Dating : Let Her Rest (06.12.1992)

Standing there watching the last of the fires burn out, I am filled with a sense of emptiness. Like everything that I ever knew, touched, felt — has drained out of me.

“Can I come to the funeral?”, I had asked her friend Rekha earlier. She was almost like a sister to her.

“It would be better if you don’t. They wouldn’t like it and at this time there is no point in adding to their grief”, she adds slightly sad. She knows how much it would have meant to me.

So, I stand far away from the crowd of relatives, away from it all. I wish I could be untouched by it all but it doesn’t feel that way.

Her father is standing there and I can feel his grief even from a distance.

The women are on one side, a sea of white sarees.

Late in the evening when it’s all said and done and everyone has gone home, I still stand there next to the truck across the road from the open funeral ground.

Rooted in the same spot, I don’t know what to do next. Her words from the old notebook ring in my ears, again and again.

I finally move, cross the road and reach the area of the cremation. It’s a piece of land cordoned off with small red bricks.

The land is still warm, the white ash mostly collected still has remnants.

I bend down and hold a fistful. It’s still warm and my heart just breaks, into every piece imaginable. Life, as it is, will never be whole again.

A week later, I am standing in the empty college classroom as Rekha joins me before we both head home.

I hand her the old notebook. She recognizes the worn cover and her eyes sparkle up.

The butterfly on the upper right-hand corner. The cursive H in the way she wrote her name, a big arch.

It’s all too fresh, too recent.

“Where did you find it?”, the amazement in her voice is apparent. I ignore the question. Some questions are better not answered.

“Take a look at the last page…”

As she reads, she looks up at me and back at the book.

“What is this?”, she asks.

“She wrote down instructions what she wanted to have happened if she died. I don’t think she thought she would ever make it past 20.”

Running her hand on its wrinkled cover, she reads it for a long time. There is silence in the room and the clock ticking above our head is the only sound between us.

She slowly closes the book.

“You are actually going to do this, aren’t you…?”

I bring out a small black box from the lower desk.

“Already done. “

She opens the lid; peers inside and then closes it softly as she pushes it back at me.

“I am coming with you.”, she pats my back a couple of times. Her eyes are moist and there is no dissuading her from it.

I return, crestfallen, to the doorway. The classes were over. The students had left. I remember her again lying back serenely on the wooden pyre, the left half of her face shrouded in shadows, her pale right hand clasped in her father’s.

There were tears — mine, her father’s. Not hers.

She was at peace.

“Tomorrow then”, I say as we walk home.

The next morning, I pick Rekha up and we head down on the bus towards the railway station. We get down midway, a route traversed many times on the way to the college.

Walking around the college building we come up behind the old laboratory, past the tree where we had put down the frog, over the slippery stepping stones, all the way down to the green algae pond.

In the opening, close to the pond between the masses of leaves is a pink flower of five petals. It’s embedded in a sea of green and grows tall as if it’s almost surprised by its own beauty.

The water glimmers in the morning light and the birds are perched in their branches.

Under that tall tree, it is very quiet. The branches are huge, beautifully shaped, polished and there is a grace in them. The sun is just touching the treetops as it starts to get warmer.

We stand there by the water for a bit, the small waves licking our shoes as I slowly take out the plastic bag from the little black box. I hold on to the bag for the longest time before I feel a nudge.

Bending down, I slowly empty the contents in the water watching them flow away gently, away from me, …forever. I feel nothing, absolutely nothing.

As we walk back, I touch the folded note in my pocket.

I stop by the place near the tree where we buried the frog.

The land is as usual, moist.

I kneel and start to dig with my hands.

Time stands still as I take out the note and read it one last time before I lay it to rest.

Right at the same spot, the first day we met…

It doesn’t have to be somewhere fancy.

Just someplace where you can’t hear the noise.

Someplace quiet.

Peaceful.

Right when the sun is coming up.

I would like someone to take me to that place.

And it would be alright if just by the water, someone left me there.

To stay….