SANCTUARY Novel
Madathil Narayanan Rajkumar
ONE 1 The projected area was close to the white structure that was disguised by a brier and an array of birches. The watchman had a smile that revealed his shrewdness of observation and he was nonchalant rather than rude,generally speaking, but they said he was a good man. While walking, the elder crushed the stone beneath his footwear with extraordinary vigour as if he offered vent to a mysterious malignity. The little granules in his eyes that started late made him uneasy at interludes and a part of the sharp change he made in his lifestyle was past anybody’s comprehension. He had a stick with a metallic edge which he used routinely not for its right reason but to demonstrate that he could act nimbly and may be superior to anybody, his imaginary foe he saw in those afternoon slumbers. In his dreams, he seldom lost a duel. This was not due to any special upbringing, but his recent changes of thought he acquired in his recent company that was a horde of competitors for a trophy. He took in the courtyard under yew trees and the use of a wand is to strike and the goal could be anything. It does not by and large make a difference. Every end of the week he went for wrestling contests, and he hoped it made him lose a few pounds around his tummy walls. But otherwise, he was happy. He did not laugh often but when he did so, the whole room reverberated with the sounds and since his room was close to the jetty and the workers often shouted outside the well-framed walls, it's all mixed together in a ludicrous orchestra, a new symphony yet to create……Today is Saturday. His day off from labour. But he did not dodge activity altogether, as he desired to be in touch with some former buddies of his college, and though he dropped out miserably, he still kept his connections. One was the undersecretary who was amongst his gang of mirth finders when they used to go to the town and later in the movie in a multiplex and later still for a late supper with sleazy liquor after which all involved in irrelevant symposia. The undersecretary too. It was quite late that he qualified for the civil examination, in the third attempt and step by step advanced to the cadre of the undersecretary.People like him, he maintained associations. First just the pleasure of meeting an old mate, but later for mutual help, as his wife got a posting to the current town because of his recommendation, and he will go to their house or send his nephew to collect their electricity and water dues and pay them in time……This is all about our watchman. But our story is something else. It obviously tells the story of three girls in a mental asylum, not at a time old, but in the recent era. That was the manner in which he appeared a cultivated 1
heroism that he got from youth. He was the first child of a woman in the village, who by calling was a village assistant. Essentially living among the monks and many gulls………When he was around twelve years, he was compelled to drop out and his little desire was ruined. He additionally earned a bizarre propensity for recounting falsehoods and this placed him in disagreeable circumstances; he had no child nor any heir. At that point. I may state that a portion of the deficiencies rested with his mom who disclosed to him astute falsehoods when she returned home late. Maybe she was the nobleman who gave her costly displays. Maybe she was in the market to purchase vegetables for the family. Her better half sat in the armchair drinking all the time and beat him and his more youthful sibling who was eight years, then when on senseless reasons when he was angry with them for killing his pet divert in the television…..No child is conceived wicked. The closed room. In any case, the damnation of that. You perceive that toward the end of your genuine work, that is not as extraordinary as and respectable on the off chance that you are occupied with their organization or in an in the organization of card games being. To be perfectly honest, I like the organization of young women. ………This is on the grounds that they treat you deferentially first since you are a man and afterwards you are over their age helping them to remember their dad or uncle. Once in a while, I talk about private things with them. Since they need to talk about such things to their sentimental partner and they think you are not fit for such stuff. This raises you in a superior position, now and again a philosophical one, where you watch the back and forth movements and their statures of life from a superior point. You all of a sudden find in the lady your own life partner two or three decades prior and your own particular hot contemplations concerning her and how the desire of life at each point was not even the value of a tuppence, only a joke of one day on the off chance that you could see them that way………..As of late, I went in a ship like an eatery in the country. The servers were altogether dressed like privateers and the point of the inn is to draw in individuals, rich ones who could spend tremendous sums in a solitary supper. At the point when you turn out after the sumptuous sustenance, your first sight is on the road, young men who can’t manage the cost of a small amount of the supper you had. It is possible that you go bleak. Or, on the other hand, out of philanthropy, what a mean thing to even display it. Besides, you are flustered about your low otherworldly status and the then end the day on another flimsily thought………..He came from the room when the sexton addressed him on the philosophical significance of Voltaire’s plays and the riddle plays. Asinine, that was his rejoinder to a gigantic exertion from ricocheting back… he kept the beat, his particular cadence so intimate to the waterways in a muddy autumn with staggering figures and dolls in human 2
shapes from far beyond, rejected silhouettes in a world that lets out mercilessly the chaff… Many times he was strolling into the edge of the abbey with a forked eye and catching the hand of his more juvenile sibling and the latter vanishing suddenly into the thick of night, from the sash window, she looked the young matron with a coffee-colored hair tender and cathartic at first sight and falling like a torrential slide by the marble edges of the lanes and the flagstones in those cool September months, when her father came from the city, all happy for a new rise and here in the lobby, his boisterous voice drowned in champagne but her mind in another clamorous whisper they often pass on to the passionate rhythms of presence, a similar one he collected in an open bistro when a young lady entered the hall with a thick-rimmed book and her bohemian friend and further the genuflexion of figures behind rugged breezes and the uproar……… 2 Her closest friend was Liz Sebastian, a young lady who began from Northumberland and had a little cleavage between her front teeth. She used to keep running with her for supper that was served outside the lobby when it was stacked with visitors. Mary’s family was scattered after her father’s death.He was in truth away as a rule of her initial youth. His stay in various European urban groups was profitable in a budgetary sense ,however far from that it included quite a while of sadness to her mother…. She was far off from every other person or either by her mother in Connecticut as a general rule her senior sister being hitched and was away and far in another state passing by at Christmas or Easter. However, her mother kept the house impeccable and arranged just as she expected the passage of her better half at whatever point. The blinds were of the shade of Patriarch. The stack of the lounge chair was either sandy beat or sheen green depending upon the slant of her mother…. At whatever point she saw those tones additionally not far off, they evoked the memories of her youth. Her kin married a lady of Asian dive and was in Burma, staying in one of the towns by the Salween and the family’s contact with him was generally through letters.It was a good time of delight night. She supported a shade of pale carmine than dull. The tears dropped from her eyes without her knowing it, she couldn’t correctly recall the causes, it was all pearl aqua….cornflower blue, pale cyan, pale magenta pink, pale taupe, the colour of Patriarch, pearl aqua, persimmon, pistachio, prune, redwood, sage, sandy beat, sangria, sheen green…From the parlour entered a brawny man who passed on a thick record of report pulled under his armpit and releasing at steady between times to dispose of some not too beguiling thought. Two marble statues, of primitive shades, were in the alley near the garden entrance. Had a sparkling colour of marble and in the 3
inward room which was just a side passage far from the place visitors sat, his dad rested day and night and further days into seasons and all the spring and the seasons. Day and night Outfitted towards the hopelessness individuals, to whom he needed altogether to offer support. The individual had estimations of Thorazine ….Her mother worked as a beautician in state recovery concentration wards. He had a big car which she used sparingly, only for the Sunday visit to the church and other more important acts. Her sisters were both bipolar, yet were as time goes on cured by medications and activities, she emulated energetic exercise design-…..Cassandra was the first to respond to the inquiries of the director as she was not in a penchant for persevering pointless pokers for a long time and before Jeanne could interfere and close things down… and the past would turn up and cut things abruptly and all over egotistically. Regardless, the intriguing thing was that the other saw his oversight much of the time and pulled once again from also hitting into -they utilized wet established cover, paraldehyde to rest around evening time. ….There were three of them in that room. All at different times of youth. Martin was the eldest ,in his late twenties who all finished going about as a father figure, which gave him an extraordinary kind of fulfilment. In truth, Martin had no memory of his father as he got out that country instantly after he was found irresolute in his work and the private insurance where he worked preferred young people who were ready to work on a lower salary. Finally, after sweating for many years, he found himself not able to rise to the company’s standards and found that he could not meet the targets on time. The superior was, in fact, his junior some time ago, but since he denied a promotion, he was asked to remain in the lowest rung and finally this man became his boss at work, and after assuming that position, he started changing his ways. So many threaten in a short time. Moreover, he developed a kidney problem in the recent years and a stone appeared in one of them, causing much pain and concern, and slow periods of rest and relaxation, started to be less conspicuous, though at times he craved them badly and more. And there were no data on his family threads except that his mom was an accomplice in a company run by a private group of bankers who charged heavy interests on small sums and the repayment options were quite strict that unless you pay the dues in time, they will get away with your valuables, and they retained a whole retinue of forces for that purpose. There she met her future husband who became his father.In a diary of his late father which he unearthed in a glorious moment when old papers were sorted out and the useless items were sent to fire- Here he got a very valuable treasure, his father’s old diaries of youth, not all those years, but about two and a half years when he lived liberally out of his youthful depths. Then he met his mother. There was the address of the hotels and even some hotel bills at the end of the book, old, torn and somewhat dirty, 4
still easily comprehensive and clear.Deolali- September 2- !94-who was the pioneer of that division. Martin would never modify with his stepfather, however, the last was to some degree worried about his attempts. As a general rule, one even engaged him in his baseball matches. In any case, Martin anticipated that would remain in a lodge three dynamic years from his family and in that period he got hard drinking. In the first place it began as a framework, yet later it formed into a liking from which he couldn’t be free away himself completely. …….Summer was over. He was displayed with respect to what was happening. Enable it to travel everywhere. He is not bothered concerning the result. This was sensibly an assurance, he comprehended that exceptionally well. The brilliance that was impacting in her eyes that was more similar to an idea overall than anything unconstrained. The eyelashes that meticulously moved incidentally. Maybe for a moment, she disregarded that she was a man with all the versatility that the Eternal Giver gave her at the time of first involvement with the world that must be blocked from guaranteeing in her passing. What a reasonable plan to oversee us forever, particularly every so often of an emergency. She once on her strolls attempted to analyze a stray canine’s eyes, a puppy that was resting gently close to the way of a building and trying to see whether the look in it passed on any noteworthiness…….It was a hard summer and sweltering, particularly sweltering and the general open in their clothing got themselves sprinkled in the seat and they couldn’t free themselves from the aroma reminiscent of the bits of dress that made them irritable. There was a social event beginning from the northern end of the market and each and every one of the far-reaching bunch who came there talked in an enthralling tongue and their improvements had that secured limit that found anybody seeing from far and made them curious of the secured data. It must be another style of lack of sleep that particular their friends and family could change over into assurance. …….The largeness of such an affiliation is attempting and one can’t put stock in any such thing from the base. Well, take some drive, whatever came later and discovered strong, take them. While taking them, offer significant thanks to them. Mary was restricted in the battle; she somehow got a kick out of the opportunity to watch the scene from the division. Accurately when the official came, everything will be settled……Liz was by no amped accessible all. She required adaptability; opportunity from the grip of the elderly who she recognized impacted her to do work that is underneath her regard levels. She attempted to revolt against it all, however unsuccessfully and her exercises were captivating yet clear to the all-inclusive community who knew her vigorously. She, not the scarcest piece expected that would open her inner feelings to anybody in the universe, not to her sister who was only a year higher setting than her.She, genuinely hated these individuals, these 5
people from her family who according to her choice where one broad gathering of fakes, thriving in the difficulties of others. ……….They as demonstrated by her contemplations did not respect any living being, not even themselves. They were all the once massive bundle of worry warts offering other’s residual parts and making a few bucks there. When, she cried to her class teacher that she couldn’t have cared for her family, especially her mother and the best way to deal with overseeing have a splendid life is to act in opposition to her lifestyle. In truth, she loathed her mother insistently. To begin with for not being a better than average great case as she figured other young women’s mothers might be. Moreover, not caring for her from the significance of the heart, which she was prepared to offer, and expected this was the scariest thing a mother can do or should do. Likewise, other than it is the very root thing of the identity of a mother in wherever, any overall population, any civilization…. …Her mouth was spilling out. She had a house in Blauvelt. With the skeleton keys her late aunt presented before passing out in the cold evening she drove back from the Marine Drive, opening the fourth chapter of the book she treasures, an epistle of an aristocratic dude-…. Now fairly live with a sink and hotplate, card games and amusements…..She was in a field far past the sanctuary. One night, the young ladies got an endorsement from the chief to go out however on the condition that they would come in two hours. The three young ladies were under the charge of Clara, who was the most established of all. Clara worshipped it to some degree as she valued every occasion to execute master. She doubted any Heathcliff figure is concealing or the sound of mutts, notwithstanding when pleasing, still pooches. The most youthful, Mary was fascinated by a wild, yet muddled packaging and they set out to go close it and was gotten by the potential results of finding a surrender. Could be before the visit of a pastor or some other being………Liz spent that winter in the quarters. Her companion had not begun from Lithuania. This was not an upbeat time as her personality was concerned; still, she understands how to stay. She had done various bungles in that season that was fit to draw in the anger of the administrator. He obviously anticipated that would take a calm view on these things. He felt that things would be settled,however without his mediation. A few colts were seen moving. They were when in doubt beginning from the other edge of the garden where a few shrubberies had starting late withered in isolation, might be an aftereffect of nonappearance of rainwater…A time of colts and pros and pedagogues. Cassandra was sick of her uncle’s direct in this season. He showed up and when she was in her room appeared. her dad had impartially manoeuvred again into the hinterland in light of the fact that his pro lived there. Other than it was the period of wine and sifting through and moreover some of his old partners lived there.She was angry with everything and life when all is 6
said in done and endeavoured to put more vitality in suggestive examinations, parsonage, and weaving. ……Right when her father came back from the shower, the Sussex float she had changed to such a level, to the point that affirmation was impossible. His disease now in an awful express, the family specialist’s recommendation that the time had come to part-and in the midst of the latest day he didn’t talk by any methods. Not to his loved ones. In any case, to Cassandra, he motioned TWO Second Narrator This is another variant of the tale you have just scanned. You may ask why this rendition is necessary and I will answer-The earlier narrative was my friend’s version to the tale, the first part of the long story the editor gave him and about its outcoming, he was the least gladdened. Then the editor approaches me and gives the assignment to write the tale from another slant. As you may gauge ,I have qualms about my long suit to finish such a tale. Though I had some schooling in literature and philosophy, and have read some nice books in the youth. after 30 not much. After 40 two or three good ones per year. Of course, it was my habit to loiter in book stalls and fritter away time free reading, some interesting literature, but when it came to buying books, my wife dissuaded me by citing the stories in my family, regarding, children’s school rickshaw fare, uniform,lease,,water bill etc. And rarely I bought a book, but sporadically went to the library, to read some , in the little leisure time I got. When that phase was over, I was left with some time at my command and also some good friends. The story goes like this-The editor when he read the above portrayal of my friend thought with valid reason that the writer is unnecessarily laborious in the description and uselessly baroque, and he should control his abilities in such a way to impress the reader by a genuine note rather than a long-winded tale. Small is enough, he said to me in private, and that time we were slouching in a tavern. It was the New Year day and a collection agent of vehicles, who was his friend in that season was also with him. The collection executive was getting married next month and he promised me a card. I offered him a drink instead. The editor paid his bill separately because he belonged to an old school of thought who resembled some members of my lineage with undue emphasis on self-reliance. In fact, I had found that these
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leagues of gestures are not charming even for a day, let alone for a lifetime. That the account isn’t adequate for the reader is the whole point that the editorial manager wanted to convey. The story had in fact real connection to his life because of a certain character who was actually modelled on a kin of him, now deceased. And also he believed that a distinctive rendition for the intrigue of perusers is especially required and he gave the account to me and suggested to take a shot at it. He said it will be his mission to weave out a terrific take out of it. The supervisor then I may state is a man who does not have a specific fondness or admiration to any author all things considered on the grounds that he took the writer at par with anybody else. Well, great. So this editor was later to meet me and give me a hint to write the story separately from my point of view.So too did the agent who was his nephew. In all actuality, I am not particularly affectionate for agents in the final analysis.. Since once I was tricked out not very lightly in my early youth by an agent who got my cousin married to a sponge and because of this, the entire family had to go through an excessively jittery time.The agent hoodwinked us under the theory that the said guy was good, whereas the brick was bad enough. Much to the dismay of our family, at that era because my parents were the practical guardians of the girl. My life was about to burgeon and this bothersome business within the family affected me a lot.My vacations at that era were spent as a mediator, though with a lot of patience we could salvage the wedlock.. Further in course of time,an agent got me wrong places of residence in the two downtown neighbourhoods where I was pretty fresh. But this book agent was a sober, and maybe an honest chap, at least from first hypotheses and I was delighted to sweat with him. They, the editor and the agent together proposed to me a good sum of money as advance. Nevertheless I turned it down on the grounds that I cannot complete the narrative in the time they specified, and I will be working on it at my own pace, quite calmly, say in a duration of three years, in which time,I could accomplish my other occupations as a family chap and also a human being, and also recount the above story leisurely. I hitherto accepted a small amount of cash as an advance without any contract as such, which I thought will supplement my other incomes, in the process of living my life and writing this story. I also told the editor that I will be withdrawing any moment, in case my health is in jeopardy, which you see is a real thing in life,because writers are also human beings with all the cravings and illnesses of human beings and are subject to the rules of gravity. Fortunately my editor also held a similar view regarding authors in general and he said often to me that they are mortal 8
and also fallible, and there is seldom any reason to show airs to their fan base, which again is a lot of fragmented visionaries, in case they are such, for want of a better hypocorism in this regard.. However, this operator was a set upbeat and he said that he will do something sans patrol for me and I believed him since you know the rest of the story goes to be a cheerful winding up one. I will later be companion to him in my voyage to North and that is it. What, are my qualifications for telling this account in alternate point of view ?.Not sure. I think that I had already told you that the character in question is the editor’s kin and pet in real life. The editor was known personally to me through several mutual friends, for there is only one good club in our town and all of us were members of it, though going in it at separate times, according to our work, preference and lifestyle. About this club, I may tell in detail later. But you must be aware that my friend had read books twofold of the size I read..However,here you realize I never perused any garbage. Indian fiction, I have in truth perused just two authors. Raja Rao and G. K. Chettur. I loved both. Some Tagore in my youth. Translation, not original, Stray Birds, I think ..Gitanjali, I have taught to students in my tuition centre.It was an old copy and I got a transfer and had to move immediately and the book was with a student. Later I discovered that my understudy presented various copies of the book at the marriage receptions either to the bridegroom or to the bride. Rest is another story. . My background in brief- I was born in a South state where there are many palm trees and we children used to roam under the palm trees and sometimes under the mango trees in order to enjoy the scenes. And slowly we spent our time leisurely till we came to maturity. Then my father sent me on my 18th birthday to the Himalayan village to learn philosophy and meditation. Till my 24th age, I was there. And when I was to experience something different from the usual I felt like seeing my mother who was staying in the village. I came here and stayed with my parents, and meanwhile my father's business has dwindled and the family was subjected to severe afflictions and we had to leave our usual lifestyle and live quite below our earlier standards. This caused much alarm to my mother and she suggested that I marry from a house quite above my level and in such a way I could be safe from poverty even after she had gone from the earth. Later I did likewise, marrying a young lady of her choice and started a different life, living with my parents. Then life took me to another place where I was employed in a newspaper. You see the compeer who wrote this first part of the tale was in fact my roommate and worked in the same paper. We discussed together and wrote. He was involved in a love affair 9
then, and it moulded his style and vision, and at one point we travelled in Agra in a pulling type rikshaw and he wanted to exchange position with the driver and there was a narrow escape from an accident... The editor gave him the first assignment after two decades of this happening. By this time we were in different places following different courses. After getting this assignment, I approached my mentor for further discussion on the matter for I was in the habit of discussing crucial things with him since I have met him before 25 years. Once a very major problem regarding my married life was solved by him, and I had come to terms with my in-laws and I was grateful to him. Then after my father’s death, I was into much depression for months, and he lifted me up from that terrible mood. Now this is an area I am not much sure and I approached him in his country house. He lived in an old structure in the country and there were only two buses in that place, one in the morning and one in the evening. And I knew it and reached the junction in the morning and caught the bus which started by 9 o’clock and there were many young students on the bus and the bus was crowded and noisy..I reached his house by the time of breakfast and he was taking his breakfast and I was in a habit of eating bread and milk in that season and he ordered the items from the nearby bakery, and with sugar I ate it. He used his hands, and so did I. And his sister, a retired teacher in mathematics was with him. His wife was dead ten years ago and I had gone to the funeral as a representative of my father, as my father was close to him and my father was ill at that time.. Then we talked. And after the preliminary inquiries at the dining table, he told that we will relax and talk about it in his room. I reached his room and gave him the present that my wife had given with me, a bouquet of roses and a walking stick as I had heard that the sire had some problems in walking, due to an accident some time ago.The information I got was correct and he had definitely some problem with walking. Then I told him about the enterprise that the editor has commissioned me to write in which the newshound himself has some stake.Since one of the characters in the story in real life was the editor’s only niece whom he loved much and who had a mysterious or rather an unwholesome ending. The editor was not favourable with the earlier narration of the writer who was my colleague for some time..My mentor asked me the previous annals and read it in my presence. Strangely, he did not spend much time reading, but read fairly fast and handed over to me the papers. He said that the editor is in many ways right. The chronicle lacks many aspects.Then I asked him how I can improve upon it. My mentor put forward another question instead. Do you want to end your life as a novelist? I didn’t understand the meaning fully and looked at him 10
quizzically. Then he explained-Suppose you are spending the last week of your life on this earth and you know that you will die next week this time, will you write this novel? This story. This question partially dazed me and I said-No. He said- I guessed it having known you for all these years. So, write only on alternate days and that too one session, either in the morning or in the afternoon, and if possible not during the night. Because that is only for writers who are born as writers and like to end as writers and who are highly passionate about that art. Otherwise, who will devote such a peaceful time of life for such a pursuit? I was partially convinced. Not fully. Then he said-There are three or four fairly good druthers to live a good life, with fewer regrets though regrets are also on the pass. - One is to devote oneself for a selfless activity, a community service or a career in charity, or a calling that added meaning to humanity as one’s first option and money a secondary one, though a real one, see we have to eat and feed our kids and shelter our loved ones from rainy days and diseases. Then there is a life of a writer, a sportsman or a musician or whatever the case may be, the greatest passion in life and follow it to the root and change ways as the road reaches a blind alley- Then there is the way of a lover. A lover of everything,lover of plants, mountains, man and woman and societies, countries, landscapes, cultures, history,ethics, studies, travel..In brief, a life of love and just that now. But this again is a worthy living. Then there is the last one, which people like me follow, a life of self-contemplation, of which I need not talk much- You have prototypes in our neighbourhood, in the society we live..Which one will you follow? He became silent and I too became dumb, due to the choice that he wanted me to make regarding my career, and indirectly, I knew that he was pointing out the future assignment in one of those pigeonholes. I became silent for a few minutes. and said I want more clarity. Then he put forward an actual situation in life and told me to visualize that, as if I were the person involved in that story- Suppose a man travels from Amsterdam to Accra(was he thinking of A.B.?) and he was dying in the plane in that trip in a heart seizure, though he did not know that it will happen to him in that particular travel-and see here you are that traveller and what will be you doing in that time for a career- Which of these categories will be your option? Then I said-Now I know completely. I will choose the last one. Now after that our conference was quite relaxed. He directed me to write only two days a week. And write for five years to finish your work.Tell your editor that you can finish it only in five years[a long time, I mean] and if the editor accepts it you do it. The editor will proffer the task only if he has outstanding trust in you. 11
And you are also not going to miss anything. Because though writing the novel is your job, finishing it is only your secondary option... Then I knew what I should think and do. Then I asked him – What I will do for the rest of the days in the week- He said- Two days for exercises- for health is very important. Just a few hours and then read or listen to music or spend for family. Another day for your main activity, for which you are born on this earth, and that is not writing books. Because you can see your life apart from those books, either yours or somebody else’s- He said. He further says, write directly. Ornate prose sometimes may be seemly for some others writers, but in your state, it may be a distraction. You will be best marked when you are in minimum. Still, only a proposal, reason over it, he said. That was how we parted that day. Real writing is self pensive in itself if one can get sequestered from the book deals and ego journeys, he said that day. While getting back, he harked back to take long breathers in the process of writing, but focus the maximum while writing, neither hurrying nor lazying.Taking it as one among of these those serious activities in life, but never the ultimate one because your presence is valuable not the writing as such. I asked him further clues for writing because I have heard that he had written much in his youth, only some items published and he said that he will discuss it in our next meeting which he suggested can take place next month itself when the monsoon starts, because when the rain is falling heavily on the Malayalam soil, it is the most irie of activities to discuss good things, sipping coffee and see and feel the rain tumbling over the trees and the earth through the old wooden grills. And you will wonder like the Mughal king- If there is heaven on earth, it is here… …………………..
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