Jagged Pages

Flipping through the pages of her diary, Pushpa reached a page she always had avoided reading. With the grey in her hair overshadowing the black and a pristine white Sari hugging her would-have-been-stunning-30 yrs ago figure, she was lying down on the cranky swing at night. The stars were looking at her from the sky and she was finding a star amongst all of them. A star who she knew had been gracing her diary’s half torn page since almost 25 years. She always read her diary but the moment her finger felt the torn page she shut it close. But tonight was different. The swing swung in steady motion and the night stopped growing dark but Pushpa still was looking at the page, feeling it with her somewhat wrinkled hand. Putting her spectacles on her teary eyes and wiping those tears before wearing her specs. A jagged cloud covered the full moon, snatching away with it whatever of the blue moonlight that was soaking the wide backyard of Pushpa’s ancestral bungalow. She looked at the empty terrace which was looking at her blankly, with a strange sorrow in its environs.

“Why did you not tell me before, Pushpa? Did I not you with all my life? Did I not give you all the happiness you ever dreamt off? Did I not just love you with all my heart? Why did you not tell me Pushpa..?” he had said with tears in his eyes.

“I didn’t know myself…” she had said.

“Can you not live with me anymore..? Has that night changed the entire dynamics of our relationship?” he asked her with a glint of unmistakable hope in his wet eyes.

He was standing on the terrace. It was a no-moon night. They had been married for 5 years then. Wearing a white Kurta and a distinctly visible scar under his right eye, he was looking at her standing a few steps behind him, in her mauve colored Sari, her neck down and a succinct guilt in her body language as her hands kept fumbling with each others, lips pursing tightly against each other and eyes, stoic.

“It’s over then.” He said and hugged her tight. He looked into her eyes and was about to kiss her before he sternly turned back.

“I didn’t know myself, Shri…” she said.

“I wish you did...” he looked back and smiled.

Before she could blink her eyes, he jumped off. That was the last time he hugged her.
It was 30 years back. She’s been wearing a white Sari since then. What happened that night was what was written on that torn page of her diary.

She had tears in her eyes as she looked at the terrace then looking at the ground, where Shri had fallen straight into an iron rod which the construction guys had erected. The rod had pierced straight through his heart. Swoosh and he was gone. His heart bled as he died. It was bleeding ever since he read that diary page and tore it before reading the end. The moment he had reached the page’s end, he stopped tearing it.

“Is this… true...?” he had asked her, terrifyingly shocked at the revelation.

“Yes”, she said, without an iota of doubt in her mind.

He slammed the diary close and paced towards the terrace. She followed him, her mauve Sari fluttering as she ran behind him.

The torn page was fluttering. The cloud had moved, the moon lit up the backyard again. She sighed and started reading.



27th October 1973

Tonight was the weirdest night of my life. It shook me out of a few misconceptions I had been living with, sleeping with. When I boarded the train compartment of the Mumbai bound train, mom was weeping as usual. She always cries when I leave. Mothers are bizarre creatures; they cry when they shouldn’t and become stern in a situation that would bring anyone to tears. Dad came into the compartment with me. A first class compartment is quite a luxury. I was thinking about Shri as I was sitting at my window. He loves me so much. I always wanted to have a person like him to spend my life with.

I could hear the compartment door slide open. A heavy looking black suit-case was pushed in and was followed by its occupant. Our eyes met. Smiles were exchanged. I got back to reading my Mills n Boon which I have been reading after I married Shri. I can see him in all the romantic heroes in these novels. My fellow passenger was pretty modern looking, gracing these newly arrived trousers; I don’t remember what they call em, but Rajesh Khanna and Zeenat Aman have made em a rage amongst college youths. That movie also has made the college kids go in a frenzy trying drugs and all. The country is going to the dogs. Why do they make such movies? Anyways the kid with me offered me a wafer which I couldn’t refuse pushing us into a conversation. We were similar individuals with similar backgrounds and problems. My marriage though happy isn’t satisfactory in a certain way and I know the problem lies with me and not with Shri… there’s something that gives me that emptiness every time we…

The clock had hit 12 and we had come closer. Our hands holding each other and we continued to talk. I was shocked when I got to know a few things about my fellow passenger, stunned would be the word. I didn’t know how to react. I left that hand for a tense moment. But I was convinced that it was not wrong. It was just natural to get attracted. Some people land up in bad marriages which are good. And then love is not the only thing.

I went with the flow allowing a stranger to kiss me, feel my body and play with it like Shri never had. The fingers, the lips and the very passion exuded in every little touch were making me feel like a woman for the first time in my life. I never knew that I could feel this much. The train continued to speed on. So did us.

4 in the morning as we lay silently in each other’s arms, Pune arrived. The stranger got up and bid me goodbye. We exchanged addresses for further communication. But did I do the right thing? Shri loves me so much…

“Don’t feel sad Pushpa. Sometimes you never know” the stranger looking at me through the window as the train steamed out of Pune Station.

“You are right. I never knew. I can never forget you” I said, holding that hand till the platform ended.

I kept on looking at that unclear image till my eye could catch it. She was beautiful. Sukanya was rich, born and brought up in the States before she came to India for a vacation and caught the same train as mine. She was different and she told me about it. I was also the same, just that I never realized what it exactly was.

It was just that I never knew that I was a different kind of a woman. How do I tell this to Shri? He just loves me so much… God. Help me.

I will write to Sukanya tomorrow.

Tough day. The night would be tougher. He seems to be in the mood tonight.

-Pushpa.


With tears in her eyes, Pushpa closed her eyes. She reclined on the swing, pulled another blanket and closed her eyes thinking about the last thing she ever spoke to Shri.

“I didn’t know myself, Shri”

She never knew. She never wrote to Sukanya again. She never approached similar women. She stayed like any other widow would.

Maybe it was Shri’s love that kept her from doing so.
Maybe it was her way of saying, “I am sorry, Shri”.

Something she wanted to tell him in person. He never listened. She fell asleep on the swing, the terrace still staring blankly at her and one particular star shining brighter than the others.

-Nikhil Mahajan