Satataharitam - Short Stories On Narayana

The Bond Of Friendship

Lot of experiments happening here. I have a feeling I'll really enjoy the process of writing in this new style, and I hope y'all do too!

★ Adding at a later point of time, after completing the chapter. I might've been pretty mistaken about the difficulty levels of this when I started off. 😅

*****

As I see Shatrughna walking towards me right after his return from Kekaya, I can see the broken look his face carries. While I can read that he's, for most part, oblivious to everything that has happened, I can still see he has predicted some things.

He walks into the room and shuts the doors, before shooting a thousand questions at me. I knew they were coming. They were always going to. But I didn't know the answers and I still don't.

I hold his hands gently and ask him to take a breath. He doesn't. He continues shooting his questions, until I just break it to him in the one way I really never wanted to.

I just blurt it out in what I could possibly call annoyance. He wasn't giving me the time to think and so, I didn't stop myself from saying it for some reason.

"Pa is no more."

He stands, frozen, his mouth agape, as his chest heaves. He doesn't know what to say, and understandably so. He probably thinks that's all there is to it.

But there's so much more. So much that's there, that I want him to be unaware of. So much that I know will cause him unbelievable amounts of grief.

While I think about how to unveil the other happenings to him, he places his hand on my shoulder, not comfortingly, rather, like he is seeking comfort; like he wants my shoulder to lean on at this time of adversity.

I look at him and he looks at me. He knows I have more to say, and as if asking me to continue, he nods.

I clench my eyes shut as I narrate the story of Bhaiya's exile to him, and he listens. He doesn't react. I finally gather the courage to look at him again, and the expression on his face is appalling. Never did I think I'll see my Shatrughna so broken, that even he doesn't have anything to say.

But I realise one thing. It is going to be the way it's meant to be. I don't have even the slightest bit of hope that anything can be done about the exile, which means we live by ourselves for most part. I know there's no way Bhaiya will return. And Pa won't either.

That is perhaps going to break Shatru more than anyone else. But if there is one thing I can do, it is be his support system. If I can do that to the best of my abilities, I will most certainly be able to make the path a lot easier for Shatrughna to walk.

***

As we return home after a miserably failed attempt at convincing Ram Bhaiya to return, I see his eyes welling up with tears for the first time since everything struck. It's as if everything has struck him now, all at once, after the realisation that nothing can actually be done about this. It's a catastrophe and only now does it actually seem to sink in, about fifteen days after he found out.

Almost unknowingly, my fingers stroke the back of his hand as he looks away, trying not to let me see him.

The effort is in vain as I can still see the silent tears as they roll down his cheeks. In a few seconds' time, he's dissolved into tortured sobs, and all I can do is watch.

There's no consolation I can offer to him, for I know that the truth doesn't have too many things positive.

All I manage to do is to wrap my arm around him and pat him occassionally, hoping that'd help. I've no idea how to tell him that things will be okay. In fact, I don't even know if they will, and false assurance is not something I want to give an already shattered Shatru.