Sabari Parinayam

2

Sabari struggled to push herself to the surface of the water and stay afloat. Her wet sari was pulling her down and not giving much space for her legs to move. Having fallen into the deeper end of the river Sabari could not find any base to push herself up. She heard Kalyani scream for help and saw her running down the steps before she gulped in the air and went underwater. She could not hear anything afterwards. A burning sensation was growing in her lungs forcing her to open up her mouth and release the air trapped in them. Sabari could hold no longer. She gasped for breath and gulped in water. Her body was slowly being pulled down by her own weight. Sabari let go. She did not fight to survive and closed her eyes. She saw flashes of her childhood moments with her mother and father. Their smiles, their concern, their fear. Her father reached out and clasped her wrists to stop her from falling off a swing. The touch felt so real...real and painful..almost like an iron grip. The fingers that tightnened around her wrist yanked her upwards. A second later cool air breezed across her face.

"Straighten your legs and stand up!!" a angry male voice barked at Sabari. The same man also seemed hell bent on breaking her bones given the way he was thumping her back to get her to cough the water out.

In a reflex response to his command Sabari straightnened her legs. She felt pebbles under her feet and could feel the waist high water. The bone breaking thumping on her back continued. "Stop it!!" Sabari managed in a croaked voice "You are hurting me!!"

The man steadied Sabari with firm hands "Don't you know that killing yourself is aganist the law?" he asked in a terse voice.

"What?!" Sabari was still processing things being said and felt. When she raised her head she was face up staring at a wet and bare chest of a man, that had a white entwined thread running across it, along with many droplets of water sliding down a well worked, wash board abs, along his navel and into his...his...Sabari coughed. Wasn't she dying a minute ago? And the first coherent thought she has is about this bare chested man in a panchi. A panchi?! God save her mind!! she was having those kind of thoughts about a brahmin! About a pujari! Imagining him to have heard her thoughts Sabari began apologizing "I am so sorry..I.."

"You should be. Get out of the water now!" The man, still holding Sabari's wrists, began dragging her out of the water.

Sabari stumbled "Wait...Stop pulling...arre...wait!" hearing her voice echo in the silence of the night Sabari realized that they were all alone. She looked around. There was no temple. No people. No lamps. No nothing. This was not the river she fell into. Ahead of them trees lined the river and behind her it was only water. Long stretch of water that flowed into the moonlit horizon. She looked up at the moon. Moon? Wasn't it amavasya , a no moon night, The night that she fell. The night that she fell? How long ago did she fall into the river? Was she floating all these days? How many days did she float? But wasn't she struggling to stay afloat? Sabari frowned. She let herself to be pulled. She looked at the bare back of the man who had saved her. She did not see his face yet. The man was bald. Except for a small tuft of hair that curled down from the crown of his head. Who was this man? And then it struck her! Her eyes widened! She was dead! Sabari died! This was her afterlife?!Sabari cocked her chin "Well that was quick" she wondered aloud about her fast move to the other side of life. "Ouch! Will you stop pulling me!" Sabari jerked her hand backwards.

The man turned around "If you don't get out of the water and those wet clothes you will die of cold!" he said in an irritated voice.

Sabari did not hear what was said to her. In the glow of the full moon she could see his face very clearly. A long face with a square jaw and a sharp nose. Dark eyes glowered at her from the shadows of his thick eye brows. "You are quite good looking for a Yamadhoot" she said , staring at his clenched jaw.