Few things… Unclaimed

Prologue

In the end of December, 2014, just a few days before the New Year, I happened to see an article on the Times paper about unclaimed properties being buried by the county of the Bengal Municipal Corp. They didn’t have to go and I thought it was a nice gesture on behalf of their part. Besides, it was to be the New Year night, when several hundred people’s soul would feel free to drive upon the sky as their unclaimed and unchained remains would be graved silently. It was relatively happy news for me until I noticed that the burial included the remains of two children. That changed my day, my happiness. Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth and happiness in every way.

I discovered there were two unclaimed children being included to a far-too-numerous newborn babies and adults. They were known to me. A fourteen year old girl and a ten year old boy, whose names were now in public record, were certainly acquainted to me in any way. Their memories haunted me, both of theirs.

I am finding it pretty ironic from my previous book how one can simply dumb his or her children out there? How? Did their parents just not have a few bills of money to feed them or were the children truly dumped? My heart breaks down because, certainly, there might not be anyone to grieve for their dumped lives. They were among the few things… that were unclaimed.

Well, someone gave them a life, gave them names. There was one girl… that one girl, who kept them attached to the womb for nine months… and later, they were just abandoned. They deserved to be claimed. But they weren’t. Do I have the right to know who they were, what happened to them? Did their private lives end when they were dumped? I am not a journalist or a lawyer… but a passionate write with vivid imagination…

Perhaps, I thought to imagine it and write a story as to what happens to them, how their lives work out till the last. I write this piece to deliver a mental peace to my mind… to all those suffering souls that were abandoned…

 

It was unusually cold, even being into a December day, Chandrika thought. She pulled on her calfskin and the gloves to the fullest extent and rolled out off from the car. Setting the cane aside, she fussed with the flowers that she brought to set on Robert’s tomb. She knew they’d remove them soon enough or it would be withered by the cool wind by the night, but she’d still spent her money and did it anyway. The money didn’t matter. Money was just bills of paper with an official currency. It was just money. All that mattered was Robert, and he was gone long, long ago. Too long ago.

She took the newspaper out from her underarm, where she’d read the news article over a cup of orange juice and scrambled egg this morning. She deliberately had been pushing herself, to keep the inner light glowing into her life. It was hard. After so many years, all she’s left with is the med problems in her life, her ageing, her aches and pains creeping into every hinges of the system, her infirmities and the long-ago-drained happiness.

She unfolded the paper against the cool breeze and pressed her gloved hand against the joints. Decembers in Darjeeling had always been snowy and cool.
“There must be something we can do to it, Dom.” She said him. She prettily knew that he would’ve wanted to do something but didn’t without her due permission. He was the one who wanted kids. She was the one who wanted to wait. She was the one who wanted to develop her career first before indulging into family chores. She wanted the upward mobility, the modest wealth and political power at the first place.

She had been enjoying her life up till now, being a part of the social décor, the gallery opening, and the chitty chatty with famous men and of course, rubbing the elbows with the entrepreneurs at their visit to the vivid city of snow – she loved being a part of it all. And she loved being in the muscular arm of her dashing handsome guy, teasing him with a ‘not yet prepared’ slogan for a family. Not just yet, she would say with a chuckle to ease the heat of the moment, while being into the bed, breathing soft and hard alternatively. A little longer, she would have said longingly and slowly, teasing him and making him wait for the right time.

And then there was this day, when he was not there to wait anymore. He was gone, before anything could take place at the first hand. She had recalled their memories together; she pondered and made a downfall of her eyes to the greedy ground tiles. She wished to get back into time and change everything. A paper from the assigned doctor revealed his heart stopped, out of nowhere. The words still reverberated in her ear as the nurse explained as to what happened to him. She pulled the outworn scarf close around her head, covering the meek ears.

She shook the paper again, struggling to hold it against the breeze. Focused, she implemented with intensity. Domnic, she thought, what are we going to do with this – this, this child… She turned over to the article that had been circled and spotted by a pencil an hour ago. Anjali, surname: unknown, whose cremated body remains would be buried into an unknown region in the south along with thousand unclaimed souls, babies and adults who’d died confidentially within the last two years.

Miles away, she looked into the south of the hills. The Christian region into the city was limited to some extents and there lied another burial office where already hundred watchmen had arrived. She could clearly see them with candles cradled over their hands. Only did the shimmering dot of the lights were visible from the distance. She knew many would be present there – the father, the official governor and the staffs and the bishop. Christians all over the region would accommodate with the grief of the unclaimed and then they would be graved and she knew that would be the end to all of it. She knew that after a month, no one would remember the loyal initiative that the Municipal took and no one would remember the souls.

Half an hour later, she found herself standing next to Anjali’s tomb. And mourning about the fact that there was no one to see her go. At least, the cold wind was gone and was invisible at this portion of the hills. The sun had shown its light and the rain had already flushed off the walls of the cloud. A bird was tweeting and piping happily.

She stooped and placed a fresh daisy upon the tomb. A simple yet fresh: while daisy. The plainest of all flowers and perhaps the simplest, she had thought while stooping down with her jacket loosing off its weight. It was not even of a ten rupees note. She wasn’t being cheap. She wanted the free soul of Anjali to experience the commonness and beauty of that single daisy rather than feeling the cost that was to be tagged along with it. Purity comes from heart but not from the wealth that you have.

 

“I’ll take him,” Chandrika Joseph said, pacing across the pathway.

“What?” Carrillo Tirkey asked, not being sure as to what he heard and even if he heard the correct thing, he wanted to ignore it and wanted to rehear it once again.

“I’ll take him.” She repeated, choking to her voice. “I’ll take him and I’m going to bury him. The burial office isn’t far from here.” She looked up to Carrillo.

Carrillo Tirkey, Assistant Bishop Christian Charity Constituent Examiner, chuckled and looked back, wiping his upper lip with the knuckles of his left hand. “You certainly can’t ‘take him’” “He isn’t yours.”

“He isn’t mine – you said so?” she raised her eyebrows at the equal length piercing her gaze into the examiner’s. She’d now made a point and she knew it perfectly.

He knew it too. Heaving a sharp breath, he signed with his arms motioning into the air, “You can’t do this, Mrs. Smith.” He turned away from the cabinet towards the mountain of papers sited at one corner of his desk. “It isn’t done this way.”

“Then how is it done, tell me?” She kept pace with him.

Carrillo adjusted the stand fan that had just hit Chandrika Smith on her elbow on its motioning from left to right. She knew Carrillo was wishing she would go away right now but said nothing about it. “You would need paper works from the court to show up your rights.” He’d finally said, breaking the two-minutes silence into the room.

“A court order?” She repeated.

In return, the examiner nodded. 

 

“And why would you want to do that?”

“Because I’m an old woman with lots of money stashed within,” she let the middle-aged grey haired attorney to be stewed for a second as she pierced her gaze within his eyeballs. “And I’ll give you some of it too if you help him to adopt me.”

Attorney, Singhania just stared at her, not moving his gaze, not shaking his elbow that supported on the desk, not stopping the mindless tapping of the click ball pen upon the pad of papers. After a long gaze, he stared gleefully at the clock, and then laughed feebly, “Somebody has washed your brain to do such a horrible thing, I don’t know who, but when I find out,” he chuckled more loudly to control his frustrations. “I’m going to sue him this New Year.”

She blinked with no certain expression on his face. Realizing the situation, the attorney cut short his chortle and navigated back to the scene.

“You aren’t kidding, are you?” He crashed his head freely into the desk with a vacant thud, and then pulled back steadily.

She slid an envelope – grey in colour with old dots of yellow stain and with a smell of cold woods – across the table, its heart being too stuffed for the attorney to grab its attention.

“This should cover all expenses.” She stated wryly.

“And then some,” he noted.

The white and the yellow and the greenish grey daisies stood out lovingly against the tall field into the county borders of the state. When happiness is once gone, only good memories and a good person can bring them back home, Chandrika thought. “Look here, Dominic” She said out loud, loud enough for her to hear her sound echo back from a distance into the far hills. Hardly ever she did this earlier. “It’s beautiful. It has our memories with it.” She cried out loud, literally howling.
“Bless him,” she whispered madly after a hard stroke of echo.
“O, Domnic, take him with you, bless him. You wanted him.” She looked upto the sky. “It’s all that I can give you.”

 

In December, just a few weeks before the Christmas, when no one noticed, the names of the unclaimed remains were published into the daily Times. Those were the once that were to be buried by the Municipal Corporation along with the cooperation of the Bishop and of the Mayor. They would be dumped into a goddamned hole and would be covered forever. A few pages later, it said about some anonymous multi-billionaire, who had taken the initiative to invest his savings in building a rehabilitation centre for homeless child, where they would be given the basic happiness in life. “We’re shocked. We really don’t know who made the transaction of such a huge amount of money into the government’s wallet for this single purpose.” The article said featuring the Chief Minister. “We thank this angel, whoever he or she is or wherever the angel is.”

The two years had changed everything. A year later after the burial of Chandrika Smith, the trust foundation traced the money to be transacted from her wallet account. She had given all of her money and became one of those unclaimed soul, whose grave was nicely décor by bouquets after the clearance of the case as to who donated the money. A day before the revealing of the evidences, no one seemed to have cared about that ugly uncleaned grave across the yard that was simply plotted by the priest but was not enclosed by round of relatives. Chandrika’s life was limited. She had nothing to be described, yet her and her husband’s savings were not in vein. The Smith Foundation was what the mayor named it.
A day before anyone knew who donated the money, no one cared about the Smiths and now, it seemed they were soaked by her death…

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