Day Fourteen

The push-pull train stopped at the platform wheezing. She threw a glance into the engine room. The room which remained dull for the past three to four days is now refulgent. Spring once again, she felt. A deluge of flowers. Mild breeze that spreads fragrance. I told you, she thought, I can write poems.   

     ‘Hey, are you not boarding the train?’ she became conscious of the surroundings only when Rajan asked this using sign language. She realized that it was not spring but hot sun above, not the proper time to write poems. She boarded the train in a hurry. For the first time she won in the Antakshari. Songs of Vayalar and O.N.V came to the tip of her tongue easily. Those were the songs she grew up hearing. Dad used to take a couple of drinks in the evenings. After drinks, he would start singing film songs in full rhythm. She realized with joy and astonishment that those songs were now making sense in her life.

     When the train halted at the south station, she walked along the platform and reached near the engine room. Rajan is standing stretching out his neck from the engine room.

‘How’s mother?’

‘She is okay.’ He said. He sounded like a boy who, in a hurry to go out to play, was affirming that his fever is gone.  

‘Yesterday they came to ‘see’ me.’

‘How’s the groom?’

‘Very handsome, like a prince.’

‘Hmm… you are trying to make me feel jealous… in reality he must be one with uneven teeth and squint eyes!’

‘Let it be.’ She made a funny face and walked off.

When told about the groom’s visit, Bhaskaran Nair asked, ‘What are their demands?’

‘Just three lakhs and forty sovereigns of gold. I maintained that I wouldn’t go with a guy who demands so little! Am I to belittle myself?’

Bhaskaran Nair and Malathy laughed.

‘That’s funny. Okay, how is the groom?’     

‘Average. Had it been his younger brother I could have still considered; he has glamour.'

     She was thinking of making Rajan jealous. Not to speak of jealousy, there wasn’t even a hint of intolerance on his face. Calm face. Blissful face. She was wondering. Is he the real Jesus who came to her in disguise? 

She was relishing the ice-cream. ‘Can you afford to waste money like this, buying me, ice-creams and Masala Dosas daily?’

‘Nope.’

‘Then why waste money like this?’

‘I will add up all to the dowry that I am going to demand.’

‘There is no custom of taking dowry among you Nairs’

‘My father didn’t take dowry. But at this rate, I am afraid I will have to start this custom.’

‘If that is so, I am not interested. I got close to you thinking that I will be winning a guy who wouldn’t demand dowry.’

‘I knew your inner thoughts very well. By the way, what about the assets of the guy demanding three lakhs and forty sovereigns?’

‘Just the asset that the Almighty graciously gifts to every male child! Don’t know how good it is!’

‘Dowry is a serious issue. Even if the girl shines like gold, sovereigns of gold are to be given as dowry! These rascals should be beaten with a whip.’

Suddenly sentences from John’s gospel rushed to her mind.

‘And making a whip of cords, he drove everyone out of the temple ….’

Am I imagining that a beard sprouted on Rajan’s face? He is swirling the whip which he is holding. With ultimate ecstasy she fantasized the scene.

‘What are you thinking?’ Rajan asked.

‘Oh! nothing.’ She said, ‘I was pondering over the good and the evil.’

It was during supper that Mary said. ‘Uncle had come in the evening.’

Nancy looked askance at her sister’s face.

‘He said that they liked you.’

‘Big deal!’

‘The groom wants to talk to you. He asked whether it will it be convenient if he comes to your office tomorrow?’

‘Don’t send such good-for-nothing fellows to my office. They will spoil my glamour. I have good reputation there.’

‘Where else can he meet you?’ Knowing her sister’s nature, Mary asked controlling herself. She had practised and perfected this art, from her early childhood days.

 ‘He said he can meet you only between two and three thirty in the afternoon.’

‘Suits me. I am not carrying my lunch tomorrow. We will meet in some restaurant.’

‘In a restaurant?’

‘Yes. I can find out how miserly he is. Also, I can do with a good lunch’ She stopped a moment and continued, ‘Did I say good lunch? Am I expecting too much?’

‘I shall inform uncle.’

                 As she closed the diary Nancy thought. Each day ends the same way. Darkness of the night engulfs slowly nibbling at my consciousness and guzzling it. Realities give way to fantasies. This is another world. It is my essence. And I live that.

She muttered to herself, ‘Jesus, what does it all mean?’