| Creative Writing Competition 2012 India | |
| CODE | 175 |
| SETTING | Railway platform OR Inside Train |
| OBJECT | Any Jewellery – Necklace, Ring… |
| THEME | Remorse |
Love Short Story – My Flown Away Nightingale
Love Short Story – My Flown Away Nightingale
When I got up from my nap, I found the train has reached a small station. I looked around and was surprised to see that almost all in my compartment has got down. I got up and walked to the door to check for some shop that sold tea or coffee. But I saw none. It was cold, it has been raining.
I came back and saw the window seat lying vacant. I joined the two seats and sat on it, stretching my whole body, using the seats almost as a bed.
The train hasn’t moved yet. It was such a small station and it has been over five minutes since the train stopped. I didn’t know why my “vehicle” wasn’t moving. Bad signals? Land slides?
I opened both the glass windows and looked out. How long to remain in this station! Nothing to look around. No shops, no people other than a handicapped beggar and a lottery seller who have sought shelter under that small building. So boring , but not that hopeless as my life! I sighed.
I could hear a faint whistling and knew the train was about to move. But I was frightened by the human voices that came from the door behind me. A male voice talking in a big sound and a female voice almost crying. I looked anxiously towards the door.
All I could see were two people, an old man and an old woman. The man carried a big bag and the woman carried a small bag in her left hand and was crying, tears rolled down her face and she was trembling too. The train started moving.
Though my cabin was vacant, the couple got seated in the next cabin, opposite to me. But I could see and hear them clearly slightly tilting my head.
They had an aristocratic look and they were speaking Tamil. I assumed they were Brahmins, especially by the outfit and jewellery worn by the lady. I could hear them conversing. And I got the matter.
The woman thought she was the reason for them to board the train late and hearing the whistling she was afraid that they would miss the train. The man was such a kind and loving husband, that he took a towel from the bag and dried the water droplets from her head, though he had more water on his own head. He was pacifying her that it was not her fault but the train came early (the train arrived at correct time and left the station late).
I was surprised to see the love of those couple. She was wearing a green silk saree and the man was in pants and shirt. I could hear the woman telling that she was feeling cold and I heard the windows being shut by the man. He took a shawl and covered her in it.
I assured myself that I was not seeing a movie, but a real life. I, the young single man, was mesmerised to see the love of those old couple! Irony it may be!
The man was coughing; the woman took a glass and flask from the bag, poured some hot coffee and gave him. The captivating smell of decoction intoxicated me. I think I have never sensed that smell even in the finest restaurants, other than my own home. (I was a Brahmin too).
They started their conversation in hushing voice.
The woman was old but beautiful. Her forehead bore a big round vermillion bhindi, her nose had nose pins on both sides, her ears had stoned studs with connections to her hair. She had a mangal sutra on her neck, bangles on her hands and rings on the fingers of hands and toes. And no ornament was seen on the man’s body.
The woman’s jewellery reminded me of my Gauri. My one and only one love!
~~~
She was my neighbour in our gramam and we were friends from our childhood. When we entered the teenage, it took no time for the friendship to turn into love, which was pure and sincere for both of us. Our families had known about this and had given silent consent, though nothing was ever spoken on the matter officially. Our fathers were friends and so our families were close.
She was a charming girl who used to sing like a nightingale. For every occasion there would be a music concert by Gauri where everyone would appreciate her. And my nightingale was an intelligent one too. She was doing her final year in chartered accountancy. She was a beauty with brains who was always seen adorned by jewellery, though a little different form the old woman I met in train. She didn’t have mangal sutra (as she was unmarried), had nose pin only on right side of the nose. Additionally, she had Kolusu, the anklets. As seen in movies, we didn’t take much freedom, I never visited her home or used to see her alone somewhere. But both of us knew, we were so much lost in love.
The only request I had ever made to her was to sing a song just for me. That was at the time of my cousin’s wedding. It was night and the moonlight beamed. And when my girl started with a traditional raga, I pretended angry. She became sad. Then I asked her to sing a love song. After long time of silence and thought she sang a film song, which still remains as the only joy in my life.
“Nila kaigirathu
Nirem theigirathu
Yaarum rasikevilaiyea
Intha kangal mattum unnai kaanum
Thendral pogindrathu
Solai sirikindrathu
Yaarum suhikavilaiyea
Chinna kaigal matoom unnai theendoom
Katru veesum veiyil kaayum kaayum
Athil maatram ethum ilaiyea
Ah…Vaanum mannum nammai vazha chollum
Antha vaazhthu oiyavillai enendroom vaanil……………”
{The translation goes like this :
The moon is out, shining
Night time is fading
Nobody is enjoying it
These (my) eyes alone, see you
The breeze is blowing
The oasis-heavens are smiling
No one is enjoying it
Just these (my) small hands will touch you
The wind will blow, the sun will shine on
There is no change in those things
The sky and earth will tell us to live
Those good wishes will not stop, ever}
We looked into each other’s eyes and knew the depths of our bond.
After completing my engineering in IIT Chennai I was pursuing post graduation in the same IIT. It was then I got a chance to undergo a training in UK for six weeks. And that was really very unexpected and I had only barely one week to reach there, after clearing all the other formalities. It changed many lives forever and I daily curse that luck which turned out to be my ill luck.
Gauri’s father met my family and asked to announce our engagement, as they thought without that there was not guarantee for anything. Moreover suitors had started to sniff around the house of my nightingale. My father wanted my success as he thought the opportunity would have some bonus points in my later life. He didn’t want to announce our engagement in a hurry, because I was going out only for six weeks, a too short period.
He told Gauri’s father that everything can be done in peace when I come back. There was no enough time even to plan things and to my father’s status, a hasty engagement of the only son was something unthinkable. He said a big NO and that broke the relation between the two families. I still don’t understand what made Gauri’s father so arrogant at that time. Did he think that I wouldn’t come back after seeing Great Britain for just six weeks? May be that was my fate.
I, who was unaware of all these developments went her house to say goodbye that evening and was surprised to see a locked house. I told my parents but they didn’t pay any attention. I felt sad for not seeing my girl but the excitement of my first journey abroad overruled that.
Reaching my destination, I tried many times to call Gauri at her home number and her number, but got no reply. I knew she used to check her emails often. And with me abroad, she must be checking it every once in a while, I hoped. Numerous mails were sent which remained unreplied. Every time I asked about them, my parents told they were all well and they had moved to their mother’s home due to some construction work in the present house. I was wondering, if it was so, why Gauri couldn’t reply to my mails from a cafe? I couldn’t believe her unusual behaviour.
When I came back after successfully completing my training, my parents had come to welcome me. Contrary to my expectations, I saw glum faces. They said they were having fever and so the journey from airport to home was almost like a death procession. My mind sensed something wrong, terribly wrong. When I came home, I asked them what was going on and the replies made me feel that the sky above was falling over me.
Soon after I left, Gauri’s enraged father had fixed her marriage with someone working in a bank and they wanted to give her in marriage very soon. My parents weren’t informed about anything but they knew the news from their friends. My parents, especially my proud father, didn’t feel to go to her home and settle the problems. If her father was arrogant, my father was two times arrogant to go for a compromise. Gauri’s marriage date was fixed and she knew within a few days she would become someone else’s wife. Without seeing any ray of hope, house arrested Gauri killed herself.
Seeing her daughter’s lifeless body, hearing the cursing words of his wife , Gauri’s father was too broken. Remorse whispered constantly that he was responsible for his daughter’s death. And finally he found peace by following his daughter’s path. The two unexpected deaths shattered the family and since then Gauri’s mother was out of mind. This of course crashed my family too, my mother told that my father had cried like a child for many days.
The shocking news made me mad, I cried aloud and shouted. I roared to my dad that he took my Gauri from me and along with her he had killed me too. I called my father murderer. I asked both my parents what they have achieved by hiding the news from me. If I had known this before, I would have certainly married her, at least a register marriage, without going for Brahmin wedding that would have continued for many days, no matter what others thought. If they had informed me she would have been alive with me. I was no more myself for many days, I couldn’t accept that Gauri was no more. And my words have left my father brittle in all ways. He was hospitalised with a heart attack and passed away a few days later. My mother told me later that my father always had repented about not telling me the incidents in time. If he had, it could have prevented the death of two souls. But it was not two, it was three. With her departure, my soul had become lifeless.
~~~
Now I am well employed and living with my mother in the city away from the gramam. I don’t want to stay there anymore without my Gauri. I exist just because my body exists. And there is not a single day in my life that I don’t think of my nightingale. And the sweet song she had sung only for me, always rings in my ears.
I looked at the couple. They woman has fallen asleep on the man’s shoulder, who was reading a news paper.
I looked out the window and saw a rainbow. I saw my nightingale.
__END__
