Written as part of a weekly challenge
Sunday Photo Fiction May 28th 2017
at https://sundayphotofictioner.wordpress.com/2017/05/28/sunday-photo-fiction-may-28th-2017/
A DEVIL IS BORN (#2 of LOVERS)
By Neel Anil Panicker
His birth heralded a death. His mother’s. The night he was born there was no electricity in his village, a remote impoverished village tucked in the back of beyond of western Haryana, the nearest medical centre some 100 miles away.
For three perilous hours Nature was at its wildest. What first began as a massive thunderstorm interspersed with staccato bursts of lightning quickly gave way to thunderous cloudbursts. Soon the skies turned pitch dark and thereafter followed four horrendous hours of torrential rains.
That night the elements collided and colluded to wreck havoc bringing in no time the village to its heels__uprooting trees, dismantling electricity poles, clogging the drains and arteries all around its decrepit lanes and bylanes sending frightened villagers scurrying back like rats into their mud roofed tenements__ waiting, wailing and praying for the nightmare to end.
Another kind of nightmare had just begun in the village headman’s house, a modest two storied brick structure, the only one of its kind in the entire village one largely peopled by Thakurs, a powerful upper caste denomination in rural India.
Three hours after the woman of the house had gone into labour, the midwife, an old septuagenarian women of myopic sight, craned her neck out of the inner room, holding in her hands a curled up white bundle.
“It’s a boy. The mother is dead.”
As the wailing died down, a young man, a red turban tied around his head, turned his attention away the hookah, blowing a thick ring of smoke into the low roofed walls, and gingerly held the new born in his arms.
A pair of bright shining eyes framed in an angelic face stared back at him, the barely formed lips curling into a half smile.
‘We shall call him Ram, the human God.’
It wouldn’t be long before his God, Ram aka Ramandeep Singh Thakur would turn into Ravan, the evil incarnate, the Devil himself.
©neelanilpanicker2017 #SPF #fiction #lovers-part 2
Please find the link below to the first episode of this story ‘LOVERS’.
neelwritesblog 
Yes. Devil-incarnates come into this world with a purpose – of mindless destruction.
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That’s the way life’s endless cycle revolves. The fight between good and bad is a never ending one. Thanks for your comments, Reena.
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This story definitely took a turn for the epic! I sense that there will be more parts to it — I hope — now that you have laid out such an evil situation, I want to know what happens next.
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I am glad you liked it. I shall soon come out with the next episode. It will be under the tag “LOVERS’. Thanks a lot. Joy.
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Even the elements foresaw trouble. Chilling, Neel.
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Thanks a lot, Jane. On your goading i thought of doing the second episode/ I intend to go on and see where all this leads to. Thanks for the appreciation.
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I’ll see if I can get into it. Internet is dodgy today.
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Oh, yes, the issues with an unreliable connection. Thankfully, we don’t face that much of a problem here but then we all have those bad days when nothing seems to work. I just hope your internet connects springs back to action. Your appreciation is the reason i wrote the second episode. I look forward to your comments as they help me in my resolve to provide more such episodes. Thanks a lot, Jane.
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I think the problem yesterday was with the browser refusing to connect with Outlook or much else for that matter. I don’t understand why they have these sudden whims.
I’ll have to reread in the light of what I know now—that this episode follows on from the ‘Ruin’.
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Imagine giving birth to that! Yikes!
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I know, James.
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I liked how nature reacted to the birth. Well imagined and written! 🙂
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Thanks a lot, Sascha.
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Wow, what a night! It seemed the elements heralded the arrival of an evil child. Great descriptions!
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Thanks a lot for your appreciation. It means a lot. I feel encouraged to write out a third episode now.
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This is crying out for another episode. You’ve set the scene brilliantly.
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Thanks a lot. I appreciate your response to the first two episodes of lovers. I am waiting for a suitable prompt to continue with this. Thanks a lot again, Keith.
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When I first read this story, I thought that the father (guy with the red turban?) seemed very distant and unmoved at the death of his wife. Then I read the first episode again, and I remembered how I had thought the same of the young man, Raj, in this. His wife is terrified, and with good reason, and somehow the idea of Raj ‘mulling over the options’ comes over as a little cold and calculating. If that’s how you plan on developing your character, I’d say the foundations are already there!
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Firstly, i sincerely hope your internet connection is up and going. I was sorry to hear about that earlier.
Thanks a lot for reading and commenting upon this. Jane, when i wrote in the first episode about Raj mulling his options, i meant if he was thinking over his escape routes and plans to start a new life with his wife/lover.
I plan to have Raj as the protagonist and the girl’s brother as the antagonist whose birth I revealed in the second episode. I plan to develop this theme of “love conquers all” by telling the story from multiple points of view, chiefly from Raj’s, his wife’s, and her brother’s, whose birth i just showed in the second episode.
Therefore, the first episode is sort of a prologue, and the story begins in flashback mode (which I commenced writing with the second episode) and will continue till it reaches the stage where the first episode ends.
And then the story will move beyond to Raj’s eventual escape and the start of a happy life for the couple.
Jane, kindly let me know if this is fine; your opinion and views are eagerly awaited. Thanks.
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That makes sense. I was linking up two different people. Once we know the chronology, we don’t expect the characters in the second episode to be the same as in the first. I still think the word choice is important though, because of the insight it gives to character. Someone who mulls over options without also showing concern (a smile, a touch, a few words) comes over as rather cold. Just a general point.
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Thanks. Now that i know I am in the right direction i just have to sit down and flesh out the characters and develop their individual narrative arcs. And yes, mulling over options but with a smile would do. Thanks again, Jane. And hoping your internet is up and going.
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Good story which takes a turn into the mythological, Neel. A clever use of the prompt. Good writing. 🙂 — Suzanne
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