Till Stars Meet

Both were so young- Fairy of twelve probably; and Doll, a year younger. And they somehow managed to get to the black busy road where Lorries and trucks would pass so fast, taking the air away with them. Fairy led herself through those small bushes to this highway and Doll followed her. 

They waited there till some yellow lights’ couple could be seen pacing towards them, presumably of some car. Fairy asked her younger companion to wait while she herself went rushing to the other edge across the road when finally the pacing car hit her. 

Hurray! - They made it.

The swish of that vehicle and the fall of her friend filled the thrill in the younger. She was shocked at what happened all of a sudden. Her friend had got wounds. Doll’s eyes were shining softly and her pretty hair curled roughly over her even prettier face.

“That was it” – Exclaimed little Fairy with a hundred Rupee note in her hands and a widening smile on her face. The car was gone.

All you have to do is just go rushing into some car and carefully arguing to get the money you deserved for being hit. You can at times even threaten the man behind the steering with blusters of calling the police. These poor little girls didn’t have a phone to call though, but it would evidently workout.

“Does it ache?” – Doll asked her friend lightly, touching her wound softly and gently.

“It does but that’s worth the fruit; you know it takes rain for the blithesome rainbow to be seen, doesn’t it?” Fairy replied smiling lovingly.

On hearing those words of Fairy, the shrunken self of Doll started to open towards the world outside, just like a blooming flower of spring, as she gathered hope and boldness.

The sky was imbued with pink and orange hues when little winsome Doll had set out to play but now the moon was up and she hadn’t even played that day. But all she got was a maneuver and her head was dreaming of her family’s prosperous future. She could bring to her mother so much money; buy her the helpful tongs and even some pretty new clothes. So nice would it be to wear something other than those earth-colored rags.

Doll loved her mother very much and her mother loved her even more. Her mother was her everything while dad not even cared for her birth. The in-laws of her mother wanted Doll’s abortion. Her mother pleaded, bowed in front of them, joined her hands and even begged for the little angel’s survival. She just wanted to give the seed a life to sprout.

Finally, she ran away- just vanished into nothingness and then Doll’s arrival had bloomed her abode with ecstatic blissful springing blossom. 

And now as the two comrades walked on the muddy path, smudging their bare feet and chirping as they went towards Fairy’s home, everything looked lovely. After a tender farewell, Doll was on her way to her own tumble down hut where she and her mother lived happily. They weren’t alone for they were two. Doll went smiling with the remembrance of the content with which Fairy’s parents just welcomed their daughter in.

So lovely was it to get the warmth of a daddy, she thought, but hers was not with her. She had not seen her dad right from her birth, but still she loved him. Her mother had told her that he was a good man. How nice of her was it that her mother forgot everything which he actually did to kill her when Doll was inside her, from pushing her off from the balcony to setting her alive on fire.

And now Doll reached home and met her mother, at the threshold, who stood there waiting and on her arrival, embraced her tightly with a beaming face and moistening eyes.

The wholeness of her breath, her life, her hope, her dream, and the star of her eye – Doll was her mother’s ‘princess’. Doll- as mother called her first – “Look, I got a glistering doll in the lap of starry night” – when she was born on the dust of the footpath. 

Doll didn’t own a name, just like her mother or her friend. Their loved ones would call them so. They were girls and so why should they deserve a name? The idle village men would call them ‘brat’ and others- ‘load’ or some- ‘blur’, taint you see, or ‘black’ even, as these guys would go past those flushed buds, viewing them with shrewd glances.

Doll didn’t care about all such things. She knew, black isn’t just for darkness, black means bold! Those ignorant might call them any, but she was ‘Doll’ and her friend- ‘Fairy’. 

As she entered into her merry abode, there was on the floor for her, a merry meal- bread and milk. That day, her mother earned just that enough to buy that only so there wasn’t any meal for herself that night. But nevertheless she was content; and viewing her child having that bread, quenched all her hunger. 

The starry night with all her jewels and pearls and the beautiful moon went off and the sun shone bright the following day as if it was his last. Bidding a tearful farewell, he was gone and the moon was up again. 

Doll was there on the highway. It was her turn that night. She was alone. Fairy wasn’t with her for some reason. She could view the couple of yellow lights running towards her at a fast pace. Her heart beat so fast and heavily that she could exactly feel those thrushes against her bosom. She counted- one, two and the final ‘three’ but wasn’t able to make her feet move and the car went swishing past by. Two more of them went by like that.

But she has to do it. There was coming another with a big yellow couple, bigger than those of others. Her heart would just come out. She rushed and the vehicle honked.

It was a truck… and now she lay there cold amidst the pool of her own red blood. Drop by drop it was falling down and she was heading towards the new death town. Drop by drop it was falling down and she was leaving the earth, but what matters- she was a girl; her existence wasn’t of much worth. And she was losing her grip on life as she was rising up, above gray clouds, above the hate, above the fear and into The God.

Many winters and summers grew and fell. But her mother was there at the threshold standing in her wait. Her famished self and watery eyes, poor black face but hope anigh, told a tale better than any. She was waiting for her doll, her Doll. Her eyes were evidently fixed on that star filled sky and her ears were being soothed by their heavenly melody. Her soul could listen to that music of heaven.

Can you too hear that just as I do? - There- quite far… deep into the background. Close your eyes… and now there’s all black to infinity. Mute the world… and there’s now all silence, you see. At back there, so far, beyond thy reach will you hear the heaven’s melody- so calm and tranquil, ambrosial purity.

And her mother stood there. She would probably be standing there only, waiting for her doll’s arrival, till souls meet… till stars meet…