Don’t love me, O’ sweet, when we meet,
For there is less
Glee in achieving than in yearning.
From here it’s alluring,
The scent of your tress;
I get my joys in burning,
In pining, in longing
And in sorrow,
And waiting for each tomorrow.
I don’t want to strangle my dreams to death,
You, alone, sit in my dream castle
And far below
In a dark dungeon I am thrown.
I reach out my hands without catching ye,
And you outside smile at me.
And, lo! I wish not my hands were free.
Wait…wait till the pains are so much,
That they burn themselves in their own fire,
The waters of grieving river’d calm down,
The cell would break its own bars.
Then you and I’ll live away from town,
In a small hut by a joyous brook.
We’d work, we’d eat, we’d play the deep
Game of love,
And thus at last we’d sleep.
Now, she was in sleep in the same hut, a sleep from which she’d not get up again. He sat beside her body; at one time full of life, perhaps too full, and now dead. On the polished wooden floor lay a bloodied knife. The hole he had carved in her stomach with it was not visible since blood was still oozing out of it. Blood has a colour which can be made out from a distance against many a background. And then it occurred to him in a flash, as many revelations often came to him, as to why did not God make lemon coloured blood.
He touched her. There was still warmth there. He was instantly transported to another time, another era; the first touch of her hand. It was warm like the underbelly of a bird. He had electric waves going through his body. It happened the next day after his giving her the umbrella. She met him outside the classroom and returned the umbrella to him neatly folded. He put his hand to grip the handle only to realize she hadn’t taken off her hand. As he gripped it she could have instantly taken the hand away. But for some five seconds she didn’t. Later in the class he kept thinking about it if that was a sign from her, an acceptance.
That day, because of the rain, they went to the college canteen for lunch. She sat with her other friends on a table next to where he sat with his friends. The subject of discussion was rains; Deepak said he hated rains because these kept him and others from playing cricket. Sampat said he did not like being closeted in his room waiting for the rain to get over. Suraj had a faraway look when he suddenly interjected, “But I just love the rains”. It was so sudden and so sharp that there was a momentary silence on his table. Suraj was sure that Kiran had heard him because she looked at him and then took her gaze away as if he had revealed their most closely kept secret. This time there was no doubt about the intimacy.
He looked down. The blood was oozing out though not with a gush. Why, he asked himself, was he driven to do it? He had never loved anyone more and she claimed she loved him too single-mindedly. He remembered the song she sang on their first get together, “ke duniya mein aa ke kuchh na phir chaha kabhi tum ko chaah ke” (That after coming in this world, I never desired anyone, after being in love with you).
And yet, here they were together in that wooden hut. It was their hut. She was dead..he had killed her finally…and she? She had, he was sure, killed him many times with instruments worse and more blunt than the knife.
He had never wanted her to go, much less go like this. On the first vacation, after they acknowledged being in love, he sang to her a Mohammad Rafi favourite of his, “Tum chali jayogi parchhayiyan reh jayengi” (You will leave your shadows behind after you go). The song was indeed a mature and deep philosophy and it surprised her that at his age he would have that as one of the favourites in comparison to more lilting and boyish numbers of that era. But that was how he was: different, emotional, philosophical, dreamy. The song from the movie Shagun went on to add:
Sun ke is jheel ke saahil pe mili ho mujhse
jab bhii dekhunga yahin mujhko nazar aaogi
yaad mitati hai na manzar koi mit sakta hai
dur jaakar bhi tum apne ko yahin paaogi.
(On the lonely shore of this lake you have met me
Whenever I shall see, I shall see you here
Memories of our love and its stages won’t fade
When you go away you will still find yourself here)
He had killed her…but, she would never be gone; she would always be in this small hut by the joyous brook.
With the song came the flush of memories…..
5 thoughts on “A SMALL HUT BY A JOYOUS BROOK”
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What killed her? love or possessiveness,(or over possessiveness)?Love gives rise to a whole lot of emotions which one is not aware one had.Jealousy being one of them.Insecurity and distance breed more insecurities and heartache.Good story so far, wanna see where it leads…:)
This one I had read earlier and commented. Where did my comment go? Beautiful story.
A romantic part 1 leads a reader to the very touching part 2 which have an apt beautiful poem with Hindi filmy songs used justly. Diction in part 2 is at best. But killing of girl is not convincing. Is it out of lover’s idiosyncrasies ?
Your observation is apt Jaswant. I had started writing a novel and then cut it down to short-story and hence something is missing in between. Perhaps sometime I will finish it.
That is nice Sir. Title is stunningly impressive and asks for a treatment something similar to Dharam bhra n Hema starrer Aas Pass