Words - once spoken can only be forgiven. The irreversible nature of them have always made the oldest caution the young lest they carry the regret like their ancestors. Alas! No one learns this lesson until it is too late.
(Blurb to be edited)
Vāc i...
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Prativindya had long since fallen asleep snuggled in his baby blanket. Yet her rhythmic pats over his chest did not pause and neither did her humming. The melody was a cyclic repeatation of only a part of an entire song- a half forgotten one. Abhijishya softly sang the words under her breath and filled in the spaces of the lost ones with her own. Her mother used to sing them to her as a child and later to her sister. So she had sang it to Anvi and now to Vindu except it was a pity her memory could only treasure a small part of it.
The real meaning of loss was realized when the human mind failed to recall the details- her mother's scent, her sister's pout, her father's stern gaze, her friends' teasing. All their faces now appeared as blurred images under her closed eyelids. Eighteen years she had spent with them and fourteen years away from them. Abhijishya had given up on avoiding thinking of them when it first dawned on her that she couldn't trace her mother's face on paper accurately. Many parchments were crumbled, torn and tossed but she couldn't do it. That was seven years ago - a four year old Anvi had wanted to meet her grandparents. It was then Abhijishya finally irrevocably lost something.
The pangs of hurt she tried to avoid only got replaced by guilt and an emptiness she wished didn't belong to her. After that, Abhijishya had commemorated some of her solitude to reminiscing the family she left behind. Their memories brought her a comfort she didn't know she was yearning for. Abhijishya sighed out a small laugh. Wouldn't Baba be infuriated to see her married at nineteen, a mother by twenty and a wife sharing a husband with another woman? Maa would be stuck between disapproval and awe though. She was married to Panduputra Nakul. That was a huge plus on her mother's book or Abhijishya would like to pretend so. Her sister would be jealous and equally excited because of her Rajkumari status.
A tear trickled down the bridge of her nose. It dropped on Vindu's nose causing his face to scrunch up. Abhijishya apologetically shushed him, wiping away the drop of sadness. Her faithful pillow absorbed the remnants of nostalgia from her moist eyes and once again Prativindya settled into restful sleep. Abhijishya sat up, the duvet covering her bunched down around her waist, leaving her exposed skin to the mercies of the cold drafty chamber.
She discarded the warm allure of the bed, rested the bare soles of her feet on the chilled floor and arose. The earthern lamps burned dimly, their oil nearing the end. In the faint light, Abhijishya navigated towards the dressing table where Charu had laid out a multitude of garments, jewellery and perfumes she could choose to adorn. Only, she harboured no such desire.
Sleep was miles away from her and it felt wrong somehow to lay beside Vindu shedding tears over past memories. Her little Vindu didn't deserve to be touched by any sorrow, definitely not hers. She glanced over the arranged articles- all in the hues of either blue, purple or turquoise with fine gold threads stitched in them forming intricate patterns. Abhijishya should get dressed, embellish herself like a newly wed bride awaiting her husband's arrival, shouldn't she? Train her eyes towards the door nursing the long thirst to unravel herself in his arms- arms that would have held another woman not even an hour ago.
