dew

The sound of rain drops
Tried tickling my ear lobes.
Not once did I crave
For their feel on my face.

I turned a blind eye

To lightning’s power display
I saw them ripping the sky
With the indifference of one waiting to die.

But the smell of wet earth
When it arose unseen and unheard

My cells, it soaked till I wondered
Were they intoxicated or coming alive.

 Where I had always waited to dance in the rain
I surrendered myself to the fragrance of one loved….

I was getting ready to attend my cousin’s wedding when I saw her for the first time. My aunt said her name was Sita and she lived next door. Draped in a sandalwood coloured silk sari and her long jasmine white hair secured in a neat knot at the nape of her neck she was gracefulness personified. Though I got only a fleeting glimpse of her for some reason unknown her face stayed in my memory.

Later in the night as I lay next to my aunt I broached up the topic of Sita. Sita, Rama’s beloved, a name revered but that which conjures up in ones minds an arduous life. Sita, who had to go through a lot of trials in her life and yet was abandoned by her man. Sita of the mythology had always fascinated me and so did the Sita of whom I had a fleeting glimpse this morning.

I wanted to know more about my aunt’s neighbour. Why had a graceful lady like her not married in her life? What I heard about her moved me. As a student in Pondicherry she was diagnosed with breast cancer which made up her mind not to get into the institution of marriage. A bright student she soon left for France for higher studies and later stayed on, pursuing a career there. After a long innings there she decided to come back to her home town to settle down to a peaceful life where there was no work pressure and deadlines to meet.

It was soon after she relocated to her hometown that she received a letter from an old school friend who now lived in Mumbai saying he wanted to meet her at the earliest. The letter threw open the door to memories long buried. He was the thin, wheatish complexioned boy who sat a few seats away from her in the mathematics class and who never missed a chance to steal glances at her. Initially it was only a few words that they exchanged occasionally and his shy nature always made it difficult for her to approach him. Exuberant by nature she had no dearth of friends but she always had a special liking for her silent admirer. Parting ways after school they kept in touch with each other rarely through a common friend. She knew he too had not married for some dosha in his astrological chart that said which ever girl became his wife would have a short life. And so he decided not to take a chance.

She had to go for she knew he needed her very badly and she had to be there. By the time she reached the address he had given she found out that he had been shifted to a nearby hospital by his relatives as he had suffered a massive heart attack. The doctor pronounced only a surgery was the solution which would require for the close relatives to deposit a huge amount at the hospital. Seeing no one coming forward to take up the responsibility Sita decided to meet the expense and stay with him till he came out of the ordeal.

On recovering consciousness the only person he wanted to see was her. He requested her to take him with her and she could not say no. They went to her house in her hometown to the irritation of her relatives. She took good care of him and the two sitting in the porch of her house in the evenings sometimes laughing like kids and sometimes basking in the warmth of the setting sun became a common sight. Thus they lived for fifteen long years a rare thing in medical history for a man to live so long without any complication after such a major surgery. And one fine winter morning his heart stopped beating without any particular reason. She was left alone to face the barbs of his as well as her relatives. Was she broken from within I do not know for her calm face did not reveal what she underwent. A week from the day I saw her first she was leaving her hometown forever to live in an old people’s home in the nearby city the rest of her life. Was it a decision they had taken together when he was alive that if one passed away the other would leave for a place where no one knew them and hence would not have to face painful words of the relatives I wondered as sleep slowly settled on my eyelids. Before I fell asleep I rendered a quick prayer for Sita.

Shanti ….that is her name. My domestic help. A thirty nine year old who inspite of the  hard work she puts in for a living is never seen shabby in appearance or action. Her well scrubbed face, sporting a big vermillion bindi and the centre parting of her hair adorned with vermillion mark that showed her married status, greeted me every morning at seven o clock when I went to open the door in reply to the ringing of the calling bell. A mother of four kids three girls and the youngest a boy she lives with her family in a rented house to which her husband visited as and when he wished to.

Married at the age of sixteen she worked hard not just for her immediate family but also for her extended family that included the aged mother of her husband and his two unmarried sisters. It was during those days that her husband decided to leave town in search of better prospective. Shanti worked still harder for the family till her husband could find a job in the new town he had moved to.

Days gave way to months with an occasional phone call from him telling he was still in the look out for a proper job that would to some extent reduce their financial constraints. Later she learnt that he had started working as a mason in a construction company. But she also noticed that the number of his phone calls had reduced tremendously. Refusing to give in to the nagging feeling that something was fishy in her husband’s behavior she decided to justify his action of not calling home to the hard work he was putting in.

One fateful day all the fears she was trying to wave away emerged as real when she found out that her husband was living with another woman in the town of his work.

As she related to me her feeling of that day I found her shivering like the one whose inner soul has been betrayed and bruised and which would never ever heal. It was more a feeling of shock that later paved way to confusion and then to anger and sorrow.

He begged for her forgiveness saying it was in a weak moment that he made the mistake. He still received mysterious phone calls and she once even found a number of photos of his with the other woman taken in a park. He still stays with Shanti when he is in town but she is a wiser person now. She saves money for her children’s future and said there is still some love left in her heart for her husband which makes her let him stay with her and their children. She works harder not just to make the future of her children safe but also to fall asleep as soon as she hits the bed. That way she is saved from the thoughts of the blows destiny meted out to her.

As she ended her story I could hear her muttering to herself …it was a weak moment that made him do so.

The snow clinging to your boughs
Are they hiding the sky from me
Or is it the sky you bring to me?

Under you the sky and the snow merge
My eyes play along
As the palms cup the share of my sky

 

The few leaves
Holding on to you
Will too bid adieu

But when the snow melts
Little leaves will sprout
And your heart with happiness swell

Knotted knuckles
Wiry fingers
Slouching shoulders
Lifeless, bare

Holding up to heaven
Your scrawny hands you stood
Is it life you beg for
Or salvation from this fanfare ?

Worn, withered I stood,
Desolate in the crowd
Till the scarlet of your warmth
My sinews rode 
You snaked your way
Through the hollow of my veins
 Was it all innocence?
I wondered in dismay.

Their relation was never destined to be permanent. It was a fleeting phase and both were aware of it. Yet as long as it lasted they never thought of the end. They lived every moment of their togetherness, ones presence soothing the other. She never looked more beautiful before or after except when she was with him. The glow on her face put to shame even the most precious of diamonds. But as was the rule this bliss too did not last long. He had to leave, move on as was the rule of nature. Bereft of his company she burned inside. Even as she burnt inside came out the sun claiming his right on her scorching her body with his intensity. All traces of the rain he wiped out with a vengeance. She shriveled under his gaze. Deep down inside her she hid memories of the rain that gave her strength to bear the lashes meted out to her. Where once she looked up at the heavens with expectation now she feared even to steal a glance. Her skin was scalded; the sun’s nails drawing scratches on it rupturing them. Why this punishment she wondered. Should not his warmth be bringing color to her cheeks rather than withering them? Should she not be celebrating her newly gained maturity before the long spell of sleep readied her for her rebirth than being pushed on to this path of obliteration before her time. Where were the much looked forward to days when she would have been gently rocked by the breeze as she lay basking under the warmth of the sun? She had only questions in her quiver and no answers-the darts which left her fingers but did not reach the mark, a symbol of futile quest. She wished for sleep to overcome her sooner or would even that be denied to her and the torture ceaselessly continue …….

time erased the footprints
the land lay barren and dry
before the lines chequered it
came the rains bursting the sky

the loved ones all departed
but the love in my heart stayed on
the nightingale’s song could still
make my spirits dance with abandon