An old library building, it is so silent that the gloomy look of library gives you a shudder to enter in its complete serene silence…but the Librarian at the desk performing his task with few heads pondering over magazines and books beyond comprehension….!
The book rows stands out in the dim light and with the combination of the sunlight that is passing through the glass windows from above gives the place an heavenly odor….!
A lone slender figurine stands at the rack of books on world history and lost in thought. She is actually looking for a book of reference and not able to find…she had found it when she was there yesterday. Yesterday, yeah if he had not intervened as usual would not have left the building without the book and would have worked on the assignment.
Half-hoping he pops up again and half-hope of not to make him appear, she intensely looks at the books stacked. She is looking at the book, reading through the name of the book, the author, lost in them…did not notice the guy behind her almost close to her breath.
A hand clutches her left hand with vivid power that it actually aches…she turns around with a sudden shudder that runs through the whole body and looks at a person who stands taller than her and with the shoulders that can rest a troubled face and ease away the pain….looking at her teasingly.
She almost would have let out a shrill cry but recognizing him to be the person she had halfheartedly wanted to be there…she gives him a sly smile, looking into his brown eyes and an inquiring gaze.
She raises her eyebrows seemingly to ask him, “What are you doing? People are around and there is the librarian.”
For which, he replies, shrugging his shoulders, as if he is not bothered and does not care…with a louder teasing smile.
She says, “So what now?” with a gesture of her other hand. She had not struggled to let go of the hand that is being clutched.
He says, “Come closer, with a gesture of his eyes…and nods his head”
She gives him a sly smile and tries to move away from him, realizing all this while he was actually holding her hand.
She looks at her hand, his and then looks into his eyes. He is determined; he gently pulls her closer to him. She stumbles a little and then falls into his embrace and there seems to be no hindrance.
His embrace tightens and she finds herself resting on his shoulder as if nobody else’s business but hers and does not want to leave the warmth and the smell of him engulfs her. She is slowly losing control over her and he seems to stiffen his grip…then she wakes from her dreamy state and struggles to get out of the embrace.
Then, only she realizes how tight his grip is…she struggles in vain, with her pleading eyes she looks at him and he is just smiling at her helplessness. She tries to free herself; he is trying to gripping his control.
She pleads him and lets a soft cry, asking him to let go…!
He says, “No…stay this way”
She says, “No, let go…”
He says, “No, stay this way…”
She says, “NO…”with a louder voice that could attract a crowd and pushes him hard away from her and finds she is fighting with the air around and sitting awake on her bed.
She is shaken by this dream; she has not had erotic dreams as this since she got a changed status in her life and taken over more responsibilities of life.
She looks around for her bedside alarm piece and finds the clock striking five o’clock, an hour earlier than her usual time of wakefulness. She looks to the other side of her bed finding her husband sleeping blissfully without any awareness. Thanking god, for such small mercies, she knocks off her blanket, ties up her long hair into a knot and walks out of her bedroom.
She opens the door of the adjacent bedroom and finds Mira peacefully sleeping. She does not want to wake up her up; she closes the door, when she finds her trying to cover itself up with its blanket in vain when her motherly love pulls her closer to her.
She covers Mira with the blanket, tucking it along the contours of the bed; she slowly closes the door and walks off. She opens another bedroom door across the room and finds Parthi at his study table, trying to read through some text book.
The sound of his mom makes him respond a fraction of second earlier than his mom.
“Mamma, you up so soon….!”
“Hmmm...da. What are you reading?”
“I am trying to catch up with a history test today. Why should we read about some stupid tablets the King put up all over the place and followed some stupid religion after giving up war and conquering…why should we read all this story…mamma? It is so hard to remember them.”
“Son, unless we know what people ahead of us did, we would not be able to decide what we want to do and which is the right thing to do. So it is always necessary to know, what is good and what is bad and what other people did before us…! It indirectly tells you a lot of things. If you are not able to remember all the things that are being said…make some little imagination to what you are reading and make it interesting for you to read and enjoy….!”
“But beware you don’t carry off your imagination so that you forget what you are reading. Will get you a glass of hot milk…” Saying thus she walks away from him and her cascade of hair falls on to her shoulder making her look prettier than any women of her age………..!
“Don’t do that…leave it nah. You look beautiful this way…” this echoes in her ears and is stopped by its utterance and as if in a trance she is stalked at the door step.
“Mamma….Mamma…don’t do that…I keep telling you and you keep doing it….”
She is out of her reverie and finds her son looking at her fondly…she just nods her head as if acknowledging his request and walks off into the kitchen and sets the milk on the stove for a quick boil…!
Looking at the boiling milk she gets lost in the tiny splutters in the milk…!
It had been ages she had woken up to a dream like this…this was just not a dream, it was a part of her reality speaking to her from the past. There was so much fun and frolic in those days of college. She had been in her teens and was always full of life and kept lingering on the mind she spoke with.
She used to be the darling of the college and had a lot of fan following but none dared to make an effort to tell her…but there was this one person who did and that made a difference to her life as of now. She recollects the days in a flash, when she is distracted by a sudden movement at the kitchen.
She finds a shadow move closer to her from behind and the shadow places it hands on the kitchen slab clutching her from behind placing his arms rightly intermittently with her own arms and his breath is right close to her ears….the hot breath mixed with his smell…is making her heady and there he is uttering some words into her ears and she is not able to make sense of what he is uttering……….!
He slowly moves his hand to her hair and removes the knot; she now mostly does this act of her more as habit than a necessity…! Down goes the cascade of hair, soft and silky wobbling with the sudden effect of tension and it drapes her back beautifully with a swing…he rests his face on it for a second and moves closer to her ear to speak into it.
He is giggling and talking into her ears…“You know, I am reminded of the day when I clutched you close to me in the old library building of ours…I wish I could just travel to that time and hold you the same way. What say, darling?!”
She just laughs out aloud and turns around to cover her face on his shoulder and finds peace within…the embrace that lasted a lifetime and many more!
