This too is a Feeling

Bansi Nirdosh

She suffered from no particular malady or pain, but the look in her sad and ailing eyes was expressive of something that I failed to apprehend, something was eating in Bimla’s vituals. It was not that she bore me a grouse, never, we suffered from no privation or want. True it is that we were not rolling in wealth, but we managed to live well. She possessed all that middling house-wife would reasonably like to have. If it were possible to get a salary for sitting beside one's wife, I would never be tired of her company for the whole day. Well, now when a couple are so fond of each other that they live just by looking at each other, life, has to be beautiful as the radiant full moon.

In this blissful of married fife, whenever I noted sadness on Bimla’s countenance, I would feel upset. I would fain feel tempted to ask her what had befallen her. But I would at the same time think if that would not augment her grief further. In the twinkling of an eye, sometimes her thoughts would wander, one never knew where, and got lost for a moment. If during this state of mind I tried to rouse her, a faint smile would creep over her lips and instantly vanish. I therefore, did not venture to ask her anything.

I always yearned to unravel the mystery, season or out of season. I wanted to make her reveal her secret, by hook or crook, but every time she eluded me. It was really bewildering that occasionally in her abandon, she would talk without a restraint, and then suddenly fall mute. It seemed that something long forgotten raised its head in her mind.

Whenever, I tried to ask her the reason for this, she either sidetracked or would say, :It is out of love for me that you worry for nothing; I am fit as fiddle. There is nothing wrong with me". This too was a lie, and I could no more swallow anything of it.

I began to believe that she was driving me crazy by saying anything but truth. Meanwhile, Nika was born to us. How chubby! Every shade lice his mother. But whenever, I saw his mother, I was horror-stricken. Her bloom was missing; what blight has overtaken her! What evil eye has afflicted her? I wonder.

One day, brimmed over as I was, I contained myself no longer. I made her sit beside me and said to her, "Bimla, why are you concealing from me? What is it that you are taking to your heart, and for what' "Saying this, I surveyed her head and foot, and looked for a change in the colour of her face. But Bimla did not so much as lift her eyes. I told her again, "There is no love-last in you for me".

In fact, I did not want to give utterance to it at all because I too, had no faith in it. Hearing this, a frown appeared on her forehead and said, 'Who the devil has told you? Or may be you have come by an instrument of measuring love".

This reply evoked a laughter in me. To be frank, it was out of place; I should not have laughed. I wanted to talk warily and circumspectly. Her reply gave me a boost It is a weakness with me that I cannot contain myself for joy if there is a hint of affection from my wife's side. I told her, "Don't hedge around as if I do not understand this".

`What after all do you understand?" She pounced on me. For a long time she wistfully fixed her gaze on me that my legs cowered beneath me. But I was determined to make her speak the truth.

"You have grown sick of me", I told her with a cold indifference.

"This only seems to you", she said this in a manner with her eyes downcast as if she meant really to ask her if I was trying to fathom how deep in water she was.

"I love nobody but you".

Pointing to the child, I said, "Not even Nik Lal, you mean"?

Nika was fast asleep in his cradle, emitting sounds from his running nose.

"Not more dear than you". she said.

On hearing this, there was no doubt my whole body sweated for shame. A freshness and a new current of life ran through my body. The stiffness that was there gave way to relaxation. It was because of such piquant gestures and talk of her that my love for her never assailed by doubt.

"Men why don't you tell me? Why are you so despondent? What grief, God forbid, gnaws you'?

"What grief could I have? She said after a pause. "I have none, albeit there is one thing that always corrodes me within".

"Then why don't you tell what the thing is"?

"What shall I say to you? This is not a thing fit to be said to

At this, I changed my colour, partly stricken with fear and in part with anxiety, I said to her with much effort. "Well, if you do not want to".

On this she was roused again and a smile appeared on her lips.

"Did I not tell you that the thing does not concern you at all?

"Whom does it concern then? "My voice had grown feeble like the one who confronts a thief in his sleep. I continued with some uneasiness", you swear on my life! Speak plainly, I can search him out".

"I do not know really who he was", she said with some anger as if she wanted to say that she should be left alone and that I has stuck to her like a leach.

"How astonishing! " I rejoined.

"Yes, Isn't it? That is why it vexes me". She said. So saying, she fell to ruminating again. My patience brimmed over, but in spite of that, I told her with some coaxing. "Well, think of it, in case you nurse a pain or malady in your bosom, how can I put up with this"? My voice betrayed me. It was not really my voice, it was some

different man, my tongue faltered. every word came with some effort, while inwardly many an idea and fear raised their head.

Bimla seemed very far remote from me, in spite of her close proximity, she was not with me at all, as if all these years of married life were a dream or an illusion. So all aquiver, I said to her consolingly, "Well, you share it with me, I may also know what it is, perchance I might find a way out".

"There is nothing you can do", she ran her fingers in to my hair. "It is not for you to do anything. It is no use telling you".

I felt my body as if entangled in prickles. If she ran her fingers into my hair before, how delighted I felt, but now it looked as if ants were swarming through my hair. I scratched my hair by my fingers and said to her, "Well, there is no harm in telling it Am I not yours, and are you not mine, too"?

My manner of speaking was altogether altered; it did not really come from my heart, She too, probably understood it and said, "It seems you can't rest contented unless you hear it. I on my part have no objection in telling you'.

Forcing an artificial smile on my lips, I said at random. “then relate what the story is".

If on the one hand, I grew serious, I felt strength slipping away from my body, on the other. My heart had received a jolt, it was as if I was awaiting some unknown verdict Something was gnawing within me making my heart pond. A question painfully haunted me, thirsting for an immediate answer. But the answer did not lie with me, it rested with somebody else.

I grew somewhat fidgety and bean to listen to her. while she said with a measure of equanimity;

"Well, listen then. It happened during the period when I was not yet married to you, but I had been engaged to you; marriage proper took place some days later. I was at my maatamaal (mother's parental house) for I had been invited there on a ceremony. I had asked my maternal uncle to buy me a satin dhoti, but he had found no time for it. I had to leave for my home the next day. Leaving for his office, my uncle told me, "Here is the money for you. You shall buy a dhoti after your heart".

I prepared for leaving for the market several times during the day, but my aunt and the granny did not let me go out of the doors. I left without their leave in proper make-up in a shilvaar kamiz. Until then, I used to be wary of leaving alone and unescorted, but then I had given up that caution too because, being as good as a married woman, I felt rather dauntless and free. The time I left for market to buy the dhoti, it was quite clear, or may be it might well have been over cast at some places, I do not know for certain.

Having the dhoti purchased from the market, when I was to leave for my maatamaal, it began to rain in torrents. I passed my understanding how the clouds had gathered so thick. I was soaked to the bone, my trousers stuck to my legs, even the wrapped new dhoti got wet. I did not so much mind my clothes getting wet, it mattered little, what really perturbed me was if the dhoti just purchased from the market got wet; who could believe it to be a brand new. That I would quicken my pace to run also would be unseemly.

While passing the market thus, it appeared to me as if I had nothing to cover my body with, as if the whole of the marketplace had gathered on shop porches for having run mad to witness my plight. Some of them had taken shelter in the lanes, and some tried to crowd under a single umbrella they saw. Having the feeling that all the people in the market stared at me, I felt humiliated, and so I changed the route and took to the Bund. Having reached the Bund, I felt as if I was released from prison. There on the Bund, you could quicken your pace. I set off almost on a trot, but the rain overwhelmed me still more.

Meanwhile, I saw a man walking with an umbrella overhead; he was almost my age. As he neared, he stole a look over me under his umbrella. I do not usually talk to way-farers while walking, but this tune, I blurted out I said to him with some hesitation, "If you do not mind, will you give me your umbrella, please? I have to go there some distance".

"Oh yes, you take it please. Make use of it"

I took hold of the umbrella, but l felt ashamed of my selfishness. I didn't talk to him even once. He, on his part, too, did not enquire where and how far I had to go. He was some paces behind me. From his foot steps I could gather that he was eight to ten paces behind me. My dhoti was spared of rain because of the umbrella, else it would have become a wet rag. I clean forgot him till I reached my maatamaal and entered the door. I was inwardly cursing myself that my aunt and dyad would make it hot for me and subject m e to dressing down and scolding. Worrying thus, I went upstairs where my uncle, who had already returned from his office, told me to shift my clothes as he saw me drenched through and through. I left an umbrella there in some corner and entered the other room to shift my clothes.

Several days after this incident, our marriage took place... It was an entirely new world to me then. And then I left for Ladakh with you... "Here Bimla paused for a while. And it was quite true. I had been transferred to Ladakh and Bimla had accompanied me. From there, I was sent back to Baramulla. Since her account increased my eagerness, I did not like this pause, and I asked her, "Yes, what happened after this"?

"Then what should have happened"? she said casually, " On my return from Baramulla, I came to my maatamaal one days”.

"I know this much", I said to her butting in.

"You do not listen to the whole story", she continued without looking at me. "Dyad had been craving to see me. She was much pleased when she saw me there for two days and two nights. She put question after question about Ladakh, its people, its customs and rituals, and particularly about we two".

"About me also"? I asked her with a smile. At this she turned her face to other side and resumed, "However, on the third day evening, there was a drizzle. I was sitting by my Dyad, who ruminantly turned over the events of her youth, and my aunt was her kitchen. As the rain drops began to beat on the tin roof, my aunt rushed out from the kitchen very infuriated. She at first looked at her mother-in-law, and then, looking through the window, gave a nod to her. I kept looking alternately from my aunt to Dyad.

"Is it so"? My Dyad asked her, raising her eye-brows. I got in a fix.

"What is the matter'? I asked both of them. "What is it that you convey in such signals"?

"Nothing, my daughter, nothing", Dyad answered, but this did not satisfy me. I got up to look through the window and they burst out laughing uproariously. I grew more suspicious that there was something fishy; I felt somewhat odd.

"Now, for God sake, tell me why this whispering"?

I noticed that Dyad was somewhat scandalised. She told me in turn, "Nothing, my daughter; it is a matter of no importance. Well, don't you see that there is an electric pole there at the roadside"? I thought that she was fooling me and I asked her again. "Well, what if it is there"?

"There is a young boy standing there against it".

"There might be one", I said to her annoyed.

This reply of mine was taken ill by her. She said, "Don't go on harping your own tune. Listen to what I say, the boy, you see there, has been coming there for several years. Whenever it looks like rain, he suddenly makes his appearance there at the lamppost, as if waiting for someone. He neither talks to anybody, nor replies to anything if asked. Your Maama dear, to whom my life be sacrificed, too, saw him umpteen times stock-still transfixed there. He thought of reporting it to the police, but I told him it would be no use, it was immaterial to us and that he would ultimately tire out his legs standing there".

I, just nonchalantly, assented to what Dyad said. I asked her again, "You are right, but who is he after all?”

"God alone knows. He never replies if asked" Dyad said wondering. "And now see, there he is, when it is yet to rain. Now not until we shut our compound door and switch off our lights, this son of a mother will not budge from there. He does it only when he is convinced that we are asleep. Till then he goes on wearying his legs there".

Her talks made me lose of my composure. Getting up I looked through the window again. There, surely enough, was a young man standing by the lamp-post ... Who he could be? Sinister premonitions crossed my mind. I went to the room below, just to ward off my suspicion, and slammed the window shut. This sound made him look up.. I was at my wits end to recognise him at once. In the electric light, the rain drops on his face glistened like mercury.

My legs cowered beneath me. I almost was bereft of my consciousness; my feet began feel very heavy. There was a simmering sensation in every fiber of my being. I felt everything around aflame, and a multitude was running to put the fire off. I also felt a water-fall rushing down my ears and I feared that it would wash me down, or the fire might turn me into ashes. I was totally unsettled. I at once climbed up the stairs to the attic with my heart pounding within. I was there after five years rummaging for the umbrella. The Granny saw me doing this and asked me what I was looking for.

"I am searching for an umbrella which I had forgotten here sometime back". I said.

"Oh, was that yours"? she wondered. "We have kept it there in the topmost attic as nobody claimed it Go and find it there, where it will be in all like hood".

I ran up to the topmost attic where rummaging here and there, I found it hung up under the ceiling. It was as if I came by a treasure. I shook dust off it by the hem of my dhoti. Much perturbed, I climbed down the stairs and reached the compound gate. Keeping myself half-hid behind the door, I handed over the umbrella to him, saying, "Will you please take this umbrella"?

He approached the gate and his deep breath plunged daggers through my soul even when I was behind the door. I cursed myself for having asked him for that umbrella and putting that luckless man to so much trouble; I rather loathed myself for this. He got hold of the umbrella saying the while, "Why did you take this trouble, you could keep it'.

"Kindly forgive me. I am really ashamed of myself. I told him without showing my face, for how could I look him in the face?

"Is it worth the trouble?" The manner he told me this, I missed

"It really gave you an immense trouble", I said in a subdued tone, tears welling up in my eyes.

"It is such a paltry article, I was not worried for it at all", he replied in return.

What was he then anxious for, was a query rising from within me. Pausing for a while and composing himself, he said, "It was raining that day, I apprehended lest ...."

His reply could not be completed because I should have forthwith asked him, "What were you apprehensive for"? But I did not want to get to the root of the thing. I struck a little bit bizarre that he should have been anxious for the umbrella.

Then, for whose sake and for what had he been waiting for so long? I reflected feeling restless. I thought how could I ask her for what had he been waiting for all those years. I could not so much as utter a syllable for a pretty long time. At long last, I looked outside the door, but there was no one there!