Ultimate Exemption

The night was tardly gaining the darkness. The brightness of the street lights appeared haughty on its augmenting predominance. Also the lighting from the few vehicles that were still running on the highway aided to the proofs of the fact that it had been a bit late, a bit more late. His, the man's feet appeared to be suffering the strenuous obligation to move fast, faster and fastest. One would easily fear the soon to occur muscle spasm when observed his mode of being. Behind him was walking his woman with whom he had shared the marriage vows few months over a decade ago. Actually, the wedding never took place; they had eloped together, for their union appeared nearly impossible to them to be approved socially. There was a slight difference in the hierarchy of the castes they belonged. Well yeah, she, the woman was accelerating as well in the efforts to reach her man. The heavy plastic sack she was carrying was impeding her speed. Her speed, his speed, the strain, the impedance; all the forces were so uniformly balanced that there maintained an exact meter long spacing between the man and the woman.

In that whole course of race, the most pathetic condition was endured by her, by that sweet little girl of seven or so whose sweetness always lay hid inside the guise of dirt and pollution. She was firmly holding her mother's sari towards the right side. The girl appeared to be running. The apprehension of missing the hold of her mother was clearly perceived in her sighs that penetrate the heart too deep and cause the wounds of compassion. All of a sudden, the girl halted and screamed. Her father thwarted his motion. Taken aback, he turned back and approached his daughter, rested the massive load of unsold stuffs and bent down. The woman got down as well. Both the parents seem to have been shaken by the grievous scream of their daughter. They looked on to her and found that her left toe was hurt severely by the stroke of her foot to the slightly raised portion of the one of the stone slates covering the drainage above which the footpath laid. The woman spitted over the injured toe to stop it from bleeding. And soon, again they continued their way. This time a bit slow; a bit more cautious. The retardation of their motion caused them a feeling of cold in that moderately cold night of October. The woman stopped; untied the thin woolen shawl she had tied in her waist and wrapped it around her torso. The girl had already been wearing slightly warmer full-sleeved skirt unlike her mother who was dressed in a half-sleeved thin cotton blouse and a cotton sari. Still, the light from the vehicles when fell onto the girl would clearly show the goosebumps in the exposed portions of her legs. She kept shuddering in at times.

This time the all three were walking parallelly along each other, finding the time to discuss their day that had just been lived. The woman initiated the conversation by asking her man about the net business he did during the day. Man, in a very low tone that sounded much like a loud whisper replied to his woman- “I lost a note of 500 rupees today. I searched everywhere and all in my pockets but could find nowhere; didn't wanted to tell you about that..but you know, hiding things with you is just not possible for me. All these years I've been unrestrained about my thoughts, my feelings, my whims, my desires, my stories of failures, of agonies with you..and it has kind of become a habituated action which I can't help with..I'm sorry dear for my inability to wipe off the torments or at least to lock them safely inside my own..I'm fortunate to have you as a part of me and equally guilty to have made you a part of my sorrows as well that are so adamant not to leave me..that have in a way became my essence, an undesirable essence..I'm sorry dear!” He burst out flowing the stream that seem almost nonterminating through his eyes. The veil of night had finely covered his swarthy complexioned face. Still, his ashamed and timid countenance that was ruthlessly drowned in the vale of tears didn't lay hid from his woman. She got very near to her man and gently stroke her head to the man's shoulders. The touch was so subtle, so beautiful, so kind, so genuine, so soothing, so unconditional and so many more as such. He breathed a long breathe. The very moment stood as the realization of an eternal truth that the ultimate salvation is achieved from the merging of two basic cosmic counterparts provided that the whole phenomenon results from the turbulence caused by the tempest of love. And that very instant she felt for the first time the kick of a baby that was growing in her womb. She breathed a long breathe. Both of them nearly at the same instant gazed at their daughter who was finding a bit difficult to match her parents' pace.

They had planned to admit their daughter to the school the coming day. And so were sparing a certain amount of money in a regular basis for her uniform, books, admission fee and the rests that were essential for the one going to school. It had been two years that they had planned to do so. But the fund spared would be spent on the curing of the girl herself as her poor health kept making her sick at times. She was born prematurely as her mother was just 17 when she gave her a birth. But this time, even though the significant amount of money had been lost, even though they were very much sort of money for the survival alone, they were determined to educate their daughter beginning this academic session. Both were pondering about on the ideas for the immediate monetary source. The woman had a pretty much good connection with her neighboring business colleagues; one a vegetable vendor, another a soap-seller and the other a juice maker. She believed that they were good human beings who had helped her once when a fraudulent customer had tried to cheat on her. But this time, it was a matter of money; she kept wondering if anyone of them would trust her for the money they had earned with much difficulties. Similar was the case with the man as well.

The man and woman had both outgrown their ages, may be from the pain that had been perpetually casting its agonizing gloom over their existence. They both appeared marred and disfigured out of misery. Also the ambiance rhymed with their state. The otherwise beautiful October night had turned kind of irksome that night. Even the cold appeared to be teasing them; mocking them at their situation, at their insufficiency. It wasn't that they hadn't worked hard; it was actually, the succession of failures never failed to loom around their life. The woman had two miscarriages after the birth of their baby girl. It was the man alone who seem to possess a sound physical health. However, he was slowly developing the epileptic symptoms like forgetting the things he wasn't supposed to. And few many times, he was robbed while returning to his abode in the similar nights when it had been a bit late, a bit more late. All the whiles, miseries kept calling for the entities of same kind.

With the life that had ruthlessly been tied up with difficulties, they were marching towards their congested abode carrying the hopes of freeing themselves someday and breathing in the air that is sans the constituents of melancholy when Swiftly did the swift ran onto them. The miseries swiftly fleet away without letting them any previous hints of departure. They were all set free within a moment from the ties of unbound difficulties. They proclaimed their freedom with the loud scream that soon got lost without any recession. Nobody acknowledged the vanishing of their existence amid the deep solitude, in the dead of night. It was as ordinary as the not too cold and not too warm night of October; it was as ordinary as the silence of deep night. Neither the wind blew nor the rain fell to mourn their closure. Not even there occurred a single thunder abuzz with the celebration of their liberation. Their wraiths kept riveting around their lifeless remains, watched the ambiance and disappeared after a while wearing a delicate fit of wonder at how beautifully the surrounding matched their cessation.

The fright

Her face was glowing in that peach cotton t-shirt. The garment was beautifully complementing her pale white complexion. Lips that looked very much like the petals from light colored purple rose were tightly stuck together. The curled lashes were quivering frequently. The soberness in the eyes was augmented by the kohl with a tinge of brown worn in the outer half portion of lower eye lids. Her eyes appeared larger than usual. The nose, slightly concave in form was reddened at its tip even in such scorching heat of mid- May. She had finely done small forehead that looked the same every time. Even her frequently changing coiffures could do nothing to it. Her cheeks appeared flattened that day, quite surprisingly, causing the cheek bones to appear sharp and haughty. And the feeling that emanated from her visage at that moment was somewhat treacly, somewhat inert, a bit timid, a bit rigid. Though the emotions reflected were vague and hard to decode, her countenance distinctly denoted the utmost discomfort she was enduring at the moment. She had never even imagined that the sudden stroke of realization would be so intensely constrained; the heaviness was outweighing her own weight.

He stood there in front of her. He was sweating arduously. The blue shirt he had worn was wet severely under the armpits. The sweat droplets were shining brightly in his forehead. Even the eyes were sweating, but from the fire that was burning inside. She had grown numb and he had cultivated enough sensitivity. She was hard and brittle and he was as pliant as the finely kneaded dough. He was discomposed and she knew no any composure. He was continuously draining through his eyes and she was diabolically dehydrated within an instant. The pain was persistent, adamant not to depart for they both lack the idea on how to resolve, how to dissolve; reiterate to the past or set a new itinerary. She was petrified all at once by the shocking surprise her own self granted her. It never occurred to her that someday, sometime she would be deceived by her own tender core of heart, by her own belonging in a manner as such. There was no any hint of forerunner to signify the arrival of such painful deceit. I tell you, it was all of a sudden she felt for him, she fell for him. All those years, they had remained just the friends, just good friends. She had never felt any sort of awkwardness to do any sort of awkward things in his presence. She laughed widely, she cried severely, she quarreled whole heartedly even though he might be around her. She cared not a bit about how she looked and how he looked while being together. Moreover, she would grow even more lackadaisical in his company. There was absolutely no desire in her to charm him, to propel him, to attract him. His killing smile never succeeded to threaten her. She however, found his chiseled frame inordinate but not exceptional. She had seen him grow from a child to a guy but never cared about how handsome and masculine he had grown. Withal, it wasn't the case with him. He had witnessed her growth from a sweet darling doll to a beautiful and majestic diva. And pondered about how wonderful the courses of change had been. He had equally been amazed by her juvenile laughter that showed off all the teeth except the frontal upper two which were plucked at that time as he is now amazed to see her wide youthful smile showcasing the pearly white teeth. He loved it when she would get cozy in his company. He admired her kind gestures, her cool and easy postures, her sympathetic and empathetic heart and a mind that was sharp and shrewd but rarely manifested those qualities. He would get mesmerized on listening to her low soft voice. Her wishes were his commands and her dreams were his desires. She was his muse. And he loved her, but he didn't realized nor there occurred any obligation to have realized.

She would share with him, with Shagun, the stories of her crushes, about how she was infatuated, how she felt when walking along with her guy, how madly she loved him when he stared at her eyes and did nothing and so on and on. He would listen to her and would smile but only the god knew how much did he meant that. Also the accounts of her heart-breaks, of the betrayals she incurred, of the torments she endured never hid from him. She told him all and everything. And her shrieks caused him heart sore and astoundingly, it would be the lady herself who would mitigate the situation. She knew that he loved her but in a sense she would want him to. He knew that she loved her, may or may not be in a sense he would like her to. He was uncertain of what she meant to him. But all of a sudden, everything at once, things altered; feelings evolved manifesting themselves violently. Without any anticipation, the time came when the awareness occurred. Life appeared way more easier in the realm of unconscious. The moment came when she was to bid him adieu. He was leaving for The United states in the course of his education. And he had came to see her the last time before he left when the truth bizarrely unfolded itself before them. Both acknowledged that confounded state. Both exhibited the confusions silently. Both confessed the turbulence, the shudder, the truth in their own unique ways.

Her benumbed self started to rivet around. Her eyes shut themselves up. Clear images of the infidelities she was forced to accept casted on her mind. She empathized with her past self that was badly cheated upon. She felt pity at her own when her generous self, her virtuous being was taken for granted. She remembered the face of her shy and timid lover that had turn hard and condescending by the treatment of her passionate love. She remembered the vows she took in front of her own self when her love was reprehended for lust. The words she had given to herself that she would never ever fall for anyone again, began to cast clearly in her mind. Her self was just began to melt when it turned resolute all again.

She turned abruptly and walked slowly without turning to look back at him draining the memories out that had suddenly begun to inundate her..