Night slowly dawned on her wrinkled forehead. She could hear the birds returning to their homes – one of the rawest remembrances of a native.
A new motorcycle passed by with great difficulty through the sand and stones of the undeveloped road. The villagers might not have liked the idea of a tar road shattering their conditioned ways of living and dying.
She knew it.
It was a remote village – untouched by the smokes of development and the brainwash of the technologies. One would really want to be there – at least one who wanted a bit of peace of life. The sandy road, faint smell of some rare flowers from the mountains, the thorny shrubs by the sideways, an abandoned well on the corner of the village entrance, an abandoned factory that once used to make and trade jaggery, the mango orchard surrounding it where he used to pluck mangoes, and share it with his friends …
He wasn’t going to come.
Her hair stood out as the cool breeze brought with it the welcoming of the dead silent night and a faint promise of the onset of monsoon. The two tall coconut trees stood like giants before her hut. They had in fact stood always, all the time. They had stood by her through all her pain and joy. May be that’s why she had a special attachment towards them - though they never could do anything for her. Sometimes trees can be your best friends.
Rice was cooking on the fire. She blew on the fire through the iron pipe, dusted her hands off her sari, and came to sit out. She gazed the moon which shined in the clear sky into her green eyes.
A bat screeched and flew by.
It was the same day as the previous one. But it was something different. She tried to remember.
The calm and mysterious moon took her back to a time – a time when he was with her. She was so contented. He took care of her.
The memories did not stop there. She remembered the blood on her body she had wiped after he had beaten her; the nights when she had to suffice herself on red chilli powder, salt, rice and oil; the running nose after she had sobbed her life out; the first bangles he had brought for her – they looked nice on her thin hands.
He had died a few years ago. She had not cried much. The villagers collected some money and utensils and showed compassion towards her. Every now and then the neighbors would manage a few conversations with her about the people who went to the mountains and did black magic. They kept her wavering mind engaged.
He was not going to come. He had been her provider, her caretaker. May be if she had died before him, he would also be having a lonely time. Someone would definitely have to leave the other at some point of time.
She was happy and grateful to God for what He had blessed her. She was blessed with six children – first, a boy, and the rest girls. They had left the village in pursuit of their own journeys, to find a meaning to life. To find it, and may be return to the village, and tell her stories and what they had learned about this world.
She would have never had the courage or the intelligence to step outside the village. She believed there was utter chaos at the other side of it. Bringing firewood and vegetables from the forest at the back of the village and water from the well was adventure enough for her. They would sometimes have a casual competition on who could take the most buckets of water from the well.
She was now aware of the play of life –acceptance to the chances it threw at her. She was through her childhood days, when she used to write the letters with her finger on the sand; her adolescence when she realized that she was married; the responsibilities of a home; sympathy of the near and dear ones on death of her husband.
Now there was one thing left for her. To face Death. She wondered if she would cease to exist after her death. At least others say so. She had heard from her neighbor that people go to heaven and hell. Both have different facilities, and the heaven has better ones. And that there is an accountant in the sky above who keeps record of all that you do. Her actions would fill the accountant’s journal. It would decide her fate – after death.
But she did not remember anything good or bad about her life. All she remembered was being by his side always, serving him with her love and care, strictly following him and his orders.
She was unable to decide her fate. She knew nothing right or wrong.
She knew only one thing – proper service to him.
The coconut trees cast two big shadows on her either side. Nothing mattered to her now. She was nothing.
You put your heart and soul into something, in someone, and that just perishes. After a few decades, it seems like it never at all existed in the first place. You have come and gone. You have contributed your time and energy into trying to understand this life, this world, in terms of bits and pieces. And one Death defies it all. All that is done might or might not be here.
The two tall coconut trees stood by her…
Even after her death.
***
