Being Sadness totally sucked.
But as is the case with everything else, I gradually got used to it. The bride, who everyone called Chunni, alternated her days between the extremes of laughter and crying. During the daytime, she seemed positively delirious, especially after she took a light-brown potion and ran around the room with other brides, pulling their hair, or painting each other’s face with bright shades of colours. And when night came, she transformed completely into the sad creature that I had first seen, as new grooms came and went, sometimes bursting into tears.
However, among the numerous grooms, there was this one guy I had come to like. He was the one who called her Radhika, not Chunni. His clothes were usually torn when he entered, but they rarely engaged in the bride-groom routine. Instead, they talked on and on, way after night had passed. He was the only groom with whom I saw her smile, and sometimes even laugh a little. I enjoyed that a lot. For the next 5-6 years maybe (I keep losing track of time), life continued in this vein. And all through this time, I had also come to like her presence. So whenever I saw the moroseness in her eyes I blamed myself for it. She didn’t deserve me. Seriously, being Sadness totally sucked.
I remember it was an unusually quiet night when the monotony of my observations was disturbed. The groom who called her Radhika, burst into our room gasping for breath and had an agitated discussion where I could only catch a few snatches like “Tonight’s our only chance! Raghu is out of town. There’s hardly any security tonight.” “But they’ll kill you!” “I don’t care. Seeing you here everyday is anyways worse than death.” They hurriedly packed up and left, with me lying forgotten in her tattered purse, thinking “Finally! Without me she won’t have Sadness!” But in no more than 2 minutes, she rushed back into the room, grasped me and ran. “Why did you have to go back?”, asked the groom, walking briskly. “Arre baba! I couldn’t leave our ticket to freedom behind now, could I?”, she replied putting me in his hand. And then they ran and ran and ran.
The Last I saw of Chunni
“2 tickets for first train to Bishnupur. Sleeper”, said the groom handing me to an unknown giant, before disappearing into the crowd with his giggling bride. The new giant kept me in a wooden drawer where I spent the next few days, before being shifted to a place with an uncanny resemblance to where I first gained consciousness – A building I came to know as a bank.
I was pleased to see many of my second and third cousins there. Some looked as good as I remembered them, while others had gaping holes in their body. As for me, I had creased a lot more than when I started and had a few stains here and there, but was still much better than many of my cousins. The next year or so continued there, as we kept talking about each other’s experiences so far. What I found curious was that even though each of us looked identical, we all had a different idea of what we were. Some said they were Happiness, some claimed to be Power, some believed themselves to be Gratitude, while others thought they were Evil. For my part, I was convinced I was a glorious Ticket to Freedom.
Life at the bank can get really boring. Within a couple of months, my twins had started repeating their stories, and some had exaggerated theirs beyond recognition from the original versions. So I was pleased when I felt the sensation of being lifted again. A Ticket to Freedom deserved to be out there freeing people, not sitting in a bank listening to wild exaggerations. I hoped it was Manchanda Ji again. I longed to see the first bride and groom I had known. This time, however, it was a much quieter and more impressive looking giant who carried me. He put me in a large case with many other cousins.
I spent a couple of days with him in the case, before I again saw light. The case was opened in a large room, with 2 additional giants, one sitting and one standing, peering over us. The giant who was standing took all of us out, and started counting 1,2,3,…. It went on and on to 10,000 and then 20,000 and then 50,000. And I thought “Wow! There’s 50,000 Tickets to Freedom right here! I wonder how many brides will be freed today.”
“That’s OK. The money is all here. The water will be diverted to your plant in the next 6 months”, said the sitting giant, dressed all in white, to the case owner. He smiled and left us there. The bulky, sitting giant told the standing one to take the case while he took a couple of bundles in his pocket. I happened to be in one of those bundles. The next few days were spent understanding the routine of my new giant, who people called Subhash Babu. His routine was similar to bride I had spent my earlier time with, but his mood was the exact opposite.
While he used to cry in the morning after having his light-brown potion, he guffawed loudly at nights as a number of brides visited him to play the bride-groom game. In its ugliness, it was no different than Chunni’s nightly ritual. 6-7 months went by like this, when one day something dramatic happened. As Subhash Babu was taking his usual early morning walk surrounded by other fat giants, from nowhere a very thin, frail creature, barely covered in a dirty rag, with grey matted hair appeared before us. But more than the frame of the creature, the most striking feature were its eyes, red with boiling rage. Without so much as a warning, it landed a resonating slap on the Subhash Babu’s fat cheek, who fell to the ground in shock.
“YOU MONSTROUS BASTARD!”, it shrieked in a voice cracking with uncontrolled fury. “Your greed has wiped out our entire village! Now all that’s left there are rotting dead bodies and vultures! AND FOR WHAT?! THIS!” it screamed as it snatched me out of his pocket. The whole procession was stunned into inaction as she spat on me and threw me back at his face. It took a moment before the entire procession returned to its senses, grabbed the creature’s frail body and started raining blows and kicks on it. A couple of others put me back in the Subhash Babu’s pocket and escorted him away from it.
As we were leaving, the last words I heard from the creature were “Death! That is what all your greed and all your money has meant to us! And Death is what you will get one day, you bastard! One that will be a thousand times more miserable than the ones you resigned us to…”
Well, time proved the creature right. I must admit that Subhash Babu did meet the most miserable death any being could possibly get. But right at that moment, my biggest concern was this new identity that the creature had bestowed on me.
Death!
(To be continued)
No comments:
Post a Comment