PARIJAT-23

It was that undefined moment of the creation when Rosa received that message. Too late into the night and too early to the morning. In the silence hour of that undefined moment the telephone had woofed like a crying and dying dog. The sound had come from a distane.Hardly audible. But it was apparent .It was burgeoning. Soon, it appeared looming on Rosa. Realization has not completely arrived yet, it is still cloudy and dazed. Her state of mind was also like that undefined moment of creation. The mind is blank. Brain is yet to grasp. Everything is half explained, half experienced, half defined, half grown, half alive and half awake. She does not know how she has reached that phone. Hurriedly or leisurely? Floating or falling? Thumping heart, trembling legs and sleeping mind had dragged her involuntarily to that blunt, boorish, brusque and churlish scream of the telephone. She lifted the receiver and tried to understand. She does not know what she responded and how she responded. The brain has not registered and the mind has not remembered. It was mechanical respond from her side. The voice from other side was known and gloom. The mist in the mind was vanishing fast. The fog was fading fast. From the dark smoke of half dazed mind she could only grasp that she needs to act urgently. She only remembers she was stepping down in the staircase in a bemused rhythm when her mother handed over the key of the car.

The cool air of the isolated night is playing hide and seek. It is there and next moment it is not there like the vacillating thoughts of a weird mind. Nerves are settling down fast. The past in conjunction with memory is forming a flashing hieroglyph. It was not at all a dazed and undefined moment when she had heard Abhilash shrieking and squawking in most brusque and sonorous way like an uncivilized rouge. He was fuming and foaming in anger. Fist clinched and raised, he was grasping for breathe. Small matter. Tiny matter. But sometimes logic does not see that. Blinded, totally blinded. Possessiveness? Obsession? Emotion? Aggression? Superiority complex? Feeling of insecurity? May be mixture of all. Rosa had kept a definite deafening silence then. From the corner of her eye she could she her mother-in-law standing back to the wall of the room, head down in shame and plight, pleading to her in silence to maintain silence as she emits a heavy breathe. That heavy breathe speaks about her helplessness. That heavy breathe also conveys her feeling and sympathy in the most melancholy moments of Rosa. After all she is a woman. Who will understand the plight of a woman better than a woman? But she is mother first then mother-in-law. Strange logic? Rosa too drops her eyes. Her grasping emotion wakes up her baby from the womb. It agitates from inside. Tears drop. Few drops fall directly on that thirsty earth. Few rolls into half open mouth and rests, she wipes out in arm of her right hand as her left hand moves over her womb to console her unborn baby. She consoles to herself, to her plaintive mind and to her unborn baby. Wait. Things will change. It will change soon.

Baby was born. A chubby girl with curly hair and bubbling dimple. But things did not change. Small matters became always irritating matters. No longer, it looked like possessiveness. A nasty habit was getting reinforced by lack of protest. Submissiveness was taken as weakness. Peace can no longer be purchased by silence. But she had never broken her silence. She tried and tried. Every conceivable way she could think of. But ultimately in one sunny afternoon when the world had dozed off, she left for her parents’ house with one year baby in her arm. The known hands of her mother-in-law again hold her hands tightly. But the grip loosened when the drops of tears from Rosa’s eyes washed the feet of her mother-in-law instead of that thirsty earth.

Rosa has tried to forget her forgettable past. But it comes and dances along with her baby daughter Rekhu when she tries to blow up those candles at one go with song of “Happy Birth day”. The memory rises up from that churned up past. A memory with promise of living together, forever. Will it come back? Can it come back? Should it come back? Who knows what is written in the sand of that future? Next moment the reality hunts and bites. It is over. It is past. It is bitter.

But that bitterness had evaporated by call of her mother-in-law few hours back. The same heavy breathe. But it was not followed by silence. Rosa could hear a choked voice, an incoherent, disjointed voice, breaking into a stammer. Ro—s—a, he is sinking, AAA—bhil-aaaaaaaaash. Stannely hospitaaaaaaaaal. B----ed no-14,medicine w---ar----d.

Rosa could not recognize the face at the first sight but his eyes she did. They were pale, opaque and gave her an appearance of morbidity as though he had not seen the days for long. He smiles as though he recognizes everything; as though he understands everything. The whip and bite of deadly encephalitis has taken its toll. The inflamed brain has reduced him to a living corpse. He travels in an unknown land where he does not recognize anybody. He only rolls his eyes and looks to the roof and smile endlessly. All bitterness gone. It is only smile. Smile of an innocent. Smile of an ignorant. Eyes roll and roll and get tired and drop. Again he wakes up suddenly and tries to mutter something. No sound. Voice gone. Encephalitis has held it tight, to that vocal cord. Nothing comes out. Not even grunt. Rosa remains stranded there waiting for Abhilash to shriek and shout.

Suddenly the mobile in hand Rosa started ringing. She looked to the black and white screen of the mobile. It flashes the name of the caller:-Rajesh calling------. She did not answer the phone call nor did she disconnect it. She allowed it to die down on its own. She has already decided. There is no need to answer that call. She looked to Abhilash. To those innocent eyes. To that innocent smile. She smiled back and muttered let him shout I will shout back. There is nothing wrong to have a re-look to that past however stony it may look and sound. World changes. Mind changes. Future is not always reflection of past. You can always see the newness and change if you wish to see it. What it requires perhaps a little understanding. Two hands can always join if we stand side by side. Will you? -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was Rekhu’s marriage. She was about to leave. She came to Rosa and Abhilash. They were standing, holding each other hands. That is life. That is the reality. Smiling together, shouting together and living together. John could see thousands smiling parijats in that togetherness.

PARIJAT-22

Extended darkness with its long wagging tail screeches like a grave yard. The whispering wind flutters and snivels like a preyed bird, fallen wings spread. Moments are tickling past and fast. The wind is dying out in those shrunk and cracked horizontal bamboos barricading the caked cow dung dried for lesser mortals’ fuel. It circles and whirls inside those cracked bamboos before being vomited out like undigested foods. Darkness rules. It rules with hysterical mystery with agonizing silence. In the dark branch of a near by tree owl started groaning. John looked to the sky. He did not see any stars in the dark night. Sometimes night becomes mystical and hysterical, perhaps reminding us the menace, ruin and awe of darkness inside us.

John has spent many times alone in that darkness of river bank when the sound of a jumped fish in the water passes a cold shivering inside the spine. It had no effect on John. John has seen more darkness and has experienced more chillness in the past. It is that chillness and darkness when logic runs away from you, the beast inside you wakes up to pent up desires of century. Enjoy the unknown. It is more alluring and bewitching than that apple, Adam saw. It is a new taste. Perhaps a new thrill. Feeling of flying, floating, vacillating and forgetting everything. It is a run away from the reality to a perceived happiness. It is a run of an escapee. But where shall you escape? The kick will go. The hallucination and induced euphoria will dry out. Where is happiness? Pinch and bite of humiliation will resurface again. Do you call it life? Do you like that momentary hallucination of forgetting the reality?

John had met Ricky in one of that rumbling and yet whispering darkness in the coast of Bay of Bengal. Ricky was strolling and falling like flotsam and jetsam of a depressant day. What has happened to him? Why it happened? How it happened? All these are too distinct and distant in Ricky’s memory. The pain and bite of withdrawal symptoms is gripping him like a coiled snake. He looked to the bottle full of cough syrup. His last resort of the day. Should it work? Would it work? May be temporarily. He gulped that with sound. The sound had no synchronization with wave of ocean. Waves. Big and small. Waves of water. Waves of thought. Waves of depression. Waves of memory. Floating to and fro. Comes and goes in that confused stage. Surely and slowly calmness in nerve is setting in. The snake loosens its grip, slowly uncoiling.

The dark night unfolds the memory of another distant night. It was not dark. It was not lighted though. The moon was about to sleep. May be, the moon was about to be lost. Stars were gleaming, glistering, and hanging like pedants from ear lobes of nubile. Same sea shore. But it was singing then. No. it was crooning then. Crooning a lullaby. A gentle and poignant. Sleep, why did not you come then? It was an agonized remembrance. It was not a visual cliché worth storing. But it never leaves. Life listened to that unknown beast in that dreadful moment. Taste of dry salted fish roasted in smoky charcoal. Soft sand of withdrawn sea. Behind the bushes of dwarfed Tamarisk. The sound of the gulp of that acidic liquid with smell of urine that burns the food pipe as it flows into. God! It is nauseating. Is it a taste? The sound of gulp, then too, had not synchronized with sound of waves. Sound of waves was roaring and cautioning. Stop! Now! Please!!! But where is that kick? I must explore it. Second gulp. The wind is revolting. It is protesting. No! Stop! A sudden burst of sea sand blasted on the face of Ricky. Those sands laden heavy in the tear of sea. Ouch! The third gulp. It no longer smells. It no longer burns. But where is the kick? Where is the pleasure of forgetting everything while eyes are wide open? Where is that dream? Gulp followed another. Yet another. Floating dreams. Revolving stars. Stars move around the earth. The earth is stationary. Me too, Ricky dreamt. All are drunk. All are down. Not me. Not Ricky. He is only kicked. The sea is no longer crooning. It is sobbing now. It just witnessed another death. Another defeat. Dead while alive. Oh! God. Am I here to witness the defeat and the dead? The sea started sniveling.

It started with fun. It ended in a habit. Engulfing dreadful habit. That is the character of that old beast. Ricky looked to the sky, head upward. Arms and legs spread. It is deafening dark. Stars are far apart. They no longer glister from that dreadful day of the past when the sea told him about his defeat. Stars surrounded by engulfing shadow of defeat. It is every where. It is pushing them apart. Stars are moving away. The effect of cough syrup thinning away. He felt the crawl of itches throughout his body. He moved his hands. Hands can not cope up, it is spreading fast. Fast enough. He felt bites of thousands ants throughout his body. A wave of panics set in. It is coming like a tempest. A giddy wave of ache is spreading fast. The desperate hands moved fast .But those were not fast enough to push away those crawling ants. Ants, not visible. It is inside the blood. He needs to kill those floating inside his blood, stinging him from inside. He desperately searched for his pockets. Quickly unfolded those paper packets. No those are empty. Something pierced through his finger in that desperate search. Oh, it is comforting. It killed an ant perhaps as it pierced. Crazy ideas. Crazy thoughts. Earth started moving. Stars became stationary. No, it is wrong. Earth needs to be stationary. He shrieked, yelled and started piercing his body in that niddle.Fast.Fast enough. Those crawling and biting ants are getting killed. They are coming out through oozing blood. It is comforting. The earth is becoming stationary. Ricky yelled out a hysterical and mystical laughter. Slowly he is sinking. The bell on the near by church started tolling. Has the time arrived? Last thing he saw two eyes. Eyes of hope. Those are glistering and comforting like his mother. Have you come mother or have you sent an angel?

Dangling legs of Ricky started hitting John on his back as John started running. Perhaps he is running the run of his life for somebody’s life. A run to defeat the defeat. He must. He should. The waves of sea started smiling. They started crooning again. From the distant sound of that crooning, somebody voice resurfaced. It is encouraging. It is assuring. You are a winner, John. Defeat the defeat. You can. You should. You must. Is it Sofi?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The clouds have moved away. Sky looks clear. Ricky must have grown up and settled down, John thought. Mistakes hardly get repeated. Night no longer carries the mystery. It looks like baroque garden. A garden full of Parijats.

PARIJAT-21

A wandering mind with random thoughts is weighing him down. John resorted to deep breathing to calm down his nerves. It has helped him in several tense moments when the adrenalin started flooding in. Array of thoughts and arrows of thoughts are pinning him down. He does not want to escape. He is wandering in the darkness like an off orbit planet. Hoping with high hope that attraction and gravity of knowledge will pull him up and keep him floating. Confused with knowledge! Befuddled by wisdom! It is not an ominous sign. It will definitely lead him to conclusion. Path of light. Whether it is after dawn or after dusk, the source of solution, the source of completion, the source of light remains same. Passive eyes need to see it. It will surely see it.

John looked to the corner of the wall. There are tiny movements, subtle movements, disciplined and untiring movements. Movements for future. Movements for tomorrow as if it exists today. Small red ants are in a queue. They are constantly moving towards that crack in the wall. It is a never ending continuous two ways flow. It looks same at any particular moment. Tiny ants with food particles on their mouth moving towards that crack and returning with same vigor for their new search. Some time they drag in unison particles of size several times more than their combined masses and volumes. It is a synchronous effort which helps them. Ants on their return path stop by and help their struggling friends. No hesitations. No dithering. They do not know whether tomorrow will come. They do not know what tomorrow has stored for them. They live en masse. Let us live our today. Let us live our tomorrow, today too. This is the underlying spirit behind that untiring queue and efforts.

It is the principle of life. It is the religion of life. It is Godly principle. It carries no hatred for others. It conveys no harm for others. The queue, the mass and the effort are not for to pull down a place of worship in name of God. It is not en route to devastate in name of God. Who says religion is an absolute individual phenomenon? Who says it has nothing to do with collectivity? Who says religion has nothing to do with mass? Perhaps the human being is wandering with wrong yardstick of religion. Wrong definition of religion. The tiny ant teaches you. They proudly, vociferously and yet, silently announce that. They announce with their act. They announce through their activity. But the live eyes remain blind to see it. The realization never comes for we see what we like to see. Narrowness laced with individuality. Religion is all about existence for today in hope, anticipation and the pleasure of today’s tomorrow. It is all about collectiveness. It is an action. Let us live and allow others to live. Let us exist and allow other to exist. Let us not define God for He is above any definition. Respect His existence. Respect your existence and those of others too.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It has been quite late for John in that village library. John realized that late. The care taker, Sarhad has peeped in several times. He had gone and come back leaving the key hanging on the wall. John needs to move out. Perhaps he will spend some times with Sarhad in his betel shop. Sarhad, the name evokes emotion. Sarhad means border. Yes, it is story of a border. It is story of a hope. Will that hope ever turn into a reality? Hope and emotion of thirty six years. It is waiting for thirty six years. The sacred waiting is waiting with the hope of reunion four months before his birth

The atmosphere has gone drier and finer. Gusts of wind dragged the thorny, paper-flowered bougainvillea creeper against the Sarhad as he locked the door of the library. The thorny scratching rattle did not unnerve him. He did not look to it as the bougainvillea creeper whipped him for the second time. Unfazed, he moved as John followed him silently. The sharp and stony face of Sarhad hides an emotion that is burning inside him. It is just like a black dot on the large white sheet. What you see? Black dot! No body says it is a white sheet. It is a black dot. It is a stony face. Yes, it is a stony face. Who sees that emotion, that search, that waiting, that longing? That longing to see somebody. He will come back. He will come back with ocean of emotions stored over thirty six years from that portentous day of year 1971 when the birds cried in the afternoon. It was like a frantic warning to her mother’s ears. Sarhad had waked up from her mother’s womb when shrikes of cries filled the atmosphere. He continuously heard that crying and cried along with his mother till he was born while crying. He saw his mother crying. It is in morning. It is in afternoon. It is in the mid of night. That crying had no sense of timing. It comes in odd moment, most unexpected moment. It comes when cuckoo starts cooing, the calf starts calling and the half drunk water enters into wind pipe instead of esophagus. Still she is crying. But Sarhad has stopped crying the day he realized why his mother is crying. He has seen enough of that. A dry emotion of smoke always moves near his eyes. It burns his eyes. But tear never drops. It makes his face further stony.

The flying yellow leaves the surging cloud of dust and the stinging river sands, all seemed to flee, flee and flee but yet could not. They returned to continue their struggle for escape. Something similar heaved inside the Sarhad as he opened his betel shop. He dragged and arranged the wooden bench in front of it. The thick coir rope started smoking in gusty wind as Sarhad lighted it. It is for smokers to fire their cigar. The old longing, the despair and the search for solution started blooming up like winter flowers as he dusted the yellowish tinged glass of three photo frames. First photo frame embraces a young man all in smile in his Indian Air Force dress. Sarhad looked to the photo, the same stony face. But it was smiling as if it will jump out from that photo frame. So live. So vivid. So energetic. The smile emits a satisfaction, contentment and bravery. It tells a story of supreme sacrifice. A sacrifice for mother land perhaps more scared than mother. The second photo frame contains an old Pakistani post card something scribbled in it. Hurriedly written perhaps. Sarhad hold those two photo frames for a moment in his both hands. Amongst gusty winds of afternoon he could here somebody is calling. No somebody is wailing. Again no sense of timing. Hope waits. It does not know how long. But it has to wait as everything ends without hope. Let it be alive for ever. Let it beget cries for ever. But let that hope tell- do not cry for he will return. Soon???

For the first time after many years an innocent peeped through that stony face. It became soft in the joy of hope. Sarhad started smiling. Clouds of tears started condensing. Soon it flowed. Is he crying?

John looked to that third photo frame. Sarhad is standing his back towards him. He is dusting third photo frame. It is a framed paper cutting of some old News paper. John could read that

INDO-PAK WAR OF 1971.

BIRTH OF BANGLADESH

DECISIVE WIN FOR INDIAN ARMY.

John’s attention dragged towards the highlighted entry of the framed paper cutting.

54 INDIAN ARMYMEN MISSING, STILL UNTRACED.

Parijat, do you know what happened to those fifty four brave men? Has anybody kept a count how many Sarhads have become stony faced? Is it not shame, we do not know that? Have we become robotic?

PARIJAT-20

Flipping through the pages of those scribbling, John felt deeply disturbed. It emits controversy. But at the same times it opens up newness. Another chapter of newness. More deeper perhaps. Those are simply whirling around his mind with ease and convenience. John had a glance on those scribbling. It says we have defined a good man without defining goodness. We have defined God man without defining God. The derivatives have assumed prominence. God men and good men have come and gone. They have defined the goodness. They have defined the God. In their own ways. In their own styles. Nothing has sustained. The so called goodness has not sustained. Who is God? The question remains. Opinion divided. Who created us? God? Who created human being? God? Then why the differences? Why there is a good and why there is a bad? Should God create the bad? May be, He has not created anything. But definitely He has not created in isolation, only the good. God men have come and gone with their definitions of good and bad. Bad is condemmened. Bad is blamed. But bad survives. The good man or God man does not survive. They vanish along with their futile efforts in defaming bad. Bad remains for the good want it to remain. It knows they are complementary. They are inseparable Siamese. Born together. Live together. They live eternity to eternity. They were together before all the creations. Before that single-celled floated in the wilderness of ocean.

There is no defeat it is always win. There is no end it is always beginning. There is no bad it is always good. There is no sorrow it is always joy. There is no death it always birth. Life continues birth to birth, happiness to happiness, love to love and eternity to eternity.

John felt the heaviness of the thoughts. The village library has become deserted. John is the only person left. The care taker has left the key hanging in the wall. John needs to lock it before the departure and hand over the key in neighbor. He looked outside. The midday sun has assumed the defeat in the crowded presence of neem leaves. The ferocity mellows a lot as the rays kiss the earth. The wind has dropped showing the sign of tranquility, equality and balance. The temperature in river might be seeing eyes to eyes to its friend on land. They have grown equal. They do not push the wind towards each other as sign of respect and acceptance. They are in harmony. The wind has dozed off, tired of moving. Perhaps it will resume its stroll by evening with the innocence of a smiling baby. It will hum and giggle with humming dove of evening. John is still to recover and recoil from that heaviness. It is weighing him down. The quest is on eternity to eternity.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rukshana looked to the portrait once again. It has gathered dust. But the glow is apparent. The deft touches of quill are still singing. The song of love. The song of life. The song of departure from happiness to happiness. It sings, pleads and prays to the Nature to be docile and innocent. Let that innocence in those eyes merge with the innocence of divinity. Let the subtleness of that smile remain intrinsic. Let it emit life. Let it emit continuity. Let it defeat the defeat. Let that smile flows. Let those eyes speak the depth of the ocean. Let those be source of all joys, emotions, elations, exultations and jubilations. It looks all now to Rukshana as it were now. As if the river has stopped flowing for years. The sun has not gone beyond the horizon of that sleepy afternoon.

Yes, it was a sleepy afternoon when the relationship was defined and redefined. It was built on emotions. It was founded on faith. You are my brother, John. She had tied a thread to his wrist. She had looked to John with eyes of thousand glistering stars and whispered, this thread remains as a symbol in your hand as we are tied together for ever by a faith, a hope and a promise. You shall protect me with love of a brother. You shall remember me with smile of a brother. You shall cajole me with touch of a brother. You shall guide me with advice of a brother. You shall be my shadow with responsibility of a brother.

John did not know how to reciprocate, how to bind those emotions of love and how to immerse himself in that relation. A relation, that is much bigger than blood relation for it was never defined, never imposed. A relation above any expectations. A relationship that has awaken by the call of hearts. His both hands got raised automatically by an unknown force of spirituality. Palms, side by side touching each other by thumbs, looking down and bearing sign of protection, have come down and covered the head of Rukshana. As those palms touch the head of Rukshana, John had pronounced, “Long live my sister, be a survivor”. The pronunciation was spontaneous as if it had the glimpse of the future, that unknown and unborn and undefined. What it has stored for us?

The song of the portrait is resounding high. It speaks of those cherished moments of blessed relationship when Rukshana rose in the wave of emotions. She covered her head with the veil of that georgette sari. The kohl on her eyes slightly melted as those dark pearls floated on those bewitching blue lagoons. She folded her hands. The lips quivered in whisper along with the black mole above the upper lip. The folded hands were conveying the totality. There is no duality. I am not a split personality. I am not holding anything back. The both sides of me are together as a totality. Oh, my brother, I bow down to the divineness in you. I surrender my essential nature and very soul to you. Bless me, my brother. Be the protector of my love, my life and my future. She had touched John feet with ultimate respect of divinity.

Rukshana looked to the mirror. She still resembles the portrait in many ways. Time has taken its toll. It has left the marks of every second on her body. It has terrorized her. It was agonizing for her. Still she remains a survivor. She has defeated the defeat. Those hands of protection are still on her head. The black mole on the upper lip is replaced by a scare reminding the spectre of that defeated ghost-Melanoma. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rukshana ran like a child in the sight of John. She lovingly yelled, you fat fellow, still you play Holi. Have you seen yourself in mirror? You look like a big donkey with those colors in your body. John remained stranded with that can of color water. She is still a child, he uttered.

Parijats, this is story of India, a colorful India. All the humanity meets here. All the rivers meet here. All the faiths flow here. Together for ever.