My Wanderings - 56. Short Story No 37. Facts of Life

Pooja was  just seventeen   when she completed   her School education  and stopped studying   further as there was no college in her village . She was the only child of her father, who was a rich Landlord of the village and her mother a seasoned housewife.  Therefore, Pooja was a pampered child of family and  brought up with much fanfare. But Pooja was very innocent by nature and totally ignorant about the facts of life as compared to other girls  of her age. Now Pooja had left school, radiant, bursting with life , thirsting for happiness , ready for all the joys and all the risks which she had already anticipated in imagination. She looked like portrait of Godess , with her dark hair and fair complexion. Her eyes were blue with a dark mole on her chin. She was tall with a developed bust.
Once sitting  near the window of her bed room she began to dream of love. For sometime her thoughts  have  been filling up with anxious anticipations of its advent. She had only to meet him . What would he be like? She did not really know . She only knew that she would worship him with all her heart and soul. They would go on long walks , they would hold hands , pressing close to each other , hearing their heartbeats suddenly she seemed to feel him close by her side and a shiver of sensual  longing ran over her whole body.
After some time  village priest brought the proposal of a boy namely Ashok who was a graduate and living in a near by  village. But the parents of Ashok had  already expired . Pooja's father asked the priest to bring the boy someday to their house so that they know each other better.  Ashok was a very smart boy of average  height with a very good  sense of humour.  Every body in the house began to like him gradually  as he started to visit their  house.
One day Ashok proposed Puja when her parents were not at home.  Ashok seizing the hand of Pooja whispered to her, " tell me Pooja dear, will you be my wife?" She bent her head and when he again whispered , " Do give me an answer, I love you". She raised her eyes gently to his and he read her answer  in her glance.
She was blushing ,panting and strangulated with emotion when her father one day  added  with  a smile ,  " we can not do anything without discussing it with you. Your mother and I have no objection with this marriage , but we do not wish  to put any pressure on you. You are much better off than he is, but when it is a question of lifelong happiness , the consideration of money ought not to come in . He has no near relative living , so if you do marry him , he will come into our family as a son , whereas with someone else it will be  a case of our daughter going among strangers. We like the boy .We seek your opinion. Pooja stammered in affirmation and marriage was fixed.
On the night of marriage Ashok pressed the ears of Pooja with his lips, saying ," Today you will be my little wife". Although she had learnt the facts of life from her school friends, she still only thought of the romantic aspect of love and was surprised .His wife? Was not that she already ?" Then he clasped her in arms and she surrendered because she remembered the words of her mother that from now  on you are all his. Finally  with some inquisitiveness some pain and some excitement marriage was consummated.
Excitement of marriage lasted for some months when Pooja noticed some indifference  in the attitude  of Ashok towards her.  Ashok had taken full charge of the  farms of his father in law. Pooja first  thought it is because of work load of Ashok that he can  not afford to give her much time. But soon it transpired that Ashok had developed illicit relations with some farm girl , who had become pregnant by now. This  ill action  of Ashok gave a shock to the whole family in general and particularly to Pooja. She wanted to severe all relations with Ashok. But father of Pooja,  who was a seasoned landlord and a business man ,  gave serious thought to the problem and paid  considerable amount of  money    to   father of farm girl and  advised him to arrange the marriage of his daughter , which he did later on.
But it was difficult for Pooja to compromise with the situation. She dared not face the people she met, convinced that they would whisper behind her back. She felt a grudge against Ashok in her heart for not understanding her and having no refined modesty and delicacy. She felt as if   it were a veil , a barrier between herself and him, realising for the first time that two people can never understand each other's deepest feelings and thoughts. They may walk side by side and sometimes embrace , but they remain apart and moral being of each one is eternally isolated all through life. Pooja could realise  that facts of life are not always  sweet but sometimes bitter also. 

My Wanderings -55. Short Story - 36. Return of warrior with a Storm

Anita was living along with her two kids Anshoo and Amit at Jammu. Her husband Major Anil was in Kashmir on frontier duty somewhere near Kupwara . It was monsoon season in Jammu and raining heavily through out  that night . Anita after rising from bed and finishing  her daily  early  chores went over to the window, but the rain showed no sign of stopping . The downpour had rattled all night against the panes and the roof . The lowering sky , full of water ,seemed to have burst , drenching the earth and reducing it to a muddy paste like melted sugar . Furious gusts of wind were blowing , laden with stuffy heat , and the roar of flooded gutters filled the empty streets , where the houses like sponges sucked up the damp , which found its way inside and made the walls sweat from cellar to attic.
Anita was very happy today as her  husband Anil was   coming  soon to  home for a long leave as she was now ready to grasp all the joys of life of which she had long dreamt. She wanted to visit Malls , shopping complexes and cinemas along with Anil and children. She was only anxious about the weather so that it may hinder the home coming of Anil. She wanted the weather cleared and for many times she scanned the horizon anxiously  that morning  . Suddenly she noticed that she had forgotten to awoke her children  from bed as their school time was approaching fast .No sooner  children arose from bed , she promptly prepared them and went to kitchen for preparing their breakfast. After serving them breakfast, she accompanied the children to  nearby  street to board them in the school bus . The downpour continued and Anita took the children under umbrella towards main Street. The howling wind drove the rattling rain against the umbrella  and flooded the roadway making pools and puddles of  muddy rain water. Soon the children boarded the school bus and the Bus drove on splashing muddy water of the pools through its wheels. While returning to home Anita could observe the  violence of storm abating gradually . Soon it was only a kind of drizzle , a fine mist of flying raindrops. The cloud ceiling began to rise and clear , and suddenly through an invisible opening a long slanting gleam of sunlight shone down. Now on reaching home she was happy to see a blue and clear expanse of sky spread over the whole earth . A gentle fresh breeze passed like a sigh of relief from the window. But it is often said that there is a lull before a greater storm. Soon the telephone bell rang and Anita was informed by an unknown  Voice from the unit of her husband that Anil was martyred  last night while fighting with  the terrorists. Anita could not beleive  the words . The whole world appeared  topsy  turvey before her eyes. She could not bear the gravity of message and collapsed in comma on the floor near by dropping the receiver unawares.
When she recovered from comma, she could see her apartment filled with unknown people . The dead body of Anil had also arrived  in tricolour with full military  honours. Anil had shown much valour while fighting the intruders and killed three  of them single handedly. All the five Pakistani  intruders had been neutralised against the death  of one  Indian  Major Anil, who had proved himself to be a real warrior.  The name of  Major Anil had also been  recommended for  Kiriti chakra award .
But Anita appeared indifferent to all this , even she was not attending to her wailing children sitting besides her. She had turned into a stone. Her sunken  and vacant eyes were dry. She was like a corpse. Every body was worried about her mental state and wanted she should cry.
At last after much persuasion of the womenfolk around her she cried while embracing her children. It was with  a wild shreik ,  tears began to  flow from her eyes. She wept bitterly shedding torrents of tears. She wailed bitterly. All the woman and even menfolk  around there could not hold tears. The storm in the life of a person is  sometimes much more stronger than the storm of nature . But the people around heaved a sigh of relief on  shedding of tears by the Anita , because this sudden shock could have affected her balance of mind.