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Stories / Novel – The Halo Reams
The Break
by TA Ramesh
On the
seventh day of December the Sky had became very dark though it was only
6 p.m. A 60 watt bulb was burning in a spacious single room. Kannan was
just lying idle on his bed looking at the ceiling in a contemplative
mood. A spider had started constructing a net using its won thread of
cob-web. It was often falling down from the ceiling and climbing up
without reducing its speed of activity! The spider’s activity caught the
observation of Kannan and he wondered at the relentless efforts of the
small insect with a little interest.
There was a cautious tap at his room door. Again there was another tap.
Kannan knew that it could be Selvam because of his keen sound
observation. There was another reason also for that sort of power to
predict who it could be. That was due to the fact that Gopal met him
without doing that tap noise; Vaithianathan also did so; but Selvam
though met once in a while, he entered the room only after knocking the
door twice.
“Yes, Selvam, come in,” said Kannan.
“Hello, Kannan! How are you?”
“I am as usual well and how are you?”
“How did you know that I tapped at the door, man?”
“Selvam, I know you pretty well! What is the matter?”
Selvam who glanced at the door turned back with a smile and looked at
Kannan.
“Selvam, please call Vaithianathan too in.”
“How do you know that Vaithianathan is there at the door, Kannan?”
Selvam, I know Vaithianathan too pretty well!”
“How are you Kannan?” said Vaithianathan.
“I am okay. How are you both?”
“Don’t we look all right?” returned Vaithianathan.
Kannan did not say anything but he simply looked at Selvam in order to
know what his point of view would be.
“Today is your birthday! We have come here to wish you a happy birthday,
Kannan.”
Selvam said so in order to see how Kannan could respond to them.
“My Birthday! My Goodness! What about our other friends, rather other
Haloens? What is there in my birthday, men? I consider this day as any
other day of the year. Why do you wish me so much for it, after all?”
With no note of thrill Kannan said so and looked at them as calmly as he
could.
“What have you planned to do?” said Vaithianathan.
“We want to hear something interesting and things like that,” said
Selvam.
“You want to hear my words! Okay, okay! I shall tell you a story I
remember now. Listen well. Once upon a time in the old Portugal there
lived a King called Robert Bruce. He was a good king. Do you know what
had happened to good kings in the olden days? They used to be thrown out
of the kingdom by some wicked ministers or knights or some people of
that sort. You must have studied As You Like It or The Tempest by
Shakespeare in your college. But the story I am telling you is perhaps
older than those stories and could have been taken as a model for
writing those dramas too! I am not sure. But it may be so.
Okay. Coming to my story I have to say that the rivals of King Bruce
captured his kingdom. Bruce escaped from the hands of his enemies and
was hiding in a cave outside his Kingdom. He was similar to our Indian
Emperors like Akbar and Babar. He had some faithful followers wherever
he went. He listened to the advices, suggestions, ideas and plans of his
good followers. His followers also could not tell him anything
worthwhile. He lost his popes, confidence, courage and perseverance. He
lost the hope of capturing his kingdom and governing his county men in a
peaceful manner as before. His enemies were formidable, ruthless and
cruel. They oppressed, depressed and suppressed his country men in a
most inhuman way. He could not bear it. He did not know what he had to
do.
He laid himself in one corner of the cave looking at the ceiling in a
depressed and melancholic mood. Suddenly a spider fell from the top and
remained still in the mid air by holding a thread of its own cobweb. The
King observed what the spider was doing. Then the spider climbed to the
top. It was about to finish the construction of a web but fell down and
stood in the midair as before. Seven times it happened to it so. In the
eighth time the spider took relentless efforts to climb to the top,
finished its work and rested in the cobweb at last.
King Bruce also had tried seven times to capture his kingdom from the
hands of his enemies. In all the times he had met with failures. Then
the spider gave him a new inspiration to his heart. With a renewed
vigor, he made a winning battle against his enemies for the eighth time
like the successful spider! His enemies were defeated and the kingdom
came to his hand finally. King Bruce could not forget that spider
forever and ruled his kingdom without losing his heart once and for
all!”
Both Vaithianathan and Selvam heard the story as if there was no other
go and simply sat in silence.
“Then...” said Kannan, “…Vaithianathan wants to know about my plans,
know? What is your view, Selvam?”
“What is your personal wish? What are you going to do so that you could
be happy and jolly with us?”
Selvam also turned to question rather than soften the mood of Kannan.
“You call yourself to be my friends. What sort of friends are you, men?”
With a questioning eye Kannan looked at both of them.
With a restrained bitterness Vaithianathan said, “We are friends to the
core and nothing else!”
“What is your view? Say it by your own word of mouth, Selvam.”
Kannan with a strange calmness turned to Selvam and waited for his
reply.
“I can do only lip service. You have to move with businessmen like you.”
Then Selvam with a slight smile looked at Kannan.
‘See Selvam,” said Kannan in a measured tone, “You have taken up legal
profession for your living. You should be able to put forth any matter
without difficulty. You should have command over the language. Then only
you can stand in your profession. Sometime ago, you have said to me that
you would write one Essay per week connected with your profession. Till
this day you have not submitted even a single article to me as per your
own desire. I am not your master and you are not my student. We are one
and the same sort of men. We all agreed to keep up the habit of writing
something useful to us by means of this Halo magazine. If we don’t
follow up this practice, what are we going to achieve in our
profession?”
Selvam did not say anything as he was totally hooked. But he commented,
“Kannan, you are looking like the judge Michael when you are raising
your index finger and pointing it to me.”
Vaithianathan took up this chance and banged at Kannan. He said, “You
are pointing out the mistakes of others by your index finger. When you
are doing so, three of your other fingers are pointing to you. You have
to be careful, Kannan.”
Kannan lost his temper. He turned to Vaithianathan and said, “Very
intelligent! When I am writing letters to you, you are not able to write
me even a single letter and you are saying that to me, mmmmm….?”
Vaithianathan became silent and cautious. Again Kannan began his talk.
“At this rate I may have to disconnect all of my connections with you
one day. What do you think of friendship? You say we live indeed rather
than in time! You never follow any of our sincere resolutions. You just
say “Happy Birthday, Happy New Year, Good Evening, Good Night and Good
Bye!” Or just take a photo now and then with me so that you may not
forget us. Is it called friendship? Can’t you have any other better way
of maintaining friendship?”
Vaithianathan was very much perturbed. He asked, “If you don’t have
photos, how can you remember important occasions and us, Kannan?”
“Then okay,” said Kannan, “I return back all of the photos we have taken
together to you. You go home, put a golden frame to them and hang them
on the wall to remember our friendship. I don’t want them.”
He opened his bureau, took out all the copies of photos and handed them
over to Vaithianathan. Selvam was totally upset by this. He could not
believe his own eyes.
Selvam stood up, came near Kannan and said, “What, Kannan? You are going
to that extent?”
“Then what, Selvam? When a friend is in need of cooperation or
assistance or support to do a good deed, all the friends turn to
different directions. But they never fail to have photos. What a
friendship it is!”
Vaithianathan could not sit one place. He asked, “Do you want us to stay
here or go away?”
“If you were like some other useful friends,” said Kannan, “whom I
rejected believing you would all keep up your words I would have ever
kept you by my side without bothering about the world. Now whether you
stay here or go away it makes no difference to me. I was a lone ranger.
Those who would have become my friends are living far away from this
place. So, if I be a lone ranger forever, it is not going to give
trouble to anyone.”
Selvam said then what he had got in his mind; “Kannan, you should get
married. Live with the friends you like and do what you like.”
“Thank you very much!”
Vaithianathan after listening to those words got up from the chair and
said, “The doors of my house are always open. You will feel much after
we left you.”
“Go away, men! Get out both of you!”
“Good bye, Kannan,” said Vaithianathan and ran away from the room.
“Kannan, this is too much!” said Selvam
“Get….out!”
Selvam at last left the room too.
There ended the Birthday party of Kannan with the break of his
friendship with Vaithianathan and Selvam. He had a few glasses of cold
water. He inhaled a deep breath and let it out as slowly as possible.
Then only it was possible for him to compose himself.
After a few minutes he went to his book shelf and was gazing at the
titles one after the other. His fingers passed over the books for a few
seconds and stopped over a book called 15 English Poets. He took out
that book from the rack and started leafing through the pages. A poem by
the title Ode to The West Wind by P.B. Shelley attracted him much. He
read that poem with deep contemplation for a long time. The time went
fast without his notice.
At last at 11.30 p.m. when he went to switch off the room light, he saw
a spider’s web near the ceiling lamp. The spider had finished its active
work and was coolly taking rest at the center of its web. The light went
off and everything was in dark in the room!
–
Continued
December 16, 2007
The Halo Dreams : A Novel
Writing a Novel | The Park |
Philosophy | The Confusion |
The Conversation
The Appointment | The Journey
| The First Publication | The Change
The Secret | The Painted Veil |
The Halo Magazine | The Debts |
The Break
A Letter | A Surprise Letter |
The Literary Muse | The Souvenir |
The Questionnaire
The Reconciliation
| The Lake
| The Final Meets |
The Surprise |
The
Settlements
The Result
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