Madanwaar and Padmaan: A Love Story

Akhtar Mohi-ud-Din

Madanwaar breathed his last and Padmaan was released. The thing happened, but did not end there. The story remained... It remained because Padmaan was left with her children, with whom she was in a confrontation, unexpressed though. In case somebody asked Padmaan or her children why you the mother and children are so tilted they would not be able to reply; they would get a tongue tie for want of words. They would in all probability say that there was no bone of contention. But there it was, no doubt.

The tale runs like this that sometime back, Madanwaar and Padmaan were reading together. The books then contained true stories written by the outstanding men. The stories had been made into films shown in the cinemas after changing their names.

Madanwaar's heart felt gladdened at reading the stories and so would Padmaan after she went through them. They would look at each other with amazement and wordlessly convey to each other, "Did you understand this? I understood all there is to it."

One day, however, they conveyed these ideas to each other in words rather than looks. That day, the skies got, as it were, clear and it was cloudlessly sunny. The birds trilled so profusely that deafness took leave of the deaf; as if the very breeze honeyed their lips and the crescent moon shown bright on their foreheads.

After this, they went for a film show.

The true stories of the lofty men were shown in the film and these were, then, the true stories of Madanwaar and Padmaan also. There they promised to act upon these stories and after some time, they fulfilled the promise.

But on the very day they fulfilled their promise, there blew a storm. It got overcast and thunders deafened even those who had no such malady and, what is more, it stopped dead what little sprinkling of honey there was in the breeze within the confines of the thick jungle.

This was another truth that had run amuck. This one, like a horrible giant, was giving out peals of laughter in every market place and made its existence felt with thunder and lightning. This truth was the one that belonged to Madanwaar's father and that of Padmaan's father. The truth of these elderly men pilling against each other were spitting fire and raising an uproar. Their truth was different from those recorded by the lofty men in their book, and far removed from those presented in the films.

Though the thunder-stormy expression of their truth struck fear all around, Padmaan and Madanwaar held the truth fast to their bosom undiminishingly bright in the raging storm.

It is not so easy to keep the flame going in a hurricane. If you do that, you have to awaken those senses which ordinarily are slumbering. At times, you have to tap those energies of whose existence you are not even dimly aware. That is why the eagle in one's eyes gathers flight and the king cobra in the muscles stretches.

The new awakening in their senses gave them a new furbish. They felt themselves on the top. Then as from those lofty heights they cast their eyes on the 'truth-trees' of their respective parents, it was revealed to them that though the top shoots of their truth were different, they had one root. They do beat each other unremittingly with their branches as the storm rages, but they plop fall down if struck at the roots. It was astonishing :hat their fathers had not at all taken thought of the root. No sooner was the secret revealed to them than Madanwaar cried out, 'I will make my father understand that all truths have one truth.' No sooner was tile truth revealed to them, than Padmaan cried out, 'I will make my father understand that all truths have one root'

So saying, they felt glad and gave cheers as if they released gaudily coloured butterflies in the air.

The storm passed and there was no need to keep the torch from being put out, but with the passage of time, the torch got forgotten and life revolved round the kitchen and the bath room The big truths got overlain with dusty layers of small but perhaps more important truths and nobody felt like removing these... neither Madanwaar nor Padmaan.

Their branch, too, blossomed with flowers tune and again, but just like all others; there being nothing like a wonder in that. That would happen in spite of them and would take place even in those who had nurtured their parents' truth. The feeling had rendered the flaming torch meaningless, which to keep aflame they had frenziedly taken up the gauntlet thrown by the hurricane.

Now they no longer went to the films because both of them had perceived that on the day they had promised to act upon the truth in the cinema hall, they were deluded. While watching the film, they had wept for they had felt that their truth and that in the film were one and the same. By and by, it had dawned on them that the truth in the film was a delusion, for example, Dev Das in the film is in fact a person, named Dilip Kumar, nay, not even that, but Yousuf Khan. 'Then also what they show in the film, is not even the truth of his life, nor is it true perhaps of the man who is actually Dev Das.

Some inner bitterness of Madanwaar and Padmaan was besides leaving a bitter taste in their mouth. It was because of this that they seldom talked to each other. The fact of the matter was that they had never revealed the truth which they had perceived from the heights that their respective father's truths had the same root, their separate tops notwithstanding. They had promised that after felling down the trees, they would guard the root so that one mighty sprout emerged and become a lofty spruce. But there was no purpose then as the hawk had already escaped their hands.

It occurred to Madanwaar many a time that Padmaan was casting for striking at his father's truth-tree and nurturing her own father's one. They same viper was stinging her bosom also. Hence the bitterness. How would the story end?….Who knows what turn the fickle time would fake!

But Madanwaar's and Padmaan's children grew on. They, too, moved on at a pace proper to youth. It was all clear and sunny for them. The breeze spread honey on the lips and the bright moon shown on their foreheads. Their truth was new and bright; that very truth which the lofty men had written in their books and the film makers presented in their films.

Madanwaar and Padmaan were anxious. Madanwaar now wanted to show the children the falsehood of their truth and show the light of the truth which formerly was his father's truth and now also his own. Padmaan on her part also tried to bring home to them the falsehood of their truth and wanted them to own the truth which had formerly belonged to her father and now to her

The confrontation had created a silent turbulence in their surroundings. This confrontation put on layer after layer and nobody knew which vein to take. Meanwhile, Madanwaar passes' away and Padmaan got released. She had a mind that she would bring them close to her with love and sift the fact from fiction so that ice was broken and dark clouds of confrontation were dispelled.

Then one day, as she brought the children close by her, she cleared her throat and after some reflection began to say something, but her tongue locked up. Huddled up, she fell down and died. The children lifted her and brought her to her conclusion as they deemed fit

Only a talk remains now that had one root but different shoots. Some said that she died close on his heels because of her love she bore him, others said that she had no ailment and died simply of her weakness.