The green paddy field seemed
purple in the dying light. The wind ran its hand through the grass, which
swayed and swirled, in delighted glee. A gaiety that sickened his heart. The
beauty and happy serenity of the place filled him with disgust. He looked
around the vast expanse of the paddy field, girdled only at the horizon by
stately coconut trees, the dark silhouette of their huge leaves majestic
against the sky. Standing on the narrow, raised path that cut across the field,
he watched the red embers of the dying light from which countless birds
emerged, flying back to their nests. He could smell the old, familiar scent of
camphor and oil from a temple that stood at the edge of the field. Occasionally
muted sounds of temple bells rang out between the cry of crickets.
A woman with a large, wicker basket
cradled at her hip walked past him. He felt her innocently intrusive stare on
him. He was suddenly aware of the ridiculous sight he presented- a middle aged
man in shorts, Ray-Bans and rubber slippers standing in the middle of a paddy
field. He fitted so ridiculously into the stereotype of the 'foreign returned desi' that he could have laughed. But he
felt strangely exposed and violated under the woman’s gaze. He felt that she
could see into his soul and read his thoughts. Watching her go, irritated and
anxious, he reached into the pocket of his shorts and brought out a small paper
package, a folded red tissue paper. He noticed his hand shaking as he held it. "Eccentricity," he thought to himself. "Fucking eccentricity! That was what had
brought him here. An eccentric woman’s eccentric dying wish, the eccentric
sentiment of love, and his eccentric weakness." His inability to say no to being
forced into this ridiculous, self-compromising situation- back to a country, a
land he hated, among people from whom he had fled years back, to do something
he found silly- infuriated him. He heard the rumble of thunder in the
distance. Dark clouds were gathering in the horizon.
He had better be done with this,
he reminded himself. Closing his eyes, he tried to clear his mind. But
thoughts, words and images kept bombarding his closed lids with a frequency
that made him dizzy. He could not make them stop. “Screw it!” , he said out
aloud and began opening the folds of the red tissue paper. He was about
to hold it up when a sudden, strong gust of wind blew it clean out of his
hands. Grey dust spilled from the paper before it bounced along with the wind
and disappeared into the approaching darkness. A tiny grey cloud formed in the
air for a moment and then it was gone.
Shocked at this unexpected defeat,
he stared in disbelief. Before he realised what had happened it was all over.
He looked down at the ground for grey specks, but there were none. Infinite
loss filled him. Robbed of this final act of self-determination, he felt robbed
of everything. He realized that his anger and irritation at being there, alone in the town they had both grown up in, was an
expression of his pain, his hurting love. This one conscious act of scattering
her ashes had been his only chance at gaining control over his life once again,
to deny the inevitability of fate. Suddenly rendered helpless, utterly
helpless, he felt himself fall to the ground. Lying there crouched, his knee
held to his mouth, he wept. Like a baby, bereft of everything, he wept like he
had not wept for a very long time. He felt rain pelt down on him. The heavy
drops hit his body like rocks. It stripped away his clothes and his layers of
skin. He wept harder and harder until he felt the earth melt down below him in
his tears mingled with the rain. And in the rivulet that ran, his pain, anger,
love, and hate; all his emotions, flowed. The red earth took it all in, the
land he had once called home.
