And tear streams down spontaneously .......

It was nearly ten years ago, when I was a college student. I made friends with a girl almost my age. She was suave and svelte, yet simple. We would sit together in class and spend time together gossiping during leisure time and exchanging notes.  I cottoned to her. In fact, I had no iota of when it all began. It dawned on me only after she had gone home after the final exam.

My love, Sulochana – Sulu in short – one day said to me over phone; “My parents are marrying me off to a boy of their choice.” And, she stopped talking. The news jolted me and blanked me out for a moment. And shattered my dreams of continuing life with her and living together. Initially, it was difficult, though. I somehow controlled myself. I sort of negotiated with time.

Time ran – rather elapsed – into oblivion. It was only five years ago. I heard from some one I knew that the bottom had fallen out of her world. Her husband died in a road accident leaving her midway through the journey they had sworn to travel together. Starry-eyed they were, they had woven a dread. A dream of having their own home and children.

I came across her in the local market on one Sunday afternoon. On seeing me, she tried to snub me. But, I paced fast to her and held her hand. A word or two in her ear, I gave her a light pat on her hand and motioned her to a restaurant nearby. Face deserted. White skin had turned pale. Eyes had lost twinkle of college days. Hair plaited into a knot behind. She looked like groping for words. Her teeth rattled, lips wavered. Motionless. She sat on a bench beside me. She spoke nothing. As if words had run out of stock. On my persistence; however, she reluctantly narrated her story; a story of trials and tribulations.

Tear wells up in my eyes. “Would you mind if I propose to you?”, said I. “Well, I would rather you didn’t,: she said in reply in a husked voice wiping out tears at the same time. Thirty minutes spiraled out in eerie silence so soon, that we couldn’t ask much about each other. As it was getting darker outside, she readied herself and walked out promising that she would meet up in Kathmandu. We parted with heavy heart.

I felt like being flattened by the sky, when I heard one fine morning that Sulu was no more in this mortal land. My head reeled. The more I vividly called her image to my mind, the more I wept. Where was the promise that we had made together to meet up in Kathmandu? It was like the smoke that spirals out and disappears into air high up in the sky. The news came like a thunderbolt over me. I had sort of incarcerated myself for days.

Months passed and years, too. As the solitude evoked nostalgia, I somehow began to divert my attention and focus on studies. She died a second death. First, when her husband died. In her death, she could get what she had not while alive: salvation. This patriarchal society had perpetrated atrocities on her.

The minute her picture appears in my mind, I try to speak to her. And, immediately then I realize that this is only an illusion. And, I begin to pray to God for her eternal peace and weep in her memory. And tear streams down spontaneously …………