Harshita did not know whether the voice of her soul was calling or whether she was escaping the scars of her past. Setting one foot in front then another, she stepped out of the house. The soft wind enveloped her. She had no idea if she was heading towards the light of life or into the cold arms of death. This feeling of end, which was now fluttering in her heart like a flock of wounded birds, had never touched her the way it did today.
She kept going. It felt like someone unknown was pushing her from behind. She could see the human faces here and there resembling zombies as they seemed eager for human flesh.The rows of shops on either side of the road was making the already narrow road narrower. Harshita could hear the noise rather than the voice of the people. A baby was crying on the ground while the mother, the owner of the shop, was occupied waxing her hands. Two men were quarreling to get the bigger fish and Harshita wondered how those men could quarrel with long breaths by that stinking shop. To her it seemed it was those men, not the poor innocent dying fish, who were making the market stinkier.
Next to the busiest spot, the male owner of the vegetable shop was surrounded by numbers of women. One was bargaining about the cost and another was secretly stuffing tomatoes into her bag. “These onions are too bad,” the woman said slyly, trying to distract the vendor. There also stank the cruelty of humans. The last shop near the bridge belonged to the cruelest shopkeeper. At any time one saw him, the vendor would be rotating one of his hands to make jalebi while with another trying to toss the wanted things haphazardly. The three-legged dog had become a nuisance for him. The dog always lingered about his shop, drops of muddy water dripping down his fur. His hair had totally got tucked together as if they were not hair but an extension of his skin, and his one leg had been cursed.
With few more shops, the narrow road came to an end at the slope that opened to the suspension bridge. Harshita’s heart started to beat harder. The great roar of the river was trying to reach her as if it were making an effort to speak to her. When she reached the centre of the bridge, a different kind of joy awoke inside her. The same dazzling joy that she had suppressed from flowing out for a long time.
MASTER OF VOICES
She stopped there and gazed at the beautiful hill that had been standing since time immemorial, since at least for more than 19 years as far as she knew. How peacefully it stood as if it had embraced her little home town in its lap and knew it for ever and ever! The hill was happier, happier with the thousands of nightingale’s songs, with the rhythmic rustle of leaves, and happiest when the water of the river caressed her belly and gently tickled it. As these thoughts flowed into her, Harshita realized how calm the river had been even during its difficult journey through the hills. She watched the rippling waves of the river that heaved a miraculous song of victory to each other. She could not tear away her gaze from the perfection of waves as if every drop here was destined to deliver a message into her soul. This gaze was what her eyes were missing for years when she was away from home.
The sun was pouring its gilded light on the river with heavenly clarity, and this glow, like her mother’s kiss, stirred every atom, every fiber and every nerve of Harshita's heart. She could hear her soul's song now. She recognized that it was this divine light which had been taken away from her soul. Her feelings naturally drifted towards the time when her mother had taught her to see the best in people. “Even do good to people who are bad to you,” her mother had taught her, and she had been right. In a life filled with struggles, where someone else would already have given up, her mother had found ways to smile at small things. That mesmerizing smile of her mother, bathed with the pure music of the river, now glowed in Harshita's soul.
Indeed, she had always done the best for others, and things had been well for her. Joy, especially after secondary school which she had passed with colorful results, had come into her life. With this she had further developed strong faith in people. Now, however, standing on the bridge as she examined the events that had followed after her secondary school, she understood the wrong that was done to her. Some people, without even a scratch of thought for her well-being, had sucked out the light of her soul and filled it with dark clouds. But now, as the light danced with the waves of the river, she could already feel the revived brilliance of her soul. As if the sun that was pouring on the river was also now nourishing her to the depth.
“This sun of your soul will never drown behind clouds,” Harshita heard her inner voice. Motivated as she was by the presence of the river, she immersed further into the embrace of this warming sun. She did not want to remain buried in the clouds, away from this transformative truth. So she contemplated the struggles through which she had managed to tear away the suffocating clouds. She knew now that there was someone, full of genuine love, who had understood her soul at the time when she herself had forgotten it. The hardships had been conquered with grace and she understood with perfect clarity that had this man not come, darkness might have forever engulfed the light that now poured all through her. “This person is mine,” she thought. “Someone who fought for me.”
With the sun illuminating the river and her soul, she again heard those wise words of her mother: “Even do good to people who are bad to you.” Yes, she will never cease to do that. Her soul, the splendid glow, is hers, just as the full moon that soothed her in her hard times is hers too.
Feeling a wave of happiness, she imagined the moon sprinkling its silvery glint on this river. Many a time, while away from home in a distant place, she had visualized this moonlit river. During her pain, the moon had offered her the best company. Every night felt special. Every night remembering the river and her hometown calmed her heart. Harshita felt someone was there to support her, with selfless love, even when she got wrong rather than blaming me. That was the time maybe when she felt the clouds that were killing her soul began to clear away. Gazing at the moon it had felt how beautiful every creature of this universe was. Its soft shine caressed her heart. How would a river be if it forgets to roar, how would hills look when trees never grew leaves, how would the world look when the sun forgets to shine?
Everything felt so clear now, as if a crushing rock of clouds had lifted off her soul. The river, drunk with the enigma of the sun, drifted with the serenity that was now mirrored in her soul. The uncertainty of a moment ago melted and then she grasped the reason she was drawn to the bridge: it was not by the desire to end her life, but by the beautiful song of her soul. Amid this sunlit day, like the eternal truth of the universe, stood her mother in her heart, smiling. She now saw her dream, the place she wanted to reach in this life.
This calming environment, this singing river, those brilliant rays of the sun dancing on the ripples, the nightingales, their music, their innocence, the hills of her hometown that surrounded- everything was in her. No matter where she goes, no matter how the world treats her and where she goes, this universe with all her stars and suns would keep shining in her soul. This simple thought brought a surge of joy into her.
As Harshita stepped back from the bridge, she could feel the softness around her. How calm was that narrow road now! Vendors were inside the shop busily managing their own works. Very few people were ambling around, softly and with a smile. Harshita felt something was following her and when she turned back it was the same three-legged dog with soft tears in its twinkling eyes, as if it too knew and understood what she had realized on the bridge. As if it too had heard the music of her soul that she had heard while being one with the river.
