The drifting cloud (Short Story

The drifting Cloud
(Short Story)
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Amitabh once felt that love was another name for rapturous joy. Within the sacred circle of purity he kept love confined—bewitched by the mantra of emotions, filled to the brim with the pollen of tenderness. Love was that flower drenched in the honey of his beloved’s lips. The rainbow tinted with the seven colors of a dreamy mind—its other name was love. One day, with the help of this rope called love, he had managed to rein in the unruly horse called the mind. Sprinkling consecrated water upon it, he turned it into a thornless rose and tucked it into the chignon of his beloved, whom he worshipped like an idol. From the fragrance of that hair—perfumed by the flower’s aroma—the entire earth seemed to grow fragrant; the infinite sky thrilled, countless stars shimmered, and the moon bore witness through the bedroom window to many a shiver-filled night.

But today Amitabh thinks that love is another name for suffering—greater than the torment of a concentration camp. Not physical, yet unbearable—the anguish of the mind. The flower whose fragrance once intoxicated him now makes him suspect the presence of worms in it. The moon that once bathed his mind and body in cool, dreamlike moonlight now startles him with the fear of blemishes upon it. He has begun to doubt Pratima—doubting the purity of her mind. Between body and mind, Amitabh gives greater importance to the mind. He despises a woman who binds her heart to a lover and surrenders her body to a husband.

Perhaps Amitabh is more sensitive than others. He wanted authority over both Pratima’s body and her mind—and believed he had succeeded. Yet today it feels as if a fire has broken out in the granary of his trust.

One year of marriage had passed like a moment—amid laughter, quarrels, sulks, and reconciliations. But now each passing moment feels like an age. Today he was supposed to go to the village; but he did not. Like every Saturday evening, Pratima must be waiting even now. How eagerly Amitabh once waited for Saturday evenings! Finishing work at his desk before five, he would rush to the bus stand—there was only one bus from Bhubaneswar to his village, and he feared missing it. On reaching home, his mind would not rest until he was wrapped in Pratima’s tender, lotus-soft arms and they had exchanged half a dozen kisses. Each time his beloved felt new to him—her kisses like the nectar of a freshly bathed, half-bloomed bud.

Today too, Pratima must be waiting. But to Amitabh, that waiting now felt like an emotionless, deceitful vigil. So he did not go. Ever since he heard whispers about Pratima’s character, a fire has been burning in the shell of his mind. Everything feels like deception—her affection, her sulks, her love. Pratima,he felt, was the embodiment of deceit.

He looked toward the western sky. In the capital’s sky, the sun was setting, promising to return the next day. But in Amitabh’s inner sky, the sun of peace was setting without any promise. The sun would sink; pitch darkness would arrive; dawn would not break. With a deceitful woman, he would pass through life’s dark alley.

He felt as if a hundred scorpions were stinging his brain, poison coursing through every nerve. Faster than light, his mind traveled hundreds of miles and peered through the bedroom window of his home. In his mind’s eye he saw Pratima, lost in an embrace within the arms of a former lover—both vanished into a dreamlike kingdom in a single rapturous pose. Horrible! Disgusting! What a hypocrisy! Truly, deceit is another name for womanhood!

Since hearing so much about Pratima from Rakesh, Amitabh’s mind has turned toxic, eaten away by termites. His marriage to Pratima had been fixed suddenly. After seeing her photograph, he had given his consent—without asking anyone, without wanting to know her past. Friends had warned him: “Be careful before you marry. Who knows—behind beautiful geography there may lie a sordid history.” Why did he not want to know? Had he tried, he might have read a few pages of Pratima’s premarital past and refused the marriage.

Instead, like a lazy python mistaking a shrew for a mouse, he swallowed it whole.
Having accepted Pratima as his wife, what right did he have now to doubt her? The question startled him. Yet can one, invoking duty, love a deceitful woman by declaring her a theorem of love’s geometry? Love is a state of mind; it cannot be extracted by asserting rights. The more he thought, the more poisonous his mind became.

Rakesh had said that before marriage Pratima loved her classmate, Susim. He had often seen them sitting very close in parks, watching first-day-first-show movies together in the city. But those intimate moments led nowhere—Susim was of a different caste, and Pratima’s father opposed inter-caste marriage. What a agony ! Amitabh could think no further. How does one live in such pain? He resolved to take a decision.

Rakesh had handed Amitabh photographs of Pratima and Susim together, and printouts of their long mobile conversations. Perhaps Rakesh was a blackmailer; perhaps he had demanded something illicit from Pratima and earned a slap. But at this moment, he had become Amitabh’s dearest friend—both seeing each other as fellow travelers in a leaky boat.

After hearing everything, Amitabh thought: it is false that Shiva drank all the poison churned from the ocean. All the poison of the world had been stored for Amitabh alone to drink to the dregs. He made-up his his mind now. On reaching home, he would confront Pratima about her premarital love. She would deny it, speaking in a voice soaked in deceit...“You are everything to me—body and soul. No footprint has ever entered the territory of my body or mind. You are the only man in my life, the god of my present and beyond.” Then she would drench his lap with deceitful tears.

Amitabh now decided that at that moment he would open Pandora’s box—produce the photographs Rakesh had procured by bribing Susim’s servant, and the call printouts as proof. Pratima would be stunned, silenced—no escape left for the masquerade of chastity. Like fallen flowers and dried leaves, he would throw her into the dustbin of hatred and neglect, walk away, and forget her like a nightmare. If not legally, at least mentally, he would exile her—letting her mind and body rot in the stench of hatred and indifference.

It was Sunday. After deciding to abandon Pratima, his inner conflict eased. He reached home. Pratima ran toward him, emotion brimming. “Why didn’t you come yesterday? I kept waiting for you. Do you know the pain of waiting? How would you know—have you ever waited for someone?”

Pat replied Amitabh.. “Have I ever loved anyone to know? You must have the experience—you must have waited many times for someone. Am I wrong? Tell me—did you not love someone before marriage? Did you not spend intimate moments with someone and then fly away like a butterfly, promising to meet again?”

Pratima looked at him deeply. “What has happened to you today? You are not the Amitabh who once roamed my heart’s valley like a bold blackbuck. I know—you are trying to see my heart through the prism of suspicion and are trapped in a web of illusions.” After a pause she said softly, “You are right. Before marriage I had promised someone to be my life partner and shared many intimate moments with him. Society became the obstacle. In this society, one cannot go against those who hold unilateral power. If you resist the wave, you are hurt; if you bow, it passes over you. Obeying them, I agreed to marry you. At the wedding altar, I burned my past in the sacred fire, purified my mind with holy chants, and found all my refuge in your touch. I have not looked back since. From the ashes of the past, I tried to create a garden of delight. I vowed at the altar to hide nothing from you. Many times I tried to tell you, but the words stuck in my throat. In your pure affection, those memories faded into insignificance.

I know how much pain you feel today—I too once suffered such pain. Yet I reconciled—with time and with society. I beg you, do the same. Before the creator, invoking our sacred bond, I swear: today there is no footprint of anyone’s memory in my life’s courtyard. Please do not destroy the carefully nurtured garden of my dreams with the storm of misunderstanding. Have mercy on me.”

Tears filled Pratima’s eyes. In them Amitabh saw a simple, loving soul. Overcome with emotion, he pulled her into his arms. The bundle of papers and photographs he held—he threw them into the burning chullah (stove) in the kitchen. To Pratima’s questioning eyes he said, “I have cast the garbage of my mind into the fire. Forgive me.”

The drifting clouds of misunderstanding moved away, and Amitabh’s inner sky grew clear—washed in starlight and moonbeams----