PARAGNAYER KOTHA

Neeru sits here, now and then. Thoughts aloft. If women coming to the ghat giggle and whisper about her tainted sari, her burly legs, loose bun and dazed look, she would continue with her business; to sit cross- legged and ponder. In her soundest of sleeps, when the owl hoots and wit scampers up in her pouting chest, she knows they are women. Just Women. Days of pukur- par lust continues unless she realizes, Nemesis that she had read of in books smuggled out of kaku’s trunk, doesn’t have a scheme of hauling up her family and their familiar indifference. Care was no more needed in her life as the past thirteen years had made its’ absence a wicked habit. She had questions, so many of them, forgetting where they headed to. She had needs satisfactorily fulfilled, brutally dismissed. How much she longed to grab Ma by the waist, press her face against her belly and tell her of poems she could weave. That she could rhyme 'ishkabon' with 'nirjaton', that she had dipped her foot into the lake water and a fish tried nibbling it, her empty stomach twitched in joy. How much she longed for Ma to make her feel special. Her elder sister Shyamoli and little brother, who though ten was posed of three by people, made the sibling bond. Neeru was never missed in their late night plans of deciding on secluded places for playing lukochuri. She was assured that Didi and Butu were the entwined banyan roots. She wasn’t full of anguish. Too full for it. Too full for words. Even if she had a functional tongue, she wondered, would she want to speak! Complaining a luxury hence. Palm trees gossip, the water reels, Neeru wonders.