AN : This suddenly barged into my head and refused to leave unless I penned it out, so here it is, for your perusal. I haven’t written anything like this before, a tragedy yes but this I don’t know is something else entirely… Guess I leave it for you guys to decide its genre…
NOT PROOF READ.
IMPORTANT NOTE : Contains depressing thoughts. Kindly proceed with caution.Ouch
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RAGINI- An unsolved puzzle
Today she heard the one thing she wished she never heard in her lifetime… She heard that that while she was living in the hope that her life will begin again, it had already ended three days back in some forlorn hospital mortuary…
She had felt the similar kind of pain earlier once… Once when as she now realizes she deserved it… Once when her sister, her brother in law and her now and forever love of her life tricked her into believing that he had been murdered. That day she thought she would die the next moment along with him; but yeah not before torturing and killing the people responsible for her state! She would have happily tortured her sister and brother in law for laying a finger on him… her Laksh and there they had dared to murder him… They were lucky they told the truth soon or else… Well let’s just say they were plain lucky and end it there.
But that was then… that was the Ragini who thought love was the name of the emotion which was full filled only by acquiring the object of your affection. That was then when she thought only her feelings mattered the most in a relationship. That was then when she thought simply by having him physically she would have him soulfully too… That her right as his wife gave her a right to his heart too…
That was then when she did not realize, love is nowhere near the selfish feeling she felt for Laksh, where it never mattered whether he wanted her or not, the only thing that mattered was she wanted him and that’s it. That was then when she was not the Ragini she was now… A Ragini who knows what the true meaning of love is… A Ragini who understands the meaning of loved and lost and a Ragini who understands what is the meaning of to love, being loved and then being left bereft of that all-encompassing emotion is…
She is sitting fully dressed on the wet floor of the locked bathroom in her house in baadi, the sound of the over flowing water in the bucket a sound mask to the loud sobs which are rattling her lungs… the lungs which are burning with emotions, the lungs which refuse to take another breath when he was breathing the same air as her… It was simple suffocating just to exist…
In times of grief three emotions play out like a 70 mm film in front of everybody’s eyes- one a bitter sweet reel of all the happy times spent with the person you are grieving and another a punishing harsh reel which tells you unmistakably that what all wrong you did to that person in their lifetime… a guilt reel… and a third wishful thinking reel- a reel of all the wannabes which will never happen, a hope with hope…a list of all lost opportunities… the most depressing of all three…
Sadly for Ragini all the reels were equally sized… she realized sadly… Life never gave her the chance to increase the length of that happy reel a little more… The time she spent with a truly clean and open heart with him was brutally cut short by incidents which were beyond her control… How she wished, he never left… how she wished she was with him to save him, to take care of him… how she wished and how she will be wishing forever…
Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.*
There was a sharp rusted metal pipe which had broken off in their old baadi bathroom… It sharp rusted edges reminded her of how she was earlier- sharp and brutal, almost killer. She gave a sharp pathetic laugh at that thought- she thought life has been extremely forgiving towards her that it had forgiven all her gave crimes she had committed till now in her quest for him. She thought that all the crimes she committed towards her sister, her mother, her father, her in laws and most importantly to him was forgiven… She laughed sarcastically at her stupidity… She thought that when those people whom she had wronged had forgiven her, the fate would forgive her too… What a fool she was… she now realized with a sterling clarity that the saying Time is best justice keeper is the utmost truth of this world… All your past actions may be erased of people’s memories but sadly they are forever etched in the invisible folds of the taskmaster called Time…
She had schemed, ruined, killed or at least unsuccessfully tried to kill almost anybody and everybody who had come in between her and him and now the ultimate Judge gave her the ultimate punishment… And the punishment made all the more cruel by gifting her those few precious moments of genuine love and happiness with him that she will forever regret her lost happiness and all those happy what ifs… Old Ragini would be satisfied with avenge and revenge… So time it seems had decided to make her genuinely good and then serve its punishment on a silver platter… Hit when it will hurt the most…
She laughed hysterically, tears flowing endlessly through her Spartan cheeks leaving a trail of black khol she had worn in happy anticipation of meeting him one day… He had said once during their afterglow pillow talks that how much he loved her eyes when she adored with deep black khol… He likened her eyes to some ethereal fish… swimming in the ocean of beauty which was her face… that he loved to get lost in them and never emerge out of it… that she entranced him and he was grateful to her for it, that she had chosen him to get entranced.
The broken pipe stared at her like it had all the answers to her sorrow… like holding its sharp edges would ease the pain of the soul… like the red which flows on contact with it would wash away the tears which would never stop now… So she stared right back at it and accepted its suggestion.
Suddenly there was knock on the door. It was Swara who was asking if everything was ok as she can only hear the sound of water overflowing… Ragini with a jolt realized what she was doing… She realized she was being selfish again… No this new Ragini had vowed not be selfish again and here she was doing it again! She was taking the easy way out by killing herself when she was actually supposed to be acting everything was normal for her family’s sake… her darling ever supportive sister’s sake… for a moment she felt angry on Swara for making such a vow in front of Sanskar which tied their love life to hers… Her sister had been over confident that they would find Laksh again… But what now?! Now she can’t even go to him because that would mean pushing her nave but albeit selfless sister and a desperate Sanskar to a lifetime of misery and torture.
Oh how she wished her sister did not love her this much! But sigh… the fact was that her sister did love her unconditionally and now even she can say truthfully that she returned that emotion in equal measures. Now in true sense of the word they were Swaragini… a symphony… albeit a tragic sad one… but One… and that is what mattered the most. So Ragini wiped her tears and replied in a strained voice, ” kuch nahi Swara, hum teek hain.” On hearing Swara’s doubtful. “ok” she relaxed a bit but then realized her hand hand was still bleeding profusely… The broken pipe indeed had done its job! She slowly tried to arrest the bleeding by tying the towel around it but then when she saw it getting drenched, she decided it was better to go to a hospital, for she has to live for everybody else to live happily… she has to make her tears invisible and smile when she was dying inside just so that nobody comes to know the bitter truth. It was the sacrifice she was willing to make to see her sister smile genuinely once more… Her sister already had her fair share of depressing tears, now she wanted to gift her few tears of joy…
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.**
Ragini just to convince her sister that the injury was an accident changed her fresh clothes she had brought to the bathroom and opened the door calling her sister at once not waiting for her Sherlock sister to make her usual deductions! She tried to make a convincing story and her nave sister took her words at face value… She smiled bitter sweetly… What would happen to her sister in this world? For all the bravado she showed she was the most nave person she had ever known… She sighed and put an arm on her… Swara might be her elder sister in term of few months but she now realized in terms of life she, Ragini Laksh Maheshwari was the elder one and she would protect her, her little sister Swara Sanskar Maheshwari from all the evils of the life… Life just like that gave her a new purpose to live…
Let my love, like sunlight, surround you
and give you illumined freedom. ***
Her sister then turned worriedly towards her but she gave a smile… And Swara in turn bestowed her with one filled with hope and reassurance that everything will be fine… that her, Ragini’s Laksh would come back to her soon… And God knows suddenly Ragini’s heart too was effused with hope again… That maybe… just maybe… he might actually come back to her… She for one always knew that what is seen or told need not necessarily be the ultimate truth… So the small ember of hope which was dying in her heart just got rekindled again like a daring phoenix rising from its ashes, it still lives to tell its tale… After all miracles do happen…
Hope is the only addiction worth having…
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A hopeful new beginning…
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References :
* In Memoriam A. H. H- Alfred Lord Tennyson
** Stopping by the woods on a snowy night – Robert Frost
*** Fire flies – Rabindranath Tagore
**** Ungrateful sorrow – Rabindranath Tagore
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AN : Thoughts ?