A whiff of jasmine...

She walked briskly, not knowing where and not caring. Her muddled mind cleared slowly, as walking often did for her. Drawn out of the vale of her reverie by the singing of a koel in search of its soul mate, she glanced around her. Finding herself in the thick of the woods and recognising the wild mango tree which towered over the long-forgotten path, she recalled her childhood days when she would accompany her mother and aunt to rescue the tiny, juicy mangoes from the hungry ants under the dry leaves on the forest bed.

Darting her glance at the dark woods, which seemed to be closing around her menacingly, Samhita quickened her pace. She walked further down the narrow path now strewn with half-eaten, rotten cashew apples thrown by monkeys. In front of her lay the broken foundation of an old house, eaten up by wild vines and the passivity of its residents.

Stepping gingerly across the foundation stones, she turned to look at the path that lay silently behind her, thinking of lives spent seeking love and then letting it go in order to live. "Don't look back, or else the wood fairies who follow you and protect you from danger, will vanish," she recalled the warning by a village woman who worked in their fields and with whom she often went to gather firewood. Her childhood fear, strengthened by the stories narrated by elders to keep naughty kids in check, or to allay their own fears, towered over her now. Breathing deeply, as if to erase her fear by inhaling it and burning it within herself, she walked past the ruins and stepped out onto the rocky cliff that loomed over the emerald fields.

She sat down, dangling her feet over the cliff and thought about the people who lived in that ruined house once upon a time - their joys, untold sorrows... Samhita shook herself as she realised that she was brooding again. She checked her cellphone for the umpteenth time, knowing full well that no message or call could come in a place with no signal, chiding herself for hoping that he would call atleast once.

Inhaling the cool forest air, she questioned herself - what will happen if you never see, hear from or live with the person you love?

"Nothing," was the answer Samhita heard from within and without. Startled, she turned to see a woman wizened with age yet graceful in her green cotton saree, walk slowly towards her. "Don't be afraid, my dear. I live in a house yonder," the woman said, pointing towards a thatched hut standing proudly amidst the fields. "I heard your question, which you must have unknowingly spoken out aloud."

Gathering her scared wits around her, Samhita sat down silently. "Life is very simple, my dear," continued the old woman, sitting beside her and smiling. In a voice that seemed to flow effortlessly from deep within her and with a faraway look, the woman added, "We just pull the simple thread of life in our amateur fingers and end up entangling it, confusing ourselves and others in the process."

Seeing the puzzled look on Samhita's face, the woman questioned, "Tell me my dear, of her five husbands, whom did Draupadi really love? It's a question for which only Draupadi knows the answer. I was once a bubbly girl like you; full of life and unbridled optimism. Do you want to hear my story?"

Samhita nodded silently, yet unsure of how to respond to the stranger. The woman, with unseeing eyes, continued: "It was my job to gather firewood everyday and I spent a lot of my time in the woods, immensely enjoying the solitude, rustle of leaves as they rose in the sudden breeze and scampering of little animals. One summer day, tired after gathering firewood, I sat down on this rock beneath that wild jasmine bush. In the stillness that enveloped me and gentle breeze kissing me, I soon fell asleep. After a while, as the sun shifted and his hot rays fell on my face, I woke up and found a man sitting across me. He was staring at me, lost in contemplation. Startled, I got up. He came out of his reverie and a smile appeared on his solemn face.

"Don't be afraid," said he. "I was just searching for a place untouched by humans... to sit and meditate. You seemed to be the perfect muse for me."

"We met on this rock daily, went for long walks in the woods and sat here for hours, not uttering a word and yet strangely comfortable with each other. He taught me to read, brought in me a passion towards life. He was my dream to fall back on when reality failed me. In two years that we spent together, I knew the workings of his mind but nothing about him.

"One day when I came here, the rock seemed lifeless; he was not there. I had fallen in love. From that day onwards, I came here every day; desperate to see him, see his animated eyes as he spoke of the things he loved, his passion towards his countrymen. After a year of my futile visits to this rock, I got married to a farmer from this village itself. For the next 15 years, I sat on this rock every single day, hoping that he would suddenly appear at the bend in the path and sit beside me.

"One rainy day, as I took shelter beneath a tree trying to shield myself from the angry rain which whipped me from all sides, I saw someone walking gingerly through the puddles, holding an umbrella. My heart skipped to see my grey-haired love walking towards me as nonchalantly as if he'd never missed a meeting. He stood beside me, held his umbrella over me till the rains stopped. And then he left, taking a long look back at me. Our silence spoke. I knew then that it was the last time we would be seeing each other.

"I continued to come here, not anymore to see him but to be with him in my thoughts and many moods. There is no such thing as an unrequited love my dear. He can be anywhere and I can still be with him," the old woman said and after a minute of silence, got up to leave. She disappeared behind the wild jasmine bushes before Samhita could collect her stupefied self and call out to her. A whiff of jasmine lingered long after the woman had left.

Disturbed by the woman’s story and unable to find peace anymore, Samhita returned home. She asked her uncle about the house in the midst of the fields. He said that nobody lived there now. "The house was built by a farmer's family who were good people and well-liked by the villagers. The children grew up and left for the city while their old parents lived there for a while. Then one day, the old woman, who had gone to visit her children in the city, boarded a train to return home. She died in the tragic train accident in which her coach derailed. When fire fighters started retrieving the bodies, they found that the woman was holding the hand of an old man, who too had died in the accident. He was later identified as a celebrated freedom fighter who had fought against the British. He had formed his own radical group and strategically attacked the British, causing them to retreat from this land. A fire fighter later told the media that he was surprised that the scorched coach was filled with the fragrance of jasmine."

--A story by me.

Mother

This is my feeble attempt at story-telling.

She was a mother. Sitting beneath a mango tree which had begun flowering at the fag end of Spring, she thought about her grown-up children who had gone fishing in the roiling sea.
Looking up from the task of making brooms from the green coconut fronds spread around her, she saw that grey clouds shrouded the sky, threatening to pour pails of water from their cottony wombs.
Calling out to her husband who was resting inside their hut after two days of fishing in the sea, she voiced her concern about their two sons and the imminent storm.
When she could hear no answer from the hut, she went inside, only to find her husband shivering with fever and uttering incoherent words in his incognizance.
Worried about both her husband and sons, she was torn between rushing out to seek the help of her neighbours and the urge to run to the beach to look out for her sons’ return before the storm began. Finally she made a choice. Standing before the angry waves whipping the sands for being naughty and shifty, she prayed to the Sea Mother to protect her sons and all other sons of the sea who were out fishing and thus were vulnerable to the vagaries of nature. Then she ran to her neighbour’s house where she found that her friend’s husband, also a fisherman, was not at home. Sensing that she would not find help anywhere else in the storm, she desolately walked back.
When the mother returned home, she could see that a full storm had begun and the high tide had reached the coconut trees which were swaying dangerously low and close to her hut. As she stood horrified, the fronds lashed out and hit the roof of the hut, which flew off in its entirety and landed at the top of a group of cacti plants.
Standing before the now roofless hut and watching as rain took possession of their meager belongings as if collecting its long due debt, she cried thinking of the fate of her children and cursing herself for letting them go fishing that day.
Running inside, she called out to her husband. When he did not stir, she went to him and dragged his inanimate body to a corner of the hut. She tried desperately to cover him with the two silk sarees -one red with peacock dancing in the pallu, the other blue with gold stripes- which were kept safely in a trunk and were her only prized possessions since marriage. Before long, the sarees were soaked and clung to her now-unconscious husband.
Night fell, with no sign of her children. Her gaze rooted to the broken door with no roof, she sat silently beside her husband, tears dissolving in the rain which now flowed as a stream near her feet.

Soon she heard someone approaching the ruined hut. Glancing up, she saw that her neighbor couple had come to their aid. The fellow fisherman picked up her husband and carried him to their home while she followed with her friend, looking back at what was once their home, hoping against hope that her sons would miraculously materialize there at that instant.
The next morning, she found out that along with the hut and all their possessions, the storm had also snatched away her husband’s life from her. Realising that nothing else was left to be lost, a calmness pervaded her aged soul. She walked slowly to the beach and stood in the rain, facing her Sea Mother. Grey sheets of rain continued to fall on the raging sea, angering it further and causing the waves to lash out with increasing frequency.
Turning to the sea, she saw with shock that a boat was being gently carried to the shore atop an enormous wave which neither had a crest, nor diminished as it approached her. Transfixed at the sight of her two sons clinging to the sides of the boat, she thanked the Sea Mother for returning her sons unharmed. Love misting her eyes, she saw only her sons and not the wave, which swept her up as it gently lowered the boat. Her sons watched from their boat as their mother was taken away by the Sea Mother into her womb, in exchange for their lives. Climbing down from their boat and running towards the receding wave, they heard their mother’s voice: “Get away from the storm, my children. You’ll catch a cold.”

Deluge and delusion

It was the third day of incessant rains. Peeping through the first floor window of my grandparents' house, I could see that the river which flowed beyond the farmlands, begin to swell and its orange waters creep slowly beyond its banks towards our house. As we watched in increasing horror, the swirling torrent swallowed everything in its path, felling huge trees, drowning the deer, peacocks, rabbits and other small animals, gobbling up my aunt's entire garden with rare ornamental plants and beautiful flowers.                       In no time, all one could see was the vast expanse of muddied water, angrily thrashing against the steps of our house.My uncle, in all solemnity, declared that the water will rise one stair per hour and we laughed at his prediction. But three hours and three stairs later, the flood had entered our house.                                                            With water seeping into the mud-walled house, the earthing of which was faulty, we started experiencing electric shocks. Though the elders were earlier confident that the rain would stop at anytime and the flood would recede, they too lost their hope as the courtyard and the lower verandah got submerged.                                               As the front wall of the house collapsed, we ran inside in panic. I sneaked to the first floor window to take in the fury of nature against us mortals when my mom angrily ordered me to come down lest the floor collapsed. Nothing remained including a lovely lake which had as its wreath numerous rose bushes and hibiscus plants.                          With all other routes to safety cut off, we had one choice -- to climb the hillock that lay just behind our house. As twilight approached, we had to decide if we were going to spend the night in the house which may collapse on us anytime or stay at the old Shiva temple in the midst of the dense forest atop the hillock which was open to elements. It was then that our saviours arrived. They were the labourers who worked in our fields and worried by the terrible storm, had come to check on us.                          About 20 years later, I remember trudging through the woods in the rains to their thatched hut several miles inside the forest and getting a warm welcome. We kids slept on the clean, dung-washed floor of the single room that was their hut while the elders sat through the cold and cruel night.                                                                                           Most parts of our house had collapsed by the next morning.Years later, I remember not just the flood which cornered us but also the humanity of that family which provided us a sanctuary against the wild and angry nature -- a compassion where the delusions of caste, creed and wealth no longer mattered.