Grizzly Nights

 

"Enough dad, enough stories for tonight. I am feeling so sleepy. Let the bear too go to bed"

His daughter pressed her head on his left shoulder and laid her left hand on his chest. She tripped happily into her sleep in no time. 

He very lightly patted her back with his left hand and watched her eyeballs chasing her dreams cloistered under her eyelids.

Beyond the sleepless tea groves, a bear flung a grunt into the air. Or was it a growl he ejaculated? 

 

 He cocked his ears to listen to the noises from outside. Then he dived into himself and discerned a nameless shape lurking deep in there. His mind wanted to christen it a bear but he was sure it was no animal on its nocturnal stalking routine in deep forests.   

Shrouded in primordial darkness and reeking a putrid stench, a shapeless form entered his mind and permeated it, a shocking sensation. Its eyes were deeper than  the dark backwards and abysm of time and possessed an unpredictability as to what they might fall on and what it might pounce on. It looked beautiful and weird at once,

He identified it and called it a bear. The name smacked of a genetic relation.   

During his school days when he was doggedly hellbent on pursuing his studies a bear lumbered in along the dreary pathways of unbearable boredom. Before he could ward it off, it took him on a ride down the wild path to the grippingly seductive and deeply enchanting beauty of a brave new world.  . 

The golden valleys, silky meadows in eternal goosebumps, subtle oozes coming from deep within and a blue veined planet flaunting an uneven landscape. 

As he watched it like a windhover up in the sky, he knew he was about to swoop down on his classmate Rajani's imagined nudity. The bear which vanished in a landslide of thoughts, scampered back only now, its distant roar making its presence felt before it could be spied. 

He roused himself up and tried to get off the bed.

 "Dad!"  Disturbed in her sleep his daughter, slid closer to him as if he was her vanishing dream. Her bearhug restricted all his movements. As usual she dragged her left leg onto his thighs and dived deeper slid deeper into sleep.

First he moved her luxurious hair aside, softly yanked her away from his chest with his sturdy right hand and then placed her head carefully on the pillow. He drew the woolen blanket over her anklet adorned feet and bangled slender hands. Then, very quietly like a timid burglar, he planted a kiss on her forehead. 

Before he switched off the light, he bade good night to a his wife's photograph on the night stand. The fragrance wafting from the jasmine his daughter had offered to her mother in the photograph hung in the air like its loose garment.

"Good morning, dad!"

"Morning! If there is new school you have no problem in waking up early, right?" "

She was adorning with Jasmine flowers the picture on the night stand.

"Dad, your tea is here!"

He lost his cool when he saw on the night stand a cup of tea his daughter had prepared for him.

"Haven't I told you several times not to light the gas stove? Couldn't you wait till Janu Amna came?"

"Dad, today is her off day. She won't be coming."

Lazing in the inactivity of the holiday, he took the cup of tea and what towards the front of the house. His daughter's friends in the flower pots tossed their heads at him, acknowleding his presence. 

His daughter came out to collect flowers from the jasmine shrubs. He tried to stop her.

"Hey, why do you want to do that? reasons it's better to leave them on the plant?"

"I wants to make a big big garlands for my mother today."

heaving a sigh, thought of how his wife came into his life with the fragrance of jasmine flowers around her and how accompanied by flowers, she took her last journey and hid herself behind a framed picture.

He got up from the front of the house.

"Come, come in. So, Janu amma will not turn up today. we need to cook our own breakfast. Come and help me."

He started kneading the dough and asked his daughter to chop the vegetables.

Intrigued by how she takes after her mother

in hurrying with the kitchen chores, he went back to his memories.

"Dad, your eyes are twinkling. You thoughts about my mom, right?"

He made her huddle close to him. 

"Now that you have learnt to do all this, you should do it on your own. You should sleep alone too."

Her face fell. she marched out of the kitchen stamping her feet.

He laid the table for breakfast and went to take his bath. Even when he cane back his daughter had notvhad her breakfast. He looked for her and found her in the bedroom. He felt heartbriken to see her in tears. 

" Hey, what happened?"

Lifting her face in his hands, he found that the bed sheets had been sustained by drops of blood.

She looked like a burnt cat.

He wished Janu amma had turned up.  

After giving her supper and outting her to sleep in another room, he went tobhis bedroom and looked pleadingly at his wife's pucture. . 

The rea plantations were drenched in moonlight  then.   

He switched off the light.

He was awakened by the worms of a cheek on his left chest and an endearing coldness of a rather slender arm on his chest.

"Dad, I am scared to sleep alone. grizzly bears in my nightmare's  scare me.

let her lue close to him and patted her  on her back till she was deep in sleep. 

His ears picked up the wild roar of a grizzly bear on its nocturnal routines beyond the tea groves.

He got up in a start, opened the windows and listened.

Now he  roars were loud and clear. 

He kissed  who was in deep sleep, locked the door and came out.  

she was determined to hunt down the bear in the dark.

When her dad's warmth was not there anymore, the kittle girl woke up and looked for him all over the house.

she wondered what was beyond the firmly closed doors. At dawn, several people came and console her that her father would come back. 

Before they returned they insisted that she should lock her doors. 

It puzzled her it was the bears in her nightmares that she was scared of.  

Within  the safety of the locked doors, the little girl waited for her  father.

 

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