The Ceremony

The house can stand up to any standard benchmark of beauty, if there exists any, and its inhabitants take every care to keep the beauty intact. But aesthetic sense is a concept alien to the people of Mohanpur; they call the house ‘a doomed one’.

In murmuring small towns of India, where neighbour’s concerns are the prime concern of everybody, it is inevitable for a house to have a detestable reputation whose owner is retired since ten years and has five daughters; neither of them is married nor involve in any profession.

It was the evening of summer and the merciless sun had just reprieved itself to appear again, the next morning, with more ferocity. The girls, all five, were on the terrace; the only time they came out of the house, although not literally. All praise to the worsening power situation, otherwise, they would not have the pleasure of the open sky even for that brief period.
It was a knock, rather a hit, on the gate that made Aparna, the third of the five sisters, come to the railings to find the outsized, perennial lady of the neighbouring house at the gate.

‘Oh! It’s quite difficult to go out of the house in this intolerably hot season,’ the lady remarked taking a glass of lemonade off the tray. ‘Although we live so close, but seldom we see each other.’

Aparna’s mother nodded drearily and all the girls giggled in the adjacent room.

‘Any of your daughters is pursuing anything?’ the lady asked and continued without waiting for the answer, ‘What I intend to say is that my nephew has started a school and, if you want, I can force him to employ at least one of your daughters as a teacher.
‘The school is very close; not more than five-minute walk from here.’

‘I’ll let you know in a day or two,’ Aparna’s mother replied with same dreariness

‘OK. But don’t let the opportunity slip through your fingers.’

In professional terms, it was not a school; classes were conducted under thatch-roofed rooms; the teachers, all four, were there for the reasons other than teaching. One of the teachers was the owner’s father and another was the father’s friend; both were there because they had nothing else to do after retirement. One, Bhavesh, hailed from a village in adjoining district, was pursuing his Master’s at Mohanpur. He had his quarters in the school-campus and he could save on rent by teaching for few hours. For Aparna, it was an opportunity to get rid of her humdrum existence.

Old people think it there right to be treated as the privileged group and the two gentlemen were no less. They left the school, always, before the students, and the owner, who designated himself as principal, was on the prowl, most of the times, in nearby areas to enroll more students in his school.
Aparna was about to leave after all the classrooms were locked when she heard a
joyous roar of a mob outside the campus. Bhavesh reported that it was the victory
celebration of a legislature who lived nearby. He advised her not to leave the campus at least for an hour. As all the classrooms were locked, he invited her to sit in his quarters.
Seldom they have interacted with each other for long and it remained so on that
occasion too. As taciturnity is conducive to close observation, Bhavesh started looking at her, even though furtively.

Her face looked vacuous, as if cloistered for years, always wanted to see the outside world but frightened to come out. A deep anguish enshrouded her rather beautiful eyes. She looked like one of those talented people who never get support to achieve what they think they are capable of. But they never accept their defeat; their intrinsic haughtiness doesn’t allow that. They feel that unfair treatment has been meted out to them, but are proud enough to admit that.
Bhavesh felt it proper to talk something but wasn’t able to frame his questions, and he asked suddenly, ‘When did you finish your graduation?’

She looked at him for a while and answered shuffling her thoughts, ‘Last year,’ for she was embarrassed to admit that it was ten years since then. He noticed her
uncomfortable body language and dropped any conversation altogether.

All that hour she was thinking of the question. ‘Oh! Why did you ask this! Didn’t
you have anything else to talk!’ The more she thought the more she grew pale.
'It was not his fault. He cared for me; he made me sit here to save myself of any
mishap.’ Suddenly, she started thinking high of him, for even a little concern for a
suffering soul makes an indelible impression. In few moments he became a man full of
virtues.

It took more than an hour for the situation to get normal and he accompanied Aparna
to her house.

It was Sunday but Aparna was ready at the time of her school.

‘Aparna your school runs on Sunday too?’ her mother enquired.

‘No mother; it’s teacher’s meeting today to finalize the question paper for the next term,’ she lied and left in a hurry.

Bhavesh was engrossed in his books when he heard a knock at the door. ‘These
damn friends!’ he got up with an annoyed look to open the door.
‘You’re here on a Sunday?’ he was pleasantly surprised to find Aparna at the door.

‘Yeah! I came to meet one of my friends, but she has gone out somewhere. So I
thought, “Let’s meet Bhavesh today!”’ She replied in not so usual ebullient voice.

‘Please come,’ he invited her and he could guess she was lying but could hardly fathom the intent of her visit.

They sat for a while, he on his bed, she, on a rickety chair close to the door. He
noticed a prismatic change of emotions on her face; it was a whirligig of joy and agony. Suddenly, he felt an uncontrollable surge of emotions in himself. His body stiff; his face contorting, and he got up, almost impetuously, making a thud on the bed with his hands and closed the door.
He grasped her by the shoulders and she could see his intense eyes but uttered not a single word. When he pulled her towards himself, she didn’t protest nor comply. She was like a mound of clay that can be moulded at potter’s wish. The moment he put her in bed, she found herself sweating and all the entrenchments built around her, for years, had been shattered in a moment. She thought herself unprotected on a vast open land. But she could find no enemy in the sight; the
whole world was free for her to roam around, and she pulled him upon herself.

The lovemaking was not out of love; she found an avenue to show her dormant power. She had the feeling of an accomplishment. She found herself on a summit and looking downward, felt pity towards her two elder sisters.

She spent a whole month in bliss as they lost no opportunity to enjoy their ecstatic
moments. But lately, she noticed, he was trying to avoid their intermingling, but she put aside even the thought of his avoidance, for obsession never cares for minor scruples. Also, whenever she touched him, he forgot all the reasons to avoid her.

It was weekend and Bhavesh, after a gap of a few weeks, left for his village, but didn’t turn up on Monday, which made Aparna grow anxious. She visited his locked door, daily, in anxious agony, and every unsuccessful visit made her want him more.

It was Thursday and she was in classroom when she saw him, in the veranda, shaking hands with the principal. ‘Usually our principal doesn’t meet with the teachers so
cordially,’ she thought, ‘And that too after the gap of three days; it’s surprising!’

When she knocked at the door, Bhavesh took a long time to open it. He didn’t react
to her smile, and she entered into the room uninvited. He was looking down when she
came to him and put her hands onto his shoulders. He shoved her and said harshly,
‘Aparna, we should understand the reality. What we were doing was immoral. We must
not continue with the sin; we should part ways.’
She was shocked at the rebuke, for she was at her ebullient best at the thought of owning him after the gap of so many days. But he continued with his reprimands, ‘And,by the way, I’m engaged to be married. So please, don’t come to my house again.’

The ground was giving way under her, but her eyes were transfixed; onto him. The movement was of tears; spouting from her eyes.

She tossed and turned, the whole night, but her agony was hard to console. Her world
was shrinking and she was hurtling down from the summit, but could do nothing; she was helpless before destiny. She closed her eyes and found herself sinking, in a deep trench. Her every effort to stay afloat was in vain and she was slipping; deeper and deeper.
All her life-events were started rolling in front of her, in sequence, and she could find only gloom. She was about to turn her head aside from those harrowing events when, all of a sudden, she found herself rejoicing; it was the end.
Suddenly, she found herself coming out of the trench; withered, but a victorious
aura was there on her face, and she couldn’t keep her eyes closed anymore.
Though it was night, she could see the roseate glow of dawn, for only the perception is pertinent while deciding the dawn and the dusk.

On that whole day she taught the students with a new zeal. She answered in detail every little question of theirs; even they were perplexed at her new-found enthusiasm. She sat half an hour extra after the students left; preparing the topics to be taught, the next day.

When she entered into Bhavesh’s room, he stared and bewildered to see an aura of
confidence in her demeanour. She addressed him looking directly onto him which made
him look away, ‘Bhavesh, don’t feel ashamed. You have committed no sin. Whatever
happened was mutual, I better say it was tilted in my favour.

‘We have a tradition to organize a ceremony to mark all the significant changes in our life. To enjoy the bounties nature has showered on us. ‘But some people are so much enshrouded in gloom that they can not even think of celebration; they fear to enjoy. And when fear creeps into a person’s heart, death is of no consequence, the person is already dead.
‘You made me relive my life and made me enjoy the month long ceremony to
celebrate my womanhood, which I was denied for all these years. Feel no guilty, feel no shame. You have acted manly and I adore you for that.
‘But every grand ceremony must reach its zenith before it ends. And I want to
own you one last time; the most grand of our acts, which I can cherish for all my life and feel proud of my conduct.’
She started undressing him and he was spellbound. But he could notice her face; it was so radiant; so content, completely refuting the appearance when he saw her for the first time, and he couldn’t distract his eyes.