Benyamin: Yellow Lights of Death

I dozed off sometime in the morning. When the phone rang, I jumped up from the bed. It was Jijo. I was so angry. ‘Where the hell were you till now? Why didn’t you call?’

‘I will explain in detail. Where are you guys?’

I told him the hotel’s name.

‘Okay, I’m coming there.’

I woke up Salim and Anil. Within an hour or so, the room bell rang, and all three of us rushed to the door.

‘Are you all right?’ That’s the first thing we all asked when Jijo entered.

‘All good. Operation successful!’

‘Then why didn’t you call? You know how worried we were.?’

‘I couldn’t call. I’ll tell you in detail,’ he sat on the sofa. We sat around him.

‘When I arrived at night, a lot of people were there. All familiar faces — relatives and near ones. Around fifty of them. Meljo panicked when he saw me. He asked me why I had not left. I lied that my bike had a puncture on the way, so I came back.

‘Why are so many people here,’ I asked. “Oh, you forgot. tomorrow is Chechi’s anniversary,” he told me a big lie. In between, he took my mobile phone saying he’ll return it soon. Then it went missing. “I had kept there, I’d given it back to you, the kids must have taken it. ” and such other excuses. He also made sure that I wouldn’t stay there overnight. He led me to a room at a nearby guest house.’

‘So did our camera plan fail?’ Anil asked.

‘No, let me continue. I got an opportunity during dinner. I quietly went upstairs and switched it on. It was good that we had concealed it there beforehand. It would have been impossible to get it there at night. I prowled around the house twice at night, hoping I would get to hear something. But not a single sound was audible.’

‘What would have taken place there?’

‘That’s what we have placed the camera there for,’ Jijo said, taking out the camera from his pocket. Anil snatched it with excitement. Salim brought his laptop and connected the camera.

‘Then, where did you find your mobile?’ I asked him.

‘That’s the joke. In the morning, when I had gone to retrieve this camera, the phone was lying there on the sofa. Switched off. Meljo blamed the children again.’

‘The Appachans who had come left in the night itself?’

‘No, no. They are having a mass at the church for Melvin, for name’s sake.’

By then, the video started playing. All of us became silent. There was not much in the beginning. Images of people walking here and there. But to know that the camera had indeed worked was a relief. Then slowly, people started gathering in the courtyard. Excitement gripped us. After some time, Meljo came and placed a lamp in the middle of the hall. People sat around it and started clapping hands and singing. The audio was not very clear. Two priests came towards them.

Suddenly, everything turned dark. We were shocked. Oh God, what’s this! We all slammed our hands on our heads. When we checked again, it was a leaf that had fallen on the camera.

With hope and curiosity, we forwarded the entire video. But nothing more was there in it. In the dark-green vagueness created by the leaf, we could only get some audio of the songs and ringing of bells. We were all depressed. For a long while, we couldn’t talk to each other. Out of sadness, our words got stuck in the throat. My eyes were filled with tears. Jijo started crying.

‘This is more than enough. to suck the venom out of that snake. Leave it to me,’ Anil said after a while, with some plan in mind. We stared at him, wondering what he could mean. ‘Benyamin and I are going to meet him again,’ Anil said.

‘Today itself?’ Jijo asked.

‘No, another day. Benyamin, you call him up and make an appointment.’

I called Meljo. When I said I wanted to meet him, he tried to avoid me at first, but then agreed, saying that I could meet him after two weeks.

‘Okay then. Let’s disperse now.’

We said bye to Jijo.

The Fall

WHEN WE REACHED Valyedathu Veedu yet again. Meljo was busy with a seva. After some time, he came out with someone whose face looked familiar. I whispered to Anil asking who he was. Anil said he was an upcoming politician and reminded me of the TV discussion that he had participated in.

After seeing him off, Meljo came to us. ‘What new problem have you guys brought?’ He was visibly irritated by our visit, but we were not bothered.

‘We have not come to ask you annoying questions. The other day, we got a video. We want to confirm its contents. We’ll return soon without hindering your sevas and ceremonies,’ Anil said.

‘We could have shown it to others and clarified it, but since we two have become close, we thought that should be avoided,’ I said.

‘Someone from Diego had sent it. With the caption that it was from Andrapper’s mobile phone,’ Anil said.

‘What video are you talking about?’ Meljo was getting angry.

‘About the celebration that took place that day!’

‘When?’

‘We had asked about it the last time we came here. But Meljo, you avoided it tactfully. You asserted that Andrapper was a liar and that no such celebration had taken place.’

‘God is not blind, Meljo. He won’t erase anything without leaving proof. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have got this video.’

‘If you think you can blackmail me like this, you’re mistaken. I think you still don’t know whom you’re playing with. You guys go and do something better, I’ve other work.’ He stood up and started walking towards the inside.

Suddenly, Anil got up and held his hand out. ‘Stop, Meljo. Just one minute. You see this and then decide. You’d said this house has no secrets. That there was no celebration that night. But this camera has every visual of that night. Andrapper had shot them with his mobile camera.’

Anil took the camera from his bag and showed it to Meljo.

I was startled. The visuals in it could easily be laughed off as a general gathering or an evening prayer.

But it wasn’t Anil who got the calculations wrong, but me. With Amit’s daring move, Meljo tumbled over.

‘I don’t want to see it. I knew that he would cheat,’ Meljo said in a worn-out tone.

‘Then tell me, what are these ceremonies?’

‘Who all have you shown this to?’ It was evident from his tone that he had succumbed.

‘We have a friends’ circle. Five to six people. Only they have seen it till now,’ Anil said, about to put the camera back in his bag. Meljo quickly snatched the camera out of his hand. But Anil didn’t panic. I was surprised with the way Anil was handling the situation.

‘No use, Meljo. Don’t think we are such big fools that we’d come here with just one copy of the video.’

Meljo gave back the camera to Anil, and fell back on the sofa. It was the fall of someone who had missed his last stride.

Anil came and sat next to him. ‘Tell us, Meljo, what was it?’

But Meljo wouldn’t reply.

‘We have to know about it for sure. And we’ll go to any extent to know it. If you don’t tell us, we’ll have to ask other people. Not one, but many people. From common men to historians. We’ll have to post these video in public forums — Internet, mails, blogs, newspapers, YouTube, everywhere. That means the secret that you want to hide from us will go out to a lot of people. Isn’t it better that you yourself tell us? It’s for you to decide!’

Those words had an effect on Meljo. He slowly got up.

‘Tell us, Meljo. You can start from where Christy had stopped. ’ Anil encouraged him to speak.

‘If you promise that you won’t show this video to anyone else, I’ll speak.’

‘Yes, it’s a promise. We won’t share the visuals in this camera to anyone. I swear in the name of Thaikkattamma!’ Anil said.