THE FALLEN FLOWER

 A harshringar flower twirled and fell down on damp earth.She picked up a few from the multitudes that lay scattered, carpeting the ground below her feet. Little white blooms ..."They look so much like sudarshan chakras "  Maa used to say. With shades of flame in its pedicel and serene white on the petals.... As if....SITA- the pure..the chaste..draped in white...sitting calmly on the leaping flames,going through the agnipariksha....

SITA who before this pariksha was the "fallen wife"...harshringar: : "the fallen flower". Maa  used  to say that you never pick these flowers off the branches...The ones which are settled on the soil are the ones which are gods favorite.

The  harshringar tree in that aangan had its branches spread out. The new sprouting leaves on the tender branches were just ready to peep out of the four walled enclosure of the aangan. Untill now it had never ever seen the world outside those four grim walls. However , this grim enclosure had had its own share of colorful memories. This harshringar was only a shrub when Papiha had first arrived as a newly wed.

The coy bride who was in all propriety only supposed to look down..not once to lift her eyes...lest they saw the little rebel caged within. All she could notice were vibrant Dhakai, glossy silks and exclusive jaamdanis. and of course the drums,the songs ,the very strong odour of dhoop batti. And very distinctly she remembered the little harshringar shrub in the corner amidst this cacophony of colours. She had one at her Baba's backyard as well. The little shrub that day seemed to her some loving relative from her maayka who made her feel warm and welcome in this alien Home.

But to Papiha- the colours, the warmth , the celebration were now images from some faraway folklore which didn't seem real in farthest of her dreams. Even childhood had no particular exciting memory.They had lived in a small hilly town near Gangtok.She never had many friends. Her mother  had lived a pious life devoted to decorating and decking up the Idiols in her sanctum. Baba owned a small stationary shop near lalbagh chowk. They were never very ambitious about Papiha- their only child.   For Papiha,there were only a few memories that still seemed remarkable enough to  revisit and relish .One of them was  her lonely excursions to the nearby hillock collecting all kinds of broken twisted branches and odd shaped pebbles..And of course -   she had always loved poetry.  Back home, Baba never used to read much,but had shelve's brimming with verses written by Tagore. She loved reading them. They meant solace.....to her they meant happiness.With years Papiha moved from Tagore TO  Neruda..On quiet summer afternoons she had unearthed the fragile psyche of man in ElioT'S transformed world...(sylvia)Plath's mind was even more intriguing...  

Mihir on the other hand was a man of the world..Practical and real. Poetry to him was unreal, immature expulsion of a overworked psyche. The enthusiasm Papiha displayed when she recited verses was beyond his comprehension. She had noticed this indifference . When ever his strained relation with his boss caused him to fume , Papiha's books were the first to be reprimanded. Throwing the hard bound copies across the floor in full rage, it brought him a sense of closure to see those loose pages strewn all over the room. While Papiha ,consumed with humiliation stood tongue tied in one corner even as this ritual unfolded before her like some surreal nightmare. She had now started keeping her books hidden and only read them when Mihir was not around. In course of time she also started scribbling little songs of love ,passion,despair and loneliness. Her little diary which her mother in law had given to keep track of monthly expenses had turned into a mute confidante  which had  witnessed the tremors of emotional upsurge metamorphing into rhythms. On several warm afternoons, Papiha sat in dimly lit staircase scribbling away as if in a trance, while the other members of family confined themselves to their bed for a lazy siesta. YES, the family ....the in laws, the brother in laws and MIHIR, the eldest son.

  

 Mihir's brothers also got married in subsequent years. The clan was growing. The income dwindling. Mihir decided to put out the room on the top floor on rent.

And thus came Sashwat. The young reporter who wrote about politics and crime in the local daily "Samay".Whenever Papiha had seen him, he was always humming something to himself, least interested in the perils of the family living on the ground floor.  Months had passed before he had even acknowledged a frail , very ordinary looking middle aged woman picking up harshringaars from the aangan early  in the morning. HE didn't know that the slightly hesitant posture while bending down that he had noticed was because of the two month old germ of life that lay pulsating in her womb.

And then the next time he saw her was on that dimly lit staircase. He had seen Papiha writing away in such madness that she had hardly noticed his arrival... and then suddenly she had looked up...Surprised ...taken aback.... . " BOUDI  can I have a look". HE had said with a friendly smile. Without any further conversation she had handed over the little diary. He had flipped through the first few pages when a rustle of soft footsteps were heard from some faraway room . But they were enough to put Papiha on her guards... leaving her most prized possession in Shashwat's  hands, she fled down the stairs disappearing in her domestic world. FOr next two days she had kept looking for Shashwat , but could find no suitable opportunity to get her diary back.

THE third morning , while picking the harshringars , quite unexpectedly ,Mihir had turned up in the aangan. Didn't say a word. Just threw a copy of morning newspaper across the floor like he did with those books.. and left the AANGAN. Along with the white blooms lay the pages  of " samay"scattered here and there. And then she saw  her poem. There, On the fourth page..."The City of masks" ,....The same one which she had read out to MIHIR as A newly wed. As the poem concluded, below it in small black font was not her name. " The unknown poet" ,said the credits.  But the one who was not supposed to know had known this unknown poet. And in matter of moments...just like those fallen flowers, she was the fallen wife.