Tears of nature

padmaja909 · Aug 21, 2012

Nature's tribute

That winter I was on the threshold of my teenage.

I turned thirteen that winter. I always envied those who were born in January, and often complained to God that he could have waited a few days to bring me into this world. Then I could celebrate my Birthday on new year

The place my father was posted at that time was a picture postcard. An unknown cousin of Ooty, a small colony surrounded by hills on three sides. On fourth side there was a check post manned 24 hours, noting all the vehicles entering in and going out. There was a small lake with water lilies and red and white lotus floating on it.

Now thirteen is an age of abundant energy. We were ready to conquer world. We had our winter break. Every morning we a group of five girls used to go for cycling. My only worry while sleeping was I could not get up early enough, and miss the morning fun.

It was a cold and foggy Monday, when we all decided to change our usual route and go towards the mountains after an energetic ride uphill, the five of us decided to stop a while to get the breath back. All the bicycles were kept at the side and we all settled on small rocks gossiping about school, teachers and boys in general. Suddenly Gita said,"Kunda told me about nair today."Kunda was the girl who came from nearby village to clean and wash at our houses. This statement roused our interest. We had been hearing about Nair on and off from adults, But none of us knew the full story.

So that foggy morning we all gathered in a tight circle and prepared to listen to an interesting gossip. The climate was cold, and chilly. It was very quiet all around us. There was a thin man made path running near us leading to the top of the hills. We knew that on the other side there was a similar trail leading down the hill towards the factory. Some staff and workers without vehicles used this as a shortcut, to reach the factory. But that day being a Sunday they were also sleeping cozily under their blankets. The mist was playing hide n seek with the trees and hills. Sometimes they could be clearly seen, and the next moment the mist gathered them among its cold embrace and hid them. Gita said," there is a man called nair in the factory, do you know that he is mad?" Now that was old news, we wanted something new. She said,' he always wears spotless white shirt and trousers and holds an umbrella in his hands. But never opens it in any weather. Strangely after every few steps he stops mumbles something and opens and closes his umbrella few times, and proceeds like as if he did nothing peculiar." We all started speculating the reasons for his strange behavior Ruby said," may be it's a form of exercise."Smita said," he must be learning new dancing" Pixy made her voice eerie and said," may be he is talking with ghosts" for a second we were too scared to react, then all four of us fell on her beating her playfully.

Suddenly Shalu shouted, "see" when we all turned to see, what did we see but among the mist far away faintly one white figure with a black umbrella moving towards us. He didn't seem to be focused on anything. We all got a scare of our life and rushed towards our bicycles to dash away from there The moment we moved towards our cycles there was big boom. We almost jumped out from our skins, with our hearts in our mouth we turned back, there was a big rock lying at the place where we were sitting a moment ago. Apparently some loose rock rolled down from the top. We didn't need another warning to leave that place. The skin of our teeth saved us. During this rush we forgot completely about nair, and he was also lost somewhere among the mist.

That afternoon while having our lunch I asked my father about nair.he gave me a long look and said,' where did you hear about Mr.Nair?"I said,' I heard people talking" he said,'Mr nair is a quiet fellow who never harmed anyone, eventhough people say he is a little eccentric sometimes, he is good at his work. Incidentally he works under me and is on a leave now. He is supposed to come back tomorrow." I was surprised at this information but thought may be he came back today and supposed to join duty tomorrow. My dad said again," do u know Anu, he likes these hills and surrounding nature so much that he rarely goes away on vacations This time also he went to kerala after five years for his nephew's marriage, that too after so many phone calls from his brother"."Doesn't he have a family?" I asked little curiously. "Hmmmmm, no I heard his wife died in a cyclone just few days after marriage, and he never married again." While we were talking, a call came from the factory. He talked for sometime, giving strange looks to me, and just saying yes, no hmmm, is it so? then he came to me and said,"its so strange that we were talking about Mr.Nair, and I received a sad news about him." I stopped eating my food I felt something preordained, as if I knew what his next words were going to be. He said," Mr. nair is not coming back now he met with a fatal accident in kerala, he is no more My face became pale," when did this happen?" I asked." Two days back." my dad replied.

But we saw him today I thought, shocked beyond words. We never dared to tell this to any adult I felt that he already came back to be with his beloved nature, or may be to pay his last tributes to the mountains, and mist and trees which he loved more than the people around him. and in the process saved us from a very big accident . And the mist and dewdrops were the nature's way of saying goodbye to him. Who are we to question the laws of nature?