Spring in Winter
Part I
Time is a magical thing; less is it understood and more ambiguous. It’s both creator and destructor at the same time. It builds relationships and it will be the sole witness for things to shatter. You can never explain its ways. The day, which he never imagined at least in his last relationship before he had to commit to marriage, would never have ended that way. It’s been late he could understand that he should never be in love once again. He might be wrong at times but he never imagined that things happen in his life like this.
Amith who is twenty-nine years old, from the village which even Google feels hard to find it out on its map, is now in the middle of an ocean of emotions sitting on the shore alone. The clock struck 11 midnight and he broke his promise made to his love a year back that he would not touch alcohol ever again. He drank three full quarters from the full green bottle just beside him. Once again for the first time in the last 20 years, he cried his heart out. The tide was calm that evening, wind seized. Just the high rock, all spread sand and he was there in front of the vast bank of water alone and quiet, testing the time which tested him a few hours ago.
Let me begin it from his early youth which is almost 16 years ago. He was like any other young boy full of dreams and ambiguity in understanding things. He is the only kid to his loving parents, which stood a benefit of having all their time for himself. He never waited for things that attracted him and was given whatever he wished for. However, he is well under the eye of his mother always. She, unlike his father, is strict in matters of discipline. That turned sometimes into a hard task to deal with. He is an explorer of new lands, of course on a smaller scale. The explorations, for this child Columbus, sometimes turned much more problematic.
On Sundays, generally, he wakes up early than he does on weekdays to explore the four paths that lead to some unknown lands about which he has less knowledge about. The less known is much pinching desire to know. At such an age there would be more questions than answers. Most of those questions have to be answered by experience itself than explanations. He tried to find most of the answers in his own way, once was scolded by his mother, for being a CID officer that too when she was very busy with her household work.
He, on a Sunday, planned to explore the east which is the sun’s abode. He has seen the sun emerge in all his grace out from there lots many times, but from exactly where? What’s there at the far end of the village? What could I find if I walk along the path until I’m tired? These questions propelled him for it. He, now, is all ready for it.
Part II
Early morning at 5 he woke up before anyone could wake up at home sneaking out like a cat he excelled in the art of silent walking. He is much cautious not to make any sound that could wake his grandmother up. Ever since her husband passed away, it seems she became an insomniac. She is the one who wakes up early among others. He opened the door, which is recently repaired to shut its mouth from doing the creaking sound. The door itself was a faithful guard for the home.
Whenever someone opens it, it rings a creaking alarm to the inmates. But its loyalty to the inmates was taken wrong and the carpenter was called to lubricate it. Finally, he came out of his house without being noticed. It’s 5:15 now and he is headed towards his trusted companion Raju. For relation they are cousins, but before relations, they are good friends. He stealthily sneaked into their verandah and took a stick that he got under the big Neem tree in front of the house to poke Raju and wake him up.
He opened the unbolted window that is next to Raju’s bed and poked him in the stomach, soon to hear a thunderous cry “Thief! Thief! Thief!.” Baffled by the cry he jumped over the wall and hid. It was not Raju but his grandmother! He was struck in shit before he could realize that he had committed a blunder. He hid like a rat