Love Stays, Doesn't It?

Love Stays, Doesn't It?

13 mins
525


The few strands of black hair that were left looking desolate, had turned to silvery-white as well. The wrinkles that hung from her face had become deeper and persistent. The left over redness in her lips had paled to a parched, grey not with a lack of moisture but due to lack of vigour that fades away with age. Sitting in front of the mirror, with a slant Ray of sunshine cascading through the window at the end where the mirror was placed, Janaki sat studying her features with a wry smile on her face. She raised her palm to her face and ran her fingers delicately across the creases . The once plump and radiant facial muscles seemed course and rough under her fingers.


While she ran her fingers across the contours of her face, her mind traversed the husky contours of her life. Pity was the only feelings she could muster in her heart for old, withered souls when she was in the ripe age of adolescence. She had never thought that she the spectator of the ending of mortal life stories would one day be the actor of a similar scene as well. Seeing her withered away body and soul she realised what a huge difference lies between sympathy and empathy. Some thought never leave its prey very easily. One such seeming innocuous thought which hung onto her persistently was the memories of her late soulmate, a soul mate not romance but her parent's decision had entwined her destiny with in the form of an "arranged marriage" .


it was a decision made according to the matching of their stars. How could a mere eighteen year old duel with the mighty cosmic judgement?. Wrapped meticulously in a bright nine yard Saree she had sat in front of the pyre with a stranger beside her. All she knew about the man was his name. She had tried to peer sideways to catch glimpses of the man she would have to spend the rest of her life. But her timidity and the smoke from the pyre prevented this brave venture of hers. To the loud tunes of the nadhaswaram and mridang, a yellow thread had been tied around her neck and a red vermilion moon was shaped at the parting of her hair. With that, her future life had been sealed with the man whose birth stars had matched with hers.


it was a calm, silent winter night. It was her first night with the stranger. It was her first step into a new unknown world the stars had led her into. Acute fear and a very odd feeling of exhilarating curiosity spread across her countenance slowly but vicariously as she sat on the flower-studded bridal cot. Sweat formed beads on her powdered face and goosebumps arose on her flesh as she heard the door close. Through the veil that covered her pale face, she could see the form of the man who had tied the thread that now hung from her neck. He was a tall, imposing man with sharp, eloquent features. Of all his manly attributes it was the dimple on his cheek that caught her attention for it reminded her of her favorite cinema star she had dreamt of eloping away with.


Suddenly she realised how her dreams would now leave the landscape of her life as would her parent's, her grandpa, her brother, the river she played in with her girlfriends, the fields in which she had spent many afternoon's playing and helping her father, the open veranda in which she had spent many nights chatting, giggling and dreaming, the neem tree she had planted when grandma had died, the sparrows she fed grains every day, every single element of the life she had known and lived through would now become a thread that connected her to her measly past. It was a thought so unbearable and unimaginable that without a sense of the man in front of her she had wept copiously. the strange, handsome gentleman placed his Palm slowly on her trembling shoulder. the touch made her return to the present situation she was in.


As she raised her bowed heard towards him, she saw how a soft understanding smile was painted on his lips. He withdrew his hand slowly and walking way from the bridal cot he approached the piano that was placed on the opposite side of the room. Seating himself on a wooden stool, he started playing the instrument. He began with a mild tune which very slowly made its way into a passionate tune of love and separation. The music soothed her disquiet heart. It induced a sense of well being in her. She walked slowly towards her husband and Sat beside him. He uncovered the veil from her face and calming her with a wink he carried on with the music, entreating her to play along. She unconsciously placed her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. That was how their first night together had ended.


the sun rose and the birds had begun their wordless songs, she awoke to face the morning of a new life in a new home with new people. She could hear the voices of her in-laws in the background, she would now have to learn to adapt to those voices and the lives of their makers. having bathed in the cool, fresh well water, Janaki sat in front of the mirror, removing the knots from her wet hair. She sensed a presence behind her. Before she could turn back, a masculine touch on her shoulder jolted her. her face which had turned pearl white at this touch, turned into a pink blush when she noticed that it had been her husband. He looked into her eyes. The moment their eyes had met many silent thoughts arose in her mind.


Opening the small, intricately designed silverware which contained the vermilion powder, he gathered a trifle of it between his thumb and index finger and very slowly shaped a vermilion moon at the parting of her wet hair. there were no words exchanged between them but all that had to be said had been. that vermilion dot was the first dot that would eventually be joined with many such dots that would define the length of the path they had traversed together.


Strangely, it was not the similarities they shared but the differences between them that had bonded her to him. The way he wore his shirt, the way he parted his hair, the way his smile was always accompanied with a dimple, the way his eyes moved to the rhythms he played on the piano, the way he laughed so loudly as though nothing but his joy existed on the earth, the way he ruffled the pillow covers when he was tense, the way he smelt a rose bud deeply to ecstasy, the way he involuntarily held her hand while crossing the road had made Janaki want to love him more. With each passing day of their togetherness, the redness in the vermilion dot had only darkened never faded. not once in the fifty long years of their married life had they spoken or declared of the love they had felt for each other but every morning as the vermilion moon was shaped their eyes met more often and more silent feelings had been shared.


Many impediments had occurred time and again in their lives but his dimpled smile and her resilient red moon had outwon them all. Frustration and a nauseating feeling of having to live within the circle of family life had caught hold of them often but to live free and equally abandoned from every tie of life though an appealing alternative is not the innate nature of a social animal. It wears away too soon and yet again the seeker searches for entanglements that though consuming keeps one sane.


Every time they had an argument over family issues and strifes, the day would go on silently and with a wrenching emptiness that made them want to forego their meaningless ego and anger, but the ego of the woman was unusually strong during such trivial things and it was always the man who had to succumb. After one such regular fight, Janaki was sitting on the edge of the bed, weeping silently to herself, she had simply asked him to stop trusting his friends so blindly for time and again he had been fooled by such friends of his. "Marrying a woman like you was the only thing I have done blindly and am still suffering the consequences!", he had said, looking straight at her. His words had bit into her conscience and she had simply walked away from the pain, not able to take more. "Why, how could he even say something like that when all my life till now has been revolving around him. "She thought to herself as. More tears swelled in her eyes.


She heard the treads of someone leading towards her. She had grown more than accustomed to these treads, the anticipation that rose in her mind when she heard them had always made her secretly joyous but today she just did not feel anything but an aching pain. He slowly entered their room and looked at her with damp eyes. Why he had cried too but the chauvinist in him would not allow those feminine pearls of tears flow down his cheeks. He just kept looking at her. His hair which was usually oiled and neatly parted and combed was now ruffled and disheveled. His unironed robes hung to him depressingly. He just kept looking at her. His pitiful state made her heart melt but this time she would not give in. she simply broke away from his penetrating eyes and looked down at the unswept floor.


Walking towards her, he slowly knelt down in front of her and placing his head on her folded legs, he cried. Janaki astonished at this, was dumbfounded. she had seen him smile, laugh, contemplate, smirk, groan but she had never seen him cry. never. not once. she slowly ran her fingers through his hair and lifted his head towards her. looking away from her eyes out of shame he had apologized to her and holding her hand in his he said, "Janaki, I simply cannot live without you. You are like my mother. my soul, my everything, to spend a second away from your unquestioning love is torture to me, if I am asked to wish for something, it would be to die before you do. "these words were more unbearable than those harsh words he had unknowingly aimed at her, placing her head against his shoulder she had cried loudly. Life had moved on as it always does, new relationships formed, New roles from a wife to mother to a grandmother had been adapted by Janaki, only she never knew that among all the roles she would have to enact, the role of a widow would be one too. . . .


On the day Janaki had found herself in this role, the vermilion moon had been erased forever, she still remembered the day when it had all ended like it had never begun, like a bubble that breaks so suddenly, her life had changed as she knew it. Unmindful of reality, Janaki walked into their room searching for the tears that refused to flow from her reddened eyes, slowly she walked towards the cot, the mahogany cot which she had shared with him for the past fifty years, the sheets were creased and crumpled, the remnants of the previous day slumber, JanakisSat at the end of the cot and picked up the pillow, the dewy, musky smell of his hair still lingered in it ominously, Janaki placed the pillow against her chest and wondered hopefully if this was all just a dream she could wake from to see everything as it had been just hours before.


Holding the pillow in her hand, she walked towards the window, overlooking the streets in which life had not paused as it had on the other side of the window, Janaki trailed her hands against the window rails like he always did whenever he stood there thinking, placing her face against the railing.


She wondered what had been the thoughts in his head when he stood here, had she been a part of all those thoughts? Well, now she would never know, with dust from the window railing still imprinted on her empty forehead and her fingers, Janaki walked towards the dressing table, on the hairbrush were the strands of white masculine hair, the brush would never be used anymore and never would Janaki feel those roughly soft white hair between her fingers again, and as Janaki stared at the mirror as if in a trance, she noticed the silverware with the vermilion powder on it, speckles of the powder were scattered around the container, never again would the powder be shaped into a moon, never again would eyes meet at its pretext, the pillow Janaki held slipped from her grasp, as did a tear, and there it fell on the vermilion powder left needlessly on the table. . . . . . . . . .


Years had passed since and yet there it was that pain, still imprinted like a wound that is too fearfully elusive to leave its stand. The healing power of time, oh well that, that remained a notion among all the other notions people used to console her. They spoke of the mortality, of the laws, of the reason, of various other utterly ambiguous things, Janaki had never thought of before. she knew that they meant only good, but the empty, barren forehead she had to look at every single day, the empty left side of the bed, the Windows without him, everything only silenced the gratitude she would have otherwise extended to these well-meaning people. With a smile, she dismissed mortality's claim, and sometimes with laughter so loud, she covered the tear that hung at the corner of her eyes. . . . .


Now, sitting in front of the mirror, Janaki felt the empty, forehead just once more and from past returned to the present. Modernism, yes, that was the word her grandson had introduced proudly to her. Not the Modernism with respect to lifestyles, modernism with respect to traditions, traditions when refuted for its old meaningless unprofitable existence, lead to modernism. Her children no longer celebrated Indian festivals, from Diwali that had modernized to thanksgiving, from rangolis to modern paintings, from smiles to emoticons, from vermilion powder to a spotless face. Janaki never argued or fought against the change. But today, when her grandson had asked her to wear the vermilion powder at least as a bindhi, Janaki felt her body wince, "grandma, it is just a red powder made from chemicals, why don't you simply wear it when you like it so much, don't be so narrow-minded, grandma, forget what people would say and just do it. ". . . what did modernism mean? How did it differ from tradition?


Did the word modernism have so much power to turn the vermilion powder to just chemicals dyed red?. . . some may call Janaki old fashioned, some may call her too foolish to change, some may even set her as an example of the forgotten, misbegotten era but only Janaki knew that the tradition the people had outgrown were what connected her to him.


The thread to her past, she needed it as a child needs its meaningless stories, the vermilion moon maybe just a tradition to anyone, but by not adorning it any longer Janaki secretly paid homage to the love that had once been her abode, by not adorning it with her tired, wrinkled fingers she paid her due to the fresh, ardent fingers that had once shaped it. If breaking away from traditions is deemed freedom then modernism was simply another form of bondage, filled with unforgiving bars of reason and rationality. . . she looked at her grandson with a feeble smile and the grandson, proud of having accomplished a feat of wisdom, placed a kiss on her empty forehead, leaving behind a speck of spit, Janaki looking up at her grandson, saw the dimple (just like his grandpa) that stood on his cheek as a consolation. . the spit that looked like an unshaped moon was left behind, unwiped. . . .


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