Ritamvara aka the mountain girl, writes from a darling’s heart, Darjeeling (India). In her intense and sensuous piece, a reflective prose-poem, she yearns union with the Himalayas. She writes for the mountains to breathe and echo endless love.
The gentlest of fragrance wafts my nose. It insists on making my presence unknown by their maddening blooms. The tall grass shields their delicate legs, which might uproot many a dream. I watch the mountains clear, as the blue of my doll Cinderella’s eyes. Cinderella and I had played long winter nights among the uprooted dandelions of my garden, in Kolkata. Cynthia sometimes, joined in with her silent space between Cinderella and me.
We used to flower Cynthia’s long hair with jasmine. She thundered one day, “The fragrance kills me.” She
even added, “I hate your smell.” (I understood that she referred to my nickname ‘Jui’, as in Bengali meaning Jasmine). The nights in Kolkata were always a rattled note, with my father preparing omelettes to feed my mother and in the process he even broke some of the egg shells without creating a perfect half. I wonder now, “Did he ever satisfy my mother by clumsily jerking off her eggs?” My mother was pregnant carrying a life within her. Cynthia and I pondered on the growth of the baby. We hummed notes of its colour and appearance.
My father, sat by my mother, tugging her in his arms and feeding her on the dilly-dallying omelettes. My mother tasted a small bite and further complained of its burnt onions. I hated so much, the complaint in her eyes and reflected, “How cruel women are!” I liked the plainness of my father’s face reflecting upon my mother’s anger.
Cynthia, Cinderella and I musketeer into the freedom of the shady black veranda, away from the smell of omelettes and the baby. I am here, now, the mountains hear me hum a distinct flavour of my own. “Cynthia has never liked me,” I say to the snow in the farfetched mountain peaks. She has always detested my birth, my life, my girlhood…and every part in me. Whenever, I make love to you, dear mountains, Cynthia, steals our gaze. She makes me dry and flattened, robs out my milk and even shrivels my well-formed breasts.
“Do I hate her?” I ask you. You echo dead dropped puff ball of seeds. The sunlight survives your back without any care or nourishment. Cynthia, I see her taking a plunge. She waves a final goodbye. I call her, “Cynthia…I do not want you to fade away, girl. Be here sister….we are alike.” She eyes for the last time. I weep, dear mountains…. “Do not gulp her down your throat. She is me. I am her.”
I sit at my window. The wind is at peace with me. A sweet secret from the depths of my ravine plunges the man on my bed. He envelopes me, my ravine, the indescribable beautiful night. I sleep with his song….the song breaks off. A girl forms me, our shoulders fleck white. You, dear mountains…give birth to our pink tits, perfect mauve underpants cover our fragile organs. Our mother never could blossom two girls. Cynthia and I, your daughter…. (Mountain’s girl). You accept my dead decked sister, fill our muddy puddle with sweet scent of Himalayan water. The thirsty birds gulps the water down her parched throat. Cynthia and I, the little island of your soul.
©Ritamvara Bhattacharya
Pix from Net.
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