Fragmentary

(In memory of my beautiful Grandmother, Asha)

She liked stories. Stories which spoke of unseen striking worlds that she longed to be a part of. She would obsess about the characters and plots after getting emerged in a fiction, ask questions incessantly and dream up new lands of shooting arrows, dragons and myths. She loved listening to old tales and her heart would burst with pure joy. Her grandmother, who visited them quite often would let her rest her head in her cotton clad folded legs and conjure up words of faraway times. She would fight sleep late at night, stifle her tiny yawns and with rigid attention listen to every word her grandmother said. When asked to fall asleep, she would fight it with fake tears, lisped language and ask her grandmother to not to take her away from the wordy reveries. And to her utmost delight, the stories of Mahabharat, Ramayana and Akbar Birbal would continue. She would clutch her fingers into her grandmother’s and very slowly as the night waned away, slip into a cozy wistful sleep with her grandmother’s verses seeping into her depth. 

One such night, her grandmother was spinning a story about a princess who upon her birth was cursed by an old witch to have an ill-fated life because of the wrongdoings done by the king against his subjects. The witch lived on a big ancient tree which loomed all over the king’s land and watched everything that its people did. As the curse took its course, the king turned into a good human being after torturously watching his daughter’s misfortune. The princess grew into a handsome woman with a lovely soul. Even though her sufferings never diminished, she did not lose her optimism for a better life. Her hardships made her love life and the people around her even more. It made her understand other’s predicaments and she helped them in every way she could. The witch watched it all from the tree atop and repented her hasty decision to swearword an innocent girl. Although, there was no way around the curse, after careful consideration she found a way to cheat the spell and ebb its impact. 

Having decided to right the wrong, the witch disembarked on the land below and made her way towards the princess. She was prepared for a voiced condemnation from the princess for the unjust curse she had webbed, but she was greeted with a warm smile and blooming attitude. After expressing a heartfelt apology, she began telling the princess her strategic scheme. In order for the curse to fade, the princess would have to travel in a magical boat into the bottom of a charmed river five times, alone. The witch knew the location of the boat, the river and also had the expertise to navigate the magical boat. However, the excursion to the bottom of the charmed river was a dangerous one and the witch warmed the princess regarding the risks involved. The princess however, with happy tears was ready at once. 

With the boat primed and the princess on it, the journey of the five stretches started. Down she went for the first time and came back with no smile, down she went for the second time and came back with teary eyes, down she went for the third time and came back with scared eyes, down she went for the fourth time and came back with angry eyes, down she went for the fifth time…

The girl had dozed off. The grandmother looked at her granddaughter sleeping peacefully in her lap. She stopped telling the story and put her neatly next to her and let her go into her world of trances. The next morning when the girl woke up, she was informed by her mother that her grandmother had left for the village. The girl created an entire ruckus about an unfinished story. Her mother consoled her by saying that her grandmother would be back soon. But nothing soothed her. She rebelled, cried and mopped. Finally, after many days she stopped sulking and started waiting with eagerness for her grandmother to come back. She waited and waited.  

One day she found her mother crying in her bedroom. She sat next to her and put her small arms around her. 

The story remained unfinished.