by Shruthi Saklecha
Bear the burden, my lover, and I promise to stand beside you through it. I promise to look at your shaky hands withstanding the weight of responsibilities, of hardships, of a chained life. I promise to look at the wrinkles on your forehead and the dark circles around your eyes. I could have chosen to ignore. Instead, I promise to stand right there and watch you walk through life.
I see your eyes following the road, but I know that your mind is back home worrying about our children’s soundless slumber. Your bare feet are pressing against the jagged stones, leaving deep impressions on your sole. You have walked miles and have a couple more to go. The heat is unbearable now. You walk in long steps in an attempt to prevent loss of water, though the sun is trying to suck it all up from your pot.
The only intact earthen pot is the one you are carrying day in and day out, to and fro. You keep pressing me to buy some pots; you say you need a few more to cook, managing all the work with one pot is getting difficult. Don’t you know by now, after all these years? You are the one to look into these meaningless matters and not bother me with it. You are the one who needs to work harder.
Looking at you as you walk now, it seems to me that the weight of the pot is further shoving you into the cracked land. When I married you, you had the most delicate hands. Today, they could be mistaken for a man’s hands. But then again I ought to remember; you were sixteen then –sprouting and untouched. Now you are just stale and spiritless.
I see the way you have tied up your hair in a messy bun, carelessly leaving a few strands out of it. Your discolored veil is swaying in the direction of your petite hips. Hips that have borne my seven children. And are yet to bear a boy. A boy is needed, you know that right?
From all that my eyes see of you, my mind calculates the duties you ought to do. The crops that you have to reap, the ones I have sown. The babies you have to feed. The boy child you are yet to bear. The pleasure that your body is bound to give me. All of it, you must do inescapably. When we got married I made you a promise, and that was that I would stand next to you and make sure you do your duties while I would watch you through it. The path you have to walk on is a trite one. Yet it has to be walked on for years.
All these years I have been watching you, your eyes had been locked to the ground and your mouth muted. I felt comfortably numb.
Suddenly, you look up, piercing into my eyes. What makes you do that today, after all these years? Only now do I see how big your eyes can get, the redness in them is jarring. They speak much without uttering at all. You make me feel shallow as you look right into the depths of my soul. And now, I am no longer comfortable.
Shruthi Saklecha is a graduate in Commerce. After graduation she realized that she is not exactly cut out for the corporate world. Therefore, she is currently applying the famous trial and error method to life by giving writing a shot. She is a community member of the Bangalore Writers Workshop a unique, effective and interactive method of bringing a group of writers together and allowing them to study the craft of writing while receiving constructive feedback on their work.
Pic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gargi/
