The Girl with the Golden Parasol

THIRTY-TWO

O.P. had already dozed off, but that night, in Tagore Hostel Room 252, where Madhuri Dixit once resided in the window, turning her neck to gaze at Rahul with her mad, intoxicated, dumb doe-like eyes and her hit-by-a-slingshot wounded, fleshy back — sleep wouldn’t come to Rahul.

A patch of yellow had been inhabiting the same window for several months, which bobbed its way on the winding road up from the valley, first as a tiny, fluttering butterfly and later transforming itself into a yellow parasol. Now on the other side of that window lay a darkness filled with fear, tension, despair, defeat — and silence.

A couple of dim stars tried to twinkle somewhere far off in the distance. The drowsy chirp of a restless bird tossed and turned over the uneasy sound of a cricket symphony.

Rahul was passing through a period of torment filled with deep hostility. Why can’t I change how I see things? Why is my heart causing me so much grief, biting me like a cobra again and again? Why do I even bother with this impossible, idiotic, and bloody attempt to discover what might still be alive in something fossilized thousands of years ago in a rough, ugly time? Why am I the one sabotaging my own destiny?

Rahul sat up in bed, reached for the table lamp, and angled it so he could read a few pages of “How Rama Worshipped Shakti” in the dim fifteen-watt light.

A curse on this life that’s brought me nothing but frustration!

A curse on this discipline for which I’ve sacrificed!

Janaki! Beloved, alas, I could not rescue you.”

But Rama’s spirit, tireless, was of another sort,

that knew not meekness, knew not how to beg. .

Rahul’s eyes were moist as he turned the pages.

And Ravana, Ravana, vile wretch, committing atrocities. .

The tears in his eyes blurred his vision. Why had the person who’d written these lines been so seething? The words cast their spell over Rahul. The reader of these poems was none other than Rahul’s very essence, opening the meaning of each word with a small explosion.

I’m not sure whether this thing inside of me is love or hate for you, Miss Joshi! Whatever the case, I shall be waiting for you tomorrow morning.

Please, do come.