The Betrayal- A Story of Hope and Hurt ©

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any living character, dead or alive is purely coincidental.


Part 1

When does innocence get lost? When does the fresh morning air start to feel like a tornado? When does life become death and death a meaningful passage to rebirth and life once more?

Sometimes death begets life and regenerates the soul, the undefined abyss of existence, the inescapable truth that we may ignore, but cannot avoid.

She had an idyllic existence. Her innocence flowered amidst the blissful cloud of joy and ignorance. Wherever she looked she was met with eyes warm with assurance, hope, love.  They say that eyes are the window to the soul. They can also connect one to the infinite whole, the undefined rubric cosmos that we call the universe. She felt connected everywhere she looked, so connected that she did not even perceive it.

Yes, there were some bodily pain, a painful reminder of a mundane mortal existence, a childhood interrupted with some trips to a hospital, but even there the warm eyes of the doctor assured her that she was fine, that the moments when life escaped her were just flies to be swatted with her little hands. She found ways to breathe even when she could not and found ways to live even when her breath slowed.

Sometimes it was the doctor, sometimes it was his assistant, sometimes it was her friends next door, but the greatest warmth she felt was in the lap of her parents. So caring, so loving, so warm, their eyes shone with a spark when they saw her and watched over her on those endless nights, their worries and anxiety carefully masked. Always with a hug, a kiss, a smile, she felt she could conquer the world and fly away.

Yes, her innocence flowered. Her soul was nourished. Her brother might have bullied her, yet his eyes sparkled when he teased her, pulled her hair. He would let her fall, but pick her up before she fell on the ground.

It was this nourishment that fed her being, even when she almost had to starve because of her illness. It was this nourishment that taught her more than the books in her school did. It was this nourishment that made her feel normal, yet special. Yes she was special indeed. 


Part II

How did she know that she was special? She did not and that’s why she knew, it was something that came naturally to her, the lightness of being, and so she believed that everyone was special. Everyone she met was special to her because she felt special herself or because they felt special too.

Just like the moon changed its phases every month, so did her body change its mind, sometimes healed and sometimes wounded in a flash. So she would find herself laughing and playing one day and frightfully ill the next. She accepted it as a natural part of her. She did not question it, neither did she ask whether it would end and when, because she trusted…. trusted everything, the circumstances, the people, and the little games with her friends. They say life and love take root from the seeds of trust, and this trust intertwined itself seamlessly into her life, so much so that she always knew that even at her weakest moments, she would get strength, that her vulnerabilities would not be toyed with and tampered with. Her family treated her normally, no special privileges and yet the love was there, it was inescapable. It was this love that bound the family together, but it was a boundless love, one which did not contain or question.

Her neighbours were so similar, so much so that one did not know whether they fed off her families love or her family fed off theirs. The neighbourhood was always filled with shouts of joy and childish bullying, where children were children and a childhood meant endless summers spent under the protective warmth of a sweltering sun. The sweat dazzled more brilliant that any jewel and the skins glowed from all the joy. Smiles came naturally, not the ones you smile with your mouth, but the ones you do with your eyes.

Life was not easy, make no mistake. Hard working parents, who worked every extra minute to ensure that their little ones could smile that carefree smile. There was silent acquiescence among the elders. There was hardly any petty bickering, and if there was, it was brushed aside immediately; and so this collective trust grew, sometimes with small games on the street, and sometimes with collective trips to the theatre to watch a movie on the rotting old seats, way before multiplexes snaked their way into lives.

Gathering around one of the mommies, clamouring for some water or asking the next door uncle to come and complete the cricket eleven or was it the cricketing five? Who cares? The result never mattered. Fierce fights would end with collective laughter.

Part III

Life was not all fun and games for the children. There was school of course, and endless tuitions and tests and weight lifting of school bags that would put the WWF wrestlers to shame! Yet, life was simple. There was no internet or mobile phones and spending evenings sitting on compound walls and discussing the day’s delights and dejection were the stress relievers; where social networks meant face to face interactions and not nameless faces and faceless names inside insidious portals.

The children would discuss their dreams of what they would want to be when they grew up, which was essentially in a faraway time inside a faraway land, where dreams came true because of the merit of who you were. Budding cricketers, actors, singers , even tennis players grew up in the midst of mutual encouragement.

Welcome to ‘Ellai’ street. ‘Ellai’ in my native tongue is a colloquial for border, and ironically inside a cozy nook and dead end did this little colony exist- this colony of dreams, not daydreams but real ones. Where trust and love grew brighter than petty fights , giving the inhabitants the courage to go beyond the ‘ellai’ or end of their imagination.

The street games taught competitiveness and sportsmanship, cricket taught the boys that girls can play the game too and the fact that they went to various different schools taught them that they could be different and yet alike, because what mattered was not what was without, but what was within.

The children learnt from their parents that it was not as important to take oneself seriously, as it was to take one’s life so. Children were not told, rather they were taught and they watched and imbibed, and learnt for themselves.They were lucky were these children, because despite the hardwork life was full of the riches of entertainment, despair, hope, fights and joys.

Babu was the cricketer who was sought after for every match, Sindu and her sister Kutti were the ones who would always look after one another, ever guarded against potential bullies! Yash and his brother Kash were the entertainers who kept everyone in splits with their jokes and Sheena and Shaan were the brainy brother sister duo. Who was she then? She was Chaya, always preferring the shade and the shadows to the sun, preferring solitude, not because she was lonely, but because she could never seem to drum up the energy to consistently keep up with the other children. Her brother Roshan was on the other hand, full of life and could never complete his day without a cricket match and of course a little fight with Chaya.

And so, the days rolled on in Ellai street, a comfortable monotony that almost seemed to have a tune to itself. There did seem to be music in the air; one could hear it in the swaying of the trees, the sound of running bare heels connecting with the concrete road and in the shouts of ever anxious parents asking children to stop playing tightrope walkers on the compound walls!

And so endured a musical journey, marching to its own beat, where the composers, were the actors and the actors, the musicians.