The Savage

H.K. Bharti

Sunlight passed through the window and warily crept over the wall. The wall was uneven; it was driven all over with fissures; marked by pits and bulges. It was my impression that the glossy smooth and neat sunlight will get sullied, get bruised and turn back dejected. Devil knows why I got pleased at its getting bedraggled and bruised and at its likelihood of retreating dejected.

She stripped herself of all of her clothes and snuggled to my side.

"How did you pass these twenty years?"

"They passed of themselves". I replied

"Are you annoyed"?

"What for should I be"?

"I was not late", she said ingratiatingly.

"That you came, is enough".

The sunlight had not tired itself out; it was toddling upwards, partly getting stuck in the cracks and in part getting scattered itself in pits and depressions. I was like getting pleased at watching its antics. Soon it would get sullied and I was waiting for this.

She took my hand and laid it on her bare breast, but soon she let it off with a start.

"Why so?" I asked her.

"Your hand is like a lump of ice".

"What, did you expect otherwise?" I asked her again

"I thought these twenty years might have warmed you up".

"Now you stand corrected that your guess was wrong".

Saying this, I was getting pleased as I got on watching the attics

of the sunlight.

The sunlight had now plodded to the corner above the thick portion of the wall from the base beam. There was a big cobweb in the corner and I thought it would presently get entrapped in it.

"Do you knot"? She asked.

"What?" I asked her.

That I am not the being that I was then".

That may be so, but what difference does it make?"

She remained silent in reply; perhaps she was reflecting whether it did after all make any difference.

The sun was now in close proximity of the cobweb. The cobweb was big tough. I was quite convinced that it would get entrapped there so firmly that there would be no turning back.

"What are you thinking?" I asked her.

“That you are no different from what you were".

"Yes".

"There might be some cause for it", she said

"Yes", I replied.

"What"? She asked.

On reaching this place, the sunlight gets stuck up.

"And then you are contented"?

"No",

"Then what?

"I am accustomed to it”.

"Self abnegation is the biggest of all sins".

"This is what they say. Self-abnegation, on the contrary, is a tapasaya.

"Even if others have to pay for it"? she asked in a retort

"What do you mean?

"That you gloat over sunlight getting stuck up on reaching there".

"Yes, and what then"?

"Have you ever thought about sunlight also"?

"Yes and why not"?

"What"? she asked and pointed to the cobweb in the corner. The sunlight was about to swallow the bait. She caught sight of that for the first time with a swoop, like that of a hawk, swept off the cobweb with a single pull and, turning to me, as if assuming the aspect of gigantic being, held me in a tight embrace. Her warmth being mightier than my iciness; I began to thaw by and by and she paved the way for the sunlight with a melted being. Gradually, all the fissures got filled up and all the pits plaived out and the sunlight flexed itself on the smooth soft glossy surface unobstructed.

"You are good ... very good". She seemed to say in between her breaths.