Amravati was stunned. She listened to her neighbor, wail. Her neighbor was dressed in a bright pink sari with a green and gold border, her heavy jhumki dangled from her ear lobes, like a pendulum gone wrong. The kajal that was adorning her eyes a few minutes back was now all smudged on her fleshy cheeks. She was hysterical. “Ambika is not in her room, she has run away on her wedding day. Amu, find her, go get her, Amu.” Amravati’s neighbor kept repeating as more people started pouring into the room. Most of them were Harini kaku’s relatives, who had come for Ambika’s wedding. Harini Kaku’s fingers dug into Amravati’s shoulders and she continued to wail. Amravati put her hands around the crying woman’s wrist and gently pulled both her hands down. “Shh…shh…” said Amravati. The background chatter of relatives was increasing. “Where could she have gone?”, “She must be still at the station.”, “If we go now, we could catch her.” “I will kill my daughter, if she ever did such a thing.”” Girls should not be allowed to step outside the house.” “Look what happens when you give too much freedom to girls.” The chatter kept increasing. Amravati, firmly held Harini kaku and made her sit on the sofa. She held her there, as if making sure that, she doesn’t stand and start wailing again. Somehow Amravati knew that, if, Harini kept sitting, she would keep sobbing and taking to herself gently. Amravati then turned to the clamoring crowd and placed her finger over her lips, almost like a threat. Suddenly there was a lull in the room.
Amravati felt like laughing, her stomach churned with hysteria, how she would have loved this drama to continue. But instead she decided to be sober and centered. “Ambika, went to my house to rest, she hadn’t slept in weeks, with all the wedding noise in the house.” I will go and get her. The sudden silence seemed to deepen even more, Harini kaku’s had a strange expression on her face, almost like she had lost her nose and didn’t know about it. A splash of icy cold water fell on the gossiping relatives and they dispersed.
Image Courtesy: http://jeanspaintings.blogspot.in/2011_01_01_archive.html
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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.
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