Musing by the river

 The girl was sitting and crying by the edge of the ever-flowing river of life, crying out loud...

 

“O Mind! O Soul!..
The irony of the struggle,
Strange fatigue,
The emotional strain,
Tantalize and torment,
The desolateness of existence.”

Her mother comes and asks about her agony, she says there's no disappointment as painful as the fall that comes from great expectations. 

Lamenting she uncorks the bottle of time inside her own life's dour misery, the wrongs, mistakes, miscues, misunderstandings and muddles... she remembers her father the Commander was uncharacteristically deceived because he was gullible enough to trust salt for sugar. Her father worked astonishingly hard to provide her with a nest egg and a shelter but was outplayed by his sly youngest brother, the Dragon. The Commander who had a major life claiming heart attack, in whom the smallest exertion set him gasping breathlessly worked for her daughter’s secure life till the tag-end of his life.

After the demise of the Commander, there were no easy months in leading a life unprovided for, but the girl braved the days out and longed for the time when she will be finally given her measure of a part of happiness. The girl has a younger little chum who went and procured the possession of the mansions amid great troubles but it couldn’t be legally obtained. The possession was consolidated by yet another Captain who in her later life plays a major role in settling scores with the wicked ‘uns. Thus standing up facing the blow with the dignity she started living with “Head held high”. She thinks God will take care of her sorrows, bring bright sunbeam into her bitter wintry life and figure out the way to punish the wicked and evil but she has to remain steadfast in her intense pain and sorrows. Those who were so indifferent of her life, she remembers the wretchedness of those wicked smiles of satisfaction when she was being taken to the hospital in an emergency...those who have never known to help, who won't part a penny to save a life...the wheel of time will turn and they will face their turn.

It appears despite her terrible disease she has a longer shelf-life. She has sniffed the sour breath of death plenty of times and thus she stood upright and faced the challenges which came her way. Albeit it was hard, very, very hard to imperceptible degrees, she faced the hard World. She had to get money for food, her life-saving medicines, her medical tests, her doctors and last but not the least a shelter above her head. She had to overcome hardships in order to survive each day, with her disease and her dwindling financial conditions. She grew thin and gaunt with a contagious disease, the treatment of which was a hefty price and which lasted for years on top of all these adding to her misery...it also was painful and the magnitude of pain was such that she couldn’t tell others as they cant conjure it up in their mind...and slowly she got used to it and it became a part of her life. Her long and valiant fights in the Hospital were indeed travails under her financial and mental duress which she faced with nerve and was a success. She asked for help, to continue her survival and met with both unexplainably warm and giving, and fearfully enclosed minds, thus she continued living her life with her only camaraderie her Mum. After each triumph in her exclusive wars, she says

“I see I am going to live a little while longer, and I am glad of it for I am not going to die especially a trivial death.”

Mum talks, she listens and both are happy, grateful, pleased with one another and contented with the time. The girl and her mother mutate to survive the new reality sans companions, sans allies. When all of a sudden, the leprechaun of her little chum decides to marry in a slightly higher stratum. As he has an exceptionally fond spot in the heart of the girl and her mother, they acquiesced in his decision thinking the bride might add some poetry in the turbulent prose of their life.

The girl meanwhile engulfed by determination, has survived major disasters in a choppy life. Although the little chum lives in a different city both the girl and her mother expect the winds of compassion and love to blow their way but they face abject humiliation instead! Sometimes one confronted by things that are so far from what one expects that one’s brain is unable to process what it is looking at or what it is hearing.

The girl has desires of singing, of shouting, of flinging her arms, of expressing emphatically her pulse of joy, her surge of happiness to her little chum, but...she was appalled by the disgrace that came her way. Within a month of her little chum’s marriage there came a sudden revelation that his bride is of soft mental conditions for which she needs psychological attention and needs to just be surrounded by happy things...the harsh realities of life, the unbearable side of life is not to be revealed. The girl was told by her little chum irrespective of the period of her ongoing radiation therapy for brain tumours that if anything “bad “ is said about the girl or her Mum she is supposed to tolerate granting the fact that the bride is not in the right state of mind. The little chum started doting on his bride and speaking tenderly, stutteringly with her always and just pleasing his in-laws. He occasionally started being rude and harsh on Mum to the extent that once she lost the balance of her mind being inebriated.

The blow came when he unashamedly abashed the girl who has fought through the dark terrible days with dignity. It came as suddenly as the change in her life. He shouted being so utterly indifferent of those brain tumours, those specks of light in the image of the scan being inconsiderate of the pain which blasted in her head. Her entreaties to stop that it hurts was unheard as she bled tears of distress. It is he who dotes on the bride, he who falters while speaking to her...he who shelters the bride from the unbearable realities of life, that who shouts over the girl who fought through despicable conditions, enduring hardships over the object of money! He assumes that the responsibility given to him by the Commander, father is to be paid back! The girl is left unprovided for and whatever he has spent when she was strapped down for her shattered health is to be refunded! He is no different from those demons. He proved himself to be exactly of the same type by spewing savage and nefarious words and sought equivalence in her strife and belittled her...he compared his days of struggle, albeit penniless but working and with a healthy and sound body to her situation where she has to arrange for the money for food, her life-saving medicines, medical tests, doctors, a shelter above her head and every bric-a-brac needed for survival.

The Warrior wishes if by magic she could be whisked back to the world where the Commander of her legion is still alive and ask him “What went wrong?”

“Why didn’t you make provisions for me so that I could live with dignity?”

“Even Mum who sometimes cries over her rough and bitter son asks me to forget my tragedy.”

“How can I trust after your experience, being aware of the worldly cunning?”

“People turn infinitely mean over the object of money in tragedies of kin... Crafty people delight in it. Life has been hard for us both, terribly hard and difficult but my uncharacteristically hard life by no means can be compared to his. I understand Mum’s tenderness towards him... she cares for both but this is utterly unjust!”

A secure future and provisions give one a distinguishing air and make one's appearance further imposing that nobody could demean...Will the warrior princess like a thingummy dryad give in to it or will God give her the satisfaction of settling scores with those Dragons in her homeland and face her little chum’s unjust capriciousness and live refreshed with hope singing a tra la la tune before the final oblivion? Would she commit the mistake committed by the Commander which leads to all the sufferings?

The warrior ruminates

Weary mind grunts and groans,
Everything feels bitterly cold,
Engulfed in the gloom of doom.
Hypocrisy and cruelty,
Cowardice and defiance,
Immensely solitary existence.

Everything is mistrustful, scheming and vile.
Struck by forlornness, hazed in the maze,
Close to the dicey edge,
Viewing the hodge-podge of despicable mess,
Gleamy eyes ablaze losing everything at showdown,
The fag-end;
Unafraid, unfazed takes chance

Regression dishonour efforts make them undone
Doesn't rue the day till endgame.