Home they brought her warrior dead

It was the night before Diwali and she had been back from the hostel the same evening. Happy and excited as one can only be during the festive season. She had chatted away the whole evening animatedly but her ears were on the road. Waiting. Waiting for the sound of the bike stopping. Waiting for the main gate to creak open. Waiting for the door bell to ring. The three sounds had a peculiar note and an octave – a music that no one else could match. As soon as the first note reached her, her body would tense with anticipation and excitement, the second note would bring out the goose bumps all over and at the third note she would occupy herself with something totally irrelevant just to appear as if nothing out of ordinary had happened. As if she wasn’t expecting him. As if she didn’t care. As if… But then the whole world (including him) knew the truth. That he was the person outside family she wished to see first every time on each trip home. That she studiously avoided every outsider until she had seen him. That she grew irritable and withdrawn with each second that passed until he came and set everything right.Her personal God.

Same with today. A slight chill in the air that was shattered with an occasional cracker and the frequent sounds of people heading to the market in preparation for the big day. It has been three hours that she had entered home and the time had come for the clock to go super slow. The animated conversation was drying out…She consoled herself with the thought that he might be out as well buying gifts and sweets for his family. She smiled at the thought because she knew the greater the wait the sweeter was the meeting. But then patience had its own limits especially when the clock was slow. When 3 hours converted themselves into 5 she did something she had never done before. In a carefully packaged conversation she asked her mother about him in general…how he was doing and things like that; making sure not to appear concerned or to make an eye contact. Her mother answered also, without the eye contact with just a plain “Hmmmm” and “this and that” which kind of relieved her. To her it meant that her mother had not understood the significance of the question or the fact that she was almost at bursting point. Bursting to see him. To hear him. To appear unconcerned before him. To see that smile that told her that he knew everything that lay beneath that facade.

But the day passed. Dinner time came and went. The lights were switched off for the day. Her mood (and mouth) was already switched off. She felt tired more out of waiting than out of the journey. She curled up against her mother (another of those holiday pleasures she looked ahead to) and said goodnight. Her mother repeated the greeting but something unsaid hung in the air, in the silence around. After 5 minutes she hears her mother, “Gauri, I did not tell you something…” She turns to face her mother thinking it to something inconsequential happening at the school. Another moment of silence as she thinks again about him and the fact that he made her wait so long and her mother things how to say it across.

“Gauri, sir is no more. He died in a road accident in August”. It takes a moment to register because her mind is teasing her with the images of what the meeting would be like after this long wait. The moment of registration passes too quickly (not slowly as she had seen in Hindi movies). There is no shattering sound or anything to signify that something life changing has just been said. All she hears is her mother sobbing – her mother whom she had never seen crying (or heard crying in the darkness). She holds her mother close as the entire story of the accident (and what happened after and before) comes tumbling out. Her mother says sorry too many times for not telling earlier (obviously she had presumed that the child will not be able to take it well, that too at the hostel). Hearing those sorrys and sobs she is grateful to her mother for having chosen this moment to tell her. At least she can hide her dry eyes and “matter of fact” attitude under the cover of darkness. After a while peace returns. She knows her mother is watching her in the darkness waiting for the tears to flood her eyes so that she can put an arm around and console. But that moment never comes. Atleast not on that night or the next or the one after that.

She closes her eyes and tries to bring out the grief. But it refuses to come. She is reminded of a poem she had read in Standard VII; “Home they brought her warrior dead…she neither swooned nor cried…” She could not recall the rest of the poem but she felt that the only reason these two lines had stayed in her head for these 8 long years so as to block out the grief. But unlike the poem the “warrior” was not her husband and there was no offspring to elicit tears. The warrior here was her Maths teacher from school – her mother’s colleague – a family friend-the “family” outside family. The link between the mother and daughter for his age equaled the sum of their ages divided by two. The link was gone. So was the peculiar music of the bike stopping-gate screeching-bell ringing-body tensing-hormones rushing.

At that moment she realized that the weariness that had been hanging all evening was gone. The weariness that had come because of the wait. No more waiting, no more weariness. Ever… In a way she felt ashamed about it- that she could feel such lightness in the event of a tragedy. She tried to fill her mind with his images –the first time she had spoken to him, the last she had seen him, the Maths-magic he did, his always being supportive of her even when she was wrong, his scoldings, his attempts to get her interested in things other than books…the list was endless. But they were all happy memories – so happy that they had the power to eclipse the reality of a life without him.

After a while she gave up that effort to cry or to feel sad. His memories, words and emotional presence were stronger than his absence. And she knew that if there was anything called as a spirit then it must be right there beside her. With this thought she slept…peacefully. Of course she would miss him but then there were to be no more waits, no more efforts to find ways to see him.