SS: Anthapura - Part 18 Upd - Apr 19th - Page 31

Even as I stepped in, I sensed his pensiveness; the rustle of his brushes absent and he appeared lost in the blanket of quiet that covered the room.

I couldn't help as my forehead furrowed with many questions as he sat uncharacteristically by the window ledge, his profile turned to the incandescent lake outside; the moon a milky orb in the indigo sky.

"Not painting today?" I asked placing my bag on a fairly clean corner of his table which held his painting accessories.

He turned his gaze to me and lifted his right palm halfway up to reveal a purplish blue patch that extended all across his palm and over the tips of his fingers; the burn was just beginning to darken around the edges and it told me that the mark was still fresh - hardly a few hours old.

And it charred my skin too that he would sit there by himself without attending to the burn that he must still feel on his skin.

I held his hand by the wrist and seated myself next to him. "Well, this is what happens when you enter the kitchen every decade or so," he began with a hint of censure in his voice, his brows drawn together in frustration over that failure. "I forgot that I had left the water to boil on the stove. When I came back the water was all gone and seeing the empty vessel, I clasped the steel handle to fill water again and this is what I get for being a bonehead."

I smiled at his remark. "Let me get something for that," I said and without waiting for his response placed a call to the manager on-duty.

By then, I knew Prithvi had unsaid VIP access though he wasn't staying at the hotel's exotic suites. The fact that he didn't acknowledge them didn't mean they didn't exist and I banked on his privileges to get his first aid delivered to our hall. It didn't take minutes from the time I had called the front desk to have a small cup filled with haldi paste brought to the door.

It was one of those days, I realized, he was too tired to draw on his anger for fortitude; more exhausted by the constant act of sullenness he kept up than by all the physical labor he did on any given day.

Men are just grown-up babies, I wanted to tell him. All it took to put him in place, however temporarily, was a commonplace household accident.

As I smiled and applied haldi over the burn marks, I said, "This reminds me of a story Daadisa told me when I was young."

He didn't speak then and shifted his eyes to me from the window just as I looked up at him. "Have you heard the tale of the man who could not be loved? It's a desert fable. It was told he drew strength from other's hate for him."

"No," he said, a somber look on his face.

"In a faraway land," I started knowing well I had his full attention, "where the sand extended far into the seas a mother prayed for her womb to be blessed by the rain gods after having lost twelve children at birth and in the way of foolish promises made at desperate prayers, she claimed she would love the child more than the gods ever could. To this the gods took offense and though they granted her a son, they also cursed that the boy will not survive an act of love from any woman.

"The mother tried her mighty best to stay away from the boy during his formative years, but when she gave into her need to hug or kiss him, a purple lash would appear on his skin. Just like yours," I raised his hand for his view and let go of it before I got to my feet to go lean by the window frame.

"It killed his mother when he complained of a burning sensation like that of lambent flames licking his body when she occasionally embraced him. From then on, the mother kept a distance from her own son which eventually turned him into a bitter, morose teenager."

A shadow crept into his face and it occurred to me I might have touched upon a painful memory relating to his mother. Well, then it was unintentional, I thought and remedied by switching courses while he shifted to his feet and faced the lake once again.

"When the boy was thirteen, he discovered a secret about himself. That he grew immensely stronger every time he did something to have the women cursing back at him. Breaking water pots or pulling on a girl's pigtails renewed the life in his veins when the females turned to hiss and speak in scalding tongues to him. Once he grew into an adult, he realized the curse was, in truth, a cruel compensation - a bane that paved way for his self-preservation when the lack of every kind of women's love made him nothing short of a monster."

My initial scruples that he would wave me off upon discerning the story's undertones disappeared and a rather unconscious stream of details filled the narrative.

"It was at this time of his life that he was invited to a family wedding and god knows the motivations behind it when he'd managed to find a foe in every person there was. Later, he would come to know it was destiny that had led him there. His mere presence incited spiteful glares from the women folk; the sour murmurs from the men heated his blood and he felt a mad need to feel the rush of power in him. It took him all of five seconds to think of a boorish un-heroic deed that would spur a women into detesting him. He lifted the bride off the mandap, threw her over his shoulder and took her to his haveli after fighting off the men who pounced on him."

Stories were stories, I noted; after all, we all had a natural predilection to tell stories and to be told even if they were our own; the flaws and miseries appearing distant and bearable when fictionalized. There is a sudden thrust of objectivity that stems from such dissociation and I was certain he'd already achieved that state when he didn't interrupt me for that length of time.

"He didn't know that the one random act of foolishness would cost him his life. Almost as a rule, he fell in love with her the very instant he lifted the ghoonghat off her face. She was so beautiful and ethereal looking that her ivory cream skin stirred in him a potent mix of heady desire keeling over his senses. However inanimate he was to her cries, only, he alone knew she was his original temptation - a death trap if he were ever to take off his mask. But, she was far from loving him; her hate ran deeper than his love and it made him infinitely stronger. She refused to eat or sleep while he kept her captive and neither did his love for her allow him to let her go."

I walked to sit by the edge of the table. He still had his back to me and as I watched his silhouette take form against the lit night sky, the story stopped being Daadisa's fable and became the one I had long intended to tell.

"Days turned into weeks and she gave up on her protests, learning to live in solitude inside the anthapura he locked her in. He visited a few times bringing her food and fresh clothes, but he made himself scarce when she was awake, avoiding all forms of contact. Alone and with nothing but the flowers and trees that surrounded her, she honestly believed she was in the last days of her life - she had heard that loneliness took lives faster than insanity. On the contrary, she hadn't been in exclusion as she'd originally made it to be. If only she'd noticed the change in the shadows that fell through the lattice work covering the three sides of her room. A torrent of delirium kept him awake for days, not losing sight of her even as she slept or wandered in the gardens. One night he felt compelled to count her lashes, going over his apish quest in the dim light of a flickering night lamp placed far in the room. Such was the madness that swirled in his head."

Though his face was hidden from me, I observed the affecting stillness in his posture, as if a deep echo resounded from a past that had become another life.

In that pause, I drew an emphasis to what I had to say then. "For all the kinds of love he'd not given away until that time in his life, his love for her was that much more infinite, ever intensified in the way it rebounded against the emptiness in him."

Conceivably, his body showed a visible stiffening and I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat. Lord! let me finish, I prayed.

"He picked up on her ill spirits and found her a talking parrot - one that could recite soul wrenching poems - to keep her company. What she didn't know was that he'd written them in despair - overwhelmed by his forbidden love for her - and had spent long painful hours teaching the parrot to commit them to memory. Of course in his state of anguish, he'd lost focus and chanted her name like that of a prayer one night without realizing that he was still in the vicinity of the mindless parrot. The bird had given away nothing then, but once it had been left to spend the day with her, it had parroted her name with an equal fervency as he had in the night. When she'd never once tried to teach the parrot anything, she at once discerned where the bird had learnt of her name and thus, she consequently came to know of his love for her."

"And that's it for today," I said swiping a paper towel to wipe my hands clean and attempted with derision to sound like his therapist. "Our time is up, Prithvi. Why don't you catch some sleep and we can meet tomorrow."

Turning on his heel, he took a step towards me; a dislike for his curiosity sharpened his tone. "It's not like I'm going to kill you once I get to hear the last of your tale. This is not the Arabian nights."

I could tell he wasn't mad at me for having mirrored a story that was a facsimile of his own. An open confrontation only meant he'd acknowledged that he was the man I had spoken of and he knew better than to fall for that word trap.

"Is that your take on the Arabian nights? That the Scheherazade kept the stories going because she was afraid to die at the hands of her husband?" I raised a questioning brow at him and he blinked in response.

"I expected more from you," I continued with a laugh. "You are partly right though. She did the things she did because she was buying time. But, was it because she didn't want to die or was it to be with him? It's a little hard to speculate when we have passed the era, don't you think?"

"Are you going to tell me?" he prompted.

"Well, by now you should know that my Daadisa never told me the story I have ended up telling you. I'm not sure what happens next. Let me think about it," I said crossing my arms.

"Oh! Common," he said beginning to roll his eyes, "Of course, they live happily ever after." And he added, "didn't they?" after a moment's pause for contemplation.

"I'm not sure I want to end this story like any other fairy tale." I made a face disliking the banality that was expected of all fairy tales - this however, is an opinion I hold to-date.

"What is it that you want, Anandi?" his voice grew wary with suspicion that I wasn't just playing hard to catch. "I know that you know that I know you have already written this story's denouement," he said and I straightened myself hearing the quiet anger in his tone.

"A penny for your thoughts..." Just like that the words slipped off my mouth and the subtlety with which I had hinted all along that I wanted to know more of him came out as a bargain. But, my asking had been the end of his indulgence. Taking his bag off the floor, he threw his carrying case over his shoulder and without another look at me, he ambled out of the room.

"Prtihvi, please..." I voiced a plea in desperation, "I know it's difficult for you, but I need to know."

I called after him right after he exited. "May be this story will write itself once I hear yours."

"Did you hear me?" I was by the door then watching him beginning to round the corner that would take him to the lobby.

Without knowing when I had picked up pace, I followed him through the corridor and yelled, "I will be waiting here..."

"Fine!" I sighed, though I continued to speak in quick bursts, "I will write you the next installment..."

He still wouldn't turn as he stormed out of my line of sight. "Hello!" I nearly mewed knowing well I had spoken everything there was to have him clam up again.

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