Incantation
By Abhishek Udaykumar
Anchasa’s goosey skirt feathered the balloon vines as she stumbled up the mountain. Her view of the black cliff was scattered by a kaleidoscope of satisal leaves, and she gazed through them as they changed patterns in the rustic breeze. The rice plains had long been left behind, and she found herself crawling through a compote of forest leachate, while the cicadas chattered in the jamun trees. A bout of lightning dimmed the afternoon and shrouded the habitat of sap-coloured moths. She heard the gusty drone of a hornbill and lion-tailed macaques shaking branches as blinking treefrogs announced the monsoon. Anchasa waded out of the thicket and stood by herself on the open land. The rush of grass and the speckled air hollowed her aching arteries; for a moment she wondered whether her morose turtles, Pranali’s disappearance and Kaviksha akka’s death were signs of regression into a medieval era. A time when people weren’t individuals and civilizations weren’t societies, but quagmires of settlements that turned into troves of legends.
A haze of cobblestones topped the mountain where an old graveyard ran along a carpet of gentle viridian ferns. The distant trees looked like bristles of fine brushes, as if they belonged to a foreign country; they didn’t whip or cackle in the storm. The brass spoon in her breast-pocket chimed along the moor. Waterlogged gorges surrounded the land beneath the mountaintop, shining like the hide of an aquatic dragon. She clung to herself as a cold dollop of wind slipped from the sky and chased the rain.
Anchasa’s little sister Mokshi had joined their Bharatanatyam class a month ago. She was envious of Anchasa, and, despite her talent, Kaviksha akka insisted that Mokshi practice the basics.
Akka’s first students had begun to dance soon after they learned to walk. Years had passed, and they had grown up enough to teach the younger ones. They dropped them home after practice and drank elaichi tea with their parents. Anchasa was the eldest, and she had to continue akka’s legacy. She could not abandon her students; dance was all they knew.
The land rose before her, and a string of stones snaked up the hill. A grey powder glazed the soil, reminding her of the forest fire they had seen from the village. Kaviksha akka had closed her eyes and observed a vision of pangolins, dhols, elephants and deer scurrying across the grassland to where the clouds watched over the forest and the creatures hid through the night.
They said Kaviksha akka had contracted the conical malady. Superstition loomed over the townspeople, and they feared speaking of her death, as though their words could be infected with her disease.
A steady drizzle fell, and grief caught hold of Anchasa’s heart, tossing it across the plateau. A week ago, she had been dancing with the other seniors, doing her best to avoid akka’s cane. She remembered the intensity of that evening. Perhaps akka had known.
She turned to the sky. Everything had vanished: the trees, the soggy loam and the graveyard. An inescapable silence held the world with a fine thread. The grass had dwindled to a mossy lawn. When she reached the large obsidian depression atop the black cliff, she removed her sandals and felt the ribs of rock against her skin as big birds winged soundlessly above. Ignoring her reflection, she fetched the orb that contained Kaviksha akka’s ashes. The wind was everywhere, but she sat unmoved. She lifted the lid slowly and forced herself to watch as she tipped the ashes into the pool. A small tornado of dust spiraled before her and vanished into the listless liquid. Kaviksha akka desired to disappear through the ‘foremost piece of land which received the rain, for all life began in water.’ An oceanic silence filled Anchasa’s being. She stood up and closed her eyes, placing her foot on her left thigh and letting her arms go free, turning into a swan. Her muscles grew supple and her eyes melted, she no longer inhabited her body. She began to dance around the pond, the cool mountain air swimming through her ears and emptying her from within. Her skirt rose like a velvet carousel, mimicking her energy. She pirouetted through the breeze and watched her long hair wave down her shoulders, landing with precision and unfurling into a peacock. Her arms were firm like ancient roots, her hips detached themselves and swiveled with the grace of a mythical bird. A quiet bliss gurgled in her bosom, and a warm stream of tears blotted her cheeks. It was her first dance in her teacher’s absence.
Anchasa didn’t stop until the clouds cleared and the valley appeared beneath the rolling hills. She peered down the edge of the cliff and clapped in delight when she recognized the kabaddi ground in the middle of her village. A while later, she took out her brass spoon and carefully gathered the water from the pool until she had collected a portion of it inside her orb. She had fulfilled Kaviksha akka’s last wishes. But this would be her little secret.
Abhishek Udaykumar is a writer, filmmaker and painter from India. He graduated from Royal Holloway University of London with English and Creative Writing. He writes short stories, novels and essays and makes documentaries, fiction and experimental films. His narratives reflect the human condition of rural and urban communities and explore eternal landscapes through studies of art, criticism and absurdism. He is passionate about old-school illustrations, carnivalesque tales and marine life. He has been published by different literary journals, and has made thirteen films and several series of paintings in different styles.