4. The Other Half

Ashi and the other one.

Ashi stared at the sleeping form of Ansh, her twin brother, and felt a sudden rush of affection. He had steadily ignored her since yesterday and even avoided making eye contact. He was definitely hiding something. And knowing Ansh’s attitude of sharing every joy and secretly suffering every pain, it was more than likely that he was having problems with Divya.

Ashi had noticed Ansh’s muddy footprints in the morning and correctly guessed that he had probably gone out during the night. But she would not press him.

Presently, Ansh was stirring. He opened his eyes and pushing himself up to his elbows, groggily stared at Ashi. Suddenly he threw his blanket aside and started flinging pillows and bed sheets everywhere.

He turned to her and growled ,”Where is it?”

Ashi raised an eyebrow. “Good morning dear brother.”

Ansh’s eyes widened. “Where is my cell phone…?”

Realization hit. The pitch of his voice escalated a couple of octaves. “Oh ff….” their mother entered the room “…ffffish!” he ended lamely. Their mother glared at him reprovingly. Ashi giggled.

He stared at Ashi wide eyed. “I threw my cell phone into the pond last night.”

Ashi stared back. “Congratulations bro, your stupidity seems to have reached new heights.”

“No seriously, I did.”

“Okay, so you did it. Why? Momentary insanity or a display of your pseudo-defensive tendency to constantly re-assert yourself in the greater scheme of the universal mish-mash?”

“My pseudo-what?”

“Oh never mind…why did you throw your cell phone into the pond?”

“To kind of get back at Divya…by the way she dumped me for another guy. Some dude called Vinay…”

“So your girlfriend leaves you for another handsome guy…”

“He’s not handsome, he has a face like a Hippo’s backside…”

“Okay your girlfriend dumps you for another guy who resembles a Hippo’s arse and you get back at her by throwing your cell into a pond. Man, I can really visualize her losing sleep over that.”

“Look, can we leave the sarcasm for until after tea? I’m really not in the mood for long explanations.”

“Sure bro, now go brush your teeth before I faint. One last question…why are you desperate for your cell now.”

“My cell contains all the passwords for my college project files…”

“And no doubt, they are all complicated passwords with no back up anywhere, right?”

“Right. But the cell didn’t fall into the lake. I can’t be sure but I think the cell hit somebody near the bank of the pond.”

“Great, let’s have tea then we’ll go hunting for people with cell phone sized bruises on their selves. And let me massage your foot now.”

For the first time since he had reached the hotel, Ansh smiled.

 

Ashi, looking at Ansh hobbling around the bank of the pond with his head bent, suddenly felt very happy. This was immediately followed by pangs of guilt.

For more than a year, Ansh had been involved with Divya. Ashi was happy for him but somehow he had moved away from his own twin sister. How she had missed those pillow fights, those conspiracies against stupid relatives, those long nights when they slept on the terrace and bitched about every person on the planet…the list was endless. And then after Divya came into his life, Ashi watched with growing apprehension as her once playful and lovable brother slowly lost his good humor, became a spoilsport, a party-pooper, the black sheep in the family who was branded as an incurable good-for-nothing. During the past one year, whenever she had looked into Ansh’s eyes, beyond the defiant expression she could see a plea for help, for release from his self inflicted punishment…a desperate cry to his twin sister who was barely two minutes older to him and yet much more matured…

And now she had him back to herself. She knew she was being very selfish but he definitely looked much happier now and that gave her a greater satisfaction than anything else.

Presently Ansh walked to where she was sitting and shook his head.

“Can’t find it anywhere…”

“Are you sure it didn’t fall in the water?”

Ansh turned towards the pond and shook his head again. “It was quite silent and lonely last night, I would have heard a splash. Instead I heard a scream…”

His voice trailed off. He stared at the water for a moment. “That’s strange, the water is rippling.”

Ashi got up and stood near him. “There’s nothing strange in that, a kind of small waterfall empties into this lake from near that cliff over there. Do you expect the water to remain still?”

Ansh turned towards her. “But it was perfectly still last night. I remember that apart from occasional ripples due to air currents, the water was completely still.” He turned back to the pond. “But that can’t be right, can it?”

Silence prevailed for a few minutes as the twins stood and watched the rippling surface of the pond. Then Ansh, with his unnerving ability of popping up with the most random question, asked “So, do you fancy that guy or what?”

Ashi became alert. “Which guy?”

Ansh grinned his trademark grin which sometimes made Ashi want to choke him. “That guy you were staring at during breakfast. Nice looking bloke. I think he’s married.”

*****

 

The little girl sat on a small rock near the bank and began to weep. It was neither day nor night. Time was immaterial. A wind blew but it did not rustle the leaves nor disturbed the dust. The world was unchanging except for the pond. The pond had now stopped rippling and that is why the girl was weeping.

For years she had sat on the same rock and waited for her papa. Had she waited for years? Decades? Centuries? She didn’t know. She didn’t care. She only wanted to see her papa again. She knew that she had to wait near the pond, her world did not exist beyond it. Even her papa was trapped near the pond. And yet they were so far away.

The water had stopped rippling. This meant that she would once again start seeing the ghosts. Sometimes she saw her papa but that was rare and even then he never spoke to her. The hope of seeing her papa again was the only reason she didn’t shut her eyes now.

The surface of the pond was now completely still. Out of nowhere, an object came flying through the air and landed at the little girl’s feet. She clutched at her ears and let out a piercing scream that rent the non-existent atmosphere. Her scream subsided into sobs as she cried for her papa. The object was alien to her. It was small, black and rectangular in shape. It had some numbers on it. Her papa had taught her how to read. She read the letters N-O-K-I-A on the object but could not make any sense out of it.

The surface of the pond started rippling again.