I just want to get even with.
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‘Take a look at him, he is the one’, Nag said pointing to the little boy who was walking by the creek and throwing stone into it. Isn’t it clear, even from the way he walks? You know, from the day he was born, he looked exactly the same, never changed a bit. But nobody believed me. Can you imagine, eight years. I was chased away for eight solid years from my life. Nobody believed me, not a single soul. They said she was a little girl, poor and sick, when they came to know that sandya was pregnant. Well, I was a kid too. I just completed my schools then, remember. What did they know about her? But still they all felt sorry for her. They said, a poor girl with a hole in her heart and how is she going to endure this. Why didn’t she die then, if she had a hole in the heart? All lies, you know, they threw her out from the orphanage, where she lived until she turned thirteen, for misconduct. Her breasts were full and round, when I first had her in the broken building inside the rubber plantation where she came everyday in the early morning to collect the latex. If you asked her to sit she would lie down for you. She was already bad and ruined in the orphanage itself. That is why they threw her out from there. No body knew that. She had a foster parent in some foreign country, and her parents wanted to get money from him, that is why they put her in the orphanage. Otherwise, why did they even send her there, when she had both her parents alive? They were all tramps in her family. Her aunt was a hooker in the street, you don’t know that. Nobody in this village knew. That is why they all felt pity for them when they knew Sandya got knocked up. She was eight month full, even before her mother knew about it. She was hiding it until then. And they felt pity because she was only fourteen.

Nag was telling his side of the story, may be nobody ever listened to him so far. He was chased away from the village eight years ago, not by the people but by the news that he is the one who made the little girl Sandya pregnant. People were talking about it everywhere, in the houses and in the street corners, mainly because they were bored and did not have anything much to discuss about. They kept talking about it until one evening, when the dispute between two drunkards in the street ended up in the death of one being stabbed by the other. Then they started making stories about those drunkards.

It was a hot summer afternoon, when Sandya’s father Appu went to the street corner and broke the news to the people who were gathered there. That son of a bitch ruined my girl; she is full in her stomach now. That is what he said holding the half burned cigarette between his shivering fingers, and he said that as if some one had instructed him to do so. They always thought this Appu is a real idiot, a good for nothing kind, who never knew what the women in his house were up to, a stupid creature deprived of any humane emotions. But his sound came out like the soft cry of a cow when he said, ‘My little baby, you know, she has been sick in her heart for long now.

Nag was gone already. He got the news early that day from Santo. He had just finished his lunch and came out of his house when he found Santo coming running to him. He thought Santo was coming to call him to go play ball that afternoon. He didn’t really want to go play, especially when the day is that hot. ‘That bitch is loaded, and she says it is you’, that is what Santo said. He did not ask who, because he knew who he was referring to. ‘You were the only one who touched her ever, that is what she is saying.. Run better, you run from here’, Santo said in one single gasp. And that is exactly what Nag did. He ran from there, after taking whatever he could find from his sister’s purse.

That was the only thing that made any sense to me at that time, to run. My sister was saving the money for her marriage and that was the money I took from her purse. Her marriage might be delayed because of what was happened to me, or even stopped, who want to marry a girl whose brother has got such a bad name here. It was a real shame. But I did not think anything about that then, just fled with whatever I got. And that is what Santo told me to. He must be thirteen or fourteen at that time, but he told me to run in a stern voice. That is what I did. And that is where he won and I failed. Yes, you should know, I failed to see his deceit.

I did not know where to go even after I reached the town bus station. I took the first interstate bus to reach there at the station. Nothing came to my head so I walked aimlessly like a stray dog. I stubbed my left toe real bad and it was bleeding heavily. It did not pain a bit and I didn’t even know when or where I stubbed my toe, but the blood never stopped coming and a piece of skin was hanging from the wound. Wind was heavy, churning up the dust and dragging it along. I felt my hair stiff with dust and the sun was pinching on my face. Didn’t have anything to wipe the blood with and I wanted something to cut off that piece of skin and flesh, which was soaked with blood and dust and still hanging. Didn’t know why the driver of the bus, which was parked nearby raising the engine so loud. That roar got into my head along with the wind and the dust and stayed there for ever. The roar never stopped, why he is doing this to me at this time.
‘Shut your engine down, you filthy dog’, I told him.
He came down from the bus and pocked his finger into my cheek, pushed me to the other side of the bus station. And that is where I found a bus to Putu cottai, where some of my relatives from my mother’s side lived. I didn’t know them well, but I had seen an old lady and her son once or twice and they were good people.

They did not even ask me why I went there when I reached there at night. After a couple of days they guessed there was something wrong. They thought I killed somebody and hiding from the police, until I told the truth to the old lady’s son when we went to the river to take bath. I stayed there for a long time, with them, until I heard that the girls parent went to the police and my father settled the case by offering them some money. I didn’t know where he got the money from, may be he had to sell the house and a little land of our own. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get off the hook; it was too bad, you know. If you don’t live your life carefully, it will come back to you some time sooner or later like a mad dog, and then the only choice you are left with is to run. My father also told me that the girl Sandya, gave birth to a boy and it looked exactly like Santo. And that is what I said; he won when I ran away. It was the culprits who flee, he must have told everybody.

You don’t know that son of a bitch, the one who asked me to run. No body suspected him, because he was a child, just thirteen or fourteen. But a spoiled one, I must know. From the age of ten itself he had had bad games with the woman from his neighborhood, whose husband was working abroad as a farm laborer and comes only once in two or three years. She used to call him at nights because she was too sacred to sit alone. He didn’t even know what she was doing with him, at that age, it was bad. That is what I said, he was the spoiled one. And that is where he developed those bad tastes and a reckless courage that made that girl pregnant. I should have known that, but I couldn’t, so I ran away. To run away, that was the bastard asked me to do, remember. He must have planned that, planned it well, and I ran away from my life like a culprit, in shame. You never understand that feeling, you don’t. It was horrible, running away in bad shame.

Hours were unusually long during those days. I never counted the days then, during the day time mostly stayed on the river side. Listening to the sound of the river, lay down on the sand for hours and days. When the evening light falls slanting on the water at dusk, you can hear the river calling you to go into it. Some say it is dangerous even to listen to that song of the river, because it is very enticing some times, especially when you are alone. Some times I took bath four, five times a day, because I didn’t have anything else to do. Out of pure boredom, once I decided to cross the river by swimming. When reached halfway, I realized how bad it was. Current was too strong and I was not a good swimmer. It dragged and pulled me down, that made me drink the yellow muddy water. I was too tired, gasping for air often times, but I still kept swimming until my feet hit the sand bed on the other side. But swimming back was really tough. At the surface, water looked calm and the small ripples only moved it back and forth a little, that made one think that the river is still and quiet. But underneath it was too vicious and it pulled me and twisted me like a string that it wanted to elongate. I drank more and more muddy water and felt short of breath. I even cried for help, but no one was there on the shores. No one goes there at that time, I guess. I was drowning, I felt like I was breathing in water and my hands and legs went stiff. This is how people die in water, I thought. And then, I didn’t know from where, Santo’s face came to my mind. That thought came to me like a thunder bolt, so strong and violent. Yes, that son of a bitch, I cannot let him win like that. You think, I am talking revenge here, NO, it is not. I just wanted to get even with him. It was a feeling from the stomach and ran all the way to the head and arms like fuming acid flowing through your veins. It made my arms stronger and the chest tougher to beat the water hard and move forward. When I felt the sand underneath my feet I got up and started walking, I was coughing and puffing but still I walked. Something inside made me walk strong and fast as if I was reborn from that river. Reborn with a destiny, that it was.

I walked until I reached the shop where they sold good knifes near the meat market. ‘Nine inch would be enough, but should be sharp and tough. Even if you hit the chest, it should cut through the ribs’, I told the man in the shop. He thought I was talking about cutting the goat. He showed me a good one. It’s handle was round and smooth, even had a decorative carving where the blade meet the handle, and had good grip. It was sharp and hard. You never know how strong are the hands that going to use this, so the knife should be strong and sharp. This should do it. Every time I hold that knife, an electric jolt came from my stomach like a storm to my head and arms. It made my ears hot and felt my head heavy and made my arms strong and the grip firm. Nine inch is enough. But the thrust is important, you should push it all the way through, doesn’t matter where you hit, thrust it all the way through, all the nine inches. And keep it there until he stops flexing. Just like the way when you wring the neck of a chicken, where you hold its wings and legs under your feet even after you hear that clicking sound of its neck breaking, because if you leave it then it will jump and flap its wings with its head hanging from one side. It is pretty bad, you don’t have anything against the chicken you kill.. do you?. That is why it is important to hold it there until he stops flexing. I told you it is not revenge I am talking about.


I came here to see you, you know, after eight long years. I heard that you are coming, that is why I came to this village where we grew up. I did many things in these years, you know. Several jobs, lived in different places, met and forgot many people. Now things are different, I even have a job with the government. Now, look at that kid, sitting by that creek. This bastard is the son of that son of the bitch, Santo, who made me run like a culprit and made my life a shame, but not anymore. Not after I came up from that river. I wanted to have a look at this kid, that is why I came. I don’t know what his name is. It doesn’t matter; he is a bastard, that what he is. I wanted to know what he got inside. Have you ever looked at his eyes? He got something burning inside. I just want him to keep it burning. He knows what he see when he look at the mirror. It is definitely there, inside him, kindling like charcoal. I just have to keep it going, until it is the time. Until his hands are strong enough to hold my knife. Now I know the knife and the hands which are going to use it. It is like solving a riddle. And I just have to wait, for everything to fall in place. Wait until his hands are strong enough to hold it, strong enough to make that push to all the nine inches in and hold it there tight until he stops flexing. Yes. I just have to wait.