KUSUMA

(A short story)

S. KRISHNAMOORTHY

Translated from the Tamil original by the author

It was a garden of flowers. What a variety of them! And what a riot of colour! Some flowers were blood-red, some milk-white, some others sky-blue and yet others iridescent. There were flowers with a heady fragrance, flowers without smell, those for the deity, those for the damsel, those that fade in a few hours, and flowers that never fade…

In short it was a township of flowers–of creatures with flower-bodies and flower-souls. For who can say that flowers have no souls? Is not the flower called, in the language of the celestials, a ‘Sumana’–‘one with a good mind’?

There were flowers in that garden in all stages of evolution; buds with their hearts brimming with yearnings and eager expectations; flowers just blossomed and begun to enjoy the bliss of life; those that had seen their days and were faded and withered and were only longing for a swift death.

It was the day of days for Kusuma, our heroine. This was the day she was about to set foot on the threshold of life, a life she had never actually known so far but had only watched from a distance, a life she had dreaded and loved by turns, but always with her heart aflutter, for it had always a mystic charm for her.

Kusuma, so long a bud, was now blossoming, nay, had almost blossomed. Today she would meet the world as a full-grown maiden and, like all maidens in the fullness of youth, await her lover, the hero of her imagination for whom she had been cherishing her youth, beauty, her very life!

What a beauty was Kusuma’s! And what silky softness! A girl’s body is often compared to a flower for its softness. How to describe the softness of a flower!……Kusuma’s tenuous waist was enclosed in a bright green skirt. Her body was a feast of ‘curves’, to acquire which our human damsels would give their lives!

Her petals were milk-white, white as purity itself! They had not yet blown out completely, for there was still an hour to dawn. When dawn arrived, it would find her fully blossomed; the petals that were still hovering over the centre of her being would spread out and present her in all her glory.

Over a long period Kusuma had collected a rich store of honey and pollen. Not for herself, of course; they were for her lover, the lover she had never seen but who had been in her thoughts ever since she learnt to think. As a bud, whenever she felt the pollen and honey accumulating within her she would be all atremble with excitement and the anticipation of the joy that would be hers when she would offer them all to her eager lover.

The day she had been waiting for all these days had now arrived. A few minutes more, and her dream would become a reality! But these few minutes were hard to bear for the impatient Kusuma. It is not merely human nature, it is flower-nature too, to feel the more impatient the nearer the goal.

But her eagerness was not unmixed with a vague misgiving, natural enough in a shy girl about to enter into a life of experience hitherto unknown to her….she had stepped into the fullness of her maidenhood. She was ripe for enjoyment but she knew not who would have her. What was he like, she wondered. What would he say to her? What should she say in reply? Her brow wrinkled in worry.

“Love is not to be taught and learnt, my girl!”

Kusuma turned, her cheeks reddening in a blush. Did somebody guess her innermost thoughts?

Yes, it was her neighbour, the rose, who had spoken. She, now smiled at Kusuma, her eyes bubbling with mischief.

Kusuma hid her face behind her leaf-brother, in embarrassment.

Kusuma was now in full blossom and the petals sparkled with drops of dew; were they the pearls presented to Kusuma, the bride by the lady of the sky?

Kusuma waited for the prince of her dreams, the object of her thoughts, with expectation in her heart, and a shy smile on her lips. She was about to achieve what she had lived for and in the process she was going to give her beloved the highest bliss. Her eyes sparkled at the thought.

Suddenly she had a feeling that somebody had touched her softly, ever so softly. She experienced a strange feeling, a feeling as of her clothes slipping off; a shiver of excitement all over her body, a titillation she could not explain, a sensation that frightened her a little but filled her with a giddy pleasure all the same.

In the midst of this strange experience, Kusuma was sure of one thing–that she was now not alone, that her long-awaited lover was with her and had enveloped her being. She felt herself in new world–a world of her own and her lover’s.

Kusuma’s lover was none other than the gentle Zephyr. That part of the day, the hour just before dawn, was always his favourite; for that is the hour when the flower-maidens blossom forth into the fullness of their charm, their freshness untouched and chastity unspoiled. What better opportunity could there be to take them while they were still innocent of the wiles of the world and were grateful for their initiation in love, not knowing the cost thereof.

Zephyr’s embrace was intoxicating. He enveloped her in a heady fragrance, the fragrance he had brought away from the flowers he had visited earlier. She could not define the nature of that intoxication. How can one describe the colour of the sun’s rays where they are reflected in the cascading waters of a fountain?

Kusuma lost herself completely in that fragrance. She was too innocent to know that it was a trap for her, a trap, more-over, fashioned out of what the great lover had ravished out of numerous innocent flower-maidens like herself.

She knew not how long she lay in his lap. When she came to, she did not find him there. Restlessness was Zephyr’s inborn trait. He could not stay put even if he wanted. He had, moreover, a host of flower-damsels to love and be loved. How could he tarry too long with Kusuma? He had left her when she was still under his spell and, unknowing to her, he had taken away most of her treasure of pollen.

There came now a new sensation of her body being touched by a warm hand, a warm breath of love caressing the innermost recesses of herself. She blushed crimson. Yes, it was another lover; the Sun God, this time.

He had risen just then in the eastern sky. No wonder that Kusuma was thrilled by his presence, for was he not well-known as the beloved of the flower-species? The dew drops that adorned Kusuma reflected his light in a flood of iridescent brilliance like the gleam in the eyes of the bride at the approach of her lover.

The Sun shone in all his glory. Poor Kusuma dared not even look him in the face. He was an immortal and the lord of all life. He traversed the sky in a triumphal procession, every day lavish with his gift of light. It was he who gave light to the Moon, the lord of stars. Kusuma, born in a corner of the earth, to die after a few fleeting hours of love and life; the Sun, the timeless dispenser of light and life to worlds numberless–what a gulf between the two! That he deigned to extend his hands to her was bliss enough for her. What had she to give him as a token of her gratitude except her necklace of dew? And she gave it willingly to him, little recking that with the dew her freshness would be gone and her beauty no more.

Kusuma’s senses were roused by a song. Was it a mere song? It was a paean of praise for the beauty that was Kusuma; it was the soul-stirring prayer of a love-lorn suppliant to his lady-love; it was an invitation and a promise from a lover who was an adept at exploiting the weakness of the fair sex. The lover was none other than the bee.

The song was nothing new to Kusuma. While yet a bud she had heard it so often. That was the song that the bee usually sang when flitting from flower to flower. But till then Kusuma had not known the meaning of that song. The song had so far appeared to her a mere jumble of words without meaning. Now she understood, as if by instinct, what the song meant, for she too had tasted love and could recognise a lover when she saw one.

The bee-lover came near. Love had set his whole being afire. He had had an eye on Kusuma ever since she had been a bud. He had waited impatiently for her to grow up to maturity. The day he had so long waited for had arrived at last and his reward for the wait was at hand.

The bee was a demanding lover. He was not one to be satisfied with a few particles of pollen like the gentle Zephyr or with a few dew drops like the Sun. He wanted to have the whole of her, to possess himself of the honeyed sweetness stored in the heart of Kusuma.

He alighted softly on Kusuma. A deft touch from him and she was completely overcome. Her lips trembled with ineffable pleasure. The next moment–before she could realise what had happened–he had got into her. Taken aback by this sudden–but”, to tell the truth, sweet–outrage, Kusuma closed her lids. Wherever his soft wings or nimble feet touched her during his sweet dalliance she experienced pleasure divine. Under the magic spell of his love she offered him all her store of honey.

When the bee left, he scraped away the remnants of the pollen too from Kusuma.

Kusuma now lay withering, honeyless, dewless, bereft of freshness and beauty.

Some one came there to gather flowers. He plucked Kusuma and threw her on the ground in disgust saying, “What a useless flower! No fragrance, no beauty!”

After a while two men came that way talking. One said, “I am a rationalist; I believe in reason, I believe in man. I firmly believe that Nature has created man with a definite purpose…you see that flower?” he said pointing to Kusuma, “It blossomed a few hours ago. Look at its condition now. It is faded and dried up and is become one with the dust. Its few hours of glory have no meaning. It would have been as well if it had not been born….But human life is different. It has a meaning, a mission….”

They went away talking, crushing Kusuma under their feet.

Kusuma smiled. “Men are really strange creatures,” she told herself; “they consider themselves very superior merely because they remain alive for a longer duration of time. They don’t stop to think that there is not really much difference between our hours and their years in the timeless eternity of creation. And they don’t know the simple truth that the meaning of life is to be measured not by its duration but by the quantum of happiness enjoyed and bestowed.”

Kusuma, dying in the dust, pitied man for his presumption and ignorance…..

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