Mahua Memories II

Continued from Mahua Memories..

Diri and Lakha couldn’t stop giggling like children as they gathered the flowers. Both their gamchha now weighed heavy, soaked in the fragrance of the flowers. Busy inspecting if there were more that they could gather, they both were so lost that they didn’t quite see the looming shadow that moved from one of the branches of the tree to the trunk.

The shadow was descending from the tree along the trunk and was almost about to reach the ground, when Diri sniffed a peculiar smell. “Ewwhh, maybe there’s a dead animal somewhere nearby, there’s an odd smell in the air. Maybe it has taken to rot”, she said covering her nose with her palms.

“Don’t move”, Lakha whispered in her ears, “and don’t speak”. Slowly gathering themselves, when they found each other’s hands, he silently moved her head to see to the right.

He had spotted the shadow that had made its way to the ground and was now standing in its full stature, just beside the Mahua tree. And by the silhouette, they could not understand what it was. To their horror, the figure stooped down and what seemed in the fading light beneath the canopy, started crawling towards them!

“Ayo go! Bonga yaa! It’s a ghost!!” screamed Lakha when he couldn’t contain his fear any longer and pulled Diri by the arms before he fled for life. Panting for life and steps ahead, when he turned back a minute later, the monstrous shadow was following them! His legs felt heavy.

Soon the shadow outpaced them and now was running along with them and when escape seemed next to impossible, Diri stopped and pulled Lakha back.

“What do you want? Just don’t take my husband or me”, her eldritch screech dipped in fear demanded.

“Arrgghhhawhawwhhaaww”, sound of gurgled laughter came out of the shadow. Then out came a hand pointing towards her gamchha. “Diri”, the voice said sweetly.

“Even though it’s a ghost, I swear I have heard that voice somewhere else. Maybe in my own head when the spirit was rambling around our house planting the idea of gathering Mahua on an ominous full moon night”, Diri almost sobbed when she thought to herself. And out of sheer insanity of the thoughts following, she suddenly caught hold of the hand of the shadow and pulled it towards ground. Something had taken her over as she started throwing her hands and legs on the shadow with all her might. Passing out but for a moment, Lakha joined her almost immediately and after a few cries and gasps and fists flying in the air, they found that it was a woman they were mashing and not a shadow!

Lakha was so surprised when he heard the shadow crying, “oh leave me, help, help, it’s just me Bini”, that even though he recognised the voice as Bini’s voice, he couldn’t stop the rhythm of his hands and legs beating the body up.

“Why! Bini, it’s you?”, raged Lakha.

“Why did you scare us? We were so close to death!!”, exclaimed Diri.

“Hold on hold on! I scared you? It’s you who scared me”, Bini’s tired and pained voice screamed. “I came to gather Mahua in the night, was tired and hungry and don’t know when I dozed off. I wake up and what do I see? Two shadows giggling and dancing under the tree!! Now who wouldn’t be scared at that sight! Tell me!!”, she charged.

“Hey! Maybe we giggled but we never danced. Dundhi Bini, you are mad and foolish in equal proportions”, shouted Lakha.

“And on top of that you ran after us, what explanation do you have for that?”, questioned Diri.

“Well, when your husband shouted and you both ran off, I recognised it’s you two and started running with you”, said Bini innocently.

“You had almost killed us Bini, we’ll settle the score in the village but as of now, let’s leave from here”, Lakha said decidedly, looking at the never-ending argument they were looped in.

“You go ahead, someone in the village might see me coming and throw stones at me again”, Bini’s naturally soft voice now sounded firm.

“No one’s going to throw stones Bini, a bad allegation doesn’t survive. You can’t stay in the forest forever, right?” reasoned Diri.

“Things have changed while you were away”, said Lakha. “Let’s walk, I will tell you”.

“Bini, your husband’s allegations didn’t have enough to prove anything against you, the manjhi himself said it. Cooking up stories is not going to help. If you come back, at least there will be a re-hearing,” Lakha tried to explain in the same words he remembered from the panchayat sabha.

“It’s just that, I have a proof against her today”, said Diri calmly.

“What proof!” Bini exclaimed.

“Aren’t you the spirit on the Mahua tree that leaves her nectar in the flowers every night?” Diri laughed as she saw Bini caught by surprise.

The generous laughter of the man and the two women echoed in the outskirts of the forest. They walked towards the village, their voices gradually fading by the dust on the village road. A hint of red spread over the hills, as if the colour had leaked at various spots from the distant hills. With the birds chirping on the branches, the forest slowly woke up to life. The fragrance of the flowers was still fresh and the shades of green and white played hide and seek in the soft rays of the rising sun. A white crane on one of the branches fluttered its wings and flew away and at once, a plump Mahua flower dropped from the tree on the ground, “dwoop”.

Mahua memories

It was still dark. The full moon was on its way to the horizon, leaving a trail of gleaming white village road. It was still dark when Lakha and his wife Diri, quietly opened the door and stepped out for Mahua.

It was that time of the year when the evenings bathed in the afterglow of bright orange, after the sun embraced the horizon. It was that time of the year when the smell of Mahua around dawn would almost intoxicate the animals in the jungle. So much so that some of them would venture outside the forest to savour a lump. Why, if you were in the forest in the still of the night and focused hard, you could hear even the mesmerising sound of the flowers dropping on the ground, “dwoop”.

Diri had often asked her mother,” Henda go, why is that even the smell of Matkom flower’s so luring in the morning?”

“Because, the spirits in the forest hide their nectar in the Mahua tree”, her mother would say. To which, young Diri would reason, “No, no, I am asking why mornings?”

“Because”, her mother would answer,” the spirits don’t want to be seen, so they hide the nectar only late in the night, after they finish their sabha, meeting each other!” 

And Diri’s random thoughts would take to motion, as random as the kok’s selection of fishes at the village pond. The Dighi itself was home to myriad spooky stories. Many a times she had gathered tales from the men bathing after sunset, of their encounters with the maidens with beautiful burnt skin, slender neck and honey smooth voice. Most often than not, it would be just one seemingly helpless lass, asking them for directions. Once they are cosy in conversation, the girl would vanish in the thin air without a notice, leaving the frightened man gasping for air. Worse yet, she would take the man her own way. And when he has completely lost his sense of direction, suddenly, he would notice her legs and gradually her inverted feet!! Most would return in a state of madness or in the least, stupor, from such encounters.

Well, not only paranormal beings, Bhagandanga and the villages nearby were also frequented by dacoits. “But that was long ago”, Diri thought to herself. The village manjhi doesn’t allow even petty thieves to get away. On one such occasion, Diri summoned the recesses of her memory, when dacoits had attacked the village, the sentries and village keepers had trapped them and had beaten them up black and blue. One of the dacoits had died while escaping and they had found his body in a paddy field near Bhagandanga, next day afternoon. The soil was red, soaked in his blood. Next harvest, when they gathered thrice the paddy from the same field, everyone said the same thing. It was the blood that had made the almost barren land so fertile.

“I wish I could turn back time”,  Diri sighed, reminiscing of the olden days. One looked forward to each day eagerly anticipating a new adventure to unfold itself. Every day. Now, amidst the routine household chores and the countless hours at field, even sohrai didn’t seem like celebration.

During a journey, it’s always the woman who leads. Dust on the mud road pressed beneath their cautious feet as Lakha trod lightly behind Diri, following the smell of the Mahua tree at the distance. A light might awaken the villagers, so they walked guided by the silhouettes of the trees and their own frames.

As they stepped outside the village, Diri remembered how her mother had warned her not to venture out to gather Mahua, especially during the full moon nights.  There was a soft breeze lilting around the trees by the village road and the arresting smell of Mahua flowers was not something that helped heed that precious advice, at least at this juncture. The intensity of the smell in the air grew, after almost every step they took. Warm yet soothing, strong yet mellow, the fragrance of the Mahua knew how to steal the hearts of the ones who had had a sniff. Finally, Diri’s eyes spotted the white flowers at a distance, after two large Sal trees. They had reached. 

To be continued....

That story!!

There were five of them on the khatiya (cot), he spoke and the rest of them listened with rapt attention. It was a cold night in a remote village in India and the blanket was warm and just spacious enough for the tall man and his little grandchildren.

“So, I was walking and walking and was very tired but still hopeful, seeing the distant lights in the village. And as I was passing the culvert over the stream, I saw it, there it was again!”, he sounded curiously spooky.

“So, it was following you all that while, was it?”, curiosity followed one of the children.

“Oh indeed, it was!”, he exclaimed. “Well, that’s what they usually do you know. And if the traveller tries to keep an eye on it, all in vain, slowly he loses focus on where he was going and gets lost. Forever.” he added in a very matter of fact way, leaving the children almost shuddering as they clung closer.

“Did it say anything this time?”, one of them mustered up the courage to ask.

“Ah well, this time it didn’t. But it simply knew that I knew that it was the same one!”, the mystery in his voice kept them longing, so he went on, “So, like any other discerning traveller, I simply focused on the road ahead of me and after a while, it was gone! It just vanished in thin air.”

There was a slight commotion in the limited space inside the blanket as the children couldn’t resist the tingle in the spine after the scary reveal.

As if almost to double the intensity of the fear they felt, he said, “Well, you may see it too! If you stand near the culvert when the dusk falls into the night and walk slow enough to let everyone pass by, when you are finally alone on the road, you will see it. The talking goat!!”

And dusk really fell into the night, not to bring the lonely talking goat with melancholy yellow eyes, out on the road though. The night just fell into the lap of more stories, ‘The Talking ghost..err..goat revisited’, ‘The foxes in the jungle‘, ‘The bear around the Mahua tree’, ‘the firefly ghosts’ and many more, walking as far as the rambling road twined into the horizon.

********************************************************************

“Is it true that the fireflies that visit the mango trees in the night are actually spirits?”, she asked with one of her brows raised expectantly.

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, dadu (grandpa) told us about it and I just wanted to check if he was fooling us.” she said with a causal shrug.

“Hmm, I see. That’s probably true but you would want to check it for yourself though, won’t you? By the way, did he tell you guys about the white horse?”

“No, what’s that? What white horse?” she exclaimed.

“Will tell you another day, have to go now.”

As she waived at her father, the yarn of the tale fell out on the road too, spinning as far as the rambling road twined into the horizon.  And as the dusk once again fell into the night, once again the fireflies swarmed around the mango trees, the foxes cried from the Bamboo jungle, a bear slowly rolled towards the sweet smelling Mahua tree and a white horse appeared on the moonlit village road. Galloping past the houses, galloping far into the night, it went as far as the stories could take you!

********************************************************************

 “So, did you find your white horse?”, the chuckling voice jolted her pace of thought.

“Well, A for one, it’s not MY horse and B, thanks for the condescending tone”, she replied with a dash of irritation in her voice.

“Ha-ha and C, its the mistress of the horse that bites! C’mon now, tell me about it.”

“Well, if you want to know, there isn’t one but many white horse stories. Or they might all be the same, I don’t know, the details are different though”, she mumbled.

“If her majesty would care to explain?”

“Well, a gazillion of them apparently have galloped the whole of European soil or as it says in the local tales”, she retorted. “There’s one that Kalki, the 10^th incarnation of Vishnu would ride and there’s one that the Mahdi, the redeemer of Islam would ride and again it appears as the ride of the Christ too. The proceeds of the stories are similar and the context is same for all these three stories.

“Enlighten me please.”

“Most of the mentions are in the local myths in various parts of Europe and Asia and are narrated as stories of the past. But there are some mentions of future appearances as well, like in, Kalki, Mahdi and Christ’s stories. The plotlines are quite like Marvel comic stuff you know, saving the world and saving the good and getting rid of the bad etcetera. Typical end of the age stories”, she said nonchalantly.

“Don’t pretend to sound so bored, you love this stuff, right? Moreover, it’s quite nice, this comparison. What do YOU think of the stories though?”

“What? As in, what do I think about my dad’s white horse story, whether it qualifies here or not?” she burst into a laughter.

And as the conversation went back and forth, the steps of the story spiralled up to the sky where the dusk fell into the night. It left a trail in your soul, as haunting and as cherished, as remarkable and as ordinary it was. That story!

Did you find yours? What’s your story??

Two minutes and three moments

The black door creaked open. A scrawny, brown haired, clean shaved man walked in. 

Long strides and he reached the middle of the place. Taking his hands out of the pockets, he looked at his watch and then looked at the woman standing in front of him and said, 'It's now time. This, will make it or break it."

Several moments later......he emerged out of his thoughts, as if out of a fog of tension.

Eyes. Dark.

Lips . Taut.

Breath. Heavy.

Palms. Grabbing.

Neck. Stiff.

Head. Low.

Mind. Focused.

Heart. Pounding.

And there was a building roar in the surroundings, "G-O-A-L"........

And split seconds later, it died down like the string of a kite suddenly cut. His team had won after almost an array of lost matches!

Relieved, he let go the chair he was grabbing. Taking a sip from the tall glass of drink, wiping his big grin, he said to her,"Here's your cheque."

Finally! This was the beginning of a successful business diversification. The market where the gentlemen's games thrive is gonna be stale in some days. Soon, the blood frenzy medieval times would be back. One man against another. Mud and sweat. Like the gladiator arena. Peak of entertainment and of course loads of money. And he would grab it all.

"Ah! Welcome good life!"

And the moment froze. 

Meanwhile, about two minutes back... in the same frame......she dived into a whirlpool of thoughts. 

Not her's but his.

Eyes. Dark.

Lips . Taut.

Breath. Heavy.

Palms. Grabbing.

Neck. Stiff. 

Head. Low.

Mind. Focused.

Heart. Pounding.

Finally! All these years of hard work had paid off!

Excited, she almost broke down. Her son now could go for the next level of football training. It's all about the right decisions at the right time. She breathed deeply and released the bag she was grabbing, extended her hand and took the cheque. 

The coveted piece of paper. This was going to write off their misery. Forever.

Soon, her son will make it to the big leagues. 

"Ah! Welcome good life!"

And the moment froze. 

Meanwhile, about two minutes back...in the same frame......he emerged out of his thoughts, as if out of a fog of tension.

Eyes. Dark.

Lips . Taut.

Breath. Heavy.

Palms. Grabbing.

Neck. Stiff.  

Head. Low.

Mind. Focused.

Thankful, the boy looked at the skies.

His hands still grabbing the ball. The last of the penalty shots he had stopped.

His team had won after almost an array of lost matches!

Hopefully, this was his road to fame, fortune and all of that shebang.

And walking down that road, one day, he will earn his freedom. 

Finally! Freedom of making his own choices for his life.

"Ah! Welcome good life!"

And the moment froze.

Looking through the rearview mirror

So, the last post was so very weary that I guess you can actually visit it to check your boredom threshold.

All you have to do is, visit the page Mirror mirror on the wall and start reading the first few lines. If you survive 3 sentences, you have a lot of patience and would survive boredom even better than the receptionist at a photo studio in a small dusty town.

So, in this continued post, I decided to pull the chain of my random rambling thoughts, to stop and glance at some useful ways to undo the damages done to the precious readers, who had hurt their retina and/or amygdala while reading the previous post!

Whoof! Is correction a tough job or what! Well, speaking of corrections, in the previous post, originally, I had wanted to write about image corrections. Not in the photo-enhancement sense of image correction but the correction of one’s self image as if it was as grisly as an ‘imperfect’ nose!

And imagine of professional services offering a hand to help you! “Welcome to Mirror services, we can brush, polish and even reconstruct your self-image!” Chuck wellness programs out of the window, who’d need age-old mechanisms to preserve your self-image. Now you could build your customized self-image as dynamically as one can choose from samples in the sperm bank! Even one for each day, like your custom diet or customized mobile phone data plan.

(Ah, just by the way, if you hadn’t realized, wellness programs work solely on one’s self-image reacting to the progressive decaying. Because after all, one would anyways age the age one ought to and there ain’t no any change in that!)

However, the crazier thought is to not only have these customized self-images of you but also to let these versions interact with versions of other’s self-images. With all due respect to blue creatures from an unnamed motion picture, let’s call these images – avatars. So, to think of it, you could have zillions of interactions of all your avatars with someone else’s avatars. Literally every moment.

And yet, isn’t that the reality? Today, when we interact with each other, isn’t it perceptions interacting with perceptions? At every level. Eyes, mind, thoughts and feelings.

Well, can all of these interactions be awesome and cheer worthy? Only if perceptions find each other awesome. You could say, you still want some goriness in life apart from the usual dosage of reality TV. Thumbs up! But, say there was a day of non-stop awesome interactions; imagine the high you would reach by the end of the day, if all of your avatars score a 10/10 on interaction scale. At every level.

No, I am not playing the song, “And I think to myself…what a wonderful world...” in the background. Truth is, I don’t know what it’d feel like to have a 10/10 interaction score for all my avatars. Truth is, I don’t understand all my avatars. And if you are on the same page with me, you will know, maybe, we shall never know all of our avatars, as perceived by the world around or as perceived by parts of us.

Which brings me to my narrative in the previous post. In the last cut, there was an imaginary land, where the images are not bound by perceptions. In fact, they are not perceived, they are realized. As if, now we see in a mirror, in an allegory, but there we could see face-to-face. Now I know partially, but there I could know everything as exactly as everything is, including myself. Truth. Seen with eyes wide open. Realized. Not viewed in a reflection. Truth. Not lost in the monotony of passing time. Truth. Not lost in the ecstasy of rarity. Truth. Dazzling. Like the real version of you.

Which version of yourself have you seen in the mirror today?

Mirror mirror on the wall

Was chatting up with someone and discovered that a she had a massive self image issue while growing up. As close as we are, this statement coming from her was very unlikely.

A negative self image is probably deadlier a disease than cancer, it leaves a stain on one's very heart and soul. So, this time, let's hear it from the mirror itself!

Nay, this isn't the story of a mirror speaking nothing but the truth, as in the original Snow White ensemble. Better yet, we have a hall of mirrors and each one has a different truth to reveal. Don't forget to check yourself out when we pass by...

Cut 1

Have you ever stood in front of mirrors that distort images? Your reflection looks round in one and elongated in another, happy in one and sad in another? 

The reflection on the mirrors are appealing to some and revolting to others. Funny to some or quite gory to imagination even if one's not an image worshipper. 

And by image worshipper I essentially in a harmless non-narcissistic way, mean someone, who's fondly attached to images; any reflection in mirrors or eyes.

Anyhow, remember that old saying that goes, "Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder", I always felt confused by the statement, pondering if the blind can ever fathom beauty, in that case.

But there are zillion other beautiful things that you may experience with your other faculties, like a beautiful dream or a beautiful feeling. And there are even those who'd say that beauty is in your thoughts and in your mind.  Could it then mean that the mentally challenged would never know beauty as well?

Perhaps it takes more than your eyes and mind and other faculties to appreciate something beautiful for it's something more than that meets the eye. It's all encompassing and maybe you literally need all of yourself to truly savour the beauty of the beautiful. 

Looking back, do you remember any experience where you had to bundle all that you have, to behold beauty?

Cut 2

While you are reminiscing about an encounter with the beautiful, I have a hypothesis in composition, on 'Similar reactions on things completely opposite'. 

There isn't a specific premise for the hypothesis but the idea basically is that, you may have the exact same reaction, a common thread, for stuff that are literally on the exact opposite sides of the spectrum.

Like you drool when you see delicious food and wanna spit when you see hideously dirty surroundings,the saliva is the common thread.

Have you ever gone weak kneed or tongue tied in front of an extremely good looking person? You may or may not have had a similar experience after looking at the northern lights or listening to a poetry or seeing your child standing for the first time or hearing a friend's voice over phone after decades. 

Now then, have you ever had a similar feeling looking at yourself in the mirror? Well, you might have been weak kneed and tongue tied out of sheer despair! Awe shooting from wonder or even dread, is the common thread.

But then again, it all might be relative; as in, you'd feel awed by the northern lights when you experience it for the first time. You might not feel that ecstatic if you see the lights every now and then. You might feel peaking ecstatic, standing in front your beautiful bride but with passing days, her beauty might seem fading in the familiarity and monotony of chores. And eventually, an awesome experience at one point might even start feeling like awful.

Perhaps, beauty is relevant for only a particular time and day and like you cannot get stoned with the same drug dose everyday, you can't arouse yourself in awe of something similar either. And the lesser you realise and internalise that beauty, not only it loses all its glory but it loses its very meaning. 

Cut 3

To a distant world.

Across the valleys of familiarity, peaks of rarity, jungles of monotony and rivers of ecstasy, to a world where beauty is still all encompassing but now you can be awed by it every single moment to be exact! 

Every passing moment is like a mirror where you discover a new facet of the beautiful, every passing moment a new revelation, a realisation that increases the glory of that beauty manifold! 

To Be Continued...

*Continuation in Looking through the rear view mirror