36

All the while she thought, "Am I falling in love? Is it safe to do so with this man?" But inside she could feel it as a wonderful and terrifying sensation. "Yes, I'm in love with this boy," she said out loudly in amazement, because she knew that this was a life changing thing and life changing things should be said aloud. "I'm in love," as it reverberated inside her head. And it was the truth. Plainly she was besotted by him as a girl........a young girl and she was falling in love for the first time. Atleast there's someone whom she could call her own.......and atleast there is someone who loves her.

She could feel him borrowing into her heart. She already knew that her heart called out to his and his to hers. The portal that connected them was strong and primal.

After a couple of hours of collecting her pile of firewood on her head, she reached home totally exhausted. She rested for a while on her charpoy(bed) sipping the tea and munching some rusks. The whole day passed with the household chores and then it was night-a time to sleep, but unfortunately she couldn't as her heart was beating faster than it should with the thoughts of meeting Ramu the next day.

Her old charpoy was creaking and suffering under the weight of a restless woman. The next morning she woke up after only an hour's sleep with the ringing of the temple's bells. This was the second consecutive night where she had not slept properly. Dark circles under her eyes sank deeper and deeper into her skull, in contrast to her pale skin which was an undesirable resemblance to a fresh corpse.

She again lay down in her so called bed and never stirred. To move hand or feet and even so much as a finger was an exertion to her frail structure. She was so tired, so stunned, that she thought that she never slept at all; her feverish thoughts passed and repassed the boundary between sleeping and waking. As she lay engulfed in her thoughts she heard the voice of her father.

"Taraaaaaaaaaaaa, Taraaaaaaaaaaaaaa, you bitch, will you wake up now and come out of your miserable dreams to work and finish your chores, or will you just keep on sleeping when the whole world is wide awake."

She immediately jumped out of her bed, ran outside and started sweeping the floor and mopping it. By the time she finished she realized the dusky winter sun moving up, indicating it was going to be noon. Suddenly, she remembered that she had a date with Ramu. Refreshing herself and taking a glass of tea with some rusks, she rushed out with the axe in her hand to collect the firewood.

Collecting the wood was just an excuse and she started walking in a brisk manner towards the pond where she was supposed to meet the man of her dreams. In another 15 minutes she was over there. From far she could see a human form sitting on a rock throwing pebbles in the water. Panting and gasping for air she reached him from behind and gave him a surprise by pricking his neck with a twig. Ramu was elated to see her. He raised his hands and pulled her close to him.

"I thought you won't come," Ramu said complainingly.

"Why not?" Tara started crying and with tears in her eyes muttering softly, "I feel so alone and unwanted in my life and in this world. Even I have come to not love myself or even like myself and I also know that with this thinking it has casted an aura over my spirit that people stay away from me and I can't maintain or even have a relationship with a man. But then, I found you. You are such a nice, honest and a human full of compassion who has ever come into my life. Maybe, you are god sent, although I don't believe in God. They say dreams come true and I never ever believed in dreams until you slowly walked into my life in a most unexpected moment. It was just like two strangers walking from two different worlds, who met and ended falling in love."

Hearing all this, Ramu took her tightly in his arms and said, "Maybe it's your smile or maybe the silent vibes I saw in our beautiful eyes or is it something more powerful that I reached to the bottom of your heart to find the truth behind the secrets of your soul."

Ramu pulled her into his lap. Tara's whole body sank forward into his arms. His lips moved against hers, exploring her mouth gently. She tried to mimic his movements slowly until she didn't have to think about it all. It just felt right. Ramu let out a soft moan at her reaction and cupped his hands behind her head, pulling her closer until she couldn't tell her where her mouth ended and his began. A liquid sensation swooped throughout her stomach. It was the most amazing thing she had ever felt, and it kept growing, the vibrating heat expanding outwards. Suddenly she jerked out of his strong arms.

"Now, now, wait, are you going to love me like this forever?" she whispered in his ears.

"After what happened just now? Yes, probably." Ramu grinned and tried to pull her back. He took his finger and started stroking her cheek. "You do realize that would require spending the rest of your life with me," Ramu smirked.

The gold in his eyes was sparkling and jumping, so Tara knew he was being serious.

"But, but!! Ramu I am of a low caste and will your family accept me to be their daughter-in-law," she murmured out of desperation.

Internally she believed that people born to low caste families were meant to suffer. That was their Karma. She had heard from the old women folk that those who indulge in sinful activities in their previous birth, especially those who humiliated others would be reborn to low caste families. She firmly believed also that one has to suffer until the sin was paid for through sufferings and good deeds.

Ramu started laughing at her thoughts. "Like you, I have experienced abandonment in many different shapes and forms. Like you I have suffered terribly as a result of it. But today, I want to provide you with something proactive, something that will empower you to take your life in your hands again. I will marry you and that's for sure, whatever the views of my family. You know, I don't have a father. He had died after a few months of my birth. So, my mother is the only family I believe in and she will definitely agree to whatever I do."

The sun had started leaving long shadows of the trees surrounding the pond, indicating that soon it was going to be evening. Tara suddenly jumped to her feet with a start, chill running down her spine with the thought of being so late getting back home without collecting the firewood. She grasped Ramu's hand nervously and said that she was going back home and would now be meeting him exactly after 2 days at the same place. Her going left a tinge of sadness in Ramu's eyes and brought out tears of nostalgia of the moments spent together.

Tara started running home in a jiffy, just to be in time before her father returned from the nearby village where he had gone to sell the wood.

On reaching home she slowly opened the door and tiptoed to her room. Suddenly, her mother appeared from nowhere.

"Hey! Stop you good for nothing girl, where had you been all this while? And where's the firewood you went to collect?"

Tara was dumbfounded.

"Come on, speak up or I will tell your father that you returned home empty handed."

A quiver of fear on hearing her father's name crept up her spine.

"I'd been to the woods, but a hyena came after me. I ran to save myself and hid in the dense foliage of a tree. I kept on waiting till he went away as he kept on sitting underneath the tree where I was hiding," Tara blurted out shivering with fear.

"Are you sure you are not upto something," her mother's tone was furious enough to shake her out of her wits. With fear in her eyes she looked up at her mother's face straight into her eyes.

"What do you mean, I don't understand you?"

After washing her hands she took out a few rotis from the kitchen basket & started eating. By that time her mother had calmed down.

Two days passed & ultimately the day arrived when Tara had a next date with Ramu. "Ma!!!! I'm going to the forest to collect the firewood "Tara almost shrieked at the top of her voice to make it audible to her mother who was upstairs on the terrace busy hanging the washed clothes to dry. After hearing the response from her mother, Tara swiftly rushed out from the house, lest her mother may call her back for some odd work. Her steps were, as if she was running & soon she reached the vicinity of their rendezvous. Ramu was already there, his eyes glued to the path where Tara was supposed to come. As soon as she reached the venue, Ramu took her tightly in his arms & hugged her passionately. They sat on the same rock, behind a vast tree, where they had sat the last time. After a few seconds Ramu muttered softly into her ears "I'm glad that I've found pieces of myself lost in you. You've become my journey & my strength in this ocean of being & with your love, I know I can survive this longest walk called ———Life". Tara kept quiet & started fiddling with his hairs.

Suddenly she blurted," Ramu, promise you won't ever leave me. You know I love you too much."

Ramu-"Don't talk silly. How can I ever part with my life, i.e. you."

He pulled her over him & explored the topography of her body; twigs in her hair, calves striped red cause of cold weather & her Ghaghara smudged in meadow tones. The forest underlined her, accentuated her & illustrated her. She felt alive in his arms compared to her home whose dark places had left their signatures on her skin & whose bites still hummed around her forearms & the back where she was always hurt by her father 's beatings. After a few minutes Tara slowly released herself from Ramu's hands & kissing him on the mouth said, "Ramu, leave me now, I've to go" & narrated the last incident which happened at her home with her mother when she had reached late. On hearing the excuse she had made to her mother on reaching late, Ramu laughed till his stomach ached. "You are really a clever girl" he spoke laughingly. "The world has made me so" Tara quipped back in a complaining tone.

"Okay, okay!!! Don't feel frustrated, my love. Just hurry up & go, but don't forget to collect some firewood, otherwise this time you will be caught," Ramu called out grinning cheek to cheek.

"But when next?" Ramu enquired.

"Day after we meet," Tara spoke hurriedly & rushed to the woods.

In a couple of hours she was back home carrying a pile of wood on her head & axe in one hand. Internally, she thought, how her mother would feel happy seeing the entire heap. But she never knew what was destined to come her way. As soon as she entered the door of her house.....there stood her younger brother, father & mother all ready to pounce on her. She was dragged inside & pushed on the floor. Her father beat her up red & blue with a leather belt, her mother, with a slipper, with kitchen items, with everything that came in their hands. They threatened of killing her. In a fit of rage her father banged her head straight into the wall. There was blood all over the room (as she had her periods that day). The big bulge on her head pained.

She kept on shrieking & wailing on top of her voice........."But let me know, what have I done?" Tara sobbed & kept on asking them.

"You have put a shame on us, disgraced us by your actions. You were seen by your brother Shyam in the lap of Ramu. You shameless girl!!! I wish I would have allowed your grandmother to have buried you alive as soon as you were born. At least we wouldn't have been going through this day. You had been cheating us all this while," howled her father.

As all this hell broke loose, Tara lost her conscious. She lay on the cold floor, with no one to assist her. In the meanwhile neighbors had collected around the house after hearing the shrieks of Tara & high pitched infuriated voices of her parents. Their eyes full of astonishment & with their half open mouths gaping at the motionless Tara lying on the floor. An elderly woman made a move & tried to revive Tara by sprinkling some water on her face. Tara opened her drowsy eyes from the comatose but with depressed reflexes. The lady helped her sit on the floor & offered her some water to drink. Immediately another woman brought some warm milk for her to drink. After taking a few sips of the milk Tara felt better & wanted to stand up on her feet, but couldn't as she felt too weak to move her limbs. Both the women made her stand & ushered Tara to her room onto the charpoy.

When Tara was gone, one of the elderly men stepped forward towards Gangu,"What Gangu!!!! Why are you behaving this way with your daughter who is so hard working? She is such an affectionate girl; we all have high esteem of her."

Gangu was going to utter out the truth when Lachmi pressed his arm gently as if indicating not to blurt out anything.

"It's nothing Chacha. I'm just fed up with this girl. I don't know why she was born in my family. I never wanted to have her at all. I wanted to have a son. Just tell me Chacha, from where will I arrange for the dowry when she gets married? Daughters are real burden for poor people like us. At least, sons earn money; they bring dowries, daughters only take from the families".

A middle aged woman in the back of the crowd pipes up "All of you, who want only sons, can you tell me who will make babies? Can men give birth to children?"

Each one of the persons standing in the crowd started laughing & melting away slowly.

Tara lay there silently deep down in her thoughts that how she was beaten black and blue by her parents. The agony of the tortured hours spent watching herself being beaten practically to death engulfed her. The thought of ending her life started coming to her obsessively.

"I don't know and I don't care anymore. I was supposed to have my way for once, just once in my life. I did everything right and I got nothing for it. I want to kill them all, I want to die. No, even better than that: I want to kill them all and then die."

The suicidal thoughts enticed her mind. As she was still deep down in her thoughts her mother stepped in with roti and some hot milk. She put her hand on Tara's head and started patting Tara slowly. She pulled her in an embrace with a motherly affection and coaxed her to eat the meal. But Tara turned her head the other side in anger.

"Now come on Tara don't feel annoyed. You know your father's anger. He doesn't bother about anyone or anything whenever he is in a fit of rage. But I do love you. Don't you think, you did wrong? Of course you are guilty of what you did. I myself feel so ashamed on the very thought of it. But for my sake eat your roti and have some milk, you are going to feel better. This is no way of behaving with your Ma."

With tears creeping in Tara's eyes she started munching the roti slowly with small sips of milk.

"Ma, I want to sleep now," Tara whispered as she was feeling too feeble.