***
It is an evening. A group of girl
students dressed in their colourful attire, exuding the appeal of a rainbow, is
standing in a queue waiting for the bus at the bus stand in front of the
Women’s College. Some girls, rich enough to own cars, bring their cars near the
queue, pick up their close friends along with them, and leave. The ‘grey’
colour van too carries the students who otherwise travel by bus usually and
leaves. Once the hustle, mixed with the horn sounds, shrieking voices of
conversations, and laughter of girls standing there partly frozen due to cold,
is settled down in half an hour—that is, after half past five—a group of girl
students numbering less than twenty is standing under a tree near the bus stand
in the heavy rain, crushing and almost huddling each other tightly under ten or
twelve umbrellas held together.
Holding their books tightly onto their
chest, covering them with the hem of their saree, the folds of their sarees
inserted between their knees to avoid them getting wet in rainwater, those
girls are waiting for their buses for a long time on that road located in the
middle of the city without much of a hustle, amidst the gardens with thickly
grown trees, having no place around to escape the rain, and where one could see
there was nothing other than buildings.
--On the other end of the road, the
coarse sound of a bus is heard.
“Hey… the bus is coming.” Many voices
rise up in unison.
That “diesel run rogue” reaches there,
splashing about the water in the street on its sides.
“Bye…bye….
“See you…”
“Zeeeerioooo!” the whistle sound of the
conductor!
The bus moves with a heavy grunting
noise as if it is belching after swallowing up half of the crowd standing
there.
About ten or twelve girls are standing
at the bus stand.
As it is the monsoon, the night arrives
much earlier than usual.
A cycle rickshaw puller who is on his
way finds a stray bull obstructing his way; he keeps ringing his
already-blunted bell briskly to drive away the bull. As it doesn’t move aside
despite his efforts, he starts showering expletives on it, completely indifferent
to the presence of girls there. The girls are amused at his nonchalant
expletives as he has gone far, giggled intermittently remembering his abuses,
and then gradually become quiet.
For long, no remarkable or interesting
event occurs on the street after that. Standing in the water for such a long
time amidst the irritable silence, their legs sulked and started aching.
No bus has arrived yet!
That stray bull is still standing in
the middle of the street. It is an ox. An old ox. One of its horns is hanging
on its forehead. The rainwater hits its back, speckled with pearl-like droplets
on its brownish stomach, and forms black streaks on both sides. A part of its
body—visibly, the region just above its right thigh—gets tingled frequently due
to cold.
How long can they keep themselves
amused watching that old ox? A young girl, who was standing there, completely
looking different from others in all aspects, cranes her neck forward to have a
glimpse of the bus with a sigh.
… On the other end of the road, the
coarse sound of a bus is heard.
The bull gives away a space for the bus
to come there, walks across the road casually, goes near to the platform where
the girls are standing, and stands hesitatingly as if it is beseeching them for
some space for it.
“Hey…it’s my bus…” The eldest girl
among them jumps like a kid.
“Bye…bye…”
Hands are waving.
After the bus moves away from that spot
carrying a good chunk of girls from the group, two girl students are standing
on the platform—one of them is a little girl. The other is an adult, looking
like a regular college-going girl. She only has an umbrella, and the little
girl is also standing under the umbrella with the mercy of the former. The
little girl doesn’t seem to be a college-going girl. She looks like a high
school girl. One could say from her appearance that she isn’t from a rich
family. A green-coloured skirt and an indecisive, crimson-coloured Thavani,
not matching with the colour of her skirt, probably made from the torn and
faded saree of her mother. A string of black colour beads, joined by a thread
with press buttons, on her neck. A clover-shaped stud, fitted with stones—ahh!
One of the stones is missing, carved so as to make oil seep through it.
Unadulterated, bright, childlike eyes, shining brilliantly as if her face
requires no jewels.
The one who sees her would inevitably
remember a newly blossomed flower, looking in its simplest, just budded, and
having an enchanting beauty that many precious things of this world lack. That
too, when she is standing in this rain, wet, legs looking like carved tusks due
to standing in the water for long, feet bluish and shrunken, thavani made
in old cloth, blouse sticking to her body with her small and shrunk frame due
to cold looking like a miniature Amman statue, one would definitely have an
inclination to pick her up in his arms and run away.
“The bus hasn’t arrived yet. What’s the
time now?” The little girl looks up and asks the girl holding the umbrella.
“A few minutes to six.” She looks at
her wristwatch, sulking, and says, “Yonder, a bus is coming. If it is mine, I
will leave.” The elder girl folds her umbrella.
“Oh…yes! The rain has also stopped. My
bus will also come. One bus will start from the terminal at quarter to six. If
this bus happens to be mine, I will also leave,” she speaks as if she enters an
agreement with her. While she is speaking, the elder one is so fascinated with
the sweetness of her voice and her lisp-like words. She is looking like a baby
to her. She pinches her cheeks gently and says, “Be a smart girl. Go home
safely”—she” kisses her own fingers.
The bus comes. Two buses are coming
simultaneously, one after the other. The elder one boards the first bus.
“Bye...bye...”
“Thank you. My bus has also come,” the
little girl squealed, sending the elder off, and at once she gets disappointed
to see the bus coming behind is not hers. The driver understands from her face
that she is not waiting for that bus, and as there are no passengers standing
at the bus stand, he doesn’t stop the bus and moves ahead.
She is standing alone in that big road,
empty, with no sign of humans in the vicinity. The old ox is the only one
standing there as her companion. At a distance, she could see someone walking
around inside the college compound occasionally. Suddenly, the darkness engulfs
the area like a curtain, and the fierce wind that blows following it shakes the
trees on the road, thus causing water droplets to fall down from the branches.
She stands closer to the tree. After a brief lull, it has started raining heavily.
When she is about to run across the road, looking at both sides of it so as to
go back to the college, a big car crosses her way, almost brushing her, halting
suddenly, and swinging beautifully to and fro due to the sudden jerk.
She looks at the car, with her eyes
wide open, from its rear to its driver seat as if it is a marvel standing in
front of her. The young man who is driving the car, sitting in the driver's
seat, leans on his left and opens the rear door of the car with an irresistible
smile.
“Please get in… I can drop you at your
place,” he tells her, looking at her the same way she is looking at the car
with her big eyes.
The corners of her ears and the tip of
her nose get reddened with a mere close look at his face. “No thanks… I will go
by bus, maybe in a while, once the rain stops.”
“O! It’s alright. Get in...” he hurries
her to get in. She is standing in the heavy rain, hesitatingly, and it looks as
if only a forceful pull of her hand is waiting to happen.
She turns back, looking at the curve
along the tree that had given her shelter from the rain a while ago. The old ox
is standing there, occupying it.
The car’s door is still kept open
before her. As she sees rainwater falling inside the car through the door kept
open for her, she closes it. While closing it, his hand touches hers and
presses it lovingly. She pulls it back immediately and looks at his face. What
a smile it is! Overflowing with charm!
Now, he also gets out of the car and is
standing along with her in the rain. Isn’t he?
“mmm… get in”
Now, she is unable to reject his
calling. Does she?
Once she gets into the car, his hands
close the door with an arrogance of triumph as if he has conquered her. The car
speeds away smoothly on the road with an ease of floating on waves.
Her eyes gaze through the interiors of
the car. The cozy, pale bluish ambience inside the car gets her senses
hypnotised like a dream. Her body, till then, exposed to the icy wind of the
rain, now finds the warmth inside the car cosy. The car doesn’t seem to be
running on the road; rather, it seems afloat just a few feet above the ground.
She feels it grossly inappropriate to
sit in the corner of the car, curling her body, holding her books onto her
chest when she has found that the seats are broad enough for a person to lie
down comfortably. She puts her books and a small tiffin box aside, straightens
up her frame, and sits comfortably with an air of dignified bearing.
‘This car itself seems to be a house.
Doesn’t it? If one has a car like this, he won’t be in need of a house. This
bloke too… Aiyo…this gentleman too will have his house. Won’t he? If his car
looks this stunning, how beautiful will the house of the car owner look? It
must be very big. Mustn’t it? It might look like a palace. There must be so
many people in that house. Isn’t it? I don’t even know who this man is. Ahh!
What is this in the middle? … It looks like a tiny table in the middle of seats
while pulling it out. We can place the books on it and read and write. If not,
two people can put their heads on each side and sleep comfortably. This small
lamp is looking very beautiful, like a lotus bud. No…no… It looks like a lily
bud. Can I light it? chee… He might get angry’?
“There is a switch down there,” he
tells her as he keeps driving the car, looking at her in the rearview mirror in
front of him.
She switches the lamp on, enjoying its
beauty of burning. With the sense of responsibility that power shouldn’t be
wasted, she puts it off. She looks at herself once, swipes the water flowing
from her head.
“Hmm…I shouldn’t have worn this
wretched Thavani today”—when she is wrenching the hem of her
Thavani, he opens a glove compartment box near the steering wheel with his left
hand. She raises her head at the “ttpp” sound of the compartment when it opens;
‘O!...a red bulb when the box is opened. Looks nice. He takes out a
small turkey towel from the box and gives it to her.
“Thanks,” she wipes her head and elbows
with the towel, and when she wipes her face with it, a strong scent coming out
of the towel captivates her. “What a fragrance!” She buries her face in it and
wipes it well.
When the car takes a sharp turn in a
curve, she falls down on one side, screams, “Amma,” her books also fall on one
side, and the small round-shaped stainless steel tiffin box rolls on the other
side.
“Sorry,” he smiles at her, turns back
to her once, looking at her, and then drives the car slowly. Embarrassed at her
untimely screaming, she collects all her books scattered down there, smiles,
and sits again with the same composure.
Seeing through the window glasses,
nothing is visible to the eyes. She wipes the water droplets found condensed on
the glass with the edge of her Thavani, and looks outside through
it.
Lights are burning everywhere in the
street. The shades of shops decorated with bright lights are found reflected in
the rainwater, glaring in one’s eyes. ‘It is said that there is a world
under the earth. I think this is the one…’
‘Why does this car go by this street?’
“My house is over there.” Her lips
mumble.
“So what! Did I say it isn’t there?” He
also mumbles, turns to her, and smiles at her.
‘Why is this uninvited trouble?’
She is sitting, totally clueless, embarrassed, and yet smiles at him just for
his satisfaction when he turns his face to look at her.
The car keeps going.
Going past the main road of the town,
thickly jammed with traffic, and broader roads replete with big buildings, and
entering the avenues full of beautiful parks and gardens, the car is speeding
through on an unknown trunk road where the hustle of the town is almost absent.
Since travelling in a car in the rain
is a new experience for her, she enjoys it and is very happy about it. Amidst
her happiness, an inscrutable fear surrounding the reason for her happiness
causes an enormous uneasy feeling in her abdomen and radiates out to her chest
as well.
At the same time, she is afraid,
feeling uncomfortable pestering him like a kid to leave her at her home.
Now she reminds that little girl who
has left her at the bus stand, alone, and those words she uttered while
pinching her cheeks, ‘Be a smart girl. Go home safely’.
‘I have become an idiot. Haven’t I?
Isn’t it wrong to travel alone with an unknown man like this in a car? He
doesn’t look like a bad guy either. Does he? Whatever it is, isn’t it a
presumptuous act on my part to have dared to come with him like this? What will
I do now? I feel like crying. Chee… I shouldn’t cry. If I cry, this man might
think that I am an idiot and ask me to get down on the way itself, admonishing
me, ‘You …fool. You deserve to be here’. Then how will I go to my home? I don’t
know the way to my home. I have to submit my zoology record notebook tomorrow.
A lot of work is pending!’
“Where are we going now?” – To her
nervous question, he replies very coolly.
“Nowhere...it’s just a drive.”
“It’s already late. Mother will be
worried."
“O! Yes… Let’s go back”
The car takes a turn. Leaving the trunk
road, it enters a vast stretch of ground that looks like a desert, and
after travelling quite a distance in that stretch, it stops somewhere in the
middle of it. As far as the eyes can see, only darkness and rains have engulfed
the surroundings like a protective cover. Only the croaks of frogs are heard as
the singular roar in that area. The rain and the wind are getting more furious
than earlier.
Even inside the car, they are unable to
see each other’s face clearly.
As the car stops abruptly, she asks him
with a trembling voice, “Why has the car stopped? Any breakdown?”
Without responding to her question, he
gives out a thunderous laugh. In order to see her face clearly, he switches the
radio on. A muted light comes out first, followed by music.
She narrows her eyebrows and looks at
him, as if she is beseeching him for something in that dim light. But he
implores her with a smile, as if demanding something in return, in
supplication.
A high-pitched sound of trumpet,
longer, with intermittent beats and intensely frantic stemming from the radio.
Following it, the sound of Congo drums, mildly shaking, with the beats inwardly
resembling the racing of pulse! He snaps his fingers, moves his neck to and fro
to the tunes of the music, turns towards her, and asks in English, “Do you like
it?” She nods her head and says yes with a smile without parting her lips.
He opens the glove compartment near the
radio, picks up two ‘Cadburys’ chocolates from it, and gives her one. She
stares at him keenly, as if assessing his mind, as he is sitting on his seat
with his legs folded in a relaxed manner. With one hand on the rear seat
stretched out with his fingers tapping to the beats of music, he is eating the
chocolate in small bites by removing only a small part of the wrapper at its
tip without opening it fully.
‘He looks handsome. Seeing him in a
skin-tight, cloud-coloured dress, his impressive height, and his complexion
shining brightly in that dim light, she can only remember a majestic
exquisiteness of a snake. The angle of his left eye, partly visible while
watching him from behind, is shining, emitting lights. His closely trimmed
hair, which even a storm can’t make untidy, and darksideburns descending
longer, sharper than usual at the corners of his ears, also shine in the muted
light. Looking at him from one side, a thought occurs for the fraction of a
second that his appeal will be better if his bright face has a small moustache.
His eyebrows! Enviably thicker, sharper, curved, and descending! A mere look at
it evokes fear. Doesn’t it? The wristwatch fitted with a thick gold chain on
his left hand hanging behind the seat on which he is sitting shows seven
glitters. His long fingers are tapping to the tunes of music. The tender hairs
at the back of his hand stand erect due to icy wind’.
“Aiyo! It is already seven”—she screams
suddenly, still eating chocolate, watching his demeanour. He looks at his watch
once as she screams suddenly.
Only when he opens the front door of
the car to look outside is the roar of the rain heard as a furious boom. In a
second, he gets out of the car and stands in the rain.
“Where?” Her anxious question
falls on his ears faintly only after he closes the door while standing outside.
“Where are you going?”
“Going nowhere. I am just only coming
to you,” he tells in English, fully drenched in rain in seconds, and opens the
rear door of the car and enters.
He sits next to her, wiping his face
and the nape of his neck with the towel, which he has given to her to wipe
herself just a while ago, and crumbles the empty chocolate wrappers, throwing
them away. She is still eating the remaining chocolate. He takes out a small
box from his shirt pocket, takes out a candy-like stuff from it stacked one
above the other, and puts it in his mouth. He gives one to her.
“What’s this?”
“Chewing gum”
“Yuck… I don’t need it.”
“Try… you’ll like it”
She eats up the chocolate in haste and
stretches her hand out to him, unable to deny when he gives.
“No” … He doesn’t give it in her hands
and brings it to her face instead, puts it on her lips, and fondles it gently.
She feels as if her head is set ablaze,
and the whole of her body is burning with a pleasant warmth. She moves a bit
away from him, takes it in her hands from his hands, and says, “Thank you.”
Both of his eyes stand fixed on her, as
if they have been inserted into her eyes. Not being able to face his eyes,
shying, she lowers her feeble eyes down very often. As she lowers her eyes
down, she is able to see that his knees on the seat are inching closer, slowly,
towards her.
She looks through the car glasses. Rain
and wind are still ferocious in the dark outside. She moves closer to the door
and leans against the door. He also sits away from her, maintaining an
honourable distance from her, with his hands folded across his chest, looking
intently at her, trying to figure her mind out so as to penetrate it.
“Do you like this car?” he asks her in
English. His voice, with its coarseness, penetrates into her ears so
intimately, magically, and disturbs the innermost part of her privacy. Not
showing her disturbed mind, she smiles and replies, “O! it’s nice”
He delves into deep thought, sighing
heavily, looking down, and mumbling in English, “Do you know? This car has been
following you for the last two years. Do you know that?” When he looks up, she
is spellbound by his words at that moment as if she has been crowned by him.
“Really?”
“Really?”
His warm breath rubs the nape of her
neck mildly. His most intimate voice rubs her heart, shudders. “Do you like
me?”
“Hmm….” He finds her curling her body
as there is no place there; he moves away from her a bit.
Still, it is raining outside. The
trumpet from the radio is bringing out novel layers of music one after the
other, pouring out in sequence.
“Isn’t it very nice?” He asks her to
know how she feels about that ambiance and experience.
“It’s nice. But I am scared”
“Scared? For what? Why should you get
scared?” When he shook her shoulder in the pretext of assuaging her, she got
totally devastated as if the most refined femininity from her body itself had
fallen out with his shaking. “I am dead scared….all these things seem to be
totally unfamiliar.”
‘Why these unnecessary certificates…?’
He mumbles to himself and approaches her with the determination that he is not
going to back out this time.
“May I kiss you?”
She doesn’t know how to reply to this
question. She is tongue-tied. Her face sweats even in that cold; her body
quivers.
Suddenly, her body lies in his hands,
shaking violently, writhing in uneasiness of being burnt with fire at her
earlobes, cheeks, and lips, and her mouth begging him to leave her,
“please…please….” He clasped her frenetically, clasped her tightly…as her scream
gradually got thinner and then finally settled down. Her hands are around his
neck, tightly clinching it, as if it is an act of vengeance.
Outside…
The sky is torn apart, lightnings
flashing, and the crash of thunders!
‘Ahhhh…this thunder must have
crashed somewhere’
“I need to go home. My mother will be
searching for me”
He opens the door and comes out of the
rear seat. His feet with shoes caked with mud on the ground, while lifting it
from the mud, the loamy slush speckles and falls on the car, denting it. A
couple of drops fall on her too through the opened door.
She is weeping silently, without his
knowledge, unable to control the tears that swell up in her eyes beyond her
control due to the pain piercing through, which might be either in her body or
mind.
Opening the front door of the car, he
sits on the driver's seat, removes the shoes covered with mud, and throws them
away. He takes out a cigarette from the glove compartment near the radio,
lights it, takes a puff on his cigarette, and starts chewing the chewing gum.
Suddenly an inexpressible urgency gets
built up in her mind, and her heart, thoughts, body, and emotions all alike
shiver in unison, and she wants to run to her home at the very moment itself
and fall on the lap of her mother to cry out so as to expiate her blunder.
But he! He is smoking a cigarette,
sitting casually. Seeing his nonchalant attitude, she gets extremely annoyed.
Sitting inside the car seems to have been caught in a cave amidst the rocks,
dreadful and repugnant at the same time. The cigarette odour puking up, she
feels that her body has become muggy as if the wet sludge on the ground has
been thrown at her.
The sound of the trumpet on the radio
comes out like a geckering of a fox, trumpeting and cutting through the body
into two pieces.
Overwhelmed with an uncontrollable
angst, she screams and shouts amidst her sobbing, “Will you leave me at my home
or not?”
His hand switches the radio off.
“Don’t shout like that,” he warns her
in an irritated tone. “Don’t shout”
She folds both of her hands, crying
heartbreakingly, and implores him, “My mother will search for me. If you leave
me at my home, you will be bestowed with all the boons of this world.” However,
these words spoken by her out of anger do not absolve her from regretting her
stupidity: ‘I must beat my wits with the sandals. I shouldn’t have come out
like this. Aiyo…every nonsense is just over. Isn’t it?’ – Her wails
and anger to the extent of breaking her head into pieces by hitting it
somewhere overwhelmed her. She clenches her teeth, looking so terrifically
agitated that he is afraid of facing her.
“Please don’t create scenes,” he begs
her, sulks, and turns his car swiftly.
The car runs fast, with a roar,
emitting its glaring headlight on the road in the night.
‘Chee! What nonsense is this? You
should’ve told me if you hadn’t been comfortable with it. A beautiful evening
is totally spoilt. Pitiable girl! What is she going to achieve by studying in
the college? She is still crying. Isn’t she’? He turns towards her and
asks her for forgiveness. “I am sorry… If I had hurt your feelings, I beg your
pardon”
He drives the car faster as if he wants
to leave her at her place immediately and get rid of that memory once and for
all so that he can be at peace.
It is still raining outside.
After going past the empty trunk road
and entering the avenues full of beautiful bungalows and flower gardens, the
car takes a diversion from the main road replete with big buildings, into a
narrow street, and then takes a further turn towards her house.
He reduces the speed of the car and
drives it slowly, expecting that she will ask him to stop the car to alight
from it. As he understands that she is such an innocent girl who doesn’t even
know that, he stops his car at some place. He tells her, “I shouldn’t come up
to your house. So please get down here and go home.” He is sad and feels pity
looking at her miserable condition. An unfathomable guilt or some sort of
indebtedness overcomes his mind, eyes becoming heavy and shining with
unwarranted tears. He, himself, gets down from the car, opens its door, and
stands like a servant in the drizzle. Emotions completely numbed, she collects
all her books and the round-shaped tiffin box that had fallen down inside the
car, gets down from it, and stands on the street with her head down, unable to
look at his face.
Since it is a rainy night, the narrow
street looks deserted. While watching her standing beside him like a child,
short in height in the dim light coming from a streetlamp post afar, he feels
immensely guilty about himself. The unfettered freedom he enjoys is the sole
reason that has made him enslaved to such despicable things, he thinks.
“Yes…enslaved! …enslaved to passions”
his mind realizes it. He mutters into her ears, like a secret, “I am sorry”
She looks up to him. O!
That sight!
His lips shake, trying to ask her
something. His throat gets choked; he can utter only a single word, “what…”
“Nothing” she says. Moves away from
him.
When the car speeds along the road,
away from her, the red colour light at its rear gets dimmer and dimmer, merging
with the dark as it goes farther.
….
The lantern hanging in the hall was
found extinguished. Her mother, who was busy working in the kitchen, came to
the hall and found it dark without light, took the lantern to the kitchen to
light it, and brought it back to its place after lighting it. Only at that
time, when she looked at the wall clock, shocked to see it was already half
past seven, and turned towards the entrance instinctively, did she see her
daughter ascending the steps at the entrance.
Seeing her daughter fully drenched,
hair and clothes telling hidden stories, she felt something turning in her
stomach. “What’s this stupid look? Why are you looking so emaciated?” she
yelled at her.
She came to the hall as if a statue was
moving. She stood still like a statue in the lantern light. She cuddled her
mother tightly, buried her face on her shoulder, and vented out her tears,
hitherto suppressed in her, and cried desolately.
Her mother understood that something
was seriously amiss and could only figure out half of what it was with the
remaining elusive.
“You stupid! Tell me what had happened.
Why are you so late? Don’t cry…tell me”—though she didn’t understand the reason
for the pains of her daughter, who was crying, hugging her shoulder, writhing
in pain like a worm, she was able to comprehend at a level that it was a real
pain and empathized with her involuntarily. She wiped her tears with the hem of
her saree and patted her back supportively, “Why do you cry like this? Tell me
what happened.”
Unable to face her mother, she buried
her face on her mother’s shoulders and told her everything in a lower voice so
that only she could hear. From the second she started narrating the events in a
feeble voice after her sobbing got settled down, her mother pushed her away
from her, stared at her repulsively as if she was a mean, cursed woman.
That innocent girl was still narrating.
“It was heavily raining. There was not even a bus coming. That was why I
boarded the car. – Then it was, somewhere, looking like a forest…no human being
in the vicinity… Darkness everywhere… Even though it was raining, I wanted to
get down and run away…but I didn’t know the way. What could I do? Then…then…
Aiyo…amma…that man…me…”
Before she completed her sentence, a
strong slap from her mother fell on her face in a flash, somewhere on her ear
or chin, causing insects like sparkles to fly before her eyes. She was thrown
to the corner of the room; the books from her hands fell and scattered all
around in all directions, and the tiffin box fell, clanked, and rolled
somewhere.
“You scoundrel! You have thrown fire on
my head. Haven’t you?” – She opened her mouth, was about to yell at her, but
got choked with that, her mouth still not closed.
It was a residential complex. On
hearing her yelling, her neighbours came running to her.
“What? What had happened?” The aunt
from the rear house came straight to the hall, enquiring curiously, as she was
wiping her wet hand on the hem of her saree.
“Nothing serious… It is not that urgent
for her to come in this heavy rain. Isn’t it? But this girl has come fully
drenched. I am spending a lot of money on her education, and if she falls sick
just before the examination due to her recklessness, all will go waste. Won’t
it? Luckily her brother isn’t at home. If he had seen her drenched like this,
he would have skinned her by” now”—her mother managed the show with her false
exasperation.
“It’s alright….it’s alright. For this
silly matter, will you beat this child?” The rear house aunt didn’t find these
developments interesting, and she left.
Her mother closed the entrance door and
the windows. She stared at her daughter with the fiery eyes, who lay curled at
the corner of the room like a kitten, not showing any sign of pain from getting
smacked, lying immobile, and expecting her mother to beat her till death.
‘What should I do with her? She has
caused an indelible stain on the honourable family. Hasn’t she? Oh! God! Now
what will I do with this girl?’ She turns towards her.
Behind her mother, the embers were
burning with wavy flames in the oven in the kitchen.
Her mother thought once, “Why
shouldn’t I throw a winnowing basket full of burning embers on her head?”
--Her daughter dying in the fire,
writhing her body like a worm, appeared before her eyes.
‘After that? Will this tarnish be
washed away with her death’? Her mother stood confused, unable to understand
anything. She clasped her hair and lifted her face.
She pulled the wick of the lantern more
for brighter light, brought it near to her daughter’s face, and examined each
inch of her body from head to toe. Unable to bear her frowning stare, she
covered her face with her hands and begged, “Aiyo…amma…please don’t look at me
like that,” and turned her back to her mother, buried her face on the wall, and
sobbed fervently.
“God! You only have to punish that
sinner,” her mother cursed him from her heart, covering her mouth. Though her
hands hesitated to touch her daughter, a thought of sympathy for her, that she
would have nowhere to go if she rejected her, came over her mind, and she
touched her with her trembling hands. She bemoaned, “It’s all my destiny,”
sighed heavily, holding her hands tightly, and led her to the washroom with the
lantern in her hands, as she had understood profoundly that no recourse was
possible either in getting angry with her or punishing her.
‘What should I do with her now? If I am
able to find out who he is…? I can dump this girl on his head. Can I? Oh! My
God! How can I oblige this girl to spend the rest of her life with that animal?
I can kill her instead. What should I do’? Her motherly heart wailed
helplessly.
She brought her near to the water tub,
kept the lantern in the niche, and prayed to all the gods and goddesses she
knew to absolve her innocent daughter of all the tarnish that befell upon her.
The girl was standing, body huddled,
hands folded across her chest as if she were shivering due to cold.
Without speaking a single word to her
daughter, who was standing like a statue with her eyes closed, she removed all
her dresses by herself. She detangled her braided plait and spread it across,
covering her milky white back. She was sitting like a machine, huddling her
knees. Taking water from the tub, her mother poured pots of water on her head.
She applied soap nut powder on her head, rubbed it well, and asked her in a
lower voice, “Do you know him?”
“No…”
“Let him be perished. What could be the
punishment apt enough for that scoundrel?”
--clenching her teeth, she spread her
fingers soaked in soap nut powder paste, like that of a tiger, got up with a
grimacing stare, her eyes looking bloodthirsty.
“Mm…No matter whether the banana tree
or the thorn that swings, it is the banana tree that gets torn apart—the
ferocity that came like a storm in her got a while ago, got subsided, and she
rubbed the soup nut powder on her head violently as if she was trying to erase
the destiny of all womenfolk altogether.
Suddenly she remembered her dead
husband, who left her when her daughter was just two years old, and wept
thinking about him. “Had he been here around… noble soul… better on his part
that he is no more without seeing this disgrace.’
“My child! No one should know about
this. If they know about it, an entire family will perish, for sure. They will
never think even for a second that they also have girl children at their home
and something like this might happen to their children too. They will spoil the
entire family as if they have age-old enmity with us. I am talking about
others. Aren’t I? If such a thing happened to others, would my tongue speak
like this way it speaks now? It would speak differently for sure. It has spoken
many such things earlier. Hasn’t it?’ She kept on bemoaning, took out a towel
from the clothesline, and wiped her wet head. After drying her head, she lifted
her face and looked at her sharply. For a second, she gazed at her daughter’s
face, which looked like a shiny ceramic plate cleaned just a while ago, which
was, indeed, far from being stained by the impurities of youth. She gently
kissed her forehead lovingly. “You’ve become purified, my child! Totally
purified! What I poured on your head was not water. It wasn’t water. Think…it
was fire. Now, no stains, no dirt... You are as pure as marble. You are just a
marble. One becomes dirty only when they have dirt in their mind. I can see
through your mind. But the world can’t see it. Can it? That is why I am telling
you all this—that this world should never come to know about it. What? Why are
you looking at me like this? Are you worried about what would happen if they
come to know? What would they know? At the most, they would know that you had
come with some unknown man in the car. That’s it. If anyone speaks anything
more than this, which they haven’t seen with their eyes, I will tear their
mouth into pieces. Won’t I? So…think that nothing has happened to you. Nothing
has happened to you at all. They would cook up the stories just by seeing you
coming in a car. Wouldn’t they? Going by this, there will always be a group of
people cooking up so many stories about so many persons. Leave those blokes
aside. I am just telling all these only for your good. No dirt in your mind! I
am reiterating all these to make you believe that you are pure. Believe in
yourself! You have become pure. What I say is a truth… You have become totally
pure. While walking on the street, many a time we step on filth. Don’t we? We
don’t amputate our legs for this. Do we? We just wash it away and enter the
puja room. The God doesn’t chase us away anyway. Does he? It’s all about the
purity of mind. Our mind should be clean and pure. Do you know the story of
Akalya? It is said that she became sacred at the touch of Lord Rama’s feet.
Just because she didn’t commit any sin knowingly, she had the boon of getting
touched by Lord Rama’s feet. Why I am telling you all this is that your mind
should not get spoiled by what had happened. It is just a bad dream. Forget it.
Nothing had happened to you”
Her mother took out the dried clothes
from the clothesline, gave them to her, and asked her to wear them.
“What’s that you are chewing?”
“Chewing gum”
“Spit that shit out. Chee…spit it out!
Gargle your mouth clean once and come here” Saying this, her mother went into
the Puja room.
Her mother went in front of the picture
of gods, her eyes closed, and stood for some seconds with her melting heart.
She told her daughter standing beside her, “My child! Pray to God to give you a
beautiful life. I am also responsible for all that has happened. While sending
an adult girl out, I should have been more careful about this wicked world. The
happiness I had about my daughter going to college had actually obstructed my
reason. That said, even now you are my child anyway. Aren’t you? But you are no
longer a child to this world, my child! Just forget it. I said forget it.
Didn’t I? No…be careful in the future by not forgetting it. Don’t disclose this
matter to anyone. In this matter, no one is worthy enough to be considered a
closer one. Pledge that you will never disclose this matter to anyone. Her
mother stretched out her hand to her daughter as if the former was begging to
keep her secret. She caught her mother’s hand, pressed it with her hands
affirmatively, and told her, “I will never tell this to anyone”
“As you get good marks in the
examinations, I thought you were a really smart girl. But you have become
really smart only now. Be a smart girl in the future too” She held her
daughter’s face in one hand and applied Vibhoothi on her forehead with another hand.
The luster of the flame, burning in the
standing lamp in the puja room, was shining in the eyes of that innocent girl.
It was not only just a shadowy dance of the lamp; her mother understood that it
was also the brightness of a fully matured femininity beaming in its fullness.
….
Over there, she is going to the
college. Hundreds of luxury cars do cross her way anyway. But she doesn’t even
raise her head to have a glance at them. Does she? Yes…sometimes, she glances
at them. But only a sense of watchfulness remains in her eyes that no car
should cross her way and she shouldn’t cross any other car’s way.
***End***
