Fiction: The Confession

Debjani Mukherjee

By: Debjani Mukherjee

                                   The dark night seemed to be in its full demonic incarnation. The rain was roaring down to the earth like an infuriated monster of the celestial world. Randeep slowly removed the cover and his heart cracked into thousand pieces. He was on his regular night patrolling session when he noticed the baby legs peeping out from the jute sack beside the dustbin of the murky lane. He leaned over the lifeless baby girl and started pumping her little heart with his fingers. He blew air into her tiny lungs through mouth. He had no hope of her survival but somehow he couldn’t just give up. He tried once more and to all his surprise the baby cried out.
                                 “God has given her to me” he thought in his mind and after completing the formalities of adoption he brought the baby girl home as a ray of hope in his barren life. Days passed like shifting shadows as Kiya turned into a beautiful girl with milk white skin and grey eyes. But there was a strange thing about her which remained unnoticed initially. Like when the next door dog which used to bark at her fell sick and become mute or when old Mrs Iyer broke her hands just after scolding Kiya for plucking flowers from her garden. But when the mean girl from Kiya’s school got hospitalized instantly after teasing her for being left out by her mean biological parents, things got perturbing for all.
                                    Kiya was now a teenager and things keep happening around her in regular intervals. Speculations were thrashed upon her ruthlessly and she barely had any friend. Being a police officer Randeep sometimes feels the urge to investigate the matter less for the others but more for his own daughter who was seen with mistrust every now and then. But he couldn’t just question his little girl just because superstitious were whirling people’s mind. Kiya was a very loving and well behaved girl so accusing her for accidents happening to others was just ridiculous. But one day when Mr Trivedi the middle aged man form next door was found dead mysteriously in his home, a mist of fear engulfed Randeep. He knew the constant sound of coughing of that chain smoker used to irritate Kiya like anything. Though hesitantly but he realized it was time to ask his daughter few questions. He went to his daughter’s room but when he gazed at her beautiful face brimming with innocence, he hated himself for thinking that she could ever cause any harm to anyone. He was about to leave in self-despair when Kiya called him from behind. “Do you want to ask anything Daddy?” she smoothed over with her honey glazed voice.  Overcoming a brief hesitation Randeep went closer to his daughter and kissing her forehead he asked “is there anything you would like to tell me Kiya? Anything which you might have done in spite of knowing it was wrong?” Kiya smiled at her father and replied “no daddy I haven’t done anything which I shouldn’t have, but if you are asking me about the man from the next door then let me tell you, he used to piss me off with his constant rattling coughs so I just made him stop.” A chill ran through Randeep’s body as he looked at his daughter with chocking horror. Kiya was still smiling but it wasn’t innocent anymore.

Setu, August 2019

Flash Fiction: The Dweller of a Misty Land

By: Debjani Mukherjee

“Oh! Maa what have you done! Why are you taking the idol of Krishna (Hindu God) to the bathroom?” Sukumar couldn’t keep himself from shouting at his mother this time. Namita Devi is 95 years old and couldn’t really remember things beyond the time span of five minutes. Her body still works fine with a stooped backbone, as she roams around the house all day leaning on the walking stick with full energy executing her crazy ideas which seem not at all crazy to her delusional brain. After having a half an hour meal she would complain that no one is taking care of her and she had been kept hungry for the whole day. Or in the middle of the night she would just decide it is already morning and everyone in the house should get up and perform morning prayers. Sometimes she would find no harm in mixing dirty water with clean drinking water and sometimes bedroom pillows would rest without any harm on toilet seat.

Sukumar is the younger son of Namita Devi he was always the favorite of his mother. Though previously, Namita Devi used to stay with her elder son Dibakar, but after he had been diagnosed with cancer she came here to stay with them. Dibakar dada and his wife are in Mumbai Tata Memorial Hospital for the last few months for treatment and this morning the news came which broke Sukumar. After father’s death, dada was a big support for him. The regular news of his consistently deteriorating condition tore him apart mentally and with all of the chaos created every moment by Maa, it drives Sukumar completely crazy. His 68 year old body doesn’t support much tension nowadays. His wife Latika has Parkinson’s so she is hardly any help in her condition. His only daughter Sova is settled in America with her family. So the only help Sukumar has is two nurses for the day and night shift and two maids for household work.

“This is not the bathroom. This is my Pooja ghar (temple) and can’t you see how I cleaned it today with the washing powder? Now you get lost from here and let me do my Pooja (worship), after I can have my breakfast.” Namita Devi declared with full command. Her thin voice trying to make it sound as strong as she could as she walked towards the bathroom leaning on her walking stick holding the idol of Krishna in her hand.

Sukumar had no option but to hold her hand and snatch the idol from her. Then he made her sit on the chair of the dining table in the hall and put the idol back in its proper place. Namita Devi was furious her Pooja got interrupted for no reason. It was so insulting that she was being dragged and made to sit on a chair like a child by someone whom she sees daily but can’t recognize properly.

“How dare you treat me like I will no longer stay in this house. I will go to my house. I don’t know who are you and what right you have to keep me here without my permission,” she said as her frail trembling voice was filled with anger. “Don’t you think I am helpless and alone. I have my son and I will go to him!” She slammed at the man who made her sit in the chair like a child.

Sukumar sat beside his mother and asked her in a composed voice, “Okay, so tell me where is your house? I will take you there and you can stay there, tell me who your son is. I will take you to him. Tell me Maa.”

Namita Devi’s eyes went vacant searching the walls for answers, her lips fell apart. Her mind crawled to the most distant foggy lanes of time and could recall just a face of a twelve year old boy who got a fish bone stuck under his foot on a winter afternoon. He coming back home hobbling bare foot from the pond which they used to have behind their house in their village, where they used to live in some forgotten pages of the past.

She murmured almost like a whisper, “My son is twelve years old, he is very naughty and he got a fish bone stuck under his foot”.

Sukumar understood she is talking about Dibakar dada. Her blurred memory is recalling the son she lost this morning. God has his own ways of touching the lives of his children. The woman who can’t remember the difference between day and night, who is unable to recognize the son who is sitting just next to her talking to her, is remembering her other son who was far away from her and just few hours before left the world forever.

Sukumar held his mother’s hands and clasped them to his chest. Tears flushed his eyes like wild streams. He said, "Maa, dada is dead. This morning at 7:40 a.m.. We lost dada. I am going to Mumbai this evening. You lost your elder son Maa."

A helpless look captivated the wrinkled face of 95 years old woman and very slowly she said, "May God rest his soul in peace." She stood up resting on her walking stick and said, "It is time for my afternoon nap. I must go to sleep now.”

Sukumar didn’t understand whether his mother realized what actually happened or not but he didn't push it. He took his mother to her room and had lie her down on the bed and closed the windows and the curtains. Its 10:30 a.m. in the morning, but her world is now far beyond from the normal timetable of conscious people. She now is the dweller of a misty land.

Bio- Debjani Mukherjee, an MBA in applied management has a passion for studying human life and has put her observation and feelings into words. Her poems, articles and short stories are published in many international anthologies and magazines. She is a regular contributor to magazines like GloMag, Destiny Poets, Different Truths, Tuck Magazine, etc.. Her short story “The Summer Moon” won the summer contest of the USA based magazine Academy of Heart and Mind. Her other short story “The Paper Boat” recently managed to secure its place in the top ten list of the prestigious Bharat Award for International Literature.

Setu, April 2019

Poetry: Debjani Mukherjee

Debjani Mukherjee

Who am I?

The gut-wrenching question
Kept the soul restless at nights
She searched for her identity
In the shadows, for years
Begging to be noticed
from the grave of dreams
Eyes blinded with hopeless murk
She wandered from heart to heart
From trees to insects
From sky to river
From mountains to the ocean
From fiddling violin to rumbling thunder
Echoing the question to the oblivion
Like a haunted ghost
Like a nymphs of heaven
Like a broken bird hiding beneath its wings

Until one day

When the grave ruptured
And the dreams got unleashed again
Standing on her grave
She opened her arms
And silver wings got illustrated
On her weathered skin
And the divine light,
 spread from her crux
Flooded the universe
With the tenor of her soul
The symphony allured
Every single ear on the planet
She smiled in ecstasy
And waved her silver wings
To touch the moon and beyond
As she now know what a magnificent
Creation she is of the creator.

A deranged mind

Waves belabor the walls of the heart
Sinking it deep into the sand
Serenity waved goodbye years ago
Now it is just a grapple to breath
Faces known and unknown
Prowls round the bed all night
Slowly the creepy weaves enter my blanket
and crawl into my blood
A cold puff ripples down my spine
and I shiver, in absolute fright.
A door locked forever
Smothers my memories to death
I gulp lumps down my throat
Spilling my emotions through eyes
My heart races against the clock,
tick tock tick tock
And even the reminiscences of gaiety dies
They call me insane, even gave a certificate of so
I now look out of the window,
Holding the railings by my bed
One face in particular often visits the mind
The one used to say "will love you till death."
Never saw that face in the visitor's room
The question echoes in the mind, “who was that face?”
Who used to say "will love you till death"!!!!
"Will Love you till death"!!

Fake Jewel

We women are fond of jewelry
Ruby, emerald, sapphire, diamond
We allure ourselves with sparkling stones
The shine, the glitter, dazzle our eyes
And the desire of ornamenting ourselves
Emerges a shivering happiness within us.

We love to embellish our body
With the array of these beautiful stones
And pay everything we have
To make one of them our own

But often the goldsmith cheats us
Rendering a fake rather than real
And we stupid women often keep
Those fake stones
Within the closet of our heart
Yes mere stones, never a jewel for real
Enclosed in our chest with love

With time those stones lose their glitter
Their charm of alluring our heart

And then we stupid women sit in the courtyard
With open hair and shed tears in moaning
Moaning the loss of stones
The loss of our dear fake love.

Setu, September 2018

Debjani Mukherjee

Debjani Mukherjee an MBA in applied management has a passion for studying human life and put her observation and feelings into words. Her poems, articles and short stories are published in many international anthologies and magazines. She is a regular contributor to magazines like Active Muse, Setu Mag, GloMag, Destiny Poets, Different Truths, Tuck Magazine, Stag Hill Literary Journal, etc. Her short story “The Summer Moon won the summer contest of the USA based magazine Academy of heart and mind. Her other short story “The Paper Boat” recently managed to secure its place in the top ten list of the prestigious Bharat Award for literature international.

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