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After his most memorable few hours Divyasimha now felt, somewhere deep within, a hitherto unknown kiss of calm.

Had the sky been always so beautifully blue and the stars so very elegant and yet tranquil? He wondered.

The little boat glided on. Each cell of his body was tickled with the gentle cool breeze. Along with the darkness that was now slowly fading, his anguish and anxiety too were leaving him. The experience was so real that he thought he could have seen them leaving him were they not immediately swallowed by the departing darkness!

What was the time? He looked at his wrist. He had forgotten that his watch too had gone along with his trousers!

But the contours of the land and the horizon, emerging from darkness, showed that it would soon be morning.

What must his family and friends and the people of Madhuvan in general be thinking now? He laughed and felt sweet, for he was laughing after so much crying. He had laughed twelve hours ago, at the meeting of the Councillors of the city Corporation. But what a difference between the two laughs! He knew he would no more laugh as of old. Streams of tears had washed away several values and attitudes from his mind-set.

Only if this experience had come to him two or three decades ago! He would not perhaps have cared for those so-called achievements to which he had devoted so many precious years. He would not perhaps be the Mayor of Madhuvan. But he would surely have lived a more meaningful life.

He had laughed last when his old professor, Sudarshan Roy, now a Councillor, had wept. Of course he had hid his laughter behind a large hanky with which he pretended to be mopping his face.

Till then he was sure that the old man, when excited, showed signs of eccentricity! Should otherwise a scholar like him, once well-known for his discourses on logic, be moved to tears while speaking of trivial and funny incidents? It is true that his defeat at the Mayoral election at the hands of Divyasimha had given him a great shock. Maybe that was the real cause of his tears. Divyasimha remembered he had tried to pacify the venerable professor, through a friend, quoting a famous Sanskrit dictum which asserted that it was glorious to be defeated by one’s own son or pupil! The professor had shouted at the friend, saying, “Shut up! That maxim applies to a defeat in a contest of learning. To apply that to an election dominated by coercion and corruption is sheer indulgence in intellectual corruption.”

The professor’s speech at the Corporation meeting had sounded droll. He was narrating the hazards wrought by stray cows and bulls in the life of the peace-loving citizens of Madhuvan. His eerie and hyperbolic tone and style suggested as though the city had come under a siege by the Nazis in the guise of cattle! Then, when he came to narrating the mischief of a particular omnivorous cow who no doubt had lately gained wide notoriety, he could not check his tears.

Prof. Roy’s dear grand-daughter was appearing for her B.A. examination with Honours in psychology. The poor girl had captured all her learning in two notebooks. In the process of transferring the knowledge into her little head, one afternoon, she had fallen asleep on the verandah of her house. When she woke up, the villainous cow was quietly making her exit. One of the notebooks had clean disappeared. Of the other, only the bare covers could be recovered.

While Prof. Roy wept in the course of narrating this crisis in the life of his grand-daughter, Divyasimha had laughed.

Had the old professor observed him laughing? Lest he should feel offended, Divyasimha, in order to explain his conduct, had walked over to him after the meeting and said, “Sir, I’m afraid, you are getting a bit too emotional!”

Prof. Roy stared angrily at him. “What makes you say so?” he asked.

“Sir, a cow, after all, is an animal!” said Divyasimha.

“I do not remember having ever contested that item of General Knowledge. My question was whether the Corporation should protect us from such an irrefutable animal or not,” retorted the professor.

“Sir, I mean, a cow chewing up a sheaf of papers could not be counted any tragedy of sorts!”

“No?” The professor shouted with deep resentment “In a city with such a jubilant Corporation, a cow would dare to chew up, of all things, psychology, that too in broad daylight and you the Mayor laugh and say that it was no tragedy?” His voice was choked.

Divyasimha laughed again, but in a subdued mode.

“You will not understand, Divyasimha, I am sorry to say, you are not capable of that. The more I think of the tragedy, the more helpless I feel.” Prof. Roy sighed and continued, “All the safeguards evolved by the society over the centuries, your government and your law, nothing can help me get over this despair. Even if you were to award me two million rupees as compensation for the loss of the two notebooks, that would fail to console me. How helpless, indeed, man is!”

“Perhaps not so helpless as you think, Sir! Ha!” Divyasimha cut short his laugh with difficulty.

Prof. Roy got hold of his stick and stood up., “No, Mr. Mayor, it is not so easy to appreciate what I say. Let us not argue. Leave me alone with my tragedy,” he said remorsefully and left the hall.

But Divyasimha was in one of his occasional high moods. He would have loved to argue and emerge triumphant. Frustrated, this time he laughed deliberately with some vigour, just to irritate the departing old man a little more.

Tragedy, eh? How obstinate the professor had grown! Divyasimha felt a burning sensation in his heart and he had no difficulty in diagnosing it. It was his own obstinate desire to score a victory over the professor that remained unfulfilled.

Indeed, it could not have been possible for Divyasimha to appreciate the professor’s avowal twelve hours ago. Divyasimha had climbed the stair of success in life making a cautious calculation of actions and reactions at every step. Not that he never slipped, but he had made up with a vengeance.

Helplessness? No. He had never known it. He never lacked the powers that matter–of mind, men and money.

Dawn was breaking out. How sweet were the cool and quiet moments of sunrise and sunset! Divyasimha sat erect and breathed deeply.

It was to breathe deeply that he had come down to the riverbank last evening. He wanted to extinguish the burning inside his heart.

He had chosen a lonely spot. Parking his car on the grassy wasteland of the suburb he had descended into the water. He had suddenly felt an irresistible urge to plunge his birth-room-conditioned body into the free transparent flow.

Nobody came to that part of the riverbank for an evening walk leaving the well-lit long concrete promenade on the other side of the city. There was none near about to notice him. He took off his watch and tucked it into a pocket of his trousers. He stripped himself of his clothes barring the underwear and kept them on a boulder between the car and the water and then made a dash into the flow.

This had once been a familiar river in his days as a student. There was then a girls’ hostel on the opposite bank. He and his friends would sing and shout while swimming. The sound brought only faint echoes back from the walls of the hostel but never any melodious response from beyond the walls.

Divyasimha smiled as he remembered those jolly days.

His thirst for attracting others’ attention had long been satiated. The evening he returned home after delivering his maiden speech, his mother had told him, “Better do not speak in public!” “Why?” the budding orator had challenged. “Because so many eyes will scan you with envy. That may make you lose weight,” explained the shy mother.

“How superstitious of you!” The defiant son had laughed.

How he wished that his mother’s fear had come true! But all that had happened was he had grown fatter during the past quarter century, so much so that during the last election his opponents often referred to him as Divyahasti (the divine elephant) instead of Divyasimha (the divine lion).

He suddenly felt a tickling sensation inside his underwear. Something had crept in, maybe a tiny fish. He at once took off the garment and the sensation was gone. But the light stuff slipped out of his hand and drifted away in the steady current. He could have recovered it if he had acted promptly. But he did not care.

He smiled again. It was already dark. It should not be any problem to leave the water and slip into his trousers very fast.

He had a last dip and then he plodded towards the riverbank.

What was that indistinct apparition swaying between the water and the embankment? He hoped it was not a cow! A panic overtook him, nevertheless. In any case it could not have been the mischievous one that featured so prominently in the meeting, he assured himself.

He hurried towards the boulder on which he had deposited his clothes.

The cow had already stomached his bush-shirt and the banian and was busy making short work of the trousers.

Divyasimha screamed at the animal and splashed water at it furiously. The cow retreated, but with the trousers in her mouth.

Still knee-deep in the water, Divyasimha felt he was sweating.

He looked around. Nobody was there.

The naked Mayor rushed to confront the terrible cow. But the cow gave him the slip.

While he stood on the bank, befuddled, two beams of light focused on him–headlights of a jeep. For a second his wet body glowed in its huge bareness. He squatted instantly and, hopping like a frog, plunged into the river.

The jeep came to a halt and three men jumped out of it. From below, Divyasimha could recognise them and hear them. They were the Executive Engineer of the Corporation and his two assistants.

“What was that strange creature that sprang into the river?” asked a perplexed voice.

“God knows. Looked like a gorilla.”

“Gorilla? Since when have gorillas begun to frequent our suburbs?”

“God knows. But what other creature could resemble us so closely?”

“Could be the abominable snow man?”

Surprisingly, none of the suggestions sounded absurd or jocular in that creepy combination of space and time.

They stood in silence for some time. Then one of them asked, “Whose car is that?” Another replied, “God knows. Oh no, I too know. That is Boss’s of course!”

“How come is it left here, unlocked?” questioned the third, opening its door.

There was silence again. Then the engineer cried out, “Sir, Sir, are you somewhere around, Sir? Will you please respond, Sir?”

There was a longer silence.

“Boss is not the kind of person to leave his car in this fashion at a desolate place like this. And what business could he have here at night? Mysterious! Let’s hurry to his bungalow.”

They jumped into their vehicle. It turned and instantly gathered speed.

Divyasimha was shivering with shame. What should he do? Should he drive home? But by now the engineer must have burst a panic-shell there. The surprised members of the family must have collected at the portico. The watchman would rush forward and open the door with an awful show of reverence. Others too would rush upon him. He shut his eyes visualising the scene.

The current was slowly pushing him away. That was safer in a way, he imagined.

Only if some intimate friend happened to pass by! He could shout him to stop and then confide his plight to him. The friend could run and fetch some clothes for him!

Or couldn’t there be a miracle? Couldn’t a few yards of linen come floating by?

No. There was no help. He must tell everything to the engineer when he returns. He alone could help him. No alternative to waiting.

Light flashed at some distance. Three vehicles followed the engineer’s jeep. They stopped around his car.

The smart young European lady who jumped out of a car was his younger brother’s wife. She was followed by her husband and they joined the engineer’s party. Several policemen hopped down from a large van. And last but not the least, Prof. Roy came out with his walking stick from his car, the oldest vintage in the city.

With a mighty effort Divyasimha suppressed a surge of sobs deep down his throat. Even if he could gather enough courage to expose himself before the European sister-in-law, he could by no means do so before Prof. Roy. It had not been even four hours when he had laughed while the old man had wept.

Divyasimha retreated farther. The leader of the police party focused his torch into the river. The engineer shouted “Sir!” several times to elicit a response from him.

And soon came yet another van with more policemen.

It was no more possible for Divyasimha to suppress his sobs. Must he be hurled into such a predicament? Which were the forces working behind this? And why?

He kept floating for a while and the current led him away gently. He came upon a small boat tied to a tree on the brink of the water. He unfastened the knot and got into it.

The boat smoothly glided downstream.

Now that the search party had been left far behind, he cried boldly and loudly.

When did he cry last? He tried to recollect; it had been ages ago.

A naked babe, he had cried lying on his mother’s lap or clinging to his father. Once he had grown up, everybody, near and dear ones included, looked upon him as an institution. He was not expected to cry.

He woke up to his aloneness.

The river had narrowed. At times the drifting boat mildly dashed against the muddy edge; it circled once or twice and then continued on its course.

There were wide fields on both the sides of the river. The sky appeared to have come quite low. He felt in the river his lost mother’s lap and in the sky his father’s chest–broad and generous.

It would be foolish not to cry.

A thin sleep had crept into his tired eyes and he dreamed of a tiny bird beating its tinier wings against the rolling clouds.

He woke up to see the boat arrested at a bend. He got down, gave it a push and hopped in again.

With this little movement he felt that his body had become miraculously light. And soon he realised how light his mind too had become.

The boat stopped, touching a submerged bush. There was a hamlet close to the bank. Smoke, filtered through the thatches of the huts, was coiling up and birds had just begun to fly. The silhouette of the landscape was growing distinct and charming.

A little girl stood under a small tree, gazing at the river. Divyasimha compressed himself as much as possible inside the boat. “Listen, little one,” he said breathing in deeply, “I have no clothes, can you give me something to put on?”

The girl looked impressed, but said, “You will give me back, won’t you?”

“Oh yes,” answered Divyasimha.

“Here it is. Catch it,” the girl took off her tattered soiled frock and threw it at Divyasimha.

Divyasimha kissed the frock and wiped his last drops of tears with it. “Little one, this will not do. I am a big man!” he said.

“Big? Like father? Wait,” she ran away. After five minutes she returned with a handloom towel and threw it at the stranger.

Divyasimha put the towel around his waist. He got down and holding on to the bushes climbed up the bank.

The girl had been followed by her intrigued father.

Divyasimha did not hesitate to introduce himself. He followed the amazed fisherman into his hut and sat down near his oven and drank a cup of heated milk and narrated whatever had happened since the evening. The fisherman nodded understanding and sympathised with him.

After an hour Divyasimha got into a mofussil bus wearing the best piece of dhoti the fisherman could provide and covering his upper body with the towel.

As soon as the bus entered the city he could see groups of people reading the morning’s Madhuvan Voice. The banner headline read: “Mayor Disappears Mysteriously!” The front page carried several speculations like kidnap and suicide. What made the matter complicated was, on one hand, a strange creature double the size of average human jumping into the river and on the other, discovery of the Mayor’s leather belt and a portion of his trousers on the wasteland.

Talking to a reporter, the old Prof. Roy had conjectured that the brave Mayor, his former student, after listening to his woes, might have confronted the notorious cow and the cow might have chewed up the complete Mayor.

The Professor had shed tears thereafter and had demanded immediate capture of the man-eating cow. The owner of the animal had meanwhile been interrogated and although the cow was still at large the police and the employees of the corporation had brought their net quite close on it and they were expected to swoop down on it any moment.

The local branch of the All-Faith Society had summoned a prayer meeting to plead for God’s intervention in the matter.

Divyasimha was experiencing an irrevocable calm. He did not feel any urge to give explanations to anybody. Only, he felt, he must rush to Prof. Roy and tell him, “I beg to be pardoned, Sir. Now I know what helplessness is; I believe I earned my adulthood last night.”