The day the sky cracked open

Nayan is only fifteen, when he sees the sky crack open. After nearly a month of unrelenting sun, a different kind of light seeps through the cloudless blue above and reaches out to the ground under Nayan’s feet. The very ground that used to be verdant not so long ago is now brown and barren, its skin cracked like the lips of the villagers, and dry like their very hearts.

They say the earth is heating up everywhere, chasing away the rains in some places, drowning in floodwaters in others. These are days of untimely snow and raging fires. Deserts appear where forests thrived, and the sea is hungry – it consumes the land, a little bit more each day. Birds forget where they’ve got to fly to, and flowers bloom when they shouldn’t.

For the villagers though, it’s all about the rain – the sheer absence of it. The land is truly parched. Rain clouds arrive with pomp, pregnant with life, only to float away. Villagers grow old and tired waiting for a cloudburst that never happens. The crops are the first to fail, followed by crashing faith and dying spirits. As loans and taxes mount, those that were revered as sons of the soil, growers of food, are chased into the corners of their dead fields.

-----*****-----

Nayan was only twelve when they cut down the rope and brought his father’s lifeless body home. The man who had given him life, who ploughed the land and fed the soil – the farmer who failed to farm, and then all of a sudden chose to die.

Nayan ran that day. Away from his dead father, from his mother’s despair, from the moneylenders that kept came to their door as wolves thirsting for blood. And when he realized he was bound to the village, to his family, he returned home, only to run away again and again from the ballooning crisis that was about to explode and take the entire village down with it.

Nayan had heard stories about the gods above. Stories his mother and grandmother had told him. These gods lived on lush green lands that were neither arid nor thirsty. There was nectar and immortality, beauty and art, orchestral music and deep silence, more than plenty to eat and drink. Most importantly, there was peace. It was these immortals who controlled the sun and wind, it was they who commanded the clouds and made the rain fall. It was obvious to Nayan therefore, that it was necessary to meet with these great ones and inform them about his dying village.

So when he turned fifteen, Nayan began building the ladder. That exceptional ladder, which lay in the forest, away from prying eyes. It was the longest ladder anyone had ever attempted to build, but then again, he couldn’t reach the heavens with an ordinary stepladder, could he?

-----*****-----

As the crack appears in the sky and iridescent light leaks through, Nayan knows it is time. He runs into the forest and props up his ladder against the massive Banyan tree. It is ancient, wizened with secrets of the years growing crooked on its countless branches.

Nayan begins the long climb up. One foot after another. When he steps on the last rung, he reaches out and pries the sky-crack open. He puts his elbows on the edges of heaven and hoists himself up through the opening. Straightening himself, he shakes floating wisps of white clouds off his hair and shoulders and scrubs the muddy sunlight off his worn rubber slippers.

When he finally looks up, he finds himself face-to-face with a shimmering boy. He could be Nayan’s age, younger by decades, or older by infinity – there’s no way to tell really. He shines like moonlight, but he looks angry, frightened even. Nayan rubs his eyes in disbelief – but he knows what he sees. The boy standing in front of him is a god – a god that does not smile in benediction.

That’s when Nayan awakens to the scenes unfolding around him. In every possible direction, gods, goddesses and mythical creatures battle in fury. Chaos and discord string everything together in a madness beyond time and reason. The war is soundless, and Nayan feels like he’s suspended in a balloon high up above the ground as strangers float around, silently obliterating themselves and each other. The overlords strike with shafts of light and thought bombs, and Nayan watches dumbfounded as they bleed rivers of silver and gold. Oceans of nectar ebb and flow all around, but no god drinks from them. They’re so steeped in conflict, they’ve forgotten – about the nectar and joy, the sun, wind and the clouds. About the rain. They’ve simply forgotten to remember.

-----*****-----

Nayan steps down through the sky-crack, pats wisps of white back in, plugging it till the crack disappears, and begins his long descent down. He drags the ladder back into the forest and leaves it there to be forgotten. He turns back to take a last good look at the village of despair that had once been his home. And then, he begins the long trek North, to the mountains that are rumoured to be the centre of the known universe. Just like his mother and grandmother had sung to him in their lullabies when he was little. The songs that brought sleep to him on whispered wings. Perhaps there is wisdom there that remains hidden from the gods. Perhaps in those dizzying heights, higher than the heavens of strife, Nayan will find some answers to help the earth heal.