THE LOTUS LEAVES

The multitude of the hues and aromas, all typical of the usual hustle-n-bustle of an Indian village fair were filling the little girl’s mind with awe and delight at the same time. Her innocent blue eyes reflected the shades of the places she had travelled though without her having imprints of the same on her naïve mind. The eight springs she had breathed as a part of the nomadic tribe his parents belonged to, had for her passed no different from the lotus leaves that floated on the surface of the village pond where she was first seen on her own.  It was astounding for the village folk to see a seven year old girl who had been somehow separated from her family, calmly throwing stones in the pond to check how deep it was. ‘Attachment is lethal’, her grandfather would often say, the only memories of his that were left with her. Though she never understood what it meant, it was all she had learnt to spell without stammering and to pen on the wooden pieces with the dark graphite chalks that marked her education. The words engraved on her mind seemed to lose their soul today as she was absorbing every bit of the gaiety that marked the village festival, holding the little finger of his big brother, as he asserted fondly he was.

‘Hey Raghu!’, a feeble voice approached them from behind.

‘Good morning Masterji’, he bowed and exhibited a smile that one could easily tell was a framed one.

Coincidently, the old man had been the centre of all mishaps in his life. Once in his younger years, he had played the school headmaster who threw him out of the class for not having deposited the dues in time. His father suffered a heart attack subsequently. Though little is known about the reason for his death, Raghu could never wash away the grudge for him from his mind.

‘Who is this little girl, chap?’

‘She is my sister, Jijeevisha*’, Raghu looked straight into the eyes of the old man and then into the little girl’s, looking for an assurance that came spontaneously with a smile that for a while now had been the reason for his Jijeevisha .      

‘But, didn’t she get lost in a village fair a year ago?’, he enquired unenthusiastically, as if a veteran actor merely speaking out dialogues with an all-knowing attitude.

‘Yes, but I got her back, by God’s grace’, Raghu said, stealing eyes from the bespectacled fragile face.

‘And you need not worry about us.. .’, he continued, ‘I’ll never forget how indifferent you were to my pain when I lost her, and that if only you had helped me that evening, maybe…’, tears came rolling down his eyes.  The two young hearts hurriedly left the spot and the figure of a guilty abandoned old man slowly faded away in the crowd that was.    

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The last week had been remarkably tough for Raghu. Staying away from Jijeevisha had been exceptionally tormenting for him, and that too when he she was staying at Masterji’s house at his insistence while he was on a journey to a faraway land. There was something in Masterji’s eyes that beheld Raghu’s concern when he said he wanted to teach her and thus affirmation soon followed from Raghu’s side. In however short time he spent at school, he had never dared to talk offensively to any of his teachers, let alone the headmaster.

It was all calm and sober until one night before Raksha Bandhan, when he got a telegram stating Jijeevisha was being taken away from the village. Blood spattered in his eyes. In life, deception was one thing he had been accustomed to, but this time the very notion of faith, the one which is inherent in human instinct was shaken. He bought a gift for Jijeevisha and a dagger to end forever this sequence of deceptions his life had gifted him with, wrapped them in two packets and left for the village he decided he no longer wanted to live in.

The sea appeared tranquil at the surface, albeit confining humbly in its depth the vociferation brimming out of the young heart trying to sail through it, sculling faster than he had at the last rowing festival in the village, only to finish third among peers. But today it wasn’t some race that had made the skinny oarsman in his late teens to force his sinew beyond worldly imagination, neither was it some local weather forecast or the terror of the fierce impending waves that constrained him to reach the shore before dusk would creep in to add tinges of obscurity to both the unruffled surface and the intense commotion within. The two packets in his hand were almost wet now, partly by his sweat and partly by the water splashing from the sides on the dilapidated vessel, conceivably on its ultimate voyage.

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A huge crowd had gathered outside Masterji’s house, a house that had witnessed years of loneliness and anonymity. Raghu entered the house with red eyes, and with anger that knew no reason and that had got better of his senses. Of the two packets he had prepared, he chose the dagger one to be unveiled first. But to his shock, the old man was already lying dead on his bed with blood spurting out from his head, and thence came alive the human face behind the ruthless mask he had used to avenge all wrong that had been done to him since childhood. The village folk summoned their tongues as they rarely did, and then slowly the glimpses of the events that had taken place in the village in the short period started seeping in though the torn curtain of Raghu’s wounded mind. The Panchayat had summoned Raghu for having a girl child in his illicit custody, and Masterji was the only person in the village to stand up for him. The police from the nearby city took charge and Jijeevisha was taken away, sent to some far-off orphanage for a better life. Masterji retorted and it took the cops not more than two hits on his head to bring him down.

Shattered, as he was, Raghu now got blind with tears and repentance made a chill run down his spine. Lying beside Masterji was a diary he always carried with himself. Had it been any other day, Raghu would have been least interested in its contents, but today was a different day. The man he had hated his entire life had in a way had dedicated his farewell to him. The last page of his diary, possibly penned down a night before his death, read-

“Don’t try n kill the sinner my friend, He is already half-dead,           Don’t even think of washing off his deeds, Let him wear the hues of red......Don’t exhume the deadly secret, that for long has been kept, Don’t peep in his rotten soul, inside, there ain't much left..... Don’t come near the abandoned abode, or the demons of darkness shall take their toll, and You’ll have to pay the price, the price to save a sinner’s soul!”

‘This is something she left for you’, one of the ladies handed him a silken thread and a slate with a few lines worth of the last week’s lessons shining on it in the white chalk that reminded him of his primary school-

“Attachment is vital. Love is beautiful. But the journey, like a lotus leaf must carry in itself, an element of detachment. That’s how it’s meant to be.” The second packet fell from his hand and its soiled contents faded away from Raghu’s sight as all other things in the room did.        

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Raghu had lost Jijeevisha and the human trait that her name stood for. It had been a few days now since he landed in the village and rarely had he even opened his eyes to see the devastated world around him, let alone eat or drink for life. He gave his dimlit room a glance, just a glance and then closed his eyes. A sudden commotion woke him up from the short nap he was falling deep into. He looked at the little bird in the cage, his only friend for years now. For the first time, he realised his love wasn't enough for the poor creature. It had got wings, unlike him. It had got dreams, dreams that he couldn't fulfil, dreams that had no roots, but only sky as the limit. For the first time, he peeped deep into its eyes. All the depth he had been expressing in his naive poetry seemed meaningless now. The cage was calm; the bird appeared as if in meditation, or a bird of passage having the last nap in the country. His hands were shivering now. A sudden flutter and the commotion in his mind ended. He closed his eyes again, though in peace now. Peace, was it? He again fell into the arms of sleep; engulfing him, nourishing him bit by bit. All he could see was lotus leaves floating in a pond, a pond that immersed in it all that he had given his life to. He was back to where he had started, all alone with an endless odyssey to follow.

*Jijeevisha (जिजीविषा ) is a hindi word that stands for liveliness.