cruel and confident in the false belief of his infallibility. She sat up on the bed and sat there pondering. It was another Monday standing at her door like a debt collector. She didn't want to go to the office. She also didn't want to stay at home. Silence reverberated through the walls. Siddharth must have gone out for a run. He has, of late, taken to running quite seriously. She wrapped her arms around herself and sat pondering. What could be more saddening than the life which is stationary? it is worse than a dissipating life descending into death. She sighed. The ominous arms of the wall clock moved with least concern to her mental state. She had to get up. She thought about the office. The advertisement of the “New” Noodle was to be worked on today.
“What could be possibly new about the noodle. It is absurd and they want the medium to legitimize the message.” She cursed the customer she was supposed to meet today.
The doorbell rang. The maid was there. The mad rush of the day had begun and she pulled herself out of desperation with great effort. She sipped the tea and listened to the annoying noise of utensils being washed. It was a horribly hot day. It seemed as if the night had directly jumped to the afternoon circumventing the morning. Sid was back. She looked at him. He had lost weight in last few months. She felt annoyed with herself for not being able to put in such absurd and insane commitments to her workouts as Sidharth. He sat on the dining table in the front and sat sipping his tea. He seemed lost. She knew he was having trouble at work. They sat through silence, as if in a mourning.
Sid got up and walked away. She could see a little limp. She thought of the time she had first seen him. He had walked into the college porch and what a presence he had. He was quite unmindful of his own being and that made him even more lovable. She loved his voice, a deep, sincere voice. It suddenly occured to her that it was so long since she heard him speak to her. They had been talking at each other whenever the silence broke. She consoled herself in the fact that probably they had run out of anything worthwhile to speak of, as if they had run out of words.
She got up and took the shower. She got dressed and sat for breakfast. Sid was ready for work. He looked good in a clean, white shirt.
“I am leaving.” Said Siddharth.
She nodded. The door slammed. She looked at the door. She felt that she was running. She longed to be spoken to. He was not talking to her of late. She feared that he had outgrown his love for her. She felt like a thirsty traveler in a famine-stricken land. She felt angry with him. She also felt angry with herself. If Sidharth was not missing her, why should she unnecessarily suffer this lonely longing. They were no longer having conversation, they were no longer finding anything to converse about. She felt Sidharth no longer could hear her. She took a deep breath and got up for the office. Suddenly the phone rang. She looked at her watch and wanted not to pick up. It rang again. “Metallic urgency” she muttered the term she read in Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” and picked up. It was Sid. 'Why was he calling? He had just left. Must have forgotten something. I keep on telling him to arrange things a night before. He never hears what I say.' She thought as she picked the phone. It wasn't Sid.
“Madam, there was an accident. We found your number in his phone. He is in the Trauma center. It was a speeding truck.”
She felt week in her knees. She remembered him walking out in that neat white shirt, his tall stature, his broad shoulder. She thought of his face, and for the first time she noticed the sadness which floated in those eyes, having appeared a few years back, now settled as a permanent season. She rushed to the hospital and ran through the highly sanitized, unfeeling long corridors. She saw him through the glass-wall. A doctor walked out. She introduced herself as he took her inside. Sid was lying there amid all the complicated equipment, his eyes closed as if in meditation. She could see that he was hit on the head. She sat next to the bed. She could see that Sid was awake.
“He was lucky to have escaped with minor injuries.”
Sid turned his head to her and gave a weak smile.
“Sid, I love you. How could you be so careless? Did you not for a moment think about me?” She kept on talking through her tears. “Do you know how much I love you? Do you remember it? I always kept on talking to you and you never listened. Do you even remember that you are married to me? Do you remember what day is it today. This is the wedding-day gift that you are giving me.”
Sid kept looking at her with a blank look.
The doctor held her by the shoulder and spoke softly.
“He is fine. But..,” His voice seemed to come from a distance, “..due to the impact on his head, he cannot hear any more.”
She stopped in the middle of her sentence, shocked to speak, to move. Her eyes moved to a paper in Sid’s hand, a blue paper, all crushed. She reached out and took it out. “Happy Anniversary, Shruti”; It said. She took the paper. She looked at Sid. He could not hear her. She smiled, her lips pursed and he smiled back. He could hear her like never before. Tears streamed from his eyes as if reaching out to the tears coming out of Shruti’s eyes. They smiled at each other through the tears, as if their sins were being washed away in an ocean, on the other side of which a Sun was rising from the womb of a dark silence.
By Saket
