Representational image of painting by Enkhbaatar Tudev
Jyothi A
(Translated from the Malayalam by.A.J.Thomas)
L
ooking at the eastern horizon he said: “Look there! The sky appears so green!”
She didn’t argue. It must have appeared to him so. Moreover, it is he who says it. It must be true.
She nodded in confirmation. He waxed eloquent about the enchanting beauty of the green sky. Walking, he reached at the centre of the bridge. Below, the river was stagnant, full of waterlilies.
She loved waterlilies. As she was about to open her mouth to say, “Look! How pretty the waterlilies are!” he exclaimed, “Oh! Lotuses have begun to blossom in the river!”
It must be true. When the lotus buds are about to bloom, they appear like waterlilies that have begun to shut their eyes.
She nodded her assent to his assertion.
“Let’s sit here,” he said. There were about twenty granite seats along both parapets of the bridge, for people to sit. He sat her down on one of them. “Push a little that side. Let me too sit down,” he said. She edged away, yielding him space.
They watched sunset in the horizon where the sky and the rive met.
When colours played a game of hide and seek in the sky, he told her a lot of things about the various hues, the sun, about desire. He talked to her about the river as well.
“This river is too shallow. One can touch bottom and stand up, with head above the water level.” But she felt that the river was effectively hiding sharp undercurrents at fathomless spots. Yet, she thought, isn’t it he who says it? He must be right. It maybe that during last week’s diluvial rains, there would have been a thick layer of soil washed down from the landslides and filled the river’s bottomless depths and made the river shallow.
“Leap into the river and try the shallow riverbed!” he told her.
Her body surfaced in that still river, the same day. Stroking her hair, he said; “Oh, my dumb girl! What can I do if you lap up everything I say?”
******
Dr Jyothi Arayambath is a Consultant Psychiatrist working in Oxford, UK. She is also the founder and managing trustee of Mental Health Action Trust-UK (MHAT-UK), a charitable organisation to help and support community mental health initiatives in India.
A.J. Thomas is an Advisor to The Beacon. He is a poet, translator and was till recently editor with Indian Literature journal of Sahitya Akademi. A.J. Thomas in The Beacon
Leave a Reply