Even her
parents were dismayed when she was born. She heard about it too late to make
amends; she had already begun to care by then. Her parents did what they could.
Her siblings too were gracious. Though they did remind her every now and then
of her superfluity. At school her teachers were patient; her classmates were no
more or less nasty to her than they were to the injured and blinded by sunlight
bat that had crept into their classroom. Her presence was more like the chalk
dust that remains on your fingers after you’d written on the blackboard.
She grew up and married a dependable man. Her family was relieved.
Her husband was hardly there beside her though, and never around to hear her
side of the story or just be there for the sake of it.
Then the children came and grew up fast. They grew apart from her.
Perhaps they thought that this mother-child relationship thing was too much of
a load, this constant companionship that they had never asked for. But how
could she know that these, her appendages that had broken away, would begin to
speak in a foreign language the minute they’d learned to stand on their own two
feet? She didn’t guess even when the facts drooled and stared at her in the
face idiot fashion.
It was true. To be left alone by herself was a blessing she didn’t
know she had. So she cursed her heart and left it to fend for itself. Her heart
grew arms and legs and went wandering all by itself, and learnt many things her
mind could barely comprehend. And then, like a flirtatious summer, her days
were gone. Time had passed her by, walking around her as if she was a boulder
in its path, pulling the years over its shoulder tenuously.
She’s grown old now, and become like a wire basket full of pots
and pans. She’s got a grimace attached to her face; her lips are pulled back
and her eyes bulge out. She seems to be at war with a wild creature inside her.
I doubt she ever stops to think about the consequences. She is totally unaware
that she is totally out of step. Her moves are clumsy. She is a clown grown too
old to perform.
These days, she goes out for long walks with only her heart for
company. And she holds the wild thing fast on a pair of leashes. She believes
she can make new friends that way.
Pity she never learned what a blessing it is to be left alone, to
be by herself, contented.
###
Rumjhum Biswas has been published in countries in all the five
continents in both online and print journals and anthologies. One of her poems
were long listed in the Bridport Poetry Prize 2006 and is also a finalist in
the2010 Aesthetica Creative Arts Contest. She has won prizes in poetry contests
in India.Her poem “March” was commended in the Writelinks’ Spring Fever
Competition,2008. Her story -”Ahalya’s Valhalla” – was among Story South’s
Million Writers’ notable stories of 2007. Her poem “Bones”has been nominated
for a 2010 Pushcart by Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. She was a
participating poet in the 2008Prakriti Foundation Poetry Festival in Chennai.
She was a featured poet during the Poetry Slam organized jointly by the US
Consul General, Chennai and The Prakriti Foundation in December 2009. In
December 2010 she was a participating poet at the first Hyderabad Literary
Festival organized by Osmania Universityand Muse India.She is one among ten
Indian poets to feature in an exclusive forthcoming anthology edited by Jayant
Mahapatra along with Yuyutsu RD Sharma. She blogs at:http://rumjhumkbiswas.wordpress.com/,http://polyphagous.wordpress.com And has a monthly column (Rumjhum’s
Ruminations)at Flash Fiction Chronicles –http://www.everydayfiction.com/flashfictionblog/
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