A 'Photo' Sensored Cuckoo

The naked branches of the cedar trees were slowly getting dressed with white flakes of snow. The twilight was the dullest time of the day. Atleast that’s what I felt. The toddlers of the street were fighting it out on the snowy terrain with snowballs to adorn their faces, pale with cold. The note from my husband was still stuck on the refridgerator.


“Honey,

Urgent call. Pardon me. Ceylon trip. Would be back in a week. I haven’t forgotten that its our wedding day in a week, so I will make it up to you as soon as I’m home. The Cuckoo clock I’ve bought from Mexico is quite expensive and a mechanic from our crew might be here any day to drill the clock on the hall wall. I’ve already paid him, so don’t pay him anything. Take care. Love you


-Sanjay”

The note had remained stuck for more than five days because I wanted it to stay where it was, reading it every day.

The cuckoo clock was very special and expensive. The cuckoo would only come out when the surrounding was bright enough for it to come out. It had a photo sensor, that detected when the light was bright enough, for it to come out, which meant that the Cuckoo would come out only at the day time.

It was our wedding day today, and Sanjay would arrive tomorrow. I was lost in the thought of my plans for this big day, when somebody stepped in front.

A heavily dressed man, with a Man-U cap and long boots, stood in front with a toolkit in his hand, and sunglasses on his eyes. Sunglasses on a snowy twilight? I led him into the house. The man entered the house and walked
straight into our hall as if he knew the way by heart.

Kneeling on the floor he set to work.

The hands drew something from the tool kit and then suddenly all was blur. The hands were so fast at the hammer, the screw and nailing it onto the wall, measuring the center of our hall’s wall and hanging the Cuckoo clock and closing it again in less than a couple of minutes.

“That would be it madam.” Said he, in a husky voice.

I smiled, to show him the way out. He was somewhat hesitant to leave the house when he asked for water. I went inside the kitchen to get some, and when I had returned, he hadn’t budged an inch from where I saw him before.

Finally when he stepped out of the house, he removed his glasses and gave a half-look at me. The look by itself was
enough to suck all the air out of me. The way of walking and the amazing speed with which he worked with the tools, as if to confirm the fact, was slapping my brains and ordering it to process this information and make sense out of it.

Yes. It was Madhav.

He spoke in the same husky voice, which he wore with such ease and casuality.

“I give you time till 7 o clock tomorrow. If you don’t come with me, you’re gonna be learning it the hard way.”, saying this, he walked off, with shuffling steps sinking and emerging out of the snow irregularly.

The night was a nightmare. It was typical of Madhav to know where I had my weaknesses. I, at once, ordered the milkman not to come to my house the next day, along with the Paper Boy and the maidservant. Then, closing all the windows, I slumped on the bed.

I couldn’t sleep. I was leaning on the sleeping pills usually, and they were all over by yesterday. I had to get some way to ensure that I would be safe from Madhav and explain what I had to, to Sanjay, before things got worse.

Whenever I closed my eyes, the faces of Madhav and Sanjay kept overlapping and disappearing periodically. The blur of incidents, the surge of memories, sandwiched between the guilt on one side, to give company to my agony
on the other side, were too much for me to chuck, and start sleeping.

My idle mind started to romp around for my past story, trying to recollect it, when I was desperately commanding it not to do so.

It was the last thing I wanted to do. I started counting from 100 to 1, trying to divert my attention. I switched on my CD player and turned on some song.


100…99…98…97…


I slowly closed my eyes. My mind made a backflip to the past.


I considered myself to be one of the luckiest ladies in the whole city, with a handsome young man, for a husband and the cutest child on earth for a daughter. There was nothing I wished for other than this perfect life, with Madhav, my husband, being the head mechanic on board the Damascia, the biggest ship in India. He drew a handsome salary, and was a Jack Of practically everything. It was a year after marriage before I got pregnant, and a year after that, I gave birth to Diya. Life was going all smooth when a sudden brake, pushed all three of us forward. Diya was diagnosed with cancer even before she turned one year, and the money needed for the operation to set it right was too much to accommodate in Madhav’s salary.


90…89…88…87…



There was not a single path, which we left untreaded, to try and cure Diya. All went to dust, when Madhav came up with a last way, to save our sinking child. The worst way I was to take, yet. He wanted me to marry Sanjay, the newly appointed captain of Damascia, and muster money from him. It was a shock to me that my love was sending me to the hands of another man. I madly refused. His flair of talking again subdued me into submission. We wanted to save our daughter and we wanted to do it at any cost.

77…76…75…74…

It had started to drizzle. I could see the tiny but picering drops of water crashing the glass of my bedroom window. I went back again.


Even after Diya was born, our marriage was still a secret and no one knew we were together. To the outside world, Madhav was still a bachelor. As fate would have it, Sanjay proposed to me the next day, and I was more than willing, to agree.


And so I married.


Again.

I was now, Mrs.Sanjay, from Mrs.Madhav. No one could suspect that I was already married, with a child, as I made Sanjay swear that the marriage should be very very quiet. I managed to muster money from Sanjay and somehow gave it to Madhav, to start Diya’s operation.


64…63…62…61…


I could now hear the dripping of the water from the bathroom pipe. The ‘plunk plunk plunk’ of the drops on the mosaic was sickening. I got up to take a cloth and put it over the pipe, to seal it.


60…59…58…57…


Life threw another hairpin bend at me, when the doctors shrugged shoulders and announced that the condition of Diya was not hopeful at all. Diya succumbed to the deadly cancer a week after the operation and Madhav was hysterical. He inferred that it was my delay of getting the money, which made Diya’s condition that critical, and he slowly started turning into an animal, that was barring its teeth, and turning towards me.


Now that my purpose of saving Diya had become wasted, I was itching to break free from the shackles of married life from Sanjay. But it was not that easy at all. I had to find a genuine reason to apply for divorce, which I hadn’t found, till then. This delay further infuriated Madhav and turned him into a beast. He was then totally convinced that I was all ready to lead a life with Sanjay. He swore on Diya that he would get back on me, and never came to meet me from then on.


46…45…44…43…


But as years passed by, the situation was slowly reversing, just as Madhav had predicted. The raw wounds, which sunk into my bosom, were now healing under the care and love showered by Sanjay. He was slowly climbing closer and closer on the ladder, leading to my heart, while Madhav jumped off it at one go.


I had, by the end of two years, become Mrs. Sanjay, physically and mentally.


38…37…36…35…


It was 5 years since we broke up and life was getting back to the top gear slowly once again. I would occasionally hear Sanjay praising about Madhav’s mechanic skills in the crew, when my heart would rejuvenate the past by kindling the old wounds. But that faded too in course of time. It was our fifth wedding anniversary (today) that I saw the first love of my life, and the tragic past came gushing into my life once more.


25…24…23…22…

How could Madhav be of any harm? I had strictly told the paperboy, milkman and the servant to stay out of the house, lest he sent any evidence of our marriage, through them.


But I knew one thing for sure.


Madhav was a man of his word. He had also promised me that if he couldn’t prove our marriage to Sanjay by tomorrow, he would never try to do so again. That was the only driving force that pushed me on and on, to seal all the other doors through which the evidence, in any form, could enter.

11…10…9…8…

The rain had gotten heavier and the music had changed into a serene masterpiece, by my favourite artist. My mind had already poured out its past to itself, in the count of 100. Whatever happened, could not be stopped by me, I decided. Let it happen when it should happen.

I then gave a last look at the Cuckcoo clock.

It was 2:20 am. It read 21st of September .

My count was approaching 3, when my mind slowly closed to the pressing matters of tomorrow, as my eyes finally gave in to mental exhaustion. I drifted away slowly into sleep.

The next morning…



I was almost convinced about myself that I had been thorough enough in ensuring security, that I forgot worrying about Madhav. Instead, I was eager for Sanjay to arrive.

It was 6:55 am on the 21st.


5 minutes before the time limit, set by Madhav.

Sanjay entered.

“Heyyy Rekha!!! Happy anniversary to us!!” he exclaimed as he jolted me with such enthusiasm that I was lifted off my feet.


6:56 am…

Sanjay changed clothes, and was drying his hair. I started taking out his unwashed clothes and cosmetics, from his untidy suitcase, along with his uniforms.


6:59 am…

He put the towel aside and came towards me. He put one arm on my hair and the other arm on my waist. And then facing the clock, he kissed me, when the clock struck seven.

The first rays of the day, fell straight on the clock, and the photo-sensor lighted up, and the wooden cuckoo jumped out of the clock, pushing 2 photos, out of it.

In one photo were I and Madhav hugging on to each other just after our marriage.

The other one contained Me, Madhav and Diya in a group photo.




Madhav had won.



Sanjay was unable to move, and was glued to the spot, where he had been, with the photos still on his hand. He then looked at me.

The eyes were so piercing that I turned away, only to meet his gaze again, and look down, ashamed.
I then explained every word of my past, trying to sound as reasonable as possible, but Sanjay just kept listening,
and listening.

“ THE TREACHEROUS RAT!!!” he screamed, as he lunged for the phone, to call the ship and summon Madhav.

He pressed the loudspeaker.

“Where is Madhav?” Sanjay growled.

“I thought you’d knew sir. Madhav had resigned yesterday night. The last job assigned to him was to go to your house for fixing your clock I suppose sir?” an old voice from the other end answered.

As soon as Sanjay realized that Madhav had been smarter, he took his pistol from his half opened suitcase.
“It is better to see heaven than live through hell with you all my life Rekha!” he snarled, as he brought it closer to him.

I didn’t know what struck me. The piercing look of my husband on finding out that his wife was a wronged woman, was too much to bear for me.

I still didn’t know if what I was going to do would make things easier for any of us. But I was too disgusted with my life and myself, to live any longer in this beautiful world, or share a bed with my wonderful husband.

I snatched the gun from Sanjay, set it on my forehead, and pulled the trigger.