RECOLLECTIONS OF AN IDLE MIND You remember waking up in the middle of the summer night; your skinny limbs stuck to the threadbare sheets of the makeshift bed, beads of perspiration forming on your forehead. The room was plunged in darkness. You closed your eyes and laid there for a while, on the sheet that your mother had stitched from her old sarees. Your father’s raspy breaths erratically pierced the silence. The whine of the neighborhood dogs wafted in through the paper-thin walls of the room. You sat up, sleep eluding you. You fumbled and felt your way to the lone window on the north-west wall, overlooking the street. You remember hitting your feet against the leg of the only chair that your family possessed and swallowing a wail of pain (you will swallow more whimpers and wails). Moonlight flooded in as you opened the window, illuminating the barely-furnished room. The interplay of light and darkness created abstract designs on the barren walls. You watched, enthralled, as the gleaming leaves of the Banyan tree swayed with the summer breeze. You stayed up all night. The next time (that you remember) you woke up in the middle of the night was in autumn. The insides of your skinny legs were clammy with sweat. An excruciating discomfort had settled in the pit of your stomach. You fought to suppress a wave of nausea. The room was too hot. You lifted the flimsy saree that covered your legs; your mother had taken it out from her large, iron trunk when you complained about the nip in the air. You remember the fear clouding your brain as you realized that the sheets below you were stained red, with blood. You remember shouting for your father, first (You always loved him a little more.) You cried to your mother about the dirty cloth between your legs that restricted your freedom because you really wanted to go out and play with all your friends. Your mother cried with you that day. A month later, you were serving tea to a middle-aged man who let his hand accidentally touch your behind when you bent. He and his family had come to your humble home to discuss something of grave importance (you always loved your father a little less after that). The green leaves of your Banyan tree were carelessly sprinkled with red. You remember feeling melancholy the day your son (your ray of light in a dismal world) brought home his wife. After completing your chores, you would sit down to prepare dinner; you always kept an extra portion for your son. With the roti baking on your modest mud oven (the only thing in your home that you could call your own), you would peer out of the window at the busy street outside, counting the hours till your son’s return. You loved the wide, toothy smile that lit up his dark, but handsome features when he saw you. You poured water as he washed his hand under the steady stream. You served him food on cheap, plastic plates that looked just like chinaware. You sat next to him as he had the humble food; he always ate like he was dinning in the finest restaurant and you listened to him recount the details of his day at work, engrossed, living vicariously (you seldom had the opportunity to leave the confines of those walls). The next day, with his tall, lanky frame, he would stoop down to touch your feet before he left for work. You would mumble a short prayer for his safety, to anybody who is willing to hear. You cherished how his world seemed to revolve around you; yours revolved around him too. The day he brought the ruddy-cheeked bright-eyed girl, draped in the finest red saree that you could offer as a wedding gift, you knew the center of his universe had shifted; your precious gold necklace adorned the thin curve of her neck. You hadnt seen your Banyan tree for years.
Posted on: Wed, 14 May 2014 18:56:01 +0000
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