Unending Music (Prapanja Ganam) by Mouni

 

Mouni 

This is an English Translation of “Prapanja Gaanam”, a  short story written by Mouni. Translated from Tamil by Saravanan Karmegam This short story was first published in Manikkodi magazine in 1936. 

It has been three years since he came to that town. It was the season of westerly though, yet for reasons unknown the wind didn’t blow in its usual enthusiasm, and behaved like an uninvited guest to this world, sitting quiet, and was sulking amidst the branches of trees in which it seemed to have taken refuge surreptitiously.

He was seen most of his times standing at the veranda of his house, brooding over, kept staring at his life as if he was flipping the pages of it. The pages of his life, dented with the tears of sorrow did appear in front of the eyes of his heart. Some of them appeared clearly and some of them looked vague and were likely to disappear as he was writing them down as per his whims on the pages that were still not written. Sometimes he would become deeply melancholic without doing any of these two.

When the enigmatic beauty of this nature got into his heart straight away, he would at times be happy forgetting his existence. During other circumstances, when he felt miserable and unable to bear the pains of this life, he would leave his worries afloat in the air, thinking it was denser enough to carry the unbearable burden of his woes. But to his consternation, his woes would get dissipated in the air, and thus making the world sink in grief like rain-bearing clouds causing downpours. While looking at the stars planted in the sky that were glittering with their mocking eyes from an inaccessible distance, he would remember his old ruined life. He would grow angry at once, and think of dumping them into sea by uprooting them from sky with the sense of audacity as if he had only sown all of them in it. He would, then, look up to the sky with a suspicion, and ponder what they would be doing at their new place of existence. It would appear to him that the stars were also looking at him back with the same suspicion he had.      

The streets of the town were narrow and the houses were long, straight and tall. When the dimming, slanting rays of the sun fell on top of houses, the open entrances of houses would render a pose like secret caves whose mouths were open to exhibit the dark interiors of houses. The exposed entrances shouldn’t be misunderstood that they were throwing invites to us. They were just looking like stupid opening of a mouth waiting to devour the thoughts that would disappear after entering it.

But, the thoughts that disappeared in the hollow pit of his mind kept coming out very often as if they were written by an extremely hot iron rod. He just needed a baby’s cry or caws of crows to raise his almost non-existent thoughts, lying dormant, with the sparkling flames again. His thoughts went back by three years.  

Time is always something which never stops for anyone’s whims and keeps moving even if one holds it, cuddles it with immense love. Yet, the day he parted terms stood still, not moving further in his mind. It stood still; remained still ever. He, then, developed a hatred towards this mundane life of the world thenceforth. It was that hared burning in his heart was the one now reflecting in his eyes. He realised that there could be no bigger pain in heart other than the happiness of this world at the time an individual was desperately seeking a change for his mind. His heart was not filled with happiness; it was filled with hatred instead. 

Yonder, the sun was setting in the west, the sky was in crimson hue. The flock of clouds trying to obstruct it were floating around with various hues, taking different forms. A streak of long whiteness that had descended from the top of a cloud looking like a cave with its mouth open, merged with it, and became one. Yet, this world appeared as an epithet of sorrows, tipped in pleasure, pervading in yellow with the marvellous and noble souls.

                     ………

Her shiny eyes were fixed on him, very often, intently, not missing its target even by a second. When the evening sun light became dimmer, she went inside the house and disappeared. Yes…she had gone into her house just opposite to his house. These days she had been watching him often. It gave him an opportunity to comfort his troubled mind. Her attention on him made him feel that his life had become lovable for a while. He began reconciling himself that his world was still not doomed, as he had found a light in it.

One day morning he went to the pond to have bath. It was a pond with a Peepal tree on its bank. There, she was washing her saris, probably after taking bath. He thought of bathing after she left the place, and was standing under Peepal tree. He was watching the water of the pond with tiny waves behind her. Some grey colour storks were standing erect, glancing at their reflections on water on the opposite bank. The brightness of sky was getting reflected on water and small trees at the opposite side were found looking at her as if they were standing on their toes, stooped forward in their attempt to reach for her. The breeze was gentle. The lilies in the pond were peeping their heads above water level. He felt that his burden in the heart had also got reduced a bit. A kingfisher bird flying around behind his head with its focus on water, dived into it in flash of a second, picked up a fish, flew away, and perched on branch of a tree near. A peasant woman was drying cow dung cakes opposite bank. The woman who was washing clothes this side of the bank was watching it. He sank into despair as he knew what that woman might have thought herself watching the drying of cow dung cakes- ‘it is being made only for me; to cover my body after they dry’.

After his arrival at the town, he hadn’t had the chance to listen to her singing. It must have been more than three years since she had last sung. On that day when she was sick, the doctor who treated her warned her that her heart was weak and she shouldn’t attempt singing anymore. From that day she didn’t sing as if her skills in music had got frozen within herself. She was a trained singer in Veena. He had listened to her playing Veena once. After that he had got his impressions, about her music and the universe much stronger. He started believing that she was an embodiment of music and the song of the Universe was locked within her. The caws of crows, chirping of birds and the sound of wind passing through the gaps among trees got him annoyed. He started surmising that the Nature was still not perfect as it hadn’t experienced the fullness of her music and any sound one could hear in the world would be nothing but an empty noise.

After considerably a long time since he came to that town, he had listened to her playing of Veena on a Friday in the month of Aadi. An oil lamp was kept lighted in her house. A bright light was throwing light in front of the house. A faint spread of light in the front yard permeated through the open entrance, and fell across the middle of dimly lit street. Inside her brother was reading a book. The sound of Veena was floating around there, rising from the hall. It seemed that she had started playing Veena. He was standing at the corner of the veranda of his house, hiding himself in dark and was listening to her music.

She played Veena for nearly one and a half hours. It just passed like a second. It seemed that the world rose up, overwhelmed by her music. While she was playing Veena, he thought of something incidentally, which came over his mind like a flash. He understood that it was an irrefutable truth. The tenor of her song reinforced his conviction. His heart was filled in with an unfathomable fear, his body shook once. It appeared to him that his heart would break well before she completed her song. He stood stunned, speechless, expecting her to stop her singing.

‘Yes…she shouldn’t sing. If it is true what the doctor had told, her death is certain. But, she would die of singing. Wouldn’t she? It wasn’t due to the doctor’s diagnosis. Was it? The emotional surge caused by his restless mind was changing itself into a splendid life’s philosophy.

That done, he was careful about these thoughts that it was dominated mostly by his chaste understanding of the said matter and a sensitivity bearing no resemblance of himself. In spite of it, he reinforced his convictions once again- his conviction that this Nature was not in its fullness due to one reason or the other- as the song of the Universe and beauty have taken her form, he was convinced that the defect in Nature was justifiable. The rising of moon was irritable. The howling of owls in late evenings from the holes in trees sounded spiritless. All sounds of this world bore depressive notes of resonation. Those sounds were just the songs sung by a man who was well trained in playing Veena without pitch, at the height of his madness. As the pitch had taken refuge in her, more than half the pleasure of music the Mother Nature offered, and was bound to offer,(both in the form of sound and visual form), were submissive to her music, and got vanished. While interpreting this further, one could understand that the Mother Nature was trying to get back what She had lost to her, and no one could stop the Song of Universe and the beauty that took her form once, were now trying to come out from her to enthral this Nature. But, his fear- her death with song- made him sink in utter despair.

Months passed. He was fully immersed in his thoughts- a moment that got little longer seemed very long as if it seemed to have become so.

……..

It was the third day of her marriage. Nalanku ceremony was under way.

He could feel that his miserable condition had grown worse in recent times. He thought a couple of times that it was his grief that cried in loneliness, wandering in the night, howling indistinct. He couldn’t sleep during the night on the day of her marriage. He felt that the night was impregnated with the gloomy noises of the world. The immoral appearance of night without light!…He was standing leaning against the pillar at his house.

The window of front room in her house was kept closed. The slanting rays of light from inside were sneaking up on the gap of doors that were not fixed properly, fell on street and wall of his house veranda. The gentleness of light comforted his senses. He found an enigmatic pleasure in it. The intermittent disappearance of rays of light with someone seemed to be walking across inside the house looked very strange to him. It intrigued him, and he kept looking at it. He thought, “Yes…she is only walking, losing her mental balance. The one which is confined is getting ready to come out” He couldn’t think anything beyond it. He was terribly sad.

A countless number of stars found scattered on the sky, glittering as if the dots of light painted themselves in colours on the spread of night. It all appeared that they were asleep, undying, suspicious and questioning him. ‘It is true that the beauty of this universal light had got reduced due to her appeal’. The chilly wind started blowing with the sound of misery. Sounds of gekkering foxes at some distance and the barking of dogs permeating everywhere from a point at the slums of outcastes were the only horrifying sounds heard in that night. Those horrifying noises appeared an imploring cry for the day she would open up her heart to sing the song that had kept confined in her. A flock of clouds were rising upwards like a smoke in the distant horizon in east!

After a heavy downpour, the rain had stopped. The rain water that didn’t seep through the earth was flowing like a stream on street. Remaining water got stagnated as puddle of bogs. She opened the window once, closed at once. The street was afresh with the steaks of light for a while. The drizzling seemed to be non-stopping. A cat ran across the street, the light fell on it, disappeared in flash of a second.

It was the third day of her marriage. Nalanku ceremony was going on. She was holding a plate full of betal leaves showing it to the bride groom who was sitting so submissively, and waited for him to pick up some leaves from the plate. It so appeared that the bridegroom wanted her sing a song; the woman from bridegroom’s side sitting around her coaxed her to sing a song. She was standing as if she didn’t like to sing, and remained silent. He was also thinking that she shouldn’t sing watching her from distance, sitting by the pillar at his house. The women around there said something hurtful about her. She detested them. Her eyes displayed a kind indifference. She looked at him once, who was still leaning against the pillar. Her sharp eyes pierced him without missing its resolve. It was only at that time, a crow was cawing horribly at the upper ground. He turned that side. She looked at him once again, and kept staring at him. His eyes were looking restive like bees that had drunk honey. Her body had a sudden involuntary shudder. At once, she announced, “It’s alright. I will sing. Will that be alright?” His heart sank into deepest despair and about to blast without peace after hearing her announcement. ‘She has decided to find the meaning out and to become one in cosmos’. 

She started singing.

Once it began, she was totally immersed with music and forgot her being. Despite knowing the tenets of music and the limits of one’s ability, her song broke open all the boundaries like flood. Everyone sitting there was spell bound.

As his head was spinning he forgot what he was sitting leaning against the pillar as if he had got merged with it. The deep, unfathomable imagination of human emotions reflected in her music crossed all the known boundaries of love and took a different dimension. It was greater than the mountains, crueller than death, and more inviting than the kisses of women. It kept on taking different dimensions further. It kept on going up…

She sang for about an hour. The music which was, hitherto, confined within herself started overpowering everything out there. The outer world was slowly changing itself…The pages of his heart were turned over, and read passionately. “The Time” stopped forthwith, stood frozen. The evening became yellowish quickly even before its dimmer light faded away. His face became brighter, carried the signs of death.

At last the cawing of crows was heard in unison. Sparrows were perching on the canopy, screeching. Suddenly, he yelled out, “Aiyo…over there…that music, that sweetness…that pleasure…all are overwhelming this space.” That time, she also fell onto the ground. The Mother Nature got her defects corrected. She scooped up, cuddled it herself what she had lost. The stretch of firmament regained its gorgeousness. The crescent moon, which came out of its hiding in Mega Hills regained its beauty, and was shining. Outside her house that narrow street of that town bore the signs of delight.

From the Peepal tree on the banks of pond to the horizon where the curved earth burying its face, one could see nothing in between that could obstruct one’s view. On the west, there was a dense mango grove.

It was dawn. The light of the Sun started spreading everywhere chasing away the remains of dimness still staying in every nooks and gaps in the groves. The chirpings of birds were heard from every corner. The east started wearing crimson, shining with flames as if all the dense darkness of the previous night was set aflame at the horizon. The morning Sun rose. Rising further, it shone with a brightness that had made it impossible for anyone to look at the sky with naked eyes. The noisy world sounded like a marvellous music. The mind was at peace, at its happiness. He returned to his house.  

In the evening, while looking at the west through the trees, the expanse of paddy fields grew narrowed, and began disappearing in a line. All of them got merged with the horizon after every illusionary expansion. The heads of tall palm trees standing on the ridges of fields seemed to be disappearing, and hitting the sky. “It was life. Wasn’t it? A marvellous upsurge of mind”. He kept staring at it.

The cow dung cakes dried on the banks of the pond, were found stacked one above the other.   

***End***

 

Enduring Impressions (Azhiya Sudar) by Mouni

Mouni
(To know more about him 
click here)

This is an English Translation of "Azhiya Sudar" a short story written by Mouni

To read the Tamil version of this short story click here.

Translated from Tamil by Saravanan. K 

This is 13th English Translation in the Classic Tamil Short Stories Series. 

I didn’t go to him that day, like the way I usually go to meet him every morning. The sun light was very harsh since dawn. Overcome with an inexplicable weariness, I didn’t venture out of the house. As I thought of meeting him in the evening, I rather preferred spending that sweltering day at my home.

It happened day before yesterday. At about half past four in the evening, I reached his house. He was my childhood friend. As usual, he was sitting on a chair in the front hall of his house when I went there. As I thought that he was fully immersed in some deep thoughts sitting in front of the open window, I hesitated to go inside unexpectedly and was standing in the outer hall instead. When he called me to come inside without even turning his face towards me, I was indeed surprised. His appearance was also looking quite bizarre. There were only one chair and a table inside. At the opposite side, the window was kept opened facing the street.

“Have you finished coffee?” I entered as I asked him.

“Not yet” he told.

“Why?”

“Yes…I have been sitting here since morning. Mind full of thoughts” he told, smiled lightly.

I could understand that my friend had forgotten laughter and it was true to the best of my knowledge that he did not laugh at all in the recent past. Even when he laughed that time, it rang like a sound of laughter which had lost its life in it.  The way he spoke and the way he looked outside with an emptiness in his eyes made me uneasy. Before I started thinking about it further, he himself started talking. He had changed as an unfathomable man in the recent times.    

“Please come here…Come and sit here. Just have a look at the opposite side” he got up, sat on the table as he told this. I sat on the chair.

“See what is visible there by sitting at the place where I was sitting” he told me.

A big tree that had shed its leaves, looking like a dead tree was standing in front of me. Other than that, nothing specific was visible to me. It appeared to me that the tree was bemoaning silently in loneliness with its dishevelled hair kept untidy. The birds flying across the sky would perch on its branches in unison suddenly and merge with the tree as if they had all become dead. The noise of those birds was coming out intermittently like a sound of death. After a while, one after the other, all flew away from the branches as if all of them became alive at once. I didn’t think much about the appearance of the tree. I could not understand how far those visuals seen with the half closed eyes in the scorching sun light and empty stare outside since morning could have caused such an emotional upsurge in my friend’s mind.

“What have you seen? His question sounded too heavy for me to handle.

“That…that tree ” I told.

“What? Is it a tree? I see”, sitting at his place, he bent down a bit and looked outside to have a glance of it and continued talking.

“Yes…it is. Are you able to see how it is groping with its hands spread up for an object which is not present in the sky? It moves; dances and then stops. It didn’t stop after its game was over. Did it? A breeze would blow from the west sluggishly. The clouds sniffed by love would come in, floating thickly and rest on it. Unable to bear them, it would start swaying again. Is it a blown out fly whisk that sweeps the streets of sky from the clouds? Or is it yearning for rain drops in order to sprout? For what?”

“It seems that you have become a big poet. Haven’t you? Why do you have this much fury and hatred? I asked him. I didn’t like his words and talk.

“Please listen to me. Pushing back the time with so many ‘yesterdays’, my mind had gone to an incident that occurred nine years ago. After I remembered that incident, my mind has lost its balance. It is so troubled that it can’t be expressed in words. That is all…” he stopped for a moment. His eyes were shining with an unusual glitter as if they were trying to find out some oracular phenomenon that can’t be seen with naked eyes. The way he was talking showed that nothing more was in store for me.  

“Right...Nine years ago I was a college student. I was eighteen years old at that time. An incident happened in those days keeps appearing in different fantasies as a first thematic line of a song since morning. You might be remembering how I looked in those days…”

“You…looked well groomed…” 

“It’s ok…it’s ok…My elongated nose, stretched out ahead of the face, curved enough to pull the persons back walking in front. The parted thin lips just below it would show the shiny lining of teeth to people softly to make their eyes glare. I trimmed my hair anew that time. I would keep fondling my untidy frontal tuft very often with my hands just to make people believe that I had lost my long, thickly grown tresses. With my sharp naughty eyes, I was so indulged with my physical appeal and had high regards for myself. Many people might have seen me that time. I was not bothered about their opinion about me. The look I have these days is nothing but only a dry look . My eyes are also dried anyway. Aren’t they? It seems that all my beauty was dead in my youth itself. Doesn’t it? But my life has not ended in the youth. Has it? It was probable that she had also seen me.”

“Who was she? I asked him.

“Nothing to talk about her. Please listen to me. How many years has it been since I had gone to the temple? After that day, I have never gone to temple till yesterday. Before that, I used to go to temple very often. You also accompanied me most of the time. Didn’t you? During that night about which I am talking now, you were with me. Weren’t you?”

“It was not a festival day. She had also come. I was not aware that she would come. When we were going out of the temple, we met her at the entrance of the temple while she was entering. She might have been thirteen years old then. She turned suddenly and looked at me. I might have been the one who had turned her eyes. After turning…what was the force that pulled me along with you to follow her inside? I didn’t know. It could have been a childhood fantasy of that age. Please don’t give excuses of infatuation, etc like that. Even though it is void of reason, it is true that the heart gets depressed. You may consider it vanity”

“I followed her. On many occasions, there were instances where I was so close to her that I could even touch her. I was mumbling something frequently too. But I knew that it didn’t have anything to do with conveying something. Because there was, indeed, nothing to convey”

Standing at the close proximity of the deity, she was in meditation with her head bent down. I was standing just behind her very closely. I was able to see the hanging lamps of sanctum sanctorum, shining in dim light at a distance, through the gap of her folded hands.

It seemed that his eyes went behind the idols, triumphed all the beginning and ends of life and immersed in the world of divinely bliss! 

“I didn’t know how long I stayed in that state. Without marching ahead, the ‘time’ in her form remained there in the close proximity of God”.              

“When she turned towards me after releasing herself from the meditation, I was so ecstatic that I uttered out of my control, ‘I am waiting to do anything for you. I can do anything’. You and others who had accompanied her were standing at a distance. Those words couldn’t have fallen into your ears. But it was certain that she heard those words. She smiled”.

“I had suspected even at that time as to whether it was she alone who heard those words. I thought that the idol inside the sanctum and the statue of lion standing attached to the wall also heard those words. When I looked at the Lingam at the opposite side, the idol of deity smeared with sandalwood vermillion and vibhoothi visible above the knit coconut leaves, became alive and angry, twisting its eye brows. The Statue of Lion standing along the wall also got terribly frightened, scarred and angry, contorting its face. It stood on its hind legs and threatened. I saw her. She had turned towards other side. With her coiffed plait hanging behind, she was walking slowly along with the people who had accompanied her. I followed her for a short distance, looked at her and stood there. It appeared to me that the sound her anklets were making were required to disturb the tranquillity of this world which had gone into deep slumber. She was happily talking with them, played with words and finally left with her anklets making sounds majestically. The silence of the shrine got perturbed by the resonance of the sound of her anklets. The bats flew criss-cross with clicks”.

When my friend was narrating, my mind started visualizing it. Without any fetters, it started drawing pictures- temple, sanctum sanctorum- yes. The bats flying across inside the temple during day time were actually flying without knowing that it was day.        

“The half of the day’s light would hesitate to enter. In the dim light of the night, the idols were standing there with the signs of life in them. The temple is a place where one could nurture the feel of divinely bliss which could be attained in silence with deeper experience and privacy. Isn’t it? The bunch of lamps would be burning. It would cause a shock of not being able to identify the difference between the devotees roaming in the brightness of lights and their shadows. ‘For teaching which truth, the sanctum sanctorum has been created? Are we mere shadows? Whose moving shadows are we?’- when such queries were raised by my mind, the whole of my body shuddered for once”.          

The eyes of my friend were looking splendid. His speech with an awareness of having realized a secret one way or the other, was ringing in my ears sublimely. He would stop talking whenever he realised that the words wouldn’t be enough to express himself. That time, his eyes would shine brightly.  

“She left for taking a round of sanctum’s periphery. Her tresses neatly made as plait were hanging, moving elegantly. Her self-effacing walk carried her grace ahead. An unquestionable thought of following her came over my mind. I didn’t articulate it to make it known. At the start of the sanctum’s periphery, there was a bael tree. The moon light was seen, speckled through the leaves, like white patches. I kept telling myself, “O! My dear lady! Please look at me”. She turned and looked at me. I could understand from her eyes that she also conveyed the message ‘follow me’. A sound was heard from somewhere. It was the sound of a bat hanging with its head down. A sound which gives a fear of death while laughing into the ears! Standing under the bael tree, I kept looking at her. After that, I was walking ahead to follow her”.

The moon was throwing its light like a day. Just like her elongated shadow that followed her, I too followed her behind. Just before the turn at the corner, she turned to look at me. Her eyes seemed to be begging me to withdraw the words I had spoken. She was looking beautiful even in her distress. As I approached her closely, I was about to say, “I will do anything for you”. But I could not complete the sentence. I returned hurriedly. She also went to the sanctum periphery down. Then I reached you when you were standing under the bael tree. Both of us reached home without talking anything.”

When he stopped talking for some time, I asked him, “Who was that girl? I couldn’t recollect who she was.” My question didn’t get into his mind. He continued talking. I got angry.

“From that day onwards, I stopped going to temples. I don’t know why I had stopped going. As a matter of temperament I stopped going, I thought”

“My mind couldn’t stay peacefully yesterday night. It just started wandering from nowhere. I left for the temple to have a “darshan” of God. I started late anyway as I thought that there shouldn’t be much crowd in the temple. While passing the big temple entrance, you could see the sanctum sanctorum of the God”.     

“A big lamp was burning near the Shiva Lingam for a long time in a lonely silence as if it was glittering with the flame. Suddenly, it disappeared for a while, came alive like before and seen again in silence. Some unknown devotee went inside to worship the God. I was walking slowly. The disappearance and appearance of the flame bore the semblance of an imperishable light of the world left behind amidst the indestructibility, by the last man of the world who had completed his worship. It all happened yesterday just to make the unignited flame burning inside me, burn with a magnificent glitter”.

“Now, she might be twenty-two years old. She was looking cosmopolitan in her outlook. I saw her in the temple now and it has caused a pain in my heart. I have developed an inexplicable distaste towards her due to this unexpected meeting. I thought that she had not understood me. Since my thoughts pertaining to cosmopolitanism were not well rooted and I was also on the verge of changing my mind, all her docility and cultured niceties had given me a sort of solace. When I thought about the words I spoke to her earlier, it was only her new appearance that gave me succour from hating myself. I hated her with all my might. But when she was standing in front of the God, she had got all her cosmetics removed. Only at that time, I was able to understand how people could carry exquisiteness and make it possible to yield to their impulses in front of The God.”

“The splendour of her meditation drove me mad. It made me stand with an empty stare. Just a lasting presence of bliss! An ecstasy! As she had turned, she saw me. She looked at the pillar at the opposite side intently. Even I could see the statue of Lion which stood as an imperishable evidence of my words springing to its feet, danced. I just looked up. O! My God! One more statue of Lion was staring at me angrily, bending its head looking down. I got shocked when I saw her looking at the place where I was seeing. She appeared like a woman giving me orders. Her eyes were piercing through me. Her eyes moved out of me like a man disappearing after conveying half of his inner secret to a mad man in his day dream. Before my emotions became thoughts and before my mind could understand what she had told, she had left me. When I raised my bent head up, I saw that she turned towards me again. Two drops of tears rolled down from her eyes like two diamonds shining in the deep, dark tunnel”.

“I am the shadow of destiny. You are going to witness the brutishness of allurement of love in its fullness”.

“What did she say? What did she ask me to do? What else is there for me to do? Isn’t it? Was everything just a dream? She didn’t speak. Nothing is there in the sound. Is it there? In speech? In her body….cheee..cheee…all are just meaningless. None of them could reveal the truth. Everything seems to be so invisible. They elude like smoke even from the tight grip. These pointing fingers are with us not only for making us realise that all are illusions but also to make us disappear before we learnt to go ahead through the way it points at. What is left with us is nothing but a hope of reaching the right path even by jumping out inadvertently amidst our confused efforts to find out the way in darkness”.

“See that tree. Aren’t you able to see its stretched-out branches and its each atom filled with life trying to merge with the azure sky? When it dances, it searches something in the space of sky. It searches for something blindly. Doesn’t it?”

It was fully dark. When he was looking at the space emptily, I left him without informing him.

Once I stepped onto the street, I looked upwards. There, seen a countless number of stars in the curved sky of the night like dots drawn by children on a black board. Despite pouring out all their brightness with their intermittent sparkling, they remained there permanently, shining like immortals without fear of getting melted. I heaved a sigh, exasperated not being able to understand what was happening above there. I reached home, walking nonchalantly.

He was not found at his home. I didn’t know where he had gone and what for he had gone out. I didn’t know whether he knew about it either. It was just a realization that “He” knew everything- if at all, he existed.

                                              ***End***

 

Translated from Tamil by Saravanan. K

Source: www.azhiyasudargal.blogspot.com (See the "Best 100 short stories in Tamil" curated by S. Rama Krishnan)