VASANTI

(A Story)

By G. A. Kulkarni, M.A.

As Shantabai entered the common room, her eyes fell on the big bold figure of ten in the calendar, and she felt not a little relieved. The long tedious vacation seemed endless, but it had ended at last. Now she could be in the midst of those hundred girls who danced like tops, talking excitedly, giggling and crying shrilly. In that familiar rhythm of work she could easily forget herself, and in those cobweb-like thoughts that came to her stealthily when she was alone. She had no near relative whom she could visit. Long ago she had had a brother–a pale boy with bluish dreamy eyes, who sat in a corner and always read an old volume of the Arabian Nights and became restless with ecstasy when he saw the golden splendour of the dying sun. One day he was lying quietly with one hand lying out as if he had dozed off when he was reading. But he was not sleeping. That was ten years ago, but he was not forgotten. Shantabai always remembered him when the Parijata tree next door was heavy with delicate red-stemmed flowers, for he liked them so much…

Her own life in the small two-room block in the College street was unbearably monotonous. It was not only a tedious tale, but it was also an unending one. There was nothing in her life, except perhaps a few memories, where it could come for a moment of rest. There was no prism that could refract her life into pure rainbow colours. From the time the sun’s rays, soft like silk ribbons, crept in stealthily from the window, till they became yellow in the evening, she sat in a wicker chair and knitted. When she did not knit, she stood near the window and looked at the Gulmohur tree across the road. It was in its red, burning splendour only a month ago. But that red glory was dead and a small bouquet of soft green leaves had taken its place.

“Why can’t the green and the red be ever together?” she sometimes wondered. “When one comes, the other disappears.”

And then slowly the thoughts came. She had a horror of those thoughts that came to her when alone, ugly like veins in a dead face. And when she had, against her will, a peep at the bottom of the past, she saw strange things wriggling like worms when a flat stone is lifted. She shuddered; she hurriedly took up her needles as if those things were ready to pounce on her, and knitted, knitted feverishly...

In the afternoon the boy from the boarding-house brought her food. He kept the food on the small triangular table in the corner, and went out insolently. When going, he slammed the door. He always slammed the door. Shantabai used to look up with pain, and shut the door as if cutting off her own little frail world from the boisterous world outside that was so cruel and strong. Then everything used to be quiet in the room. The clock ticked on as if it was shedding tears. Only her long slender fingers moved rhythmically and her bangles clinked occasionally. The tree outside rustled and the window panes creaked as if some invisible creature was pressing them from outside. Rarely a bee came in humming, and Shantabai lifted her tired eyes to look at those blue vibrating wings. But the next moment the bee was gone as if it did not like the place. Then she took up the stitches and continued to knit. The corners of the room became dark, and the darkness, slowly getting bolder, soon filled the room. Her fingers ached and she could hardly see the thread. Then she lit the kerosene lamp that threw a circle of pale yellow consumptive light, and as she placed the lamp on the table, she picked up one or two jasmine flowers which little Neela who lived next door always brought for her ‘Bai’ (teacher). Shantabai always felt something exquisitely poignant when she smelt those already fading, dying flowers. Occasionally she took a paper, and if it was such a day, she skipped through it, indifferently, almost antagonistically. It was always full of riots, murders, and long tedious speeches of old, senile politicians.

It was so dull and boring to live in such backwaters of life...

But now she could be at least busy in the school. The sight of the common room after such a long time was so exhilarating. She opened the window. When the long familiar breeze from the school compound, that always played so merrily with the papers of the teachers, came, and the shrill laughter of girls along with it, she was pleased.

Yesterday the school building looked desolate and abandoned like an old woman taking shelter in rain under a tree. But today it had blossomed. It was alive with the happy laughter of the girls. They talked excitedly and often they merely laughed. Shantabai remembered what Sudha Apte, the common-room poet, once said, “God was immensely pleased with the world he had created, and his happy tears came down on the earth as children and flowers,” and how Meera Sathe said a big ‘Phew’ to it and how there was yet another fight between the two veterans.

Shantabai worked in the High School, but she loved to go occasionally to the Primary School attached to it. The shy love of those little girls for their ‘Bai’ and their smiles; their whispered comments on her dress, and their secret nudgings were so amusing….

Today the class-teacher of standard second had not come and the Superintendent requested Shantabai to go there. She always came to Shantabai, for she knew she would never take it as a humiliating thing to go to the Primary School.

Shantabai saw the school peon Haraba going towards the bell and she rose.

“O this bell! I have not touched the chair and there it goes,” somebody said with exasperation. “Now I must go and shout for hours before those silly girls.”

Shantabai turned and saw Meera Sathe. She was running her fingers lightly through her hair and was looking in the dusty mirror in the staff room. Except on pay-day, the school was a veritable prison to her.

Meera, I cannot understand how you can get fed up with those girls,” said Shantabai good-humouredly. “Look how neatly they are dressed! And that is all, all for you. Don’t you know what Sudha Apte said the other day? God was—”

“That nonsense!” snapped Meera with irritation, “I would like to know what their parents honestly think about them! Those horrid children! Happy tears indeed! If you had such a daughter, you would have known better.”

Shantabai was for a moment rooted to the ground as if stunned. Meera had unknowingly touched one of those dark spots that are buried in the heart of every person, and now it was cruelly bleeding. “If you had a daughter like that!”

Meera did not know anything about Shantabai’s life. Nobody knew. Shantabai was not very communicative over that. Her life was like a closed room to people who were curious for a moment, but then passed on with indifference. And inside, Shantabai sat crushed, alone in its twilight, and often thoughts and broken memories danced round her, became red like live coals and cruelly burnt her.

When she went to the class everything became hushed, as if somebody had sucked away every sound, and a melodious song was cut off in the middle. Twice thirty eyes were fixed on her in innocent but eager curiosity.

“Look at her sari. It is so shining and smooth. It must be silk. No?” whispered one.

“And those gold bangles are so beautiful!” said another in awe.

Shantabai was accustomed to such whisperings as soon as she entered the class. She went to the chair and sat in.

It was the first day of the school and nobody had dreamt of bringing a slate or a book–except the girl in the dazzling blue frock full with big purple flowers and strewn with silver stars. She had a new book in her hand.

“Bai, this book has such beautiful pictures, and also stories. Shall I read one?” she asked and smiled. A silver line of beautiful teeth, small and delicate like jasmine Duds, flashed in the oval frame of parted lips. There was something so refreshing and coy in that smile that Shantabai felt very happy, and the sudden gloom that had alighted on her mind like a vulture was lifted for a moment: She liked the girl’s enthusiasm and also the dazzling colours in the frock. “I wish the girl’s life also will have such brilliant colours!” she said to herself. “Those stars and the purple flowers.”

“Oh, yes, please read a nice story,” she said to the girl.

“Page thirteen,” the girl began promptly. “The Birthday of Vasanti.”

From her friends came a stifled yet clear laugh, like so many little silver bells ringing gently in the evening breeze. The girl looked up with almost a guilty face. Shantabai turned her eyes in that direction. The laugh vanished and the girls sat quiet with big hushed eyes.

“Today was Vasanti’s birthday,” continued the girl in blue, “Her mother had ordered for her a lovely silk frock with golden flowers on it and–”

“One minute,” said Shantabai, a little abruptly, “why not read some other story?”

The girl was astonished. The story was really beautiful. It had a clock that gave out wonderful music when it was twelve, a small railway train that ran round and round as if it had forgotten the station to which it was going, and a pair of shining black shoes with fancy buckles on them. She was not a little disappointed, but she slowly turned the pages and began, “Page twenty-one. The Story of Doggy the Dog.”

Shantabai sat in her chair, feeling extremely worn out as if all her energy had suddenly ebbed away from her. She ran her hand on her forehead. It was almost burning, and somebody seemed to be hammering on it from inside. The faces of the girls that sat in a semi-circle, like beads in a chain, slowly disappeared, as if they were merely figures on the blackboard completely wiped out by somebody. She could not hear what the girl was reading. Only some stifling noise, accompanied by scalding heat, like the shrill noise when steam is let off, filled the room and made her giddy.

Shantabai also had a daughter and her name was also Vasanti. Her birthday also had come. She also had ordered a beautiful frock for Vasanti, one with golden flowers with butterflies on them and a purple silk rose in front.

One day Vasanti came to her and said, “Mother, I want a silk frock and with flowers too! No, not red but all yellow, golden and as big as this,” and she opened her little palms.

When Shantabai touched her hair and whispered, “Yes, dear,” her heart ached with tender love and pity for Vasanti who was so small, quiet, and shy. She was always silent as if thinking to herself and rarely after mother for anything. She had lost her father when she was a kid,–in a motor accident. Shantabai remembered the nightmarish day so distinctly. It was the gloomiest day she had known, with the sky gray like a dirty piece of cloth, and the oily rain pouring down incessantly. She had been waiting for him, for such a long time. The lamp burnt out and there was a thin gray line on the wick. She took out a candle and lit it. The flame flickered in the wind and shadows moved. Her eyes became heavy and she rested her head on the table. Then somebody came and gave loud impatient knocks on the door…

“Yes, Yes,” said Shantabai, again stroking her hair. “Next week brings your birthday, and I will give you a silk frock–for my little sparrow.

“Exactly like Kumud’s? Blue and with yellow flowers?” asked Vasanti, her eyes big with happiness.

“Yes, exactly like Kumud’s, blue and with yellow flowers,” mimicked Shantabai with a lisp. Vasanti flushed with happiness and floated out of the room like a piece of silk.

It was Saturday. When Shantabai came from school, she had a few bundles of weekly examination papers. On Saturdays the boy from the boarding-house was very late. So there was ample time. She washed her face and felt a little refreshed. She mended the inevitable red pencil and opened the first bundle.

Vasanti was waiting for her. She came near the chair, as lightly as a sparrow coming in the yard to pick up grains.

“Mother, have you brought my frock?”

“Oh! I remember now. It must be ready today. My memory!” said Shantabai, suddenly remembering. “The man had asked me to come today. But I will go in the evening without fail. Now go–”

Vasanti did not go immediately. She ran her fingers lovingly on the broad and shining border of her mother’s sari, which was hanging down from the chair-arm.

“Mother, can’t we go now? I want so much to see my frock,” she almost whispered.

“I told you I would be bringing it this evening. I am so busy now. See these bundles? Now, be a good girl and go. This evening you will get your frock and some chocolate-” Shantabai said lovingly, but without looking up.

Vasanti went to the door and lingered there for a moment. She almost moved her lips to say something but the words vanished and she went out silently.

The clock threw out, unweariedly, indifferently, its eternal tick-ticks. The boy came with the tiffin-carrier and placed it on the table, and, while going, slammed the door. The big silver circle on the floor moved a little, and half climbed the wall. The street outside seemed to be panting in the hot sun like a thirsty dog, and its sultry silence was occasionally shattered by the raucous horn of a stray car. Within two hours the bundles were finished. Shantabai tied them with a piece of string and threw them aside as if they were all odious toads. When she looked up at the clock she thought of Vasanti, and said to herself: “Today I must get her frock or she will never forgive her old mother–”

There were hasty steps on the stair, and Manohar, the brother of Neela who brought jasmine flowers for her ‘Bai’, ran in frantically. “Vasanti’s mother,” he blurted out, “Vasanti was thrown down by a car. We were going to the tailor. She wanted to see her frock. She was running. I tried to stop her, and then suddenly a car came from the left–”

Shantabai stood there for half a moment without understanding a single word. She remembered another such terrible moment. She could not, in the beginning, understand whether this was real, or a shadow of the horrible nightmare raised by the former incident. Then the words slowly sunk in her mind, burning it. And she rushed out.

When she came, there was a crowd which moved a little to make way for her. Vasanti was sprawling on the ground, and Shantabai saw a purple patch as big as a palm. That was all…..

The girl stood confused when Shantabai sat abstractedly arid did not say anything, though she had finished the story. She stood there looking right and left, not knowing what to do. She closed the book, but it slipped from her fingers.

The dim nightmare world of the past slowly melted away. The stifling hot noise died, and Shantabai looked up as if she had woke up from a cruel dream. The girls were looking up at her, and the girl in the blue frock stood there waiting for her to say something. “You have read so beautifully,” Shantabai said, and tried to smile a little.

“Yes, you have, really. But you have not told me your name.”

The girl suddenly became rosy with pride and pleasure, because her Bai had asked her, her name. Her green ear-rings, that shone as if there were two little flames burning inside them, moved gracefully. She raised her eyes shyly, and a snow-flake of a smile was on her lips.

“My name, Bai,” she said almost in a whisper,” my name is Vasanti.”

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