The Twilight Tragedy 

J.L. Narasimha Rao

My father wired me not to risk a journey in the cyclonic storm.  “Your absence at your sister’s wedding will be fully justified,”  he said in the telegragram. My friends too persuaded me to cancel my journey to Madras.

  But I brushed aside their warnings. The cyclonic storm was a God-given opportunity for me to show my adventurous spirit in driving and possibly create a world record by covering three hundred miles in less than four hours in the inclement weather.

  It was past midnight when I took out my Scuderia Ferrari from the garage. In fifteen minutes I was on the national highway, driving at break-neck speed. 

  It was raining heavily and the wind was howling. The depression in the Bay of Bengal which had formed the previous day, intensified into a cyclonic storm with winds blowing at great velocity along the coast. I looked out through the windscreen.  Fields were submerged in the flood waters and giant trees were lying uprooted on both sides of the highway. I saw a thatched hut being washed away in the waters like a boathouse in a flooded lake. I thought I heard desperate cries from the hut. ‘Nature’s fury” I muttered, “nobody can pacify. Yet man’s brave struggle against it has been going on since prehistoric age and it has been a continuous process.

  Suddenly I applied brakes as a ghost-like figure in a long rain coat waved its hand to stop my car. But, to my surprise and joy it was not a ghost but a damsel in distress. 

  “The cyclone…I am scared.”she cried incoherently. “Please drop me at a safe place. Your kind help…”her obliging words were drowned in the ear piercing crash of a tree in the fields nearby.  She pulled open the door with all her strength and jumped into the car.

  “Where are you going?” I asked her.

  “Madras.”she replied

  “Me too,” I said and started the car.

  The whistling wind, the rain and the flood with a charming girl by my side lent a romantic atmosphere to the place.

  She took off her raincoat and leaned back on the seat, quite exhausted. She was panting for breath and her bosom heaved in perfect rhythm.  Driving the car, I cast a sidelong glance at her. I thought that she had become conscious that I was devouring her beauty with my eyes. She drew the pullover round her shoulders. “Marooned here?” I looked at her.

  As if in an answer, she began to cry. 

 I was taken aback and asked myself whether I had said something improper.

 “The bus”she said between sobs,”I was travelling in, washed away in the floods I jumped out and swam to a boulder near the road.

  “You are the lone survivor then,” I said, slowing down the car to avoid hitting a carcass, being washed across the road. 

  “Yes,”she said, “ I started from Vijayawada by bus. I was going to Madras to join my parents. When the bus crossed Chirala, it was swept away in the flood waters.”

  “And you escaped with the raincoat and the pullover as your only baggage,” I completed her harrowing account.

  “It’s horrible,”she hid her face in her hands. “The bus was full with passengers but no one was left alive but me.”

  “Thank God, You’ve survived,”I said, “please try to get over the shock.”

  It was past midnight and the heavy downpour continued to spatter the windscreen of the car. I felt terribly hungry. I stopped the car by the side of the road.

  “Why, why've you stopped the car? ”she said anxiously. 

  I understood her instinctive womanly fright.

  “Don’t worry,'' I chuckled, “I am not a movie villain to harm you. I have stopped because I am very hungry.”

 “ Sorry,”she said regretfully,”I didn’t mean to hurt you. But I am a girl, I was afraid.?”

 I removed the lid of the lunch box. I put the idli and dosa into two plates and offered one to her.  “Thank you,”she tasted the idli and said. “It’s very delicious.”

   As she was eating, I stole a look at her face. She had wide eyes and a long, attractive nose. Her lips were rosy and when she drank water, her white teeth glistened. “She was born of a great sculptor’s chisel,” I thought. The numbing pain which a man experiences in the presence of a beauty incarnate, had seized me. Many girls had shaken hands with me, some of them had even given me bear hugs whenever I won a motor race. But this was the first time I was stirred by romantic sentiments. I felt an yearning to claim her forever.

  “The idli and dosa are very tasty,”she said.

  “I have an excellent cook,”I said, “she prepared them. When she leaves next month, I have to cook for myself. I should admit that I am a very bad cook. I hope a sweet angel enters into my life and makes home for me.”

  She did not reply.

  I thought that she got the intended meaning of my words. “I tend to be playful at times,”I said, breaking the silence, “hope you’re not offended.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing,”she smiled, “There is nothing wrong with a bachelor when he says that he wants to get married.” I felt that a thousand roses bloomed when she smiled, flashing her beautiful teeth. 

  I was happy. I thought that she was disposed towards me favourably. 

  We finished with our lunch. I poured  steaming coffee into two cups from the flask. “Please have it,”I said, “we’re dying of chill.”

  Sipping at the coffee she choked. I patted her back to make her normal again. “Sorry,” I said, “I have taken liberties.”

  “You say or do something and then say ‘sorry’ pretending to be innocent.” she smiled, putting down the empty cup.

  We resumed our journey in the hurricane. 

  I switched on the tape recorder beside the dashboard and noisy pop music blared out.

  “Don’t you have any cassette of Carnatic music?” She asked.

  “I shook my head in the negative.”

  “Why?”she persisted, “don’t you like it?”

  “It’s not that,” I replied, shifting the gear. Classical music, whether it is Carnatic or Hindustani, is soft and arouses sweet pangs in the listener. It lures you into a void, from where you’re little inclined to come out. It is like the poetry of Shelley, beautiful but painful. But Pop music is the vigour of life.  It sweeps you off your feet in mad excitement; and I need it very much.”

  “No, you’re mistaken,”she said in defence of her argument, “have you ever heard the Kadanakutuhala Raga in Carnatic music? The Thyagaraya’s symphony - Sri Raghuvamsa Sudhambudhi Chandra…Swamy Raa…Raa '' was set to this raga. This raga literally sounds like war music. Kadanakuthuhalam means enthusiastic to jump into the battlefield. It swells your bosom with war spirits. Anyway, opinions differ.”

  I spoke praising the background music of the baby elephant walk in Hatari and the music of For A Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly.

   We were silent for a while. “ I didn’t think,”she said breaking the silence,” that a playful boy like you had such a profound interior.”

  I did not reply. I drove on for about an hour regardless of the fury of nature. Suddenly I applied the brakes and brought the car to a halt. An uprooted huge tree lay across the road.

  “Oh! Bad luck,”I muttered and got down the car. “It will take at least half an hour to drag the tree to the side of the tree, which means we’ll reach Madras half an hour late.

  “No, we won't,” she shook her head in the negative,” A presentiment tells me that I will not see my parents again.”

  “Nonsense,” I said a little impatiently, “this is a race car in perfect condition and I had won Sholavaram and Himalayan motor races last with this car. Once we remove the obstruction, it is just three hours more to reach Madras. Once we get into the car, you can begin the countdown. Cheer up and lend me a helping hand.”  Like a gallant knight I tried to refresh her spirits.

  We tried to drag the tree off the road but it did not move even an inch.  While we were thus struggling with the fallen tree, she uttered a startled cry and clung to me. She pointed her finger to the bridge. The dead bodies of a mother and child clasped in each other’s arms in fear were being washed away in the flood water under the bridge.

  “Don’t be afraid,” I said to her, “I am with you.” 

  Then the biological instinct took hold of me and I held her in a tight embrace.  She also crouched into me with fear. I brushed my face against her conch shaped neck. “What is your name dear?” I whispered into her ear.

  “Prema,”she said and rested her head on my shoulder.  I cupped her face in my hands and kissed her lips ardently. Her lips were warm and sweet. There was death and destruction around us. But we were not disturbed. We soured into a glorious and romantic world which seemed to last forever. When our lips touched, time stopped for an instant and the past, the present and the future were blended into a beautiful, single whole. Caressing her back, I gently ran my fingers to the knot of her skirt in the folds of her saree. She gave a jerk and moved away as if she received a shock. “Not now,”she said., “it’s only after we were united by the holy fire.”

  I was hurt. I was angry with myself. I was angry with her also as she denied me the pleasure of sex. Yet her refusal increased my love and respect for her. There is nothing wrong in wanting to be pure till marriage. 

  A distant thunder and the crash of a tree in the fields brought us back into the real world. We did not speak to each other for a while. I walked back to the car and opened the dicky.. I took out a rope from  the dicky and uncoiled it. I fastened one end of the rope to the bumper of the car and the other end to the trunk of the tree. “Prema,” I said,”You stay away while I pull away the tree. If you sit in the car you may hit the dashboard.”

  As she stood under another tree to take cover from the rain, I started the car and ran it back and forth in a zig zag away. Gradually the big tree was giving way. After a few more pulls, the tree moved aside.

  Through the rear view mirror, I looked at Prema with a chivalrous spirit. 

  Standing under the tree, she waved at me in applause. Suddenly the tree began to shake dangerously in the strong winds. I shouted at her to move away but she could not hear me in the howling wind. I sprang out of the car and ran to her. But it was too late. The deadly tree crashed down crushing Prema under its wild branches.

  The sun hobbled onto the eastern horizon.  The fury of nature continued unabated. Prema lay dead in my arms. Tears flooded down my cheeks. I gazed at her. Death had not yet spoiled  her 

Beauty. She looked like a sleeping angel tired after tripping all the fairy worlds. The thought of love and marriage had not crossed my mind before I met her.But now I called her, Prema my love, my wife emotionally again and again. I imagined that we had been man and wife for several lives. I kissed her lips which were still warm. “Farewell my wife,” I said and laid her on the side of the road. I sat cross legged beside her.

  My grandfather was a purohit and initiated me into the mantras including those of the  apara karma at a tender age. Now those mantras welled up from my lips. I cupped the rain water into my hands and performed her last rites with all the love of a husband to the soul of his departed wife. 

  I walked to the bridge and stood over the wide parapet wall with the body of Prema in my arms. Countless bodies of humans were journeying through the flood of death to the destination they had come from. I slid her body into the waters and watched it being carried away in the stream gradually out of my sight.

  I walked back to my car listlessly and reversed it into the void.