Maya sits there in one corner of her room. Holds a string, keeps pulling it, wants to stretch it without realizing that its just a string, it can't be stretched like an elastic! But she does try, every day and night with a dead hope that it will and that day she would sleep peacefully..
Its her thirtieth birthday. She wears the same gown she always wore on her birthday since her twenty-fifth. She hasn't put on weight in these five years, rather lost some..easily fits into the now over sized gown . Still holds the string, seems to be waiting for someone or something. A question on her mind, sometimes a void and sometimes a vicious smile while observing that strange string irritates me. What is she thinking! why hasn't things changed around her or its a deliberated effort to keep her surrounding meaningless. Don't know. She seems to wait for a call as the phone is at the corner of the room and she sits quite close to it. Every time there is a faintest sound, I can see a spark in her eyes. It dies even faster than her breathe. She never speaks about her gown or b'day or anything. I am curious as to why her name is Maya when she seems so dull. I may have to wait till she wants to speak up or she won't i don't know.
The phone rings on her thirtieth b'day at 11:50p.m. It rings for quite sometime till she picks it up, not allowing me to go for it. She is shocked at the continuous sound when it rings as if she had never heard a ring before. She has become weak, may be because she doesn't eat well and sleep well. She doesn't allow her parents to care for her and its a painful sight when they want to take her back to her bedroom and make her sleep. Seems like she doesn't belong to this world anymore. But now I see some lost enthusiasm in her when she holds the phone. I wait for her reaction after the conversation. But there is no conversation, she listens to someone puts back the receiver as if there was no call at all.
She struggles to go back to her room but manages to reach the door. Again goes to the corner of her room, leaves the door open for me to see what is she upto. I watch and I just watch. She pulls the string, again..harder and it breaks. She cries, cries her heart out till she isn't able to anymore. A silence and then goes to her table, takes out a diary and a pen, scribbles something and tries to sleep. 'I knew you will never come back'..that's what she writes. I don't sleep that night, just watch her sleep. She sleeps because she has no reason to be awake, the reason for which she waited years is no longer there and she is tired. I watch her. I feel I am seeing myself, my own reflection.
Maya on her 25th b'day wears a beautiful gown, waits for his call. The phone rings but its not him, its from a hospital and he is admitted, a stroke what he fights for. A partial paralysis and subsequent loss of memory. She knows what he is been doing. She was and is helpless, what she knows is she doesn't want to leave him at any cost. Maya meets him at the hospital. He smiles and tries to wish her. He gives her a string..a string he pulled out from one of her gowns when they were intimate, he had kept it close to him ever since. She takes it, identifies herself with it and says she will wait. She speaks without words that she will accept what's in-store and watches him as he sleeps. She doesn't sleep after that night. And today she sleeps like a child.
I just hope she is alive or my hope is against hers..i don't know.
Its her thirtieth birthday. She wears the same gown she always wore on her birthday since her twenty-fifth. She hasn't put on weight in these five years, rather lost some..easily fits into the now over sized gown . Still holds the string, seems to be waiting for someone or something. A question on her mind, sometimes a void and sometimes a vicious smile while observing that strange string irritates me. What is she thinking! why hasn't things changed around her or its a deliberated effort to keep her surrounding meaningless. Don't know. She seems to wait for a call as the phone is at the corner of the room and she sits quite close to it. Every time there is a faintest sound, I can see a spark in her eyes. It dies even faster than her breathe. She never speaks about her gown or b'day or anything. I am curious as to why her name is Maya when she seems so dull. I may have to wait till she wants to speak up or she won't i don't know.
The phone rings on her thirtieth b'day at 11:50p.m. It rings for quite sometime till she picks it up, not allowing me to go for it. She is shocked at the continuous sound when it rings as if she had never heard a ring before. She has become weak, may be because she doesn't eat well and sleep well. She doesn't allow her parents to care for her and its a painful sight when they want to take her back to her bedroom and make her sleep. Seems like she doesn't belong to this world anymore. But now I see some lost enthusiasm in her when she holds the phone. I wait for her reaction after the conversation. But there is no conversation, she listens to someone puts back the receiver as if there was no call at all.
She struggles to go back to her room but manages to reach the door. Again goes to the corner of her room, leaves the door open for me to see what is she upto. I watch and I just watch. She pulls the string, again..harder and it breaks. She cries, cries her heart out till she isn't able to anymore. A silence and then goes to her table, takes out a diary and a pen, scribbles something and tries to sleep. 'I knew you will never come back'..that's what she writes. I don't sleep that night, just watch her sleep. She sleeps because she has no reason to be awake, the reason for which she waited years is no longer there and she is tired. I watch her. I feel I am seeing myself, my own reflection.
Maya on her 25th b'day wears a beautiful gown, waits for his call. The phone rings but its not him, its from a hospital and he is admitted, a stroke what he fights for. A partial paralysis and subsequent loss of memory. She knows what he is been doing. She was and is helpless, what she knows is she doesn't want to leave him at any cost. Maya meets him at the hospital. He smiles and tries to wish her. He gives her a string..a string he pulled out from one of her gowns when they were intimate, he had kept it close to him ever since. She takes it, identifies herself with it and says she will wait. She speaks without words that she will accept what's in-store and watches him as he sleeps. She doesn't sleep after that night. And today she sleeps like a child.
I just hope she is alive or my hope is against hers..i don't know.
"Maya" can envelop us every moment of our lives, isn't it? :-)
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