The Terrace

As she stepped out on the terrace, the cool breeze of an early March morning caressed her face. She and Amit loved this part of the year; the winter was gone but the severe summer was still some way off. She breathed long the fresh air and turned to look at her flowers. The winter this year had been very severe and so the arrival of spring was eagerly awaited. She wondered how these tender flowers and herbs that she had so fondly planted on the terrace of her new apartment had survived this harsh winter.

She had many flower pots on her terrace and was forever planting and replanting different varieties of herbs. It had become her favourite pastime in early mornings, and later, when Amit had woken up they both used to sit here on the terrace amid flowers and take their morning tea.

Today she saw a tiny shoot peeping out from the soil. She didn't pay much attention to it; on the third morning, however, she was forced to take notice of the new plant for it had grown quite fast and now it was showing beautiful green leaves. She decided to take extra care of it as it promised to become another lovely plant, adding to the beauty of her terrace. A couple of days later, beautiful white flowers sprang up in the plant, with just the tiniest fruits at their base. She drew Amit’s attention to the new plant. He was also delighted to see the lovely white flowers, though neither of them knew the name of this plant. Amit clicked its photo and sent it to a botanist friend of his to ask what this plant was.

The reply from the botanist friend came as a shock. He told them that the plant was highly poisonous and even a light touch of its leaves or flowers was dangerous, while the ingestion of its leaves or flowers would be fatal. He advised them to get it weeded out immediately. She told her maid Rosy to get up early the next morning and weed out the plant, before their morning tea time. She also told her how poisonous the plant was and cautioned her to wear gloves while handling it.

Rosy woke up at about five the next morning and, as was her wont, lay for some time thinking about her home in Jharkhand, a thousand miles away. She thought about the small hut where she had lived till a year back with her parents and a younger sister. Her parents had sent her to this metropolis with an agent who every alternate month brought a bunch of young girls here to serve as housemaids. The employers were supposed to pay the girls’ monthly wages to the agent who kept his commission before handing over half of the balance to the maids and sent the rest to their parents back in the village. Thus the sum which Rosy got in her hands was very small as was the part which her parents got but still, the family could not afford to forego it. Rosy knew this and so she also knew that she would never be able to leave the job and go home to her family. Her life was now to serve the madam and sir from morning till night, bear madam's scolding and sir's nocturnal visits in return for her meals and a tiny room to sleep in.

Rosy came out of her ruminations with a sigh. She remembered that she had to weed out the new plant from the terrace and sweep the place before the madam got up and came to the terrace to tend to the plants. She came out to the terrace; it was a beautiful spring morning, with a gentle breeze and a sliver of the moon still visible in the sky. The terrace had never looked so beautiful. Tears sprang in her eyes as she thought of her village. The early spring mornings there were always like this when she went out to the fields with her mother and sister. She loved the growing wheat shoots in the fields and the stream of water that flowed just outside the village. She and her sister used to run around and, ignoring their mother’s caution, pluck raw fruit from the overhanging branches of the mango trees. And when it was time to gather the harvest from their tiny field she used to go with her parents to help them as they were too poor to hire paid labour.

Rosy knew that she would never be able to go back to her parents and sister or her village, as the money which the agent sent was sorely needed by them just to survive. She composed herself and taking the small khurpi started clearing out the noxious plant. How beautiful it looked, with white flowers and soft leaves, and yet, she remembered, it was so poisonous. She plucked out a flower and looked at it. It was so beautiful and so tender to touch, but why had God make it so poisonous? What would happen if she ate one, or ate more than one? Wasn't it a means of escape? Maybe she will see her parents and sister, and her village. She had heard stories from her grandmother that if you wished for something very ardently, God always fulfilled your wish. But for that to happen you needed to be pure and innocent. Was she pure enough for God to listen to her? Probably not. But even then, maybe God would pardon her sins.

Realizing that shortly madam would be coming to the terrace, Rosy plucked out all the flowers that were there in the plant and, with a prayer in her heart, ate them. She thought of her village and her parents and sister before she lay down on the terrace which was so cool and comforting in this early spring morning. It did not take long before she passed beyond all thought and all feeling, and beyond all prayers and all dreams.