We were walking hands in hands, that day. In the noise of the place around, I was swaying with her singing my song of love. She stood on some stalls peddling things that had her interest, while some simply took off her attention from me. She took off her hand every time she took something else in them to inspect, making me jealous, but that sparkle in her eye just made it worthwhile. She stood across a heena art peddler and looked at me, if she could get it done. I did not want her to leave my hand again but I did want her to get that done. And, she smiled at me. Suddenly putting her arms around my neck, “I love you” she said.
We were watching the falling lights from the tress. There were some stairs not for couples to sit but we just wanted to stare at that artificial pole of falling stars, blue in color, shining rather dancing. She was leaning on my shoulders and some of her flicks irked me, though her hair had a fragrance that I could smell even in my deepest slumber. Across the tree stood a fancy restaurant. There was something mysterious about it, she asked me if its good inside. The outside had mesmerizing neon lamps. And the shades of red and orange inside made her smile, I wanted to take her in there, somewhere fancy somewhere, where I could make her feel special, make her feel wanted just the way she did when she kissed me. I wanted to buy her something, anything she named. And all she said was she dint have so much class. I objected every time.
“Why do say like this?” I asked.
“Because it’s true, and someday you would admit. I am not like them you see and envy” she smiled
“But I love you for who you are” I revolted.
“You do?” she questioned
“Yes, as the priest questions do you take her as your lawfully wedded wife? And the groom says yes I do, just the way I do”.
“Love is pain,” she said “and someday you would just fill my life with all the pain in this world”
“I would never have such a day in your life, you think I cannot make you happy”
“I am happy and I know I don’t belong to you” she smiled “and one day you won’t hesitate to shrug me off like a burden”
“You are mine and you belong to me and it’s just you I want and nothing is going to happen to you ever if they are my heart you are my soul, if they are my eyes you are my sight”. In addition, I held her, I held her close, and I wanted to kiss her in the yellow streetlight with the stars witnessing my love. However, she dint allow me to, she dint refuse but she had a question in her eye, a question to which I had no answer. The mild winter wind. Her warm embrace. The wanting heart of mine did not want to let her go away, even for a minute, and that look in her eyes just left me wanting her more and more.
She always said she loves me from her soul, I never understood what it meant but I never felt a kiss the way I felt it from her, it left an impact somewhere, somewhere from where I could never take it out however hard I try, and now I think I have eventually stopped trying. How do you get rid of something that embedded deep in your soul, I sometimes understand her and sometimes I do not. What kind of a person has no expectation, no hope, no repentance and no desire?
Lying in her arms and watching her sleep was the most amazing thing, it was peace, I sometimes wondered why cannot I be like her, why cannot I have the basic she, the basic goodness that selfless self. Lying in her arms made me forget everything, the pain, the agony, the frustration. Clinging on my chest creasing through my hair one afternoon, she suddenly said “what if I have a baby someday and I don’t know who’s is it what would you do”.
“What kind of a question is that?” I asked.
“Don’t think about how, but what if someday you get to know that I am going to have a baby and I don’t know the father what would you do?”
“It will be mine and no one else’s, and I shall see what is to be done to such nasty thought process of yours” I held her closer and made her give up on such thoughts of having someone else’s baby. But interestingly that was the first time she said she wants you. She wants a baby.
“And if you had a baby would you want it to be a boy?” I asked.
“A girl would please me. Though she would be irritated monthly wishing she was boy and question me why m I a girl” She hugged me closely, “and I am sure she would find someone who would is like you making these days easier for me.”
“I would want her to be independent, living for herself.”
“I don’t want her to be burdened with any kind of performance; I want to love her with open arms if she is a mediocre or a child below average”
“What kind of a parent wants a dumb child” I found it bad and insulting for my baby.
“Who wants a dumb child is not what I want to debate on, but I want my baby to have the freedom to be dumb, there must be something she would want to do”
“I just want her to never be obliged to be born “
“To be born as a girl or as my child”
“I don’t want to compare her; I don’t want to hurt her”
“I just want to look after her and give her everything I have and I can to give her”
She spoke non-stop. Suddenly trembling, shaking, and I had no clue what to do. She clenched my arm hard and kept on crying, her tears lashing me all over, her face hiding inside me and her hair scattered on my face covering me too.
It was one of the best moments in her life to imagine your arm superimposing on hers every time she tried feeling you. She often got up in the middle of the night woke me up just ask they say an expecting mother likes to eat different thing at different interval, am I going to get her all or not? She browsed all over for different clothes she could wear during pregnancy and eventually gave up stating just one baby she wants and she is not going to wear it again ever.
“Everything would changes when you know you going to have a life with in you”. Her face was glowing every moment she spoke about you. She always wanted to have one, but what she feared was she might her raise it the same way as she was raised and bury it under the baggage of being someone who is just supposed to live for someone else’s gratification.
She was suddenly different, she always loved but her love was transforming, at times, I wondered would I lose my place to you. Often she looked at young kids and wondered when she would have one of her own. When would she buy all those trendy dresses and suddenly all she cared was having a baby, yet not wanting to have one crossed her mind. Life went on. Days kept passing by.
I was returning after an assignment, it had been long I had seen and felt her for real. I could see her, right there, the air was like a harbinger carrying her fragrance. She wore the saree I loved the most. She waved at me and a balloon and she pointed towards the note on it. “Your and Me as one”. It took me by surprise and I was staggered, I dint understand it at first, I kept looking at her. Her face was radiating, and just when I got what it meant, I wondered how could she hide it from me. I threw my hand at her and she was rushing to me like the crazy girl I first met and I could not help smiling and just when I smiled from my soul destiny took my smile away forever.
They say I lost my senses confronting my fear of losing that one thing very precious to me.
All I recall is her arm with broken bangle and a pool of blood hiding everything else, the balloon flew away in the air and I just stood there trying to forget what I saw.
No body entered our house since then and its just the way she left it with half woven socks, and bundles of wool. With ribbons of blue and pink, with pictures of her and me all over the house. She never had our pictures, she never kept them she said she might never look at them the memories are there in her heart but she smiled to every picture I ever took. The house was shouting with your arrival and I did not get a chance to know you and love you, to tell you how much I would have loved you. I never would get to tell your mother how much blessed she made me feel and snatched it away the next moment. What am I supposed to do now?
I wanted to talk to you inside her.
I wanted to talk to you outside her.
I wanted to team with you to irk her.
I wanted to teach you how to ride a bicycle, how to skate.
She would have taught you how to be you I just wanted to teach you how to become you.
I would have taught you all tricks to fool around, I would have helped you get a date and I would have been there for your heartbreaks.
I would have loved her more for sending you to me but I just feel I killed you. And I killed her.
She never ran to me in public, she never came to close in public and still I never hesitated to throw my arms at her, to wink and to tell her everything I ever wanted to do and she smiled.
I wonder if you both there with me, I do not know if I feel you.
Its a strange feeling sometimes, to mourn over something you never knew was your and when you were made to believe it was it is snatched like it really never was.
I visit everywhere to catch her back, to see us back the way we were. To see her in yellow light to see her smiling, I went to that fancy restaurant and saw us looking at it outside. I went to the bangle store where she never took any bangles. I went to every one of those places to find her just the way I left her and when I finally reach where I lost her I find both of you again.
Manowara Chowdhury
03/05/2015
Colorless Butterfly 