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“Brother, please lift me in your hands,
I feel great pain”,
My young sister had yelled, long, long ago.
Lying in a hospital bed for more than a week;
I remember those painful hours,
When Shakespeare’s words on time’s speed-
"Time travels in divers paces with divers persons”-
Being taught in my classroom
Were felt in my own sensory nerves,
And by my heart.
Yes, it was 1979, I precisely recall.
She had met with an accident,
And had been badly burnt,
Stood hospitalised,
For more than a week.
All over her body were balms applied
And dressings daily changed;
She could neither stand nor walk,
She was then barely four years old,
It was the day of Holi, I remember.
Clad in a Holi wear - Kurta and Pyjama,
Snow-white and bright,
I was before her,
With a heart bleeding for her plight.
She loved me much.
She had cried when I went to her,
“Bhaiya please hold me in your hands I feel great pain,”
She had yelled.
Her words in my heart left a scar deep.
But lest my stainless white clothes get stained,
I conspired to dole out some hollow consolations,
And managed to maintain the dignity of my clothes
As I had to visit a family
Whose guest I was to play on the day of Holi
To partake of the delicacies of Holi,
For they knew Holi dishes in our household not being cooked,
For the bolt fallen from the blue.
I had a responsibility great:
To visit the host's house with fineries immaculate.
Thirty years later,
I am moving with my young son on a city road,
He is unwilling to walk,
“I am not well and tired as well”, he entreats.
Driven by my zest to make my progenies sturdy,
I brush aside his plea and have my way.
He had to walk a long distance I remember.
“Though I was not alright”
A fact he confided afterwards.
My tainted conscience gnawingly,
Tortures my soul, robbing it of peace,
For I had made my ailing son,
Dance to my horrific tunes.
I had brushed aside his unwillingness,
For I could not brook any opposition,
To the sceptre’s fiats.
The revelation- “I was not feeling well,
When papa made me finish the marathon”-
Has left a permanent scar in my heart.
Both the events have conspired to make
A lady Macbeth out of me.
To set things right,
I want to atone for my misdeeds,
And salve the wounds of my conscience
By giving them a recompense befitting!
But alas! I cannot do anything now
For both are no more!
(The readers may please note that this is a genuine piece of "confession" which is one of the Christian virtues. Rather than being a piece of creative writing, it is purely autobiographical and an act of "PURGATION" as it lays bare the pains and sufferings of a guilty mind haunted by past events). |
