Monday, November 11, 2013

Courage...

My ICSE exams had ended a couple of weeks back and I was already getting bored. Youtube and facebook had nothing interesting on. So, I googled my name and was bombarded with search results about Abhishek Bachchan, the movie star. Happens when you share your first name with someone so popular.
I retried with my surname instead. One result made me curious, and I opened it. What I read stirred long repressed memories...

We used to stay in Hyderabad in those days. Our house was built when I was too small to remember, but what struck me as peculiar was that inside our gate, was a huge empty space, just beside the house. Something that wasn't in any other house in the neighborhood.
This 'empty' land , I was later told, was equal to the place our house was built and was sold by my dad to his sister, my aunt. The place was full of weeds, trees and rocks and full of moles!
I am a pet lover. My dad doesn't allow pets because the loss of his dog in his childhood had scarred him badly. But, I am terribly afraid of moles. Mice are cute. Moles are scary.

This fear was increased by the terrible screams my mom would let out whenever one of those horrible rodents wandered into our home.
I would suggest killing all of them, but being in 2nd grade, I didn't have a clue as to how to do it. But, my mom, wouldn't even think of hurting a fly (literally)and would reject the idea outright.
My dad, had a huge company, which used to construct a lot of buildings, and was always at office.
We had a huge roof top garden including a bonzai mango tree, a lemon tree and lots of roses.
One day, I saw a small but fat cat behind the lemon tree. It wouldn't budge when i tried to shoo it off, and my mom told me to leave it alone. She would in fact leave milk near the lemon tree for the cat.

"Mom, the cat so small yet has a huge tummy, like Raghu uncle. It doesn't need any more milk! " 

Mom said that the cat had babies in it's tummy and would, in a few days, give birth (whatever that meant) to kitten. She was worried that the moles (being so huge) would kill the cat.

The beautiful day arrived and i saw six cute kittens! And boy were they hungry! Lapping up all the milk poured by my mom in minutes! I wanted to touch them, but the small cat would scare me with her sounds.

The gardener came to mom the next day and told her all the moles were killed by the cat. He disposed off about 12 dead moles. I puked for a long time after looking at them. "Mommy, how did the small cat kill all of  them? they were so big!"

Mom just said "you will understand someday..."
 
The next day, mom and dad were whispering in the dining room. They stopped as soon as I went in. Mom looked tense, had tears in her eyes. I have never seen my mom crying until that day. I tried to ask  her, but she said that I wasn't going to school for a few days.

I didn't care about anything else after she told me that. I was so happy! I could watch cartoon network and pogo all day now!

Mom now used to lock the door all through the day. There was a police uncle at the gate sometimes. Mom wouldn't let me go out and play, but I could play Super Mario on her laptop as long as I wanted to.

The bell rang and I jumped to open it. Two uncles, wearing scarves, asked if my dad was home. One of them had a beard, sticking out of his scarf. When I said "no", they pushed me and came into the house. My mom came running as soon as she heard me scream.

The bearded guy caught me tight and showed my mom a big dirty knife. My mom started screaming but stopped as soon as she saw the knife. I was still crying, and had no idea as to what was happening.

They were about to take me to their white van outside when my mom said "Leave him alone, I have money and jewelery here. You can have it all, but leave my son alone!"

The other guy followed my mom and she gave him a bag. Then, she went into the kitchen where she had a lot of money in one of the steel boxes. After a few minutes, the bearded guy  took me into the kitchen. On the table was a bundle of money. The bearded guy said "Thanks for everything. Your husband can pay the rest and then we will let go of your kid"

Suddenly, my eyes started burning , and I could not open them. All I could hear was the men screaming. I knew someone was taking me out of the room.

I was out of the house, and realised I was with my mom. Trough my teary eyes I saw that her saree was full of red stains. Soon, there was a lot of police at home and I slept off.

It has been eight years since that day. We shifted to Delhi two days later. I was never told what really happened that day.

"Kanna, Dinner is ready!" my mom called out.

I snapped out of my memories, wiped my tears, closed the news page, with the title 'Housewife stabs kidnappers, using chilli powder to blind them, to protect son' , went down running and hugged my mom, and said "I love you mom".

My mom was pleasantly surprised and asked "what happened?"

I didn't tell her, but I knew now, how the cat managed to kill all those moles.