Window of light.

How do I get rid of this ghost? I don’t know. The ghost is a shadow in the dark that has made me too vulnerable to light a torch. In the blurring brawl of my conundrums, I know I should be strong enough to stand against this ghost even if it afflicts me to the extent that I scratch and tear off my own skin. I should amass all the light of this world, all the valor I can muster to slit the deadly throat of this ghost. It haunts me. It is one tyrannical foe. A dilettante to agonize me, whose aim is to kill my spirit and shatter my equanimity, the head-high me that day by day craves to live a cheerful life. I am but a cripple, endeavoring to reach that window of light and it is a belligerent fiend that kicks me to death. Something deep, deep inside me admonishes me something. Something I cant hear. Something assuring a quantum of solace. My head is dizzy and all I want is this pain to end. All I pray to God now is to deliver me. I am buffeted in the ribbs suddenly by my enigmatic foe. He grows strong. I want to cry but tears wont come and I don’t cry lest this anathema mocks me. But there is this window in the farthest corner. The rays of light have defeated the darkness there and are still, as if beaconing me. I lay giving in. I should atleast try to stand. I should atleast stand. The vague song in the oblivion of my mind amplifies. It bolsters me, by words I don’t know. I am kicked and smacked as I stand, but I stand. It is as if walking in the snare of a giant spider. However this spider is human, I know somehow. I am closer to the window now. Closer. I trod with the time that is passing so slow that my ragged breathing could have made a thousand years. I have walked through him. I smile one twisted smile. I know because it takes an effort to smile. I have made that effort. I have. The foe is frail and I am strong. I scoff at him, distantly feeling the pain in my spine. I commence walking with a paradoxical pride. This pride is foreign. My shuffling self is long gone. As fast as it came, my smile fades away. I don’t see the window. I am in a hull of sheer darkness. Just the time when my deep breaths alter to shallow and adrenaline courses hard, my limbs are delibitated. I fall again. I don’t hear the song now. In a jolt I realize I didn’t hear it before I fell. I am a wretch again, now that I was healed. Or was I healed? I see it. A slit in the dark. I cripple towards it. I am digressed, often by the kicks on my head. But I don’t mind. It is not the time to mind. My gaze is pivoted at the light. My pain is mitigating, as though I am caressed by a swift breeze through that window. It is beautiful, I tell you, that window of light. It glows with grace just as I gaze with a smile, a smile distinct from the previous one. My callous enemy has lagged behind just as my hands are contentious to touch the window. I smile again, my smile coherently widening with the flow of light in the space, just so the intensity has driven the ghost in me again. It is a mirror.

And The King Beackoned To His Subjects - PART II

She arrived at 8:05, Ms. Arya Sarnaik; my ex classmate. It was she who'd procurred the coin. We seated on the marble seats in the temple of Balaji, built by a Maratha Sardar Bhawani Kalu in 1779.

From the corner of my eyes, I noticed her feeling uncomfortable. I was quaking too. She broke the silence.
"Have you heard the history of this temple, Aryan?" 
"I preferred reading it." I said. 
Silence Again. 
"I'm confused whether the myth is true." 
"Don't you believe in your own King?" She needed answers.
 "More than anyone. But people love to make a fuss." I said, as a girl waved her hand at us. Ajay was gone. Bastards will always be bastards. 
"What if the Myth is true?" She was furious now. 
The Balaji Temple, as myths said, had a hidden passage to a distant fortress, most probably Raigad and that it was dug by Shivaji . However I hardly believed it. The temple was constructed after Shivaji passed away. 
"Avanti, I would leave that myth rathar undiscussed. Concerning the coin, elaborate for Heaven's Sake. Where did you get it?" 
"This same temple." She replied quickly. 
"Yes, the myth is true and the proof is in front of you." 
Was it a rhyme? 
Reading my mind, she started again. 
"Yes Aryan, though it is rumoured there's a secret passage, it ain't completely a truth. However, the little time I was in, I can say it's a chamber. And it is just beneath us." 
I looked into her eyes, yes she told no falsehoods. Bedazzled, not by the mascara that embroidered her calm eyes, but the sight of her walking underground, beneath the place we were seating, I jumped in astonishment. 
"HUH? Avanti, do you even know what have you sought! The secret passage! One of those that remain forbidden in the forts of Maharashtra! What did the chamber contain? And how did you know the entrance? Where it is? How did you get in?" 
"Calm down. There's enough time"
 She said as she raised her hand. I followed her index finger. There, where Ajay and his girlfriend had been seating a few moments before, was a slit in the grand structure, a small gap to contain Ajay and Neha at once- heart by heart. 

*

 "Are you sure? Is this the entrance?" 
We stood parallel to the rear wall of the edifice, our eyes squinting at the slit. It was decored with cobwebs. Just beside the fissure was a three feet tall opening from which the worshippers departed in order to do the Pradaksheena around the temple. An old man gave me a wry look from the bars, as his wife kneeled to escape. 
I'd been in that fissure before. A tough regimen as I remember. 

A year ago, I was nearly struck in it, when I endeavoured to find out if there was actually an opening. Coming out, suffocating and sweating, I'd become a subject to children's giggling; their filthy noses cupped by their palms. Yes, I smelled of histoplasmosis fungus. 
How the hell did this girl tackled the feat? 
I imagined Arya, wrapped in Bat droppings. It wasn't a great sight to imagine as I recalled her beautiful array at our School Annual Gathering, four years ago. 
"It was dark inside. I stumbled upon the stairs which were many. Horrified as the room smelled of blood with each step I took, I had this Hon that came beneath my heels." 
Blood? Strange. 
"Did you climb down all the stairs?" I was curious. 
"Hardly five."
 Arya's courage was breathtaking. I'd never knew she was so brave. However, regarding the times she complained against me as I eve-teased, she wasn't vulnerable too. 
"But how did you enter from here?" I asked, apparently myself. The roughtwalls had no trace of any door. Arya quickly produced a paper from her pockets and handed over to me. 
"Let's see how you incur it". 
I began to read. With every letter I read, adrenaline rushed in my veins, while the great gong of the temple sent sparkles down my skin. 
  "Glory of thy fortitude fadeth away
As every stream that 'ntwine her,
Naive too to splash against the dust..
Esteem but those whose ardor,
Strive to laud His finesse,
He who's reverred the first."

And The King Beackoned To His Subjects.. PART I

As stealth as a cat lurking in the shadows, the silhoutte approached the leisure-flickered antique, while his lips incessantly hymned a ballad - 
"Awake... Awake the braveheart. All the things you owed, are broken apart."
 His words resonated through every corner of the dark chamber and echoed back to him; as if thousands of souls were pleading, repeating the same ballad. The silhoutte took a dream breath and gripped a tapering, slender armour that adorned his perfect masculine hip. It was a sheath. Nevertheless, the heavy metal hardly had any effect on him. A few seconds after savouring the sight of the sword that illuminated in the reddish glow, his hands trembled. To his fret, there was a loud thud of footsteps in the corridors outside and a bunch of Septuagenerians rushed in, breaking down the door in one shot and munching down the echoes. The blur metal plate on the marvelous tiles read - 'Indian Armour, Royal Collection Trust'. 

"Awake", the victim said again, and his words fade away...
"Chya Aila Tuzya," said Ajay, triumphantly smacking me with my pillow. How dare he do that!
"Huh?" Annoyed, taken aback, I jumped out of my bed.
"There's someone who intends to meet you," he said, his eyes knowing a secret. Before I could mutter a curse, Ajay bent down to me. "Balaji Temple, at 8 a.m."
As he finished, he handed over to me a peculiar coin, and clutched my fist. He gaved me a completely bizarre smile and dashed off. Confused, I opened by fist and stared at the lustrous coin. I could feel my jaw drop to the floor and rebound. The coin was pure Gold, enscribbled, and all I could decipher at the moment were the four numbers in Devanagri - year 1664. *
 "This can't be!" cried Ajay as we stood inside the large walls of the temple waiting for someone I was dying to meet.
Surmising who would possess such a rare antique in my city, and why wants to meet me, my mind was brimming with queries. 
"This can't be real, Aryan, is it?" asked Ajay, flipping the Hon from one palm to other, equally struck by the weight of pure Gold. Yes dude, It is real. Real for all the money in the world. Symbol of freedom from foreign tyranny and establishment of a sovereign state; a state and management so perfect that it highly influenced the politcians in today's world. A coin issued by Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj himself.