Inhale. Let your chest expand to
contentment. Recognize the budding constriction, twisting in the pit deep in
your stomach. Embrace the tightness until the back arches in release.
The air rushes through the small gap
between the lips, brushing the tongue in a swift yet definitive motion,
leaving without a taste.
His hands travelled to the end of
your dupatta, pulling at the threads of broken fabric. His eyes rest on your
being, subtle yet brazen. They scorch the covered skin more than the naked
limbs. The friction of his calloused skin grazing your soft, untouched one.
The thrill—a strange, strange emotion—gushes and warms your stiff body.
This is not how your story began. You
were not born today. It has been five years since your birth now. The year
you were born was an auspicious one. Your father planned it such.
You were born on the lunar eclipse,
with full breasts, plump to caress, ready to bleed with the changing moon.
You were born a woman.
As part of your father’s plan, you
never had a childhood. So while the body bloomed, mature far beyond your
years on earth, the mind still couldn’t comprehend the beauty around—the
texture of mud beneath your foot, the wet fruits dropping from thin
branches, or the howling deep in the forest. The howling, much like your
own, silent and deep, throbbing to a ubiquitous tone.
You fumbled over the stony path until
your ankles were bloodied. Slowly, life was making sense. The sky would
often open with nectar, only to drown or burn on a whim. You understood the
pattern of clouds, learned to recognize the mischief of the moon, and the
healing of flowing water. Once the elements of nature were no longer
strange, you were betrothed to a sage.
He lived on the peak of the Himalaya.
The white fluff covering the new world was brittle to the touch. But you
learned to turn it soft. You learned to turn it into drinkable water and
found sustenance in the cold eclipse.
You were tossed into his world
unprompted, with a flick of a wrist, your destiny now intertwined with his.
When you fell, he didn’t stir. His eyes were closed to the material world,
while open to something far more supreme. Nor did he flinch when you smeared
the warm berries on his festering wounds.
Thus passed your first act of
compassion. Many more were to come and pass as unnoticed.
The leaves were turning brown.
“What is a sage?” You demanded.
Despite the passing months, the sage remains aloof. After a long wait, your
father’s voice boomed from the sky. You took your position on the ground.
Given a bunch of grapes, juicy,
tender, and within an arm’s reach. One might decide to let the senses take
over, feasting on the delicacy first with the nose—the smell is around the
environment, mixing in the air. Second is the eyes; they enjoy the appealing
color, anticipating the joy to come. Third is touch, as your hands move over
the smooth, green skin. Then comes the ear, the gulping sound of its skin
breaking with the force of your teeth.
Lastly comes the tongue; the juice is
sweet as nectar, at least as far as you know.
Ultimately, there is a lot to gain
from your desire to take what is before the greedy eyes.
But a sage is after another pleasure.
Of what is, and why.
You listened intently to your father,
his voice like you had never heard before — a tinge of excitement submerged
in pride. Your father was fascinated by the sage.
Somewhere, the breeze was turning wild. The sage’s hair swayed with the
wind, sticking to his sandalwood-painted forehead. You covered his frail
body with warm wool, but with a shrug of his shoulder, the material would
fall, leaving his malnourished body open to the elements of the sky.
You had always felt the emptiness.
Your gut recognized its significance — not as a direct threat to your
survival, but important enough to keep reminding you of its existence.
Periodically, in small nudges so as not to overwhelm you, but enough to
ensure you didn’t forget. You had only known your father, and now the sage.
Did they feel the same urge? You were always too frightened to ask your
father, and it was pointless to ask the sage. Even if his hearing had
remained intact after years of attacks by birds, beasts, and hail, you
doubted that he would reply. So, you chose to ignore the pang of sadness
that visited you at the start of every month.
The sage was a new source of
entertainment — a new statue-shaped constant in your life. Your days now
start with taking a dip in the nearby stream. You collected banana leaves
from trees on your way back and, after soaking them in water, used them to
wipe the dirt clean off the sage’s chest and face. You carefully cleaned his
hands, avoiding the cuts and bites. But even when you accidentally scraped a
scab, he didn’t flinch. In all your effort, you never felt him move or react
to your touch. To him, you were like the birds — they pecked him, and you
healed him; all part of the balance of the universe. At least, that is what
you imagined. It was impossible to know his real thoughts.
You discovered the stain the berry
left on your clothes by mistake. It created curious patterns on the white
garments. You draped the now violet-dyed fabric just beneath your belly,
covering your legs, and tied the edges around your waist. You looked at the
sage’s muddy clothes and remembered your father’s pristine white ones and
felt a quiet thrill — a secret you had discovered all on your own.
You started feeding grapes to the
small birds to stop them from nibbling the sage. The grapes were sweeter,
and the birds and insects were easily convinced. Again, the sage didn’t
register the lack of pain. His slumber seemed eternal.
You started spending most of the day
exploring the woods. There was a restlessness in you that couldn’t be
ignored. Following different animals, you found various streams. You found
fruits to harvest and patches full of colorful flowers. Once, you traveled
too far and lost track of your route, only to find a waterfall. The sun had
moved downwards in the sky, turning into a meager spot of orange. To counter
the low visibility, you had lit a makeshift torch.
Amber of the flame touches the cup of
your palm. You brushed the black soot off your hand on the rock.
The river was quiet at dusk. The
splash of water, the gentle footsteps, and the hushed whispers, all audible.
You saw the couple. Their limbs were outstretched on the rock in an
uncomfortable position. The uneven surface had left an imprint on the
female’s soft back, but the female seemed unaware of any discomfort. From
your elevated position, only the male’s face was visible. Any second, he
could turn his eyes a degree high and catch you, but his gaze never
wandered.
The air turned heavy.
You stood still, clutching the tree
trunk, until your legs and hands ached. A strange mixture of feelings and
sensations coursing through your belly, moving lower, rendering your legs
motionless. Heat from the air crept into your being.
You ran fast, your labored breathing
drowning your thoughts. You ran without noticing the pebbles that pierced
the soles of your feet or the pointed branches that attacked your naked
arms. You fell, you stood, and after hours, found yourself curled up between
the outgrown roots of a banyan tree. The soil was moist, and it comforted
your burning skin. A new emotion emerged.
It was the first night you didn’t
return to the sage’s hut. The next morning, when the earlier episode felt
like a dream, you walked for hours in circles until you finally found your
way back.
The sage was sitting on the stone
platform with eyes closed and a smooth forehead. An untouched deity at
peace.
In the coming days, you stopped
venturing outside the hut. You destroyed your supply of banana leaves with
firewood and gave up on treating the sage’s wounds.
You slept till the sun was bright and
angry. Most nights were spent awake, while the body tossed and turned to
relieve it of its discomfort. A nagging sensation was stuck to you, but you
couldn’t recognise its source or where it currently resides. It was subtle,
slippery, and unforgettable.
When you finally exited the cottage,
something was missing. You couldn’t point it out at once. The three trees
still surrounded the hut, and the birds were feasting on the leftovers from
the previous night, and yet something was amiss.
You took the first few steps before
you realized the absence of the sage. The stone was now empty. A dread set
into your bones. Even if he was not a responsive companion, he was still all
you had known. He was the proof that the world was real—that you weren’t
truly alone.
Your heartbeat quickened. Why did he
leave? Did he know what you saw that night? Was he somehow aware of your
actions?
Heat crept up your wet
cheeks—voyeuring on the voyeur. Although you never meant to be. Why did you
have to go so far? Why did you have to chart territory that was not yours?
You should have remained where it was safe, as you had been taught.
You sat on the sage’s stone. It was a
rough spot. Tiny pebbles pinched your skin. From the top, you could see the
entire meadow at a glance—the clearing where you burnt the firewood for
food, and the doorless hut where you slept every night—all visible without
moving a muscle. He sat here with his eyes closed. His stillness turned his
existence into stone.
While his presence was silent, his
absence was equally loud. And you despised the sound.
That day, you scraped the entire
forest for dry wood and burned the heap at the top of the stone. The black
soot that remained after hours and hours of burning—you decided to keep it,
in honor of his memory.
The gods and winds wait for none, and
thus passed more floods, droughts, and wars.
You decorated the hut with flowers
and berries. You filled the walls with strange stories. The creatures of
your creation had long limbs and naked backs; even they refused to meet your
eyes.
Solitude was not your punishment.
You embodied the silence of a dried
well—deep, dark, and parched. Down the stony walls, the bottom was cracked.
The wind entered through the crevices, making the dirt swirl in the circular
space—trapped, peeping at the unreachable bright halo of light. Then the sun
set, and the opening disappeared, consuming the well and its being into
emptiness.
In the empty well lay a racing mind,
frantically crashing into the walls headfirst. Until fatigue took over, and
mixing sweat with the bottom sand, a pungent elixir was born. It relaxed the
taut nerves, paralyzing the strained muscles. The body was now in a
catatonic state of rest. It refused to register external stimuli. It was one
with the soft rhythm of the beating heart.
Ever so often, emotions tried to
surround the numbed brain—panic, fear, adrenaline—all pleading to revive the
decaying shell of a human.
Although the shell remained pristine
on the outside, regularly cleaned, fed, and groomed, you kept the smell of
decay hidden.
Your past life had disappeared into
fiction, conjured by the desperation of a lonely mind.
So one day, when the sage appeared
just as he had disappeared—quietly—you didn’t register his presence. You
seemed to have erased him from your memory.
So, the second time the sage entered
your life, he entered as a stranger. The elixir was still potent enough to
shield you from the torrent of this stranger who was now to be your
companion.
The ground broke, and from the pit
emerged the holy fire. Your hand was placed into the sage’s grasp. The
sudden touch of a human sent a shock to every nerve in your body; the rush
of emotions drowned out the elixir. Fear quickened your breath. You circled
the fire nine times, hand still under the sage’s hold, with your father as
sole witness.
His presence had shifted the paradigm
of your simple hut. Unlike the sage, who was bound within himself, your
father’s presence burned. Like a bonfire, his wild flames rose, cinders
flying a little too close to the dry husk. Tragedy averted, but for one
strong wind, you stood with your head bowed, eyes tracing the violet circles
of your skirt.
The sage bowed to touch your father’s
feet, and you followed him. For a second, you felt the weight of his hand on
your head, and then it disappeared.
The coming days were to take a new
routine. Unspoken, the sage - now your husband - took up half the load. The
firewood was now cut, and water was set to boil by the time you returned
from your morning bath. A new harmony was building with the labour. Your
feet were now less tired in the night. There was someone else to consider
when you foraged for food in the woods. The space beside you on the floor
was slightly warm.
Meditation still took half of his
day. The other half was divided between sleep and chores. He was
surprisingly competent in every task you assigned, while some he took over
on his own. You realised he loved keeping busy. Except during his
meditation, his restless hands were always in search of labour. You watched
him clear a small patch of wood in a week. Every morning, you would watch
him leave with his axe and return by sunset with a heap of wood, tied
together by a jute rope.
One day, you followed him into the
jungle, watching him walk a small distance before stopping near a huge
banyan tree. He sat under the tree for some time in silence. After hours,
you grew bored and walked closer. Again, you were met with the same peaceful
face, lost in another world. This is how you had remembered him for
months—seeing him like this sent a needle of panic through your bones, a
pinch in your heart that was silenced as soon as it appeared. What if he
never wakes up again?
Even though he was not truly a
companion, even though he didn’t notice the patterns on your colorful tunic,
even though his eyes never registered the stories on your wall, he was still
the only other person in your life. He was the one you heard breathe when
you tossed and turned in the night.
These thoughts only strengthened the
elixir, which was still not expelled from your bloodstream. While you were
slowly getting lost in the dismay, the sage lightly stirred. Sadness being
chased away by a near fear. You sprinted to the tree and hid behind its tall
trunk—the motion reminiscent of past transgressions. You felt guilty when
you peeked through the space between two branches and spied on the sage.
The frail figure had already picked
up a weapon and was cutting down the tree with precise, unhurried strikes.
When the tree finally fell, he bowed to the fallen carcass in respect and
busied himself with cutting the trunk into smaller pieces. You were afraid
to make a move. You couldn’t be sure of the sage’s reaction, since you were
never berated or praised by him, but still, being discovered was an uneasy
thought.
In the end, all your worries were in
vain. The sage didn’t question you when you emerged from the jungle after
him. He never enquired about your muddy clothes. He merely dropped the haul
near the hut and walked away, his gaze passing through you.
You gave up on following him and
chose to spend your days cleaning or exploring the woods, as you did before.
After several failed attempts, you
succeeded in finding the waterfall. This time, the rock was empty. You lie
on the rock just like the female and let the pointy surface etch its story
on your back.
Soon, the waterfall became your
regular haunt, and the rock your throne, where you sat to watch the pigeons
fly in unison—a group flowing in synchronized motion. It felt like each bird
was connected to another by an invisible string, so that each turn, each
movement was made together. They flew in an ellipse, almost gliding through
the wind, then suddenly turned, each in a different direction, yet never
distorting the formation. Too symmetrical to be natural.
Nothing ached your heart more than
the acrobats of the sky.
Mockery, admiration, or even disgust
would have passed. But silence was like drops falling into a river, too much
and too fast into the sea of conformity for you to grasp at the breath of
sensibility. Things were yet to tear and bleed.
He was your husband. You were aware
of it as a fact. What the word implied was another mystery. From the day you
were betrothed you assumed that he was somehow connected to all the emotions
troubling you, making you feel incomplete. But nothing in his presence
changed anything. He was a statue. And silence was the only gift he was
willing to offer.
Then, for better or worse, one night
things changed. The day was as monotonous as any other day. The sage spent
the entire day in the woods. He came back only once the sun was long gone.
His solitary figure emerged from the bushes. Strange only because he was
without the typical stock of woods.
He had freshly washed himself in the
river. You could see his wet hair clinging to his forehead. He gave his
tresses a shake, letting drops of water flow in all directions. You stood at
your post, and he walked to you, placing the pitcher full of water in front
of you.
Stream water, cold and still.
“You should clean yourself,” he said.
It was strange. He had never cared
about your hygiene or complained about your odour. Subconsciously, at his
comment, you conspicuously sniffed your clothes. They didn’t smell different
than usual.
Still, you followed through with his
request. You went to the clearing behind the hut and wiped the sweat and
dirt off your body with a banana leaf, occasionally wetting it by dipping it
in the water. The wet skin shivered under the cold wind. You quickly toppled
the entire contents of the container over your head. Tiny streams of water
flowed from your head, through your hair, to your legs. You covered your
hair with one cloth and wrapped your body with another.
When you entered the hut, the sage
was sitting on your mat, cross-legged. You stood near the door, feeling as
if you had walked into unknown territory.
He took your hand for the second time
in your life, under the darkness of the hut.
“Don’t be afraid. This is natural.
Don’t feel shame,” his whispers melted in the night.
When he lay on you, you felt a hint
of his bony ribcage touch your stomach. He released a disgruntled breath,
and his scent overtook your senses, turning your body stiff, afraid to move.
Foreign sensations coursed through, travelling lower — your heartbeat
between your legs. Maybe the beating was audible to him, for this is where
you felt the first touch. The beating only escalated with his motion, while
the untouched skin, lying vulnerable, burned. You felt a thirst in your
throat and belly — poignant and striking, immediate and unmet. The mind
disconnected from the body, the frustrated spirit only to be suddenly
blinded by pain. It bled through your skin, clouding every sense. The pain
finally alerted the lost body, bringing awareness back, and your breathing
resumed.
You were back on the hut's floor,
alone.
The days continued as before, and you
were left to your own devices. Then, once or twice every fortnight, you
found the vessel filled with cold water near the shed.
Every fortnight, you doused your body
with the cold water and quietly stepped into the hut. With every ritual, the
pain faded, and the strange need intensified, until the body learned to
anticipate his motion. You felt like a parched traveller, your body
paralysed to touch the rejuvenating liquid dripping within an arm’s
distance. Once, in frustration, your restless hand clashed with his clammy
palms, and you pulled them closer until his calloused hands met your warm
skin. Suddenly, a frenzy took over the sage, and his hands ran wild like a
blind horse. A yelp escaped your lips, and he froze. For the first time, his
gaze was directly at you, and his expression was distorted, as if in
disgust.
He left the hut mid-ritual that night
and walked away. You lay on the cold ground watching him meditate on the
rock, the pungent elixir now covered you from the roots of your hair to the
ends of your toes.
The rituals continued as before. The
skin, now hardened with the elixir, barely moved.
Soft and slow. When you stop paying
attention, that is how the vegetation grows. Like a whisper in the air, tiny
sprouts emerge from the soil.
Lush green and dirty brown. One day,
the land was barren, and now weeds have covered every inch of it. Roots have
grown over your crouched form. Leaves growing out of your arms, their stalk
going through you into the ground, turning you immobile.
The cold winds have crossed the
horizon, and small buds of mogra have grown in the vines covering your head.
You still lie with your face, relishing the comfort of cold mud.
The sage stopped visiting the forest.
His every waking moment was spent in meditation. The only time he left his
throne on the stone was the nights of the ritual.
And then just like before, one day he
disappeared. Life continued as before.
Soon it was the day of ritual. In his
absence, you had taken back the axe. The rough weapon felt familiar in your
grip. The exertion was comforting.
You stepped on the soft moss-covered
path and reached the destination before your brain could comprehend. The
dried river could barely sustain the waterfall. You walked to the rock
without water touching your clothes.
He was there, sitting on the boulder.
It was too dark to clearly see his
face.
Your legs took the first step.
His hands travelled to the end of
your dupatta, pulling at the threads of broken fabric. His eyes rested on
your being, subtle yet brazen. They scorch the covered skin more than the
naked limbs.
It was as if the invisible barrier
between you had shattered with a single gaze.
The friction of his calloused skin
grazing your soft, untouched one. The thrill—a strange, strange
emotion—gushes and warms your stiff body.
Touch. You were born touch-starved.
You never grew in a mother’s womb. You never suckled on her nourishing
breast. You were born of dirt and your father’s craft.
Your hands touched his, greedily,
tracing the pattern on his palm. Delight filled your heart at the simple
movement, growing bolder in the absence of resistance. Curiously, you
explored and discovered. He stood there patiently, silently studying you.
With newfound interest, you turn to your own skin, exploring it with his
hands. You guided his hands over your arm, and when they slid upward to meet
the curve of your neck, he took charge. Gently, he lowered himself on you,
his ragged breathing mixed with your own. His motion is in perfect sync with
the thumping in your heart. The sensations take over your brain in a frenzy,
and the effect of every brush is intensified a thousandfold.
For the first time, you registered
every part of your body. Finally, you recognised your body. With all the
other sensations, the thirst had also intensified. The dripping of water is
too close but beyond reach. Then, with some unknown strength, a push, and
the paralysis broke,
The thick muck of the elixir which
was covering your skin hardened and broke and finally you emerged free.
Your body sang under your own touch.
The final touch.
You were alive.
He lay beside watching you when the
sage walked through the woods.