Beneath the Simolu Tree, page 17
“Oh, how you do go on!” He tried to draw her towards him.
“You can’t trust men,” Paridhi spoke in fake anger. Disentangling herself from his embrace she continued, “If you tell me someday that you had spent a night with a prostitute, I could bear it. But if you tell me about loving somebody else, that’d be difficult to digest.”
Though knowing fully well that the man was hers, could she bear the thought of sharing him with someone, even if only physically? Could she forsake those loving hands that spelled safety for her, for the satisfaction of the woman with a sandalwood paste spot on her forehead? Could she ever forget the sharp pain of the words that attacked her? She had felt like dying then.
One day, a letter Bondeep wrote to her fell into Shontu-dada’s hand. He burst out in anger. Paridhi gulped down the poisonous words like a neelkontha. But the remarks made against Bondeep were difficult for her to bear. Shontu-dada said in no uncertain terms that Bondeep was playing with her emotions, he had other plans. He was a Brahmin in any case, and he was not going to marry her. He would discard her once he achieved his goal. She would be the victim and would be left with a bad reputation.
With time, Shontu-dada’s resentment that she had rejected his choice of a groom for her had weakened somewhat, but on such occasions it resurfaced with a vengeance. He again accused her of rejecting a nice, rich groom. In front of her, he burnt Bondeep’s letter. Paridhi lost her equilibrium and as she tried to catch hold of the letter, the fire singed her hand. For a long time, she ran her fingers over the ash on the ground. Her tears fell drop by drop over it. Even after that, Shontu-dada tormented her on many occasions for her association with Bondeep.
Now as she remembered these occasions, Paridhi felt like laughing. How meaningless were those threats! Their love was not such to give in to somebody’s threats, their relationship was not as fragile as Shontu-dada had thought; it had a lot of weight.
Nobody can stop a river from running its course, can they? Like life, love is also like a phoenix, building itself anew.
“Let’s go!” Mayur said as he put back the camera in his bag.
Paridhi emerged from her time warp and walked side by side with Mayur.
“By the time I reach home, it’ll be quite late. Tomorrow morning I have to leave for Manipur,” Mayur was saying as he picked up the laptop bag kept on the stone bench at the platform.
They passed the hog plum tree near the station and started walking on the long gravel road with patches missing from the surface. Mayur told her that he would go to Anini in the Dibang Valley next. Its magic silence often waved at him in his dreams. But the journey would be full of hardships.
When the soul yearns for something, it prods a man to go on. So he would surely go there, Paridhi thought, for it was a thirst that opened up the path of life.
18
Paridhi stopped abruptly as she entered the drawing room. Bondeep was sitting on the old wooden sofa and was turning the pages of a magazine.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” Paridhi asked.
“Had I told you, you wouldn’t have been caught…right?” Bondeep said looking at her.
“What are you talking about?”
“You are roaming around till late evening with your friend. Khuri did ask me to call you, but I didn’t. I thought, why should I become a spoilsport guborua in the honeycomb.”
“Oh, don’t try to be sarcastic at the slightest opportunity.”
“When I say something, my words are like thorns. But what about you? Your words are like delicate flowers?”
“It’s a good idea. If you can think of thorns as flowers, it’s a great feat.”
“Oh, you look like a butterfly!” Bondeep commented as he looked at her from head to toe.
Paridhi understood why he compared her with a butterfly. She leaned on the handle of the sofa next to Bondeep and said, “Had I known you were coming I’d have asked Mayur to wait a little longer. He could have discussed his forthcoming book with you. He got a lift in a car while reaching our home and so he left. But it’s okay; he will call you. Wait, let me bring the manuscript.”
“Wait, we can talk about it later. There’s something else we need to discuss. Please sit.”
Bondeep looked sombre. He rubbed his cheeks agitatedly and said, “My mother is in talks with Ananya’s parents without taking me into confidence. She has started emotionally blackmailing me too. It’s a difficult situation at home for me. I don’t feel like coming home these days.”
Paridhi’s mood changed instantly. She said quietly, “Why don’t you explain to her patiently?”
“I’ve been doing that for many months now. But she refuses to listen. It’s not easy to make her agree; you know her. Ridhi, I feel helpless. I don’t want to lose you, and I don’t want to lose my mother either. I don’t know what to do.”
“Deep, I can’t fathom why a certain set of people don’t understand that all these social customs are only meant to make man a good human being. If all our natural desires, our wishes, get squeezed by these rules and regulations where will the zest for living be? Can people live like this forever in sorrow, just for the sake of some age-old customs? Will people always be judged by who belongs to the upper caste and who to the lower?”
Bondeep wanted to say something but at that moment Paridhi’s mother came in with cup of tea. She looked at Paridhi and said, “He said he won’t take anything, just black tea with pepper powder.”
“Why? Wait, let me fry some luchi.”
“No, please don’t. I don’t feel like eating anything now.”
Paridhi did not insist. In her mother’s presence, Bondeep did not mention his mother again. “Has Bor-ta gone to sleep?” he asked casually.
“Yes. I’ll have to feed him something after a while. You know Pari, he didn’t recognise Bondeep when he went to meet him. He hasn’t seen him for a long time.”
She left the room.
“When did you draw this?” Bondeep asked as his eyes suddenly moved to the wall.
Paridhi looked at the painting. Two cherubs with big wings were sitting on the ground. They were looking upward at the sky and seemed to be deep in thought. Their skins were the colour of earth. In Paridhi’s painting, the wings, resplendent with colour, were oversized compared to their small figures.
“Many years ago. This water colour was inspired by an oil painting of Raphael’s. This was the painting Paras planned to use in a scene of his children’s film,” Paridhi said.
Hearing her, Bondeep straightened up in his seat; he became cautious. He knew that when Paras came up, Paridhi became emotional and her eyes would soon be brimming with tears. How could she stifle the pain of losing her brother twice? He came home but then she lost him forever.
Paras had returned after many years. He left by train one day without telling anyone and returned one day by train too. That day, the tears those at home shed were those of happiness. Paras looked very different now. At one time he was mad about cinema; now he himself looked like a cinema actor. Many people in the village rushed to Paridhi’s house as the news of his arrival spread. They looked at him as if they had never seen him before. They listened to him with rapt attention as he described his adventures.
Paras said that at the time when he had disappeared, he felt as if someone was constantly waving at him to come away. He decided to free himself from the shackles that bound him to his life in the village and went to Guwahati. He took up jobs here and there, but he was restless. He saved some money and set off for Mumbai. Life was a struggle there too, but he survived. By chance he also appeared in brief shots as an ‘extra’ in a few Hindi films. He worked in a garage for survival.
One day he was reading aloud to another Assamese boy who worked with him, the dialogues of a script he had written himself. A man who had come to get his car serviced was standing nearby. He heard him and asked, “From which film is this dialogue?”
Paras was caught off-guard hearing someone addressing him in Assamese. He cleared his throat and said hesitantly, “It’s not from a film. I have written it myself, articulating a few of my thoughts.”
The man observed him keenly and then asked, “Your own thoughts? Do you write?”
“Not really. But I mentally compose screenplays for films all the time. I enjoy it.”
The man then asked him about his family back home. He put Paras at ease. Without hesitation, Paras told him everything. The man listened quietly and then asked, “Are you willing to work with me?”
Paras was astonished at the offer. Now the person told Paras about himself. He was a filmmaker; he made small-budget art films. His works had received quite a few national awards. He lived in Mumbai with his family but visited his home in Assam often. He had also made a few documentaries on Assam.
The sensitive man must have sensed a spark in Paras. Perhaps destiny had ordained that he meet such a person, Paras thought. His life changed after that. He learnt a lot under the director’s tutelage. One day, when Paras read out a script to the director, he was overwhelmed. His encouragement helped Paras emerge from his self-imposed boundaries. He also got to know the director’s friends. They too encouraged him as they listened to his ideas. By then, he was quite a familiar figure in the cinema circuit. He could even take the responsibility of directing sometimes. He led a comfortable life now. His mentor was kind to him. For Paras, he became a father figure—a father he had sorely missed in his own life. He opened up a world for Paras that he had always aspired to secretly.
But the boy who left behind a life of frustration did not forget his land. He often remembered his mother, his sister and the village. Since he was comfortably off now, a sense of responsibility also worked in his mind. That’s why he returned. His widowed mother as well as his sister breathed a sigh of relief.
Paras started work in Guwahati. At times he also went to Mumbai. When he was in the village, he took the lead in social work to improve the state of the place. He bought new books for the village library that had gone almost defunct and tried to get the children interested in reading. With his efforts, the local brewery was compelled to shut down.
He had many more plans for his village.
Then one day…
On his way home from Guwahati he went to the bazaar. It was his death knell. It took just a few seconds. A huge bomb at the Ganeshguri market, a busy hub, decimated everything. Amidst the pool of blood, pieces of raw flesh, and the burnt smell of bodies, the dominant colour was death…
People, with full lives and dreams, with voices that once spoke and sang and screamed, were just lifeless bodies now.
Perhaps time paused for a moment, trying to guess who they were before they met their end, what were their hopes, and their dreams.
Just one year. For only a year, the people in the house found their prodigal son back amongst them. In the name of the land’s freedom the illogical, inhuman act committed by a few killed many. Among them was a young man who had dreamt of a better future for his village.
How could one bear this shearing pain? Like a forest fire, sorrow attacked Paridhi and her family. It burned bright and fast, engulfing their souls. Only they knew what kind of strength they needed to endure the pain and bring a semblance of normalcy back into their daily lives. They’d done it now for four years.
“These little boys look much thinner than Raphael’s plump ones. But their wings here are much bigger than the ones the artist drew and much more colourful. The painting was lying somewhere. At places the colour had faded. I simply brought it out, repainted those patches and hung it here,” Paridhi said, looking at it with wet eyes.
Paridhi had a secret dream built around this painting. She wanted to tell Bondeep but he was sitting with his elbow on the knees, his face between his palms, deep in thought. She decided against it. Time passed in silence.
Outside, the darkness was getting thicker. Paridhi looked at the courtyard and was about to get up and shut the door. Suddenly the Bhupen Hazarika ringtone came alive. She did not get up. Bondeep looked annoyed as he fished out the cellphone from his pocket and answered: “I am coming, Ma!”
Tick…tock…tick…tock…the old wall clock announced the relentless progression of time. Paridhi stayed rooted to the same place long after Bondeep had left. She felt too drained to move.
“I am coming, Ma!” Somehow the sentence whirled around her brain again and again.
What should she do now? What was the right thing to do? True, they both had been ready for a time like this. But now that the time had come and they had to make a decision, they were at a crossroads. Had he weakened in his resolution, the boy who was once ready to break down the walls of the fort? Had his resolute fist slackened? Were the iron rods that were once ready to strike the fort for her slipping away from him? Otherwise, why did he say, “Ridhi, I feel so helpless …I don’t know what I should do.” Where was his conviction? Why didn’t he say, “I am there for you, don’t worry.”
Were yesterday’s feelings and beliefs true today too?
“Juroni is not very well, Pari. Her sister told me that they are thinking of bringing her home.”
As her mother spoke, Paridhi woke up from her reverie. Worry lines quickly appeared on her already downcast face. She forgot what she was thinking about a little while ago, about her troubles. She could only hear the words, “I want to live,” over and over again, like a chant.
Paridhi felt overwhelmed by the great weight of sorrow. She could hear the endless ghorr…ghorr…sound of Juroni’s sewing machine. The wheel that turned incessantly seemed tired at times, like it wanted to rest, but it went on, refusing to indulge in laziness.
For quite some time, Paridhi had noticed that Juroni looked rather pale. She seemed tired and not her usual bubbly self. In the evening, after returning from work, she took a light meal and retired to bed early. One day, when Paridhi visited her and complained that she had kept her waiting for a churidar set for too long, Juroni apologised saying she had a terrible back pain. Paridhi understood. Juroni stitched a suit overnight if Paridhi said it was urgent. So she must have really been suffering. These days, her visits to her house had dwindled. Paridhi herself went to meet her friend in her house. Juroni kept cutting material for stitching while talking to her.
A few days later, Juroni went away to her aunt’s place in another town. Paridhi came to know the reason from her elder sister. There was a lesion on her breast which was not healing. There was someone who lived near her aunt’s place who prescribed ayurvedic medicines for such ailments. Juroni wanted to consult him and stay there for a few days.
Days turned into weeks, then months.
One, two, then three months.
All the women in the village missed Juroni. She was an expert at turning out dresses that complemented their figures. If the customers took a few days to pay for the work, Juroni did not remind them. So they did not want to go to any other tailor.
Why was she gone for so long? Did it take so long to cure a wound? These days, Juroni was not active on Facebook either. Growing restless, Paridhi called her. She had tried to connect quite a few times earlier too. But the network connection in that place was weak; the voice broke often, and one could not hear properly.
“What’s wrong with you?” Paridhi asked Juroni in an accusatory tone when the call finally when through.
“Nothing much, really. Don’t worry, there’s a boil. It will be cured soon.”
“Where’s the boil?”
“On my breast.”
“On the breast? Where, tell me.”
“On my left breast. It’s not an abrasion, but a small lump. There’s an opening at the top.”
“Have you consulted a doctor?’
Juroni was silent.
“Tell me! Why aren’t you telling me?” Paridhi scolded her impatiently.
“I showed him a long time ago.”
“What did he say?’
“He asked me to go for an operation.” Juroni paused for a moment and then continued, “It’s too late, Pari! Lots of time has passed in between. Now whatever has to be done will be done here. Yesterday, the ayurved doctor squeezed out a lot of pus from the breast. He has given a medicinal cream to rub there every day.”
Paridhi lost her temper. She knew something was seriously wrong and Juroni was still trusting traditional medicine, and letting the practitioner squeeze out pus from her breast! She was suffering so much but was not sharing it with anyone. For the last one and half years, Juroni had carried on with a cancerous growth and she didn’t tell anyone.
“You’ve hidden it from me even? Me? So I was wrong in thinking that we could share everything! I am no one to you? I don’t know Juroni, when the thread that has bound us together from childhood snapped.” Paridhi’s voice broke.
“Please Pari, don’t say things like that. Promise! Nobody in this world can snap that thread. Besides you, who is there for me? For the people in the house I am just a tool to meet their needs. I never managed to find the wrestler to protect me. I’ve pondered a lot. I took time to consult a doctor too. I don’t have much savings. I could borrow, yes, but if I don’t survive? I couldn’t burden my family with debt after my death. You know very well I spent a lot on things I liked—wore new dresses every day, enjoyed outings, enjoyed food I savoured. I don’t have any more desires, Pari!”
Paridhi could not bring herself to say anything more. She could not respond to Juroni’s voice. “Hello! Hello!”
After that call, she called Juroni a few times to force her to go to the doctor. Juroni avoided the topic altogether and talked about other things. So one day Paridhi visited her aunt’s place, accompanying Juroni’s elder sister. Even though she was sick, Juroni was not sitting around. She was busy with the sewing machine in her aunt’s house too. Paridhi scolded her severely.
