Blood, Gore And The Fiery Sky

12th October 1995
3.15pm

Dear love

I cannot sleep this afternoon yet again. The pain has increased to such an extent that I cannot even rest anymore. Instead, let me narrate to you a wonderful story.

It was an afternoon on ‘Dashami’ a year back. She was yet again on the ghats of the holy Ganges. However unlike the other days at this hour, that day was special. Not only were there people all around her, but also the goddess of power, Goddess Durga in various attires and forms surrounded her. She stood amidst all those people chanting mantras and the sound of ‘ululus’ filled the air. The scent of flowers and incense seemed to grip her. She felt as if the goddess was calling out to her. The river seemed to hold thousands of bodies that were drowning but the only difference was that all those bodies were lifeless. The people around her however weren't agonists, nor were they atheists. They believed in that power, a supreme power that raised or drowned living beings, and the creator who dictated the cosmos. She was different, a lifeless, lost being. It did not seem as if she had even a bit of life left in her body. She was nineteen then and had suffered traumas which affected her to such an extent that she stopped believing in that ultimate power that could return back those things in life that she valued. The years had slowly drenched her clear of life. What had remained was a soulless body. Giving it up, wouldn’t have created much of a difference as well. It was ‘Dashami’, a perfect day to surrender, to give back and become one with the water and the soil she had come from. The skies were no more clear or blue. They had turned deep red, with all the vermillion, with blood. People gave each other ‘bijoya’ wishes and she wished her body a goodbye. She moved towards the deep blue waters which seemed to have turned muddy with the all the immersions and a smile came about her lips. She knew it was the time to depart. 
A week later when she moved about on a bed, she realized that the departure had all been a fallacy. The bed she lied on was tattered and the floor below it was muddy and filled with dirt and dust.

You must be wondering what happened then. It has been a year now and I know not of what has happened to her. She was really brave, ready to face death, but maybe, not so brave as to face life. I believe when certain things in life are ought to come, they do. Maybe, it wasn’t that ‘Dashami’ afternoon when she was supposed to leave the world. No, I am not her. I have seen much more than what she ever could.

A man saved her that ‘Dashami’ afternoon. That same man gave her a new life by keeping her in his house, and by giving her food to eat and clothes to wear. In return all she had to do was to accept him and all that he did. She was brave and was ready to accept him. More than that maybe somewhere she was grateful to him for saving her life as a result of which she could see all that she never would have, if she would have given up her life that afternoon. Then she felt that life was at its worst, but the worst was yet to come. I know she was strong enough to take him and all he did to her for a few more years because she was brave, brave enough to die. After losing her mother at the age of eleven, she had wanted to hold the hand of that man whom her mother had left her to. Till the time the woman had been alive, that man whom her mother had loved was a good man. He had taken care of her and her little girl and thus her mother taught her to call the man Baba, but soon after her death she slowly understood how difficult life was when there wasn’t anyone besides. She grew up all alone and came to be tortured every moment of her life. The marks on her body were still fresh when that afternoon of ‘Dashami’ she decided to give her tortured body up. Neither could she bear Baba and nor could she bear her own life anymore.Those same marks are still clear on her body even now. The only difference is that these aren’t the ones given by Baba but by a new man. This same new man had saved her life. She had wanted to leave Baba and run away from that gambler of a man. She did run away and was saved by a man. She had wanted to love him since that moment she had woken up on his broken bed but this man was a worse gambler.

I am not a part of your gambling deal love. I refuse to be a part of your home. All I had wanted was to be a part of you but if it was for this, I am only left with one question as to why you saved me. I had this question until yester night but now I know why. Baba had wanted to make me a part of his game of cards. He lost four out of seven days every week. I was tortured as a result, but you lose your game of cards six out of seven days every week and these six out of seven nights I am beaten, kissed, touched, scratched and seduced by six different men. If it would be you, I would accept you with every part of mine but I refuse to be the world’s anymore. I try to wash myself up every morning and clear every part of mine of every single mark but all I see is blood. I am scared of blood, of gore. I am brave enough to die, but not brave enough accept pain. However what seems to matter is that after a few days when my parts won't be there, when the whole body will be bruised and scabbed, when the whole face will be marked, when none will want to touch my body and humiliate my soul anymore, then you who had saved my life that afternoon on ‘Dashami’ would come forward with a pitcher of oil and burn me to ashes.

 I refuse to accept this means of death because I am brave enough to kill myself, but not brave enough to be killed by the man I love. I refuse to accept death from your hands and I refuse to accept the truth, that same truth which shows that you do not love me. It is the same truth that also shows how I am just a medium of bargain for you in your game of cards, for your friends in their state of drunkenness and for your acquaintances in their state of frustration. That afternoon on ‘Dashami’ I brought along with me a little piece of paper. I never wanted to show that to you because I wanted you to accept me into your life the way you had found me, in tatters without any name or fortune attached to my lifeless body.

After this afternoon I won't be seen anymore but you would not have to live unhappily ever after. This isn't a piece of paper talking about how cannibalistic you are. This paper is just a testimonial of my gratitude for you because you made me see life to its fullest. You made me see how people like me are never supposed to receive any happiness in life. It is because we are born out of nothingness, without an identity. My mother was a millionaire. She left me her estate, her heritage, her everything. What she failed to leave behind was a name, an identity. I never knew who my father was. ‘Baba’ was not my father and neither did he ever try to become one. Yes, I wasn't supposed to die that ‘Dashami’ afternoon because I was to see this ‘Dashami’. I hated Baba so I ran away leaving nothing to him, not a single penny or a piece of brick but I love you and thus I am leaving you whatever my mother left me. I am leaving behind my property worth a ten millions. Return back to the address enclosed behind this note in the evening and whatever was mine would be given to you. I know you would never make good use of it but I promise that it would last you forever.

In return I am taking away my child with me. No, it is not your child and I know not of whom is he formed. Thus, I do not want it to live in nothingness unlike me. I want it to have a father. The Goddess is calling me to herself now, and I will go because I am brave enough to die. It is ‘Dashami’ afternoon yet again. I can see the ghats from this bed of yours. I can see people celebrating happiness, giving each other blessings for a great year ahead. I can smell incense in the air. I can hear ‘ululus’ and chants outside. I can see flowers all around. I can hear strong gusts of wind and I can see blood. The sky is deep red with vermillion, with gore.

Your well-wisher
Kendra Chatterjee

Images

I have been going to these classes lately, classes that are supposed to give me better communication skills. Its not that I really need them but what I really need soon is a job that would give me enough money so that I can do what I want to in life. I can’t go on and on spending my dad’s money forever the way I do now. They don’t seem to like the idea. Neither do I think it’s the best thing to do in life.

I see him everyday in the classes. He seems to like me but its not that I don’t like him as well. He seems to be a really nice guy: good looking, smart, talented and everything a girl would want. You must be wondering what the problem then is. There isn’t any problem as such other than the fact that I am already in a relationship with someone who lives miles away from me but even then I love him because he is the very breadth of my life. He is everything that a girl would never even hope to get. He gives me so much love that I can really forget the whole world for his sake.

I don’t know why sometimes in life, despite having everything we feel like getting so much more. We try to go and do all those things which seem incorrect. The very wrong things suddenly start to seem right to the spirit. I didn’t want to do what I am doing now. I didn’t want to torture my soul this way but there was a fire burning inside, maybe a fire of desire. Desire for what though? I already have everything, don’t I? Everything, that maybe no one has, and everything, which maybe no one can ever hope to even get.

This guy kept on and on looking at me during the class everyday. I did not stop him. Rather, I made him fall for me even more. In sheer desperateness one day, he came and asked if we could give any meaning to our everyday madness. I just said a yes to him. Its not that I did not tell him that I already have someone else in my life. He seemed to not pay a lot of attention to the fact because he was sure that someday I would leave my long distance love forever and come to him. His assumption seemed to have a lot of value because it was only him that I would meet every day and it was only him who can touch me, feel me, kiss me and love me every day. My love far away would not even realize how and when I would start to distance myself form him and one day leave him forever to be alone.

However what this guy thought was impossible. I would rather distance the rest of the world than distance myself from my far away love. He was a just a fresher to this twenty year old life of mine and I could just push him out of it someday rather than do anything to make the one I knew since years sad. Even then I did not let this guy know any of this. I made him run his imagination wild and some weeks later he was just like a ferocious wild animal in search of prey to quench his blood thirst and I was his prey. All these days all he could do was stay near to me and see me and say wonderful things so that I would smile for once but now he began to demand more. He wanted to come even closer, get me in my complete form in a closed empty room. He was tired now about the fact that even so many weeks later I was unable to make myself his fully.

One day I was very sad about something which I now don’t seem to recall anymore and after the class got over, he came and stood in front of me and said, ‘ All you need now is a kiss of life, come closer, let me give you one.’ I looked at him and stood like a dead corpse. The last time I had been kissed was months ago when he was here and other than him I have never let any other soul come as close to me but now I was helpless. I had committed the folly of giving away my heart to two men. One whose heart was with me despite his staying miles apart and the other, whose heart didn’t seem to matter despite his being this near. I had only loved one of those men and you clearly know which one but now I was subjected to a bizarre vision which I seemed to possess. I tried and tried more to pull out myself form this sea of desire, of false notions, of discrepancies but the more I tried to come out of it, the more I began to sink in it, as if something heavy was tied to my legs. He came even closer and I closed my eyes but the exact moment the teacher came in. He left immediately and I just sat down with a thump. The land below my feet seemed to have crept away. What was I doing? Where was I leading myself to? Why?

The next day I decided to put an end to everything. I decided I would let one of them know the truth and decide my fate and to the other I would just say a goodbye. I picked up my phone because I thought its time I said a sorry so that even staying that far away he would understand that I am not misleading him but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t gather up the courage to let him know about anything, nothing I had been upto all these months. My mom came in and handed me a parcel. I opened it and out fell a letter and a huge birthday card. It seemed to have reached two days prior to my birthday. It was from him and all the letter said was- “I have never been as happy with anyone else in my life, neither has anyone given me so much love nor has anyone been so frank and truthful with me before. I just want to say that I love you a lot. Be mine forever and you will see how this goes the distance.” I clasped the letter close to my heart and just sighed aloud, ‘no my love, I haven’t been truthful to you. I wish I was.’

When I reached the class it was empty and he was sitting all alone in a corner. After I sat down he came closer and hugged me and said, ‘I missed you a lot yesterday. Why don’t you talk to me on phone sometimes?’ I couldn’t answer him because my phone was not for him and neither was my heart. I tried to shove him away but he didn’t budge for a second. His hands wrapped tight around me. He kept on saying how much he had come to love me now and how he never imagined that all this would happen so fast. He said that I gave him so much happiness that without seeing me every day, he cannot survive even for second but the moment he tried to place his lips on mine, the students came in and so did the teacher. They gave me nasty glances but all I could utter to her after the class was that I didn’t know what or why this was happening to me. I told her that I didn’t want all this to happen, never.

That day after I came out, somehow I don’t know why I couldn’t recognize where I was. I began running here and there in search of the path that would lead me home but I could see none. I asked people to show me which way home was. Some pointed straight, some towards the right, some towards the left and some just laughed out loud thinking that I am a mad woman in search of nothingness.

I guess I had to be carried home that day because maybe I fell down in the middle of the road and hurt myself. There was blood everywhere when the people found me unconscious. When I opened my eyes two days later I saw my mom besides me. She kept on crying because maybe somewhere the doctor had told her that I wouldn’t live for longer. That didn’t really matter to me though. I just wanted to tell her about the storm within me. The storm which had rocked and carried me away to such a place from where I couldn’t find my way back. It was about two lives who couldn’t do without me anymore. I also cannot do without one but when he comes to know about everything he would try to keep himself away from me which I cannot bear anyhow and if I distance myself from the other one then he wouldn’t be able to bear the fact and instead do something which would trap me only more and more. Thus, I wrote a letter and asked mom to post it.

A week later when he received the letter all he could do was maybe hold it as tight to himself and cry just the way I had done. I wasn’t there anymore. Neither for him, nor for anyone else. He read out the letter again and again. It had just a few lines in it which said- “I wanted to be yours and you did let me be yours. Then I happened to come across someone else who tried to make myself his but I didn’t let him do it. I did not let him come close and get me because he never was an alternative for you here. He was just an entity, an entity that helped me pass my time when I couldn’t get you. I am still yours wherever I am. My spirit still breathes for you and so it forever will. Stay happy always and even though our bodies have parted, I don’t think our love ever will.’

Can he see the same moon as me?

22^nd December 2006

We married in December. And I know how it feels to be married. I work all day long in an MNC despite my heart and soul not being in it, for nothing much but the money. I am the Branch Head of this company and it gives me not a lot of pleasure including a few holidays each year and a few other luxuries of life without which maybe my living cannot be possible anymore. Thus I work but it’s still the few yearly holidays that I anticipate.

Yes, ours is a love marriage like all you guys out there but then it would be wrong for you to take myself and him and our relationship to be similar to yours because it is not. He is my best friend and it’s not a new bond that we share. My love for him goes long back to when there wasn’t Facebook and when we used our parent’s phones to talk for hours. We never knew this would happen someday but then it did, not because we didn’t get anyone else to marry but because for us, the whole world did not contain another soul.

So this year like every time we did have another fantastic holiday plan. We don’t go to roam around new places or to bring mall full of things back home or to get photographs clicked in front of tall monuments or to see elephants running around. We go to places as lonely as the cloudy sky, as lonely as mid ocean, as lonely as the treetop nests. We go to spend time alone yet together, to love each other, to be only with each other. I know the feeling of what it is to be loved. Since the time he came into this small life of mine, I have always known how it is to be loved. Our love started when we were tiny kids and we used to make fun of each other day and night and pull each other’s legs tight but then we grew up. We don’t talk as much now because when we are away from each other all we do is to talk to the world around but when together all we do is stare, feel, love and feel loved. Life has been great all these years and I know it is going to remain the same at least till the time we are together. No, we don’t dream of a world without each other because such a world does not exist. It never did and so it never will.

I am sitting on the roof of my car. We do this every year. This time we came to the highest hills. Its evening now, and the sun will be setting sometime soon after which we will get inside the car like every year, have the rest of the coffee, turn on his favourite songs like every time and then forget the world around in each other’s embrace. Somehow the sun doesn’t seem to set today. The watch reads 5.12 but the sun doesn’t seem to be going off to sleep. I want the moon and the stars because its heaven to be kissed in darkness and silence. We have the silence but what about the darkness? Will it be coming any soon?

Ananya

The doctor reads out this page to me. I don’t know what the words mean because I did not listen to most of it. The day is coming to an end and the sun will be setting soon. Isn’t this somewhat similar to what she read out just now? I don’t know why she read that piece out to me though! My mom came to visit me today. I asked her where Arjun was. She told me that he is taking a world tour at the moment visiting the famous universities all over and giving guest lectures in there. I envy his job much. I am a white collared worker but at the moment I live in this place, I don’t really know for what reason though. 

‘Mom, please ask Arjun to visit me sometimes. Please tell him, that I miss him and I love him. Please tell him to come back to me soon and take me away from here. I don’t like it here. I feel lonely and they feed me rice every day. I hate rice so much. Ask Arjun to bring me chocolates. Please. Also tell him that these people here do not like me. They keep me tied up for ours and they push in needles everyday for no good reason and they sometimes give me tiny sparks here and there which hurt. I don’t realize why they do this. What is wrong with me mom? Why don’t you say anything to me? You are all the same. I don’t love any of you. I just love Arjun. Tell him to come back.’ After this my mom left with tears in her eyes. I guess I was very harsh today but what do I do? I miss Arjun really bad. He was all I had but now he isn’t bothered about his wife. The doctor came in again. She says her name is Roshni which means light. I read it in Hindi when I was small, I told her after which she smiled and looked at me as if with a lot of questions. ‘Why does mom cry every time she comes here’, I asked but she was quiet and then she stared to read out to me the rest of that story. ‘I am not interested in this story’, I said and asked her to leave me alone. 

I am lying down on my bed and some beautiful images cross by my eyes- an open sky, the wide hills, the sun on verge of setting down, a car, coffee mugs. All of a sudden I can hear a beautiful music. I jump up with joy. ‘Arjun, you came so soon? Mom told you that I was missing you so much eh?’ There were tears of happiness in my eyes. Arjun stayed quiet just the way he always does and embraced me. He made me lie down on the bed and he caressed my hair and kissed my face. I held him tight asking him never to leave me alone. He promised he would not. He promised he would take me away from here, from this place that makes me sicker each day. I closed my eyes slowly. It was a peaceful sleep I was getting after really long.

Mrs Sen, I am Roshni speaking. Ananya had to be injected yet again. Why don’t you just come and tell us what happened with her? Why is Ananya’s diary incomplete that way? Why doesn’t she want to listen to her written pages and where is Arjun? Why don’t you call him here? It’s been a year since she is here and since we are asking you the same question. Look, we can’t help your daughter if you don’t communicate with us.’

I woke up this morning only to find my mom talking to Roshni. Heaven knows why she cries yet again though! I am not interested because Arjun came back now. I don’t know where he is this morning. Guess, he has gone out to take his morning walk. He promised that he would take me away soon.

Roshni came in I am in the mood to sleep but she handed me these particular pages and this black diary she reads out to me every day from. What am I even to do with these now? The papers read out the following:

22^nd December 2007

Dear Mrs Sen

Every year I return back to your little resort with my husband and I am so much in love with this place and the hills and the sky around. It’s beautiful. We discovered this tiny place on one of our drives and since then we return back each year. We married on the same day a year back and every year we hope to return to your heaven together because we know of no world other than the one which has both of us in it.

Love

Ananya

22^nd December 2008

Dear Mrs Sen

Look, we returned back this year as well and this time we are expecting a baby. Yes, I am going to be a mother soon and when we come back next year we will have the little one with us.

Love

Ananya

22^nd December 2009

Dear Mrs Sen

Something happened while I was driving sometime back. I think we skid off a hill or something. I am all fine though. He scolded me a lot and we lost our baby. I know it’s my entire fault and that’s the reason he went away to his world tour around all the stupid universities. Thus, I returned all alone this time because we had promised each other that whatever the reason be, every year on the 22^nd we would spend our afternoon on the roof of the car watching the sunset. Hope he just comes here soon because he promised me he would.

Love

Ananya

22^nd December 2010

Dear Mrs Sen

I came back this year as well because he had promised to meet me here. I feel so lonely you won’t believe. I hope he does come fast and joins me on the roof of the car. I brought all his favourite music CDs with me as well.

Love

Ananya

There weren’t any more letters but I just wonder who this girl Ananya is and why has she been writing such weird letters to this someone called Mrs Sen but how am I to be bothered? I would ask Arjun if he knows someone who has been on world tours around universities other than him as well. If he would know of anyone then I would ask Roshni to tell Ananya so that she can stop writing letters once and for all. And why was mom here today morning as well? I don’t really understand why doesn’t she just takes me home. Wait, Arjun promised me he would but where is he now? 

A Few Years Back.....

This is the time, when I began writing or expressing emotions through this extraordinary tool called the pen. While spring cleaning I happened to come upon these three short poems that I had written some few years back. From then to now, my poems have grown somewhat bigger in length. However, I feel the emotions are still the same and so is the world around. Its just me, who seems to have grown up. 

Growing Up

Decades have passed since I was born with a life,

Worries of love and younger days,

Seem to have gone other ways.

A little mind born in me,

Wants to see this big wide world.

Which seem to overcast huge shadows all over, 

Here and there and everywhere

I long to escape.

To go back in time.

Fall

Up above in the sky, when the summer says a good bye,

We wait for a pleasant song, that can bring a new life along.

It happens in this city forever that,

Songs of rain drip in happiness to every window pane.

This time its gone haywire,

As the sky is overcast with clouds since ages.

A speck of light but more of darkness,

And the heart fears a flood.

The Opening

Sitting by the window side,

Looking on and on outside,

I could see only distress, hardship and aridity.

I could see nothing but famine and disaster.

The new window like a open book,

Opened my eyes to this world called SURVIVAL.

This is all I began with maybe and somewhere all the three poems seem to meet at the same point, talking  about the most essential entity called life, or survival.

 

The Sparrow In My Land Of Dreams

One day I slept, the pillow so soft, the pink blanket touched my chest,

I was small then, a girl of eight, with pink ribbons in my hair,

Dreamt of candy floss and balloons and lollipops,

Dreamt of that pink dress in the window of that thatched rooftop shop.

I woke up and my mom held me tightly saying,

‘Yes, my doll, will buy you that pink dress with those matching ballerinas soon,

And that brown teddy bear and stacks full of chocolates and mugs full of milkshake.’

I jumped in joy danced around the room, dressed and went to school.

The sparrow flew that day, little by little,

From the nest in that tree, rising its wings in the sky.

I slept again another night, a girl with those rimmed glasses,

The pink dress now just a white one, the blanket replaced by books.

Books, books, everywhere, so much to look into, so much to take in.

Those black diaries and those piles of notes,

Those checked papers with those ‘A’ grades everywhere,

Without which came tears and without which all the dreams seemed shattered.

I woke up when my mom held me close, a coffee mug in her hand,

And said, ‘Yes, my genius, you will top in class,

And daddy will buy you the new pen set in that window of the thatched rooftop shop.’

The sparrow had to fly more, beyond the clouds and beyond heaven,

Its wings stretched and the sky all open.

I slept again, yet tonight, without a pillow, without a blanket,

Without a pink or a white dress.

I turned around, time and again, yes, it was midnight.

A midnight so dark, a midnight without the crescent moon smiling down.

I sat up and stared, darkness all around.

Got up and walked from here to there and everywhere.

Even the most beautiful music did not soothe the ears.

They wanted only one sound, a music so wonderful, a music so dear.

I had a machine then, a tiny machine that beeped every second.

This night it did not beep, I don’t think it ever will.

From the time I had dreamt of candy floss, to the time I had topped in class,

To the time I sang nursery rhymes making everyone clap and smile,

To this time when a few hours back I had made someone cry,

I knew how to hurt others now, I think I have grown up,

To join that band of adults who roam around the streets,

Thinking about themselves to be the best,

Thinking the world to be a new quest.

Yes, he is crying tonight and I guess I too am.

My tears don’t matter, they never did,

Neither when my balloon burst nor when I came second.

It was all my fault maybe, I realize it now.

Only if I would have agreed to say a sorry just some hours back,

Only if I could ask him to come back.

I cannot not sleep tonight, I don’t think I ever will.

Oh, dawn come soon and take away this invisible moon.

I might not get up tomorrow morning, I might not see the light,

I might not be able to say a sorry,

I might not be have arms hug me.

Neither was I a doll now, nor a genius,

Just a girl in love, a girl who had hurt her lover.

The sparrow had wished to fly high,

Yes, it had wished to be a falcon,

With its wings spread high in the open blue sky.

To wear that crown of oak leaves and show the world it did succeed

But that sparrow came back weak and feeble,

Fell down the tree and could not rise again,

No mother to feed, no lover to love

That sparrow now, in my land of dreams,

Can do none but only scream.