navwin » Main Forums » Passions in Prose » Failed to blossom!
Passions in Prose
Post A Reply Post New Topic Failed to blossom! Go to Previous / Newer Topic Back to Topic List Go to Next / Older Topic
Sudhir Iyer
Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943
Mumbai, India : now in Belgium

0 posted 2000-04-27 08:32 AM


Note- If sentiments are hurt, I will have succeeded in my mission in bringing out the evil of men. However, if too strong emotions are generated, and I happen to cause deep misery and sorrow, please forgive me! Very young and adolescent members, please do not continue futher!
----------------------- thanks for reading my first prose in 2 years ----------

                                                                Failed To Blossom
                                                                       By
                                                                  Sudhir Iyer


This is probably just another grim story to be read and forgotten. There are many such stories, many such matters. How many can one humanly think about, humanly solve, let alone humanely treat and humanely listen to? Maybe this is just another stark reminder that though life in its own form and shape remains beautiful, man himself often raises the ugly hood of the snake, the evil that the devil himself set loose amongst us mortals. This is just another one of those tales that speak not for the truth alone but to see the form of justice in the light of truth. This only goes to prove how man unleashes the poison within himself through what commonly starts as a simple craving, a desire to conquer, a lust to subdue, a thrill that he seeks and ends up losing all humanly characteristics of compassion, mercy and respect to a fellow being.


She just lay there raped, assaulted, dazed, bruised, battered and shattered. She does not even realise the ghastly rate at which she is losing blood, of the sparkling red fluid between her legs, seeping through the shredded cotton skirt of a commoner that she adorns with no pride anymore. All of sixteen, till yesterday, she loved life, its fragrance, the scent of happiness, the whiff of childishness with a teenager's wish for celebrating many fun-filled days ahead. She had also liked the same person who committed unto her this hara-kiri.


Images flashed before her sullen eyes, spilling exasperated tears on her swollen cheeks. She had been subdued, conquered, defeated by a singular intention, a moment in time, by the person. The person who, after her dead father she had cherished most, the person who was almost like a foster father, a moral support, a story teller and a reliever of the stress caused by many a drab day at school.


Images through the mist created by the smoky eyes, tired of crying. Though still she realised no bodily pain, stunned she still was. What was it that she had done wrong, whom had she hurt to endure this, why was she the chosen one, why, why, why? She had loved him like her own, her own blood, her own blood father who had died when she was four, and left her in care of her ailing mother and him. He used to help out their small family for a certain wage that her mother used to give him for taking care of daily matters like groceries, gardening etc including taking her to school. "Used to call him uncle didn't I?" thought she.


Images of what was a fun-filled past, a childhood sparkling and fresh like a flowerbed ready to bloom. Images cluttered around her hallucinating head, visions sapping her energy, those moments of yesterdays, bringing back memories, bringing back the past. Several sights, from the book of her own history, were haunting her. Each year, she remembered, was a chapter of her incomplete life, traditionally marked with the start of rains and school, and beginning of summer and vacation leading up to the results of her exams. He used to walk her to the school to get her results. They used to enjoy a sweet or two each year from the same sweet shop. And she was happy! She used to be so! A tiny smile came across her swollen lips, yet tears were flowing incessantly, and she couldn't stop them, as hard as she tried to do so.


Images of yesteryears, he was a handsome, hard-working man, always willing to help the family. He was the only man sympathetic to their family in the entire village of helpless souls. Starting with the grazing of cows, gathering of milk, cleaning up of the courtyard, he used to wake her up in the morning with a shrill sound as sweet as a bird chirping in spring. He used to wait for her to get pompously dressed and then walk her to school. He used to be there always when she came out of the school. She had always believed that he waited till the end of the day there in the school ground to pick her up and take her back home. He always had a nice story to tell her in the evening. Later he would give her a chuckle and a kiss on the cheek and pat on the back and left for his home. Such a kind soul, such a nice person, and yet he had become the demon, the snake who bit his master, for blood instead of milk that he used to drink. She could hear faint hooves of horses far away, yet the monsters were screaming hard in her ears making millions of painfully sharp and shrill sounds.


Images still kept floating around her head. She remembered her father, just images of him, he used to go out to work early and return back late. The only time she saw him was on Sundays when he used to clean the cattle, and their horse, and then take her for a ride with him. She used to wait for Sundays to come. She could remember herself asking him if she could have a small brother. He had said "Sure my little dearie, a brother for you when you start going to school, to play with him as you now play with your dolls". Oh the dolls that she had, she remembered them all. Alas! She was never to have a brother, her father left the month after she had this talk with him. She remembered her mother wailing and become hysterical, and she did not know why. The only answer she got was her father had gone away, never to come back. Little did she know then that death was what it was and life was what that was not! Later she learned from her mother that it had been an accident during work, and the money and the years that he had put for his work and the land that her grand father had left was what was keeping them alive. Oh! How much she hated being alive now! She had not yet realised that emotion yet, neither did she yet know about the blood oozing out of from her body, and the bright colour on the ground and dress was just fading out. Her vision was fading and strangely she was feeling relieved of a burden that she was carrying on her heart.


Images still persisted and kept coming back. Her mother had got sick and remained sick from around the time her father had 'left' them. Later, neighbours told her that sadness and grief due to the loss of the most loved person in her life was the reason. Doctors sometimes called it asthma and at other times called it cancer - she called it despair. Her only solace was looking at the only cheerful face in the house. Years passed on, and she had taken control of her life and her mother was recovering at least in the mind. She could go to school alone, yet she longed for the stories that he used to tell her. So she again waited for Sundays till she could see him around at their family farms, and plead him to tell her some stories. Waiting on for Sundays, she never missed any Sunday and so didn't she miss today. Today was the day of the fair, and her mother had let her go to the fair with 'uncle'. And there she lay in a pool of maroon coloured blood, mixed with brown soil and hay, she still couldn't feel it.


Lonely she felt now, things around her seems to be in motion. There was a cold wind, and she started feeling a shiver down her spine and suddenly a sharp pain. A sharp pain, she felt way down, just below her stomach. She tried to look at it, but couldn't get up. Her neck started paining now though she could feel nothing below her waist. She could not move her neck, and now her neck hurt more, more so because she couldn't turn to see what was that what was hurting and why she couldn't feel a thing that was so naturally to be there below her waist. Her limbs were numb and frozen, the coldness of a winter night added up to the coldness of a man's limbs that rubbed her limbs hard against her wish, that mutilated her and had left her sore. She tried to lift her arms to pull herself up, but her arms lay as if they knew no motion. Arms lacking any blood or energy because of struggling too much and crashing onto the rocks and staying there for the night and also because of the man's strong arms pushing her arms to the ground to keep her still. She tried to shout for help, but she was aghast that she could not open her mouth or move her jaws. She had screamed for too long that night, but had been gagged all the way down by the man's forcing tongue and the man's mouth that pushed ever so forcefully on her mouth. Oh! Little girl, did she feel terrible?


All she could do was weep, cry and die crying, die of cold, die of mutilation, die of utter disrespect to her human self by another human, die of the lack of strength within her to hold on for much longer. The crimson blood further mixed with the ground, and the hay stack hurt her back, the rocks crushing from below her arms, and her neck almost split and rigid, eyes barely open, and around the waist excruciating pain, the rest she could not feel. A gush of wind and the clothes on her body swept away sending shivers through her battered spine. Yet when she wanted to scream out to the heavens, she couldn't even do that, tears trickled down her cheek, and kept trickling,


A few weeks later, a search party found the naked figure of a young girl with decomposed lower half and stinking. Ants had made an anthill around her face, and much of the innocent ever-so-smiling face had been mutilated beyond recognition. Vultures and crows had gauged out parts of her limbs, stomach, and chest. It was a horrendous sight.


Her 'uncle' was there too. He became hysterical, crying aloud, wailing and shouting names to the Gods above him imploring them to tell him who it was who did this to his dearest flower, whom he had loved like her own child. He shouted "May the devil take over the body of the one who did this to my dearest bud of the most beautiful flower and rip apart his heart and may he die a ghastly death burning in hellfire".  The Gods did not answer. The police held him consoled him, burnt the remains of the body and took the news to her mother who couldn't handle the news and died at the very instant to join her beloved husband and her ever so lovely daughter. The family was joined again, but the ways and means of the act was a disgrace, a blow to humanity.


Strange are the ways of man, stranger are the ways of humanity and still strangest are the way of the Gods. If they had been listening or not to the wails of the girl, if they had been listening when she was being tortured, and if they had been listening to even when he prayed for death for himself at the hands of the devil, why couldn't they act? Why did they not weep? Why did they not give the deliverance? Or were they not listening at all? God, it may seem, might not be for the meek and the week, after all. But what could the Gods do when the snake summons his master, the evil asks his master's enemies to deliver him their antagonist to take away a heart that he did not even possess!


Only he lived. Only he knew. Only he survived. For he was smart, he was strong, he was cunning and he was a man!


The heartless gardener lived to cultivate another crop but the little bud that was to be a beautiful flower failed to blossom…

----------------all criticisms and comments welcome ------
A point: Each year Millions of girls are victims of abuse, oral, physical, mental. They often face the trauma in a closed cocoon built around them or simply die. They become very weak to challenge anybody because of the terrible amount of hurt in their minds. Many girls soon die or commit suicide...

< !signature-->

 Take each day as it comes,
Consider each day as a flight,
Try hard to succeed and fly,
Surely then you will reach some height.

But if by some chance you don’t,
Remember that tomorrow will always come.
Learn this well and learn this hard
That today’s efforts will pay for tomorrow’s fun.

A Crazy Monster, a.k.a Ski


[This message has been edited by Sudhir Iyer (edited 04-27-2000).]

© Copyright 2000 Sudhir Iyer - All Rights Reserved
WolfsMate
Member
since 2000-01-14
Posts 121
New York
1 posted 2000-04-27 09:23 AM


A well written piece. What horrors the human race perpetrate on one and other.

 "You never have to worry...Never fear for I am near"

amazon_lover
Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 491
Dublin,Ireland
2 posted 2000-04-27 12:12 PM


Hi Sudhir
It was horryfying to read!
He was a beast and I'm sure he'll answer to god someday. A person can be cunning,smart but the stark truth is this f****er will face the most gruesome death the humanity would have seen and 'tis will be a lesson to every man who he tries to take advantage of his daughthers/daughter-like people. I know some people like that but I can't do anything for now, but I'll have my verdict very soon.It was a terrific account given by you, though a bit horryfying. Hope that beast is killed soon.
Sincerely
A_L

Sudhir Iyer
Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943
Mumbai, India : now in Belgium
3 posted 2000-04-28 05:14 AM


Thanks a lot.

I was in fact trembling when I was writing this piece. And yet this happens to be one of my favourite personal works. Since then I spent more time writing poetry,but I think I should also write more proses, and short stories.

Thanks again for your views - sudhir

Dawn Eclipse
Senior Member
since 2000-01-31
Posts 637
The Horsehead Nebula
4 posted 2000-04-28 09:45 PM


Your story brought tears to my eyes.  It is a girls worst nightmare to be raped, and yet it happens again and again.  Life can be so good to some, yet so cruel to others. Thanks for sharing this story with us, to bring awareness to us.  

 "It is in our aloneness
that we recognize our oneness,
even as the single droplet of water
knows also that it is the sea."Daniel

*Cassie Roseen*



Dusk Treader
Moderator
Senior Member
since 1999-06-18
Posts 1187
St. Paul, MN
5 posted 2000-04-30 10:49 PM


Wow, Sudhir... this was an excellent piece of writing.  The first paragraph was captivating and the rest of the story didn't let up.  Excellent writing and your brought forth the evil of mankind so vividly it was horrifying.  The style and writing was wonderful though and I applaud you on your piece.

 Abrahm Simons

"...Watching fate as it flows down the path we have chose" - Trent Reznor, "We're in this Together"


Sudhir Iyer
Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943
Mumbai, India : now in Belgium
6 posted 2000-05-03 08:49 AM


Hey Dawn ...and Dusk...

You make me swell with pride for penning this story. A writer may write what he wants to but the meaning is complete when readers get the point behind the work. So many young girls are mistreated each passing day yet not many care. Rape is the most atrocious of the criminal acts against women. Cursing, Beating, social humiliation etc. is still prevalent is so many parts of the world, that it makes me wonder where we are heading to!!!


Thanks for your comments - they give me strength,
Regards,
Sudhir.

Sudhir Iyer
Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943
Mumbai, India : now in Belgium
7 posted 2000-05-17 02:30 PM


Just wanted the newbies to see this, for this underlines a very social message. Thanks for understanding....


Regards, sudhir.

Janet Marie
Member Laureate
since 2000-01-22
Posts 18554

8 posted 2000-05-17 04:14 PM


sudhir,
I am very glad you brought this back up...
it is amazing and I can learn much from it.
your detail and imagery is astounding.
the writing is suberb and holds the reader completly... but your conviction and reasons for writing it are the things that strike me.
it speaks volumes about your character.
thank you very much for your help on my prose..I replied to you there.  
take care, jm

netswan
Senior Member
since 2000-03-28
Posts 1369
Washington
9 posted 2000-05-18 03:05 AM


Sudhir  well written but very gruesome.
All through it I kept saying,"Get up.
Write his name in the dirt - Do something!"

Rape is one of the most horrifying crimes
and so abundant. Many of them do not end
in physical death - but an inner death, that
sometimes takes a whole life time to
rid oneself of. And, untold amount of rapists walk free - to live with themselves, and yet most do not have a conscience to
suffer from their deeds.  

Tough subject to write on. Your description
was awesome --

netswan

MagnoliaBlue
Member
since 2000-05-12
Posts 367

10 posted 2000-05-19 12:38 PM


Magnificent writing!

Made me weep...with sadness and anger!

The man was wearing a mask...as men like that
do.

I have heard that God's punishment is swift...NOT SWIFT ENOUGH!!

Thanks for writing this. Everyone needs to be aware.

MagnoliaBlue

 

Meadowmuse
Member Elite
since 1999-12-27
Posts 3263

11 posted 2000-05-19 01:38 PM


Sudhir, this stunning work was very difficult for me to read, yet I was unable to pull away from it. Your writing style here is captivating and fresh, despite the horrid realism of its content. I admire your willingness to address the nightmare of rape and demoralization so passionately.

~ Claire

 Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?......Henry David Thoreau


LadySofia
Member
since 2000-05-16
Posts 238
FL., USA
12 posted 2000-05-20 08:47 AM


I admit this was difficult for me to read...I myself was a victim of rape on two seperate occassions by two different individuals. The wall you speak of is a true result; for years my poetry only reflected the pain within. I am a little sketchy as to whether I should even be saying this...

LadySofia


 That time of year thou mayst in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang, Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day, As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by-and-by black night doth take away, Death's second self that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire, That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the deathbed whereon it must expire, Consumed with that which it was nourished by. This thou perciev'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
William Shakespeare



Elizabeth Santos
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-11-08
Posts 9269
Pennsylvania
13 posted 2000-05-20 09:13 AM


Sudhir
This must be exquisitly written
This must be thought provoking
This must be heart wrenching
This must be horrific
This must be true
I must be weeping for all of these reasons
And through my tears I have come to respect even further a superb writer
Liz

Sudhir Iyer
Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943
Mumbai, India : now in Belgium
14 posted 2000-05-21 03:25 PM


Janet,
Thank you for reading this and posting your ever so appreciative words. I heard sometime back, when I was a kid, "Character is the personification of Life", and when I read your words about my character, I feel blessed. Thank you.

netswan,
I know that this is a gruesome story, but all the same the evl that perpetrates this society, should be brought up and given a crushing blow on its head. Every like minded one needs to shout his lungs out against this most attrocious crime, where it is the onus of the victim to prove the crime...how morally disgusting...how socially depraving... Thanks a lot taking the time to read this...

MagnoliaBlue,
It is true that GOD's punishment takes time. But before we give GOD a chance to punish, which he eventually will, I think it is all our collective responsibility to fight this crime on earth, and make society as livable as possible....Thanks for reading and your appreciative words.

Claire,
I am very thankful that you read it though it was difficult for you to read. Rape is not an easy topic to write about, but then think about vivtims who have to undergo the crime done unto them... My sould weeps out to them. May they have courage to survive...
Thanks once again to have read this.

LadySofia,
My heart bleeds for you. Have courage adn strive to live this life to the fullest, as full as you can make of it. I can understand what goes on in your mind each day. Thanks for reading this. Lets keep the flame of life alive, my friend....I write this as tears swell in my eyes...

Once again, thanks to all for reading this.

Regards,
Sudhir

Sudhir Iyer
Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943
Mumbai, India : now in Belgium
15 posted 2000-05-21 03:30 PM


Liz,
Sorry, I missed out on thanking you. I am really sorry, but like I said above, my eyes blurred themselves with tears, and now when I have cleared them, I saw I had missed your name.

Thanks for reading. I feel very honoured to read that you have an adjective for me - superb....I am truly honoured feeling your sense of respect.

Regards, sudhir.

Post A Reply Post New Topic ⇧ top of page ⇧ Go to Previous / Newer Topic Back to Topic List Go to Next / Older Topic
All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format.
navwin » Main Forums » Passions in Prose » Failed to blossom!

Passions in Poetry | pipTalk Home Page | Main Poetry Forums | 100 Best Poems

How to Join | Member's Area / Help | Private Library | Search | Contact Us | Login
Discussion | Tech Talk | Archives | Sanctuary