A Journal of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya

and toughness in my tone. She once
again scolded me with her sidelong glance
and demanded, ‘‘Chew the betel.’’ Now
it was her characteristic throat. I grasped
the betel.
Where I was bound for I could not
go. Now I could not stir without fully
understanding the weal and woe of this
poor soul. After a long time I had the
opportunity of sprucing up and improving
the state and plight my careless and
unguarded laughter had produced.
Goodness knows which delicate wound of
this distressed one my wild and wanton
peal had rendered open; where she has
loitered and been repulsed these six years
continuously; and how she is smarting
and fidgeting in which drain of wants
nowadays – Baanbhatt cannot budge
without knowing all this. This very
sympathetic heart has turned him a vagrant.
The expiation for the wild laughter that
has been pecking at my heart for six years,
today lays claim to tears only. I have
no doubt at all about the fact that in
the eyes of the righteous here Nipunika's
tenor and character is too contemptible.
Sitting in this shop I have tarnished myself.
All this is there, but Nipunika is, more
precious. Lifelong I have looked upon
the feminine body as a temple of some
anonymous deity. It is beyond me to
let that house of prayer sink in mire for
fear of public vilification. Again I asked,
‘‘Niuniya, why didst thou leave, where
did you live, what art thou doing now?
I find you sad and stricken. I can't move
a bit herefrom, letting you lurch in this
plight. What's the heart of the matter
that made you run away? Tell me. My
soul and awareness has been, these six
years, simply cursing me, uttering fie,
fie. I feel I am the genesis of all thy
grief. Just speak thou with thine own
mouth that this my feeling is false. Am
I innocent?’’
‘‘Ay, gentle, you're yourself the cause
of my sneaking off, but the folly is not
yours. The fault is mine all along,’’ cried
Nipunika with a longish sigh. ‘‘I'd taken
quite a fancy to you. In the night of
that enactment I'd a hunch for a passing
minute that my victory was in the offing,
but the very next moment you pounded
my airy hopes into pieces. Hard-hearted,
you had many a time spoken out that
you treat woman's position sacred as a
place of worship, but even for once you
did think and realise that this temple is
of flesh and blood, not made of brick
and mortar! The moment when with all
my hope I moved towards you, you then
and there dashed my golden dream to
dust. That day I had the conclusive
conviction that you were an inanimate
stony lump; that within you there was
neither god nor animal, but only an
immobile insensibility. That was why I
chose not to stay there. Thereafter, I've
sailed through a lot of afflictions, but
no travail has buffeted me like the anguish
of rejection of that moment. For six long
36 :: January-March 2012