13/11/2016 4 Comments In SERENDIPITYThe sun shone brightly upon the beach. It was a sunny afternoon and the first day of the summer vacation. Families had thronged the beach. Small children ran about on the sand, mothers helped their sons build sand castles and the fathers lay motionless on the warm sand like dead seals, face down, hands clutching cans of beer. The life guards patrolled the beach, conspicuous in their bright red shorts. A small girl – I would put her age at around five years – was busy searching for something in the sand. Shells, perhaps? Or, broken pieces of corals that are often carried by the surf from faraway seas? Her parents, did you ask? Well, I am sure that she wouldn’t have come here all alone for she was far too small to have travelled alone to this sea resort. The parents must have been in the vicinity, but their identity I could not decipher amidst the huge crowd of vacationers. The girl was engrossed in her search. She caught my attention because she looked out of place and stood out in the midst of the motley frolicking crowd due to her rather uncharacteristic inactivity. I scanned the beach lazily with my eyes that were now beginning to feel a little weary. The beer was beginning to impart a mild headiness, not too strong, but just heady enough to make one feel good about being in such wonderful surroundings. Nothing seemed amiss and all was good with the world. As I lay in the shade of the colourful umbrella that I had rented from a very persistent and stubborn scrawny teenager for a hundred rupees, I felt drowsiness slowly descend upon me.
Found them, found them! I was startled out of my slumber by a child’s voice that shrieked ecstatically - found them, found them! I raised my head a little to see the small girl whom I had earlier seen digging in the sand come running in my direction. I squinted my eyes, suddenly blinded by the glare of the sun that had now perched itself in mid sky. Found them, found them…. the little girl continued to shout. I looked around. Nobody seemed to be interested in the child’s sudden discovery. Slightly annoyed at this sudden unwelcome disturbance, I allowed my head to fall back on the sand and shut my eyes again. Almost immediately, I felt a presence beside me. I opened my eyes. The little girl had deposited herself on the sand right by my side and even as I was turning my head to look at her, I could detect a cherubic smile on her face as she looked at me in a manner that indicated that I was a person she knew very well. I smiled back and raised my torso. Now half reclining, I stared back at her. She held out her tiny hand towards me. I looked at it enquiringly. In her closed palm she was concealing whatever she had found. She nodded at me, urging me to pry open her palm and look within. I raised my brow and curled my lips in mock interest and gingerly unclasped her fingers. There were two grains of sand in the middle of the tiny palm - two rather large grains of sand. I looked up and smiled affectionately at her – indeed a great discovery, sweetheart! She continued to smile at me. I felt that the smile on her face conveyed a sense of superiority, one that was omniscient in expression. Her smile told me that she felt I was trivialising her great discovery without actually understanding the importance of it. Look carefully - she commanded. Saying so, she picked up the two grains daintily between her forefinger and thumb and looking intensely at them the little girl remarked - they are a perfect fit. I took the sand grains from her hand and placed them on my palm. The contours of the two grains were irregular and had plenty of peaks and crevices. Nothing spectacular about them, I thought. The little girl seized the grains from me and said – look! She took each of them in her two hands and pinching them once again between her forefinger and thumb she brought them closer and closer till one fitted exactly into the other – the peaks and crevices of each grain were perfect complements of the other. She placed the conjoined grains on her palm and the two grains became one seamless, large grain of sand. They were indeed a perfect fit! It was impossible to tell any longer that they had been two separate grains just a moment ago. Intrigued, I stared out at the beach once again. How many grains of sand were possibly there on the beach? Millions, billions, trillions, zillions… What was the possibility that two grains of sand would be such a perfect fit? Negligible, I assessed. What was the possibility that two such perfect fits could actually be found on a beach by a human being? Zero! Yet, a small five year old girl had searched the beach and had actually discovered the two grains – yin and yang! I stared at the girl speechless. She continued to smile at me knowingly. What is your name, child? – I asked her. The little girl’s smile broadened. She looked at me for a while without speaking, smiling teasingly, and then replied in a soft and melodious childish voice – Destiny. I took the sand from her hand and inspected the grains again, this time with greater interest. I must have been engrossed in examining the details of the two sand grains for quite some minutes for when I looked up, the girl was gone. I craned my neck and scanned the surroundings. She was nowhere! I took the two grains of sand from my palm and placed them carefully inside the zipped compartment of my wallet. * * * * * The man woke up with a start. The dream had seemed uncannily real. He sat up on his bed and turned on the light. What time was it? He looked at the clock by his bedside. The radium hands of the clock indicated that it was ten minutes past two o’clock in the morning. He was a deep sleeper and it was unusual of him to wake up in the middle of the night. The man had often boasted to his friends that there wasn’t a more sound sleeper than him. It would usually take him just a couple of minutes to fall asleep at night and the next thing that he would know was that it was dawn. He could never recollect having had dreams in his life. But, this night, it was different. He had seen a face in his dreams – the face of a woman. And, she was right there on his bed, her face close to his, looking at him beckoningly. She had not spoken a word, but somehow it had appeared to the man that a lot had been conveyed. He had noticed her large sparkling eyes that had seemed full of life, her smooth dusky skin and a tiny black mole on her left cheek. The normally self-assured man was flustered. The vision was far too real to be dismissed as a random dream. Something inside him told him that there was a message that the lady in his dream had tried to convey to him. He felt as if she was extending a welcome to him to accompany her somewhere. Never a believer in the supernatural, the man would have normally been inclined to dismiss the vision as a sudden disconnected stimulation by a sub-conscious corner of his brain. He had read about REM - rapid eye movements - that was responsible for the dreams that human beings experience. Always a rationalist, his scientific bent of mind would never allow unfounded thoughts and beliefs to set up home in his mind. But, here, this night, he was up on his bed at an unearthly hour trying to figure out the meaning of his dream. He felt a drop of sweat trickle down the side of his cheek. He wiped it away with his palm. His heart was beating out loud. The features of the woman were too vivid to forget and her presence a few moments ago t0o real to ignore. The man had also read that although the human eye and brain can normally decipher colour in everyday life, dreams are always in black and white. But, now he was sure that he had seen the brown shade of the woman’s complexion and an even deeper brown of her full lips. The man poured himself a glass of water from a plastic bottle and drank it down in one gulp. He normally had hectic days at work and needed to be well rested when he woke up in the morning, each morning. Thinking about the series of meetings that he had lined up for the next day, he switched off the light and dug his head in the pillow in an attempt to fall asleep again. Sleep did not return to him as the woman’s face kept appearing again and again in his mind’s eye. It wasn’t the face of a bewitchingly beautiful woman but one that had a very endearing look – a look that one could warm up to without much effort. She was beautiful in her own way. She had looked straight into his eyes, mesmerising him with her stare and tugging at his heartstrings. Her look wasn’t aggressive at all, but more of a soft stare with an understated imploring to come to her. The man tossed and turned in bed all night. Who was she and what had she wanted? When the first rays of dawn came into his room through a crack in his door frame, he got out of bed and tiptoed out to the veranda to inhale the fresh morning air. Five nights later, he had the same vision again! * * * * * I jumped into the water off the country boat as it anchored a few metres away from the river bank and steadied myself by holding on to the gunwale of the boat after landing on the soft mud. The tiny waves softly lashed against my ankles. After the long journey, the cold water felt refreshing. Purposeful in my stride, I walked onto land and proceeded straight towards a cluster of shanties a few hundred metres downstream from where the boat had anchored. This was foreign land for me – totally unknown territory. I had never been here before, but knew that this was where I had to be at this point of time. I had to find the old tea shop where she had promised to meet. It had been six months since I first had the dream. In these six months, the woman had visited me in my dreams countless times. It was as if she had possessed me. It was a pleasant possession. Her presence had brought about in me a strange sense of fulfillment. In recent days, she had become a daily phenomenon. She would arrive the moment I fell asleep and stay with me throughout the night. I no longer slept soundly. My fitful sleeps often left me dozing off at work. This I managed to cleverly hide from my colleagues. I would rather be dead than be caught napping in office. During these short naps during the day, she would come to me. Every time. The rationalist in me was dying and the initial communication through subtle hints had been replaced by distinctly decipherable words – the woman’s words that were soothing for the ears and pacifying to the soul. I also found myself communicating to the lady in my dreams – through words. How my thoughts took shape in me or how the words formed I had no idea. However, they were spontaneous and were not disguised by inhibition or falsehood. I found my deepest thoughts finding expression when she connected. Together, our souls seemed to resonate to each other’s thoughts. This rendezvous on the river front was set up by her. She had indicated to me that she would be waiting here if I wanted to meet her in person. For me, the rationalist had already died and I found myself being pulled by an unseen force towards her. The destination was very clear to me, although it was the first time that I had crossed to this side of the river. With a haversack on my back that held my spare clothes, I walked down the road that skirted the river, towards the huts in the distance. Almost by instinct, I knew that these shanties had catered to the passengers that crossed the river everyday and served delicious food and drinks. She had said that she would be there waiting for me. * * * * * The man approached the cluster of huts and noticed that the place was abuzz with people. The crowd was more than he expected and for a moment he wondered if he would be able to locate her. He crossed a few huts, tentative in his steps and then stopped. Would she really be here? Was she a mirage, an apparition that appeared only in his dreams and would never be found in real life? Was he a fool in responding to the call of an image that had presented itself only in his dreams? He looked around. The tall man that he was, he towered over the rest and began scanning the shops for a familiar face. He found none. Only if there was a way of communicating with her, he thought! And then suddenly he saw her! Dressed in dignified brown pants and a pink blouse she was standing outside a shop, her back to him. He had no difficulty in recognising the woman. He had seen her numerous times in his dreams. There could be no mistake. He walked up to her and silently tapped her on her shoulder. She turned around, a shy smile on her lips, almost as if she was expecting it. The man’s heart pounded madly against his chest. It was her! He was nervous and he thought he also detected a trace of blush in her cheeks. He looked at her – the same face, the same bright eyes, the dusky complexion, the mole on the cheek, the smile….. “I have been watching you for quite a while now” she remarked, smiling. “I was scared that you might have seen right through me and not recognised me.” “Not in a million people would I ever not recognise you” the man spoke. For the first time in six months, the two souls stared at each other, in reality, not in a world of dreams. The man extended his hand and took her hand in his own. He gave her hand a tight squeeze. She squirmed and retorted in mock anger “what was that for?” “That was just to make sure that this is not a dream and you are not an apparition”. She smiled. * * * * They sat alongside at the eatery, facing the river, as daylight faded into darkness. He placed his hand on the table, palm up. She gently proffered her hand. He took it and held it tightly. Rough are the ways of men, the woman thought! Slowly he unclasped his hand and stretched out his palm against hers. Their palms had exactly the same length! “Look” the man exclaimed in astonishment, “our palms are exactly of the same length”. “Have you noticed that the shades of our skin are identical too?” the woman observed, further heightening the astonishment. In the six months of communicating, the two souls had realised that they had too many things in common to pass them off as mere coincidences. And now, even physical characteristics were similar. The man wondered what greater surprises this meeting of souls might have in store for them. He looked into her eyes. They told a story, many stories. They conveyed emotions – joy and pain - sometimes distinct, sometimes blended. The man felt a strange flow of electricity pass through his veins every time he realised that this was no longer a dream. As darkness descended, fireflies came on above the river. Hundreds of them! The two souls sat quietly staring out into the river, absorbing the magic brought about by the reflection of the fireflies in the river. Time stood still. Presently, it began to drizzle. The skies seemed to be celebrating this union of two souls brought about by fate. The drops of water sent tiny ripples along the surface of the river. A sudden spray of water got carried into the shop by a mild breeze and moistened the faces of the couple sitting inside. The man placed his hand around the woman’s shoulder and pulled her closer. She gently grabbed his arm and lowered it on her lap. Quietly, she snuggled up to him. The man could feel the softness of her breast pressing against his arm. A feeling of warmth enveloped him. Despite the proximity and contact, he felt no lust for her. The fusion of two souls seemed to have transcended the barriers of physicality. He looked into her eyes and smiled. She seemed to be lost in reverie. He slowly turned towards her and gently cupped her face in his palms. Her countenance shone in a rare brightness. He saw the soft mounds of her breasts rise and fall under her dress with her breathing. She looked beatific. She opened her eyes and half-smiled at the man. Slowly, her face inched closer towards the man’s face and her lips brushed against his cheek. The man turned his face towards her and looked imploringly at her. The certainty of his stance and the imperiousness of his gestures that had been in evidence only a while ago had deserted him. On his face was the look of diffidence and desire, bundled together into a queer concoction. He looked like a schoolboy begging for candy. He shut his eyes. Her eyes were shut too. Two pairs of lips met and the two persons, who had met in dreams, sat locked in an embrace of a lifetime. The boundary between dream and reality faded away into the darkness, as the flowing river water carried Time with it into the lap of the mighty ocean that had somewhere in the depths of its bosom given birth to two grains of sand that perfectly fitted each other.
4 Comments
shaila
13/11/2016 11:59:18 pm
what a beautiful piece of writing ? request this author to post more on his blog
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Joy
14/11/2016 12:01:23 am
Thank you. More will follow...
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Rohit Malhotra
15/11/2016 10:58:27 pm
You must get these published so that more people can enjoy these beautifully written stories
Hazee Haleem
15/11/2016 03:08:12 am
Such a heartwarming romance! Kudos for writing so mesmerisingly.
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