The day he was to marry the girl of his dreams, he woke up with an unfinished dream. It was not the irritating sound of his alarm clock, he had hated from his college days, which interrupted his troubled sleep. A deafening blast followed by cacophony of old female voices, perhaps song of a forgotten land, brought him back to reality. It was the day that he has been waiting for all his life, the day that she has been waiting for all her life, the day that perhaps all the people responsible for bringing him to insanity, to life, have been waiting for all their lives.
He was born under the sign of Libra sun. He was the product of holy confluence of two very pious Hindu Brahmin families. There was a family lore that one of his great great grandfathers – a true believer - had abdicated his family life and set out for Himalayas, in search of God. His family, were proud descendents of this man of God. From the day he was born, he was looked upon as reincarnation of great soul of his great great grandfather. The prince child he was, loved by entire family. On the day of his Naamkaran (Hindu naming ceremony), families near and far visited him. As he lay on his mother’s lap, wrapped in his warm clothes with his mother’s smell, people formed a queue around him. On their turn, as per the ceremony, they would whisper his name into his ear. “Nikhil, Nikhil, Nikhil.....” this was the name that reverberated through his ears and reached channels of his small child brain. That was the name by which he will be known for his entire life.
However, the day on which he was born, Nikhil Pande forgot to cry. He did not cry long enough to make nurses anxious. But once he started, he did not stop, even to this day, the day of his marriage.
Lying on his stomach, on a low bed, he curled his hands around his face, in an attempt to cover his eyes and ears. It was the unusual position that he would vainly try to get into even when he was a boy and his friends would shout his name from the street, inviting him for the Game. The striped pyjamas that he wore were similar to the uniform of prisoners and he had been infamous about these in his hostel because of his habit of wearing these all the time, to even most formal events. But that was a long time ago, before he had been rejected by Jiya.
'Jiya! Ah! What a comedy my life has been', he thought. There was a time when he was inexperienced, though by no standards he considered himself to be experienced now, in matters of love. But then he was a virgin, trying to cover up for what he had missed since the inception of puberty. There were girls, many girls indeed, whom he had admired and lusted over but by sheer chance he had picked Jiya. Then to fill the abyss, he had surreptitiously dedicated all his emotions, capable of being categorised as love, to her – the ultimate goddess, Jiya. The comedy of errors was realised, after a lot of watershed, that the categorisation itself has been lame. For first time he had experienced insomnia of unrequited love, of any type of love. Till that time he had considered it as de facto, that the first girl he would propose to would be his bride, his princess in the fairyland where the moon shines its silver all day and birds sing only for the honey couples.
Today however was a different day. He knew that before he would yet again sink into myriad thoughts about his life, it was time to get up and get ready, for the most important day of his life.
As he stepped outside the room, he realised that it was already a sunny day. Mid June is a very hot time of year in most parts of India. Nikhil hated this season; he hated heat and sun. He had always preferred cold silent nights to dusty hot days. He would always go to sleep late at night and would get up late in morning. He hated sleep because he did not want the day to end. Sleep would mean start of next day, another day, new day, same monotonous day. So in his attempt to save the day, he would lie awake as long as possible, even when he had nothing to do. It was not always like this though. There was a time when he was a child – in those good old school days – when his mother would wake him up early, would help him bathe, help him with his tidy dress and send him off to school bus. By the time he was back from school, his lunch would be ready and he would have a nice tranquil sleep after that. In evening after some play, his mother would help him with his studies and then kiss him goodnight at an appropriate time. However, the day she relinquished her control, everything changed.
‘It is still early, and it is going to be a long day anyway’, he thought. He came back into the room, closed the door, shut the curtains on the window and got back into his bed. It was not possible to sleep because of all the noise, so with dreamy eyes, he realised that his thoughts were once again wandering to his past.
There was a knock on the door. Maybe somebody shouted his name too. Reluctantly he got up and opened the door. His mother entered, with a smile which reflected the satisfaction that had touched her soul when her son had agreed to finally marry a girl and live a peaceful life. “Get ready beta. Ladies’ sangeet will be over in an hour or so. Everyone will be expecting you then”. She was right, there was no point procrastinating now. His mother took out from the closet, a newly purchased Kurta-Pyjama – which was in compliance with all the standards set for honourable families regarding their marriage outfits. He then promised his mother to meet her in half-an hour in the hallway and gently shut the door behind her. Without wasting another minute he went into the bathroom. After emptying his bowels he flushed the toilet. The vortex of toilet instigated him to masturbate and he happily followed wish of his body. As the stormed stirred inside him, it hued to form images of all the female friends he had known and ended with an explosion, which at the pinnacle was delectation and a second later, guilt. He then stood under the jet of shower and washed his body and silently watched the soap flow down the drain. He did not sing, did not hum, did not think. Then he was ready!
No comments:
Post a Comment