Oh dear lady, engrossed in your pain,
Don’t look at the brighter day,
There’s nothing to gain.
Steal me away when ghosts invade the time,
Darkness can love you back,
Let me be your rhyme!!
I
bickered with tranquility as people retreated to their naked veils like a
sudden release, a free fall of a winged bird, a deliberate disposition of an
era counted by the innumerable dots in communication. It’s a prolonged
departure of vowels and sporadic resonance of consonants altering my rhyme,
created and dissolved in the velvet purrs of the insomniac cat. The estranged
leaves strew the fragrance of the coquettish jasmine leading my wakeful eyes to
that particular one subdued by the sloppy thirst of our circadian encounters.
She was there spreading her loneliness in the vegetable colors of the appliqué
neatly preened to be worn the next day. She was there smelling her loneliness
in the soliloquy of the deep wink of her eyes, her eye-lashes soaked in water,
she hides from everyone, oblivious of my presence in our lives. She was there
existing in the unnecessary burden of existence, a road treaded by people to
cross the abysmal turbulence and reach the precious, the majestic...the light,
the morning, the divinity and peace smeared by the synonyms of fulfillment of
desires, wishes and dreams.
I
drew the colors close to the paint-brush bearing the remnants of my
creativity...bright like their smiles when they see the embellishments
...turquoise, lime, lemon chiffon, candy, arctic, admiral and the countless
other shades of colors, of green, red, blue. Amidst the queerness and a
despicable question of a bizarre future of my becoming an artist, equations
turned out to be simple, at least for them.
‘I
need to talk.’
‘Now?
But I have to go to class.’
‘Can’t
you hold on for a minute?’
‘Yeah.
Okay. So?’
‘There’s
a huge problem and I think he is cheating on me.’
It
often makes me wonder how their world is so simple. Even mixing of colors takes
longer than their anticipations and judgments. It’s a priority I have grown
sharing with them, understanding the needs, the mood-swings and the randomness
of their emergencies.
I
leave the colors to dry, a new design to the saree.
‘It’s
so pretty, can I have it?’
‘Oh
sure.’
‘Then
could you make me my favorite design?’
‘Sure.
When do you need it?’
‘In
two days. I have to attend my friend’s brother’s wedding.’
There’s
a knock at my door and I open it even before affirming.
‘You
do know you have to come back home early tomorrow.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do
you remember the reason?’
‘Yes
of course.’
‘Just
yes and yes of course? Is this how we taught you to talk to us? Don’t you have
respect for your own parents?’
My
clock doesn’t tick. Not for me. It’s intimidating when my hours pass through
the menopause, fiddling between the child imprisoned in the birthmark around my
neck and a mother burning every moment in my abdominal cramps.
I
take a stress from the chair, aligned carefully against the wall and then
finally release it with my pen dropping. My fingers liberated from their
passion, crumple at whim’s ease, my hair mussed in the reflection of those
disordered stashes. Reviews grin at me from the placid laptop screen, colder
than death sentences. I hear noises, stories who come to me like them and they
like stories often confusing me with the phonetics of my aging memory.
And
there she sat, staring bluntly at her laptop screen, releasing her fingers with
a face full of stories. WORK... she opens her folder. Her sullen lips procure
the moisture of the zephyr of spring, carrying nuances of protests
around...protest for a brassiere , protest for the freedom of speech, protest
for conducting the protest ...all dumped in our memories like
pseudo-revolution.
There
is a need to merge the movements together...
Her
hands typed faster before sleep could rob her off her strength. The reading
light understands its obsolete switch. I watch her eyes close before I close
mine under the blanket of the sun.
It’s
another day, a bright and sunny one, a happy one with the life waking up in all
its dynamism to one more day. The wheels start and the brain starts receiving
impulses forcing reaction. So I fit my roles in their categories. The notebook
comes in handy at times with appointments fixed. Phone calls to be made and
received.
The
colour on the appliqué looks brighter to everyone, an eye-candy for those
lustful bodies, desperate to cover their insecurities. It’s a part of my daily
habit...like breathing where one is forced to exhale carbon dioxide. Victorious
oxygen enters our body like the inspector you see examining dead corpses,
post-mortem reports and drag the court-cases till there’s satisfaction among
all. The body stays alive in the anaesthetic pain understanding the scars, the
incisions, the occasional flow of blood, the emergency of clotting; yet the
hands are not meant to protest but are there to absorb and return back the
desired output.
‘You
can’t leave now. You have to cook that special meal. Guests are coming over.’
‘What’s
the need to waste your time and go for a movie? Why can’t you do the field
work? Just because you are a volunteer, that doesn’t mean you can skip your
work.’
‘I’m
in grave trouble. I have my exam in a day. Could you please teach me Kristeva’s
theory of feminism? I bunked class because my better-half was upset and needed
me.’
She
sat there all alone in her room as I woke up. Like a transition from the
dazzling day to the cold, broken me, she transformed into a woman they never
knew and in my ever-growing love for her, I felt privileged to see her in an
outlandish tearful grandeur. She rested her head upon the pillow, her collar
bones shivering like the bleeding wings of a wounded bird; her bones broke in a
thousand earthquakes emanating from her delicate sullen naval...her legs
crumpled around the bed-sheet who has grown old witnessing the thundering
restlessness of a lonely moaning. Then it all stops like my sudden darkness
when the moon gets tired of stealing the light and we call it a truce. She does
too, all of a sudden when tears revolt against her dehydrated body, the
relentless thumping in her head closes her eyes and a loud breath comes out of
her mouth lacking her voice, her words, her desires.
Oh dear night, when will you know,
I love the darkness of your desolate snow,
Oh dear night, when will you see?
I’m there for you, listen to me!!
The
relief sets in. The liberation comes to me smoothly, smoother than the false
words of admiration they used to move my emotions. The sun sets in letting go
of the smog, the sun sets to sleep as the night comes, guarding all of us.
Guarding our peaceful slumber the night gracefully dwells in a misunderstood
darkness.
‘You
have failed us parents. How can a daughter remain unmarried even at the age of
30?’
‘I’m
sorry. I can’t be with you anymore. I think we are better off as just friends.’
‘You
know marriage is a patriarchal institution. How can you even call yourself a
feminist when you want to get married?’
‘You
have to give me time if I really mean to you. I burnt my hand while cooking
today. I need you to talk to me. Skip a class.’
Night,
my beloved is the night when they fall asleep releasing me from the shackles of
performing my duties, as if my birth was marked with these shackles. Had I been
a poet myself, I would have written a different version of night where people
float through the absorbed darkness finally meeting their light, their
cherished haven forgetting how selflessly the night has guarded them. I wait
for slumber and in the transcendence of this wait, I fall in love with the
night, my night.
Oh dear beloved, listen to me,
Give voice to the words you wanted to be,
Oh dear beloved, I hear your silence cry,
There’s a world for us, don’t let it die.
Oh dear beloved, trespassed and violated we are,
Beautiful and intelligent in the shine of our scar,
Betrayed in the eons of love and war,
Soothed by memories, let’s drive away the fear.
Oh dear beloved, listeners we can be,
Of each other, of you and
me.
APARAJITA
DUTTA
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