The Boar and the Beautiful

“How was the wedding?” I asked Rajesh while shifting to the fifth gear. “It was hot, humid and there was a suffocating big crowd.” He said. It was a sleepy Sunday summer late evening in Pune. I was riding the bike with Rajesh as pillion through the Range Hills area, directionless. I fired the cylinder vigorously to shrug off the residual of afternoon siesta. Rajesh had just returned from Kerala after attending a wedding at Thiruvalla. He continued, “The only solace for me was the younger sister of the groom”. “Why? What’s special?” My hangover of the midday sleep started melting. “Gosh! She is quite a damsel and if she wasn’t there I would have quit the wedding scene even before it started”. I could feel the gush in his otherwise insipid voice. Now my curiosity was riding faster than the bike. “What’s her name?” “Diana”. Before he completed the name the entire ‘H’ Type area where we were passing by drowned into darkness and the bike banged on something hard like rock. A scary scream followed the shatter. Things were so sudden and beyond comprehension. We both were tossed in the air and landed with a thud. When the sense prevailed someone from the crowd told us that it was a power failure and the bike went and hit a huge black pig that crossed the road. My gleaming new Suzuki Shaolin was badly damaged.

Diana. After the mishap that name always evoked the memory of darkness, pig and scream. The dented gas tank of my bike chanted that name till I sold it. Every pig in the garbage pit mocked me with that name and whenever the power went off I could hear a dark whisper; Diana. Every time I passed Range Hills ‘H’ Type area I remembered the name and then that scream of the beast, like a mnemonic memory.

Someone’s misery is somebody else’s entertainment. It is something very similar to holding a tandoori chicken leg in one hand and scotch in the other and watching a war on the TV and commenting on it. It’s a spectacle for us but not for the one who is going through it. Our crush with Diana and the crash with the pig became a staple joke in all booze parties among the Mallu bachelors in Range Hills. They said I lost control of the bike after hearing Rajesh’s description of Diana. Rajesh and I flashed pale smiles in response. But in my heart of heart I wanted to see this Diana once in life; at least to wipe off that piggy image that comes to my mind.

Rajesh had completed his LL. B. and returned to Kerala and lost touch with me. After seeing many more flood and draught in Mula River I too relocated to Kerala. On a relaxed Sunday evening my daydreams were disrupted by a call from a strange number. A familiar voice on the other end, sounded as if it was coming from a decade far. It was Rajesh after many years. A long conversation about lost friends, Pune, Angamaly, temples, churches, festivals, betrayals, successes, disasters, cars, films, women, marriage, boredom, kids and more followed. While concluding the conversations he suddenly asked “do you remember that once I told you about a Thiruvalla wedding and the sister of the groom?" I shuddered as I could hear that scream of a boar from afar. “Yes I remember”, I said. “She is a film actress now!”. He said enthusiastically. There is no Diana from Kerala whom I know in the Indian film scene. “Is she Diana Hayden?” I asked him. “No. She changed the name." He said. “What’s her cinematic name?" I asked curiously. “Nayanthara; that’s the name”. The room was lit up suddenly and I could hear the sound of an explosion in my ventricles and all the pigs in this universe were charred to death forever.