The Beautiful Heart
It was her 16th birthday. The morning sun of June rose and the birthday wishes drifted all over the air. “Happy birthday! Dear Rosei. Happy birthday to you,” surprised her fellow hosteller.
“Thank you,” said Rosei, smiling. The charm in her eyes was aesthetically defined. She tried to look contented but deep within a morose heart was pumping fast.
She waited for the old maid at the hostel garden yard.
She was dressed in a salwar kameez made from Banaras silk. Her hair was beautifully held together by a yellow hair band.
Her conical well-shaped nails were polished brilliantly in five colors.
The smell of the mellow fruits of the palm trees wafted in the garden; the jackfruit was ready to burst and the water ducks giggled, making it a beautiful summer day.
The old lady, who was a frequent visitor of Rosei, was a thin sturdy woman. She visited Rosei at least once every month.
She smoked bidi and chewed paan all day long. People said she even consumed local brandy when she was uncontrollably tired and she distracted herself by singing jadhu kolija.
She had no name; people called her pagli thunti. When her husband died, along with his funeral pyre, she burnt all her hopes and desires.
The dead husband had no more meaning in her life but the funny maniac’s name often brought meaning to her life.
It sometimes gave her confidence to do the deeds that were against social norms. She sometimes raised her voice against the dominance and fallacy in society.
Her thin arms and legs, the wrinkles and scratches all over her body and every mark in her body had a story to tell. Since her childhood, she had never seen the glory of life. When her prostitute mother chucked her in the dumping area, her misery began. She began to pick rags and feed off the leftovers in dustbins to survive.
The white mole in her eyes represented her fate. She wept till her husband’s last breath and then she decided not any more to weep. Till today, she was happy with whatever the almighty had bestowed upon her.
She was blessed with two children. After the death of her husband, her younger son started to work to make a livelihood. The elder daughter was beautiful and adorable; she had completed higher secondary school and was very proud and vain.
The old lady appeared at the main gate with a faded blue umbrella with a broken handle held close to her chest. A nylon bag hung in her hand.
Rosei hoisted herself at a good height to see if it was her old maid.
“Is she the one?” said the girl next to her pointing to the old lady.
“No, no! Who is she?” Rosei said, ignoring the old lady at once. Rosei walked away.
The old lady followed her. “Rosei! Sahiba, wait. I’m your old servant,” the old lady shouted. “Rosei! She is the one?” the girl said frowning. “Is she?”
“What a poor old lady she is! It can never be her. She is not even wearing sandals, look at her feet,” Rosei whispered to the girl and they giggled.
Rosei continued her strides and the old lady followed her to the threshold of the hostel building.
“Stop following me,” Rosei shouted, “Do I know you?”
Many hostellers stared at the scene.
“Rosei, I brought you a gift. Look at it,” the old lady whispered, attempting to hand over the nylon bag to Rosei. “Happy birthday! My dear baby, I miss you so much. How are your studies?”
“Hello aunty, leave her alone,” a voice from the crowd said.
Rosei scowled in disgust and started shouting at the poor old lady. “Hey, stay away from me.”
“Rosei!” said the old lady, “you will never be able to hide the truth. My life has come to an end. Listen, my child your mother abandoned you.”
“Is that your mother?” said the voice from the crowd again. “No Rosei. No, it can’t be your mother. Look at you, you are a princess.”
Rosei went off. The nylon bag brushed and thud on the ground and the old lady walked away sadly. Every step of her feet seemed heavy and every thought of hers felt scary. Tears rolled down on her cheeks. All hopes were gone and there was a permanent slant in her eyes.
Rosei shut her room door feeling bitter. She dropped down sobbing. “I’m very sorry. It is my vanity that I didn’t recognize you, mother. Please forgive me, I regret what I did.”
She opened the door and picked up the nylon bag from the ground. Back in her room, she unfastened the bag and tears dripped over it. She found a beautiful gift box packed in yellow and green wrapper. As she unwrapped the box, she saw a beautiful pair of glittering diamond earrings. She also found a letter in it. It said:
My dear daughter,
Hearty wishes to you.
Happy birthday, my dear baby!
Now you have grown up. You know how difficult life is. We are all actors performing on earth. Great actors get a beautiful life while the bad actors never see any glory in life. You are beautiful, educated and admirable, but don’t forget that vanity kills the beauty of living. Lots of love. May god shower you with more of his love.
Yours forever,
Only mother
Rosei wept. She wondered how the illiterate maid, who had raised her like a mother, could write such a beautiful letter to her ‘daughter’ and get her diamond earrings. She decided to go home.
The old lady reached home. She took out a bottle of brandy from under the cot and sipped from it thrice. The jadhu kolija song erupted from her groggy voice distracting her tired son who was a daily laborer in a construction company.
“Mother,” he said, “stop your nonsense. Did you meet sister? How is she?”
“What nonsense! Hah! Have you ever tried to understand the song?” the old lady said in a faint voice. And she continued the song.
Blow no more, the wind,
Glow no more, the sun,
The empty vessel never to be filled,
Yet, not a drop is being bestowed till,
What? Dirty vessel this must be!
Yet the dirty vessel waits for cleansing and to be filled.
“Okay! Fine, you’ll not stop this nonsense?” said the son and left in frustration.
“What days these are! I work the whole day long without
food,” he muttered to himself. Invisible tears blinded him. But
he hoped for better days.
He returned home late at night. The old lady recounted her daughter, sipping brandy now and then.
“You are still awake?” the boy asked. “What are you, up to, mother?”
“Bablu! You came? Eat some food and sleep,” she said and continued her lament.
“I asked you how sister is?” asked her son.
“She is very fine. But she is no longer the daughter of this old maniac lady.”
“She didn’t recognize you?”
“The servant should be treated like one. Now she hesitates to call me mother.”
The old lady started spilling out blood from her mouth with every cough.
“Mother, what happened?” the son shrieked. The blood on the floor frightened him. “We have to go to the doctor.”
“No, my time has come. But eternal peace and glory will bind me if I die. No, I should not leave you in this wilderness.”
She handed over a bottle filled with poison to her son and said, “Drink this. Along with me you shall find eternal peace.”
Tears flooded her eyelids and flowed down her cheeks and into her mouth. She gulped her tears.
The son dragged her. He then saw the left part of her stomach. There were stitches on the skin.
“Mother, what is this? You had an operation?”
Her son was shocked. “You sold your kidneys? Why
mother, why?”
And both of them had tears rolling down their cheeks.
