THE UNSEEN SCAR

It was nine o’clock in the morning.
On the farthest corner of the mortuary, he stood alone with his head leaning against the wall and his eyes staring into infinity. His disbelieving eyes were found swollen and red from crying several times through the night. Running down his hands through his coarse grey hair, tousled and dry, he looked utterly shattered. His appearance of a pale and emaciated middle aged figure, who had forgotten to smile long back, resembled a modern day farmer. Although he was living a penurious existence due to rapid urbanisation and industrialisation that swept across his serene village in recent years, he kept guarded safely in his inner soul; a ray of hope, intact like a small wick that he thought would disperse the darkness that filled his life since long. That tiny flame has now been doused. His lone son, who had been his dream, left this world yesterday, abandoned him to the deepest depths of sorrow.
His occasional plaintive sobbing pierced the tranquillity of the room, the corridor and the bitter pong of chilly corpses.  
In that dimly lit room, a few relatives who were with him since yesterday and a few who joined him in the morning were found chatting to each other in hushed voices as if they couldn’t believe such an act by the boy, who they never thought would have the courage, nor the wits to undertook this drastic act of committing suicide. 
After a while, came an impassive mortuary keeper in his dark uniform, talking to himself and banging his head with his hand, cursing some his superior officer, probably for denying some trivial favours he asked to him. 
Few relatives, though grudgingly, followed him.  
“What is his name?” he asked haughtily in a loud voice.  His actions carried a false psychological egoism exploiting the vulnerability of the moment. In the whole of his outward appearance, there wasn’t any trace of nobility to be seen.
He ran his fingers up and down each drawer,  trying to locate the name of the boy and finally when he pulled open one drawer, it made a shrill noise  of metal grating metal. Few came forward to lend a hand in shifting the frozen body to a nearby stretcher. The slender body of the boy resembled that of a flower that bloomed beautifully but withered away sadly in the embers of reckless dreams.
Meanwhile, sounds of combat boots thudding against the floor came closer and the relatives made way for a police Sub-Inspector and a couple of Constables who were waiting in the duty room with inquest papers to check the veracity of facts.
“All of you may please push back” the Sub-Inspector looked obviously perturbed with the commotion around.
Seemed strict and scrupulous in his contractual obligations, one constable asked .

 “Who is his father?”  
All looked towards the farmer while two among them helped him to the stretcher. He was staggering as he went; His emaciated legs, trailing and stumbling heavily and feebly.  
Near the stretcher, he was heartbroken. A long melancholic howl came out of his throat as someone prevented him from falling backwards. His loud, sort of animalistic scream reverberated off the walls of the mortuary room. He was inconsolable.
A deep sense of grief usurps the room.
Tears rolling down his eyes he stood there for long stared in pain at the undersized body of his lone son.
“.Why did you make me like this my son…, who will take care of us, your ailing mother and me…!.”
His voice sounded muffled as his throat clogged and heart grief-stricken.  
Few more minutes, his bawl gradually faded into a thin wail as he wiped the tears with his hand and sat crestfallen on the ground.
Looked upon the farmer, now with a soft voice, the Sub inspector asked.
“What was his age?”
Gazing on the roof he thought for a while and said in a brittle voice “Sixteen…Sixteen complete”
Meanwhile the other two constables were busy searching for any suspicious marks on his body, as part of their investigation, to make sure that it’s indeed a suicide and not a murder. The rope mark around the neck was thoroughly checked by the sub inspector himself and he seemed pretty convinced about it beyond doubt.

Suddenly the sub-inspector's  eyes got locked at a long surgery scar, though old, just below the ribs on the side of the dead body. Notwithstanding, an old scar makes no relevance in the bodily investigation of a suicide case, the Sub-Inspector asked out of curiosity.
 “What is this mark?”
Everybody looked and then turned their heads to the farmer with inquisitive eyes. He stood up with a curious face and then, it found, raced across his face an array of sheer astonishment as if he had never seen it before. It was an unseen scar.
Police Inspector didn’t pursue much about the scar, because they felt it was an old one and thus was not of any great significance to the inquest report. The body was then taken away by the hospital staff for a post- mortem. Hushed voices of relatives had now been turned into a noisy debate.  The scar sceptically found on the young boy’s belly was something they never heard before.  Still baffled and startled, the farmer walked alongside the mobile stretcher that carried the corpse of his son into the autopsy room. 
Somebody offered him a glass of water which he refused with a gentle nod of his head. In front of the autopsy room, outside the courtyard, he sat beneath a huge mahogany tree. An ideal place to calm down, he thought. Strong sense of repentance thronged like turbulent waves on his heart. Without anyone noticing, he cried silently with occasional mumble.
 “Please forgive me …my son….your father…Iam a wretch. But still…why did you do this to me. At least you….your mother…she is such a…such a poor women… ”.
Unable to bear the weakness shuddering through his body, he laid back against the tree and looked up. At a distance he saw, eagles’ sauntering through the sky.
“It will take some more time to complete the procedures” said someone impatiently, looking at his watch.   

A cool breeze from the huge Mahogany tree blew through the space and when it braced the feeble body of the farmer as if as an act of solace, he sensed a series of memories now flooding his mind just like the turbulent waves beating against the sea shore. His serene village and his small house in the middle of a vast paddy field came as obscure images to his mind.
 “Janaki must be still unconscious... losing her only son..., how could she be able to bear it” Farmer thought about his wife who fell unconscious just after seeing that bizarre sight of her only son swaying lifelessly in a rope tied around his neck yesterday. He was in his room when he heard her scream of pain. It was too late before he could do anything.
Why...did he do this to me...my almighty god? What is that unpardonable sin, Iam afraid,  I may have committed for punishing me like this....” he sobbed inconsolably.
" Yes, I have scolded him many times.  If I don’t admonish him, who will? He is my child; I wanted him to be an officer. When me and Janaki would become old and feeble, I thought we would retire to his support. But now, a worthless me..Iam a cruel, evil man...I’ve never gave him anything but torment...Will there be anyone to take care of Janaki?"
When little flecks of tears that rolled down his cheeks moistened his parched lips he wiped it with his hand.
“This is a fate of me which Iam solely responsible. Whenever I admonished him for not studying well that Janaki came between us and absolves my entire wrath. Many times she used to cry herself to sleep at night which I knew, but I never consoled her”.
“But then why.... Why did I scold him?”
Thoughts of a small village, rich with endless stretches of coconut palms and vast green paddy fields, wandering cows and sturdy farmers ploughing their fields with oxen tied to wooden plough, thronged his mind as waves of a tranquil sea. Clatter of the huge wheels of bullock cart carrying coconut husk and hay to the town reverberated in his ears. There on the farthest corner of a vast paddy field, he could see a cute, bubbly little boy with a small stick in his hand, chasing the chickens around the house, brimming over with laughter.  A boy, he thought will support him in his old age. A boy, who put colours in his otherwise dull and sombre life. A boy on whom he saw his future aspiration and woven his dreams.
 “Oh..God...How hastily did all disappear like a meteor that has fallen to earth?” he broke into silent sobs. 
The house he made with tears, sweat and pain was what he loved with proud delight. Sometimes, during rainy days, he crouched on the daubed floor of that thatched house and dreamt of a future full of mirth and merriment.
 Forty cents of land, Janaki got from her father as her share was so infertile that not even a blade of green grass or weed would grow on it. Moreover it was far from his house, almost three kilometres away. He neglected that land and almost buried it beneath the heap of his befuddled dreams. But Janaki always stood with him. She accompanied him everywhere like his shadow. He worked hard on his own share of paddy field and fetched enough money to run his family. He was a happy farmer then.  When the boy was five, he started going to a local village school.
“When he will become eight, we will get him admitted in a proper school in the city. He will bring solace to all our worries once he become an officer.” Many times he said this to Janaki.

But fate willed otherwise.
The boy never seemed to be able to study his lessons well. He got poor marks. As he grew, farmer could see him becoming less and less interested in his books and rather found him always returning late in the evening with his clothes draped with mud and dirt. That made him outrageous and then, loud scuffles had became a regular affair in the house.
 “How will you ever become an officer with these marks?”
Many times when the boy would reach home late with some excuse or the other, the farmer would beat him terribly hard. Janaki would stick up for him and then he would beat her too. She would be begging to leave her son alone, sobbing.
Farmer found all his dreams gradually fading in the horizon.
An unknown disease that caught Janaki had turned the things worse for him. Gradually she lost her health to became a terribly skinned woman with a tired face. Sudden rise in fertilizer costs and labour problems affected the paddy cultivation, which saw many farmers including him shifted to daily labour for existence.  Meagre income he earned as a daily wager was hardly enough to meet even her medical expenses.  Life gradually turned into dilemma for him.
Years passed, the boy entered into his tenth class. They found their son burning the midnight oil through the year but never found him to be a happy student. The boy was worried too.    
Came the month of June. On a murky morning, the newspaper boy came late due to the incessant rain. Farmer was waiting for him at the porch since midnight. He knew the importance of that newspaper. The results for the tenth class exam would be there in it. The newspaper boy took one paper  and flung it over the gate straight into the porch,. As his trembling fingers were tracing down the roll number, he could hear his heart beating fast and loud.  And finally when the finger came to a  halt at the last number, a sudden darkness blinded his eyes. He sat back dumbstruck on the ground.
He remained stolidly silent for a while. Then he suddenly sprang from there, rushed across the room in a blind rage, jerked open the door and caught the boy by his hand and flung him into the ground. He beat him terribly bad with his fists. Farmer was fuming on him with anger in his familiar tyrant’s way. Janaki ran on in front of him and flung herself in a heap at his feet and besought him.
 “Let him go, be mercy...please...Let him go...you...My promise” she sobbed terribly.
All her pleadings fell on his deaf ears. His anger grew and it was almost as if he had become crazy, he continued beating him. Boy was crying and pleading too with his folded hands. He tried in vain to escape to the back of a cupboard.  
He pulled him out by his legs and dragged him to the portico and heaved him out the door.
“Go to any hell…don’t come here again…”, he furiously yelled at him, looking at him with his red eyes, he shouted again.

“Go away….You are not my son...”
A deep, prolonged thunder roared in the sky.   
The boy was bawling loudly for mercy. He was so frightened that words chocked in his throat. When he tried to come back, farmer raced towards him and pushed him hard to the ground.  
“Get lost ...I say...I don’t want to see you again...”

Haunted with rage farmer went inside.
Boy stayed there soaking in the rain, sobbing for long, then quietly turned back towards the gate and walked with heavy steps weeping inconsolably.
Something shattered in the portico with a thud sound.
Janaki, unable to bear the grief, fell down unconscious. Few neighbours came down running, tried to pacify the farmer. Few among them stayed away from the scene, outside the gate.
 The slender boyish figure, trailing and stumbling, gradually faded and disappeared in the narrow culvert.
Hours passed.
Back to sense, he took his bi-cycle and rummage around shouting for his son, but in vain. He came back home crestfallen and waited at the loggia, frequently walking towards the gate and back, until past midnight.  

The boy didn’t return.

All cursed him covertly and overtly for his plight. Janaki, as always, spend her days in the darkness of her room, crying.
One evening, two weeks after his departure from the house, the boy came back. The sky was overcast and gloomy.  He seemed so scrawny and pale.  That sheen on his face was not there to be seen, instead he looked weary and lost.  Seeing him, Janaki ran impatiently out on the veranda,  reached for her child and embraced him to her heart.
Tears pouring from her eyes said it all. It was like she got her life back. 
Farmer stood there silent, overwhelmed with emotions.  
For a while, boy stood there at the door staring at the floor, and then quietly left and plunged on his bed in his room snivelling silently. Janaki, went to his room, stood there at the door in agony and then reached to his side, leaning on the bed, she whispered in a tired, almost pleading voice, holding his feeble hand tight.
“Son...who else I got...You are the only one the almighty gave me...please don’t cry...It’s alright...nothing happened...Your mother is here...don’t cry....my son”
The boy said nothing but blub.  After a few minutes, she sighed heavily and left the room silently.
“I can’t stand this agony anymore” she said in a brittle tone to farmer. With much difficulty he controlled himself bursting into tears upon his plight.  Late that night, both of them cried a lot gazing at each other, when the boy had fallen asleep.
 He asked her,
 “Do you know how much I loved him...I could not speak of my love neither I could show it..., true..., but still.... how could he run off from us Janaki? You saw him, how pale he has become...How could I bear it....” Tears rolled down his cheek, he laid back against the wall.
Hours gave way to days and days to weeks. Farmer kept himself aloof from the boy. He would spent his days in the field doing farce jobs. Janaki served the food inside his room but he hardly ever took it but sat on the corner and muttered his apologies to her for making her sad. Gradually that too melted as he had fallen into a deep silence. He seldom spoke to anyone.   At times, he tried to come out in front of the farmer egging to say something. His tearful eyes were always asking for forgiveness.  
-2-
Some commotion outside the mortuary and one more carcass was handed over to some anxious relatives.
“Next is ours.” farmer heard someone telling.
It took only a few minutes to complete the formalities before the wrapped up body of the boy was taken to the ambulance.
Somebody helped the farmer into the vehicle. And the ambulance left for the village.
Cremation was held at the paddy field behind his house.
Several showed up to the funeral.  Few hours later, when the thick white smoke caved in, many of them left and a very few close relatives stayed back. Janaki was inconsolable. She was almost gone mad. She vehemently refused the proposal of some of her relatives to shift her to a city hospital. Farmer said nothing.
Some more people left by evening and those who still remained were send back to their houses by the farmer courteously asking then to take care of their loved ones. Late in the evening,  when the moon coyly appeared above the clouds at a distance, farmer took Janaki to the funeral pyre of their only son. They sat down there for long and cried their heart out. Their loud sobs pierce the serene ambience of night. Melancholic chirping of a night bird from a distance disrupts the nocturnal silence.
Few minutes later, when someone called the bereaved souls from behind, they stood up with profound heart.
“What are you doing here...who told you to come here...” anxious neighbour affectionately reprimanded them.  He came with some porridge which they politely refused.  Condolence words by the neighbour didn’t bring any relief to their burning souls.  That night they did not sleep a wink, tormented by repentance, cursing them strenuously.  
When the crescent moon paled over the western horizon and the crimson red and yellow clouds painted the east, it meant for sure that the day was breaking quickly.  Few more relatives and neighbours came with condolences. Farmer was still sitting on the veranda alone, setting his head on his hand, with a huge sense of repentance over bearded him.


                                     ll
           Day progressed, streets had become busy.
“A post for you” stretching his neck from outside the gate, yelled the local post man. A neighbour took the letter from him and handed over it to the farmer.
With a bemused expression he thought ,  I‘ve never had a letter from anyone in my life except those printed post cards from the bank reminding the repayment date of their loans. Then who is this...
 Letter brought many surprises to his eyes.  When he carefully opened it and read the name of the sender, his whole body shuddered. He felt as if the blood was draining from his head. To avoid a collapse, he sat there on a stone by the side of the porch. He looked aghast.
It took him several minutes to regain tranquillity.
Posted by his son three days ago, he started reading the letter once he regained his sense, struggling vehemently to hold it in his severely trembling hands. 

‘My dearest father...,


                                 For every deepest sorrow I’ve caused you and mother, I know no apology will suffice.  But father, you are such a kind hearted person; I’am sure, will forgive me for all my faults. As I write this, I find myself overwhelmed with guilt, pain and uncertainty. I’am writing this letter with tears falling from my eyes. I will post it today and then... then, I will bid farewell to this world where I lived for sixteen years as your son, yes, as a farmer’s son. Now I realize that my life is not worth the living as your son. Through these years you have been my hero, my strong wall, my...my everything. But now I strongly feel that I cannot live up to your expectations.

Father...I know very well that I’ve never been good at my studies.   It’s not that I’ve never tried, but it has always been extremely difficult for me to catch up with other students. Do you know father, my promotions in lower classes were rewards for my gentle behaviour and also your good deeds. My teachers told me this, way back.  

When I get home late those days with mud and dirt on my uniform, you scolded me, thinking that I’am coming from the play ground. No father...in fact, I never had any friends. Not even one. But I have instead been working hard in my mother’s forbidden barren land to perfect it to a mango orchard. Yes father, the day since I realised that I can’t become an officer as per your aspiration, I have been working on our orchard.  After all, I’am a farmer’s son. Father, do you know, my hard work paid off as all the saplings I planted there have now grown up. After three or four years it will give you pretty good yield, Iam sure. I can say now that at least once I clinched success in my whole life, isn’t father?  But it was getting very bad for me a life without your support father... ... For me it’s you and you only that matters and nothing else. Father, I’ve struggled with that for last several years and now.......now it has become painfully honest to me that, I cannot bear it for any length of time.  True...I cannot. And it was on that day you expelled me from the house, I realised that fully. But how can I leave you and my poor mother? That day I went straight from our house to the city hospital and met a senior doctor. I expressed to him my willingness to donate any of my organs for money.  That day I got to know someone rich, who was in need of a kidney. Then we reached an agreement whereby he agreed to deposit three lakh rupees in your account. That amount, Iam sure, would suffice all your outstanding debts and good treatment for my mother. That was the least I could do in return to all your love and affection you showered when I was a kid but longed when I reached an age of knowing. Yes father, for years I hungered for a hug or a kiss or at least an affectionate gaze from you. I’ll never know how my life might have changed with that. It wouldn’t be too much to desire that as a son... isn’t father?    .
Finally father, I was never upset at you for anything you did nor do I have any feelings because I know u did that all for me. Unfortunately I didn’t get an opportunity to show that scar in my belly or that bigger one in my heart. Now that I've decided to erase those scars everlastingly, let the death be the one to hold me in an embrace so that all my agonies would fade away.
I feel guilty for leaving you and my beloved mother at this time. But I’ve no option father. Iam sure, you will have a tough time to console her. She is such a poor woman, I’am sure the almighty will take care of her.
Bye father... my eyes are filled with tears making it even harder for me to write. Once again I love you. I miss you father.

                           Yours ...ill-fated son...

For several minutes he squatted down on the stone , bent forward, covered his face with both hands with elbows on his knees. With tears still dripping down from his eyes, he stood up, once again glared at the letter and then slowly folded it and thrust it back into his pocket.
He hurriedly  walked through the narrow winding path to the barren land, wrapped in his old shawl and with his face muscles stretched to the limit that, it seems would burst at any moment. His eyes were turned red like that of burning coal. His long sturdy steps took him to the forbidden land in no time. There he could see before him, for the first time after several years, an orchard full of mango trees. Few of them, he thought, had grown to the height of his son.  A cool breeze made their leaves wave. He felt, to his utter dismay, that they were cursing him.
Suddenly he heard someone calling him from behind. He turned back like a mad man, raised his weary head and beheld in front of him, his son, calm and smiling, draped in dirt and mud all over his body. He was welcoming him to his healthy mango orchard with open hands.

"Oh..Father, come...see, how healthy our mango trees are..see..! Few more years and imagine how good a yield you would be getting"

Farmer found his son trudging towards him. When he reached so close, with a hoarse whisper the boy asked, 
"Now...at least now, you can accept me as a farmer ...isn’t father?”
 He smiled and then suddenly disappeared.
Farmer looked around, then heard somebody calling him again from behind.
“Father...." The voice was pleading.
"Can you embrace me please with all the love and affection just for once....father. I will fall at your feet and ask for forgiveness.... Please father....just for once, can't you...”

The farmer felt unbearably miserable. He sat there on the ground and then, unable to bear the sudden trembling all over his body, he bowed to the ground, sobbed brokenly and rumbled something inarticulate. A painful squeal  burst from his throat as tears dripped from his eyes..
He turned to one side and tried to get up on one knee. His heart was broken. Just for a moment he seemed to regain his senses and looked around and howled in a broken voice which came out as a hush wail from his throat.
“I’am coming ....my son...Don’t worry...I will embrace you and nothing will tear us apart, I promise"
Farmer stretched his body as if to stand up but then fell down flat on the ground again.

"I can’t leave you alone my son.... Shall I apply some medicine over your wound...? ...But then, why are you standing afar my son? I need your support. Can’t you see your father is old. Come...Come near me...let me embrace you...!”
His voice gradually faded into a thin moan. A pale smile frozen on his mud daubed lips as if he was in some sort of nice ecstasy. A drop of tear escaped his eye, sparkled in the frail sun light, and then fell down watered the parched land. 
Thick black clouds at a distance blots out the sun from sight as few big black ants scuttled over his body as if they were in a hurry.....