Letters of the Lost Souls-5

Dear Maria,

If only lost souls could find a way back home…

Regrets haunts my soul as I wander across the world and I am weighed down by guilt and despair. Of things untold and actions unaccounted, of people I ignored and leaving you, the woman I loved.

You listened when no one did. Philip had an intention from the day he took me in. I was for Alvie. But emotions never work that way, isnt it. Finding each other in that sinister house where no one acknowledged the other person. Except for Sarah, she was the mother I never had. But i still feel guilty for that day.

The choices I made, the worst of them that day.. She would’ve been alive if only, if only I had not given in to my selfish feelings over her selfless care and love.

But fate plays a different game on us. For a life we deliberately left to perish, a life was taken away in vengeance.

My dear Maria, if only the dead could whisper deep into ears the truth that has been left out in a ploy to outsmart the evil. If only lost souls could actually have a voice, I would just scream and let you know for once, I am not coming back dear.

For the mistake we did, a price was taken by the person unexpected and you are perishing in that prison. If only you knew…

Noah!

Letters of the Lost Souls – 4

Sarah,

I wish I told you how beautiful you looked on our wedding day. Not every woman can carry off the crimson orange color the way you can. But I have never told you about it. Or the fact that your smile always lit up my heart. But as years passed by, you started to smile lesser and lesser until there was none left. How can a man bound to being groomed the future patriarch of the house harbor such petite emotions? Or so I believed. Everytime, I wanted to express something nice, I swallowed it with the same speed it rushed into my veins. I was to show no emotions of love or care, but do my duties rightfully. Men are supposed to work hard and women are supposed to take care of the home. My father taught me that. Him, may be his father. It was a very wrong lesson to pass on. By the time, the realization dawned into my narrow mind, it had become very late.

You were dead. Shiru hates me. Alvie.. Well Alvie is still the same. Poor Noah had to disappear.

And Maria.. I hope you can understand my decision to marry her. Some secrets had to be buried within the four walls and some people had to be martyred alive for it. Maria, she is my biggest fear and deepest regret. But whom shall I hold and cry my heart out? Or confess my feelings too.

Every month, with a heavy heart, I carry the letter from Alvie to Noah, listen to my Shiru’s telephone calls and watch Maria survive another day at home, like every other day.

I wish you were here. I wish I could pause and rewind and go back to our wedding day. You were looking beautiful in the crimson orange saree with golden boarders. I will whisper to you in ear. I will watch you smile and then steal a kiss every now and then whenever you smile again. I will hold your hand when you give birth to Shiru and then Alvie. We will all laugh together and travel together. Be nice to Shiru and be the father she wanted but firstly, the husband you deserved. Everything else, I know will fall rightly into the place.

In the end, we will all be one beautiful family.

*************************************************************

That Day Back when they Lost it

“Philip” Sarah’s voice was trembling when she addressed him. Peter was busy going through the expenses of Shiru’s wedding .

“Hmm” Philip was too immersed in the accounts and barely listened to the woman. There are accounts to be closed and unwanted spends to be ranted on later.

“I dont think Shiru is happy.”

“Hmm”

“Philip, Are you even listening to me?” Sarah sounded sad this time. She wished for one time if Peter would actually look at her during these conversations.

“Hmmm”.

And that was the final nail in the coffin for her. Sarah jumped from the bed and pulled the accounts book out of Philip’s hand and threw it away. Philip jumped from his chair angrily and slapped Sarah with the back of his hand.

The world turned dark for a moment before Sarah fell on the ground, hitting her head on the ledge of the bed on the way. Everything went blank for her, until a few moments later, when she felt Philip shaking her. She could barely open her eyes but for the first time, she saw tears in his eyes and she felt relieved, realising that the man was still a human behind all his veils. She smiled at him back and slowly raised her hand towards him.

“You are bleeding. Maria, come fast..”, she could feel the concern in his voice. She was still trying to extend her hand towards his face and touch him for one last time. She could feel the blood dripping behind.

Maria and Noah had come running to the room. Sarah could barely understand the whispers between them as she struggled to keep herself awake. Noah was trying to tie a bandage around her head and preventing the flow. She saw Philip standing up and running outside.

“Wait, Sarah. I am getting the doctor.” She heard his voice trailing out as she slowly drifted into sleep.

…………………………….to be continued…..

Letters of the Lost Souls-3

Dear Alvie,

Hatred is a strange emotion, isn’t it. It is a strong emotion that make people weak. They hide themselves behind many a charades, often burst anger with a shower of tears, or crack laughter with an ounce of crookedness, or the worst, the treatment of silence with a quintal load of selfishness hoarded in the mind.

Stranger is the fact that I’ve been through all and have finally settled myself cosily into the last one. It is very comforting. I love the way I hate you and father. Yet, I find myself writing these letters to you every now and then in my diary. Maybe, it is my way of letting you know how it feels, instead of actually letting you really know. Oh, How will you know, little cuckoo? You’ve always been like that. And me, I was just another victim of father’s unending devotedness towards the sickening misogyny he and his forefathers nurtured. You were an exception. Somehow, he sympathised you, not just him, even mother. But there were days when she sympathised for me as well. But was it enough. Well, I will never know. Coz, hating dead doesn’t make any sense, right.

Poor Maria. She fell victim to Philip’s dark secret. Did he kill Mumma, Alvie? I think you know but you are the little cuckoo, right. I was sent a week before as a prized possession to someone’s home in the deal of a wedlock and a week later, I hear the news of Mumma’s death. And Noah just left. Or did he? Did Philip kill Noah as well? Is that why Maria is imprisoned at that house, serving father like a slave under the mockery of a marriage. But how will you know all this Alvie?

You are nothing but a privileged insane human being, right. You cost me my childhood, my teen and even…

Noah…. I wonder where you are. You do write letters to her, but not to me. Or do you? Maria, I call you every month without fail. I wish you could just tell me the truth dear?

-Shira

Letters of the Lost Souls – 2

Previous Chapter: https://myscribblessite.wordpress.com/2021/06/02/letters-of-the-lost-souls-1/

Mumma,

You are still in my prayers. After all, that is the only time I get when I can think of anything other than the humans or the chores in this house. I know you are very well aware of it since I had started this struggle ever since I was 15. It is been 27 years now. And you know the only raise I had got in these 20 years. I know you hate me now because I gave you no reasons when I chose to marry Philip. How much I wish to tell that I never had a choice, especially after that dreaded day. I wish I had listened to you that day and took the day off to visit Dad’s grave with you. But you know, he is the very reason I am in all this mess. After all, who else would push a young girl and his wife into the never ending pit of debts and choose the easy way out. Well, I really don’t hate Philip or even Sarah. They took me in and helped us through the tough times. Everyone was good to me, even Alvira and Shira. Yet, I wish… I wish I had listened to you and had not come to this house for work. I hope that you could forgive me… someday.

Love, Maria

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Letters of the lost souls – 1

Dear Noah,

Times have been tough off lately. I have started seeing those dreams again. You remember, right. The ones where I am walking alone in a dark corridor. There is a light at the end. I am walking towards it. The more I inch closer, the far it moves from me. And after a while, my legs ache and then I fall down. But then there is blood all around. I could smell it. It was yours. And I wake up shivering. It will be almost dawn. But then, I get that familiar smell again. The smell of your blood gushes through my nostrils and hits my head. I scream and then wake up again. You are understanding right. It was a dream within a dream. A layered night mare. I am scared a lot, Noah. When are you coming home?

Love, Alvira

**************************************

Alvira

Alvie re-read the letter again. Noah was specific about the spelling mistakes and grammar. She adjusted her reading glasses and went on to fold the letter neatly into four. Sliding open the left side drawer, she pulled out an off white envelope and pushed the letter inside it. She took the fevi stick and brushed it on the cover and pressed it hard to make sure it stuck tightly. On the outer side, she wrote in italic cursive hand writing the address to Noah’s farm house and then kept it back on top of the desk. She looked at the letter with a sheer satisfaction. Everything was perfect, the way Noah loved. After all, Noah fell in love with her calligraphy skills before her and somehow she took pride in that. Of lately, with him being away from her, she wondered if he loved the beauty of the neatly arranged letters in the paper than the messy minded woman she was.

Brushing aside her thoughts neatly to a corner of her occupied mind, she stood up, taking a mental note to post the letter on the way to market today.

Maria was busy deboning the chicken when Alvie trodded into the kitchen.

“Hey, slow there Alvira. The floor is still wet. ” Mariah said and at the very same moment, Alvie slipped but was somehow able to hold her balance. Dada was adamant about the cleanliness of the house. The first job for Maria every morning was to sweep the 3 bhk house, mop the floor till it shines in Lizol infused water and double check to see that there was no dust left. The rule of the house was laid pretty straight when Dada married her and brought her to the house. Alvie was 17 then. Somehow, she was successful in evading the house chores. Though little Shira was not. Shira was Alvie’s elder sister who underwent the typical Dada house training the moment she turned 15. Alvie was spared just because Dada adored the artist that Alvie was growing to be. The painter and the calligraphy enthusiast, Alvie was respected by Dada whenever she was immersed in her work. Shiru was jealous of the treatment till the day she was married off to “States” to an engineer. She rarely visited afterwards. Maria came in 3 months later.

“What’s for lunch, Maria?” Alvie asked.

“Rice and Roasted Chicken, mashed potatoes and mushroom curry.”

“Why do we eat this continental lunch, Maria?”, Alvie asked even though she knew the answer before hand.

Maria sighed and looked up at her. A bead of sweat slowly trickled down from the left side of her forehead. That was when Alvie noticed how tired Maria actually looked. She had figuratively grown old and worn out over the years she spent at this house. Dada never encouraged a house help after Noah left to pursue his passion of Wild life photography. Last time, she heard, he was somewhere in the Amazon and as having fun time trying to get a picture of the black panther. It is been years since he left and she wondered when will he be coming back. He had always written about the work pressures, the stress and patience that he need to get one snap of the wonderful wildlife creatures.

“Alvie, there?”, Maria’s question brought her back from her thought train.

“So, you were saying?”, she asked again.

Maria frowned as she responded. “You know, Dad prefers this every first of the month. I honestly don’t know what else.” She had finished deboning the chicken and stood up and started walking towards the wash basin to give the chicken one final bath before marinating it.

“Maria”, Alvie called her again.

“What now, Alvie?”

Alvie handed over the letter she had written to her. As was the monthly routine, Maria silently took the letter from her and nodded at her. Both of them held onto each other’s gaze for quite some time. One eye carried the pity accompanied with a diluted amount of compassion and anger while the latter had the same pity but added equally was a tinge of pain and lot of hope. The telephone ring from the hall diverted their attention from each other and Alvira ran to answer it. Maria waited in the room because she knew exactly who was calling and why she was doing it.

“Maria, nobody is talking. Why don’t you check this out?”, She heard Alvira’s voice from the other room and heard her keeping the phone on the desk and her foot steps receding from the room.

Once Maria was sure that the room held a pin drop silence, she walked to the hall and picked up the phone.

Back from the far corner, Alvie looked at Maria with tears in her eyes as she shut the door quietly.

to be continued…

A Signature to New Dawn

‘Count the number of steps while you climb and then you will know how impactful the fall will be’

Anu’s Diary

Out beyond our love

“Out beyond the ideas of wrong doing and right doing, there is a field and I will meet you there….

When the soul lies down in the grass, the world is too full to talk about”

-Rumi

“It is just not the soul but two souls then later on and I wonder if we will ever meet in that field. One must muster courage and other must shed on the weight of the pride that is worn like a crown on the forehead. In reality, it hurts a lot but what hurts is helping her to stand out. I will now start walking towards the field and lay on the grass with my soul resting , the crown buried somewhere far in the wilderness of the empty field. I shall talk to the wandering squirrels and the birds hovering above, gaze on the starlit night and wave at the shooting stars passing by and I shall wait. I shall wait for your arrival and when the day dawns upon marking your arrival, shed the last of the skin that holds you behind and join my soul and then let’s talk about everything other than the world. Until then, enjoy the right and enjoy the wrong. I hope you find me some day, if it is not today”

-hopefully a hopeless S,

dated the previous day we last met

-aware that you are scared of us and scared for us

---

Ode to my Mother

 

Of lately, my mother sends me poems about motherhood,

struggles of ageing, ignorance by adult children,

Or the fear of being sent to an old age home after being treated like a slave.

Her messages come promptly like an alarm set to ring,

reaches my inbox after every single fight or disagreement we’ve had in the day;

On the days when my words fail

On the days when my words fail, I sit solo, in an empty corridor,

Abandoned by the rationals, Hardly visited by wayward bonkers, And seldom by random lost souls like me.

A canvas left blank hang lifeless in my one hand, partly due to the raging fire burning inside that tends to keep me busy, trying incessantly to bring it down;

Remaining by the scattered thoughts that have run around all the directions of my mind, I call them lost thoughts, the little sheep lost in the woods, unable to find its way back to the shepherd.

A pen stay idle on the other, bleeding tiny droplets of ink, the blue shade had turned into red; like tears of a widowed women, bleeding out the last drop of her innocence, blaming none and not even fate, losing her love to a war fought between unreasonable tyrants.

Similarly, my pen witnesses, a raging war between my reluctant mind and my obdurate self.

The writer in me writhes in pain, ruptured by the heavy chains that locks it down,  Reaches out to me with a hushed cry, pleading to be freed , of the endless misery.           My autocrat mind refuses to listen, fixates its blurred vision to the infinite,            Nothing but the concrete wall at the end of the corridor and my eyes well up.            Bereft of tears, I yearn to cry, remembering the days of grandeur,

a happy coexistence of the writer and the tyrant.

 

DANCING WITH THE DEMONS

“I had seen her demons, Dad.” She wanted to tell him. “Her demons would never hurt her, maybe not like we did, ignoring her existence. They would never take her granted like we did, Dada. They would always treat her like the queen of the world that she created for them all.” She never told him though. All she did was to listen to his endless rant ,”I never helped her, Gauri. I was never there for her. I took her for granted and now you both have to pay for my sin”.