If Song Birds Stop Singing

Rummana Choudhury

                            

She flinched at the pouring golden sunshine. The rays seemed like prepared warriors wanting to attack her. She wiped away the endless beads of perspiration accumulating on her upper lip and forehead. Her mother had once told her that if a woman’s upper lips perspire like this, it symbolizes that her husband loved her dearly. Yes, indeed. Farook’s handsome face flashed before her.

The deep lines etched on his cheeks epitomized cheating, betrayal and double standards and triple-faced masking. He was the very first man that had taken her virginity. The first person who had swept her off her feet with his incessant lines of poetry and lyrics of Urdu ghazals at all odd hours. The first and last person to whom she had ecstatically surrendered her heart and soul. The sweet essence of her surrender and the bitter taste of his numerous betrayals made her want to throw up.

Shona closed all her Venetian blinds. At times like this she wanted to immerse herself in darkness. How dark could it get? Darker than those black clouds on the distant horizon? Darker than the indelible spots in the innermost crevice of her battered heart? Or darker than the intangible flecks of deceit in Farook’s glinting eyes? She turned her flushed face against the wall of her cold room. What if she never woke up tomorrow? Was there another world high up above the seven skies? Could she go there and cradle herself on her mother’s lap? Could she meet her father there and feel his comforting embrace? Perhaps, BoroApa would gaze at

her with twinkling eyes and say, “Did I not say that Farook had done Black Magic upon you? Otherwise how could you marry him against such odds? I should say, it is a union made in hell!”

Shona was feeling dizzy. Maybe her blood sugar was going low. She had taken her insulin injection that night but had hardly touched her rice and veal curry. She should get up and drink a glass of orange juice and a slice of bread with peanut butter to avoid hypoglycaemia. But where would that take her? Bring her back to a world where people cheated one another, fought against one another? She did not wantÊ to continue living any longer with the cross currents of power, affluence, riches, race, colour, culture, terror, greediness encompassing everyday life. Live once more to see Farook’s deceitful face trying to act innocent? Shona wanted to forget she had diabetes for over thirty years now. She wanted to forget that she had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, osteoarthritis, retinopathy and continually leaking blood and accumulating oedema in her right eye, some nodules inside her throat, had to go for a biopsy on her right breast for suspected malignancy, acute anemia and obesity. She was feeling so tired and weary. She had no complaints against anyone or anything. Just a sense of unending loneliness and depression. The exotic fragrance coming from her hasnuhena flowers under the skylight from the ebony dark corner of her foul smelling airtightÊbedroom was gently lulling her to sleep and she wondered if she was going into a coma due to low blood sugar. The drone of her table fan was making her extremely lethargic and lazy. An ardent Sufi follower had once told her that they believed life was a dream and you only wake up when you are dead. His face and words were continuously barging into her sleepy world.

It was one of those crisp spring afternoon that Shona had met Akaash at a university reunion program. Her wistful look and eyes full of pathos attracted him. She was mesmerized by his intellectual gaze intermingled with a glint of humour and a poignant underlying warmth. The attraction between them was electrical. They were both in the twilight of their years but felt the melody of youth overpowering them. There was this encompassing emptiness in both of them.

Dusk was gently sweeping in. The beautiful thick embroidered curtains with their elegant sheer creamy lining were gradually losing their radiance. The room was increasingly immersing in ebony darkness. Not that it mattered to the two people in love breathlessly discovering each other’s bounty. They were totally enveloped in their own private world. The world which was neither big nor small but altogether their own precious universe.

He gently disentangled himself from her arms. She was lightly snuggling over his salt and pepper hair on his chest and softly playing with his huge

manhood. He was still relishing the taste of her pristine forest. Her cherries were sweet and so were her lips. She looked up into his eyes and lovingly traced the lines of his full lips with her forefinger. His eyes, with which she had etched such endless dreams were half open with a kind of lazy satiation. He gently moved her hair away from her glowing face. She often felt she was slowly but certainly slipping away from the grasping border of this world. She had no dreams. No hopes, aspirations or emotions. She felt like an invisible entity on the face of this universe. Nothing mattered to her anymore. As she was gradually slipping into oblivion she also

had no regrets. The crimson sun would never come up in the horizon of her world.

It was times like this that made her feel alive. Every nerve in her body became alive. Every fibre cried out in ecstasy. She never knew love like this existed in this world. How was it possible?

In this huge universe the chaos and confusion all around often made her want to die. She had no complains against anyone. Life just made her tired.

“Shona, I never want to let you go. It is in the twilight of our lives that we have found each other. Let us create history!”

“My Akaash, you are always a dreamer! But life is not a bed of roses.” Shona played with his magical fingers. She left lingering kisses on each finger and a world of enchanting fairy tales enveloped her. He was a genius with his magical writings yet he had fallen in love with a simple, ordinary girl like her.

“You know Shona, we could have been a power couple thirty five years ago.”

“Akaash, do not flatter me. Why did you not propose to me three decades ago ?”

“Shona, I admired you from a distance. I listened to your musical programs, read your books on music, philosophy and ancient civilizations and loved your stage and TV performances. I never dreamt we would click like this!”

“My dearest, I admired your writings even then. Why did you not open up to me then?”

“I had a huge liking and admiration for you but I never dreamt you and I could be so passionately in love spiritually, intellectually and physically even after so many years!”

“My Akaash, there is no past or future between us. Let us make the present a dew drop reflecting the rainbow colours of life!”

“Shona, if there is a life hereafter, we will be together for eternity.” Theirs was a unique relationship. She had felt so betrayed, so desperate

and so depressed before she had met him. Life had seemed like a dark tunnel with no light. He had also been burnt out and exhausted. Life to him had felt like an endless river of despair. Both of them had been exhausted beyond expression. The magic was not in their past or the future but in their present which was full of dreams and stardust.

Akaash and Shona were from two different worlds. From two diverse, broken relationships. But theirs was not to question why or how or what. They had cocooned themselves into their own private world of infinite happiness where they fulfilled each other’s wants and desires, mentally, physically and intellectually. Often unconditional love is the answer to the most complicated questions in life.

Shona can never be dead. She will return from the other side, no matter what. The dead sometimes do not mingle with time, never cease to be. They are in every atom of the universe, in every cell of the person they loved. The inherent passion, tidal wave and relentless emotions of their beloved never let them go extinct. Shona will definitely come alive, today or tomorrow.

Shona gazed at Akaash through the layers of mud and slime of her final resting place. She could feel his pain and desperation. She could almost smell his Aramis fragrance reaching out to her. The man who had given her a brief taste of heaven before she had bid goodbye to the mortal world of unbearable pain. Their journey through space, their immortal love was of a unique texture. They never believed that the petals of their love rose would ever be scattered in the pristine forest of this world.

Many years passed by before Shona could leave her grave and reach out to her Akaash. The years had been kind to him, yet he had not let time stand still for him. He had found her replacement. Shona for him had been just an extension of his imagination at that time. His new playmate was very different from her. He was the same lover playing his graceful flute to her thirsty ears and filling the well of their boundless love with endless melody and enchantment. He was also softly calling her by the same name. The name which evoked in him his primeval instincts.

Shona once again scattered herself to the winds. She felt that her safe spot amidst the dahlias and marigolds were her permanent heaven. Let Akaash come every year on the anniversary of her demise to ponder over their untold love story. Let the fragrant wind scatter the petals of their so- called immortal love into all the directions of this universe.

What else did she have to lose? She had never seen the priceless Shaper Moni nor has she lost one.

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