Shadow

By Sayali Pawar

When did it start? I don’t know. I lost sense of time ages ago, so I assume it could be anywhere between two weeks and two decades since I started tailing her. I’m yet unsure of why I was asked to do this but now it feels surreal to even think of not sticking to her feet. As if there was any other option. You see, you can’t say no to a job allotted by the greatest boss let alone ask any question about the nature of it. The boss knows all, they see all and you can’t even look them in the eye. They have their reach everywhere and to keep it flexible, is our job. Our kind; we never rest. When you’re out on a Sunday picnic, we get to keep an eye on you while lounging. When you think you are safe sound asleep, we can get closer to you than a crime show binger would find comfortable. The more you run to hide from us, the more our intensity tightens. I’m aware of all the dilemma about the notion surrounding us but, believe me, it’s for the best. We would never hurt our projects. For all we can do is accompany you everywhere. And I don’t completely hate my work. At least I don’t feel lonely, ever. Unlike her.

Last night must’ve been hard on her, I heard her shriek not once but thrice. A trial like she was trying to tear her back with a blade to pull out the wings that are stuck in a stubborn slumber. But her flesh must’ve been tough as I felt smoke coming out of her window, to heat the blade perhaps. She used to hang out at the village swordsmith’s a lot. The place used to make me feel warm, in all its glory of ovens. I liked him too. He always had funny stories stored in his sheath. Stories from places far beyond, places that hit home to both of us; stories of feathered people and their golden arrows. Stories that would make her face glow identical to the colour of a hammered sword. Until they banished him for corrupting with songs of the other god. Snatching her only source of joy away. Forcing her to never see the face of her home again, just when she wanted to bid her farewell. Some say, he was left to be purified in the furnace just like his shiny swords. Now the shine has turned rusty. There are no funny swordsmiths in the city.

The Bishti with flowers in hair is now taller by inches but her scabbard of stories still seems halfway empty for she clings to any faintest hint of a tale. Just as she is now staring down at the beggar hugging himself on a street in scorching daylight. I watch her closely from behind a tree while she squints her eyes not at the light but at the now whimpering man. She doesn’t seek these urban myths through voice, people here don’t believe in the magic of words. Instead, she just watches them, for hours at end. To dismantle pieces of their puzzle and put them back together. To read their stories without any exchange of words. She just stands there in the pool of her sweat unconsciously repeating a fumbling pattern with fingers like one of those blinded Rubik’s cube champions and the sight enchants me every time, so much that I almost forget about shadowing her to stand in front to be scrutinized. But I can’t; because even then she wouldn’t see me. Before I could question my existence, she moves forward untangling a jasmine flower from her hair and handing it to the beggar.

‘May god bless you’ his voice is shaky.

‘Will you now?’ she asks earnestly. There are these handful of moments when she’d present such an expectant smile. Moments when she feels as though nature has come together to bless her with the one true personification.

‘Huh?’ looking at his genuinely confused face, her shoulders slump sucking the kind smile away. Her feet move towards the temple’s stairs on their own without letting her think of glancing back once. The climbing pace is slower today which makes it difficult for me to blend in but, you don’t have to worry about the city people being concerned with others.

‘What’s with the long face Bishti?’ we hear the Panditji just when he makes his rounds with dhoop incense in a soil lamp.

‘My deduction wasn’t all perfect this time either’. Her voice has a high pitch now with an unlikely shiver towards the end.

I can’t see her face but the voice is enough to help me visualize a pair of almost glistening eyes. Her body seems to have lost strength as she rests her side on a pillar and I reluctantly take a sit on the other side of it.

‘Don’t beat yourself, child. You’re too young to lose faith’

‘I was too young for many things but who is counting right?’

Ah, I can feel her eyes turning stony now; insofar as her halfhearted attempts at soft bread with end results tasting like hard cardboard: The things you can learn by leeching to someone.

‘Don’t cry about what is left in past, pray for what is yet to come. Bhagwan Vishnu listens to all the prayers made with a pure heart’

It appears that Panditji can recite these mugged-up phrases even in sleep. According to him, having faith on lifeguards ensures one from not drowning at all.

‘Well maybe the gods have gone deaf’

I almost snickered at that but looks like Panditji doesn’t share my feelings.

‘What else could I expect from someone of that village’. His campaign face now morphed into that of a lost candidate.

He storms off but doesn’t dare to throw any ill words directly. Bishti is used to it though. She doesn’t come here for him anyway. We sit in silence when suddenly the sound of dholki emerges from stairs.

‘Jai Shree Ram!’ It’s about time the bhajan mandali got here.

I can sense the urgency in her movements as she sits herself in front of the idol of lord, waiting for the hymns to soothe her a bit. I prefer this place too; With these many people around, I can move freely. But that means the others can too.

‘Ma! Look at her arm! It’s like the layer over your chai!’ A toddler points in our direction, jumping as if it were his feet getting the burns.

I wish she didn’t have to pretend to not hear it but she does. In all these years, I’ve never seen her spare a second glance to comments such as those. I can read her face up close yet this is not the sight I’d want to witness either. Her sullen face, unmoving, at the moment when the singer pitches with an all too known tale of purification test of goddess Sita’s agnipariksha. Even a shady thing like me finds this story a bit too dark; and looking at Bishti’s unblinking eyes, it’s safe to assume she doesn’t love it either. People all around us are clapping and repeating the singer’s words pretending to not notice this almost choking girl. All praise the goddess and Bishti unclenches her jaw hoping to hear some new comforting legend. A lady passes a box of offering of sweets to Panditji when the next rhythm starts playing. Everyone begins swaying to the tunes as they laud the god who is everywhere.

Amongst the devoted closed eyes, no one notices the Panditji, who very conveniently skipped Bishti while handing out the prasad offerings. Bishti’s eyes were wide open all the time though. That was all it took for her to muster some strength and get up. In an ironic synchronization, the beat broke and all eyes fell on Bishti.

‘The kirtan isn’t over yet, child’ the singer called out.

‘No. But he won’t ever come here.’

She turns around and walks out with the same tired pace ignoring all the murmur behind the same way they ignored us a while ago.

The day is about to set yet she hasn’t found a single breath of relief. I can’t stop following her even if asked to now. No! I’m not a monster to leave her alone at a time like this. I feel gripped by her:

as if we are all but one entity,

as if her sorrows are mine,

as if I too prayed her prayers,

as if mine was left unanswered by the same kind.

But I don’t speak a word of it. For all I can do is be by her side, never unlocking the shackles that bind us together and promising myself to embrace her tighter when she finally decides to turn off the lights tonight. Until then, I will just be by her side. Matching up with her feet, her palms scratching

inwards thinking the Rubik’s cube earlier was covered in itching powder. The air is now turning colder but that just makes her shiver more. If only there was someone around to lend her a shawl, to make her feel hugged once. With every step her stride is getting stronger, to shrug off the imaginary shawl and the lines that keep on forming on her forehead. Never have I found it so difficult to stop myself from softening that frown.

Can I be brave enough to play with her hair today? I have watched her stand on mountain tops and smile when the wind does that. But I have also seen how she flinched away the other day when a boy in her class was trying to take off a grass shred from her hair. Would she smile or flinch for me?

Can I look straight into her eyes just once? My notebook is full of entries that say what an adorning face looks like when she lays on the terrace on summer nights staring up at the stars. But I can also feel the calculating gears turning in her head when she looks at each and every passer-by making his way. Would she just look at me or try to dissect me too?

Can I hum a tune for her to hear? I have heard her singing back to the rain and lightning with the softest voice and calmest eyes. But how can I forget all those times when she abruptly left while the most famous singers hadn’t finished their love songs. Would she give words to my tunes or ignore without batting an eye?

All these questions, I find myself fighting with them whenever barely tugging along my life’s hem. But that’s all I can do- wonder. Wonder how she’d react if I could act. Because just how she feels herself suffocating in this cage of windy world, I am chained to her body.

Unable to move on my own accord. I think this might be the end of my patience as well. What cruel fate has brought me to this moment? Why sacred bonds like these must be coveted in secrecy? It feels as if they are afraid of letting me protect her. That her pain-struck eyes is all they wanted to gather.

‘Are you ridiculing me too?’

Her crystalline voice pulls me out of the trance. Had I been so lost in myself that I didn’t even realise when we moved all the way to the outskirts, back on the mountain top. I’m forcing my voice to come out with all might, so much that it burns. But, she beats me to it,

‘I bet you find me untouchable too’

It stabs me the way she says it when all my strength isn’t enough to form words and comfort her. Clenching each particle, I push myself but to no avail. With hopeless efforts, I finally gather enough courage to look at her but find her looking the other way, straight ahead from the cliff. Was she not talking to me? Didn’t she recognize my existence even now? I couldn’t have guessed it would be so disappointing to have carried out my work exactly as I was supposed to. Unable to form any words which I wouldn’t be able to voice anyway, I look at her back, head inclined to trace the clouds with those genius eyes.

‘All this time, I had one single wish. For you to come before my eyes. A single genuine medium. Is that too much to ask for?’

The way she scoffed was certainly not humorous, her now brimming eyes coming up in my full view as the sky starts turning pink.

‘Yes, sure you have always been around one way or another. Then isn’t it brutal to tell me all these tales through every one of how you can come down, of how you can sweep every worry we can sound. I refuse to believe that those fat leathered books hold lies, and that you had no other choice but to hide.’

Her voice is shaking so much that I’m afraid for her soma to fall apart. Yet, I am the one who is on the fringe of crumbling.

‘Fine then! Do as you wish. For I will do the same! If you can’t come to where I am, I’ll come to wherever you are.’

Before I could even make sense of her words, we both sprint towards the edge as she leaps aiming straight for the rocky ground. I don’t understand what just happened but I don’t need to anymore as I lay beside her. Thanking the mountains to be looking straight into her eyes as I get doused in crimson spirit of hers. My blessing coming at an expense of her curse whilst last 20 years flash in an instant through her eyes. Her unnoticeable breaths tickling me for the first time, a faint hint of life that is slipping away from her, but her eyes; smiling without a haze for the very first time. Her eyes are wide open just like all those times while I can only hope for her to see me attached to her frame and for once, just once, feel that she isn’t alone.

My muffled cries are contoured by loud thunders above as the essence of my silhouette slowly fades away with just a dash of clouds. Releasing me from being her shadow.

By Sayali Pawar