Ways of Reading End Term Assignment(Prompt 1) + Self Reflective Essay Process

Prompt 1

(First part is from Chapter 16 A Few Hours Ago, pages 292-293. Its from Sophie Mol’s POV when the boat hits the log and it flips over. It is her thoughts just a few minutes before she drowns, Second part in a way continues from the same chapter and takes Rahel’s POV and then moves on to taking parts from Chapter 17 Cochin Harbour Terminus, pages 299-300, on how she looks back at the night Sophie Mold died, to how things around them changed and how it is this night where Rahel and Estha come together)

It happened so quickly and so suddenly, that nobody had the time to react.

“thump-ploof” was the muffled sound that was heard that night. In the dead of the dark nigt, which had made all the difference. It was the sound of wood hitting wood and then wood hitting the surface of the water. The Really Deep End of the river.

It wasn’t just the boat that had suddenly decided to change its laws of physics and had turned upside down that dark night. It was as if time itself had slowed down as if it had been meant to melted away in a Salvador Dali melted clock.                        

And in that meltiness of time her world was slowly getting sucked in into the dark murky depths of the river. Sophie Mol, with her bright blue eyes, which were like sapphires and were slowly dimming out its lights, stared back at the two pairs of legs, moving away from her and practically pushing their way through the violent waters, which were engulfing her like a warm blanket.

Strange, she felt warm in the cold dark waters.

The two pairs of legs of her twin cousins, Estha and Rahel.

Four limbs, one singular motion.

Two bodies, one soul.

In those remaining moments of her short and brief life, seeing them fighting together for survival, seeing them this close to being one and the same person, made her jealous.

She had yearned to share this understanding, this close intimacy they had in life and in death too, wanted, even if just for some time to share it with them.                             

But she was down here floating and they were up there fighting to stand their ground.

She could feel her losing her sense of feeling now, the water numbing her brain and wrinkling her skin, which when brought into the daylight the next, would feel paper thin and brittle to touch. The offerings that she had brought with her-pieces of bread, cake, biscuits-which she had brought as bargain items to gain their friendship, all floated besides her.

They pirouetted around her, each like little dancing fairies, like the ones that were in the bedtime stories that Mum and Joe used to tell her.

‘I’m sorry Mum, I won’t be going back home with you now.’

Sophie Mol drifted away from this life, sinking in what seemed like a bottomless Really Deep End side of the river in Ayemenem and went off to her own life, back home in London.

She was tucked in in her snowflake patterned quilt, wearing her tartan red jumper and piping hot chocolate in hand. Joe was right besides her, reading her favorite bedtime story with little dancing fairies.

‘Don’t be sad Mum, I’m here with Daddy’

Sophie Mol closed her eyes, never to open again.

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“Sophie Mol?” she whispered to the rushing river.” We’re here! Here! Near the Illimba tree!” 

Nothing.

There was no answer at all.

“Sophie Mol where are you? .Please come out from your hiding place? We need to reach the History House now!”       

Still no answer. The fishswimming silence engulfing her in.

She turned around to look to see he wasn’t there either.

No sign of Sophie Mol. No sign of him.

Just silence, rising fishswimming silence and no answers.

“Sophie Mol! Estha!...SOPHIE MOL! ESTHAA!!” she shouted and shouted, maybe bursting her lungs in the process, so that someone could hear her.

“Estha!”Rahel said in a loud whisper as she woke up.

It was still dark outside. The night was still a little wet. A little quiet.

Estha was here, next to her. On his side of the bed. His nakedness. Her nakedness. Ammu’s nakedness. Shining through the dim dull grey light of the moon, hidden by the rain clouds and coming through the sieve-like grill of the window upon them both.

Rahel quietly slipped out from the bed, knowing that in his rhythmic slow breathing he knew she was up , and had slithered towards the bathroom.

She splashed cold water on her face and shivered.

She looked up and saw Ammu staring back at her. It was her reflection, she knew it.

But she also knew that it was hers as well. Bathed in the iridescent light of bright yellow bulb, framing the space above her curled up tangled bush of hair like a glowing halo.

‘The Goddess of Past Musings’ she thought to herself.

“The Goddess of Many Reflections’

She liked the last one more.

Why had she thought of Sophie Mol tonight? Why this particular night?

Was it because for her Estha had truly Re-Returned to her? Or was it in some ways her anger, who knows in what form, that had formed deep inside her and had morphed into a kind of a “far off” “aloof” air that people always thought that surrounded her. Because it was that night, that moment when they had lost Sophie Mol to the Really Deep End of the violent Meenanchal that everything they had known had changed.

They had changed.

She switched off the bathroom light and quietly closed the door behind her.

Estha still had his back towards her on his side of the bed.

She stared at his back for a long time, searching for herself in each curve and shadow that his back formed.

Now she had some semblance of why Larry McCaslin would be offended by her eyes whenever they made love. He always thought as though they belonged to someone else.

Someone watching. Looking out of the window at the sea. At the boat in the river. Or a passer-by in the mist in a hat. That faraway look that Larry could never figure out. That was Estha. Rahel-Estha. Estha-Rahel. Twin zygotes from the same source shared the same soul.

Maybe it wasn’t anger towards Sophie Mol, not entirely at her. She was angry that Sophie Mol had to die. That in the moment of the darkness when the boat had tipped over and got lost in the strong current, they had simply just paddled away, thrashing their legs through the waters.

Two bodies. One soul         

It sounded a bit familiar but that was it-the Truest Truth.

When tomorrow comes, things would again change.

She could already sense Baby Kochamma feeling uneasy around both of them. She was restless when they would go, when they would be out of her house.

Well, this would make it all the more discerning for her. She had never been too fond of them and when she would know about this.

Rahel didn’t want to think about it now. She didn’t want to think about anything at all.

She quietly reached her side of the bed and laid down, her back towards Estha.                       

She closed her eyes, her thoughts drifting away as sleep took over her eyes.

‘It is a constant feeling. This ‘thing’ called love. It comes, it goes and sometimes it stays forever. As a memory, of a distant past. As a moment which is in process.

It is everywhere around us. Popping up here and there, some form of trigger points.

Maybe we both are a lot fragile than we think we actually are. Because we are fragile creatures that can break into pieces at any moment. A small touch here, a small nudge there. It would just make us crumble into dust.

And maybe, just maybe, that destruction too would make sense.

Because I would know that I’m not alone. And you would know the same"

Self Reflective Essay Process