Loving the shadows

I loved to talk to rolly-polly Rajeswari whenever I used to come to Ichapuram during the college vacation. She made such fine upmas for me full of microscopic mustards . I sat looking into her eyes on dusty evenings as she cut her tomatoes for the evening’s dinner . She did not love her husband who was such a fine husband, albeit advanced in years, and a fine printer . It was such an impossible situation , her husband being several years older than her and with nothing between them except polite conversations about what she made for the evening dinner. She wanted him , however, in her own way ; he needed nothing from her except watch him silently as he sat on the floor eating his dinner. She looked forward to my visits because she wanted to watch me eating her upmas . It was funny the way the whole thing worked out . She wanted her husband ,sometimes ,to tell her that he needed her as also tell him that she wanted a baby from him . It was a no-win situation because he wanted to tell her that it did not really matter if she did not need him .

Their destinies together unfolded as both sat dusting thousands of worn out print heads which they did not need for any current print job. For the first time I experienced the utter futility of human communication :

Rajeswari

“Her upmas were so delectable
Albeit with just a tinge of sadness
Her mangalasutra had a thread of black
Which rose and fell as though it was gold
Her eyes were pools of sad knowledge
Which brimmed over kajal-lined contours
Her tumescent tummy bulged with
Imagined babies not one but two or three
One would blame it on flatulence
Induced by late night indulgence
Her man was no prince riding on a white horse
He was a fine printer nevertheless
Who had a way with lithographic typefaces .

So that is that. The jasmines in her hair
Shone against the darkness of her back
She smiled like a princess from among
Worn out print heads and squeezed out ink-tubes
What if the printer is on forty-wrong side
He was a fine husband and a caring friend
(Rajeswari ,have you taken your B-complex?)
At his age shyness didn’t become him
He wanted to tell her what lay encrypted
On the flatstones of their foreheads
(The lettering wore off due to ravages of time)
He shared a printers affinity with Brahma
One thing emerged very clearly and unmistakably
The patter of little feet could be heard distinctly.

Her husband could never tell her this
His drooping eyes said it all , however.
How would she know that a few years later
The whites of his eyes would focus on her
And the horror of it all dawned on her
He , the expert proofreader that he was,
For once misread the inexorable writing
On the tombstones of their destiny ..”

One day her husband came home excited full of news of a new printing contract. His eyes flashed in excitement although the new contract brought no promise of immediate monetary gain to him personally. Rajeswari looked at him with inexplicable disinterest. He wanted to assure her that everything was fine between them .But where is little Krishna the patter of whose little feet could still be heard amidst the din of the printing machines ? I remembered the shadows that played on the mud walls of the Sompeta house as the petromax light hung to the roof waved gently in the breeze . When it rained little rain-insects hovered in a luminous halo around the light and their exaggerated shadows played on the mud-walls .