She wasn’t moving. She was still from the day that accident happened in her life. She was lying on the bed and was still. Sometimes her cornea moved to look at the group photo with her classmates. It was impressive. She was a nice student during schools. Always jumping and cheerful. And always helpful to other students who were close to her (nothing new). So she was an average girl with some specialties to dance and draw (nothing special). One guy was after her too (hah). Then there were Neena’s girly things and all that usual stuff. she got nice pocket-money at that time too, which she used to spend on eating and buying clips, etc. Then one day a gas in the chemistry lab made her numb and immovable. All the doctors of the world were unable to discover the matter with her body. Body was perfect. Eyes and skin was perfect. Hairs were perfect. Nervous system seemed good. ECG-EEG were normal. Twenty thousand types of tests were saying that she was healthy. But she couldn’t move. She could listen and see but couldn’t speak. Jaws were numb. And she was looking like an awed girl all the time. Indeed she was. Awed that the photograph was little bending from one side. She didn’t like irregularity. Irregularity symbolizes laziness and uncivilized society. She wasn’t like that. And she wasn’t helpless and lazy. But Neena could make this photograph on a right place. So her aunt who was sitting near her and reading a women monthly magazine twitched on her chair. It was like some little revelation or spark like and she put down the magazine and got up and put a table below the photograph to rehang it correctly. After her job was done, she was back on her place reading magazine.
Her aunt's name was Shanti and she was a widow with a son. She lived in this home to look after Neena. She got a shelter in this way because her in-laws had thrown her out of their house after her husband's death. Her son was in a school and he had a girlfriend at the age of 5. Though, he didn’t know the spelling of ‘girlfriend’. He wrote it like ‘girfrey’. His name was Tutu in the house and he got no one else to play with except Neena. He used to pull her hairs sometimes and put fingers in her eyes. It seemed to making Neena happy somehow. Atleast someone was there who needed her. And it was a boy (so what if this one is 12 years younger who didn’t know the actual use of a dick. she wished he knew). If only he was bigger and would penetrate her so she could experience how it actually feels like. She could love him easily. Loving a man was easier. Loving a man was lot easier than loving your parents or sister or in-laws etc. if only.
Tutu was playing with her right now after coming from his school and telling her stories about how he made a mango and teacher give him a chocolate for the first prize. Oh! why don’t he understand adult things. Chocolate was tasty. He put chocolate on her mouth and started waiting for her to gulp it. Or rather he was only doing this to tease her with its smell and the imagination of its taste. Imagination is a horrible thing. And it is not easy to resist imagination. It is harder than resisting temptation. Thought, he had mercy for her retarded cousin so after sometime he took out that chocolate and eat it himself to finish this whole matter. Oo, how sweet he was. Sweeter than the candy itself. Boy was tempting her more than the chocolate. She wanted to hug and love him. She wished he would kiss her right now and he did. Her mother told him not to disturb Neena.
Stupid bitch. Shanti deserved a punishment. And her aunt moved from her place again and was trying to touch her ears from her toes. Toes were clean but ears were far. Tutu was laughing at her mother activity. Neena's face was looking hard right now and her eyes were dreamy. Tutu looked at Neena and felt fear. It was child's instinct. But sometimes he was confused while sitting with Neena. The way Neena looked at the people and they started doing silly-funny things. It made no sense. Though he knew that Neena loved him but there was something creepy about that. Only the eyes were movable in her whole body but he felt sometimes that whole room was speaking her language only. Like she was present inside the calendar and window also. A child shouldn’t think more complex thing so he started eating chocolate again. It was tasty and it was the prize.
Before Shanti could succeed in touching her toe to her ear, Tutu’s aunt (Neena's mother), Kanu entered the room. She was shocked at the whole scene. Her sister was surely going mad due to tragedies of her life. Poor woman. If she hadn’t been keeping Neena, they would have thrown her out too. They had to. Everyone would do that in her place. So Kanu was not a bad woman but only a reasonable one. Yeah, reasonable. Everything in the world is reasonable after-all. It just takes an intelligent eye to see the relevancy of the universe. Intelligent eyes are as rare as a volley-ball over billiard table. Damn example. Anyway, everything was as it should have been. Simple.
Neena's mother name was Kanu. She had a vulture's eye. Which was common these days. She was fat and ugly. She was the worst woman Tutu had ever seen in his life. Her face was representing her mind. But a child shouldn’t think about things like this so he threw the rapper of the chocolate in the dustbin and felt uneasy. When he felt uneasy he tried to disappear under the sheet of Neena. Neena liked that but she didn’t like her mother. Her mother didn’t know like everyone else that Neena could control minds of people. Though, Kanu had the suspicion that Neena was under the influence of a bad soul or air. Her daughter needed an exorcist or the saint from her village but she wasn’t in favor of it because for her, Neena was a useless worthless piece of garbage now. A lump of throat which couldn’t be swallowed or spitted-out.
Vulture's eye wasn’t working these days and all the dummies of the world were collected in Kanu’s house now. Vulture's eye had never worked with expectations. She was married to a sleepy-fat shopkeeper who had a breath like baby’s puke. And God gave her a hell of a fate with no happiness and no pleasant surprises. Now this, a retard daughter with no hopes and future.
And this Tutu was another little pain in the ass. Thank god that he wasn’t elder or she had to tell her sister to move-out without being reasonable. None needed. When a plate fall down there is a motive behind it. If a clock is stopped there is some reason. It takes a beautiful eye to see the beauty and it takes a reasonable eye to see the reasons. All this is pretty useless anyway. Everyone in the house was running on the will of Neena except Tutu. She spared tutu because of love or stuff. Nobody would ever know why.
And nothing was enough so everyone was only living their lives and trying to forget about the cause and effect. Neena's mother stopped looking for the reasons to throw her sister out. Tutu was happy because he was so small and got not many reasons to be sad yet. His mother was sad because she got no reasons to be happy. Neena was Neena and the house was her responsibility. So she was running the house by running people around without saying a word or moving a hair of her body. People were serving her like servants and butlers. It was difficult to say if the accident had made her life worse or better. She couldn’t walk or run but she didn’t need to. Her needs were done while being on same place all the time. She could get all she wanted. Still she was missing something. But she had accepted it because everyone was missing something in his or her life so it was all right. Sometimes she thought about her classmates in spare time (all the time was spare). She wanted to meet them and ask about their lives. Or make them do one or two things for old revenge sake. But mostly she thought about how they would be living. Were they as helpless as her or more? She wanted to move out of here and do something on her own many times. It was hard to press emotions and urges. Tears rolled down her eyes. Tutu smiled at her. It made another tear. He was so cruel and sweet. That is why he was out of her anger.
She could do more about this. But she was feeling lazy and her mind was tired of hard work. It was acting as a substitute for her body by producing clear strong blowing imaginations and it was controlling others. These were hard jobs. She hated herself secretly (common). But that wasn’t going to change the fact that she was lucky to get this power and she could do many things which were even impossible for the walking-talking people. So her days were spend
ing in comforting herself that how she still had a chance and a bright future with many plans.
Aunt was moving fan on her face because room was hot due to power-cut (which was somehow related to the poster case. Don’t ask more). And her father came inside. He put the hands on Neena’s cheek. It was soft and warm. He whispered something but she couldn’t listen because it was very slow. So she made him speak it again louder by dominating him. He told her ‘wooden puppet.’
She felt sorry for him and he got paralysis attack after few seconds. Destiny can be cruel sometimes. It wasn’t easy for her too. But her ego and anger was higher than MT. Everest. This too shall pass. She loved her father and mother. But love isn’t everything. Love means sacrifice. She spared breath of his father and that was love. Father would be awake and well soon. But lessons are the essence. He would never call her a puppet ever again. She wasn’t a puppet. She was a puppet-master instead. Tutu was writing something on her body with a red colored pen he found near the shoe box. She couldn’t be gladder. He was writing her name on her white soft skin. Tutu should have written his own name instead. Then he started making things on her face. He started poking her to see the effect. Nothing. It disappointed him. She wanted him to try once more but he didn’t. He kept making figures on her neck and hands. He made a bat-ball. A clock. A girl. A star. Then he slept near her after half an hour.
She could watch his dreams. It was Neena in his dreams. With a hard face.
Batch of 1999 Page 21
