

The bathtub hadn’t been as pleasurable as he had imagined it would be. The mass of water in the tub had frightened him. He had quietly risen from there and filled the bucket with water and used a mug to pour the water over him. It was then that he had stared at a protrusion in the wall. He had looked at it for a long time wondering what it possibly could be. It was then that Thippu called for him. Brij quickly finished bathing, put on his bathrobe, and pulled away the stopper of the bathtub. He watched the water circle, and it made an enormous noise as it drained out; it frightened him. He ran out of the bathroom. Brij dressed, and he was just about to go down to the living room when his father entered his room. Right on cue Thippu left. His father sat down on the bed. He indicated to Brij by patting the mattress to come and sit beside him. Brij sat down, wondering what he would now say. His life seemed to rock with uncertainty. Every practiced phrase from his father seemed to transport his life from one predicament to another. But he waited for his father to gather his thoughts and say whatever it was that he had wanted to express. Of course he dreaded every moment of the wait.

Brij, his father began. His name seemed kind of lost in his father’s small throat. It had died with a tremble. His father then made an effort to once again pronounce it clearly, like if he were to do that, his intention would be more in the direction of its intended culmination. Brij waited to hear his father pronounce his name with clarity and hear his intentions clearly. He sat stiff, waiting another turn of events that may yet unsettle him further. He heard his father clear his throat. The boy stiffened a bit more until his mind began to presuppose the many probabilities a seven-year-old could possibly think up. His father cleared his throat once more; which made him feel extremely distraught, and a buzz of anxiety clouded his thoughts. Vaguely he heard between dread and resigned fatalism, his father explain his stand that it was impossible to explain to society how a son had materialized into his life all of a sudden. Brij was now sure he would be asked to leave. First his mother had abandoned him now this man, too, would. Why shouldn’t he? thought Brij. Father or not, they hardly knew each other!

Could we maintain that I have adopted you?

What? Brij had sat still, yet his mind had wandered. Had he heard right? The man was not going to abandon him after all. What? He wanted to hear it nice and clear!

"You know what adoption means?"

Yes, my school took us to Ashraya. We went there just before last Christmas to distribute old clothes. I saw orphan children there. We were told that when children get chosen to live with a father and mother, they become adopted. They get a home of their own.

Yes, something like that, agreed Jagmohan.

I am not an orphan! Brij said.

No, you are not, heeded Jagmohan. But it would be difficult for me to explain to all the people that you are my biological son.

What son?

Never mind!

Jagmohan rose from the bed. He walked to the window that overlooked the driveway. He stared at it for answers to his quandary. His wife knew. But that did not bother him. Paru will have to go along with him on that. Jagmohan chose to maintain that Brij was his adopted son. Paru will have to accept that, true or not, whether she liked it or not. It was society he feared, not her. It was the censure from his colleagues that he was apprehensive of.

Jagmohan returned to his position on the bed. He looked at Brij; the boy seemed confused. Jagmohan felt sorry for him, but he straightened up. He could not allow his compassion for the boy to melt him into accepting Brij as his biological son. Even though he could well imagine the anxiety this whole damn thing was causing the poor lad. Why had Sherlin planned on presenting him with a son at this point and juncture in his life? She had left them both in a rather awkward position. Jagmohan cleared his throat.

Son, eh, he began, we know you have a mother and that you are not an orphan. But as things stand now, your mother has left you in my care. Well, it does appear as though you are without parents at present.

Mother said you were my father. Brij looked at Jagmohan.

Is that what she said?

Jagmohan played for time. Now was not the moment to accept the fact that Brij was indeed his son. Sometimes it was difficult to understand why women did what they did. Why had Sherlin gone ahead with the pregnancy when Jagmohan had made it very clear that he was not looking at a lifetime commitment? Damn it! He couldn’t. Sherlin had known that he was a married man. Yet she had… and yet the boy filled him with a sense of pride. He had a son to keep the lineage alive.

Well, technically I am not.

Jagmohan felt like a cad as he went on further to elucidate on the technicality of parenthood. For me to be your father I should have to be married to your mother. Which as you know I am not. So I am not your father. But I can become your father if you let me adopt you.

Then why did mother say you were my father?

Perhaps she was certain that I would adopt you, suggested Jagmohan.

He felt bad, but he had to find a way to keep the boy without the ignominy of his birth attached to him.

Brij was okay with that. It didn’t matter to him in which way Jagmohan would become his father. He hadn’t had a father in so many years, and the father he had fanaticized, well, Jagmohan just did not fit the image. He wasn’t tall; he was slight of build wheatish in complexion. Even if his features were well defined, they didn’t impress a seven-year-old. So it really did not matter. What mattered was he needed a home. He was too afraid that he might be abandoned like the kids at Ashraya. His mother had abandoned him to a stranger, or a father who was a stranger, or a stranger who would become his father. It was confusing! Brij was afraid; if the one person he had trusted loved and known all these years his mother could have left him in the care of a strange person, what would this stranger do with him now or in the future? Too many fears were beginning to spring up in his mind. He just decided to go along with the stranger and place faith in God and hope with all his heart that he will not become an inmate at Ashraya.

So you are willing to be… ?

Uh! Yes.

Had he said yes? Yes to what? Brij hadn’t heard; he had simply said yes, confused. He hoped to God he had said yes to adoption and not to becoming an inmate at Ashraya!

Lunch will be at one thirty, in two hours. Try and get some sleep, suggested Jagmohan. Brij nodded; there was nothing else to say. Brij thought about the small little house he had lived in with his mother…

A small lane off Andrew Street was the way to his small house through a white wicket gate. The lime-washed white house had rather rough walls but clean and white. Small windows let you peek out into the world outside. The gully acted as playground on Sundays. A very small living cum dining room saw visitors on most days. The kitchen opened out to the backyard, again a small one. The house was compact to hold two people in comfort with no pretences. Brij had lived a happy and comfortable life so far, but for the instances when he was expected to wait outside. The small corner in the bedroom, the one he shared with his mother, had always been a place of comfort at all times. He remembered the times when he had lain there even through a bout of fever; it had been a place of great tranquility. He could hear his mother hum as she warmed a bowl of broth for him. He could always hear her pottering around in the kitchen at other times too. She was always there; she was always near him. Whether in the kitchen or if she were bathing in the bathroom, or even when she was in the backyard hanging up the clothes to dry, he could hear her doing her chores. Their small compact house gave them that closeness.

Brij looked at his huge bedroom. It was possibly twice as big as his house! The ceiling was high, bordered with rosewood, and it joined the columns at the doorway and patterned itself rather ostentatiously. It looked beautiful. It was not the plain, flat, low ceiling in his house. Here, the fan seemed to hang from a very long gold-colored rod, keeping in with the scheme of gold light brackets and chandeliers that adorned the room. The windows too were in proportion, large. It wasn’t possible to hear anything that happened outside of the room leave alone anything else that might happen in this massive house. He wasn’t going to hear his mother hum, was he? Why wasn’t she even here! Why did she want him to have a better life? Was this the better life she had wanted for him? He wasn’t even sure what he had said yes to! It scared him to think he might have agreed to be put away at Ashraya. Now why was that orphanage haunting him? He hadn’t remembered it until he had spoken of it to his father a while ago. And now it seemed to return all the time to mind with resounding frequency! Why had his mother thought of throwing him into a situation he had no control over? He hadn’t a clue on what was going to happen to his life! His mother suddenly, very suddenly, ceased to be the human who had given him love and warmth. She appeared to be like the mali Jacob, who came in in the mornings to tend to their small garden. He was their only hired help. He lived down the road in a hutment. He was drunk most of the time. He fed his chicken until he could kill them to eat them up.

Tears rolled down his eyes, the memory of his mother was fading away. He wanted to capture the images just as they were, but they were getting confused. Her face was becoming distant, her voice, he could not remember what it sounded like. A cold fear was beginning to spread over him. He was beginning to feel very alone. The door opened, and Thippu walked in.

Baba? Thippu looked at the boy who was crying. What happened? he asked.

Brij looked at the man. He hardly looked like the type to know English, but the few times he had spoken were all in English.

What happened? he asked again.