Sahityasetu

And we are sitting over here, silent –completely wordless.

It’s not that for the first time we are sitting like this. Earlier it happened many times and we sat for hours without words and listened to each other’s silence. Bu the matter is different today. The wordless condition that floats in between us is making us uneasy. I too am searching something, as if striving to hold the moving air, and she too is searching something, as if to get the horizon.

We are making efforts to avoid facing each other. Eyes with no reason move around. It’s almost evening. We are on the River Front. Here’s the river, has still, dirty water, fungi at many places. The crows are hovering above us. And cool air moves on.

‘Look Adi, if you don’t want to continue...’ Shweta says.

‘When did I say it?’

‘O.k. Sorry. But I mean... Don’t you know what I want to say?

‘I don’t respond. But what she wanted to say, I knew. Three years passed by in our relationship. And we feel the magic disappeared that we had in the beginning. But why it happened?

Still we talk as we did earlier. Meet almost every day, as we did earlier. Still send messages ‘Did you take your meal?’ But now care in it is less and habit is more prominent.

No, think not otherwise. We love each other. No space for any doubt at all. ‘But then what went wrong?’ suddenly I say.

‘I too think the same. Once we know what problem stood before us then...‘ And then at the moment the crows begin to cawing, and continues to fly round and round. The water begins to take whirls, the fungi too start dispersing, the clouds roaring, its dust vortex, and the things around us begin to fly round and round. Shweta holds my hand immediately.

We feel our heads heavy and giddy. We are hurled into the air. Our eyes get closed and after a while everything stands still. Shweta has still held my hand.

As we open eyes we find our college canteen. But a minute, its display board is old and its colour too is old. We see the people and it gives us a start. ‘Oye, it’s you. You of three years before.’

‘And yes, look there you are. You look younger.’

This was the day of our first meeting. Our eyes get stuck onto it. ‘Me Aditya. We are in the same class of Journalism, I guess.’

‘O yes, Me Shweta. Where did you bring text books from?’

The scene before us fades. It’s now dark and the head still giddy. As we close eyes and open them again to find ourselves in the classroom. Other students are there, teacher busy in teaching. We on the very first bench, time before two and a half year. We of that time, when, we no sooner thought of each other than smile sat on our lips. ‘Look, while you write you are thursting your elbow to me. Not fair. From the very beginning you’ve remained naughty.’ I laugh a little. ‘Eh, I did do it but why didn’t you take your hand away from there/? Why?’ Again the scene fades. This time we do close our eyes ourselves. ‘And what’s happening this time?’ asks Shweta. ‘We’ve any way got a chance to go into the past, check it what went wrong with us? Let’s see what exactly happened in between us.’

‘Don’t let go my hand.’

I won’t.’

As we open our eyes, the college parking’s before us. ‘O this one is...’

‘Yes, I do remember this day. That was the day when I proposed her.’ I stopped my bike and parked before her. I’ve put on a red shirt. I get on my bike and stand on the seat. Shweta sitting on her scooter is watching me. ‘Shweta I love you. I can do anything for you. I want to pass my life with you. If you ask, me ready to jump from this bike too.’ And we both laugh a lot.

‘Thanks.’

‘Why?’

‘Not refusing me publically on that day.’

‘On my side I was waiting for the proposal.’

And then the scene changes. We have come to a garden. Few people are there. It’s drizzling.

‘This day... I close my eyes. Okay?’ Shweta turns red and says.

‘I’ll keep my eyes open’, say I and with wide open eyes see the scene that took place one and a half year ago. My head is in the lap of Shweta. I have stretched myself. Slowly I raise my hand and hold her face. My lips get fixed on her lips...’

The crows once again fly. Darkness stood around us. Now we are in a multiplex.

‘Our first quarrel. You know. No? How it happened you know.’ Shweta sulked and says.

‘Yeah.’

‘I too close my eyes on this issue.’ She puts it and closes her eyes.

I see – we are in corner seats. She’s watching the movie. My eyes are on the screen but I have no interest in the movie. I put my hands on her belly and slowly push them up to her breasts...

‘What the hell are you doing?’ she shouted. And the scene fades.

‘Perhaps this must be the starting point.’

‘Of what?’

‘Things going wrong!’

‘But begged your pardon for my doing and you have forgiven me. It was okay.’

‘Yes, but it hurt me.’

‘I know. But the matter’s over since long. Sorry again. Is it okay?’

The dusty wind dies down slowly and we are in the college. It’s night. The Youth Festival got over and we are walking towards the parking. ‘This is the day when we had a terrible fight.’

Shweta had won a prize in the western dance competition I was in fumes. ‘How could you hug him like that? He’s your dance partner and you have won a prize, that’s okay but stuck to him before all... ‘

‘But that was a hug of our happiness. But why do you make a fuss of it?’

‘I don’t like him from the first and you made him the dance partner? Do you know how he looks at you?’ I shout.

If you knew dancing, I could have made you my dance partner. And there’s nothing as you think of it. Why are you so jealous?’

‘On the excuse of dance practice you refused meetings, and I know what you both were doing together? I had seen both of you in a café.’

‘O it was once only. He was hungry and I accompanied him. That was enough. Nothing else. Don’t think this and that about it. Trust me, please.’

‘I don’t care. Bye.’

And I start my bike and go away from the place. Shweta stands still and cries.

And darkness descends.

‘That was a very bad day for me.’

‘For me too.’

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken part with him. That he wasn’t a good boy, I came to know about it later on.’

‘Yes, I too shouldn’t have behaved like that. I’m sorry.’

‘Do you remember hugging to each other, how much we cried together after a couple of days!’

‘Yes, I remember, and I didn’t eat for those two days. Couldn’t sleep, that too I remember.’

‘Our problems perhaps began from here.’

‘No, no. We had forgiven each other. Everything became normal then. I say this, right?’

A scene opens up. We are in a garden. I held a notebook in my hands. I am going to make her listen to a poem. ‘Listen to this. The poem is titled as – ‘Between the Shadows.’

‘Hmm.’

‘Between the shadows of the past and present,

My love, let us hide.’

Shweta became dreamy and listens to it. I finish the recitation and yet she continues to look at me. ‘You read poems and I watched you, I liked it very much.’

‘And it was that even I didn’t know writing, I scribbled poems.’’

‘After that big fight we perhaps talked very carefully, no?’

‘Yes took very much care of each other. It was the beginning perhaps.’

‘No. we had already come to the conclusion that there’s no need of so much care. We agreed to it. It was okay.’

‘Yeah, that it too...’

The scenes continue to change. We watch our relationship, sulking and coaxing, not talking to each other, that condition when one of us went to out of city, habitual of each other. And all this we realise. Love became mechanical that too we realise.

Again we are on the River Front. We come to the very same place where once we had been to. Our heads giddy. Things around us are the same. Shweta lets go my hand from hers. I gaze the still water. She watches fungi in the river.

I too am searching something, as if striving to hold the moving air, and she too is searching something, as if to get the horizon.

And we are sitting over here, silent –completely wordless.