She rushed through the stagnant traffic, crossed the
street, almost ran through the thin lane, onto the shortcut, and found her man
staring at the river, checking his watch occasionally and fiddling with his
phone.
Just as her phone rang, she tapped on his shoulder
with that bright smile.
He
knows this touch.
He looked back with a forced-straight face hiding
the excitement. ‘You’re late.’
‘Damn!
Like always?’ her words came out in a mixture of sigh
and smile.
‘Like
always’, he spoke through the dusk light making way through
the leaves, creating patterns on his face.
She smiled back, and stopped midway, at the view
that unveiled.
The sky had numerous hues making love with one
another, with the sun playing magic. Sunlight through the leaves created
geometry on their faces as she held his hand firm and stared at the dusk-bathed
sky.
And
he stared at her. How the wind dipped through the river
came and caressed her face; how her strands of hair kept coming on her face;
and how her beautifully done kohl-smudged eyes fed itself on the river-side
view.
Slowly the streetlights came out, and it was
surprisingly quiet that day.
She broke the silence.
‘You
never told me till date.’
He took some time to register. ‘What?’
‘Why
do we meet here? Always?’
‘Why?
Don’t you like it here?’ He played with her fingers.
‘I
do. But the burning ghat beside; it send chills, sometimes.’
He had an unusual confidence suddenly, ‘I swear this is the last time.’
She smirked mysteriously, ’You never know, love. You never know.’
As the night started absorbing the lovers into its
veil, suddenly there was chaos all over.
Hymns, chants, cries, conversations, scream.
They broke the closeness, and walked towards the
source of the noise.
By the side of the river, two bodies were being put
up on the consecutive pyres. Each of the pyres was surrounded by a crowd.
He smiled at her, ‘So the poison worked.’
She held his hand and kept staring at their dead
bodies.
As the fire from both the pyres disturbed the
darkness of the night, somewhere above, their smoke intertwined into an eternal
embrace.
Only
the pyres have known, some love stories do not die with death.
