Aleph who was at the end of his teenage years had a life that dragged him in colours. He sat at different location around the town with his bag of paint and few canvases. A white placard with black marker humbly asked for 300 rupees per painting, a small addition at the foot of the placard scribbled in crayon 250 rupees for pencil sketch. It was a rough employment for an artist in this small town called Darjeeling.
This peak season, tourists from different nations flooded the open space of Chowrasta; the town square where the four roads meet. Spring was here, the boughs of the trees were coloured with hues, the chill of winter was always omnipresent in this land of thunderbolt.
His curly bushy hair was tamed into a bun, few strands escaped the cruel justice of the hair band and fell across his face. His hands moved in the rhythm of his passion, his eyes had silence spread like death.
He had broad shoulders, and a strong jaw. The spring sun had made his face honey tan. His fingers were painted brick red and green , he wasn’t using his brush or crayons today. He liked painting with fingers.
His white T-shirt was a farce for his job, he liked white shirts.
It was rare for Aleph to smile; his brother was always on his mind.
He had his brother’s name tattooed on his chest and often touched it when he missed him.
“Vanya” it read but his name was Evan, a long e sound in the beginning.
He was ten years old when a common flu took him away. They were motherless children with an absent father. He left home because the walls haunted him. Aleph was always a sensitive man. That’s what you do, when death snatches away your precious, you blame everyone. His father was to be blamed. Sometimes Aleph blamed himself too.
A German couple stood in front of him, as he painted them hurriedly.
They gave him five hundred rupees and a Euro for keepsake. This was how he made his income. He planned to save few for rent and grocery; he could also treat himself with a beer. By the time the sun transited towards the farthest corner of the sky, dark clouds gathered densely above the pine trees and a known chill was in the wind.
Rain was the enemy.
Aleph was mulish, he waited for another customer.
The sky roared and rain poured without any further warning. Aleph cursed the sky and gathered his belongings hastily, a sharp object cut his palm; he swore loudly. He gathered his essentials and ran across to a nearby shop for shade. He sat down, to look at the wound.
Few men stood beside him and a girl came running with a broken umbrella, she led out a weak cry. She too was a victim of Darjeeling’s infamous rain. They stood still under the roof of the old stationery building, an old man of the shop courteously asked them to clear the way for customers.
The pouring rain had increased the number of people, as more victims of the rain took shelter under the roof of the famous bookstore.
Aleph squatted and tore a page from his sketch book. He pressed his hand on the paper. A strange feeling rose in his heart. The pain was sharp but a short lived mortal wound, he prayed with his open eyes to the God that science denied. His lips moved an audible prayer, a secret only he and the invincible knew.
He wished for a replacement of the wound in his heart, an antidote. A pain that could be lesser painful, or greater he didn’t care but not the pain that he felt now burning inside him. If any cure was there, any replacement of such pain, if there was any God to do so or any devil that could exchange his soul to remove it, he was ready. He prayed for pain instead of healing and a smile broke into his face, he pressed the paper to the wound to feel it all.
The rain washed the asphalt road wet and clean. His hair had caught few drops of water, it ran down his face covering his wet eyes. No one knew he was crying, the smile was a good facade.
He felt silly with his wish but he pressed his hand to the paper again between his palm; lips sealed with the prayer to this unknown God, a pact was sealed.
A young girl in her twenties had injured herself with a wiry umbrella, her palms too was bleeding red, she asked him for a paper, he was embarrassed of his brimming tears, he tore his page and handed her the leaf without meeting her eyes.
She took the paper to place it between her hands. Such a strange boy, she thought. The rain reduced itself in fine drizzle.
He carried his bag behind him and a placard over his head and ran away from the crowd.
The paper with his blood floated around the drain like an abandoned boat.
Tara knew not it would rain so, but she was always prepared for the worse.
Darjeeling’s weather was something that you could never trust.
The boarders were often told to carry an umbrella while going for outing around the town. The missionary school boys with their prim uniform could be seen during weekends flooding the bazaar with an umbrella in their hands.
The rain in Darjeeling is always an affair to remember.
A romance of the sky that lasts many decades in this sleepy town, it usually begins in mid spring and thus takes hold of the whole summer. During autumn it parts leaving winter soil aching for its touch.
Tara loved rain but she was always scared of it. She believed if she died, she would return to earth as rain. She wouldn’t be a lonely star in the sky. Earth was a place to live for a soul like her, she would always return to the earth. The sky is too wide but can never be a home , even the clouds run across to find a home above the space yet it always back to the same earth as rain falls down .
Rain touches both, dream and reality. How she wished to be a rain!
When it rained suddenly that evening, she clumsily broke her umbrella and had to take shelter near a bookstore.
She felt a sharp pain, she had cut herself. The crimson liquid made her nauseous, she panicked to see the loss of blood which was already depleting in her system, it was one liquid she needed most. She couldn’t stand the smell of blood, couldn’t see the sight of blood. She knew the cost of losing a drop of blood. Her complexion turned paler. Fortunately nobody was around her to panic. Had it been her family or her colleagues, it would be news.
She saw a young boy squatted beside her. He too had a cut across his palm his wound was bigger, messier. Coincidence!
The boy pressed his hand against a paper. She watched him. It might have been painful. His eyes were catatonic. She watched his big curly hair tied around his nape. He had a brown bag at the back; a placard, another bag slide at the side. The colours dripped and spread on the wet floor oozing out from his hand. The ivory paper turned pink, his blood didn’t bother her.
She crushed and threw the paper to the nearby drain. The rain stopped to clear the roads. The hills always looked fresh after the rain; a silent lush green magnificent art. She breathed in the cold air. The tip of her nose turned rosy red. Her hair was half clipped but flew open as she sneezed loudly which meant the night was long for her. Her eyes were ripe red. She sneezed again.
The fresh crushed paper rolled by the flowing current met with another blood soaked pink paper. The water dragged them down the gutter; the pink paper embraced the crimson crushed entity towards its damnation. After a minute, it both looked the one.
Days later when, Tara ran her wounded thumb across her chapped lips, She somehow remembered the boy.
Daisy teased, “Are you thinking about someone?”
She was flustered to be caught off guard.
“I wasn’t until now” she replied. She knew she was bad at lying, so she kept herself guarded.
Daisy wasn’t a prying woman; she would wait for Tara to tell the tale. They were friends since the school days. She knew Tara was sickly, she had asked her many times to opt for another job, hotel management was a tough business for a girl like her especially during peak season but Tara loved her job. She wasn’t a girl who would sit by the window, sewing clothes. She was a working lady, head over heels for a manual job. She wasn’t a girl to sit ideally at a corner with a book. She’d rather break a leg while running than having pins and needles. She believed her brain was attached to her hand. But lately she had been thinking many things.
The tip of nails were showing signs, her feet would go numb. She’d forget things quite often; some days Daisy and Roop would cover up for her.
She didn’t know for long she could keep up the act.
Tara was twenty three and had a family to look after, a younger brother who was still struggling through college.
The pay wasn’t great, as for the town like Darjeeling it was a decent job per wage. During spring however, showers of tips flowed from visiting tourists. It was a time when you could be a millionaire by selling fast foods, that’s what she did in the weekend in this hope and thus the rest of the year they’d go dry. She didn’t want to lose the opportunity.
Daisy was cleaning the bed and she found a condom packet.
“Chii” she cried. “Things we do for money, cleaning these make me sick” she rolled her eyes.
“Thank your luck and your God, it’s unused” laughed Roop popping the chewing gum between the teeth and tongue.
Tara was cleaning the window. Her black apron soaked the soap from the sponge. The colour of her hand slowly changed. The sponge slipped from her hand and landed on someone’s head. She saw a known figure down looking up at the owner of the sponge. She quickly hid herself behind the curtain and squeaked at the rush of adrenaline.
The boy with the known shirt and hair looked up for the culprit. He looked up to the tall buildings counting the windows till his neck hurt. He looked aggravated, he had his reasons. She watched him and quickly noticed the face between the squinting and confusing expression. He held the sponge he didn’t throw it away. He knew the importance of things. He kept the sponge inside his bag. This made her gasp but she burst out into little fragments of peculiar laughter.
Roop and Daisy turned and peered to see a young boy walking away.
“He took my sponge” she tittered.
“You Bitch! Not again!! That was the last one ” Roop slapped her back playfully. “She always does this. You’ll make the bed, leave the cleaning to us”
Tara playfully saluted her.
That following Monday, she saw the boy sitting at the opposite end of her hotel. He had a sane placard.
“Isn’t he the sponge thief?” Daisy asked.
Tara nodded.
“Let’s teach this son of a gun a lesson”
Roop took a pen and a paper from a nearby desk and wrote desi slangs and rolled up into a ball.
Tara stopped her instantly.
She however, had a better plan,
With cursive letters she wrote in poetic words and threw it five stories down and the paper ball hit his head hard. He looked up.
They hid and giggled.
The boy looked up again and opened the page. His eyes popped wide to read the letter.
He crushed it between into a ball and threw it away. The girls couldn’t stop the giggling. So it went on, all day long. They tormented the poor boy with compliments.
Sometimes his face would lift up to produce a smile.
The paper read,
“Your hair looks so good when it’s tied up” so he would open it up, belligerent and distressed.
“Draw me, I am sixty years old and I have black long hair. I have doe eyes and mermaid’s body. I have lips like waves and snow white feet. I don’t have wrinkles. But I am sixty “
Tara wrote all the mischievous chits. The girls were very clever, they knew when he wasn’t looking and they wouldn’t throw the paper from the same window. They ate their lunch by the window giggling at the poor boy.
“How good was the sponge? Rate it?”
Some chits were sent via young children, who ran across the lobby while their parents buried themselves with paperwork.
Towards the late afternoon Tara was the only one playing.
“I like your smile, angry young man” she wrote.
It was 3pm when she saw him write in big bold letters on the placard.
“STOP BUGGING ME”
A game was on. A game of words, wit and waiting.
That’s how it all began.
,……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Next morning Tara saw Aleph standing by the gate of the hotel with the new sponge.
She panicked and hid from his sight. She didn’t know the consequences of the chits would lead to this. She called Daisy with the news, who was already inside the hotel.
Daisy explained that she would take the blame, so she met with the painter. Tara watched them from a distance. He nodded his head, avoiding her eyes. He placed his hand behind his head and tilted his head at the back and laughed. He had a boyish charm with untamed hair tied at the nape. Daisy was also beautiful but she was already married with a child. She was like a moon. Her beauty was her colour, the read vermilion line she drew above the forehead. Daisy was beautiful. The smile she gave him further exemplified the girlish charm she had. She was tone darker than Tara; she was five stones heavier than Tara. Yet the vermilion on her head gave her charm that some women possess, belonged to somebody else which is challenging to the opposite sex, her unavailability making her more desirable. A feminine reservation was present in the body as she spoke with confidence which wasn’t welcoming to him.
Her movement of the eyes and the curve of her lips as she spoke all screamed a raw beauty Tara had not noticed before. A strange alien feeling arose inside her throat, it was the first time, Tara felt envious of Daisy.
Tara felt guilty of this sin she had invited in.
The boy moved away, to sit in his usual place. Tara quickly rushed inside.
Her heart drumming inside her chest, a youthful blush coloured her cheeks, she felt like a teenager.
“What did he say?” She asked as soon as she saw Daisy.
“He said he thought I was funny, and it was hilarious. But he also said he was quite disturbed. Poor boy he lives like this”
“Did he actually believe, it was you?”
Tara wanted to know.
Daisy lifted her brow at this and poked her forehead, ” Don’t trouble yourself, young lady. He is way younger than you and he is a Bekari “
“I am just curious that’s all”
She knew that she thought she wasn’t interested. Tara knew he was a young teenage boy. She herself didn’t look a day older than eighteen. All thanks to her mother’s gene, she was fair beyond pale, the work load had not coloured her skin, a shade paler every season, she was the only one that glowed among the housekeeping staff; unknown to others that she was infact decaying.
A gust of feeling arose above the surface, she couldn’t help but notice, this time he had written something on the placard. It was too small for her to read.
He was a clever artist.
She searched for the binoculars, she had seen it somewhere. Almost every season someone would forget their binoculars, Ray-Ban glasses and fedora hats.
Luckily she got hold of one to see, the message for the original writer of the chits; it read,
“I know you are hiding, I know you are someone else. I honour your privacy but I don’t respect cowards”
She smiled; how relieved she was to know she had made an impression that she felt wanted. An illusion she was thirsty for all her life. She worried too much that she was somebody who would be easily forgotten.
She wrote a letter this time.
The paper ball didn’t reach him but landed at the pavement. She watched the paper, distraught not knowing what to do. It lay there for another fifteen minutes when he led out a deep sigh and walked towards it. He picked it up and stretced his hand up to show he has received the message. She couldn’t stop smiling. What was this feeling? It was warm, fuzzy and silly.
She knew not why she was smiling, why she was happy and why she was anxiousness. There were amalgam of feelings inside. She fanned herself to ease, giggling at herself incessantly.
He read the letter and folded it and looked up counting the numbers of windows, asking himself where she would be hiding. She hid behind the curtains and peeped to see his deep brown eyes. His warm honey skin and puffed lips dry for answers. The dark eyebrows furrowed.
He wrote on the placard, “Beauty is skin deep; I still don’t tolerate cowards behind walls. I think your need for privacy is either because you are a liar or a thief. You don’t have to give excuses. It is not your eyes that measures your beauty but mine. I alone am the owner of my thoughts and judgments.”
He placed the placard high above for her to read. Passers-by gave him and his placard short glance.
By the evening there was no space in the placard, the conversation had reached till politics, when suddenly he realised an important topic, he flipped the placard and tore his sketchbook, pasted the thick paper in it and wrote
“By the way, I don’t know your name? I am Aleph.”
To which she hurriedly scribbled and threw the paper. To her horror , he stood waiting and she had to go down on her knees to conceal her identity. He caught hold of the paper mid air with a single hand, he had but just a glimpse of her long brown hair.
“All right Chandra, I will see you tomorrow” he wrote on the placard. His face was bright, joy concealed behind his stern brown face. He tried hard to cover up the smile. He blinked and tighten his lips. He put the colours inside the bag. He was not in a hurry to know the identity of the writer of the chits. Perhaps tomorrow he thought. He checked his pocket to see a 100 rupees note.
That meant he had to eat wai wai for dinner.
Tara slapped her forehead when she saw him mistake her name. Riddling him was no good. She looked at the empty notepad. It was time to buy a new one. She wondered until when, she could keep up with the game.
Next morning Tara found him at the same spot with a 40 inch black slate, with big Good morning message on the board. There was familiar feeling of elation. This time she sent him lunch, he thanked her by raising the food above his head. She noticed he wore a new shirt. It was a busy day for both of them.
He had earned two dollars, five yen and fifteen hundred rupees.
She was feeling very dizzy since morning and couldn’t eat her lunch.
By the evening when the sun drew closer to the horizon, he placed a proposal,
“We should meet” he held it high above his head.
“If you want to” he added.
He was rubbing to write down his digits when a ball of paper hit his head.
She wrote, “Someday, We have eternity with us”
He smiled at this and waved at the window. He waited her to wave back, knowing she wouldn’t come, He walked down the road waving playfully. She chuckled and coughed, her smiled died instantly knowing there was no eternity for her.
A week went by, chits were thrown from many windows, chalkboard screeched as loop letters were drawn. Tourist fogged around the artist for a painting or sketch and watched puzzled at the blackboard.
One of the curious tourists asked him, for whom he was writing,
To which he answered, he had a shy friend upstairs.
It was Saturday evening, a tall broad shouldered man stood in front of him.
He watched the boy carefully, “I have seen you here for many days” the man said in a stern voice. Perhaps Aleph’s presence annoyed him.
Aleph stood up to find himself few inches taller than the man. He shrugged his shoulder. The man wasn’t taken aback by the structure of the young boy. The boy had a chameleon body that hid his masculinity to the man. Aleph sat down knowing the man wasn’t a threat.
“Do you have a license?”
“What License?”
The man’s face grew pink, “You bloody know what license I am talking about. This is a road for pedestrians, not for commercial use. As a concern citizen of this country and a learned man of this town, I want you to have to remove yourself from here and carry your useless paints somewhere else. How much do you earn with these caricatures?”
“Done with your rambling? You will get my license tomorrow. You are disturbing my mental peace and business” he drew a sketch book from his bag pack and started sketching.
“I bloody want you to pack your bags and return to your house this instance. Such a shame for your family” the man quickly turned away mumbling to himself, “Bloody wannabes flooding around this town,…. Worse than a beggar”
Aleph looked calm and controlled; he had mastered himself and his rage. He concentrated in the dark sketch he was drawing. He received her message.” Are you okay?” She wrote.
His anger dissipated. He wrote thinking hard, measuring each thought carefully.
“I was asked to move out. I want to meet you, if you are okay. Ring me @ 90****”
She didn’t send any chits after that. She stood there in shock. She scribbled the digits carefully on the paper. Her fingers ached. There was numbness in them. Her limbs were getting numb and the fingers were pale white. She walked staggeringly. She knew not why she dragged herself to work. Her days were numbered.
She always had to make that 45 minutes journey to work and home, there was rush during weekends.
Her brother and mother handled the fast food corner as they knew she was under the weather for few weeks. Her mother had reminded her many times to give up her job; she had fought with her for freedom.
To this one day, her mother had remarked quite innocently, “I wonder who’s there at work , she cannot part with. She cannot take a leave.”
She had assured her mother that there was no one, a lie which had been true for many years.
She fumbled with the note that evening. Her head spinning round she knew she would not be able to deny her mother. She wrote a note to him. His digits crushed within her palm.
Aleph waited all evening around his old phone. He cooked noodles and watched his phone intensely to ring. A thought crossed his mind around midnight, what if she was a married woman, caught up in the monotonous way of life. Had he fallen for her? Did she feel the same for him as he felt for her? Questions were many, knitting its way for another, inside his head. There were no certain answers to release him from these piercing questions.
He waited till Sunday afternoon, he decided to burn the chits he had been caring all inside his sling bag. The chits were all white and rustled as, it poured out. It was once esteemed as a precious property was now on a verge of dust. He watch them burning on his stove. The white paper burned instantly to black smoke, his heart sank and rose and ached as the fire devoured the paper chits by chits. Alas! he couldn’t take it anymore, so he saved few from the burning pile. In this endeavor he burned his hand. Be picked two or three chits and cursed the damn fire under his breath. He opened it to see the message,
“Your hair looks so good when it’s tied up”
It gave him another idea to punish the lady who had caused him such pain.
Monday morning was very difficult for Tara. She dragged herself with a sole purpose of meeting him. The sun was warm in the sky. She had no time or luxury to appreciate the sky and the colour of the sun above. The birds on it and the blue hills stretched from east to west. She stood beside the building, watching at the blue hills above and beyond, the houses that looked like a crafty embroidery on the green vegetation. Today she graced herself with time. Her lungs swell at such beauty, she placed her hand on her chest to calm her heart.
She had said goodbye to her manager and colleagues. She had told them she was sick, as the work was shrinking her body to half a pound, every week.
She was always the ridiculed by her close relatives for her weight who enjoyed body shamming her and her cousin, Upasna who was obese woman. Family gatherings were traumatic for both. The blood relatives lovingly joke at their structures, which they called playful bantering. “Fat” or “thin” weren’t a sensitive word but were taken casually to ridicule both Upasna and Tara that they were compelled to avoid each other.
These relatives asked Upasna to lose weight not knowing she was a victim of medical condition called hypothyroidism. They would ridicule Tara for being too stingy and working late hours for money. The body shamming was done meticulously in such a fashion and by so and so people; both of the cousins would no longer fight to silence them. So they both had boycotted the gatherings. Tara however, had few stones lighter ever year.
That day she found the spot empty. Her heart ached at this and she decided to leave. Maybe the man threatened the boy. She could give the letter to Daisy but the thought of Daisy judging her made her cringe. She was ambling away from the hotel when she saw a known figure in front of her. Her eyes popped wide and she turned around to hide. Her heart beat against her chest and palms gave away to sweat. She took her bag and pretended to search for her phone. He passed by her. She could smell the paint off his body.
He had chopped his long curly, untamed hair short. He wore a white tees and khaki pants and was heading towards the building. She saw that he had not brought the black chalkboard with him she thought of following him and calling his name loud. She had played that scenario countless time inside he
head.
Somehow she couldn’t muster up the courage to call his name or to be in his presence. She got hold of a young ten year old and told him to deliver the letter.
The kid looked at her surprisingly. “If he asks who gave this to you, tell him that I ran away and I had short hair”
Aleph didn’t ask the boy the description of the sender.
He sat down and tore the letter into three parts. He didn’t throw away the pieces but he carelessly tucked the pieces inside his bag. He decided not to write anything in order to punish her. He couldn’t make himself sit elsewhere in the town. He sat there the whole day to taunt her, knowing not that she was standing few miles away watching him scribble the art out of the poor pencil he was holding.
She knew it would be the last time she was watching him. When Daisy met her in the hospital after few days, she was told about the artist with black slate.
“I think he still waits for you.” she told Tara.
His face was the last one she remembered that evening when she closed her eyes forever. She died with a smile, a fact that satisfied her mother amidst the heartbreak that her daughter led a happy life. People exclaimed that death for Tara was a peaceful one. Death is always peaceful; it is the living that has a price. It is being alive that cost us many things. Tara was finally away from such turbulence.
It took seven days for Aleph to figure out that she would not write him back.
His ego had ruptured his heart. He had written his apology countless times on the black board. To which there was no answer. He was worried now. He was angry. It was foolish to wait but heart wants what it wants.
On the third day of her passing away to another realm, He was sketching a faceless portrait of her. He saw two feet approaching near.
He smiled at this victory.
He lifted his head to find Daisy. His thought raced, Was she Daisy all along?
Daisy looked at the young boy? She was wrong to calculate the emotions with years. Her eyes were red but dry.
“For whom do you wait?”
She asked.
“She isn’t coming back, brother. Go home. She is never coming back.”
He watched her break into tears as she narrated the story. Her name was Tara, she was a colleague and she was dead. He could only make out these three facts. He dropped his head and watched the faceless portrait of the young girl. He drew lines over the jawline.
“But thank you for making her smile. I had never seen her laugh and smile so much in my life. She was truly happy here because of you. I am sorry she was a shy lady, very private and meek. She never had the courage to meet you. I had a doubt she wanted to meet you last Monday but you weren’t here. Thank you once again”
Daisy knew not the pain that the revelation has caused. She rushed inside the building wiping the tears.
He drew lines after lines on the portrait until the graphite slipped away. He blinked twice and thrice to clear his eyes and tears oozed out on the paper. He bit his lips out of anger. The sky rumbled and dark clouds stretched to cover up the sun. He put his colours inside his bag when his hands touched the torn letter he carefully stick it with the cello tape.
She wrote,
“Dear Aleph,
You have the right to be angry. I am a woman of little courage. My name is not Chandra. People call me Tara, yes like the star that shines above in the sky. Yes just a star like million others in the far away galaxy. I wonder what you think of me. I am ashamed to tell you this but I am much older than you. I shouldn’t be playing games like this. You are so young and talented.
You will meet many people, people who will have courage to tell you how much they love you. Beautiful people with beautiful homes and you’ll forget me.
Dear Aleph, I lost my father when I was your age. I don’t know your story but here is mine. When I lost my father, I knew the world was divided into two groups; One with the father and another without.
The hardships that I had to suffer were terrible ones. I couldn’t go to a decent college. I couldn’t pursue my studies, though I was just another average student. Your education doesn’t define your future but it sure boosts confidence.
I believe the man who came last week was your father. His hair was curly just like yours. I had seen him many times around this place. I have seen the man staring at you lovingly. You are young. Go to a decent college, drop out if it’s not your cup of tea. Go for animation or art school. I presume you have your own family story.
I wish you could draw me. I am sure you could draw me well.
My dear Aleph, you are so young don’t waste your life on the street. Educate yourself, don’t let the passion die. I wish we had more time together. I wish I was brave enough. Do not think me otherwise. It was a friendship I will cherish forever until my last breath.
This is my last letter to you. I hope you’d forgive me for this. I do not regret any of it. I hope you have a good life.
P.S. we have met before. You gave me a piece of paper few weeks back. You had your palm cut. You were lost in thought. I wish you remember. We have met before. The sound of these words gives me immense joy. We have met before. Though time can erase me from your memories but remember me”
Aleph read her letter numerous times until the sky poured his share of tears.
He ran towards the nearby shade for shelter. The rain showered angrily on the floor. He tried to remember the face but there were none. A woman with slender body and a calm voice. He could barely remember the voice.
He squatted and bit his nails. How could life be unfair like this! He tried hard to remember her face, her voice. A deep pain rose inside his chest. He watched the windows as he bit nails. His body trembled with pain and cold.
His eyes moistened. His screams rolled with the tongue behind his teeth ridge. The nerves around his neck throbbed. His colour changed. A young nineteen year old was seen crying at five pm on Laden la Road.
Weeks, months passed by. The mountains were drenched and soaked of rain. The boy never returned to the spot again. However the place he usually sat had obstinate colours that the rain could not wash away.
It spread in between the blackish asphalt road.
During autumn when the colour of the sky changed, the small town of Darjeeling witness a revolution in art they couldn’t understand.
One morning, the street walls were painted with a faceless portrait of a woman by unknown artist. The next morning the same painting would be elsewhere in the town.
This phenomenon was repeated to a number of street walls across the town. Finally in the middle of carnival fest the police caught the mad artist, it was the night before Christmas. He was painting the new tiles ground of Chowrasta. It was said he was young mad beggar with long curly untamed hair tied up into a dead lock.
It was said he was young and in his early twenties. He had a morose face. They found few brushes and paintings inside his khaki sling bag. They also found few paper chits inside his bag which smelled like fire and which read,
“Your hair looks so good when it’s tied up.”
Kate Sarah
Sanskari 