by Sakiv Koch
I donned the rather colorful uniform of the captain – khaki jodhpurs, a light-pink silk shirt, and a blue blazer, topped by an embroidered peak cap (which had long since replaced the bejeweled turban) showcasing Surajgarh's royal insignia in gold thread.
The cap sat at a jaunty angle, above the homely crown of bandages I continued to wear on my head for quite some time. I had jettisoned my lathi, but I got to keep a smaller version of it – a swagger-stick enveloped in calf-leather and brass-capped at the ends, more ceremonial than effective as a weapon.
But the best thing of all, the wonderous toy I kept cleaning, polishing, holding, aiming, or simply ogling as it lay gleaming on my night table, was my gun – a Smith & Wesson .44 caliber model 29, imported from the United States of America!
It was my father this time around who wanted me to pose for a photograph in my resplendent uniform. Like Shyam, his camera had also miraculously survived the explosion and the subsequent fall onto the burning debris one floor below. Since Shyam (strongman, photographer, and hangman, among other things) himself was indisposed, it was Rachna who took my picture.
It was a week after the accident. I hadn't seen her since the evening she had come to thank me. Her home had been destroyed. She was living in a two-room apartment Shyam owned and rented out to tourists in summertime. Her eyes looked bloodshot and puffed as she emerged from under the shroud of the camera after capturing my image on the said camera’s film, but I didn't ask her if she was okay. I asked her, instead, if my pose had been okay.
"It was perfect," the unsung daughter in 'Shyam & Son, Photographers' said. "It would be one of your best pictures ever. I'll bring over the print as soon as I develop it."
"How much?" I insulted her further by asking the cost of her service, rendered not for money, but for love. She just smiled and shook her head slightly, as though to say, "you are impossible, and I won't argue with you."
"Okay, see you later then," I said, swaggering out, swinging my swagger-stick in the dandiest (cheapest) manner possible.
That was it. That was our goodbye. Terse, impersonal from my side. Mute but hugely expressive from her side.
She came to our home to deliver my pictures the next day, but I was out playing with my model 29, shooting at paper-men, hitting them pretty close to their brightly-etched red hearts for a person who was shooting for the first time.
She delivered my pictures to Ma in my absence. Besides the one she had taken herself yesterday, she had also brought with her the one Shyam had clicked at the instant of the explosion – the picture Ma had wanted for sending out to the wide world through those commissioned agents of matrimony.
How much had I changed between posing for the father and the daughter? What had corrupted me?
I wonder if the new Neel, the Butterfly Neel, would have endangered his life to save another's as the old Neel, the Caterpillar Neel, had done so naturally, so selflessly. Possibly. Probably not.
I flew. And, far, far above, the vultures flew with me.
To be Continued…
Also by Sakiv Koch
Novels:
The Light of Dead Fires (Little Lantern # 1)
The Gullibility of Demons (LIttle Lantern # 2)
The Ignorance of Knowers (Little Lantern # 3)
Little Lantern, Deep Darkness: The Complete Trilogy Boxed Set
Short Story:
The Rathole: Where Did He Go?
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Thank you, dear Reader, for your invaluable time. I hope you derived quality reading-pleasure from the first part of Neel’s story.
I shall put the second installment of his adventures in your hand very soon.
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