‘That must be another spirit approaching,’ Kalai, the wise one speaks. ‘Jyothi, it could be Dhana,’ Meenu seems anxious. ‘No. When it is him, I would know.’ Their conversation then moves to the bond I shared with Dhana. They speak of our connection. I hear someone mention ‘pure’. Yes; it was immaculate. It was platonic. Our love was sacred. Some invisible, muffled channel in the cosmos connected my thoughts to his mind. We became one. One entity bearing a male half and a female half, but the same conscience; like Arthanareeswarar, the half-male, half-female deity who lives in the heart of our Tamil land. The howl of the wind gets intense; it lashes the branches with a vengeance. At a distance, a perturbed infant hollers. The gust gets stronger and in a flash, like the sudden flare of the lightning, there is another woman by our side. Her sobs get loud and bawl noisy enough to tear the human eardrums. We leave her alone. We have seen this happen. In a few hours, when the moon is bright above, she narrates her tale. She wails and whimpers as she JANUARY 2021
speaks of the one man she truly loved. ‘I did not want to die. I was persistent in putting up a brave fight,’ she recollects. ‘He may belong to another caste, but he has a job at the public sector energy plant. Our the plan was to marry as soon as I found a teaching job.’ ‘You should have left home after graduation.’ Kalai intervenes. ‘He was against it. Moreover, he did not want to hurt my family. He was going to approach the the traditional way along with his parents.’ ‘What have they done to him?’ Meenu is quick to ask. ‘He is away on an official tour. Will they harm him?’ ‘They may. They may not.’ Kalai answers. ‘Jyothi’s Dhana was hit and buried in her field where nobody would suspect.’ Meenu recollects. ‘But…. Law?’ the newbie whimpers. There is a collective round of laughter. She is embarrassed. STORIZEN MAGAZINE
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