JBTRB - concluding part

...continued from here

It was the only damp spot in the sweltering heat which they could have found, their snug hole destroyed by an earth excavator. Signs of industrialization in Jumhuri.. hardly. The preparations for the MP’s visit. The podium on which he would stand to pontificate would need a flat strong foundation. So they had ensconced behind the water tap, coiled around each other in a love wrap. This was the mating season for the cobras.

The male hissed and tasted the air with his forked tongue. He spread his hood and raised himself up to full height, dragging up his female along. The gathering at the house just before the road bent stepped back in fear. For once, let us recognize who was the king around. The men in the crowd started arguing,
“Kill it, kill it”
“No! don’t Mutthu is on the way”
“What will he do? Release these monsters nearby. They' ll come again”
“I agree. Kill them.”
“Yeah yeah.. finish them off”
“I’ll bring the lathis, keep them cornered”
“No, stop, please please”

Such was the debate ensuing when Mutthu turned around the bend in the road and rode ahead laboriously. Clearly fate had taken this day in the serpents life to go for a stroll around the park. But, as we shall soon find out, it had invited Mutthu along!

The breeze had dried up completely. The road had narrowed and Mutthu was now its sole companion. His left pedal had slipped and fallen, leaving only the inner steel bar. A couple of times his foot slipped and the metal endings cut into the flesh. It was only a sense of duty which kept the snake man chugging along on that lonely Jumhuri Road. By now twenty minutes had passed since he had negotiated the turn by banking his vehicle obeying the laws of gravity. He had reached the road’s end. To his dismay, the road just ended abruptly, some 100 yards away from the river. “Just before the road ends..” he muttered under his swollen breath. He leaned forward and dropped himself limp on the cycle’s handle. Suddenly, a voice from behind spoke

“Your leg is bleeding. Let me put some bandage”. He turned. She looked up. Beside the river, beneath the azure sky, under the sweltering sun Mutthuswamy Venkataraman’s eyes locked with Revathy Narayanan. A strange, unexplained, unblinking lock. Fate crossed his hands, grinned and turned back to attend the unfinished business at the house just before the road bent.

Let me leave you with these two moments. One just before the road bends. Grotesque. One just before the road ends. Tender. Both celebrating the bonding between opposites. One in life and one in death.

Crows and their droppings.

Afterword: All characters, proper nouns and even events are entirely fictional. I always acknowledge otherwise.

Just before the road bends

Mutthu took some water from the nearby hand pump and wetted the area where the crow had dropped. Soon there was a dark circle on his shirt near his right elbow, from the moisture which had dissolved the corvine excretion. He muttered under his breath and got back on his cycle. The road to Jumhuri was a long straight stretch with small shacks arranged alongside here and there.

Mutthu was a snake man. The reptilian craze had bit him when he was a boy. Childhood passion had become manhood profession. He helped nearby villagers catch Nags and Dhamans which posed potential threat to man and animal. Today was just another call.

The flies were now irritating him. He pedaled fast. The sky was a scorching hot, June month in South India, just not the time when crows would be flying past relieving themselves. In these parts it was a bad omen if it dropped on your right side. Mutthu pedaled fast, bending forward with the restlessness which the dropping had brought.

He had woken up to the harsh hissing of his cell phone. Like man like ringtone. The voice which pierced the stillness of Mutthu’s reverie was filled with alarm and fright. ‘Mutthu ghar ke aangan mein, paani ke nal ke peeche do saap chhupe baithe hai. Mera ghar Jumhuri road pe hai..aakhari ghar..road mudne se pehle’ Mutthu’s just woken brain captured the keywords only .. saap, Jumhuri road. He understood only Tamil and some broken English. He replied, ‘Where you house?’ The voice responded ‘Jumhiri Road, just before the road bends’

‘Just before the road ends, that’s what the man had said.. but where the hell does it end? thought Mutthu. The cool breeze blew his grey hair, fanning the forehead where tiny beads of perspiration were joining into a rivulet.

to be continued...