Moirai's Gambit
Year 1980
Baharon phool barasao mera mehboob aaya hai, mera mehboob aaya.
Sitaaron raagini gaao, mera mehboob aaya hai, mera mehboob aaya hai.
By now his ears should have become blase about the daily affliction in multiple installments from past one week. By now he should have gotten used to the screeching cacophonous vocals of sundry locally hired singers clamoring to be heard over the riotous din of human and instrument sounds, by now he should have learnt the song played over and over in every Baaraat he had been witness to till date, by heart
By now, he should have accepted his asininity and fallen on his knees in front of Moirai and begged for mercy. Accepted that his fears had been imbecile and unfounded and that if he failed to find her, he and self would be irreconcilable. He shifted uncomfortably in his bed, sweating heavily in November and covered his head under the pillow to cut out the bedlam that befell his ears.
She- he remembered her face from two years ago as if it were yesterday that he had begrudgingly held the train ticket from Mumbai to Kanpur. She wasn't anything extraordinary, her plain sky-blue chicken kurti was visibly faded from repeated washing, her maroon travel bag looked even older with one side appearing damp with what must be water from a leaking bottle inside. Relatives in railway, he had decided immediately for she did not look like the kind that traveled in first class on a regular basis.
"Shit, I must have not closed the dhakkan properly." she muttered as she placed the bag under her seat holding its wet side. It was then that he had noticed her face, strands that came out loose from her braid covered her forehead, the longer ones falling over her shoulder and her braid easily reaching till her hips. Kohl in her eyes was slightly smudged at the corners from perspiration that waiting at the railway station on a hot and humid Mumbai afternoon ensues. And he had noticed her eyes. Bright, luminescent, attentive yet dreamy at the same time, her eyes danced as she noticed her surroundings, grinned sheepishly when she plopped down in her seat and settled on him curiously.
"Where are you going?" she had asked.
He had prevented the chuckle from rolling out at the yet again strengthened notion of nosy Indian co passengers. "Kanpur." he had maintained indifference in his monotone.
"Great, so I won't be alone in this prison tonight." she had exclaimed in unconcealed delight.
"Excuse me?" he asked in the uncomfortable silence fallen after.
"This dabba." she said pointing with her index finger around, "feels like I am cut off from the world."
"There are windows." he did not understand why was he even a part of this conversation but said anyway.
"Oh no, that's only a short respite, I'll soon be bored with the scenery outside. Objects - they aren't as interesting as humans. This..." she used both her hands and with all her fingers pointed at the floor in what appeared to be dejection, "is not how train journey should be. You cannot hear what's the conversation going in the adjacent two compartments, you cannot smell the various aam and neembu achars of the co-passengers, you don't get to know people."
"Excuse me? What people?" he hadn't heard anything as ridiculous as that, at least during insipid travels.
"Co passengers, who else? Train is the best place for this you know, many people meet as strangers and end up being friends for life. And sometimes you find distant relatives you have long lost touch with, it has happened twice with me. I was talking to this Uncle sitting opposite me while travelling from Pune to Mumbai, he turned out to be my distant Mama, my mother's second cousin who had been ousted from the family when he had eloped with his girlfriend." she chortled, he stared.
"And you know what, my parents' rishta had been fixed in a train." she sounded proud as if she was the one to have fixed it.
This was the moment when he had finally given up on the hopes of enjoying his solitude, he knew she wouldn't stop until she had described all the Uncles and Aunts she had met that her family had purged for elopement, theft or murder and had recounted her parents' wedding from the color and font of invitation card to the songs the band had played in her father's baaraat. After a couple of hours he had begun to suspect the boundaries of her tales conveniently extending to apocryphal.
Unbeknownst to him, his monosyllabic replies had turned to full sentences and frequent from the initial few and far in between. The trend had dwindled when more than her talks, she had begun to interest him. Being in conversation was good, he got ample opportunity to stare into her hazel eyes or the tiny of her nose or the fullness of her mouth. To notice the darkness of her hair and the lightness of her skin.
He remembered it all, clear and vivid, even her habit of folding one leg beneath the other and swinging the free one down from her seat, her fingers that often fiddled with her dopatta and pushed the stray strands away from her face as she buzzed like a hyperactive bee.
Who could believe it had been two years, and that it was the only time he had seen her physically before him.
He held the idea of waking up from this reverie to reality and in great disrelish but got up and dragged his feet to the door being banged by his friend.
"Why are you still in your pyjama?" Akash asked irritably, "the baaraat is ready to move, and you had promised to come along."
He stared at the marble floor, contemplating an answer.
"Are you unwell?" his friend's irritation soon changed to concern.
He shook his head in reply, and squirmed as the baaraat's band came in a fifty meter radius.
Jiski biwi gori uska bhi bada naam hai, jiski biwi gori uska bhi bada naam hai... kamare me bithalo bijli ka kya kaam hai, mere angane mein tumhara kya kaam hai.
"Won't he just shut up?" he cried as he winced again with the band's volume assuming a higher notch.
Akash smirked and placed his palm on his shoulder, "get ready man, I'll be waiting for you. We'll go by car to save you the torture." he said and waited for a moment contemplating his next words but noticing the emptiness in the former's eyes all he did was to nod, "since you haven't made me privy to the real purpose of your stay here in Kanpur, I'd only hope that you soon find whatever you have been looking for."
"Thanks." Arnav smiled wanly and shut the door behind him with a click.
"Going to Kanpur? Why?"
"Why now?"
"What brings you here?"
"To meet someone?"
"Business?"
"Looking for a girl?"
"C'mon, you were always the first to balk at marriage."
Faces and prying eyes, and then the flood of invasive questions, all of which he prevaricated. It was a disconcertingly curious world, at times he feverishly looked for a corner to hide. "Isn't a man free to go wherever he wishes to." he had supplied as an answer and let their curiosity to fester. This had always been one of his many charms.
He stood beneath the cold shower,
It rained, and we were out to get drenched... I saw people running for shade, I wonder why. There is nothing as blissful as the cold, pure drops from heaven kissing our skin... cleansing.
Rains are harbingers of happy times, bearers of fortunate tidings. I find it ironical to see people running away, trying to evade, it is as if they are running away from their own happiness.
He recollected the lines of her final letter to him, he hadn't known then that it would not be followed by another the next week.
He had sat down on his desk, like all the times after having read her letter at least five times, to compose a reply. Where in he attempted to pour his heart into paper, just like she did, the only variation being this one would never reach the addressed.
When I see rain from my window, I imagine you. I imagine you getting drenched, your long hair open and splayed across your shoulders, dripping. I imagine my fingers in it. I imagine kissing all the drops from heaven that have found sojourn on your skin... I imagine... He had stopped, folded and put it away in one of the drawers of his desk like every other time.
Maybe he was no different from the ironic crowd; he too was running away from his own happiness.
He toweled his damp hair and slipped into trousers. He was dressed impeccably in five minutes.
The song outside had changed to Le jayenge le jaayege dil wale dulhaniya le jaayege
As he pulled his blazer, he once again felt the papers in his waistcoat. Some of her letters, the ones he held dearest of all. We never realize their worth when we have them, we take them for granted. It is only when they are gone, the void left behind threatens to engulf our very existence.
He sat in the car, observed the rambunctious, anonymous Baaraatis. They danced to the beats, young and old, danced uncaring of the world around, uncaring of the snide remarks their untrained moves invited. He gathered, if she had been in his place, she would have joined them in this carnival.
"I'll write to you." when she had said it two years ago as they hurriedly exchanged mailing addresses standing on the overbridge of Kanpur Junction, he knew it wasn't a formal statement, her eyes had held promise.
When it was his turn to return the favor, he knew again that his nod had not betrayed his eagerness.
She had kept her promise, every week there was the similar yellow envelope, a ruled sheet of paper that bore words in a neat, petite, cursive handwriting. They always ended with a reply soon, undeterred by his noncompliance. He had become habitual of receiving them, reading them several times in a week, many times before he fell asleep each day, sometimes holding the paper close.
But he never had the courage to send a reply, fearful that he'd reveal too much about his feelings for her, fearful that if she did not reciprocate, he'd be broken and more fearful that she might stop writing to him and misunderstand his intentions.
He knew he had fallen for her, the day he had seen her, the night when she had fallen asleep in the seat opposite him and he hadn't been able to sleep a wink.
Two months ago his fears had yielded and that too without any intervention from his side, or maybe exactly because of his non-intervention. Her letters had stopped.
Had she given up on him? Had she been dejected due to his unresponsiveness? What an idiot he had been, there she had told him about everything transpiring in her life and he hadn't even had the courtesy to express how much her epistles mattered to him. He could have been formal, he could have written just a short note, or send her gifts. All he had done were two curt thanks scribbled for the two birthday cards she had sent him. How she knew the date, he had no idea and he had never asked for her birth date.
After a month and another two weeks of agony and bereftness, the empty letter box save a few official mails had jeered at him. The silence was deafening. The pangs of separation unbearable. He had then, sat down on the same desk and written. Written about the time gone, written about the two years, about her letters, about his fears, about his vulnerability, about life, about all he thought of her words, about everything that came to his mind. He had been up all night, typing away on the brand new electronic typewriter, imported from USA, till the heat generated caused his palms to sweat.
When he posted it to her address of Kanpur the next morning, it wasn't a letter anymore, it was a parcel. The parcel that was delivered four evenings later at his address, the confused post man telling that the person to whom it was addressed was not living there anymore and the people now acquiring the house were cooperative enough to hand it over immediately.
He had then made his mind. He had spent the next week, using his contacts and trying to find where she was currently living, when the exercise hadn't been fruitful, he found himself in her city. Kanpur. Akash -an old acquaintance had helped him find a good hotel near her locality in this busy wedding season. Tonight he had cajoled him into agreeing to attend this stupid wedding with him.
He had long gotten unused to such gatherings and places. When a man of his height and handsomeness and clothes that screamed elite entered the venue, many heads had turned. Curious eyes had followed him and when his friend introduced him around, he was met with disarming smiles. He wanted to get out as soon as possible.
"If you are feeling so uncomfortable Arnav, we'll just congratulate my cousin who's the groom, and then I'll send my car and driver to drop you at your hotel. It's just that seeing you at his wedding would be an honor for my brother, he works in your company. You were the one to recruit him a few months ago." his friend informed.
A whiff of premonition was felt deep inside that he willfully ignored at the prospect of getting out of this purgatory at the first chance.
He nodded brusquely to the greetings offered as he made his way to the stage. "Kid brother has gotten himself such a beautiful wife." said Akash over his shoulder. He looked in their direction disinterestedly.
It was her.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
************************
Presenting you with the most prolific post makers
of the century -
The ever buzzing bees
Expelliarmus - Juhi
1chilly - Charu
..Arnav.. - Sindu
A_BA - Aami
Angellic_doll - Shilpa
Areeba_blossom - Areeba
Arshix144 - Mini
Arshi67 - Ruchi
ArnavBarun - Veena
...ASB100... - Asha
AzraZaidi - Azra
Bhavikakosambia - Dolly/ Bhavika
Bridgeofdreams - Shaimaa
Champsum - Sumaiya
Chokri_ASR - Jigs
Chotidesi - Choti
cineraria - Ria
Dev25 - Mani
esseesse
esamoe - Raeesa
Heavens_Flower - Re Re
IOVENI - Nish
jduke - Jay
JforChimpanzee - JforChimpanzee
Kclovearshi - Kavi
Kiwikali - Kali
Kurinji - Kurinji
LooneyLuna - Luna
mem1 - Gita
MsDroolKanthan - Astha, not Shlock's though
Nooro - Noor
preethi.saseeda - Preethi
rith123 - Rithika
Rulama - Rashmi
Ssyahoo - Sami
Sarikaa97 - Sarikaa
Semanti - Semanti
shree10 - Shree
sj236 - Sur
Sman - Shailaja
sudhareddy - Sudha
Tinkleby - Maanasa
tvpal007 - Cherry
vks11 - Sri
vandana.sagar - Vandana
Err, with new bees being welcomed into the all accommodating hive, I may have missed a name or two, pliss to phorgive phor da mishtakiya.
Some things to keep in mind (Thanks Juhi for the rules):
1) We are all friends here, so let's value each other's opinions, without personal judgments and comments. Step back if you need to...
2) Let's keep it clean, so no one has any need to come up creeping at our doorsteps, no being the basherz ya?
3) You probably don't want to share personal info here, that's what PM(s) are for ya?
And with that, let's get this party started...
[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXdbrbrxsQ0[/YOUTUBE]
comment:
p_commentcount