Reminisces..

It was a long day for Jenny...

Her driver hit the bumper of a car in the morning, and in the process she had to shell out eight thousand rupees to pacify the agitated driver with stained teeth and foul smell. As if the beginning of the day was not bad enough, at her office she had to sit through not one but four meetings that meant nothing.

Sometimes nothing also gets on to you...

Sitting on the solitary huge rock at the Nilachal hill-top, she let her mind wander to the only meaningful relationship she had in her life..Had...For now it was gone...

He was her world..Yes, Jenny loved him. They had shared this small flat in crowded Kotla Mubarakpur area of New Delhi...

She used to look at his face when he slept. She watched the way he slept like nothing could go wrong and she did not want to harm it, She did not want to blur it, but wondered how could she not when everything she had ever known had slowly gone away, and she know by now that that’s the way he let the new day in,  with new roads and new views of pretty roadside villages ...She didn’t want that moment to ever become ’then’ or ’was’ , and it was quite an unfamiliar thing – he at her arm’s length was as impossible as life on Mars!  It was quite a beautiful thing, the way he had no idea but still must have known because he did not even open his eyes, but turned around and held her hand and he was still asleep, breathing in and out like nothing could go wrong, but still held her hand like he was glad she was near. She remembered that she had wondered why she needs someone to live happily. As ridiculous as it may sound, she had no reason to assure herself that their friendship held for him the same significance it held for her, but she must go on believing so. Every hope of the future is meaningless unless she had faith that they would share it together. She had kissed his forehead so very often when he slept, and a quiet breeze drifted warmly across his tired face.

And all the memories came rushing back, like whispers long lost at the whispering tall trees of Nilachal.... 

Then there was the moment when the Delhi night glittered like a newly-wed bride.. The view from the wooden bench in Connaught Place where they sat, or rather, he sat and she leaned on his body! Jenny loved the quietude of dark sky before the inevitable morning that would follow, his deep full chest breath... Shy and quivering beams from the night sky flickering over the tops of whispering choir of waving trees... serenity of mind... the soft sailing clouds. High above the skies the supernatural controller of our lives must have had smiled in contentment, making her recall that he was by her side, making her feel his touch and gladness of his tranquil vibes. It was one of the most beautiful moments of her life.

Sitting there, being touched by the greying evening and the melting orange rays of the setting sun, Jenny  found herself in a place in a different time, with him in the perfect stillness – like when he hugged her tight the moment she entered their tiny home the last time they met, skin on skin with tender emotions. Her life lost its edginess there, in his arms....

Jenny shivered as the chilly evening breeze bit her skin. She needed to go. She reached out with her shaky hands to lift the only partner who stood by her now..Her walking aid..She gazed longingly at the left knee where the stump lay that had become numb with time..Nothing pained anymore, neither the heart nor the stump. It took her exactly thirty days to realize that matters of heart needed a unblemished body for fulfilment..She smiled at the irony of her feelings..

As the black blanket of a moonless night engulfed the blue hills, Jenny limped back to the mundane, to reality, to the home that echoed of nothingness....