Sun shines in her golden hair,
hope and despair lives silently in those
sullen eyes,
she hums verses of Gita under her breath,
Sometimes she stops
and speaks to ujjala,
she glances at the coconut trees, she drifts.
Lost in the quest of questions, she digs inside.
Her hand searching a ring
in the mud,
she could feel his hands too.
Subash was singing a song,
Her cousins and friends were enamoured by him.
She remembers the 'hare
krishna hare rama' song,
her father had taught her on way to school,
on
his bicycle, where he carried his black umbrella.
It rained,the day her
father died.
He spilled blood from his mouth in his final days.
The
doctors had denied to admit him.
She and her brother had carried him to a
local Malda govt hospital.
The cachar cancer hospital is clean.
Here
nurses are tribals.
They often talk silly while injecting chemo.
The skin
of her veins had gone black,
a dusky black which fall on her room,
every night when pinky tugged her in the bed.
The kaliphosh were yet to
kick in.
The night outside the window was more silent,
a thousand mute questions all speaking at once.
Sopna brings her a
glass of D-protein,
Pinky had just boiled some local eggs,
Chintu was
drinking his morning tea.
Jhuma was chopping the fresh spinach she had
bought.
D-protein tasted worse then sugar water.
She can't have
sugar. Her father-in law had sugar.
Nice biscuits were his favourite.
He
stole and hide them under his pillow.
He had bedsores and used to shit
on his bed for months.
The pungent smell still hurts her stomach.
She
had given up food for many years.
She can't eat now. Her
stomach aches.
Subash had stomach ulcer. He had given up hope.
He cried
on his way to Chennai five years back.
He only ate boiled vegetables and
local fishes for years.
Boiled food makes her puke now.
Even the spicy
fish curry tastes like anesthesia.
She was administered local anesthesia
during her eye operation.
It was an eye clinic near Premtola.
Her
father-in-law had a cataract
operation at red cross,
in the adjacent building Amit was born.
On a
rainy night, Chinu was born in Ellora nursing home,
he was under weight then.
Pinky could not sleep for nights
when she had her asthma attacks.
She slept by her bed for nights.
They
have all grown up now,
like the coconut trees which soared to the sky.
They have strong roots yet rootless now.
Its going to be a long walk
to home now,
The nights are going to be longer too,
days windy, and the sun less
warmer.
She hummed Gita under her breath.
Sun shone in her golden
hair,
hope and despair lived silently in her aged eyes.
