The Puja room was covered and full of cobwebs. And the statue Statue of the deities told they had being lying in utter negligence.
Little Pihu opened the wooden box to reveal a red bangle possessed by Gita, and a gold plated wrist watch of her husband.
"Where has uncle gone? Its been so long I haven't heard of him, or seen him." She said, her eyes full of tears.
Gita assembled her belongings, and perhaps the only things which remained in her life, as she held her in her laps to say, "He probably got angry since you misplace all his things. And you never took his words seriously."
She reflected back to the olden days...
'Clad in a red saree, holding a kajol lata in her hand, she finally managed to stand up to circle around the pious fire which would tie her to the blessed relationship with her husband. Her face adorned with sandalwood and a bright red bindi, she looked apart from any beautiful fairy who might have landed upon this land.. she looked tremendous, and so were her happy gleaming thoughts, of stepping into this new life with a soul-mate chanced upon her life.
With tears in her eyes, she wasn't sure whether they were of the happiness or the tears of sadness for leaving behind her ma, baba and her two joyful sisters. She was pretty young, barely stepped in her twenties; and not so beautiful. As soon as she completed her graduation, her parents got in touch with the boy's well to do family, who instantly negotiated about the marriage after meeting the bride's sister instead.
Geeta stole a glance at her husband, who didn't even take a look at her.
As soon as she entered the premises of Radhak's big mansion, he separated out and went straight to his mother.
"You got me a bride from the house of the dacoits!"
The mere comment made the old lady get an attack as she stayed in trauma for few days.
Inside a house full of riches and luxuries, she felt like a caged bird who long to fly away, back to where she had spent her joyful childhood. She had come here in hope to get mingled as a member of some other family, to win Radhak's heart, to start a family and worship it as her own; but somehow things were quite different. Radhak didn't desire to get married and gave in after family pressures. His grumpy attitude and his priorities didn't match her simplistic attitude towards life.
Her way of speaking, dressing up, doing the household chores differed from the all-formal lifestyle of her in-laws.
Day by day she grew thinner. For every meagre mistake committed by her biological family, she had to listen.
Few years passed. Her husband's physical problem landed upon her as another trouble as her illiterate father-in-law would blame her for not bearing a heir to the family even after being married for ten years, until one day her husband disappeared mysteriously. It was those days of heavy losses recurring in the family. The printing press had been shut down, and Radhak had engaged himself in a cashew nut business, which landed him to losses and the pain made him move out somewhere, alone.
Gita would cry, and try but in vain, she wasn't able to contact him in any way. Her youngest sister was now married with me as her only child. I remember how she called her up to provide her the phone number. That was the first time I saw Radhak uncle.. tall, dark, fat, and full of gravity, with taunts in each of his words, and each sentence filled with a taste of immense pride. I was maybe 6 or 7 years old, but even then I understood how distasteful he was, as a person, and pitied Aunt to be living with him.
Things started to change as the years passed.
They bought a new flat, had it well-furnished, bought a big puja room attached to their flat, lit up by golden diyas and tiny bulbs, with deities beautifully ornamented. Gita and Radhak would devote their passtime praying, and as age took toll, the friendship started budding between both.
He would bring her gifts, spend his free time with her and the little daughter of the neighbour couple named Pihu. All throughout my childhood, I had never talked to him. Infact, he had never talked to me. The boundary wall he had created tall around his heart phsically and emotionally seemed to be broken by the power of the little four-year old, who would pay no attention to his mocks and shout back at him.
In those 33 years of marriage, Gita felt she was slowly receiving what she had missed all those years. Those love, those care, the will to start an adopted family.
She bore no child of her own, but she loved the way the family was created with the neighbours around them and their children... '
A drop of tear fell down her dark black eyes.
"When Uncle returns, will he ask me where have I hidden his golden watch?" Pihu asked her.
She looked at her pitifully.
Her gaze again shifting back to the past.
"Radhak! What is the matter with you? You look so tensed."
"Gita, I am unable to sit up. The pus on my stomach has perhaps taken toll."
Gita reached up to take him up by her lap and was shocked to see allergic formations over his whole body.
She screamed, "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"
She shook him, she was full of anger and agony, but it was perhaps not the best time to answer those questions.. There came no reply, just a gaze of him towards her eyes, adding to the thousand questions that lay in her mind.
A week later, gangrene consumed him.
"If only you informed us a day earlier or two, it could be treated." The doctors had said.
She was lifeless, looking at the false gaze of her husband. God had snatched from her whatever leftover she was cherishing, and upon return; she smiled.
I was now in college. "Mashi, go and hush a goodbye in his ears. Say I would meet you in my next life and get married to you again. For one last time..." I asked
"No. He has tortured me with pain and love enough." She laughed.
***
Putting back the shakha and the red bangles into the box since it didn't carry any meaning to her now,
she replied to the question asked by Pihu, "He won't return. He probably got scared of your scoldings."
