THE NIGHT WAS YOUNG AND OUTLANDISH TO HER WHO WOULD SPEND SUCH HOURS LOCKED IN THE PRIVACY OF HER BEDCHAMBERS, forgotten by creation and the world out of sight — out of mind.
Today however, she had multiple bags in one grip while clumsily adjusting a bluetooth earphone, and her bag slung from her drooping shoulder. From another end, a soft chattering continued. In the background, the city continued to breathe, consistently thrumming with vigour. The walk home was only a mile, and Ira had decided to make use of it by doing what she did best. Listen. Because listening meant she’d know something new and would be compelled to divulge nothing of her own, and know patience. She was going to need a lot of that and she also firmly believed not every discourse was meant to go both ways.
Maya had dialled — a myriad thoughts circling her mind and not enough of Ira’s physical presence to cling to.
“-aaand I might have done something,” Maya drawled, engendering a dramatic jump of brows. She wasn’t the kind to mince words, it was usually Ira and now the latter could virtually see her pouting.
Ira huffed, the knackered one does when amusement isn’t kindled by enough physical zeal but hopes to be conveyed quietly. “I’m listening, honey.”
That was the witch cooing, cajoling a spooked cat out of a pipe; a Professor being more of a confidant than authority to a shy pupil. These were the basics of peer empowerment in mental health first aid. Make the person feel safe and maintain a non-judgemental front, even if they’re questionable and you being judgy is a human response. Children especially needed to feel secure in their skin as a prerequisite to growing hale and hearty.
Maya did not appreciate being babied. Except maybe when Ira did it, because she was just so genuine and sounded so soft. You’d never hear her being a sycophant. As it turned out, her love language was not words of affirmation either.
Maya sighed, fiddling with her fingers all of a sudden. “I might have told Mom here that I want to be a celibate. I couldn’t tell you before but this is something . . . intimate to me. It’s just . . . it seems so hard but I know it’s the right choice.” She flailed her arms about animatedly as if Ira were actually across the table, intensely looking over her glasses. It wasn’t feasible for complex emotions to be condensed in a mere jumble of words, innit?
Ira nodded patiently, shifting the fruit plastic from one hand to another, the guavas heavy today. A cluster of lychees were tucked parallel to them. “That’s alright. Making the right decision isn’t always easy, nor pleasant. That doesn’t make it wrong.” Ira said, not a hint of whammy in her voice. Maya’s house was practically a mountain under an earthquake, but her best friend did not seem as rattled by the catastrophe.
Well, the way Maya blabbered made it seem like one. As if a league of gods would be personally offended by her resolve. No, Ira was sure none would bat an eye at it. Just give them four days, the four people questioning four things about your life will skedaddle their four own ways.
“I don’t want a family in the conventional sense, Iru. No husband and children. My career’s just taken flight and there’s so much to do. Being a homemaker is a full time job, uncredited and unpaid at that, and this profession isn’t for the weak! I shall be tugged in two areas of my life all the time. It sounds like a predicament. Mom wasn’t exactly upset but she claims she needs time to process it, given that I’m her only child. She really wanted grandkids.”
A brisk dip of a chin, followed by the signature Ira hum of when words would seem robotic or script-like. By this time she had reached The Daily Drizzle, but now she needed to go home. She’d text Nutan about it later, that she wasn’t researching for her essays today to spend time there. “I too believe that lifestyle isn’t for everyone. You realize the sacrifices family life demands, and the effort it needs. If it isn’t for you, stepping away now is a wise choice rather than regretting later. Are you relieved, Sakhi? We can look at other people later,” said the academic.
That had done it. Maya audibly sighed, as if merging in her settee, relieved to have someone just . . . listen and understand. Not tell her she was being selfish or impulsive, or that she might die alone — men on the internet did it enough to opinionated women of all ages. A few misogynist colleagues had already done that. She smiled, a sun in her ribs. Warm like a hug, tied like a cinnamon roll. “Very much so, Iru. It’s like a weight is off me. You’re not surprised?”
Ira mirrored her easy laugh, fishing out the apartment keys from her pleated brown trousers pocket. They jingled — the sound suspended like something sacred on the threshold. “Not at all, Maya.”
A playful roll of eyes. “It was obvious.” Maya was never heard speaking of men, despite having worked with the most handsome models and charming actors. She had an austere air around her, dwelling in the intricacies of flowy fabrics and silk threads with the single-minded concentration of a hawk, her work a penance.
Maya chuckled buoyantly. “Enough about me. Aunt Nutan is losing her head over a portfolio of eligible bachelors revolving in her friend group, and you’ve never so much as looked at a man ever since we know each other. Who do you desire, Iru?”
I’M HELD TOGETHER BY YOUR TEEMING AVOIDANCE; I SHALL BREAK AT YOUR VERY GAZE.
There were days she wove a thread to keep herself collected, there were nights she spilled like wine from warm chalice — entirely transgressing norms and notions. Wayward. There were times she’d be ruined by nothing but a lone name, the cosmos insignificant. She swam in and out of consciousness.
Ira had desired a lot from life. Most of what she now had was once a dream manifested by her actions, and many remained in the oblivion, but what remained neither lost nor found was just one thing in the pandora box of all other things. She’d never given words to it, because if so much as a tune could string the renaissance of green life, wouldn’t words be able to cement the abstract into something more real?
Ira would have to admit that she wasn’t carved of ice. That she was indeed made of flesh and blood and like everyone’s hearts, hers housed someone as well. Maybe someone would have been able to find querencia in emptiness, but when a chalice already brims with elixir, how can water be poured into it?
And if she did indeed give it words, what difference would it make? Would a star be sent to emblazon her world? Everyone knows what happened to Icarus, and how ravenous Sampaati had been. It wasn’t as if she lived in the swarth. She had enough people, enough space. Everything was fine, so was she.
Static buzzed somewhere near or far, she couldn’t tell.
A word articulated can never be taken back, nor does it go to waste. It shall manifest.
Well, yes, that’s how four people of a single family never could live under a single roof again. Of course Ira knew that. She had asked that of her patron, sealed the spell. Papa knew it. That was why he was outraged, disbelieving of her audacity. At her arrogance of power, her disregard for everyone she called her own.
“Well then,” Ira said, sounding hoarse and foreign to her own ears. “Hear me, you. I know you’re listening.”
The night had deepened, and not a soul would be awake in the witching hour. Some called it the devil’s hour.
For Hindus, it was the brahmamuhurta - the time before dawn when gods walk the earth. So if there was one indeed walking nearby, or merely just listening, she would have a witness to her confession.
A swish of turmeric yellow robes /bright laughter /unruly curls /roguish hazel eyes /rich dark skin /an infinite serpent /a deity /an ocean in the sky/ he blinks and lifetimes have passed. Vishnu. Vishnu. Vishnu.
There was a pain she was convinced would go with her.
“Grant me my one heart’s wish or leave me with myself. Please don’t make a fool of me.”
There was only so much a paltry witch could take.
IN THE REALMS OF DREAMS AND THE SUBCONSCIOUS, THERE WAS TRUTH: EXAGGERATED OR NOT. As if trapped in a fish-eye, everything warped, but nothing was paltry.
Each and every object of this realm was carefully orchestrated, to mimic every visiting witch’s persona. Every patron would come and go, to reiterate that only the highest souls had been endowed with magic and they had to use it to escape the cycle of birth and death. Or that they had a mission to complete, a lesson to learn. It could be partnering with another witch to surreptitiously eliminate a threat, or in general just . . . to be reprimanded for actions and thoughts that wouldn’t befit a god’s chosen one.
A god’s chosen and a god’s hated — it didn’t matter — both would be toyed around for the god’s sake.
Through soggy clouds and chiselled cloisters, the path gave way to a small parterre. Lush, ethereal, heimat. Or at least a gimmick of heimat.
She had waited. What for, you ask? She did not know. Only that she had. She always did. For something to happen. Something to change. For something to . . . click into place. It seemed as if there was no Ira-shaped corner in the world for her to slide into.
Ira floated ahead, amorphous and weightless. Beneath the amaranthine blue sky and above misty viridescence, on a swing with her back facing the witch, there sat her patron.
Butter yellow butterflies and palm sized sylphs danced in the air, a floral wreath balanced in their tiny grips. Nimbly it came to rest on the goddess’ blue black tresses, an unending sinuous cascade. There was a distinct savour in the wind, rosemary swaying by the hedge. She turned, beaming, and with her zeal the whole cosmos was aloft. Her emerald green irises glimmering with glee flickered to Ira.
Bhumidevi was wrapped in a diaphanous baby blue fabric, molten gold trapped in her skin and the flecks of her compassionate gaze. “I was waiting, but you just won’t sleep. It would have been insensitive to interrupt your me-time.”
The witch lowered her head as a show of deference, palms pressing against each other. “I apologize, Mother. The day had been . . . long, but it’s no excuse. I’ll be careful hence.”
The patron giggled, a sign of mischief. With her, the robins and the nightingales seemed to sing. She wholly turned in Ira’s direction now, patting the space beside her on the flower embellished swing. On the branches of the grandiose kadamba bough, chipmunks raced in pursuit of arboreal nuts. Little balls of fur — baby bunnies! — played hide and seek in her lap. “No, no, my dearest priestess. No need for the formality, I thought you knew that. I heard you. Come here,” mother-earth beckoned, her alta-painted palms resembling pink lotus petals, ever gracious.
Had Ira not spent the past two hours on bed curled into a worm, cursing the very hour the creator came up with the idea of her — she would not be gingerly scurrying towards her very beloved patron with the precise suave of a grasshopper. She lowered her head again, and this time around she hoped the very same deity would swallow her in her embrace, “That . . . rant might have been a display of tremendous spine-cringing foolishness on my part, please forgive me for that as well. I don’t know what took over me-”
Fortunately for her, and all of the ungrateful human race, the earth had plenty of patience. As if to a fault. If she didn’t, her children would have been disciplined sooner.
“I am entrusting you with a responsibility, Ira.” Bhumidevi crossed her arms, frowning just slightly. That was an anomaly on her magnificent features ever in the habit of composure. Besides, people like Ira weren’t the kind to make her fuss. “Stop apologizing. I’m not here to make you feel small. You are me, and I shall not retell how and in which ways. I see nothing wrong with what you asked for. Without my will, the desire wouldn’t have been born into you and you know it.”
Without the grace of Shri, Vishnu won’t even be a passing thought.
“Here, for you.” The goddess encouraged, advancing a glimmering sapphire talisman towards her – something she could either wear in her neck or keep in secrecy. She kept it in Ira’s palm and closed her fingers around it, her clairvoyant gaze never leaving Ira’s awe-struck one. “Keep it safe. Give it to none unless your heart tells you to, sweet one. Listen to yourself. I’ll see you soon, yes?”
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