That lady dark

A dementia, clandestine and enigmatic, acquired over the years bled secretly that night.

She sulks all day long with clueless, deadpan gaze sometimes stuck for long on things around. She hums random pensive melodies from the dusty times- sometimes in a sweet voice and sometimes in a heavy, husky voice. She, quite often, dumps herself down on the floor, legs parted as if resigned from the consciousness of her sexuality, rubbing her first finger vertically on the mosaic floor for hours. At times, she lights a candle at dusk, places it on the parapet wall of balcony and sobs before it until her breath runs out when she undulates the flame by moving her first finger through it. She spends her nights sleepless, watching the street lights, with her drowsy eyes, until they are put off in the morning; she waves her head sideways as if she has bereaved herself of anything to survive through the relics of her life. She looks at me not with scorn but with a casually forgiven vision which often makes me seek the clarification that whom she seems to have forgiven - me or herself? She lives in my home like a dead person walking around; she had grown numb to her living; she likes dim lights. She terrifies me when, sometimes, I find her watching herself curiously in the mirror of the bathroom under a red lamp.

Watching her day by day is killing me from inside. Many times I thought of slashing her throat and then ending myself to conclude my protracted, punitive saga in one shot but I am still not able to come out from the grip of pity for her and the courage to lose sight of her. Air is morbid and stagnant as if from ages, days are getting spent in never ending entangled thoughts of remorse and dilemma, nights are flagrant with frequent wake ups from sleep to find her weeping and looking at the ceiling.

It was a summer's evening when I opened the door to her knock; sweat settled between my fingers and dripping down from my head through the back of ears. She, an averagely tall, wheatish complexioned lady in her late twenties with bright, placid eyes, gave her introduction, with a mingled expression of conscious ambiguity and suppressed fear, as an art journalist from a famous lifestyle magazine. Her purpose of meeting me was regarding her plan to bring out a retrospective book on me and my painting. Standing at the age of early sixties with more than thirty years of career as a well acclaimed painter, I was naturally enlivened by the thoughts of her project and pondered on the more honor and fame it can potentially bring to me. But at the same time I was equally wary of lending portions of my personal life along with my work to an unknown person. It was after much debates and self talks that I convinced myself for her work.

On an afternoon when the first rains had brought a mild respite to the city from the clutches of sweltering heat, sitting at my dingy home on 23rd floor amidst color palettes, dry and wet, with noise of rain outside which had obscured the visibility of the city, I started baring the layers of my life to her -

"My father never liked any forms of art, so was my mother. But the only difference was my mother never discouraged any forms of creativity but my father did. His belief was - 'Artistry makes a man fall in trap of a habit of romanticizing his life which erodes the degree of strength that a man should at least possess to survive in this world.' I was never destined to be a painter but somehow the passion continued to grow; my mother honed it by admitting me to a painting school and then I carried thereon.  

"There's a difference between one who practices art as a hobby and one who practices art as a living. It's the difference in the extent to which emotions are at stake. When I began to primarily fall under the second category I started feeling an emotional conflict with the usual world although, at the same time, I tried to stay in harmony with it. I paraded a gentle disagreement between the visual interpretation and the hidden interpretation of paintings favoring the later but more often I found myself caught in a switch between them. And more often I found myself taking side of persons, rather than on my convictions, with whom I used to spend good evenings with bared heart talks. I reacted joyously to my admirations but tried to remain settled to the criticisms although I was hyper-sensitive from inside for my creations. And sometimes it was the abrupt echoes of criticisms in my head that my completion of paintings made me feel about myself, in my unconsciousness, like a handful of sand that is slipping away gushingly. Those were distressed moments when I made innumerable sideways moves lying on bed, in pursuit of sleep, stretched all the curtains and with tiresome hands sealed them to thesides of the windows so that room becomes pitch dark and denies the intrusion of any sprinkles of light. And, at times, when this didn't work I stared at the upwards with a forfeited inside imploring for a soul who would listen, the whole night, to my avalanche of schmaltz and interpret them in a consoling way to me in the morning. And on few occasions when all these things failed, I resorted to the dreary act of masturbation as a tranquilizer for my mystical anxieties.

"Shades of ephemeral diffidence, demure arrogance like a candle used to kindle in daily load shedding, sudden exotic demands for maudlin succors was shaping me up into a new being. But at the same time I grew fond of myself too - I loved my solitude, I embraced myself in front of the mirror crisscrossing my arms, I smiled, in night's dead silence, on my life that is still remaining, I rubbed my cheeks and my palms over the blank canvas balmy with the warmth of hanging light. My inside was an erratic smoke that kept entering pitch dark tunnels and kept coming out to a purple world leaving pale spots at both the places. I remember once I stopped painting with colors and completely switched to the black and white painting because somebody had passed the statement on few of my paintings that I don't know the difference between sunset and sunrise, both appears identical. It was after heavy persuasion by my sister, who was eight years younger than me, that I again began to put colors in my palette."

I was facing the diminishing rains during my narrative but I could sense her gaze, from the corner of her eyes, stuck on me since long. She slowly brought her eyes down as if withdrawing herself to tackle a silent burp of her conscience inside her. I smiled without looking away from rains and said-

"I know it's ludicrous but it was me."

"It was mysterious actually." She replied.

I looked at her; her eyes were down. She was motionless like an inanimate object. She was dressed in a milky white three-quarter shirt tucked in a mauve colored, cleanly ironed  skirt long till knees. I felt guilty of the dinginess of my home.

I smiled at her and said - "Yes it is."

With her subsequent meets with me, city fell under the grip of rainy season. Over the next few days her manuscript continued to accumulate finesse of my paintings, my insight about them and various anecdotes of the canvas. Those days were making my long borne insipid life interesting; I used to spend my afternoons indolently awaiting for her evening visits. But when she used to visit in afternoons, a tingle about her kept knocking my thoughts and vanishing away through out the evening till late night. To stay conscious about my personal life renditions, I used to keep jotting down the conversations of everyday with her in my own notebook. But at the same time the thought came in my mind that how does it matter if I don't keep an account of mine? How much it will make a difference if she exaggerates my personal life and make it notorious? Most of the time I was too coward to reply scared of the after effects and so I never halted my jotting down work.

Outside was too dark that afternoon and the sky was laden with thunderous clouds about to pour down at any moment. Sitting in my couch at my home that was illuminated partially by a small fluorescent lamp and partially by the obscured outside light, I was notably restive but extremely fermented from inside by discovering the stark similarity of this ambiance with that chilling night - same dimness inside, rain beams lashing the window glasses noisily, that itchy sensation to go through each other, those ripples of horror about that sensuality arbitrarily but secretly glancing out from converged brows and wrinkled foreheads. I gulped down enough amount of cold water to calm down myself before beginning my next chapter of narrative -

"My wife was then a model, endorsing the top brands and brandishing her looks in various magazines, when I met her, and indeed continued to be so even after marriage. Not the love at first sight but her sagacity to feel the deep rooted feelings in the artistry and my svelte interpretations about the intricacies behind the same that led to our gradual attraction towards each other. Our marriage had created an interesting world with moods of excitement for our newly fused world and specks of those absurdities which, traditionally, is always associated our worlds - that world from which we made our living. It was a neat life where conflicts in interests rarely crossed our marital world and never snatched each others independence towards individual creativity.

"She used to be as madly flirtatious and romantic with me as she used to be whimsical with herself. A sweet, gentle smile and eyes deliberately making big were the signs when she became whimsical; lazy winking of eyes with same sweet, gentle smile and surrendered body language were suggestive of her former mood. As a woman she was strong willed in her own world, sharp in her convictions and melodramatic about the idea of life. But I used to be stunned with the keen way she sometimes ran the painting brush to fill colors in some portions of my paintings; those were the magical moments - she used to be absolutely unaware of her surroundings, unaware of her facial expressions and unaware of who and where she is. She used to hug me extremely tightly instantly finishing coloring the canvas.

"Painting, I feel, magnetizes most of the people. Discovering the person whom you know is a painter urges you automatically to create your own portrait of life; she was no different. Her quixotic ideas knew no bounds when one evening..."

And I stopped; I was not sure of revealing that. She was expressionless yet eager to know what was that on which I stopped. I hesitated, looked around the entire room, blinked my eyes a number of times unnecessarily. She was patient as if she knew I will start from there where I stopped and I did-

"Her quixotic ideas knew no bounds when one evening, coming back early from her work, with glaring eyes and excited voice she asked me- 'Today night make a portrait of me' and with a hush, sensual voice she uttered 'Nude'. My libidos sparked so instantaneously that I felt it pricked me in my chest. That night, after the clock struck midnight, she sat on the window undressed completely. The street lights and the faint moonlight made her look like a distant terrain of smooth curves protruded with much pride and flamboyance. And her posture was suggestive of a woman who dares to flaunt her gender in the darkness of night for the people who secretly gets out of their home at night in an iconoclastic mood.

"It took that entire night to complete that portrait laden with uneasy temptations. She was enamored by the first look of it in the morning, she stared at it for long and she went to the window as if allowing the morning light to purify her. I tried to put a blanket on her but she denied; after few minutes she closed the window and took me immediately to bed with the blanket wrapped around us; her gestures indicating an intense desire of to be loved. We made."

When I finished I felt I came to senses. She was looking at the floor with disconcert also with a tinge of despise. After a few minutes of deafening silence I was perplexed to find her rushed out of my home with a flash. It was so weird and spontaneous that I remained seated at my place for an hour absorbed in that act of her with the exit door wide open.

For a week she didn't come and I was distressed by that. I couldn't find a possible explanation for her act. Finally when she came back I grew by that time too coward to ask the reason and she too didn't uttered anything about it but both were conscious of the layer that was holding us back to converse freely. To clear the air, I asked her to tell something about herself. She grabbed it immediately to have a gentle deviation from the compulsive routine work for which she used to come-

"I am a hatred; from heart to mind to thoughts to wishes I am wrapped with hatred."

A dead silence prevailed for few minutes; she got up and stood resting herself to the sliding door of the balcony; she unbuttoned the second button of her shirt expressing an uneasiness by the humidity of the season. And she continued-

"I was eight years of age when my parents separated. On a chilling winter dawn when the morning light was about to break into a crimson horizon, my mother had taken me along with her from the home never to return; I didn't see my father for the last time. My father had lost all interests in my mother is what she said as a result of which he searched for a young body and soul. It pushed our world into a never ending somberness and began to bring waves of torments day by day. She wiped off from her mind every memory of good times she had with my father by repeatedly epitomizing him as a betrayer of her trust, a carnivore who hollowed her by sucking blood and flesh all through those years. Many times I saw her revealing an awful expression through still eyes and distorted lips as if her body was quivering by the percept of a pungent odor oozing from her body.

"A reminiscence still today puts me in a dark scowl - she didn't have dinner that night. Night was touching the midnight and sound of traffic although infrequent was still sailing in. I sat to study in the bedroom when I saw her putting off the light of drawing room and lighting a candle. I was startled; a quick shivering thought raced through my mind is she trying to burn down herself? I rushed through the door of the bedroom, stood at a distance from her and saw her crumbling some old, dried rose petals on a piece of paper. She poured a glass of raw scotch on it and set it on fire. Entire room was flared up, haunted with red glow; appeared as if somebody had spitted red venom to the walls and her face through that flame showed a deluge of intense disdain. Both of us stood motionless - me flabbergasted and she with an unavenged injury."


She quickly turned to face outside and after few minutes turned back to face the inside again. A mild but sharp current ran along my body when she unbuttoned the third button of her shirt; a considerable view of her cleft left a stir of cold excitement in every beat of my heart so strong that I could feel the it punching against my chest. The clock already struck 9 of night; fluorescent light of the tube was not able to reach the place properly where she was standing. An irrepressible inquietude was provoking me to move towards her but I was still to identify whether it was an incitation and if it was then why. She kept standing there and started again-

"Do you know I love nights; why because I love darkness. Darkness brings out surge of emotions that are intimate to night - emotions that are delightfully tempting and mysteriously disturbing due to it's ineffability. I love the height of that temptation when it transforms into intractability; I love all the more to see each such intractability remaining unfulfilled and this view gives me immense pleasure, it's like watching the annihilation of a soul's mood-of-the-time crushed by an unknown force. I would love to paint that soul, in colors, after each such annihilation to see how wild it can get when stripped off from each such emotions."

This weird revelation of her inner self left me frozen and terrified; so much so that I was still under hypnotism when she came and stood in front of me, brought herself down to match her head to the level my head was in such a conscious manner that my eyes could get a clear and easy glance of her hanging assets, she pressed her lips on my head for quiet long and went away. After minutes passed away that I came back to senses and realized the happenings. That night passed in solving the riddle about her that she left with her words; I rolled sideways in the bed being edgy, scary and still under the effect of that hypnotism.

In the subsequent months we grew more casual in our mannerisms while confronting each other. We started meeting out of my home in the open world - in cafes, restaurants, evening lawns; in these meetings her manuscript got fat with my experiences with different people of art and culture, my early days in the city. But amidst these her incitations hadn't ceased away although now those were not as sharp as it used to be earlier; still the capricious provocations and abrupt withdrawal of it caused a sharp pique inside me. Many times I was led to believe that she was trying to play that game with me which she revealed that frightful night. The easing away of strict formalities between us led an increase in our frequency of touching each other.

In these months I discovered how much aversion and scorn she harbors for human beings of this earth. In her talks she often regarded herself as a prisoner whose limbs are chained and other people are peeling her skin off by running their nails on her body. Once she took me to her place where she used to live; it was a one bhk flat, neat and clean but holding a huge collection of books. Being late and having no energy left that night to return home, we had the dinner at her place and pulled out a couple of chairs to the small verandah attached with her bedroom. The single bed was covered with a bed sheet of pitch black color with white polka dots, walls were of dull yellow color and shelves were packed with books. Sitting beside me, dressed in a sea green colored fitting top and a black track pant, in the verandah she lit a cigarette. She asked me about my marital life, of course for her manuscript and not for casual curiosity. I started-

"We were busy - busy with each other, busy with our individual lives, busy with our profession, busy with our passions until our first and the only child, a daughter, was born three years after our marriage. She, like many other children, brought to us dreams, pride and warmth to our hearts. It happened to us that we became so busy in her upbringing along with our daily lives that our flirtatious romanticism with each other went out of window all of a sudden. I knew and I was able to understand that this course oflife was inevitable, I was able to understand the changed time, I was able to understand that it's time to face the real sun and the moon lit nights were over, I was able to understand our duties but what I failed was the acceptance. And in a year of our daughter's birth, when my sister came in the town by virtue of her job I never imagined in dreams that it would bring such a ferocious storm that won't spare anybody.

"My refusal to accept that changing time gave birth to a notion that my wife is loosing interest in me grew as strong as my sublime warmth and florid care towards that little angel. Those fanciful, wild nights started fading away very soon, ardent moments of melodramatic abstractions about each others profession's philosophy that used to adorn our sleepless nights vanished in a flash. Those were replaced by tired nights busy with cares towards our daughter, amused moments over her new naughty activities. It was not that only she got busy with these, it was both of us to whom our adorable daughter kept on toes. My continuous perception of each others withdrawal reached an oppressive stage where I was feeling like Magdeburg hemispheres containing a vacuum that couldn't be to pulled apart by two tremendous opposing forces - one of reality and the other of my chimericalness. And in this continuum my sister, ten years younger to me, sneaked in.

"The natural human instinct of adorability towards our little angel brought her down to our place quiet frequently being in the same city. Carrying herself easily, her humble charm made her mingle with us easily. And it's when she started to get mesmerized by my paintings that I felt my chimericalness, secretly, was getting won. I was unknown when it started to win but I felt it's first sign of incision when she, for the first time, eloquently described my painting that I recently finished at that time and related it by her ignorance of the painter in me. And that first incision had given the first vent to a scary ooze of an umbrage between me and my wife that got spilled, in the form of black aqua, to our world."

I stopped, picked myself up from the chair and went to the balcony railing. The city was lit with countless lights but the dominating colors were yellow, blue and red. Winking at the farthest illuminated road I fumed all of a sudden-

"Why do people become so insensitive towards the artists and it's inside? It's pity that this world doesn't allow the art world and it's people to live peacefully."  


She came beside me and replied-

"Throughout my childhood I never got a chance to vent out my moments of anguish, I never yelled or exploded out of my anger. I, most of the times, either wept hidden from the world till I get a sored lower skin of eyes with saline water or continued to scorch myself by sentimental self talks to put myself deliberately in the desert of loneliness. I had grown up watching my mother tangled up in expressions of lost soul and tempers of stodginess as a result I could never find a moment to think of a person who can think of me. It was a cloudy winter day when I was melancholic right from morning reason for which I too was not able to understand. Unable to carry the burden of melancholy of the whole day I began to sob uncontrollably at night after dinner. My mother came to me and wiped my tears; it was moment of first and only eternal bliss for me. She hugged me and I smelled the fragrance of the scent of her body.

"She rested her chin on my head and told me- 'I sensed this world with belief that I am a victim of all odds of this world. In childhood such was this feeling that when I was even denied of a chocolate I grew furious from inside and sunk slowly into a conviction that I will always be deprived of what I want in life. I don't remember the exact incident but it was when my aspirations to enter in my chosen field of profession confronted a heavy resistance from my father that I violently challenged his resistance and went ahead at my own will. I don't know from where a deluge of courage and fire filled my senses but I knew it was temporary out of whims. And after entering in my professional world when my whims were shattered and crushed to powder that I allowed myself to build my own philosophies. And I built and built and understood several facts and the most valuable among those is that it's our job at every moment to make a living for ourselves; there always remains few battles in our lives that even the most intimate persons of our lives can't help us to fight. Take this battle ahead, it's yours. I am already in fight with mine.'

"That night we both slept hugging each other."

She came more close to me and the lips were left most minimum distance in between. She kept her feet on mine and in a flash she went to the room giving me a quick tight hug. And by that time these acts of her had began to irritate me instead of arousing my sensation. My thoughts again started whirling around what she's trying to achieve? Is she really serious in bringing out a retrospective of my works or is she harboring a dire intention with me? What was she wanting from me by always leaving me breathless by her haunting experiences and suddenly flaunting her sexuality over me but leaving it tempting at the apex of my sensation like a hungry beast left drooling? I could see her sleeping in that single bed; she instructed me to place myself on the sofa in the drawing room. But my rage was becoming uncontrollable; I wanted to shake her violently and ask about her intentions. But I dared not to and I spent the night sitting and sleeping in the chair.

Days passed by and her manuscript got heavier. And I found that more I tried to shield myself from her more she grew sharp in her efforts in not sparing me from thinking of her. More than a year passed on and it was winter time when I thought I was getting accustomed to her provocations and felt I was managing well to hold myself back from getting moved by her revelations when she came up with this on a december afternoon-

"I asked few times but I never got to know what made my parents separated and never did I insist my mother much to reveal it. Once, when I casually asked out of my natural curiosity with the hope that she might tell me she talked so abstractly that I couldn't find out what exactly she was trying to say; it was the last time I ever asked- 'The bond I shared with your father was always a tantalizing affair for me. We had enjoyed our marriage, we shared moments of joy, we grew wild to each other and we melted again to each other like kids but among all these I could locate an aloofness that peeped through him frequently. Neither I could ever find out the reason for this nor I dared to ask him but that aloofness was so sharply visible at times that it used to gave me spine chilling sensations for nothing. In all those years that we remained united that aloofness, I think, got passed to me and now that I am separated that same aloofness in higher degree grips me all day long. I pray that he suffers with agonies and more aloofness till he lives; I wish I could see him going around vagrantly carrying convulsive throes that parches him. Few weeks ago I thought of going to his place and with a knife cut his...' She stopped suddenly. She got up and relaxed on the sofa and spoke again - 'I repent for never asking him the reason of his sudden aloofness that used to peep; may be I could not have done anything to it but I was and I am very much sure that something mysteriously wrong must have kindled that aloofness that resulted in this disaster. And that made me a pallid soul who would unconsciously rot herself out in her thoughts of aversions for the rest of life.'

"Next day the clock had struck 11:30 at night when my mother was still not home from work. I had my dinner and slept. It was around 3:00 in the morning that I heard the sound of opening the lock and creak of opening the door. I was assured that my mother had arrived late from work and I fell asleep immediately. Around after an hour when I couldn't find her beside me I was scared and startled; and I could hear a consciously hidden whine of a female. I got up from my bed and with utmost carefulness went to peer into the drawing room and the scene I witnessed frozen me from top to bottom. In the blue glim of the room on the sofa my mother was copulating with a man not known to me; I immediately rushed back to my bed and felt as if a javelin had been ran through my body. Tears broke out from my eyes by the horror of what I watched and I kept the pillow on my mouth to check the sound of sobbing to reach even to any invisible soul beside me. And the sleep came and I woke up the next day with a scourged inside and the world outside appeared to have turned into an arid land. Although it's still unknown to me whether my mother is aware of what I had seen that day but I sensed that she felt a noticeable change in me; and the change was that her association with aversion was passed on to me."

I was not able to utter anything and I noticed her for the first time touching the corner of her eyes with her first finger to check if it was wet. I remember it was. I was not sure shall I comfort her or not, I was blank of anything to clear off the muteness, I was hesitant to even go near her and sit beside her but I dared to do the last one. And I gave a light hug to her but she didn't put her arms around me; they were intact on her lap. When I removed my arms from around her she gave a bumpy smile to me, drank water and left my home telling that next day she will listen to me as her manuscript was pending long to get updated. Although her revelation had shaken me yet I was feeling considerably light and relieved that night and slept well.

She arrived the next day evening wearing a sharp smile in lips and with a bottle of scotch for which she stated the reason that she was feeling quiet light and juvenile after she spoke her heart out yesterday. I remember she told that she was feeling as if some object that was pricked since long had been removed and she wanted to make this moment more lighter with some celebration with the clinkering of glasses. I too was in warmer side and hence didn't desist from the idea. With the first glass I began my story that was long been stuck-

"It's difficult to tell why I was not able to accept the change that our child had brought to our lives; I tried to keep myself busy only with my paintings after the household chores to avoid any distractions, I revisited my old paintings and compared with my contemporary ones to find any change but nothing significant was evident, I tried to create that old melodious warmth with my wife to which I must say she responded well but the a fear of loosing myself gripped me back as soon as those moments got over. I, a number of times, thought of discussing this with my sister but felt too shy in doing this. May be I was not shy but I was more inclined to talk about painting's fantasies with her as a result of which I never got time to discuss myself with her. And once it used to get over and she went away from her I used to curse myself for not having discussed the prevalent torment through which I was going then.

"By the time my wife had grown waspish about my acts and frequent disagreements had began to surface on it, I and my sister had already drawn hallucinatory but secret lines of connection between us that were steadily moving to a higher degree of alluring intimacy because by that time I had resigned to my succumbing inside. Today when I look back at it I understand it was fear - a fear of an ageing artist of losing, when pushed to reality, the landscape that was filled with hues of addiction of love kindles between him and his partner; a fear that I will not be able to feel the life with same juvenileness as the prevalant course of life will make my moral fibre grow old and hence I will not be able to paint my canvas with same warmth.

"I don't know whether the distancing from my wife brought about the sentimental connect with my sister or this connect distanced me from my wife. Me and my sister mostly met and talked late in the evening once my wife returned home from work, in restaurants and cafes from where we used to land up at her place and from her place I used to bid good bye for the day. Her striking blitheness always transported me to my early times of marriage and on one such day acting upon her long dragged request when I portrayed her on the canvas sitting at her home she left a mark of her lipstick on my cheeks with all the world's joyousness; my eyes moistened. And that moment made us realize that we began to value our relationship beyond the boundaries of being mere brother and sister but on the other hand this sparked an intense battle between me and my wife drawn on the lines of ego.

"My wife was bent upon to make me put an end to the bond I have developed with my sister for the goodwill of our family in the process of which she started to grow hostile of her arrivals, threw awkward taunts indicating the illicitness of our relation and scorchingly spurned my paintings; and I was adamant to prove myself right in doing all these with the hope that my wife will understand the reason that had pushed me in this trap. And this battle rose to such an extent where my wife started relaying my affair to all our family members in retaliation to which I grew wilful in alleging her of possessing a habit of placing mindless distrust and misconceptions on most of my acts. Our arrogant contumaciousness continued to soar where a subconscious repugnance towards my family began to dawn at my inside. And slowly I resigned to the belief that things reached the stage of irrepairable condition which made me immune to the prevalent chaos and I fell calm like a human under a sedative effect. But I woke up from the sedative effect when I realized that this mud throwing game had pushed my sister in a quicksand of a solitary confinement stripped off from her usual wings of charm and this sparked another trail of turmoil but this time with an air of compunction.”

With 4 pegs down the reminiscences were blazing inside like a fresh bonfire. With heavy head I went up to the french door of the verandah, rested my back there. She appeared to take too much interest in that dat’s narration with eyes lit up and stiff jaws, sitting cross legged and holding the glass tightly in her right hand. The winter and the florescent light was unable to calm the heat I my body was feeling. I continued again-

“My frantic efforts to reaffirm the bond with my sister contributed to the growing distance and worsening of complexities between me and my wife. The relation with my sister was marked by broken strings of talks and strained impulsiveness. By then I reached the stage where my desperation was urging to cling to the bond between me and my sister at the expense of what existed between me and my wife. To shield our little daughter from all these she was sent to my wife’s grandparent’s place in winter vacation in the same city.

“On one such day when our child was not there and my wife was at work I brought my sister at my place to reconcile things between us. Ongoing torments had transformed her into a pallid, secluded being like a tree whose bark had been scratched off easily due to it’s dryness. We wailed on our misfortunes groping for the answer to what happened with us, our existence was in jeopardy as we had twisted the sanctity of the established relationship. The crossroad was cursed and hazy – continuing to tread on the same path will be blasphemous and going to back to our “should be” destiny will make rest of our lives murky, disconnected with unbearable pang haunting our hearts.

“Suddenly the rains poured down heavily lashing on the window panes and it brought about more dolorous expressions on out face. We felt a kind of dead end for us; in the dim light of the room it appeared as two coward souls waiting for some miracle to happen that swallows their life without making them aware. Outside was growing darker and darker, rains seemed knowing no bounds to pour that day and inside more we talked to find out ways more we seem to endlessly sink in sentimental dejection; all things appeared to crumble in front of our eyes. Unable to carry the imagination of terrors of separation I hugged her in a flash and we both broke into enormous tears. But a heavy lightning in the sky and deafening thunder brought an itchy sensation in both of us to go through each other. A sensual urgency was visible on her face and withing myself I could feel a ripple of horror about that sensuality was arbitrarily but secretly glancing out from my converged brows and wrinkled forheads. In no mood to resist myself from offering her the bliss of fulfillment of her wish amidst all the horrors I allowed the heat of our bare bodies to exchange themselves. With the heightened excitement and unstoppable recklessness we were about to draw sword of coition when miraculously senses prevailed with feeling of no repentance even if we are snatched away from each other.

“Rains diminished by then and when she was about to depart my wife along with our daughter was at our door from work. Drips of sweat at my sister’s neck was enough for my wife to fell in trap of the wild imagination. Her fumes knew no bounds and that night she spilled out venom at her– ‘It pained me a lot, I hope it didn’t as much to you because, I think, it pains less when same blood meets.’ For a moment the earth spun around me and fell with a bang on the ground before me; she was dazed and disappeared in a flash. In a wretched distress I too went away.

"I drank and drank down that evening with no bounds and returned back home late at night hollow headed with zig-zag drunken walks; I headed straight to my room, locked myself up and tried to settle down the huge storm of unrest that was blowing inside. To vent it out I filled up the palette of colors, took up the brushes and readied the canvas. I painted and painted in a non stop way but with blank mind. That night I didn't know when I fell asleep but I woke up the next morning to find myself alone in this home - my wife and my daughter left me forever. And when I looked at the canvas I found that I painted a male hand masturbating and female hand holding a knife in front of it."

After a brief silence and a deep sigh I spoke-

"After few days I received a letter from my sister- 'You will always remain my most adorable brother for whom I will harbor an immense respect as a painter. I knew the path that we were choosing will ultimately bring us an utter, endless ache to our hearts, I knew that the relationship we were sharing will always fall in an umbra that is beyond human understanding but still I have submitted myself to you because I recognized the fear that was overpowering your heart and to drive away which you needed a force. If we meet ever in this birth or next I, with utmost impatience, would like to meet you to know whether I was able to drive away your fear or not.' "

Both of us turned dumb; it was broken when the glass fell down unknowingly from my hand on the floor and I started weeping uncontrollably. She came close to me with a firm face, took my face in her hands and brought her lips near to mine. At the verge of touching she moved her head sideways as if to cease herself but within seconds she faced me and pressed hers hard on mine. Biting, kissing with thirst began but suddenly she snatched herself away from me and went out to the veranda, rested her arms on the parapet wall and head down in between them as if gasping for breath. I was flummoxed but before I could understand anything more she came back running and jumped on my lap kissing and running her tongue throughout my face wildly. And in flash she took me to my bedroom, undressed herself and me in a rush. She appeared to be in alarmingly bestial mood and I too showed no restraint in the hope of getting lighter by disgorging on her the grief laden inside. Her wuthering moans when touching my ears was heightening the prurience and we swam in the warm air of coition bliss in that cold night; I fell to a sound, relieved sleep.

Dawn didn't yet break out when my eyes opened for a moment the next day; I found her dressed up neatly sitting in front of me on a chair with a sharp smile, stiff big eyes. Sleep didn't go away entirely from my eyes; I remember I didn't like that smile of her at the first glance when I saw through the misty curtains of my half opened eyes; it was giving me ice chills of an underlying conspiracy to my muggy bare body. She got up, placed her vanity bag on her shoulders and carrying the same smile spoke-

"A revenge tastes best when the blood is same and comforts most to the soul when somebody who is our own helps to achieve it. And yes, it was not at all painful because the same blood collided. This revenge was the purpose of my life and it’s over now. So good bye DAD !!!" 


She disappeared like a magic.

I kept glued to the posture with which I listened to her words and I was counting minutes when the ceiling will drop down on me and crush me into pieces. I felt the knife that was held by the female hand that night on my canvas drove through my stomach cutting all my flesh of inside. I still can't give words to that feeling of the whirling distress and stabbing twinge. Standing in front of the mirror I yelled at myself till my vocal chord got tired of emitting more sound and ruptured; the flames of her revenge that night charred me into a seared soul bruise of which still oozes volcanoes of pain.

I am spending forlorn, drabbed times of my life these days; everything from eating to sleeping to talking gives me blisters caused by as if somebody throws a saucepan of hot, boiling water to me. It’s only few months ago that I brought her to my place when I received a phone call from a man. I rushed to the place mentioned by him on phone to discover my daughter there at his refuge. I discovered her in condition of blabbing broken string of talks, her movements and behaviour were completely out of sync with the normalcy although she was able to recognize people. I got to know that the man was her college friend who stood by her side since long but knows not much than I had known before that night. And he was the first one to notice this awkward behavior of her few weeks back then which was growing sharper day by day and when she underwent medical examination the reports suggested of her suffering from Major Depressive Disorder that is caused by preexisting vulnerability, or diathesis, is activated by stressful life events. He told me that since when she began that project of retrospective she had handed him over my contact details and told him to contact me if anything ever happens to her; moreover I got to know that he was not aware of the relation I hold with her. When I was about to leave taking her along for the rest of my life, he asked me-

“She had taken a promise from me once that if I ever get to meet you by any reason I won’t ask the relation between you and her. Today I want to break that promise and want to ask you that you stand in what relation to her?”


I glanced back blankly to him and replied-

“Let’s respect her.”

What human mind can conceive will always remain beyond the understanding of human race – bustlings of fear, sparks of vengeance, contentment in abhorrence and insights to all the deformed contraptions of human mind will always remain shrouded by unknown shadows. I will never get a chance to know which soul is gratified by this revenge – my daughter’s or my wife’s? I will never get a chance to ask that can the reply to an infelicity resulting from the umbra of human fear be such a contrived, vile accomplishment?

But above all I will never get a chance to know why had she insisted none other than me to look after her in this condition – does she want to give me an opportunity for reparation or does she want a greater punshment for me by making a father witness her daughter slowly sinking in an ocean of irrevocable emotional instability brought  about by her own perversity?

A sense of living

There are times when human relationships go through a murky phase of obsessive hallucinations that grows into a secret belligerence and an indescribable fatigue for each other. And sometimes, in such a phase, an enigmatic event that happens redefines ourselves under the deep realization of erstwhile losses in the wake of a present loss that starts mending the things around us. One such event happened with us(me and my wife) last month !!!

Last month, in mid-January, when winter was in peak, we set out to revamp our ailing married life of nearly three years by deciding to spend a vacation of two weeks at a hill station. Our love story started in a usual manner of fairy tale thoughts and sweetest caring about each other with the hope of carrying these things forever and forever. Her caresses, devotion are worthy enough to make me embrace her tightly in my arms but time and again it annoyed me when I had to drive my actions with a fear of possible, hyper-sensitized interpretations she might come up with. Like many girls/women she too had a delusional perception of viewing herself as the sole authoritative possessor of my life. After losing the intimacy with my friends, now my senses of being a friend started to vanish away. In evenings when, amidst all the buzzes of city traffic, I craved for a breathing space of my own, she, on those nights, regretted of my failure to feel the extent of the madness of her love for me. Meaning of a relationship had often been searched by us but it only landed us in a more meaningless scrutiny of each others imperfections. Her switch from the feeling of utter disconnection in spite of no lack in communication and endearments to reprise to our original bond was so spontaneous that it left me bemused often of what's next. The proportion of feelings of love and hate in the ambivalence of these grew exactly half within her which gave rise to a hidden disapproval from her to several of my social choices. It reached to a stage where an introspection of this relationship and a retrospection of our individualism began. And a time came which gave birth to a gender racism; gender instincts began to take shape in our disagreements when I felt she was prioritizing the things of that adorable space of me which I kept exclusively for myself. After much pondering it dawned upon me partially that a silent insecurity, which she's much reluctant to reveal, used to ignite her heart the moment I happened to meet any of my intimate friends of opposite sex; but this insecurity lasted for not a prolonged period as if it was a prelude, interlude and postlude of a symphony.

Four years of our affair was rewarded with every kind of emotions and happenings until we settled down to an often heard, irrational advice to get married. "Affairs should not be long enough and partners involved must get married soon" is something I heard to put an end to such fluctuating inflictions which puzzled me quite a lot. The new life after the official ceremony was indeed again filled with rose petals but soon the earlier complaints and expectations began to surface. It was the time for the conflicts in conjugal expectations combined with earlier inhibitions. Although we were a working couple yet strifes, not so sweet, over petty matters continued; concealed discord for my popularity, a growing sensation of my insufficient attention towards her, a feeling that I am unable to understand her emotional readability left me with a baffled sentiency of guilt and a mysterious apprehension of self deeds. After many chalked out protocols and much argued agreements we decided to take some days off to a far away place wrapped in each others thoughts.

Our stay place, at fourth floor, consisted of a drawing hall with a fireplace and a glass top table with peanut butter colored oak wooden legs and a bedroom having a grand bed with an elevated half circle at one of it's end. Both the rooms were lit with beige colored glass lamps fitted on the walls. The large three paned window of the drawing room led a view of a bare land with trees standing in melancholy as the season robbed them off from their green attires and a far away sight of a mountain range aspiring to grow high above everything. The bedroom window gave the glimpse of zigzag hilly roads and dry valleys patched with glaciers. Drawing herself close to me, listening to my heartbeat in that silent surrounding and gazing the far away hills I remember she told me-

"You are like that hill top - solid, standing tall but shrouded with mists and I am like this zigzag road desperate to reach that hill top. I don't have any insecurity; I don't fear of losing you. You know there can't be any forever friendly relationship between a man and a woman; what happens is it starts with friendliness but soon either grows into a committing relationship or turns out into an infatuation at the end. I am desperate enough about you only to shield you from getting inebriated in that mist of infatuation and my only fear is that one day when your senses will prevail and you will return to me, I will have nothing more left inside me to wrap you up. Any woman true to her feminism will argue this and if your friend would have been a true woman, she herself should have subsided herself down in your life when she knows I am there for you. We have only this life where you and I met; can't we nurture this relationship in a way where your everything is me and my everything is you, where no one can even peep to check out is there any void space exists in our hearts."

I didn't reply; after a while of exchange of each others body smells she departed to sleep. I sat on one of the couch placed near the fireplace. The diminishing wood fire of this fireplace made me recollect one of the lines of a long ago heard bengali recitation; it was like this, "In love women becomes soft river, men fiery wood." Was this her love or was she in love with an idea of being in love? Or was she having a wild dream of being in love - a dream even the traces of whose were never witnessed by any love story of this earth? Tired of gulping down many scattered thoughts and their exegesis I finally placed myself on the bed beside her to wake up to a chilling, foggy morning in the mild light of which, filtered off from white curtains, I found her covered herself with the thick blanket till head and her head ensconced between my chin and shoulder, her arms curled around my chest.

We dragged both the couches to the corridor of the our floor to have the morning tea. Our eyes went upon a lady, in her mid thirties, sitting on her couch in that corridor in front of the fourth room from ours. We exchanged glances through the undulating smoke of her cigarette that was vanishing away in air before reaching to us; we smiled. That day in the evening, upon returning from sight seeing when we were strolling through the hallway that lady intended to began a conversation with us.

"Newly married?" We moved our heads sideways to deny the fact; it appeared as if she got surprised mildly. Her looks were elegantly modern with refined, artistically poised gestures while talking. Her radiant eyes embedded in a face where an entire world of tranquility was suffused gave a glimpse of her possessing a brilliant command over herself. We got to know that she spent nearly ten years as a fashion designer and now owned an event management company. Being a spinster she didn't display that regretting smile at the corner of lips that flickers out of a longing for a designated life partner and brooding over the decision for not having one. Enchanted by her candidness and agility, we accepted the dinner invitation she put forth for that night; my wife, though seemed a bit reluctant, agreed in gentle disposition. When, after dinner, our talks rested on her being still single in spite of she being attached to glamor industry since beginning, she narrated this sitting in that room which by that time was redolent of a mingled aroma from cigarette and wood fires-

"I never regret till date that I haven't got anyone and I still haven't left hope of finding one. It was long ago that my mother taught me that more a person regrets more he/she loses what he/she has and what he/she might find out tomorrow. This glamor world is like a smoking cafe - cluttered, extravagantly lit - so that everybody can only partially see the others. Everybody here is dizzy as if they are under the effect of marijuana and high with overflowing alcohols. The only time when the senses of people prevail is at night just before the sleep is about to come and at that time we yearn to bare our hearts open to somebody. But it's difficult to identify whether we want somebody to be at our side forever or for pieces of times and for this reason we couldn't form any lasting bond with anyone but scattered ones when the urge runs high or when somebody, consciously or unconsciously, retreats us temporarily. I had and still have a number of relationships but never had a stint in what is called love; there's no specific reason for not having anybody apart from my conviction on my decision that I will not be bounded by the conventional age of settling down."

I asked-
"Isn't that a better life being single and never having to be guided by the obligations of commitment? In that sense you are free at your own will, not been dependent at others disposition."

Putting more woods in the fireplace she replied-
"In this world there's no better life because comparison proves fatal and what's more fatal is being ironically judgmental about the fearful possibilities of that choice. A choice is a choice by every means; difference lies is in the strives of making the choice worthwhile. You will find many people in glamor industry, once their career is over, lands up marrying an NRI. Reason being, they never become judgmental about pre-nuptial link ups and hence they rarely become opinionated about possible fears. After marriage they continue sharing bonds with other people, then what remains so special in the relationship with their better half? It is a deep comfort of being able to bare your true self with each other every moment where in this bee hive they have to wear different masks in different situations with different people."

Sensing that the talks are taking interesting shape, she took out a bottle of red wine and three goblets to instigate the ambiance more. The red wine darkened with fireplace light and illuminated room with beige glassed lamps where three souls were sitting staged a dream painting that appeared to have been painted by a poet's recitation on a lonely night. My wife said-
"Sharing any intimate relationship with opposite sex doesn't remain restrictive and when you are into commitment it is illicit. Moreover a feminine heart always bear this possessiveness. Of course these in born gender inequalities can't be wiped off."

She, with a smile, began-
"Is it the heart or the groomed mindset with which we were brought up? If we ponder we can find that there's a habit prevalent in our society of labeling the grooming of boys and girls differently. Isn't it a crime to bring up a girl child with tenderly and utmost pampering while exactly opposite happens with a boy but years down the line it is injected in mind that men and women are equal. Aren't we guilty of breeding the gender difference by ourselves? Humans can never be restricted to from forming relationships. When we, in the days of our non commitment, formed friends we were least concerned with the gender. All we did is we developed a bond with the person who let the door of his/her understanding opened for ourselves. As we get into commitment we abort those bonds by becoming gender conscious with a fear that our better half may not be able to perceive every relationship at it's own place. The most common phenomenon, which is inevitable and sometimes stretched long, committed relationship suffers with is a sense of betrayal from their better half. Even there are times when our better half is not reachable owing to some worldly reasons. Imagine these times - will it be not be teasing not to have somebody to share those temporary arising? Will the aborted relationships come forth to off burden you? And here it is, have you not got another difference between your committed relationship and other relationships?"

Annoyed by her supernumerary direct challenges my wife drank down the goblet in one shot. It was 2:30 of the morning; reluctant to spoil my wife's mood I got up and wished to bid good bye for the night. Back in our room, a sullen silence prevailed between us. She was gazing at the streets from our bedroom window where faint orange rays from street lights were resting peacefully. She sneered, pulled out the curtains and laid down beside me. It was difficult for both of us to sleep but we didn't know when it embraced us.

First encounter with that lady obviously brought, in my wife, a hesitated resentment against her for subsequent days but her gentle humors, easy charm and her grace of rapid forgetfulness soon diluted the barriers. On days when we met, we majorly met on dinners. On one such dinner when it was raining outside, my wife asked her this-
"Is this because you have so many scattered relations that you never felt a desire to have a lasting partner?"

With a sweet sound of sigh she replied-
"I agree that scattered relations can never be a substitute for any lasting one but one of the scattered relation had or has to be convincing enough that I can feel the spark."

Upon this my wife immediately mentioned-
"May be you didn't spend enough time to feel that or your profession didn't allow that much free time."

With a tender smile at the corner of her lips she replied-
"You know I was quick enough to understand the fact that craving for something which an era doesn't offer is like harboring a dream to eat an extinct breed of fruit because it has been heard that it tasted well. I see, around me, so many people spending time with each other just for the sake of making up for the losses which they would not have if the worldly things were not there. And here they go all wrong; most of the broken relationships suffer mainly with a tremendous obsession resulting out of a possessiveness from either of them as they fail to understand where to draw the daily line of cessation. Spending time is indeed an important factor to maintain a relationship but the most important thing is to make ourselves aware how much."

And this time it was my turn to ask immediately-
"Isn't that difficult to understand where to draw the line?"

She was also fast to reply as if she was prepared to attack-
"In the early days when we fall in love an extreme level of pride overpowers our senses upon the first realization of being loved in return on this earth. And we let ourselves slip into a trance where we dream of embellishing each other with our expectations as if we are planning a home decor. And here we are now where our senses are dominated by an ego of self righteousness born out of a guilt of failing to meet our expectations and finding our better half not the person which we have dreamed of. And at this point we understand we are encroaching in his/her very private space but our awareness becomes covered by a smog of flaming ego and an ignorant search of self happiness."

My wife got up from her couch, went to the window. It was drizzling now in the dark outside. With a touch of restlessness she was at one moment hanging her head down and the next moment hanging her head up to look outside. For few minutes we all fell silent. Me and my wife, both knew what was happening between us was dilemmatic between irksome and letting it go, both knew it was futile, both knew that our life was appalled by her dormant phantasm which generates rippled periods of weariness. Coming back to the couch with a heavy face and sipping the wine she said with a sheepish smile-
"I respect your decision of your life and your ideologies. If I would have been at your place I would have probably enunciated same things what you did. But you could never understand how a woman feels he sees her man, being in relationship with her, sharing a bond with other woman designating her a friend, how it saps out her spirits, how it makes her inside bitterly hollow and dark like a bare tree with no leaves standing near a lake in a no moon night, how dull it makes the corner of her eyes. I want to make my presence felt in every core of his heart so that he doesn't need another woman to make his heart open for anything. I sometimes think what is that pleasure he gets from his friends which he doesn't get from me by sharing, what is so special in his friends that he wants them to give a place in his life? May be the reason that his friends came into his life earlier than me and it's not possible for me to take their place so early. May be for that possible day I have to wait and suffer more, but he's worth."

The lady and I were completely startled by my wife's use of "I" in her saying. I could recognize her torment, many times I made her understood calmly on her self imposed dreads but all was in vain. The lady took the first sip of the third goblet and lit another cigarette. To ease the room of heavy smoke, she opened the window slightly, came back on her couch and narrated-

"I was brought up neither with a feminine philosophy nor with the male chauvinism; since very early I learned to understand a person from his/her individualism rather than gender discourses. I remember an incident, when I was 12, that had shaken me heavily from inside that made me to burn away the gender myths. On one summer evening, my father received the news of the death of his very old friend with whom he aborted his contact some 7 years ago as my mother used to traumatize the sentiments of their relation over my father's friendly disposition towards her. She was suffering from cancer past one year of which my father was unaware of. For the first time in my life, I heard a man screaming and crying out so loud that as if any of his body part is getting amputated from him in full consciousness. Dad's tears were unstoppable, he was wailing madly. I was stunned, terrified at the heart. I could only listen to him with my back resting on the wall; entire sky broken down on me I felt. I watched his agony taking the shape of  tearful sobs. Few days after this I heard my mother saying to my father that she is wounded to the core seeing that his friend still shares a place in his heart which means he never put his friend out of his heart; breaking the contact with her was only a consolation to my mother but deep down inside my father remembered her throughout this 7 years. My father was silent; and from there onwards began a period of deafening silence. I was torn apart by the contrasting shades of an identical emotion - one was of my father aggrieved by the loss of his friend and regretting of not able to be even aware of his friend's ailment and the other of my mother aggrieved with the deceptive behavior of my father of past 7 years. Life was speeding by at it's usual pace but the atmosphere at home was getting desolated of breathes. I thought and thought hard on many occasions is my father have no rights to sink in sorrow over the death of a his once known friend or is it a reproachable act to share a small of part of one's life with others even when one is married.

"Then one night, I overheard my mother saying -'If you still have any other person in your life with whom you share similar bond, you can very well leave me. I regret being married to a person who never shared his complete self with me and is shared by others also in parallel to me.' After three days, my father left home with this note - 'When you will learn to no longer compare the different relationships, with each other, a person have in his/her life and give them due respect at their own places and understand that a person is never completely shared by only one person on this earth, do write to me at the below address; I will definitely come back to you.' My mother displayed suppressed ego and recurring sentiments in the initial days after my father left home and I was once again shaken from inside of spending days without my father which I never thought of. It is my father with whom I was so much influenced with and it is through his inspiration that I dared to be a maverick. In that one long year, without father, I kept remembering his one teaching that he imparted and it was this that never cease from the most prized thing of human living and that is to keep getting connected with people daily. Longing for my father occasionally threw me back from treading on that teaching but I tried hard. On the other hand my mother, I felt, was getting frittered by her own madness. I found many unsent letters addressed to her friends and to her relatives and a few blank letters that were began but never written - it only contained the addressing to my father. At that tender age it was difficult for me to understand what was going on inside of of my mother's heart but primarily I saw her standing on the veranda, gazing to the continuous traffic of people and absorbed in thoughts. And on one night, I was overwhelmed with joy by finding my father standing at the doorstep. My mother and my father exchanged a few seconds of ardent kisses from which I didn't shy away on that day neither were they. I can't put into words the bliss of that day. How my mother brought him back is still a mystery for me but neither I attempted to discover that.

After few months, on one evening I found them with a bunch of letters and envelops. Upon asking, my father told me - 'We were inviting each others old, intimate friends on a dinner to mark a new beginning of our relationship. Your mother left her friends for the sake of mine, so we are rejuvenating that part and she was never really connected with my friends, so we are arranging that. It will also give us a chance to connect to each others associations.'

It was a lesson for me that apprehensions in a relationship only worsen the present. An ideal way to get out of this is to keep getting connected to people no matter who they are or how they are related to us."

The narrative was an incessant thrashing of stormy water on our faces. After finishing, she kept on looking at one of the beige glassed lamp for quite long; my wife moving her finger on the round top edge of the goblet, eyes fixed on the residual wine; my gaze fixed on that lady. Nobody was able to speak the first word to break that silence. Back to our room that night, my wife was suddenly going through the contact list of my mobile phone lying beside me. Taking my arms around her she asked me -

"Do you believe her anecdote?"

I replied -
"I don't know, may be it had really happened with her but difficult to say."

She said -
"I too don't know whether she was telling truth or lying but I feel she has got a wise head. But it's strange that why I never allowed myself to connect with your associations. I tried but a disgust pulled me away. Now I want to get in touch with them, to interact with them. Will you introduce me to your associations?"

I smiled and nodded, not exactly convinced that she really wanted to. She kissed my lips, kept my mobile under my pillow and closed her eyes curling herself around me. Thinking of that lady and her words when I felt asleep I too don't know. In the following days I found my wife in shed better charm in talks, sharing with me and also with that lady the good olden days with her friends. Even on few mornings I found she and that lady laughing on some girly pranks over the sips of tea in the corridor. We even clicked quite a few photos. One night my wife invited that lady on dinner at our room. Talks ranged from how we fell in love to college time crushes to flirting humors to professional domain and household intricacies to family backgrounds. Amidst these I asked that lady -
"Do you regularly go out in vacation like this?"

She replied -
"Not compulsively in fixed intervals but yes I do whenever it's feasible from every side."

I said -
"Your field is an extremely demanding one, how do you cope up with that? Doesn't it affect your personal life and relationships frequently?"

She eased herself in the couch and replied -
"I won't deny that it never affects, but I never allow them to be dragged too long. Taking out time for myself is an extremely important thing to me. I see many people asking me this question with the motive of getting a clue for their resolutions. Actually what keeps me survived and fresh in this ever faster race of life is jumping onto my hobbies whenever I get free time. It's like a religious prayer for me to fulfill my hobby daily for whatever small time it may be."

My wife said -
"Don't you feel at times lonely seeing around so many people wandering with their companion which is very common in these metro cities."

With vigorous eyes she replied -
"You know one of the most heinous crime for which humans can be punished is the crime to encourage, within us, the negative reflex by watching a positive happening. Encouraging such reflexes is slow poison that ruins our beautiful surroundings along with ourselves. Yes I miss the reality of having a companion but I never allow it to spoil my hopes. I miss, I look outside the window, I give a nostalgic smile of acceptance and I try to take a road of solitude rather than sinking to an ocean of loneliness withdrawing myself from everything."

My wife said -
"But it's not easy."

She replied -
"Living is also not easy but we continue to live trying in a better way. Similarly accepting the non-possibility of the immediate fulfillment of the demand arising out of our emotion is not easy. Difference is we are taught that ending our life is crime, much teaching is there on never ending life however tough it might be because in life we have to see everything; we are also taught that it's extremely important to display out our emotions as it leads to openness but we are never taught to regard our emotions and peep to the other side of it where sometimes demands surface. And we were never taught to ponder on the feasibility of those demands. And when we face the non-possibility of the immediate fulfillment of that demand we altogether stop displaying our emotions in many cases."

Facing another straight blow of the bitter truth of life me and my wife looked at each other. We identified ourselves being guilty on these lines so many times. And my wife jumped on to ask -
"How are you so controlled and so happy?"

She laughed out loud, gave an innocent look to my wife and said -
"I took long years to build me. You know the simplest yet most ignored fact is that in our life the maximum time we have to spend is with ourselves. We take this fact so much for granted that we never make diligent endeavors to make build ourselves."

Rest of that night's talks were much hovered on the beauty of that hill station, usual lives of ours. On bed, after that lady's departure, we remained interlaced in tacit thoughts that lady's words in the soft green night light of our bedroom. Suddenly my wife spoke -
"I want to go back to our place soon and meet my friends. It's been  long time I haven't spent time with them. You know I also want to take you along with me and you know I also want to share these lady's words. How true, how pure and how deeply felt. You should also meet your friends, it's not good to get out of touch with them. Who knows when we need them, who knows when they need us."

I didn't know what to say, I didn't know what to do with her. She kissed my eyes, blocked the outside street light from coming on us by pulling the curtains with her feet fingers and ran throughout my body. And it's like after eternity when we experienced coition pleasure, a sensation of raising up above the air weightlessly and then crashing on the bed. She appeared tired then after and fell asleep immediately. I got up and went to the corridor to lit a cigarette. Outside was cold enough to make the fingers numb; neon street lights were in full effect but not enough to illuminate the distant mountain ranges that were still in darkness waiting for the dawn to break.

Standing there, calming down my shivering inside with the warmth of smoking I was incredulous about the persistence of my wife's disposition what she displayed today towards my associations and friends. Was it a change that would subsist from now onwards or was it just a psychedelia caused by this vibe? I was in a mixed feeling of excitement and fear. That lady's room was still illuminated at 3:00 AM. I made a casual walk to with the touch of curiosity. When I turned back to return from her window, she opened the door; I again turned back and she asked -
"Not slept?"

I swung my head sideways to accept the fact. With the first puff I said to her -
"You know what's the difference your father and me? Your father gave up his contact with his associations abiding by the wish of your mother but I haven't. I chose to tread on a path where I continued to keep in touch with my friends thereby making it clear that she has to get rid of the figment of her imagination and thrive on realistic happenings. I didn't know will it ever work or not. Few hours back, after you departed, she seemed to understand the reality. But I fear it as a sailing cloud that might move away when we will drive down these hills the day after tomorrow. I wish she would have had the head not to indulge herself in the unfolding of convolutions of human inside."

We sat down on the floor; she too lit a cigarette using mine and replied -
"I can't label my dad's act as unjustified as I might be biased towards him being deeply attached to him and hence I don't know whether he was right in abiding my mother's wish. Neither I can judge your path as I merely know both of you. But I would never want to see anybody ever in life to cry like my father on that night. His mad like blubbers still pierces my blood vessels, it still haunts me whenever I remember his never ending tears that wet his mustard color t-shirt; those bawls of his was emptying me from inside as if a suction pump was put to draw out the child inside me. I have seen people ending their roads when they fall in love thinking that the love itself will take it's course. As with this world where we need to toil to make our place, it is same with the relationship; we refuse to understand that we need to toil to make place for the relations we have in our life. Every relationship is like an agreement where the most important clause is that the better halves must cease to cross that road which enters into his/her their own private space. That space will always appear obscure to us. Problems start when we intend to travel to that partially illuminated road and compare it with ours; this is where the existent reality faces the lack of oxygen. Always remember comparison is the most fatal form of imagination that even robs us from ourselves."

I was watching the movement of her lips uttering those words and was spell bound when she finished. A little drop of tear rolled out from the corner of my eyes. I moved away my face to look at the starkly black landscape in front of us; vision was bleak with and wavy when I realized my eyes were pregnant with tears. I wiped it with my middle and ring finger; she kissed me on my cheeks but we were not aware how and when our lips locked. In that warm moment, during which our eyes were closed, I felt a flicker of light struck my eyelids and vanished as if one of the lamps of my room was suddenly put on and put off. I didn't stop to find out what happened, in that one moment I wished my wife discovers me here with this lady and makes an end to our married life so that I can be free to live my imagination and my world and I don't have to live in the clutches of fear of failing to fulfill her sentimental expectations.

Just when I was about to ride on her, on it's verge she withdrew and eloquently said -
"No, I know who I am !!!"

I was perplexed, I was frowned to see her calm eyes bearing a stamp of immense confidence and pride of her awareness about herself. She got up, smiled and walked back to her room. I threw away the dry filter of the the cigarette, walked back to my room and lay beside my wife. A feeble light of dawn was visible outside although the morning was still quite long away. My wife's body was warm under the blanket, smooth like velvet. At that time I was not sure whether that flicker of light was a reality, whether my wife had really seen me in the corridor. After spending much time with that thought I prayed that I wished my wife hadn't seen me. It was only a moment of daftness to imagine ending this marriage. But her eloquent denial brimmed with pride was still scornfully scratching my inside. And I woke up late that day, it was the last day of our stay.

It was a day mostly busy with bag packing for our next day return. By the jovial, pleasant mood of my wife I could judge she was completely unaware of yesterday night's incident. But strangely, throughout that entire day the "Do not disturb" board was hanging at that lady's door. A ponderous air was prevailing inside me searching an explanation of the DND board. At dusk when we went to bid a good bye to her, the board was still hanging. My wife turned into touch melancholic where as a doubt of she not wanting to come out of her room till we leave this place rose in my heart. However we thought that she might be taking a day's rest for being unwell. We decided to meet her the next day afternoon when we would check out from here and exchange contact to stay in touch although I slightly hesitantly reluctant in facing her and exchanging contact.

The DND board was still hanging the next day. Being upset we proceeded to the reception for check out formalities. We were astounded when the receptionist handed us a letter from that lady and we came to know that she left on the early morning of the previous day and there was a foreigner checked in her room; being very tired of his journey he hung the board of DND since the previous day. I was a bit relieved but was shocked. I didn't know what will be in that letter. On the way to two hour long journey to the airport I opened the letter and read out loud for both of us -

"Dear ___ (Me) and _____ (My wife)

I know I will upset you by my absence. And by the time you will receive this letter I might have again mingled in the buzzes of my world. These two weeks will remain vivid forever in my imagination and I would have loved to stay in touch with you people. But sometimes the sense of living demands something else. Our worlds are entirely different in the pursuit of realities and dreams. Let this difference remain unscathed. The memories of last few days were so beautiful that I want to cherish them forever; I don't want to let go away it's fragrance by bringing two different worlds together thereby overpowering each others perception of reality by their own. And out of a purest self conscience I am saying that not a single action or talk of any of you has prompted me to take this decision, I wish you will never think on those lines.

We met, we spoke our hearts out and we departed secretly. One day the beauty of this meeting will lie in this secret departure; had it not been secret, it would have raised many questions as we continued to stay in touch with each other which would have made the grace of each other look shady. I will not consider this connection shared with you as a scattered relation which is sometimes characterized by the pitfall of lust which gives birth to an abject emotional connect but soon that connect and the memories fade away in distant horizon when the hang over of the loneliness goes away. What we shared after coming to this place was an abstract, spontaneous spark from the corner of our human erraticism and it had given a poignant and sweet taste of life. Let that taste remain with me in my mind and soul.

This life is too short to search for a reason behind a person's action, I hope you will respect this thought. Sometimes beautiful journeys come to an end but they give us enough memories which might be more beautiful if we tell them so. Life needs to keep getting connected with different people; in our hearts sometimes we have to make place for the people we connect to and sometimes for the memories they give us. Although I know but still I will pray that in this journey of placing people and memories in your heart there will always remain, in both of your hearts, a special place for each other which is which is free from any percolation of comparisons.

Regards,
_________"