Page 72 - Musings 2022

‘Who are you?’ I repeat. I try to hide the tremble in my voice as best as I can. Again, no
response.
In a flash, before I can understand anything, he has darted at my right leg. I shriek, and try to
pull myself back, but I wasn’t quick enough to avoid the monster.
He has tripped me and is clutching my right leg with tremendous force. Even with my best
attempts, I cannot free myself.
‘Let it go!’ I kicked him in the face.
‘Give them up.’
A hissing sound comes from the monster’s direction. I don’t know if it is him speaking, but it
is really chilling.
‘The legs… give them up…’ the voice continues, and a horrible childhood memory resurfaces
in my mind.
It is called Tatakshya.
I wake up, unable to remember how it goes from there. But I am no longer treating them simply
as dreams. This dream is different from the previous ones, and I am convinced that the monster
I saw was Tatakshya.
I cannot feel my right leg again, and that numbness has increased to the thighs now.
***
I hadn’t talked about my father to anyone since he left. And till date, only Seema knows. And
I even told her some years after our marriage.
He was a lawyer. A moderately successful one, but we were a happy family – me, him, and
mother. But one day, he left his job without any explanation. He refused to talk, or even come
out of his room for the longest time. I was 11 at that time. He and mother would fight every
other day, and it usually ended up with him beating her. All I could remember about that time
was me crying.
Mother was a teacher, and we were barely holding up with her meagre salary. But father would
steal from her and buy some things. Most of their fights between them centred around this since
he refused to explain what he has been buying. He would receive those items in a black bag,
and would at once withdraw to his room.
One day, my mother was out running some errands and I was playing by myself in the living
room. Of course, it was not like he had been holed up in his room literally this entire time, but
my childlike mind has constructed it that way. That’s why when he came out, I felt surprised.
He hugged me tightly and broke down in tears. He was muttering something under his breath.
I had no idea what to do, so I just stood there. I didn’t hug him back.
‘Your mother is out?’
I nodded.
‘Good. Can you come to my room?’
I didn’t move. I still remember a foreboding sense welling up in me at that time.
Father looked a little confused. ‘You like stories, don’t you? Stories about magic and demons?’
It almost sounded rhetorical. I slowly nodded, still unsure and a little scared now.
‘Then come here.’ He pulled me by hand and dragged me to his room. ‘Let me tell you this
amazing story.’
I had never seen his room before – mother would never allow me to enter there. All curtains
were drawn, and it was dimly lit with candles. I couldn’t understand why when we had

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