The Inheritance of Loss (a series) - 04. The Muse/Paro

When she comes to, she wishes she hadn't. She thinks this is what drowning must feel like. To resign, to make peace, to finally let go and let the sea engulf you. To sink so low, only darkness can embrace you. But she is waking, flapping, splashing, feels herself dragged and pulled and lifted. The weight of air hurts. It's cold and heavy and she is alive again. She isn't ready to be. She has made peace. Isn't ready to live again. The weight of life, the sheer burden of it crushes her. She finds herself suffocating all over again. In that moment before she had let go she had found calm. The hypnotic lull had driven out all her thoughts, silenced all those shouts. It was quiet. It was good. Finally she could be, just be. Floating, fleeting, flying like she had always wanted to be.

Coming to now feels like being ripped apart. She wonders if that's what the old sages spoke of. The curse and the cure. Of water babies and wenches. She's a wanderer. It's as bad as a wench. It's a horrible quality to have, a curse to be born with. A constant craving she fights - clawing at the back of her mind. Sometimes when she is alone, she moves her hair aside to check for scratch marks. They must be there. There has to be a physical manifestation of all that she feels, of all that she fights. It cannot all just be fleeting, just echoes and ripples trapped in her mind.

She had a family once, twice if you count the one that let her go. She doesn't. She only ever remembers the one she left behind. A little boy too young to fight and a husband too jaded to care. She often thinks of them, wonders and wishes. Convinces herself they are better off without her, without a mother who dreamt of running, of flying. Who envies her own flesh and blood - her own son (his childhood/his freedom - sometimes she forgets which is which).

Her greatest folly, most lethal vice has always been her greatest weakness. She has always been governed by her heart, been a slave to its whims. If she could, she would rip it apart and shred it to piece. Burn it and turn it to ash.  A reckless heart, she has learnt, causes more harm, more destruction in its wake than even the greatest storms could, the most severe of natural calamities could. She thinks she is a calamity. One that needs to be restrained, trapped, limited, tamed. Which is why she is here. She loves his golden cage. Loves that under the faade of space (freedom), she has enough room to flap her wings, dance to her whims but still belong. Because that is what it has been about all along isn't it? To belong yet fly. Why she ran (flew) in the first place. Because home had turned into a hallowing hell and living into giving and she found herself slowly losing her mind (her wings, her flight). Her soul (her feathers, her life) became so entwined with theirs, there wasn't much of her left that remembered what it felt like to soar, how it was to fly.

She had been fluttering then, hopping and pecking when he had come with seeds of dreams in his palms and promises of endless skies in his eyes. She had unfurled then, flapped her dying wings and soared out of her decrypt nest only to drop, plummet, fall, heading straight fast down on her way to the ground. That is when it had happened, when he had caught her mid-flight. He'd placed her in his golden cage before she's fully relearnt, experienced, realised the power of her spirit in flight.

And although she's just an ordinary magpie, he treats her like a thunderbird, calls her his canary. That is perhaps why he never lets her drown, never lets her find peace. He never lets her go quiet.

But she's never forgotten her last flight. Which is why she still continues to try.

I liked this story a lot. I love your writing style, and I imagined lonely beaches, towering cliffs and a sort of arrested momentum of a free fall! 

Are you going to hate me if I say something though? In the show, the Thakurayain is supposed to be very spiritual, a great bhakt of Bholenaath... She named her son after him fir Gods sake! And she raised Parvati with the same sensibilities... Fate, the path of God, giving up your life to His vision for you... A strong sense of duty... What caused her to change?  And she went back twice for her son.. But he was gone!  And she married the Thakur and she is obviously fond of him too! Somehow those secrets are not quite revealed with the arc of this story. 

Having said that, I am quite happy to take the literary liberty  of choosing to ignore this aspect ( we will let the cvs deal with that, shall we) and focus on something that always has ifascinated me... The female wandering spirit. Yearning for freedom. Crushed by it. Yearning then for ... A golden cage, big enough to pretend that she is free! 

Thanks for this lovely story! 

There is ofcourse the consequences of fleeing to find your freedom and these must be unbearable for a mother.The guilt will always haunt you and the ache for your child will never cease but surprisingly being a woman and a mother I understand why some women take this step.They are not monsters,they are people whose astitva has been crushed who are drowning in their own mire.To escape is often their only way to survive.Mothers who abandon their children often have the saddest tales to tell and my feeling is that this will also be the case for Mala.Thank you for writing in an innovative and poetic way about such a sensitive subject.I eagerly await your take on the other characters.