Amravati sat in a corner, knees folded at her bosom and her long hands tightened into a hug as she cradled herself between sobs. Her brown and grey hair was tousled and soft curls framed her petite tear stained face. Her black- brown cloudy eyes were full of remorse and hurt…her wrinkles told tales of a life long lived, the harshness of her features showed the struggle that life had been. Her whole body looked beaten by the whip of time. She gently blew her nose on the crumpled beige cotton saree wrapped around her tiny frame. As she did so, a thread of the well-worn saree got entangled with her nose ring. She squinted her eyes and struggled to remove it, a curse left her parched lips. She kept muttering to herself as the thread refused to give up on the nose ring; it was getting painful while she kept tugging on the thread. Amravati got up and slowly moved towards the window where some light was filtering in, she continued to concentrate on the task at hand. The room was shadowy with very little light. It had a musty smell due to lack of ventilation, and probably it was closed for a long time. The grey paint was chipping off in every corner; the floor was a cold concrete without tiles. There was one small plastic table with a deformed steel jug and an aluminum plate with hard Roti on it. There was only one small wooden window, which opened a little. Opening this window was difficult and then it became a huge task to close it at night if you wanted to ward off the bitter cold that forced itself in. The door to the room was large, with heavy thick chain to lock it both from inside and out. There was a sigh of relief, which echoed gently in the room as Amravati successfully rescued her beautiful nose ring from the tugging thread of the pathetic old saree.
Amravati
Published by Rashmi Dixit
My life journey began in a small village in Kanpur, U.P. I was raised by my grandparents for the first four years of my life. During the day I found myself running amidst the farms and the open sky, squinting at the sun. At nights I would sleep under the stars counting them and making weird patterns. The moon was my sleep partner then. My writing journey began at the age of thirteen, in Mumbai, when I bunked a class and found myself hiding from my maths teacher, amongst children, who were writing poetry for a competition. I wrote too, and to my surprise after a week, I was announced as the winner. Couple of months later I found myself battling lung tuberculosis, I was in complete isolation, but poetry gave me company. I wrote some really dark poetry around life and death and how beautiful death was. My writing and my imagination since then has been my greatest friend and confidant. After my Post graduation in Microbiology, I was hired as a Scientist by a Multinational organisation. However, my soul kept humming a different song, although I was considered to have high potential and was known to be highly competent. After my marriage and two children, and nine years of corporate career, I jumped into humanities. I started conducting leadership workshops and interventions for organizations and I still do. My work helps me connect with the various aspects of human behavior and thus takes me closer to experiencing more of who I am. As a life and executive coach to several people, I observe their brightness and beauty, in their language and actions, and help them to see what I see. This helps them unleash their own spontaneity and experience more of who they really are. My work is my passion and it helps me grow. It makes my writing become more mature and rooted. Both writing and painting are meditative processes for me and help me explore new worlds, while creating deeper presence for myself. I love to indulge in life, and I cheer for the same. I get excited and enthused about new ideas and great stories. I cry watching emotional scenes in movies and can easily get hooked on to some romantic drama. I love gardening and can be seen communicating with my plants in the mornings over green tea. Rest you will find in my posts here. View all posts by Rashmi Dixit
The Colored Mist 