What we are inside is not always the same. Skin changes from week to week and one has bad hair days just as one has black cloud mood days. But I am talking not of mood, but what we hold onto to as our identity. Skin changes but faces stay the same. Moods change but the you, within you, remain. Even while wearing different costumes, ala, council of Sheldons.Or do you?
Long ago, a woman haunted me for months. I rooted for her as long as the Husband was in love with her and how! She was his muse and he, the fervent gardener who would teach her his secrets to evoke tender flowers, shoots and life itself in his world of plants. He would come home to her beauty and a cornucopia of her hand-made delicacies. Then, dressed in silks, she would walk with him around the garden, dreaming of a grove there, digging a lotus pond here, small, large dreams of matrimonial aspirations that had no means to drive, but could only be ever so gently stirred like those snow globes. A world of their own and not meant for this world. I was wearing those silks myself and waited for a man who knew his trees to turn up in my life. Evenings were fragrant with betel leaves, sandalwood, hand upon a shoulder. Sometimes eyes looking into another pair to quench an unnamable thirst. At others, silence stretching into the night sky and returning with star-studded desire to become one with the universe. That woman was blessed, alas for a decade. And then came the god of slow death with a smile and grace that matched hers. She annointed him in sandalwood and incense too.
Sarita, the man's distant cousin with a nebulous past is then invited to help him tend to the garden as his Wife is now in the arms of that god who couldn't quite leave. Sarita, tall and dark; Sarita of green fingers and a beauty that can only be perceived by men. Women tended to think of her as plain and boring. Her staid gait and underplayed colors, her far away gaze, her books and incoherent thoughts, she surely belonged to a snow globe world.
One on the shores of an unburdened ocean, which always gave the impression that it would only take a moment for the waves to spill over and destroy this very earth with its intensity. Sarita who was in a past life, the man's only playmate. When he was orphaned by life, her Father had taken him in. Now in a reversal of fates, she had nothing to hold onto, no one to relay on and pass on that troubling offer of a job from him. She came into his life again, bringing with her, a lifetime of forgotten, unacknowledged love for him.
At first Niraja was delighted and I was left admiring her devotion. Aditya's routine was back to the usual. Breakfast at the mango grove with tea brewed just the way he liked, the color of monsoon surge in the river. She could smell the hot puris and coconut laced potatoes, sighing a happy sigh, "this girl, just goes overboard on spices, but he will love that". And wait for him to come in after picking flowers for her room. Sarita's deft management of the house meant that servants weren't stealing coconuts and flowers anymore, the shop was being run by Sarita's fathers accountant now. Aditya had time for her and he would sit there, fully dressed, talking about the day ahead and shared concerns on the business. At first, she felt bad about Sarita being left out of these family gatherings and call her in. " Why are you so shy Sarita? Is aditya new to you? Don't you know him for longer than me? Come here, sit by me, he needs your help as I am getting weaker by the day. Sarita, can you please adjust my pillow? Can you please make sure he has his lunch sent by 1 sharp? He doesn't like rice overcooked. Sarita, I can't thank you enough for being here"
Slowly the girl who was never shy in her life found it in her to take things over as she was born to. She was the tomboy who had taught Aditya to climb trees, who knew the omens of weather and bird calls like none other. What customs of the orderly world would hold her back? The gardeners were told when to water and which flower stalks to cut at what time of the day. The outlet became a bouquet by itself with the way flowers were arranged, her fingers breathed intense perfume into jasmines, nerolis, champaks and the very air into which they were born and died. She asserted her knowledge and told Aditya how to manage his business, what ties suit him better, which shoes to wear for what suits and one day, which flowers to pick for Niraja's room. By then, I getting jittery. Not knowing who to root for anymore. This Sarita, that Niraja, both once blessed and now abandoned by whatever it is that shapes our smiles and sense of wellbeing in moments of solitude. One full of life and the latter at the brink of losing it. I wanted them both to wear those silks with me and go for a walk with that man who knew his trees.
Meanwhile, gathering gallons of easy cheer from deep within her spirit, Niraja held one-sided conversations with the God of slow death. Will it be be done in months? Will I have time to hold a child? What happens to my memories when I am gone, do they come with me or will they linger in this garden? How can I be sure that this bottomless hole consuming me, will not affect him for life? Should I ask him to marry again? Will that be after I am gone or will that be when I am sitting here limbless and paralysed by fates and by my body? Each day, she gathered a tiny bit of courage to face the inevitable all the while planning to leave behind nothing but graciousness behind for aditya. She asked him again and again, please get married when I am still around. He would visibly be upset which thrilled her to bits. A cruel game of seeking answers for a deep-hidden question that all love asks at one point or the other. Is love the point or the loved one? If it were another, would you still love the same way? And his frown, his irritation at being asked that was the only balm for her heartache at the inevitability of fate. Then she would grit herself and say firmly, "I will make sure Adi that you will have a life more beautiful than one with me". I am sure I heard him mutter, just as she did, "not without you". I lingered in her room, oblivious to the change of season and mood in the house. Some days, I heard laughter, but she didn't. On others, moonlight came to greet her quietly and wake her from hours of oblivion while I dreamed of gurgling streams and mountain paths. Days passed into lengthy afternoons and then came winter.
A cold dark cloud entered Niraja's bed-ridden world when she saw Sarita brush something off Aditya's shirt. After that, for almost a week, she was not even capable of sitting up in the bed. Aditya was coming now only in late evenings when she was slightly better and could open her eyes for a little longer than a blink. Sarita's hand on Aditya's shoulder woke her up from a deep slumber again and again. She asked for a mirror. Wanted to change her saree. Have a bath. Wear moringa in her hair. She slipped in and out of consciousness. She held on to me and I stroked her forehead." Love is not only holding on but also letting go", she said. "Love is about being bigger than what I am, being able to give and not regret". "Yes", I whispered and looked at poor Sarita holding her hand. Was she guilty or happy? This stranger in the house? Was she in love or just noble? I wondered and peered through my glasses at her love-ridden face. She was around, taking care of Niraja as if she were a child.
Then came a moment when Niraja awoke, drew all of her strength and sat up on the bed. "I will make sure you will suffer hell, you fallen woman. How dare you seize my most precious possession!" Then she fell, lifeless.
(This is a retelling of a Tagore's story called the garden. Sarita was Sarala and a few things have moved around)
