The treasures of SANUALI

The First Call or Hallucination?

Occupying the bench in the middle of the railway platform, Swamy was watching the trains come and go, passengers arriving and departing, vendors plying their trade, luggage and goods of every description being moved mysteriously to different destinations. She was desperately recalling the sequence in her dream as if a detective had possessed her soul, adamant upon solving a complex murder mystery. Beside her, a girl around a similar age as hers was bickering continuously. It was Mani. 

‘You are awfully calm today? Has something happened back home? Did Wicca…?’ Mani asked fumbling. She eyed Swamy with a look that said tell-me-everything-that-is-there-to-tell as she patted her hand reassuringly, humming some off beats. 

‘Huh…nope! It isn’t her.’ replied Swamy, rather timidly. She felt piqued for no apparent reason. 

‘It’s Rustom, isn’t it? That jerk! He did something?’ Mani pushed harder, making Swamy wonder if she was deliberately pushing her buttons, interrupting the flow of information in her brain. 

‘Nobody did anything! For God’s sake, stop concluding, Mani.’ Swamy couldn’t help but yell. Everything she had been experiencing had started to get on her nerves, so much that she couldn’t help but think about it over and again. ‘You are nosy. Awfully nosy. Always wanting to know everything that isn’t even your business. God damn, keep your poking nose out of my business and leave me alone.’ 

Swamy knew she was wrong at letting it out on Mani, yet she felt helpless. Nothing in her brain made sense anymore. Her existence didn’t make sense. ‘What is wrong with me?’ She asked herself as if mysteriously someone is gonna answer all of her questions. A flash of light passed across her vision, blinding her shortly. 

Sugata…!  Buzzed something. However, the sound was faint and barely audible. Swamy did not hear it yet she shivered. She felt the drop in temperature suddenly. Something was wrong with her. But what?

She looked everywhere to watch people continuing through their routine activities, oblivion to anything that had happened to her. They arrived and departed without feeling the drop in the temperature or the buzz in the wind. Then it was spotted. Swamy saw it. A strange woman with deep green eyes, pale as dead staring at her with knowing emotions, standing not too far from her. She was rubbing her arms too as if cold. Zooming further, Swamy noticed that her ears were perked. Was she listening to the same buzz? 

‘Can she hear the same voices? Does she know me or what? Stop staring at me woman!’ Thought Swamy, still looking at the woman keenly. 

 ’No! She cannot.’ The wind whistled lowly. ‘Only the one made for this can do so. She can have visions you cannot, but she cannot her me.’ It hummed softly. ‘It’s only on occasions that I appear. That too for the people who are trying to hide their geniuses and deceive the universe. It ain’t your fault, you know.’ A voice whispered, making her freeze. 

Legs trembling, Swamy stood up and with the urgency of a matter important as life and death looked everywhere around her to grasp the source of it. ‘It certainly cannot be breeze. It doesn’t talk.’ She told herself, still looking everywhere. ‘And it wasn’t I. Who is it?’ She wanted to yell, however, the population around the station abstained from her doing so. She looked at the place where the woman with green eyes stood a second ago to find it vacant. An old lady with two toddlers stood there reading from her magazine. 

Swamy snapped her head in every direction, but could not grasp a single sight of the mysterious lady. 

‘And so, does the bat, but then you have seen it talking too. Stop avoiding me, Swamy. I am no evil, but a friend.’ It spoke with insane gravity, making ice cube slip down her stomach. No, it wasn’t her brain. It could not be. Then who was it? 

‘You are nothing but an illusion. Stop being a moron, Swamy! Stop thinking. It is you, of course. Who else it could be? Probably another hallucination. No, not probably. It is a hallucination.’ Swamy hesitatingly stressed to herself. Still unassured whether it was the wind or her own brain playing tricks with her, she pulled her mind back and started staring at her hands, thinking ferociously.

‘I am not going to let it affect me and lose the handful of people who genuinely cares for me.’ She promised determined, and letting out a deep sigh, she looked at Mani who was staring at the other side, shoulders stiffened and fist clenched. 

‘I am sorry!’ Swamy mumbled in a faint whisper. ‘I didn’t mean to let-go on you. It is just that I am hearing voices…’ She couldn’t finish the sentence for the KonAnug Mail had started gliding on platform eight slowly. 

‘Let’s go.’ Mani hissed as she picked her bag, hung it on her shoulder and ran towards the compartment as if her ass was on fire, leaving a sulking Swamy behind her. Shellacking, she collected her backpack from the bench and started moving rather slowly when another voice howled near her ears as a gust of wind ruffled her blonde hairs. 

‘You have upset her. Very bad, Swamy. She was only trying to help you.’ The feminine voice, laced in stiffened mockery whooped again, making her shiver. She looked everywhere again, but nothing unusual fell into her vision. It was becoming intolerably creepier. 

‘I am not sure I am being nosy or something, but if you wouldn’t hurry your lazy ass up. You sure gonna miss the train.’ Snorted Mani louder than ever. Swamy looked up to see her friend already sitting behind the railing windows, waiting for her with furrowed eyebrows and fire-eyed.  

‘It’s not real!’ Swamy reminded herself. Shaking. Shivering. Sweating. She clutched the strap of the bag tightly as she boarded the train after Mani, unaware of everything that had boarded along. Something that didn’t need a ticket to board, something that could not be perceived. 

At exactly thirty past ten, the train boomed to life with a loud horn. The journey from Pahari City Centre to Anugavalli Junction took forty-five minutes in worse cases. From where one had to take a taxi or bus to make it to their respective destination. The train rattled away from Konadhu rather slowly before it picked speed and momentum.

Swamy watched the trees and valleys passing slowly, moving into mist as she tried harder to beg forgiveness from her friend who had resolved upon not paying her any attention. 

‘I am sorry. I promise I would tell you everything once we reach the college. It’s just that…just that I am facing some peculiarity.’ Swamy begged for the ninth time, but her cries fell into earphone plucked deaf ears of Mani who had her eyes focus on the bluish-green water of Himantura. 

Tired, Swamy decided to give up on her pursuit for then and too leaned upon the window. She closed her eyes tiredly, wanting to escape into a small slumber as she thought about everything that had been happening with her. Swamy despised secrets and mystery with the depth of her soul and favoured keeping things simple and obvious so long she could afford them. However, the nasty dream and the mysterious woman had been scaring her to the edge of death—contradicting her preference of mediocrities and ordinaries more than any thrilling life-changing invocation, yet she had decided to keep it a secret. She had sensed trouble with the rising indication and for obvious reasons, she couldn’t afford that. 

‘You are different!’ The roaring waves of Himantura had stormed as the train rattled past along the length of the bridge, making her quiver. Swamy opened her eyes with a snap to see nothing but the tempestuous water of Himantura. She blinked violently, only to realize that it wasn’t going to waiver. 

Terrified, she looked all around her for any sign of Mani or the co-passenger but none appeared. She was alone—as alone as she had been all her life. Still in the KonAnug Mail of 10:30, very much moving.   

Her peripheral vision caught something moving on her right. Swamy looked there. It was a wave—as splendid as setting sparkling sun then it turned into a whirl, going upwards towards the sky until nothing but the whirl could be seen. 

Swamy squinted her eyes—her mouth hung ajar as a humanly figure danced to a feature. It was a woman—the same Swamy had been seeing her supposed ‘imagination’. Cladded a skimpy skirt, she had the same veil covering her forehead and hair. A silver ewer jingled with the wind terribly as golden, red, and green light spread from the creak of its cap. The wooden rod, only one of its kind hung in the air. 

The woman (a witch or ghost, Swamy could not determine) flew closer and closer until she was away but at eye level with her. And for the first time in her life, Swamy could feel an emotion she hadn’t felt—belonged. The woman had sparkling golden eyes like that of gold. A downward pyramid was engraved on her forehead that was twinkling at a stable pace and so was the two parallel lines that stretched from the lips to the jawline.       

‘Congratulations!’ She spoke softly. Her voice was stable and familiar for it was the same Swamy had been hearing throughout her days. 

‘Congratulation? Oh, I certainly do not want to be congratulated to be deported at a place where nothing make sense. Thank you very much woman! Now tell me who you are and why in the god damn hell you are congratulating me?’ Swamy wanted to say, but upon opening her mouth only air huffed out of it, not words. 

The woman’s golden eyes widened with anguish and her flying body stiffened. She stared at Swamy with intensity and spoke in a stern voice. 

‘I cannot believe you just thought that!’ She roared inching closer and becoming larger. 

‘She can read brain? What the hell?’ Swamy gaped again, clapping her palms on the mouth. 

‘Well obviously I can and I want to tell you that… you…ah…You have managed to dodge the signs longer enough to invoke my presence in person. I am not amused to scare a frightened chicken like you away. You are only in the generations to do that. For a moment, I doubt if you belong to the Sanuali hierarchy. Your ancestors were smarter, courageous, and braver than that. A dozen dreams and you still took no steps for accomplishment. I don’t understand what the soul of the universe wants this time! Alas…’ The woman paused and huffed a breath giving time for Swamy to cower back. She had still not got her ability to speak again, however, she could think perfectly fine. 

‘Such fate! Getting insulted from ghosts dressed scantly too. Have some shame, Swamy!’ 

 ’Hawww! How dare you? It is nowhere near scanty and I am not a ghost, you hear me. have some decency—you are meeting a princess, a witch and a royal ancestor-’ 

‘I don’t see three people here!’ Swamy thought, mentally rolling her eyes. 

‘Because I am in one! Stop thinking!’ She yelled and suck in as large breath as an ocean. 

‘Umm…how about you stop reading my brain?’ Swamy thought timidly, still scared, wide-eyed and mute. 

‘I cannot. I am blessed with the ability. Do not think and listen to me carefully.’ The woman paused, looking heavenwards before she cast a serious look on Swamy. ‘I have come here to complete the business and it’s important.’ She said, tiredly. 

‘It must better be for you almost made me pee in my pants. Scanty woman!’ deliberated Swamy. 

 ’I SAID, STOP THINKING!’ Yelled she and on the queue, Swamy heard roars of thunder in the sky. ‘I just wish Peril had sent somebody else for the invocation.’ She muttered under her breath before speaking. ‘LOOK HERE, SWAMY, I am Sugata. Your ancestor and princess of the forest. I am here to tell you that you have a hero within you and you must persuade to discover it. Invoke what’s hidden before it gets too late. Somebody is waiting for you, Swamy. He is dangerous and very evil. He is powerless right now, but soon he will regain his power and use every bit of it for destruction. You are running out of time and if you keep on wasting it on your worthless dilemmas, everybody is going to lose everything.’ Sugata whispered shooshing with the wind more ferociously and Swamy felt like tearing her hairs in agitation.

‘You are not real. I cannot hear you!’ She muttered aloud more to herself than to Sugata whose attention she had unconsciously caught. 

‘I cannot believe you are for real woman. I am standing right at front of you, trying to make you understand yet you…Damn woman! Are you dumb for real?’ Sugata threw her hands in disbelief, staring at Swamy in pure irritation. 

She flew closer and stood an inch away from Swamy as she spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Yes, little twerp you can! Stop using this worthless brain of yours and listen to be. There is no use ignoring me. I am as real as you are. Get up and follow the signs. It all lies within you. Remember, THE BEGINNING IS THE END. HURRY YOU NEED FIND IT BEFORE HE DOES. FOLLOW THE DREAM.’ It arose with wild velocity, reaching to an octave where Swamy could hear nothing but the voice.

Quivering violently, Swamy closed her eyes and covered her ears by clapping both the palms on each side. For a moment or two, she feared that she was going to lose her listening ability permanently. Then there was the momentary stinging sensation in her eyes. Her blonde hairs flew in all directions as the wind reached higher and then suddenly became eerily calm.

Swamy first removed the hands away from her ears and then slowly opened her eyes, blinking timidly. Mani’s red face with flared nostril welcomed her back. She decided she could not handle it solely and so hugging her friend, she sobbed out the whole story until they reached the college where fired-eyed Professor Sharma greeted them with a heavy punishment of drafting a fictional novel within a week.