The Prophetess

I saw my friend jump off from the front bar of her Father's cycle and come smiling towards me. We both learned to dance together, Indian traditional dance. My friend and I shared a joke about the half-nuts teacher and went to the dance room. After finishing we came out, I hailed my driver while she waited for her Father. Somehow she never looked even slightly embarrassed that her father was so poor that he dropped her himself on a cycle. There was always a bright chirpy happiness about her.  But I thought of her great fortune as I sat in my car, driven home by our driver. My father liked to drink often, and though we had a beautiful large home with servants and several cars, he abused us by usurping many hours from our evening and  talking about all and sundry, from philosophy to psychology and if we were not absolutely subservient and agreed with him on everything he would not hesitate to verbally lash out at us. This was sometimes three days out of seven of our week. He also...

 Everyday the lady of the house watered her plants..there were many and she took care of them patiently. As sunlight blessed the balcony with only few hours, most of plants were only leaf bearing. a few could bear flowers but wouldnt. Several months passed and the lady's heart yearned for a flower. She touched the tender leaves and asked the plant spirits to gift her with one.  The spirits did listen and a flower blossomed but not on the big plant, but in the lowly wild weed.  She didnt see it at first, then she saw. The wild flower had a face of such serene beauty, but it was not a flower for the vase, nor for the god-images, nor for a woman's hair, it was for the sky, the air and the sunshine. It made all earth beautiful.

 She was a plain woman. In her youth, she had been attractive. But numerous relationships hence, her life was now one of discipline and hard work. She steadily performed in her work and she found it easy to have respectable jobs. Her husband- poet on the other hand had led a disciplined life from youth, and now his heart seeked waywardness. He wrote poems all day of beauty, of flowers, of skies, of dreams of desires. Perhaps in her youth, the woman would have danced to his enchanting tunes, now she was just a tired woman. All she wanted was a life in which she didnt have to work. Her dreams were dead long ago.  Would the poet kindle love in his wife's heart, would the wife find poetry in her heart? Would they both discover the endless depth of love? Beyond poems beyond words?

 The poet wrote so his lover would forgive him. For he had trampled on that love in self-protection and now knew what he had lost. He wrote night and day, read night and day, hoped night and day for a morning when the sun would shine in blemishless beauty. That morning never came for his lover had healed her wounds and had blossomed in the love of another man who loved her purely.  The poet remained a poet.

 The lady of the house was a good woman. Or at least she thought so. She paid a high salary and treated her maid with kindness, or at least she thought so. Many a time she felt guilty for the hard work the maid did, and asked for little in return. The lady felt the maid was nothing short of an angel. For many many years this happy atmosphere prevailed in the house of peace and love. Then one day the maid was caught stealing. Had the act not been seen, the lady would not have believed. Then it all came to her, the lost money from wallets, the diamond studs that went missing, the silk sarees that disappeared, the silver bangle......why the maid was a kleptomaniac!!!!! How happy the lady had been in her blindness, in her belief of the good, and now how miserable in the light of the truth. Humans give anything to see a pure soul, even their blind trust. 

 With all her heart, she hated her old love. He had treated her as one would treat a prostitute, she told herself. There was no love, just use. She imagined what a rotten human he was, how he would use all around him for his false glory. She imagined the pain of his family, for he was now married, and of his children, for he was now a father, of his employees, for he was now a wealthy man, of his friends, for he was now a popular man. She filled her heart with venom. In that she became all that she hated about him, herself.  Will she ever learn to love again?  

 A couple had a special needs son. The mother was devoted to the boy and she learned how to teach him. She was happy and she had another child, a girl. Years passed, and the boy was now a teenager and his body played havoc with him, he screamed, he broke everything around, and he was uncontrollable.  The family lived in a small home till now, but a relative left them with a large sum of money, so they bought a large beautiful flat in a community.  But the boy who was now an adult, was just as bad, some days worse. How would they take him to live in that community? Would the neighbors tolerate the screaming? The couple decided to send him to a hostel. As they bid goodbye and wept and returned to their home, the silence in their new large house, screamed.

 A retired lady began her first day in retirement in right earnest with the desire for a morning walk. As she stepped out of her apartment, a street dog, in fear barked at this unknown apparition and it frightened the lady so much she screamed turned her heels and ran home. From that day on she complained to all through her phone and those who would listen, of the dog, how evil, crazy, horrible it was. The whole apartment was convinced the dog was a nuisance. Today a small girl is playing in the playground of the apartment. The dog comes near to her. The girl calls out to the dog- 'Sweetie...' and when it leans to her, she bends and whispers, ' you are the nicest dog in the whole world'.