About the Wharf Part-2

There was an acacia tree near the temple where you see the cowshed fence of the cowherds. A market was held under it once a week. The Gonsai have not settled here yet. Where their Chandimandap fell, there was only a canopy of leaves.

This ashtha tree that now spreads its arms in my cage and holds my torn rock-soul with its long and hard fingers-like roots, was only a little sapling then. The young ones were raising their heads with the young leaves. When the sun rose the shadows of its leaves played upon me all day long, its young roots tingled against my breast like a child's fingers. If someone tears a leaf from it, it hurts me.

Even though I was old, I was still upright. I was not in that state as today, with a broken spine and bent like an octave, cracked in a thousand places like a deep treble line, the world in my womb arranging their long winter's sleep. Only two bricks were missing on the outside of my left arm, with a finch nestling in the hole. In the morning, when he would wake up cheerfully, his twin tails would dance two or four times quickly like a fish tail and fly into the sky with a whistle, then I knew it was time to come to Kusumer Ghat.

The girl I am talking about was called Kusum by the other girls of the Ghat. I think Kusum will be her name. When the small shadow of yellow fell on the water, I would have succeeded if I could have held that shadow, if I could have tied that shadow to my rock; He had a sweet tooth. When he stepped on my rock and defecated on his grass, my mosses flourished. Kusum did not play much in the water, or talked, or laughed much, but surprisingly, there was no one else like her. He couldn't do it without the fierce girls. Some call her Kusi, some call her Khushi, some call her Rakkusi. Her mother called her Kusmi. Every now and then I saw Kusum sitting by the water. What was special in common with water and his heart. He loves water dearly.

After a few days I did not see Kusum again. Bhuvan and Swarna came to the Ghat and cried. I heard that they have taken their Kusi-Khushi-Rakkusi to their in-laws' house. There is no Ganga where they have taken her. There are new people, new houses, new roads. Who took the water lotus to be planted in the Danga.

Gradually I somehow forgot about Kusum. It's been a year. The girls of Ghat don't even magnify Kusum's story. One day in the evening, I was suddenly surprised by the touch of long-known feet. It felt like Kusum's feet. That's right, but he's not playing the stool anymore. There is no music for those feet. I have always felt the touch of Kusum's feet and the sound of feces together - today, not being able to hear the sound of that feces, how sad the sound of water in the evening sounded, how the wind rustled the leaves in the forest.

Kusum is widowed. I heard her husband was working abroad; I did not meet my husband except for two days. After receiving the news of widowhood in the letter, at the age of eight years, she wiped the vermilion from her head and threw off her body jewelry and returned to her country by the banks of the Ganga. But, there is no one bigger than his companions. Bhuvan Swarna Amala has gone to her in-laws house. There is only autumn, but I hear that he will also get married in the month of Agrahayana. Kusum is completely alone. But, when he sat silently on my steps with his head on his knees, I felt as if the waves of the river all raised their hands and called him Kusi-Kushi-Rakusi.

Just as the Ganga rises day by day at the beginning of the rainy season, Kusum started to rise in beauty and youth day by day. But his slovenly face, with a quiet disposition, cast such a shadowy veil over his youth, that his youthful appearance was not visible to the common eye. It was as if no one could see that Kusum had grown up. I didn't get it. I have never seen Kusum older than a girl. He didn't have a stool, but I could hear the sound of the stool when he moved. Ten years passed like this, the people of the village did not know anyone.

As you can see today, in that year there was a day at the end of the month of Bhadra. Your great-grandmothers woke up that morning to see such sweet sunlight. When they pulled so many veils and picked up pitchers to make the morning light shine more brightly on me, they came to talk through the trees and through the high and low streets of the village, then the possibility of you did not even arise in one side of their minds. Just as you can't remember, your grandmothers also used to play one day, as true as today, as alive, it was true that day too, with young hearts like yours, they swayed like you in happiness and sadness, like this day of autumn, today. Without them, without a trace of their joys and sorrows, the sun-bright joy of this autumn day was invisible even to their imagination.

That day, the first northerly wind started outside and blew the boiling acacia flowers half over me. There was a little line of dew on my rock. That morning, a young monk with a long, radiant face came from somewhere and took shelter in the Shiva temple in front of me. News of the monk's arrival became a state in the village. Girls thronged to the temple to pay obeisance to Baba Thakur, holding the kalsis.

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Part 3 Comming