May 11, 2011
Vimala entered the puja (prayer) room with a white towel bound into a huge bun with her long wet hair. She had just had her bath. She usually came out of her bath, headed straight to the puja room, made a round kumkum on her forehead, smeared the red powder on the parting in her hair, picked out the Mangalsutra placed at the feet of the goddess Laxmi, wore it around her neck, took her puja thali and went round the tulsi plant three times like a typical Hindu wife did. This had to be her usual ritual come rain or sunshine, health or sickness.
Fresh from the bath with her wet hand she reached for the silver kumkum box in the ledge holding the idol of the goddess. The place was empty. Instead her hand was blackened by the dead ashes of the incense sticks. She wiped her hand to the end of the saree pallu and resumed her search. No she couldn’t find it. She spread her hand from one end of the pedestal to the other. She searched behind the goddess Laxmi’s idol…around it…She kept wondering.
Kids could not reach the pedestal. Even if they did what would they want with the little box?"
.
"Where can it go?" She asked herself aloud.
It was impossible for the box to roll out and fall.
"It had to develop feet to jump out," she thought.
Yet, following the logic of the loser of searching in places implausible, she tried to find her lost treasure. Life for an indian woman surrounds around the signs and symbols of a supposedly happy married life. All around the room. Although not a well lit room, she could see the box if it was there. It was an almost empty room with only the idol on the high pedestal on the ledge. It was an ornate silver box. The lid was carved with the goddess Laxmi with her four arms. There was the vermillion stuck to the crevices of the artwork. Even the hinges which held together the box and the lid had been covered with the red powder and now had turned maroon with the moisture from her regular handling after the bath. Yet the embossed patterns sparkled more than ever for her to miss it in the room.
The only person who could maybe help find the box was her husband.
She peeped into the bedroom. He was fast asleep. For a moment she forgot what she wanted when she saw his handsome face with the smile even while asleep. She had no heart to wake him up. Yet how could she move around with a bare forehead? Superstitious as she was yet she did not want to disturb her sleeping husband. She went to her dressing table and picked out a Bindi (dot) stuck it on her forehead and sat beside her husband.
She waited for him to wake up and ask him whether he had taken it. It was a stupid question yet her mind would be at rest only after she found it. But then she remembered his morning tea that had to be kept ready. She was in the kitchen when she heard the bathroom door closed. "have you taken my silver kumkum box from Laxmi’s pedestal?
He said "what?"
She repeated the question.
There was a pause.
He said "no"
When he came out freshly washed after his morning ablutions.
She said "I can’t find it"
"Search again, should be there somewhere" he said seemingly disinterested.
She swept her hand in the ledge again.
Of course it was not there.
*****************
Vimala entered the puja room with a white towel around her hair. She had just had her bath. As usual her rituals began with the bath; absentmindedly she reached for the silver box as usual.
She found something. It was a kumkum box made of gold. She was surprised. She took the box and opened it. The overflowing vermillion fell out of it.
She took the box in her hand. It was a round smooth golden box. On the lid was the design of a lotus. She peeped into her husband’s room and smiled. With the ring finger she scooped out the vermillion powder and placed it in the centre of her forehead and made a perfect round. It would take her time to adjust to the feel of this new box.
"I will get used to it"
But she was happy.
Next her forehead filled with wrinkles, "Where did the silver box go"?
She wondered about this every morning for the next 20 years.
*****************
Vimala entered the puja room with a white towel around her now white hair. She had just had her bath before her customary puja. She reached out at the kumkum box. By the time she transferred it to the next hand it slipped from her wet hand and fell down. The red powder poured out. She picked up the box. There was no kumkum in it. "Oh no," she said.
She went to the bedroom. She looked at her husband. He was fast asleep."No" she thought. He is not asleep. For the last twenty five years she had seen him wake up. He smiled in his sleep. Now something was amiss.
*****************
Vimala sat in front of the body of her husband which was placed on the floor. He was wrapped in a white and gold dhoti after the body was washed according to the rites. An oil lamp was burning near the body. The whole room was filled with smoke and incense. The body itself was covered with flowers and garlands. The face was handsome as ever. But had the shroudy grey look of the corpse whose lively soul had left his body. She had been crying the whole morning at this sudden turn her life had taken. Daughter and son were informed. Relatives and friends were going around the body to pay their last respects.
One visitor caught her attention.
Savithri. In a white saree.
Why was she in white, without any adornment like a widow?
She herself had spoken to her on rare occasions.
But she had heard a bit of this and that about her. Her neighbours had gossiped about her. Any goodlooking outgoing woman was under a heavy moral scrutiny in any case. Savithri was not only good looking she was very young and attractive as well. She felt sad for her. She wondered her husband had died?
"Now people will speak even more about her now that she is a young widow"She thought.
She scolded herself for the uncharitable thoughts.
Savithri was looking at the face of the dead man. Then she did something strange. She placed her hand on his chest. It is not usual for people to touch a dead body, moreover not a woman. Next she touched his feet and left. Although it struck Vimala as strange she thought nothing of it.
After this brief distraction to her own grief she sat trying to fathom the sudden change in her life. Her thoughts about herself resumed. She cried even more. Just yesterday he was alive and moving and today lifeless. She brooded over what her life was going to be. The only occupation of her life had been of being his in life she could not think of life without him beyond today. Future to her looked empty and meaning less. She went into a deep reverie of her past.
There was more stirring near the dead body. People had brought in a bamboo stretcher. Four men carefully placed the body on the stretcher to be taken for cremation.
Her heart sank. She let out a loud wail. Something fell to the marble floor with a clinking noise from the body. Vimala was startled. She stopped wailing. She looked at it as it rolled and stopped at her feet.
It was her box. The silver kumkum box.
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