PERFECT LOVE

PERFECT LOVE

I saw him walking away with long resolute strides, unknowing and oblivious of his shadow , of golden pink of the western sky, permanently  lighting my being, the mist of a winter evening  clouding my eyes, the soft scent of PARIJAT (Flower of Paradise) blocking anything unpleasant and my heart  was crying with ecstasy - I am in love, I am in love , I am in love.

I gazed lazily over the fresh green leaves after the sudden rain, the long winding path that vanished with him, filling me with acute longing bordering  on pain- and I the sky, the trees , the birds all crying in unison- you are in love, you are in love , you are in love.

You are here and i was looking all over the house- i looked back at my husband , the boss in office and home alike, where is my towel I am getting late- how funny , how ordinary and how awfully smug, the towalia lao type.

But strange was my response even to myself ,as I found myself smiling at him with indulgence and went back into the confines of the four walls more as a caring mother than a wife.

Yes, ten years of our marriage was fruitless, Mohon, being the successful business man head over heels in love with his work, his day and night devoted to Lakshmi and Ganesha, happy and content to have a pretty wife competent to run the house single handed.  And I Sarita was happy to be the mistress of a grand villa at the outskirts of kolkata, a well fed, well looked after ornament in it. Apart from business Mohon was also a dutiful husband.

I was busy looking after my villa, my terrace, my garden and my ornaments and never piped into my heart, my thirst for a violent love, drowning me into the strong currents and waves of the rough sea, satisfying my emotion and imagination. I sighed at the rainbows on the distant sky ever expanding and infinity, i was mesmerised with the buds on the bushes happily blowing itself into a flower, i marvelled at the birds for being eternally happy to sing at the world, the eternal love that Nature was filled with.

I failed to pick up the poetry book on the mantelpieces and just dusted and put it back in its place, i looked more into the television at the unending and tiresome serials than at the landscape outside- in a word I was tuning myself into machine –the ideal house wife.

Last week when Mohon started for his business tour of one whole month, I looked into his book case and was startled to find in such a poor state, dust lairs have blocked the cover page, one by one I turned the leaves and in horror found the words being eaten by worms. I picked up a hard cover book with the title “Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained”. It was a book gifted by father when I was still a school girl; I wondered how it intruded in to Mohon’s bookshelves.

 My mind went back to twenty years when one day father came home with a pink book in hand and came to my bedside, I was down with jaundice and bored and lonesome as I was confined to my bed, away from my school, friends and siblings. Sarita, always remember there is nothing like a good book for our companion, when lonely and bored. Child, I want you to develop an interest for reading good books, anything from poetry, novels, journals, anything to occupy your mind and brain from being vain and shallow.

I shied and searched the selves for books, good books and thus I met Parijaat. Thank you baba I said.

 Parijat came with all his strength and weaknesses- with all his sense of beauty, laughing at the worldly thing; he came like flood and washed away my loneliness, bitterness and apathy. He took me by my hand and together we toured the world of poetry, filing my days with his benediction of Tagore and Shakespeare, of Sunilda and Shakti Chatterjee, Wordswoth and Keats   hand in hand we entered into the world of Pagla Dasu and Alice forgetting our advancing ages, and Nischintapur , laughing and crying with imagery. Parijaat took me in his bosom and I cried after a long dry spell, which melted the ice grown hard and cold and blocking fresh winds from the wonderland. Alice was as loving and forgiving as ever, and Dasu as funny. How could I have forgotten you all , amazed at my own clumsy ways, I took Parjat by hand and ventured into his Nischintapur, a place where the age stops growing at twenty seven, where nothing matters so long you are  true to yourself, eternally peaceful and poignant with possibilities, a place  next to Heaven.

Our nights we spent together seemingly two but body and soul we were the same. For a whole week he stayed with me, singing and dancing along, looking at the mirror for an eye-catch, for our eyes could never meet. For a week we ran with the breeze, we drenched ourselves in the rain, tugged along together in the desert wind and embracing each other as if there will be no tomorrow.

Parijat opened the door of the gigantic cage of my collection of precious and rare birds, I was proud of and a must see to all my guest. Are you sure, they can still fly, I was hesitant. Let them die in freedom rather than  live a life in captivity, is  all he said.

We were standing together on the portico -expecting Mohon back any time from his tour , a month has gone in a flash, savouring the last moments together.  I looked inside my heart and bed him goodbye, he came out and stood in front with his back facing me, I must leave you and I laughed nervously and cried - must you -can we not stay together? I knew we cannot- he is part of me- he is a fragrance of Parijaat the flower from no-where , he can not stay with a businessman and his dutiful wife and her proper ways.

So he went away with my imagination but instead filing me up with Love, where there is no body , no   entanglement no bindings

  .

I laughed and cried with ecstasy I have found my Love and my whole world laughed and cried - you are in love .