The last reflection

He stubbed his toe on a stone that stuck out from the pebbled, orange-red dust lane. And tottered like a drunk for a few paces, before regaining balance. It was a heavenly afternoon. There were paddy fields, golden with grains, waving gently for as far as eye could see on either side. The lane was narrow, just broad enough for the ox-cart wheels to leave deep ruts on either side. There were trees planted by the side of the lane. The leaves shone with the reflected light of the orange Sun.

The youth looked back for an instant. There, just visible on the horizon, was a little village.
He shaded his eyes, took in a sharp breath and hurried forth. A slight breeze started blowing. It ruffled his hair and brought back hints of a sound of ‘Bauls’ singing in their happy open voices. The youth tottered again. This time there was no stone. The wind started blowing loudly. Windswept birds hailed with noisy flaps of wings and cries. He turned his head from the glorious heavens and looked down.

Presently, there came in sight a raised circle of palm and coconut trees to the right. The youth turned aimlessly towards it. A minute’s walk brought him between the two proximate trees. From here one could see the clear, unblemished water of the pond a few paces below the level of the trees. A typical pond in this part of the country, almost a bowl filled with water with palm and coconut trees along it’s rim.

The water rippled with the muted wind and gazed orange with the reflected colour of the sky.

Unbidden, a vision rose in his mind. Was this the same pond? Yes it was.

“Ravi! Ravi! See my boat. It’s floating. It’s really floating!” The little girl quipped, interjecting with a clap and a jump.

“Ravi! Ravi!”

“Ofcourse it floats, silly. It’s just a paper boat. Look at mine. It’s a big ‘Keya’ boat. And these stones, see? They are us. This little white stone is you. And this big black one is me.”

“No! I will be the big stone” ….

The young man crushed a dried leaf in his hands. Sat down on the edge of the pond and drew his knees to him. The buried head tried to shut out memories.

“Tuli! Hey! Tuli!”

“Ravi!”

“It’s great to see you again.”

“Ravi! Wow! You look so handsome these days! When did you come?”

“Just. Came right here, first.”

“Hmmm.”

“How’s uncle? Where is he?”

“Still in Nawabpur Nursing Home. They said, he may be back by the end of the month. So…, Ravi, how’s everything? How’s work?”

“As usual. I’ll get that promotion as soon as I start licking Boss’s boots. I’m just taking a long time making up my mind.”

“You’ll never do that, I know you. And…, what about everything else? I heard something about you and a pretty girl in a party.”

“She’s a friend. She has a steady boyfriend anyway… Don’t smile so knowingly. Don’t.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t make a special friend out there? Hmm?”

“All my special friends are back here. Tuli… Tuli, there is something I have to tell you.”

 

The girl looked up from the knitting straight into his eyes as if she could read his very thought. They had often, before, joked that she could do just that.

“Tuli…”

The girl stopped him with a gesture.

“Ravi, there was something I should have told you. Ravi…, it’s like,…uhh” she swallowed. “Ravi, you know about Amlan da… the guy you used to tease me about. Ummm…, he asked me..uhh… I mean we have…, we are getting married.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Ravi…” She looked at him pleadingly.

“Wow! congratulations. Wow. When is the feast?”

“Ravi, I should have told you. It was just so sudden.”

“It’s fine, little girl. It’s just fine. You’ll look great together. Amlan and Tuli. Tuli and…” he choked. And turned his head.

“You’ll not do anything silly. You’ll get me a nice sister-in-law and bring her to me. Promise me.”

He made a motion to loosen his collar.

“Will you forgive me? Please… I know it was so horrible of me…”

He had turned and walked away. And then ran when the girl made to get up. His ears still rang from cries of ‘Ravi! Ravi!”

The memory rewinded and played like a monstrous gramophone record stuck at it’s most dischordant note. He pulled out a pocket watch. Wasn’t this the same one he had bought in a village fair? He and Tuli had shut themselves in a dark room to see if it really glowed. When they were found, there was such a row…

A solitary stork cried “Ravi! Ravi!” in the voice of a fourteen year old girl looking on in agony as he was beaten.

Ravi threw it into the pond. One less string… The Sun was red now. Visible between two palm trees on the other side of the pond.

The pen in his pocket… he threw it away before it could trigger another vision.

“I have to live…I have to forget her… I have to live…”

A shout of animal pain escaped him. Her face seemed to brand him with something hot deep inside. Nothing stirred. The last shepherd had long made his lonely way home. The first cricket tested the air with an experimental call.

With all that he had, he pulled himself back from the face. His eye lingered a moment on a ring, a chipped nail and a bite scar. He could not think about them. They all had their little stories. Everything he had, even his gestures, his mannerisms were somehow linked with her. The tune he unknowingly hummed was the song she had taught him a decade ago. He absently fingered the locket he wore.

He was an atheist. He could remember a big fight he had had with her about the existence of her favourite ‘Krishna’. They did not talk for a week. Somewhere in the midst he started praying to an entity he did not even believe in, to make her speak again. He always wore the locket afterwards.

He tried thinking of the city. Where his real life was. Only the other day, there was a big party at Mr. Sharma’s. The host had offered him a Cuban cigar.

“I don’t smoke cigar.”

“Why?”

“I told a certain girl that I would never smoke cigar.”

“But you do smoke don’t you?”

“Yes. But I only promised not to smoke cigar!”

He looked up. The Sun finally went down. He found he could no longer think coherently. He felt the threads of his mind unravel. And he closed his eyes.

I have to live…

Why?…

…have to live…

FACE…her face…have to see her face…

…I will never see her face again…

never again…

never…

never…

 

Gradually, the crowd of thoughts grew silent. A beautiful smile lit up his face. The lines of torture, the lines of pain left him. He opened his eyes and looked down into the pond.

She looked up at him from the water. Serene. Calm. Beautiful as ever. A sad smile on her face.

“You really don’t love me, do you?”

The spectre shook her head sadly.

“But I do love you.”

He walked down the steep bank and wet his toes. It was dark now.

He walked slowly in.

“I always will.”

A sleepy Myna stirred uneasily. A pair of squirrels peeped from behind a rock. Somewhere, a lost calf moaned distantly into the night.

This life is a reflection of the real. This life is a dance of the soul. A play, a dream. We go to sleep and forget the Source. And then we wake up again.
The wind picked up the tone of the Baul song- the music they had danced to- a boy and a girl- and passed over one who could hear no more.