The Lost Fragrance Read online

  But, he was aghast.

  There was no tail!

  He panicked and looked at the crystal table to see his reflection. Where were his snake hoods? Where indeed the scales? Why did he look like the young boy he was when his father died? What was happening to him?

  He cried in rage and anger, ‘Do not deny me, Father, for I am your flesh and blood.’

  ‘I do not deny you,’ the old man said, ‘but I condemn you to a life on earth for generations to come. You will remain in the shadows, forever lost, forever damned.’

  He looked at Little Girl and Crow and Balloon and said, ‘I must go now and join the other villagers. The battle is over. On the rock by the river, The Master has left behind his flute. Take it along and return to the land of the living. But kill The Serpent before you leave. You have already destroyed him!’

  Little Girl and Crow saw the old man kiss the beads. A strange and powerful light filled the room as the bracelet slowly vanished from his hand. Then he smiled at them as he disappeared into the sky in a flash of cosmic light.

  The Serpent shook in fear and shrank into the few shadows that remained.

  Little Girl picked up a handful of stardust that glittered on the floor and blew it on The Serpent. ‘Go now, you unfortunate one,’ she said, ‘for it is done.’

  The dust burnt him to ashes and his screams carried into the night. All that remained was serpent dust.

  Little Girl and Crow and Balloon had not waited to see what happened to The Serpent for they had already started their journey back to the river to meet the old balloon-maker and the other villagers.

  She looked back as she heard the rumble of thunder and saw lightning strike again and again and again. The Serpent Hill was on fire. The castle crumbled to dust.

  Wind kissed their cheeks and said with a mischievous smile, ‘Lightning could not let go!’

  Forty-four

  Little Girl ran into the arms of the old balloon-maker and his wife. Everyone was patting her on the back. The postman gave her a big beaming smile.

  ‘That was fun!’ said Crow.

  ‘A wee bit scary, if you ask me,’ added Balloon.

  The principal looked as if he were about to faint. ‘A talking crow? And, a talking balloon?’ he asked incredulously. When no one looked surprised, he said, ‘Amazing! I think I need a vacation!’

  ‘It’s the mind,’ advised Crow wisely, ‘let it roam.’

  The magic flute lay on the rock. Little Girl picked it up. ‘So much,’ she said, ‘has happened. It is like a dream.’

  She took a deep breath as she inhaled the heady scent of the blue jasmines.

  They looked at the sky, which was now filled with innumerable stars, some a little away from one another, others in small clusters. Glittering like countless diamonds, they looked magical. It seemed as if the stars were dancing in celebration. Two stars, however, remained steadfast.

  ‘They must be your parents,’ said Crow. ‘Your journey is done. You came to see them and you have. You came to hold on to them and you learnt to let them go!’

  Balloon smiled shyly at the other balloons. Star Balloon nodded at her and said, ‘You did us balloons proud! Will you forgive us?’

  ‘With all my heart!’ said Balloon.

  ‘Will you please tell us of your adventures?’ asked the Baby Balloons excitedly.

  Balloon couldn’t believe the words! She was now one of them! It made her so happy. With tears in her eyes, she nodded.

  The balloon-maker and his wife put their arms around Little Girl.

  By now, the first rays of the sun had started coming out. Little Girl took out the bicycle pump and said to the villagers, ‘Come dear friends, let us go home!’

  ‘Spoken well,’ said Crow and as his stomach rumbled, he asked innocently, ‘is Magic around, by any chance?’

  Balloon hit him on the head.

  Author’s Afterword

  It took me several years to finally tell myself that I needed to stop writing this book. Every time I opened the ‘finished’ manuscript, I would add paragraphs, sometimes even characters. It was always a sort of work in progress and I guess, in a way, getting back to the manuscript every evening after dinner was a therapeutic experience for me. It was almost as if I never wanted to finish writing the book! But, let me start at the beginning.

  The idea formed in my mind soon after my father died in 1993. It was a difficult and lonely period. As rational human beings, our minds accept the inevitability of death. Our hearts, on the other hand, refuse to understand and, thus, are unable to accept that we must all die and, sadly, that some must die earlier. We are then in a state of terrible turmoil. And so, indeed, it was with my family and me. We felt our hearts and our home emptied as we looked at the empty chair or discovered scribbled notes that slipped out of books or lay tucked in coat pockets and, then, the memories would come flooding back to wrench our hearts. Silent tears filled our moments of silence.

  Yet, life had to move on.

  My daughter, Diya, was only five years old at that time. She grew up faster than was necessary that hot and humid night in 1993. I still do not know how her mind worked it out for her and how she understood death. I think she seemed to have somehow understood that death entailed a parting but it never meant forgetting.

  One night, she told me she wanted me to do something my father would do for her every night—tell her a story as she drifted off to sleep. I remember wearily lying down beside her and wondering where I should begin. None of the stories I knew as a child came back to me either with the inspired recollection my father had or his extraordinary dramatic and narrative skill. I ended up making things up and before long, worse, I ended up fast asleep, while Diya remained wide awake!

  The following nights, she would curl up in my arms and ask me to continue with the story from where I had stopped the previous night. I would be hard-pressed to recall where all I had travelled in my storytelling journey. She would remind me. One thing attached itself to another and quite a fantasy grew with each passing night. Diya loved the plot and I told myself that if she liked it that much, there just might be something to it. I thought of putting pen to paper. That is how The Lost Fragrance was born.

  For me this is a very visual book, because much of what I have written conjures up images. A friend told me it was like reading a film script because he could actually see the scenes unfold. I have often been told that the book lends itself to illustrations. However, I have consciously opted against it or in giving the characters ‘normal’ names. The characters needed to be anybody and everybody, especially because death touches us all. I also believe that many of the characters in the book represent persons we have met and interacted with, in our dayto-day existence. To that extent, we can relate to them without difficulty and it hardly matters what name we give to them.

  Among the few who read the manuscript, the first was Dubby Bhagat. We met at the Chinese restaurant in the Everest Hotel in Kathmandu. Dubby was part of my growing up in Kolkata. He went through the first draft which was very much, at that time, only in the first stages of the thought process. I owe Dubby more than a debt of gratitude. Sayoni Basu enriched it with her comments. Namita Gokhale encouraged me to publish it.

  My mother, like all mothers, loved the book because I think she saw my father in it far more deeply than I thought she would. I had hoped she would see it in print. Alas, that did not happen, for one February night in 2006, she too left to join my father.

  This book is for her and for my father.

  It is also for my daughter Diya and my nephew Varun. There is much that we can learn from children.

  Star Publishers first published the book under the title In the Land of the Blue Jasmine. It went into two editions and copies ran out quickly. It was also published by one of the oldest and highly regarded Hindi language publishing houses in India.

  For me, this book is very personal. It was written especially for my mother, my wife and my daughter. It was also my way of trying t
o come to terms with loss. It surprised me when friends and strangers told me that the book had comforted them at the time of their grief.

  A few years later, when it became difficult to walk into a bookshop and pick up a copy of my book, I found that several of my friends still talked about my ‘jasmine book’, as they called it. When Jug Suraiya did me the honour of reviewing the book and calling it ‘a sure-fire elixir to the slings and arrows of our mortal fortune’, I spoke to Shobit Arya, the dynamic young publisher of Wisdom Tree, to find out if he would like to publish a revised edition of the book. When he readily agreed, the journey started yet again for me.

  Is it a children’s book, some have asked. It is too dark, others have said and suggested that it could work for young adults. But I would like to believe that, like most books, it is for all ages.

  Though the earlier title had a sense of mstery to it, I felt a need to change it, primarily to reflect the deep sense of loss that visits us all. The Lost Fragrance, I would like to believe, captures this.

  I am glad Shobit agreed with me. Thank you, Shobit, for your patience and for your courage. All publishers take a big risk when they publish unknown wannabe authors, especially when it is difficult to classify the genre of the book! I hope you do not regret it.

  It is a matter of great joy that my daughter, Diya, has done the cover design for the book.

  The Jasmine is reborn and I give her fragrance to you, which is how it was always meant to be.

  Sydney, 2012