Durga!

The windows are down. The wind is streaking my hair with grey as it urges a thought past every hair and splits time into two... what if? What if? Tricky business this...

The sky had churned itself into a very dark grey...almost black but not quite. The clouds were all trying to merge into shapes that I had not quite seen...frightful yet friendly
This was catharsis at its best and I felt a mirror being held unto my face
This purgatory was in fact my only salvation. How many times had I questioned this thought before? Today however I had to face my demons

This was not an evening to be driving with the top down. It might rain any minute. I knew that the moment I had set out of the house. As I walked down the driveway I looked back for a second at the house. That interminable second would not cease as I looked at the brick and mortar that encased my existence. The paint was flaking, I noticed. The water seepage was showing. Algae were trickling along the line that defined the water seepage. Funny how the destruction of a thing gives life to another. The roof still retained its proud definition... a shadow that sets with the sun every day and rose with it too... punctual... everybody has two lives... one that is constant, unmoved by nature, just giving into decay...and the other that is born and dies everyday.


“Why did you not return my calls today?” Ranjani asks enraged. “Today was bad...”. “Tell me something new”, she said, sarcasm dripping off every word.
“Not today”, I whispered.
What did you say, she asked. “Nothing “. “It’s always nothing with you”

It began two months ago when I had started seeing Aparajita.
Names have always held a fascination for me. It reminds me of the final chapter that is the toughest to write. For having created something so beautiful out of a piece of wood the sculptor agonizes over what to call it.

My grandmother used to tell me this story of this simpleton in a village who was very gifted with his hands. He used to make wooden statues for the village festivals... statues which would be immersed into the river at the end of the festival period. The simpleton was allowed to choose his wood, his look. No one was allowed to take a look at the statue until it was unveiled at the first day of the festival. Every statue that he made would signify the mood of the moment. If the villagers were afraid of some impending tax or sarkari takeover. He would make a statue that would look sad. On the rare occasions that the villagers were happy he would apply an extra coat of vermillion on the forehead of the statue. Every day of the year he would have food to eat, for he was blessed. Until the year he refused to part with the statue…
The villagers screamed and stood with fire torches outside his hut, demanding to see the statue, their festival goddess. The bhaktas deserve a darshan, they shouted. He did not budge, stood there mute, before his veiled statue. Some of the elders tried to reason with him, trying to dissuade him with food, playthings, even promising the dhol they had taken away from him.
They showed him visions of plague, of rotten deaths, and of bloody carnage. In the end they simply asked him why he did not want to give the veiled statue to them.
He replied “I am married to her” “She is my most beautiful creation”
They laughed out aloud, “Oh what a simpleton! “, they cried.
They restrained him in chains and took the statue. They heard a last wailing cry from him…”Please don’t unveil her, have her as the statue but don’t unveil her”. The villagers agreed to this pitiful cry and had the festival for the first time with a veiled statue. Then came the day of the immersion... and the simpleton had been released three days earlier for he was too weak to cause any mischief.
They decided to immerse her, veiled as she was. The clouds had gathered to form a dark backdrop on the horizon. The villagers were as terrified of the clouds waiting to unleash their anger as of the village priest’s warning that the veil should not be lifted as the statue was drowned.
They chose the simpleton to carry out the task of pushing her out to sea. He would be no great loss to the village, they argued. To their surprise no force was required and the simpleton agreed to carry out the task of pushing her out to sea. He stepped out dandily dressed, grabbed the plank with both his hands, his sinewy arms strained, pushing away from this desecration of his beloved every second. He lost his footing however and slipped and fell. The sands and the water engulfed him and took him down as a mother grabbing her lost child. The statue slowly floated away and a gentle breeze rose from the west, and...Lifted her veil for just a second. At that very instant a thunderbolt split into two the curtain of the clouds.
For the villagers who were gazing, petrified at this spectacle, they were blinded for many moments at the brilliant flash that had dazed them. For many minutes they were stunned and then sight returned, for most of them.

The sea before them was covered with wooden statues, floating, each purposeful, vigilant
The body of the simpleton was never found. Never floated up to the surface. The statues drifted away… the villagers never celebrated the festival again. They were afraid their conscience would take another form to haunt them...

And today I fight my demons…
Aparajita was not my “type”, she would challenge every thought, every rationale I had for every action. She would challenge my authority every second. She was trying to change me into something, and I gauged that she liked the resistance, as I did too. It was a game that had no losers. The days she wanted to make love she would place the cactus plant on her balcony. She would have it no other way. This I always questioned... why not a phone call?? Why not a simple phone call? There was no reasoning with her though... and there I was looking up to her balcony afternoon… I knew she was watching...I always knew that and that she especially enjoyed seeing that look of disappointment on my face when I would leave the sidewalk... I knew that because she would call me up in office in the evening to tell me “I love you inspite of everything... a cactus does not necessarily mean that you are stranded in a desert” …
Ah what a simpleton and what a predator! But which was which?

“Ah you were just a conquest!”
“What about our love for each other?” I screamed
“This decision is mine. Don’t try to blackmail me with some love laden innuendo, you know as well as I do that we both were just objects and bodies... That is all ... this however.”
“But “, I interjected.
“Let me complete”, she said
“I want to have this child and without you. I don’t want you to be any part of this child’s life... she is mine and mine alone... She will not have a father and not even his name, she will only have me...and she will be happy, I have decided to call her...Suverna”

I showed her vistas of society which would barb her; give her and her child names, names that would stick to her through her life. She would not share, would not let me be a part of something so beautiful. She had her strength and I had my promises. But what good are promises to somebody who doesn’t want anything except to want me away.

I immersed her, drove the very thought of her away and returned home.
The one question that remained with me was “Why?”
Was it because she was selfless enough to let me off the hook with an excuse and a reason
Or was she genuinely selfish?

Women always know. Especially the ones that know you. Ranjani was in a bad mood, almost every day of those two months.
I wanted to bring matters to a head so I left some photographs of app and me lying on my desk.
There was no reference to them at the dinner table and it was a calm quiet dinner.
“What’s her name?” ranjani asked
Aparajita, I said
Nice name and then silence
“Well she’s going to have to fight like hell if she wants to steal my husband away from me”
I did not say anything and walked out of the house

I face my demons now... I stare out at the ridge that overlooks the valley swathed in white bandages. As if moonlight was balming the wounds of the day for the houses that smoked from within
My face peered back at me from the valley, unrecognizable and contorted and ugly
And then I felt a touch on my shoulder

I looked around to see ranjani,
She was beautiful, by the moonlight; every feature was chiseled as in granite

“I am going to have our child, and from this day forward expect loyalty and nothing else
Expect loyalty and nothing more”

As she said that the moonlight did a strange dance and her features floated away into the misty silence.
Immersed in a sea of white...
Indistinguishable from the white
That had sprung to her defence...