the rain ,the forest and she

The rain, the forest and she………

“No love is not this”
“No love is not that either”
“Please stop. Anything that you will say at present about love will amount to have been said in a hurry. Have you seen love?” I said looking squarely into the eyes of my friends in the din of the coffee house table. Though, on my having said this, all my friends sitting there made a mistake in taking me to be the ghost of O’Henri’s famous story, “Ghost”. And, for that reason on of them smiled and said, “I wonder whether you will disappear having asked us “if we had seen love.”
‘Yes, I will, if you are not going to offer me a smoke.
My mind was alive with the vision of the train and its echoing whistles. I wondered if O’ Henry’s character, the ghost, was still present-in some vacant railway compartment that was resounding its own silence or amid the uproar of railway engine whistles-but the puff of an ordinary cigarette, the rings of smoke, the remembrance come alive, and the touch of cool, soothing, romantic wind incarnating some beauty face to face in the psychic world, was enough to transport me into a new land.
No. At that time it was not easy for me to think. I could not even think that love happens but once. And, on the second occasion? Does a satisfied person have just a desire for sex rather than love? Well, let us grant it. Now, let us suppose there is a man who has loved, gets married, and after the marriage if happens to find a different face reflected in the stream of fire?-a different body, a different countenance! No, we need not scrutinize the caves of history from napoleon to Nehru; the love remains love only even after it has substituted. A hundred faces of its own supposing you get soaked with it to the same extent, get submerged into it to the same depths, and feel the same every time……….
Instantly an innocent looking face flashed up before the eyes.
‘Are you going to propose noodles for me to eat?
‘No’.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t eat noodles.’
‘Don’t eat. But you can offer me to eat. Ha….. ha….. ha………’
As she laughed, there were flowers spread out all around. But I did not like the laughter in the least. When she ceased laughing, she touched my hand gently, as if she were counting the fingers. Some flame flared up, but passing through the stream of her very young age, cooled down.
‘Why? What happened?’
‘No. Nothing at all.’
‘Then, why did you withdraw your hand?’
‘Just so,’ I mumbled. I was frightened of her piercing eyes.
‘No just so’ you were frightened. Ha……..ha……..ha……..’
A strange mischief was born in her eyes. Clapping unrestrainedly she put forth a second burst of laughter, ‘Frightened,……..frightened!’
‘Yes. I got frightened, but why do you do all such things?’
‘First, you tell me, why you get frightened?’
Whenever she found I was passing through an ordeal, she would laugh out, ‘In a breathe I am transformed into a ball of fire, isn’t it? A girl who had played in your lap, and now just a touch from her makes you pass through the sensations of thrill and the complex of guilt too. Listen to me. Now I can’t be contained within your lap. Just try to lift me up to take in your lap.’
Shanta had no hard feelings towards her for she was born after we had already been married. Her father, who was our neighbour, was a painter, a meritorious artist.
Normally when such artists in small cities, despite all their worthiness, fail to attain remarkable heights, get frustrated. The same was true about Dillon. Papers and magazines, heaps of books and he, sitting there scratching his over grown beard, would get transformed into a philosopher, ‘In this consumer-culture society, on some day or the other, the predicament of art was sure to follow. When money gains in importance, art must lose its recognition. What a station is going to be attained by the people like us who have nothing but devotion and commitment……………………….’
Whenever I cited the examples of great artists like M.F. Hussain who rolled in money, he would suddenly feel downcast,
‘All the supremacy of money. An artist has to forgo the inclinations of his soul too. How many of them become a Hussain? The paintings of how many of the artists reach art galleries? How many of the visitors to the art galleries are connoisseurs? It is only the big names that sell. The big names are put to auction. People buy them as they will buy a pair of panties, a condom or an underwear.’ A few visitors buy them and carry them home as a conscientious effort on their part to give an intellectual touch to their drawing rooms where it is not the subtlety of the art but the price that is highlighted. An artist is descended to the status of a commodity only, today. I have heard lately, someone bought Hussain for Rs.31crore for a year,’ Dhillon was resentful. ‘The power of money has wasted away the power of resistence…….and one day…..in this new system, all the things of art will dwindle away to the status of useless things.’
When Dhillon was gone, Sakshi came in. Shanta had been out. A strange look made itself manifested on her face as soon as she saw me.
‘How is it that your father is always angry?’ I asked.
‘He keeps fighting against all the world.’
‘But why?’
‘He likes….,’ she checked herself in her speech. Her eyes looked unfathomable.’
She blushed deeply and lowered her eyes.
‘Your father is angry with all the world, and you………?’
Shakshi laughed out softly, ‘I know only love. The very word itself makes me crazy. I wish to take a flight …to touch the sky, to become a butterfly….and….the rain, a waterfall,’ she was looking into my eyes, ‘and you?’
‘I don’t know……..’
‘You know all but suffer from fright. I’m unable to understand why you feel frightened. I’m of the age of your daughter…..right?.....but not your daughter exactly,’ she was laughing. ‘I don’t know why it did happen to me. But, perhaps, I had become fond of you since my childhood. And then suddenly when I found you in the mirror while I was looking at my own reflection, I was amazed. You, in your entirety, were present in the mirror, looking at me, with your enigmatic eyes. Some hair on your temples looked grey……..had an impulse at heart to pick up father’s painting brush and colors them black. Then looked at you once again and felt the grey becomes you as it goes with you in your full manliness, your full maturity….’
The room was hushed. The wind froze. Time ceased to roll on. A quieter of excitements ran through me. Shakshi took a step forward. The disposition of bashfulness was won over now. A steadfast young woman who was a lover and who would exert herself to safeguard her right to love was born at her heart. The one who could snatch away this right for herself from a wife too, for she had answers to satisfy all the scruples. Softly she touched my hand with hers; and the very touch caused a thrill run through me….as some dull opiate would…She kissed my hand…..
The myriad stars of the heavens twinkled within her eyes.
‘Admit the truth or don’t………, you also are in love with me. Tell me whether you are, or aren’t. Her lips came upon mine quietly. A turbulence made itself felt. The freshness of the feel in the touch could not be equaled by that of a red red rose newly sprung, nor could the rose have that warmth….that heat.
But the very touch reminded me of shanta, and a sense of guilt overpowered me. As I separated myself in a flash, Shanta stood there like a question embodied. With resentment and dismay in her eyes she asked me.
‘Why do you keep me deprived of my right? She was angry. ‘Why did you separate yourself when you also wanted the same thing? Try to be truthful. You are truthful where others are concerned, why false when it is you, the concerned. Tell me if you did not like my coming over here, or my kissing you like this. But you suffer from fright. Why don’t you do away with this sense of fright in you? One aspect of the truth, isn’t it what you would say? But, suppose she had any, what would you do? Or, what should you have done?’
Shakshi’s eyes had descended into mine. She added, ‘Will I have to tell you that all the truths are not cast in a single mould. The have their separate recognizable identities. Should I tell you that love is born of a very natural phenomenon? Love is not a deliberate creation. Should I desist from loving you for the reason that you are my father’s friend? But there are no such prohibitions imposed by the religious books. Then ? Why should I not love you?
The pendulum clock on the wall seemed to have got awakened to motion. For a moment it felt as if the room was shaken by an unseen earthquake. A deep hush overspread itself at heart, and the numerous branches of the silence became alive on their own under the influence of the earthquake.

The confession of Aaditya Kapoor

I, that is, Aaditya Kapoor. I don’t know what you would do had a story like that begun in your own life. What like it feels, silently watching the growth of a guilty conscience developing within a person, can be understood by you by seeing me. My son Alok reads in Dehradun. Eleven-year old. Shakshi is older than him by seven years only. When they are together they seem to be a brother and a sister. They quarrel also as a brother and sister will. Now, it happened just on that day only. Looking for Alok she came into my room- riding of the chariot of air, as she always does. The feel that Alok is there in the house enhances my feeling of fear. Shakshi took hold of my hands quietly.
‘ Tell me that you don’t love me.’
‘I don’t.’
‘On oath of Alok?’
‘On oath of Alok, I mumbled, and instantly felt startled. In case there were some pleasant gusts of wind for Shakshi, then……? Why did I take an oath on Alok? O my God: What has possessed me?
Next morning, quarrelling with Alok, she looked at me and smiled.
‘Be emancipated from your oath. I’ve come back having made a propitiatory offering worth rupes one hundred in the name of Alok.’ As she laughed gleefully, her white teeth sparkled like pearls on a fine string.
‘What offering?’ Shanta had come out.
‘I’ve been to temple. Just praying for Alok’s long life, made an offering there.
Shakshi found me alone, once again.
‘ keep from speaking on oath. It is a sin. And money is required to make offerings. Will you give me- your second wife, your little wife-money for offerings again and again?’ Shakshi ran away, laughing.
Her peel of laughter still pursued me…….her concluding words in particular…. ‘He is a son of mine too…..How does it matter if he was not born of me……?’ So many glaciers within me were breaking and moving down the valley.
No, It was, perhaps, not easy at that time to think if one falls in love but for once. And on the second occasion? Does there still remain an indefinable longing even after one is divided, and shared by the wife and the family?-A suppressed desire that sparkles off the smoldering wood? No. Nothing was easy to think of at that time. Shakshi was always a small child to Shanta’s mind, the one who in her childhood woo let come from to her and nestle herself in Shanta’s lap. A vast world of recollection still persisted. There was a little cat, Kitty. During the winter it would come and quietly slip under the quilt. Shakshi would also come to listen to my stories. Once, while listening to me, not the little. Kitty but Shakshi slipped into my bed, I was much startled-for the first time. Her hands were warm. The look on her face was different. Shakshi was thirteen years old at the time. She bent a little and then transferred the weight of her beyond the window was a mass of vegetation-forest like……..shanta got in with atea in her hands, seeing shakshi drowsing said, ‘If we had the daughter…..’, had set fire at my heart. Kitty, sitting somewhere in a corner mewed. He looked at Kitty. A shade of anger could be discerned in its eyes for shakshi. I shivered. Very quietly shakshi’s hand slipped up to my chest and, perhaps, I was under some psychological pressure in this strange situation. Opened the window. A dense forest flourished in the dark. There were two or three little bungalows on one side of the forest, and a mosque also at some distance. At the present moment the solitude of the forest seemed to have enveloped me.
Was it a repetition of some Lolita within me? Some time in the night, while holding shanta in my arms, I found it was shakshi’s face that had come to freeze on the screen of my vision, for a long time too just one face gained intransience among the proceeding caravans of the stars. At the time of sexual intercourse with Shanta, the face of little Lolita would flash up and Shanta would vanish. In the dark the vision of Shakshi would become alive…her mischievous fingers….her maiden form shaping itself in a mould. And, at the moment thousands of ants would get access into me. Suddenly when my hot body turned icy cold, Shanta would turn and ask, ‘what happened?’ My growing age and indifference to sex would help her reach an answer to her question, but Shakshi would be there within my minds frame, looking at me in the dark of might with her enormous eyes, rippling writhing becoming a full fledged question, even after he was separated from Shanta.
Time rolled on. So many incidents connected with Shakshi attached themselves to his life. Sometimes marriage ceremonies, sometimes Shakshi’s coming first to him when she wore a new dress, giving a helping hand to Shanta in the kitchen, but, quite commonly, her squabble with Shanta over her laying my table, ‘Let me serve please she would say. ‘she is usurping up all my right,’ once Shanta said loving.

That gave me a rude shock.
And once again, on a certain night Shanta froze the hands in their serpentine movements when she said, ‘Perhaps our own daughter will not do as much as Shakshi does’….
The dense forest flourished on the outside.
The hands turning into snakes fell down as a lizard on the wall could….once again I was under a self analysis, or thinking for own self or lost in my own maze…. Aditya kapoor…what does all this mean? Are you getting perverted? Shakshi is like your own daughter…And then Shakshi’s tone would attack…. Like one, but not a daughter exactly. Then another voice would attack, and a burning body under the impulse of strong gusts of wind coming from the forest would slowly cool down.
An incident that occurred the next day. Having done with the breakfast Shanta had gone to a house in the neighbourhood to participate in some religious rituals going on there. Shakshi seemed to have been awaiting her chance. No sooner did Shanta go out than Shakshi got in like a ship rolling on the sea. Waves this was exactly their time when I was getting ready to9 go and take my bath, of course, with a towel only round the loin just I heard a footstep and there was Shakshi standing in front of me.
The wind stopped. Time stopped. Shakshi was seventeen now…her eyes wide open in a gaze…and suddenly I felt a flame flare up inside me. An unwounted sense of guilt erupted there in. as I was about to move ahead, Shakshi barred the path as solidly as a wall. He eyes sparkled, hands trembled, lips and cheeks too partook something of the trembling. Her hands advanced, snakes wriggled on my bare chest, instantly I closed my eyes. And then…all of a sudden I felt as if the world would come to an end, the land seemed to slide away from under the feet and the walls shake. The thirsty lips of shakshi pressed themselves against mine. And equally instantly the words spoken by Shanta in the silent dark night revived themselves forcefully, ‘perhaps our own daughter won’t do as much as Shakshi does.’ The air stopped Shakshi’s hands were glowing coals, blazing fire-balls. Passing through my own ordeal I was beyond my capacity to think judiciously, unprotected, wavering. As I pushed Shaksahi aside gently. She hung to me like a wild creeper clinging desperately to a tree. The very next moment, as I was suffering from my guilty conscience or remorse, I gave her a sharp slap. It resounded. There came a flash of fear in her eyes. She looked at him intently and then posed to retreat saying.
‘Lo! I won my this right also.’
‘What right? I stammered.
‘Suffering a blow from you.’
She turned her face. The cheek was purple. Then she turned and she did put her lips o9n mine, and then retreated. Pointing to her cheek she said
‘Now try to erase it out. It is you…your token. I’ll keep it alive. She was laughing.
‘Go and have your bath. But the I’ll tell you one thing, you are afraid. But the truth is—you think of me—perhaps all the time. You are never free from me, and will never be, ever.’
She turned to go, but stopped.
‘The world is undergoing a change. Change yourself too, Aditya.’
‘Aditya !’ this was the first time that she had called me by my name. the name ‘Aditya’ reverberated in my mind. I was under the shower, getting soaked. The spray of water beat on my head and body producing their own rhythoric sound, but her voice at my heart persisted, ‘Aditya… Aditya….Aditya….
The word transformed itself into an unfaltering echo. The echo in the wet nude body made itself manifest, and its ruthlessness too.
Perhaps Shanta had made up her mind never to comprehend the change that had occurred in life. But , had there really occurred a change in my life? While going through the equations of vice or sin, many at a time I had to go through the act of killing of my own thoughts. Shakshi had now begun to assert her own right to love even in small matters. I felt this turbulence was felt, besides me and Shakshi, by all—the heaven, the earth, the mirror on the wall in my bedroom, the nooks and corners of my house where at each and every occasion possible Shakshi would give me a lesson in love along with a renewed realization of her youth. Perhaps the current of time had weakened me. Her touch gave me an unwanted pleasure. But, simultaneously, a new awakening would take me into its gold making the blazing fire ball enter the slabs of ice, turning it cold. The wonder was that the matter was manifest to all the objects in the house from a corner of the house to the walls, but no human being was aware of it—neither my neighbours, nor my family members, nor Shakshi’s family members. I thought time puts an end to so many stories on its own accord.
These were the days when dhillon was much concerned about the marriage of Shakshi. To some extent it was caused by the insistence of Shakshi’s mother, and to some extent also because of his failing health and his disappointments born of his failures in his life—that, now, Dhillon wanted to free himself from the responsibility of Shakshi’s marriage.
Suddenly somewhere some leaf got detached from its twig. Some unheard shriek echoed, and the wind rustling through the dense forest raised a storm with in. standing at a short distance from my eyes was looking at me, horrified and unblinkingly. Sitting on his wooden bed, reclining on his pillow, Dhillon with his down cast head was breaking the ice of his words.
‘values of art have changed. Idioms have changed. The world has entered from the twenty-first into the twenty-second. But how long we can go on blaming others. We didn’t change ourselves. Ideals have changed. Colour and canvases have changed….if we could change ourselves a little…he began to cough.
The contemporary painting has become a thing for the elite class. And we are the ones who are carrying along the art on the pattern of the past. If we had endowed our art with a little light of the new intellectuality, new ways of thinking, perhaps the old age wouldn’t have overpowered us so very soon…’ the cough, once again, Compelled Dhillon to pause. ‘I have passed almost all my life now with my own imperfections and failures, but Shakshi!..’
Shakshi stood there in the shade of a wall.
In a little powered voice Dhillon said, ‘there is a boy under my consideration. A painter, It was a chance I pappened to see him last week. He regards me as his master although he is unlike me. He is ambitious. I think Shakshi…’
As if shots boomed one after another. Shakshi stuck to the wall. When I looked at her, she seemed to be trembling caught by the webs of her own conflicting emotions. She had turned pale.
Shanta came out of the kitchen.
‘Brother, it was good of you to do so,’ she said. ‘Finding promising young men is a rarity. See how she blushed with shame.’
Shakshi dashed off instantly.
I got petrified. Who could have seen her tears other than I. But those tears! They were not weak as others generally are.
Suddenly I lost my voice. For the first time I had felt a heavy punch at my heart. Never had occurred there any such feeling at my heart caused by anything concerned with Shakshi. But now the unexpected declaration of marriage….
I was standing by the window once again, after Dhillon had deposited. On the outside the forest flourished. The trees swayed from side to side. The gusts of cold wind coming in had foretold me of some tempest or great forest fire breaking out but who could have expected it to happen so very soon.
And, at the End, the Rain
On that day, it was raining. a torrential downpour. This was the time when the curtain was about to drop on this story I love rains. Amply I cherish thousands of sweet memories of them. Even today the rain sets itself. With its infinite possibilities, to pass me over to some utopia or fairy land. To me rain is not just water falling in showers, it is like the sweet sensation of getting soaked in the cascade of my own sentimentality. As sea waves are…I wonder if standing on the sea-shore you have ever watched the waves flowing in the dark and quiet of night. Listen to the noise of the wind and watch the sudden spurt of the waves come to the shore having covered a long course. Something convulsed within me in the like manner- giving a violent shake to the whole of my being, like the breaking waves.
On that day, as a specialty of the occasion it continued raining heavily through the day, as if the setter of question-paper for life had set such question for me as were an ordeal for me to go through. I stood amazed. And just before this happening everything was either normal, or not so. But, yes, there were signs of the on coming rains.
A number of happenings occurred that day. Dhillon fixed the date of Shakshi’s marriage. It was to take place after two months. Arrangements were to be made at my house. Shakshi, sitting at some distance and biting her nails would cast a glance at me now and then. She looked pale. A phone call in the morning that day a phonic message told my wife that Shakshi’s only uncle died. Shanta’s tears ran unabated since the time. She, as well as Alok, was to catch the 3 p.m. train.
The third issue concerned me. I was in fever. Shanta felt worried. Who would look after me in her absence?
‘Brother, he knows nothing. He doesn’t know about anything in the house where it is placed. I will return tomorrow, but to-night…?’ she said.
In fond memory of her departed uncle Shanta was wiping her tears with an edge of her ‘saari’.
Dhillon turned to cast a glance.
This was the very moment when the thunder of the clouds, for the first times, made its presence manifest, as if it was a drum-beat declaring the opening of the war, the thunder rumbled on. The icy words of Shakshi dissolved themselves in the far off rumble.
‘Go sister. I am here. I’ll stay here tonight I’ll take full care of him.’
‘See. The very problem id solved…,’ Dhillon commented smiling.
Shanta smiled lovingly and said, ‘I needn’t worry when Shakshi is here. Shakshi will take care of him.’
Shakshi’s face betrayed no emotions. With her full sensitive lips, she sat there biting her finger nails…
And then a number of thunder claps sounded themselves seemingly all together.
The ocean waves at my heart that had been calm initially, were beginning to gain momentum, preparatory to some war.
Dhillon departed from our home. Shanta and Alok left the house at 2 O’clock. As I moved ahead, adjusting my situation to my blood-pressure, I heard the outer door being closed from the inside. It was Shakshi. And now only the two of us remained there in the house.
And this was the time when a fine drizzle had started.
I got into the room. My breathing was deeper, though for no opparent reason. My awareness of Shakshi’s presence there excited me. Perhaps the temperature had shot up. A burning sensation was there in my forehead. My temp[les seemed to be on fire. I was sensitive to every sound. One…two… but no Shakshi came in. where did she linger on? I got up and walked out. On the outside Shakshi was lying down facing downwards. She was crying. Her sobs hurt me deeply. It was raining. At quite short a distance water was dripping from the awning. I closed my eyes, controlled the tempest rising at heart. As I came closer to Shakshi I felt I could withhold no longer. As if there was a volcano, a dormant one. And no sooner did I touch Shakshi than it would burst open. The veranda near the awning was wet. I drew my self back, came to my bed and lay down. The clock on the wall struck three. The pendulum was in motion. Suddenly, my body felt like having been transformed into a pendulum. She was coming. I closed my eyes hurriedly.
She held tea in her hand. She put the tea-cup on the table nearby. Medical tables were there in her hand. She came closer to me with the tablets and some water in a glass. She touched my forehead gently and got started.
‘take the medicine. I know you haven’t had a wink. Now don’t play a part. Fever is high.’
I saw her eyes. They were swollen for weeping. She was in a sky-blue shalwar and jumper having sky-blue flower prints on it. Her hands looked extremely beautiful. Taking medicine hand, for the first time I saw her body having the enchanting curves of her youth. fair complexion. long hair. long slender neck. Very soft and full lips. She noticed me looking at her and eyes to the ground. She didn’t stay there any longer. Went out of the room. I was passing through my self-analysis-entangling and struggling with myself every moment. About two hours passed. I got out and found Shakshi asleep in the previous posture, the same as when she was crying. The fiery glow of the promine4nces of her body curves was conspicuous from under her salwar and kameez. Very beautiful feet. Her fingers-as if they had been chiseled out. The rain abated a bit but soon after the thunder began. But the thunder, this time, had vigour and enthusiasm. It appeared as if the rain would never come to an end if it started for once. At seven Shakshi was awake once again. She brought me my bread. I was aware that Shakshi must be under going a tremendous conflict internally, probably much more than I was. ‘ But why es she so silent,’ I thought ‘Has she compromised with her new situation? She is to stay here for the whole night to-night. Where will she put up? But, why is she so silent? Has she compromised with her new situation?’ the thought occurred again and again.
But, perhaps, she hadn’t. there came the time for the dormant volcano to arrupt. It was nine at night, when Shakshi had seen me finish up my meal and the last dose of medicine as well.
On the outside it was raining rather heavily. The falling rain drops played a strange music. I moved forward and opened the window. On the outside the forest flourished. A wet forest. Lightning flashed at that very moments, and despite the dark it momentarily brightened up the fearsome plants and trees. And them I heard the foot-steps Shakshi came in with a pillow in her hands. She puts the pillow beside mine on the bed. And before I could look at her with wonder, she rendered me unspeakable. ‘I’ll sleep with you. At my disposal I have this very night only.’
There was a strong flash.
On the outside the forest flourished. From time to time the lighting flashed.
‘I’ve got you only for one night. Do you know how I spent the last seven hours? I lived with you, I was alone though. Lying alone I felt your presence in every pore of my body and limbs.
She was quite familiar with the room. She reached Shanta’s wardrobe as if it were her own. She took out a blue nighty. ‘Must be a bit loose’ she said. ‘Why don’t you speak?’ she shouted. ‘Why are you dumb founded?’
With the nighty she covered her face and burst out crying.
‘I’ll get married in two months. I was not to go into the world of brushes and canvas. Why did you let me go? Couldn’t you keep me with you?’
Clad in the nighty, coming to me, Shakshi stood erect.
Once again the lighting glowed white.
Her vody was very hot. The prominences of her body were well consp[icuous. She bent forward and put the fire of her lips on to mine …..
Her body emitted heat.
‘Satiate me. I don’t want to remain incomplete. For God’s sake don’t bring between us the disparity of our ages. Satisfy me. Give me life…’
I couldn’t turn back to see through the open window the forest getting drenched in the rain. Perhaps there was a lighting. Perhaps it had struck the forest violently. The whole of the forest seemed to have been set on fire. I was very-very weak at the moment…..
Or, perhaps, I was born for this moment only.
Have you seen love? No, come out with the truth. Have you seen love?
Suddenly I got lost like the ghost of O’ Henry. The wet forest was animated, and the rain in the forest-in colours the features of Shakshi had replaced mine….
So many rainy seasons…..so many autumns have passed since then….or….they are passing away.