Blind

She: -

She loved to read Patience Strong. She thought it was a wonder that two such emotive words could have combined to form someone’s names, but there they were – staring up at her from the dust-laden pages of her favorite author’s hand-book.

Was it a mere coincidence that the page before her should be entitled Endurance, the need for which was so intensely raging within the narrow confines of her world-weary heart that she was quite alarmed at the thought of her barely suppressed sigh managing to free itself – any minute now – and setting forth on the journey she hoped to begin: to find herself.

“When first enthusiasms wane
and strength has all but gone,
Endurance is the thing that makes you smile
and carry on…”

She allowed herself one last look at the beloved book collection, sure to be laid to rest when her fingers would no longer brush by their sides with a dainty sweep of the feather-duster – the only other Technicolor memento from the 80’s – unless you counted her dreams of married life.

If life began at 40, what had she been living till now, she couldn’t help musing…

Her smile had been aching for some time, too, and carrying on somehow with the pretext of a relationship was not quite her cup of tea, though, she reminded herself discordantly enough to invoke a sharp twist in her soul, it was mostly her fault – being a creature of habit – that she became one for Him also. Perhaps, she was responsible in some way for making Him look upon her as a habit: to be endured, rather than endeared to, as she would have liked.

After all, she did fulfill his bodily and emotional needs all the time, so eagerly, so willingly; almost childishly fervent at times, that it was wrong, somehow, to expect him to settle for less when he had grown accustomed to her giving her all to him.

From the ritual ‘P’lung-ki-chai’ (his connotation to bed-tea) to being the first to read the newspaper; from being served first at mealtimes to walking a step ahead when outside, from being the recipient of Sunday morning ‘champies’ to deciding which music they would hear – he'd been gladly taken to handling the reins of her decision-making brain component, given over by her.

She’d created a monster!

As it would turn out, recriminations would be the order of the day. 








He:-

He brushed back an errant lock of unremarkable brown hair from his forehead.

The wind was tame but redolent with the eerie stillness of his familiar childhood memories.

It was indeed the time for mothers to call in their children from play outside thatched huts and sundry embankments where they were probably riding on the backs of the buffaloes and racing across the river bed – precisely the thing he’d love to do, if only it were not for Her cautioning him about activities that were so plebian.

He felt rather than saw the dusk descending with the smoky, mountain air.

But, there were other things he did not see coming as he took a turn into the inner precincts of the narrow life ahead: like the village with its constricted streets alight with the scent of May blossoms,

And the fragrance of lost tomorrows in the quietude of the Churchyard pond

And the farmer making furrowed slopes on his carrot-patch on high

Nor the pollen-laden wings of butterflies seeking a shelter, if only for the night…

So, how could he ever have guessed the plight of her conflicting feelings vying with her marital obligations, the songs of Summer and a Stranger’s sweet persuasion: to come and meet him by the pond where the water-lilies bore mute testimony to unnamed yearnings?

He didn’t know she was gone.

Not till he’d felt the need to call out for some ginger tea was he made rudely aware of her absence in the lack of a response to his calling her name.

He brought some force into his voice, altered his tone to a more masterful one (the kind he reckoned would transport her to his side, fairly trembling with the desire to be more attentive, more dutiful – and perhaps, a tad gracious as well) but, it was all for naught.

He concluded he’d given her too much of a free hand as far as being a happy-go-lucky, non-career person ought to have and his leniency with her spending her free time had led her to abandoning her domestic duties for frivolous pursuits, such as God only knew what!! And to think it was way past the time for his evening cuppa!

Confound it!

Me:-

Till date I don’t know what made me do it – get enchanted by a decent-looking, obviously married woman (the mangalsutra was there for all to see as she bent over the edge of the water-body to sail wild flowers downstream) singing to herself and the elements old, forgotten lyrics from Radio Ceylon days of my youth.

Maybe, it was the way she interspersed them with self-conscious laughter when she forgot the words or perhaps, it was the hint of a superbly ill-concealed and hard to forget cleavage as her morning-heather colored sari gave way to a lustily blowing afternoon-breeze.

Or, possibly, it was something just as simple as being there to witness a carefree, unadorned and beautiful moment in Life’s stress-soiled journey that made me whisper the lines to her … tenderly – as I’d never known myself to doing.

Being a Stockbroker I had more affinity with speaking authoritatively (read yelling – for confessions such as these intimate ones make for a sort of friendship between reader and writer and call for being candid to a certain level, don’t they?) than with murmuring sweet nothings. However, soon I found that it wasn’t at all hard to do, provided one finds one’s inspiration…even as like I did, 20 years too late.

Yes, she had been married for at least that much or more – who could tell the story behind the lines of a woman’s face?

“I want to bare my soul to you.” I’d blurted out, without a second thought, the words she’d evoked in me.

She’d been startled at first, recovered with a charm I never quite forgot and sat on the jealous-green grass underfoot before bidding me sit beside her with a token gesture as if being asked to listen to life-stories was the done thing in these parts of the world; as if it was the most natural thing in her world to have strange men want to bare their souls to her.

As if stray dogs and Stockbrokers were a lost breed of creatures requiring comforting only dew-bedecked eyes could give.

I recounted my uneventful life’s tale for her: in a nutshell, I gave her my all – the pain, the longings, the suffering, the dreams (even the forgotten one about working for only a Maruti – now I had 8 and then some more!) and the millstone of being Me.

And she?

She gave me the most beatific smile my spirit had ever seen – “Thank you,” she’d said, “I needed that – to feel needed.”

I hadn’t realized I’d been fulfilling her need all the while I spoke!
She hadn’t realized she’d been building the needs for Him.
He hadn’t realized she needed to be there for herself sometimes.

…

None so blind as those who won’t see.