The jittery music of utensils was appearing to him coming from a distance. The drowsiness was drowning him down. Legs, stretched high over study table, were going up and up as he was sliding and sinking on the plastic chair like a damaged boat of a raged and raised sea.
The silhouettes of past loomed forth before him, only to recede slowly. A boy jumping high. High enough to smash that shuttle overhead. Easy kill. Easy prey. Easy victory. Probable and possible victory. He had seen that. He had smelled that. He had sensed that. Clapping hands. But in the end, those claps were not for him. He does not remember how he missed that easy prey? He only remembers the concealed and pinching smile on his opponent face as he stood dumbfounded. Talent lost to luck. From where hell the wind came in that dry winter afternoon-------------! what was the timing of that wind---------------? He does not know why it hurts and hunts him till today. It regurgitates so often and very often, without reason, perhaps sometimes with reasons. But certainly it has pushed him to pusillanimity and loneliness.
The jittery music of utensils grew. With that came a sobbing sound. Slow and low. He knows, it is she, the old and aged KrishnaAamaa, crying. She must be cleaning that metallic plate. A plate made out of third graded recycled stainless steel in which he takes his food. A companion of last three years. Flat and low reamed with manufacturing defect. The internal stress has pushed middle portion of the plate up like a protruding belly of a stressed up person. KrishnaAamaa laughs and grumbles when he takes the food in it. Laughs for his peculiar eating style. Coarse rice, flowing dal, vegetables each poured and piled over each other in that plate. Flowing dal, flowing to the circular edge of plate, which he sips directly lifting the plate from edge by both hands. His nose and sometimes his untrimmed mustache and some other times his uncombed dried flowing hairs touch that heap of rice, dal and vegetables piled one over others. Now KrishnaAamaa grumbles seeing the food particles struck to his nose, sometimes to his mustache and uncombed and dried hairs. She grumbles as he smiles. He forgets who is KrishnaAamaa? She too forgets who is she? That is love! Undignified love! Indian love! Stinking and unaesthetic love!
She is KrishnaAamaa, an old and dark complexioned house maid. And he? A struggler who is struggling and ever eager to struggle in that hired house along with others two from different geographical regions of the country. The fourth, the flat nosed Shan had left six months back. KrishnaAamaa cooks for them, cleans utensils ,cleans clothes, brings medicine, lends money when required ,grumbles and scolds all in return of meager monthly pay, not that important ; of those affectionate calls of Aamaa,very essentials and most essentially those bowed and cowered heads when she grumbles. She is Aamaa, a mother. A house maid at the same time.
The sobbing sound grew further. It stuck a clunky note. It is now mixed with sound of wind buffeting the bougainvillea plants full of dry leaves and dry flowers. He did not lift himself and looked back. He sank further into the chair. He knows the sobbing sound will stop once he looks back. He did not do that. It was a lingering aroma of unconditional love, so divine, yet undignified, stinking and unaesthetic. krishnaAamaa too does not understand why she sobs. But it is coming to her automatically and unconditionally. It is coming to her every now and then after he purchased the train ticket and when she sees that peculiar eating plate, that cheap country wood cot with bamboo legs, moth eaten with bleeding of white dusts from numerous tiny holes and that thick misshapen sleeping mattress filled with cheap and unprocessed cotton, soaked and moist with sweat ,smelling and stinking ,again with numerous tiny holes made surely by ants for those bite when he sweats lying on that and those too make disciplined queues of coming and going from those tiny holes when he is not lying on that and that high legged study table ,top scribbled with information like phone numbers, scientific formulae and of course "I love you------",written in mother tongue to avoid glares of friends and guests and there he keeps the legs when tired as he has done now carefully avoiding half burnt and half molten candle with tiny black wick to be lighted when required and the books ,most important and least important.
KrishnaAamaa knows the train will take away him leaving those surrounding him, that third grade stressed stainless steel plate; that bamboo legged cot; high legged study table and half burnt and half molten candle with black wick. Ants, too, shall leave slowly and gradually as the stink of moist sweat vanishes. He will go as Shan went six months back. She had sobbed too when Shan left But why for him and why for Shan, she will cry? It remains unexplained for her. No logic. No reason. It is a feeling, unfathomed, unexplained and unexpressed. It is a feeling which jiggles. Feeling both firm and yielding like soft jelly. She felt nauseating as she sobbed and coughed. The plumpness, jiggliness, firmness and softness of that felling, all coupled together in unlikely combinations griped her hard and harder. She coughed as she left. She did not look back and he too did not look back. Sinking further in that chair, he stretched his vision far and far to that day's star invisible and yet visible like that feeling which swings and trembles like the light of a flickering candle which gives a feeling of leaving with all its fragility but stays and smiles. Scene of that "luck wins over talent" again resurfaced. Flying shuttle. Easy prey. His jump to kill. That sudden dry winter wind. That concealed but scornful victory smile of his opponent. Those claps in the end. He began, mysteriously, to breathe hard. Every bit of him again filled with burning sensation. It is burning him from inside. The victory has not come. It is yet to come. Till today, it has been story of luck which had triumphant smile. When the turn of talent will come? It roiled and roiled within him until he could barely stand it.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KrishnaAamaa walked and walked in that scorching sun of afternoon which turned her to stupor. She came to the bank of mud-muddled river, slow, practically asleep and to that several legged banyan tree in its pillared shade. She came near to that stone covered with vermilion and full with smell of sandal and turmeric. She knelt down and prayed. It is her God. It is her faith. It is her Lord, Lord Murga. She did not wish for anything. She did not ask for anything for HE knows everything. She did not know how many times she could move around the tree pronouncing Lord Murga, Lord Murga and Lord Murga---------------------------------------------------------------------------. She kept on moving and moving.
From a distance a cow mooed, Haaamaaaaa,Haaaamaaaaaaaaaaa and Haaaamaaaa, perhaps announcing that undignified love, stinking love, unaesthetic love but unconditional love.
No comments:
Post a Comment