Wanton

“I leave today, but will stay with you in spirit”, she promised.

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Ram spent his naïveté childhood in kanyakumari; every street in the town had a story from his life to narrate, every corner a romantic memory he cherished. After years of living a nomadic life, he moved back there.

Every time she telephoned him, he would urge her to visit him. His charming tales about the small touristy town caught her fancy. He would say “There is something fascinating about the beaches in Tamilnadu, some kind of surreal beauty peculiar to our land. They have character, they are more real. Just like how the Gods carved out of stones down south invoke more devotion than the ones sculpted of marbles in other parts of the country.”

She wondered if idols of any sort had the power to turn her to a theist but surely, beaches with character sounded mysterious. She started on her trip to explore TamilNadu with a sense of romance that fed her wanton spirit. The language of Tamils, Bharatnatyam, ancient temples, poetry, literature; all of this had piqued her curiosity since the time they were introduced to her in teens.

There are times you cut off from the roots and find your soul elsewhere; she did so on the beaches of kumari. Tamil isn’t her native tongue nor the locals of kumari her kith and kin. Yet she recognized a strange bond with the place that melted her heart. Similar to how you meet someone for the first time, and feel an instantaneous soul connection with him or her. Her love for the land was unfathomable, and abysmal.

It is a different matter that she met him there. No, she didn’t fall in love with him. Not at all. She didn’t want to burden herself with love that competed with the peace for her solitude any longer.

---
There was something else about Ram. Some sense of warmth that shone in his eyes that reached her heart, beyond the realms of her intellectual understanding of love. May be it was just sympathy. Yes, that what it must be then. Though she had come to believe that no one deserved sympathy, she couldn’t help herself but feel pity for that childlike man.

He was hurt beyond any sort of imagination possible by mortals. Inspite of what he might on hindsight conclude, he did break down. He is only human.

It wasn’t when the police had dragged him out of his house or stripped him off those expensive clothes, that he broke down. Not when the lathi hit every bone in his body, the ones he didn’t know existed. Not when hot blood oozed out from his private parts and spread all across his genitals and inner thighs causing a sense of burning irritation that took months to heal. Not even when they spit on the food that was served to him. What really killed his spirit is the knowledge that his beloved wife had got him behind the bars.

When he first heard about it, he dismissed it off his very characteristic cynical smile. Saritha? Now, how is that possible? How could this woman who had loved him dearly possibly lodge a false complaint against him? But well, she had.

She had filed an FIR; accusing him of domestic violence and sexual harassment. It was a Friday when she did that, and he spent the weekend in the lockup as an accused. The two days that he spent in the lockup was nightmarish, but what followed was worse. Million visits to the lawyer’s house, weekly summon at the court, the customary salutes to the constables every Saturday, the gossips at workplace, the backbiting relatives. All of that and more.

--
As she sat by the window awed by the beauty of the crimson sun set into the ocean, he wailed.While he lay there on her lap crying,she couldn’t help but feel a overpowering sense of anger against the wife and a strong sense of pity for this old man breaking down like a child. She had lost all sense of rationality and let him believe she was there for him unconditionally.

She had led him on to believe she was in love with him. And that being there for him meant she would give herself wholly to him. She failed to make him see that all she wanted was to mother him; to pacify, console and put to sleep a wounded child. To nourish and nurture hope for a better day,to nurse the bruise, to heel the dead is what she wished for.

But more often that not, the physical needs of a man comes in the way of any possibility of platonic relationships. He wanted to feel in his weary bones the pleasure of his body over the woman, a way of experiencing a sense of power he had to relinquish to another woman. And she was there, foolishly trying to fight him, realizing only too late that she had led him to it. He was lying on her, forcing himself against her tiny frame. It was rape, only she had made him believe otherwise.

When she finally gathered all her strength and kicked his balls with her knee, he lost his balance, literally and otherwise. He couldn’t fathom the reasoning behind her refusal to indulge him after promising unflinching support through his painful times. He had easily believed she was there for him, in all forms and at all times.

---
She did eventually forgive him; Weak, crass men don’t deserve anger.She had to leave kanyakumari behind. Goodbyes are never easy, not when it comes to people and places. Leaving Kanyakumari meant leaving behind a phenomenon, an experience that altered her perspective on love in more ways than one. She had to move on, like always.

---

“I need you. I wish you would stay on”. Ram said as he was bidding Goodbye. His need to be protected by a woman irked her, though the childlike plea filled her with an insurmountable amount of compassion.

“I leave today, but will stay with you in spirit”, she promised.