Part 16: Cupid and Psyche
Even as I took in the ordered chaos of his apartment, I couldn't bring myself to believe that he'd let me visit him. Ganga, his housekeeper left as I had entered the living room and yet, the books, the rags and the papers remained undisturbed and evenly scattered everywhere. She was paid only to clean the kitchen; this I could tell from the empty steel sink that glistened under the late afternoon sun.
"Coffee?" I prompted and he nodded falling back into his couch, a large bound book in his hand.
I set out to boil the milk on the stove and, without notice, the memory of my visit to Shiv's guest house came rushing back to me. It must have been another life, I concluded, when I had hesitated, fidgeted with my dupatta endless only to step into his private space and here I was offering to make coffee in Prithvi's kitchen who was no less of a stranger to me. If that wasn't outrageous by Jaitsar standards, I went by Andy at college - not Anandi; my hair was all of five inches shorter at waist length and today I was dressed in a fitted churidhar and kurta that didn't exactly reach my knees. The chunni just had to go when Saanchi had a long face every time I tried to take a matching dupatta out of my cupboard.
To others, Anandi had changed by many measures. But, in reality, I had only camouflaged to fit into my new setting. This, I presumed, was urban survival, but until that moment I hadn't truly considered if I had been surviving - not living - in Jaitsar too; only gloriously adjusting to the old world methods and aged philosophy that didn't always make sense.
"So, did she buy her freedom with her new found knowledge?" he prompted, his curiosity having got the best of him when I had gone silent for a while.
"I'm not narrating the plot of Kill Bill," I laughed coming out of the kitchen and took the far end of the couch after handing him the coffee cup. "It wouldn't qualify for a fairy tale if the story took that turn."
Taking a sip, I leaned back to rest my head against the cushion when the door to my right opened a crack giving me a glimpse of an unfinished large rectangular canvas. There was a splash of different shades of orange and following the dark shadow that had been carefully shaded at places I could trace out the outline of a woman blended in the myriad of colors. She was either dying...
Or just being revived from the same clutches of death.
"What is it?" I found myself whispering without meaning to. The wild orange burnishing the canvas had a voice of its own, a soul in the woman who played hide and seek from between the layers of the hypnotic color, her eyes closed from an old aching.
"Nothing..." I heard his curt response while he continued sipping the coffee.
Despite having noted he was not forthcoming to discuss his art, I got to my feet and made my way to the door.
He didn't stop me, but he didn't keep me from exploring it on my own and from having closed the distance, I could see the thin veil like effect delicately painted over the canvas to give the illusion of distance to the viewer.
In every way the woman was far from being touched, unless someone had already crossed over to her side.
I stood rooted to the ground, unable to breathe, incapable of comprehending what was quite clear in my vision and a raging discomfort began to grow in my chest.
And it felt like the only thing I was capable of doing then was to lie down on his lap.
Placing the coffee cup on the book case nearby, I turned in profile to meet his gaze already fixed on me. But, he wouldn't look me in the eye anymore. Tipping his head back, his hand ran up his forehead and clumped a fistful of his hair.
Closing his eyes, he drew in a breath before he spoke to me, his voice filled with the same distress that I saw in his stiffened form.
"I first saw her in bangalore when she'd come for her cousin Ranveer's graduation. Because Ranveer's brother, her other cousin, Amar - also my then roommate - was staying on campus, she decided to bunk with him in the dorms rather than take up a hotel. Of course, when I moved out for a few days, I didn't know who would be sleeping on my bed."
His hand fell on the cushions as if he'd lost control over that part of his body and laughed with derision. "Have you heard the story of cupid and psyche?"
I shook my head in response; my mouth having gone dry from hearing him speak in intimate tone.
"Venus, mother of cupid, grew jealous of psyche's beauty - after all, she was considered as the second coming of Venus on earth so much so that people ignored the worship of Venus all together - and sent her own son to make her fall in love with a monster. At any length, Venus did underestimate pysche's allure and in a play of fate, Cupid chose just the wrong instance to put her under a love spell. Cupid hid in her room and waited until dawn for her to wake up."
Leaving his cup on the coffee table, he got off the couch and walked to the bookcase by which I continued to stand. Pulling out a book titled, David, he turned to a particular page and handed me the same for me to look at. While I glanced at the young cherub lying next to a languid Psyche, he retrieved another book by the title, Musee de Louvre, and showed me a picture of Cupid and Psyche statue housed at the Louvre. Though the picture didn't do any justice to the virgin white splendor the statue must have been in person, I could see that it was a divine moment of revival sculpted in pristine marble.
"With the rumples of her sheet sliding off her body," I heard him begin with the story again and I looked up from the book to find him sit over the arm-rest of his couch, "he only had to watch her ruffle her eyes for a second and raise herself off the bed in small delicate movements for him to slip on the ground in awe of her beauty; surrender to that stupefying mesmerization she was. His slip had cost him much, more like all of his eternity when the arrow in his hand slipped and scratched his own leg. Thus, the mighty cupid fell - or should I say, scratched himself to find his one love."
I didn't ask him what Cupid or Psyche had to do with him or Mitra. Surely, I knew he would tell me of the association too, but what caught my attention with some reprieve was that Prithvi's story wouldn't fit into the one that Shiv had told me. If Shiv had been right, Prithvi hadn't met Mitra until he'd joined Delhi University as a teaching assistant.
But, I was also aware that Prithvi was indeed speaking the truth; his emotions were that of a genuine despair unlike that of the telltale Shiv, who had gone about it as if I'd only been a love-struck dimwit who wouldn't put two and two together. I wasn't angry with him then; that said I wasn't entirely a saint to not harbor any grudge against him.
That day, I also learnt that reticent men did talk. Only they didn't dance around the details that were insignificant like the loquacious ones did. All though he shared little, he shared words of weight.
I gasped as he abruptly continued to add to his earlier recount, "I went back to the dorm one day after I moved out to fetch some of my paint stuff. I was nearly out the door when I caught her sleeping form. From there, I saw her sleeping on my bed, wearing my plaid shirt over her night clothes. It had been a rather cold night and I realized she must have pulled a shirt randomly out of the closet to keep her warm, thinking it was Amar's. Standing there, watching her awaken herself just like Psyche had what else could I do..." he shrugged and took one of the books from my hand and closed it shut while the pleased confession brought a smile to his face.
He met my gaze and I saw his eyes take on an emotion I had never seen before in a man. One of sublime peace; perhaps, his surreal narration and his parallels to a timeless Greek lore had lent that quality to my view, I couldn't tell, but I was convinced by then that his love for her was as transcending as that of the gods he'd picked to tell his story.
"And I scratched myself," he ended forever changing what the three words would come to mean for me.
Edited by Lahari. - 12 years ago
Book Talk
