Yet another one from the archives. Dates back to 1999. I know what you guys are thinking. This excavation of old articles is bound to stop one day which I reckon isn't quite far. However at the moment, my mind is too preoccupied with the teething problems in settling down in Chennai, the hot and humid but delightful city in South India. Read on.

The Raven, Poe and My Wife

There is one thing remarkable about Maumee River. It doesn’t get tired of flowing serenely into Lake Erie. It hasn't stopped its flow even for a single moment since the day I landed in Toledo, Ohio in 1999. I appreciate its commitment to keep Niagara Falls intact. The Falls get the input from Erie, which in turn is fed by Maumee River. The river is quite deep people say. Sometimes I see big steamers cutting through the waters of this river gently. Observing the river is my favorite pass time activity.

With just a customary glance at it you won't feel anything. You have to look closer and deeper into the river to appreciate its personality. The river has a charm of its own. It is like a Queen ruling the country in a very dignified way. Nothing can shake her off. Those small ripples and waves seem to have a perfect pattern and this is quite interesting to watch. Every single ripple follows its predecessor and the whole process has a clear rhythm associated with it.

The ripples travel to the end of the river and there is a certain enthusiasm associated with them that tells us that these ripples are carrying lots of news from the far and distant lands. Each ripple has a message, if only you could read it. Every ripple has a story if only you could interpret it. To relish these finer aspects you must learn to look beyond the obvious into the depths of those serene waters.

That fine Fall afternoon I was fully engrossed in observing the river closely, in fact much closer than needed. I feel now that it was probably a bit too close and perhaps the boat in which I was traveling had an agreement with the river that it would supply good software engineers to the river.

Whatever might be the reason I found myself closest to the surface of the water flowing in that river.. I believe no one else would have seen those waters that close on that fine Fall afternoon.. Actually my desperate attempts to stay afloat only let my nose stay a quarter of an inch above the water level. I noticed my boat sailing away happily at a distance without any attention to the unfortunate soul who had just seconds ago been reading Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” quite poetically on its deck.

“And this,” Nitya maintains her view even now, “is the precise reason why the boat wanted to get rid of you in the first place.” I don’t want to believe that of course, because I am of the opinion that nothing can hate the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe whether it’s animate or inanimate the sole exception being my wife. I told this to her and she immediately retorted. “I know why you are saying this to me... That is a thinly disguised way of saying that I belong to neither category.” I didn’t say no to her because that was precisely what I thought of ‘things’ that hated Edgar Allan Poe.

The river did not seem very interesting then. Though I was able to “look closer” I was not able to “relish” the finer aspects of the river. Might be because my mind was preoccupied with the burning problem of the moment, "how to stay afloat" And this, I should say clearly to my reader, was indeed a big problem as I had absolutely no idea what the hell was swimming all about at that time.

Perhaps this incident was the driving force and the elusive compelling reason for my learning swimming later in my life. It really surprised me how I was able to kick water so fiercely. If I were on firm ground, I would have knocked down ten people comfortably. I had never before seen my legs moving with such agility. At last I decided to retire, to get into the river and look at the river from within itself. I stopped my futile attempts to stay afloat. Just then, I saw a boat coming towards me as fast as possible.

My rescuers were two in number. Two teenagers in their last teens I think. They were clearly American. I wanted to say hello to them. But apparently my vocal chords did not want to work. The girl then took out a flask and poured me some coffee. Three sips of that rang the alarm bells for my vocal chords and quite surprisingly the first word that came from my mouth was “God!”

And this is really surprising because till then I had maintained sternly that the main content of my blood, apart from the usual hemoglobin, was atheism.

“How are you feeling now?” asked the boy. I nodded, and suddenly remembered Edgar Allan Poe, his Raven and my boat. “The Raven” I shouted all of a sudden. Such shouts, as per Nitya, are lethal especially if you are on a rescue boat sailing near Lake Eerie. This boat confirmed its abhorrence by almost tipping me off the deck. If it were not for the girl who pulled me back, I would have had another chance to understand the deep personality of the Queen.

“What happened?” she asked me with a weird expression on her face. I blame her not. It is perfectly natural for anyone to look strangely at a guy who is in his mid twenties if he shouts without any apparent reason “The Raven” after being rescued from a freezing river.

“I mean the poem, The Raven” I told her. She asked me curiously, “The Raven that tapped your front door and always said ‘Ne’ermore’?”

I was astonished. “You are a Poe reader?” I asked her. Now I realize how foolish that question is… If she hadn’t read that she wouldn’t have said that. Anyway she didn’t scold me for being such a fool. She simply said, “Poe’s my favorite author.”

“It’s great!” I said, “To find a teenager who is interested in Edgar Allan POEtry.” The boy who’d been managing the boat till then without any slightest deviation asked me “Who’s this Poe?”

“A great writer; father of detective stories… a total failure in personal life” the girl said without any delay. I just nodded. Suddenly it dawned upon me that I had forgotten about something crucial. I could not remember it. I scratched my head and almost jumped on the deck. This time I had controlled my emotions as the boat didn’t seem very friendly to people who jumped on its deck.

The girl who’d been watching me curiously asked me, “Is it about the Raven?” I then remembered about the Raven; then about the collection of Poe’s works; then about the location of that book at that moment and then about the boat in which I was supposed to be traveling reading aloud the poem, “The Raven.”

“It would have already entered Lake Erie,” the girl calmly said. “I need to find it” I said, “at any cost.” The boy smiled, “It is much easier to buy another copy of the book!” I looked at him coldly and said, “It is not about the book. It is about my wife who is sleeping peacefully on that boat!”

Of course, she could not have got lost just like that. Her screaming alerted the coast guards and they towed the boat to the shore. But then she was a little angry with me for “leaving her in the middle of nowhere.” I tried to explain her that it was an accident but she went on to extreme ends like calling the teenagers my accomplices and things like that.

I understand now, that it was purely because of the shock she had received when she woke up that great Fall afternoon to find the boat deserted except for the collection of Edgar Allan Poe’s works, that she behaved like that. Otherwise, she is a good lady. She never says ‘No! Stop it! Bonehead!’ when I read aloud “The Raven” almost once everyday.

I met the rescuers the very next day in the market. Nitya wasn’t wearing a jacket and a cold wind blew from the cloud shivering her. The girl remarked “Your Annabel Lee?”

I just smiled. “Yep! But she’s with me! Unlike Annabel Lee”

Venu Vedam