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?