Plait Nexus

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1.

Ajanta had so long been sailing smoothly in life. While she had busied herself in attending to the duties towards her family as well as office quite satisfactorily, time seemed to have flit beyond her knowledge. She has never care to know how that bygone time was nor has she enquired about her own well-being during those past years.

That day it was raining in torrents. It seemed that the sky had vowed to shed all its tears in this inauspicious hour of the winter. The shades of the evening eclipsed the holiday morning. Anuj having left for market, Ajanta stepped to the covered portico. The sky seemed to have smeared its entire expanse with a nostalgic perfume. An unheard music tinkled in the footsteps of rain drops. The mind turned apathetic. Ajanta stared at the incessant rainfall for sometimes, and then, all on a sudden, wrote a poem in her diary. Not a couple of line, she composed a full length poem. She wrote the poem, so to say, not with full consciousness. She seemed to have composed it in a poetic spree. But the moment she completed her composition, gone was that obsession, yet the mind seemed to be inebriated with some strange indefinable trance. She gazed at the letters with a dozed hush. And at that very moment Anuj appeared in the portico saying,

-‘After a good deal of hunting I’ve been able to gather these spring onions. It is such an obscure place that one can hardly taste one’s favourite dish even during the plenty of winter vegetables.’

Ajanta closed her diary with a smart sweep and appeared to return to the reality from the world of creation. Somehow she uttered,

-‘well, it’s good’

-‘Mind it you must not ask Halima to cook these spring onions.’

By the time Anuj had drawn a chair and seated himself on it Ajanta composing herself greatly, said,

-‘It’s good that you’ve been able to collect your favourite eatable, but what’s wrong with Halima’s cooking?’

-‘Bah! Have you forgotten that last year she cooked that highly palatable spring onion so distastefully?”

-‘Strange! It’s beyond my capacity to remember the taste of a particular food item for a whole year’

-‘Yet you can bear in mind the lines of poems effortlessly?’

-‘Poetry and spring onion! It’s only you who can make such an absurd comparison.

The sound of a mild laughter resounded in the balcony. While conversing with Anuj she prepared a glass of lemon juice and gave it to him. Anuj was in holiday mood. As Ajanta got into the kitchen Anuj said in a louder voice, ‘Yesterday Buban was speaking of fish-fry. So I’ve brought the flat-fish in the frill. Take care of that please.’

2.

Books and books, heaps of books- that is the only fancy Ajanta has cherished in her life. She has purchased books with the money she has been able to save from the expenses of maintaining the family. She reads them like a glutton, so to say. Whatever book she gets at hand she first swallows it and then appreciates. The book becomes her constant companion – at meal time, during leisure and at her bed time. The entire book- its getup, pages and back cover – everything turns greasy with the fish soup, tamarind condiment or fried gram. At times it becomes decayed with the floor dust or garden soil. Then she places it in the book shelf with other books after dusting it thoroughly with great affection. Ajanta has a great fascination for a bookshelf with glass setting, so that she could see the books directly.  According to her, storing books in a wooden cupboard means to suffocate them.Anuj calls her crazy, ‘Books and suffocation! Simply ludicrous!’ But to Ajanta books are very much alive. Yet owing to circumstantial obstacle her desire remains unfulfilled. That she can afford money for buying books is more than enough to her. And a library, to boot! Simply a mare’s nest to her inordinate ambition!

Read Full Story at The Ashvamegh International Journal & Literary Magazine