The Dandelion That Cried On Canvas

(MENAFN- Kashmir Observer)
Representational photo

By Aisha Hasnain

I'm trapped in a cocoon of my own, and they don't fail to see me defeated every day.“Yeh kaisa ranj hai/ What sorrow is this?” He asks.

They ask what it is that I'm mourning. I do not find words to explain the chemistry of my tragedy. Why my lips are drooping. Why my gaze is lost. Why my eyes are pale. Why I say my chest aches. Why I barely see my neighbours. I have turned us into strangers. Ah, I look like a mystery to them. A mystery that they adore. It is sad, they say.

I need a dummy-reason for the paranormal sorrow I have felt. For the longest time I have been without a story to tell. But where can I find a parallel? It is the graveyard. I need to make someone's grave my own. Come Nooré Chashmam – the vision of my eyes – let's go.

I sit beside a grave. I stuff my mouth with my scarf and wail. I have given myself a false closure. I run my fingers through the earth. My tears burn my face. I grab the collar of my frock and I drag someone's attention:“What is it?”

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He helps me with my shawl and saves my modesty.“What is it, my dear? Is it him who you mourn every day?”

My eyes fish for the name on the stone:

“Yahya was the light of my eyes. The eyes that have turned pale since he left. My lips try to mimic the words he'd speak. Alas, I fail. I want to break the mirror in which I look good. What use is it now? This decade has been an eternity . . .”

“But . . . he died three years back?” He puts me in an awkward position. I don't let him notice that I skipped a beat:

“He had an ailment unknown to anyone but me.”

“Is that why . . .” He can't complete his words when he sees the rage in my eyes.

“I will not spare anyone who did this to me,” I whimper. And I mean it. I hug the dirt on the grave. He pleads:“Let go, my dear! It will trouble his soul. For love's sake!”

I let my soiled dress soak in water while I unwind on my bed. It is liberating to have a convincing alibi for my chronic grief. This night is peaceful. The following day I cannot wait to go back.

A woman is waiting for me. His mother.

“Oh love, are you the reason he took his life?” She laments. She has picked the news of a woman wailing by her son's grave from the air. The pain in her eyes resonates with mine, yet different in nature. She has lost a piece of her soul; I seem to have lost my entire.

“Yes, unfortunately, I am the one,” I break down and together we sit beside the grave.“A woman like you couldn't have accepted a man like him.”

I let her say,“But was it before, or after you that he took to unholy means?” I tell her exactly what she wants to hear:“I found a better suitor and he couldn't take it.”

“So he didn't die of overdose. He died of . . . love!” She can't hold back her tears or happiness.“Yes. I am sorry.” An unoriginal exclamation.

I wake up with the odourless old rose petals resting in a bowl by my side. It is the usual sight. I hold on to things and I can't let go. My mind tries to find beauty in everything, living or gone.

“Ruh rafoo nahiñ hoti/ A tear in a soul cannot be darned,” he told me once, creating another irreparable hole in my soul.

I return to Yahya's resting remains. His mother is there again, as if certain that I would show up. Wild dandelions have grown on Yahya's grave. On the only grave. Strange.

“It's handh. These leaves cure the pain in the back,” she tells me. I can't take my eyes off of this undomesticated beauty. I see my reflection in the radiant flower: Bright, untamed, bewitching and wild! It's a sign.

“I still have the roses he sent me before his death,” I tell her,“They belong with him.”

In the dead of the night, I cross the fence. I sneak into the graveyard. I lay those petals on his grave. They can rest together.

In the village, the air is thick with the story of Yahya's lover who lives with a guilty conscience to her and ever so misses the lost love of her life. Hence, why she is so grieved. That is the answer to her agony until she digs her own. Out of the abyss in her mind where she meets death every day. She is not meant to be saved.

• The author goes by her pen name, Aisha Hasnain. She can be reached at [email protected] .

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