Ahalya

The hospital bed felt icy cold and rock hard. She knew it was time. Ahalya felt the hem of her saree caress her ankle and then it didn't anymore. The state run hospital was thronging with people but Ahalya felt a calm she hadn't ever known before. As her body let go of the life force, her mind was suddenly more aware. The lights overhead made her wispy grey hair shimmer. She sighed and let go of her body. Her breath slowed and her eyes began to shut. The door opened and a light gust of air hit her face. It took her back so suddenly she hardly knew what she was thinking of. It was like a dream but it was real. The sea breeze had been thick with the smell of fish as she almost felt the oily plank of wood on which she sat. A docked fishing boat called Kohinoor was always her favourite place to be hide from her raucous brothers and sisters, her sanctum, her place to think of anything that she wanted to think about. But she was here now on the day when she had seen Raja for the very first time. His bare chocolate torso glistened in the afternoon sun as he walked towards his boat named Darya. He was tall and lanky, and Ahalya felt a burning curiosity about the rough tattoos on his forearm. She was sure he ate a lot of fish because he was somewhat fish-like himself. It was her belief that if one ate a lot of something, they would become more like that food themselves. Ahalya turned her head towards him as he walked suddenly towards her without warning. His eyes were calm like the deepest part of the ocean. It was when she looked into his eyes that she gave him her soul. Their courtship had been more of companionship as there was no pretence, no awkwardness. She was unafraid with him. Unafraid of being judged, unafraid of being wrong or silly. They sat for hours on the boat Darya, in silence, in conversation. Their friendship was their secret though. She was the daughter of a high caste family and he a fisherman's son. Their union would cause a riot in the village. They were soulmates if there ever was such a thing.

Ahalya turned 16 and her father married her off to the son of another high caste family. The man she married was a practical one and their transactions were purely need based. Women in that household were not accorded much importance or indeed credited with having any kind of intelligence. She was to know nothing but the confines of the kitchen and bore them 4 sons. In quiet afternoons in her kitchen she often thought of Raja and the simple peace of those days in the boat. Her figure bore testament to the frugal life she led and raised her children as the diligent wife and mother that she was. The years passed and her children grew old enough to only think of their mother occasionally. The afternoons became quiet and lonely for Ahalya and she yearned for some companionship. She had no friends or relatives who talked to her. Gradually the loneliness became unbearable. Ahalya had cried every night for months and no one heard. In a house full of people, no one saw. One day, she walked absent-mindedly towards the seaside. As she ambled down to the water, a boat moored on the jetty bobbed against the waves. A lone figure sat beside it in the sand. As she walked to him. she knew him right away. The eyes were ones that had entranced her before. Not sure what to do, she went and sat beside him quietly. He looked at her and the deep eyes flickered. They sat in silence till the sun set, neither willing to break away from the other. Then on, she spent several evenings with Raja and it soothed her soul. There was a peace she had found and her life became tolerable again. Time melted and flowed into the waves, and so months went by. Until one evening, Raja didn't come. Her whole being crumbled a little every day when she went to find him absent. Finally, she gave up going unable to fathom what could have happened. She was so deeply saddened, that she was already mourning when her husband died of cholera. Now a widow, she fell into the shadows even further. Her sons had made a living for themselves in the city and seldom visited her. The day one of the neighbours carried her away to the hospital was the first time she had seen her eldest son and daughter-in-law in months. The doctors pronounced her to be in the last stages of some awful disease, but she did not think that is what was taking her life. It was heartbreak. She wished she could have felt the serenity of the eyes of the fisherman's son, on the oily fishing boat one last time.