Unspoken thoughts | Sunday Observer

Unspoken thoughts

10 December, 2017

Samantha Perera, affectionately called Sudhu Mahaththaya lies motionless on bed, in the same posture. ‘Will she come and change me to a more comfortable position? My! The flesh of my back burns, and it‘s becoming intolerable.

Oh! Mother, please come and move me’. He shouted but the dormant muscles in his vocal code would not respond. It had been so for the past 10 years and all those years he could only open or close his eyes. There she comes! He could hear the feeble footsteps coming through the doorway before she came into vision. The grey-haired angel sighed in anguish, meeting his appealing eyes.

“Oh dear, am I late? I was in the kitchen making you a soup. Now, let me adjust your position.” She finds the task more cumbersome with the passing years, though the boy was a mere skeleton.

She managed to roll him over to a side. As the cool air touched his bare back, now feverishly hot, he felt a sudden heaven-sent relief. She stroked his hair with affection, and bent and kissed him on the forehead, reminding him of the day as his 30th birthday. All the while she was fighting to retain a smile, tightening her lips in a straight line, which intermittently broke into a short muffled cry.

Complexion

Sudu Mahathtaya, as his pet name suggested was fair in complexion and no different from any other young man of his age. He had many friends, and enjoyed life. Attached to a small company as a field officer he often joined his friends on picnics where he used to shine as a singer cum entertainer. A sister of a friend, showed interest in him which he willingly reciprocated. Two brothers and a sister elder to Sudu Mahaththaya treated him as their pet and allowed him to float like a feather.

All these changed one miserable evening. He was on his motor bicycle after visiting a customer, a gloomy afternoon. The wet surface of the road forced him to reduce the speed, but the drizzle resumed hitting his face and making the ride unpleasant. It was when he negotiated the sharp bend that he encountered a truck coming head-on, occupying almost the entire width of the narrow road. Sudu Mahaththaya neither had the space to bypass the vehicle, nor the time to stop his bicycle. He remembered going off the road and hitting a tree. Then he woke up in a hospital bed with half of his body covered in bandages. His mother, two brothers and sister crowded round his bed with tearful eyes, while his friends encircled them with grim faces. ‘He had regained consciousness after three days and his spinal cord was broken’ he overheard a patient next to him telling an inquisitive visitor. Those were the bitterest words he had ever listened to, and wished he was dead on the spot of the accident. He found he could neither move his limbs nor communicate through his mouth. Only his vision and hearing remained unimpaired.

He remembered being taken away on a stretcher before being driven home in an ambulance.That was after spending nearly two months in hospital. Many came to see him at home, among them the girl who had shown interest in him. She wept profusely, but kept a distance from his bed as if she was looking at someone alien. He had a lot to tell her. But how could he? His eyelids blinked. Would the message go across? he wondered. He wished she came closer and caressed his hair, but she remained where she was, and left with the others never to return again. He made up his mind, thinking it was the best for them both. After all he was an invalid, reduced to the status of a vegetable. On the contrary she was brimming with youthful energy. So let her find her own way, he conceded reluctantly.

Accident

Two brothers elder to him were married and had children when he met with his unfortunate fate. During the first two years of the accident they used to visit him at their ancestral home regularly, where Sudu Mahaththaya and his unmarried sister lived with their mother. But the frequency of their visits began to dwindle, and for the past three months the only communication had been brief telephone conversations at irregular intervals. But his sister had proven to be a pillar of strength, who would peep in, from time to time to keep him informed of what was happening in the neighbourhood and elsewhere. He felt sorry for both her and himself when she helped the mother to change a soiled diaper worn by him. But only she could make him a little cheerful, at least for a brief moment when she hung around the room. She didn’t treat him as an invalid, and behaved as if her younger brother was only lying on bed, too lazy to get up and walk.

Then one day she came out with the news that a certain party was coming with a prospective marriage partner to see her. The news made him momentarily happy but a tinge of pain occupied his heart at the prospect of her leaving him. No, why should she leave him? He was sure she would continue to live here with her husband looking after him and their mother. After all, who’s going to inherit this house and property? He consoled himself thus.

In the days that followed he heard her laughing happily in the visiting room, complemented by an equally cheerful male voice. He wished they would come to his room and see him but sadly the day never dawned. This led to his belief that his own people had hidden the fact that there was an invalid in the family, a fact he bitterly contemplated. ‘Why doesn’t anyone help me terminate my agony?’ he lamented. He had read about mercy killing and knew of countries where it was practised.

He wished he was born in one of them. ‘Mother would look after me at the expense of her own well-being. But what if I out-live her? Am I destined to rot on a bed unattended and uncared for, to die an agonizing death? He was fairly conversant with both Buddhism and Christianity as his parents came from the two faiths. ‘Is this suffering due to a bad Karma committed in a previous birth? I haven’t done any significant sin in the present life to deserve such a punishment’ he reminisced Buddha’s teachings. Or is God punishing me to show the world that its inhabitants are sinners? If so doesn’t he think I have had enough? ‘Yes enough is enough’ he pleaded.

His sister came into the room and told him tearfully that she was to get married the following day and would leave them to live in a house of their own. He knew her departure would cripple him, but acknowledged his approval by blinking his eyes.

The wedding had taken place in a hotel, and the couple left for the husband’s house straight from there, mother narrated, pausing to sob and wipe away tears from her eyes. The sister visited him a few times, alone of cause, but not for the past six months. ‘She was expecting a child and confined to the house’, mother told him. Then he prayed in his mind to all the gods he knew to take him back without delay.

Conversations

Sudu Mahaththaya heard the commotion outside for more than 10 minutes now. Loud conversations and running footsteps were clearly audible. His mother came in with a bowl of soup saying that people were running towards the sea as it has started drying up. Their house was less than a quarter mile from the beach, located in a lane.

After spoon-feeding him she declared her intention to visit the rock temple to reserve a day and time to offer alms to the monks to coincide with the fifteenth death anniversary of her husband. ‘I would be away only for a few minutes’ she reassured him. The rock temple was by the sea, on an elevation of more than a 100 feet. It was a favorite haunt of Sudu when he roamed the village with his friends. Hurriedly draping a sari, she left for the temple.

Sudu heard loud sounds coming from the seaside, and thought it was a suddenly materialized cyclone. The next moment, the floor of the house was inundated and cold water soaked his body and the mattress. He felt a sudden sensation of relief. Still his nostrils were above water, when he realized what it was as he had read about it before. He was glad his mother was away on the rock-temple. ‘She would be safe there. Oh! At last this has come to save me’.

Minutes later he felt as if he was riding a roller coaster. He was glad that relief had finally arrived. 

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