Dedicated to: ..shuvro; who never read my posts!! :("I wonder whether he sat down on his knees.."
"Oh yes! He did", Jiah chuckled, "He was always like that. You wouldn't believe it, ..there were so many people at the Railway Station that day; ..and they all looked at us! It was so embarrasing!"
"What happenned next?"
"Oh nothing! I told him to be a proper fellow instead and to get me a ticket, my train was getting late." She paused. "And then I told him to cross the main roads properly while he would get back home, ..he was in a daze, ..you'll never believe it, all his chivalry vanished", Jiah chuckled again, "He nodded like a child!"
"And did you never feel bad about turning him down?"
Jiah blew a ring of smoke. "I never turned him down. I asked him to get back home properly. I never say a 'no'. It hurts people." She paused again. "And now I wonder, whether he at all knew that I smoked", she smiled, "But I remember having cried that night."
"Why?"
"You and your silly questions", she said, almost in a scolding tone, "Imagine what he would have gone through!"
"You didn't love him Jiah, did you?"
"Not at all! But how could that stop me from being a human and feeling for another? ..I never saw him again. Hope he is all right."
That was Jiah.
We had met two years ago. She had mailed me once regarding a few paragraphs of one of my short stories that had got published in a daily. And since then, she have gradually grown into a very close friend of me and my wife.
She was always there to help you out of an emotional trouble, to offer you a support whenever you needed it. ..To listen to your problems.
But she was terribly messy with her personal life. She lived alone. But almost always was attending to a thousand peoples' problems. She knew when the milkman's son would be needing money to buy his school books, she knew which girl had had a break up and how the situation could be handled, she even knew when the neighbours' cat was expecting.
My wife would laugh at the fact whenever I told her that Jiah needed to improve her lifestyle.
"Why don't you men leave us as we are?", she would laugh and remark, "You'll never understand why we are the persons we are!"
She'ld always validate Jiah's point.
True.
Who were men to understand women?
Even trying to solve Goldbach's conjecture was easier..
Maybe, women like Jiah had no anchor in their lives, ..they floated on! It was as if they preffered remaining unhooked by a commitment.
"Why don't you marry?", I'ld ask her.
"Marry whom? You?", she'ld casually remark with a wink.
"Well, ..there are so many men waiting out there for you!"
"They need a wife", she would reply, "Not me!"
"Don't you feel lonely?", I would ask.
"Oh, you see, I've so many things to do", she would jumble up her words.
And then she would suddenly grow silent and would cry...
During her solitary hours, she would sit down and dream. Her eyes would be carrying a vague, distant expression, ..signifying as if they looked at a place far from the cries of this ailing world.
She painted beautifully.
And I'd also seen her write short lyrical poems of one or two lines, in her personal diary, ..which she never showed to anybody.
When I had once asked her whether she had ever fallen in love, she looked at me and smiled.
"Well, I would have told a lie straightaway, ..but as this is you who's asking me, I'ld preffer to remain silent."
And that was Jiah.
She even slept with men.
People who knew this, called her a prostitute. But she always shrugged her shoulders. It was as if, somehow, she knew what she was doing and why!
You just had to go and ask her. You just had to tell her that you needed her for a night; ..that you needed a companion to cry to and to share your pains with.
First she would hit you back. Next she would avoid. Then she would try her best to make you understand and see reason. And finally, when you've got her convinced, she had no way out.
"I don't think you do this for personal pleasure?", I would ask.
"Oh yes. Absolutely. How can you stand seeing a person in pain? And that too because of yourself?
I am happy. And I am happy about the fact that I make others happy.
There's no rulebook to follow when you live your life, is there any?", she would sarcastically remark.
And thus she moulded herself to minimize a thousand peoples' pains; ..she gave away her lunch to a beggar, ..she carried grandma's basket to her doorstep, ..she managed to refuse a hundred marriage proposals with a sweet smile and without saying a 'no', ..she gave away her body to a hundred alcoholic men...
And thus, she was nobody.
A non-existent entity, ..lacking any defined shape; the spontaneous flow of Life, lacking any perticular direction.
But she was also the ocean to which all the rivers in this world emptied themselves; ..blue-green waters. That sucked you in and drowned you if you dared to fathom its depth.
I had slept with her, too, once!
I was heavily drunk. And was perticularly tense owing to a personal problem. My wife was out of station. And I went to her apartment to speak out my pains, ..I needed somebody who would simply listen to me.
And I never knew when I had broken down crying.
And she took me in.
I cried. At her lap.
She nursed me, all night. Without even asking what had happenned. As if, at her depths, she knew exactly what was disturbing me. And make no mistake, I saw tears in her eyes too. She was just pained to see a human being crying so helplessly!
And I never knew when I'd got physical!
The next morning, when I apologised heavily, ..she smiled and cut down my embarrasement by saying that it was all a dream that I had dreamt.
That evening, she visited my house to dine with us. She chatted the whole evening with my wife in the kitchen. And completely ignored me, due to some odd reason.
"See!", my wife would jokingly remark, when I would try and talk to Jiah, -- and she would grow irritated at that, -- "How you men disturbed us when we would care to spend time together!"
"Absolutely!", Jiah would chuckle, "All of them are so disturbing", ..without even caring to look at me!
And when I would grow frustrated at her floaty lifestyle, as she was one of my closest pals for whom I cared so much, she would cuttingly reply, "Stop penetrating at my private affairs. That hurts." And her eyes would suddenly moisten up, and she would grow all quiet.
And then suddenly, after a brief pause, she would laugh and say something like, "Actually, to tell you the truth, ..I am quite callous and brittle; ..and I am confused and indecisive too; ..in most of the cases I don't know what to do! And think about those good men whom I have brutally refused all my life...", she would gurgle up laughing..
...But never did I fail to see a shimmering teardrop, at a corner of her eye, when she ever did laugh out like that!
And thus, the list of her negatives went endless...
She knew each of them.
And what would strike me was whether this simple and apparently brittle girl knew her positives!
..that she was a perfect friend, a fantastic listener, a great nurse; ..a girl who was so blessed with such deep understanding of the human nature and its pitfalls...
..somebody whom everyone around her loved; ..a woman whom some of the most dissatisfied men in this world hated!
..the Giver,
..of Satisfaction and Happiness to a thousand Seekers,
..that she was Venus,
..the Eternal Symbol of Love, Beauty and Wisdom,
..of Tolerance and compassion;
..of The Feminine;
..that she was the eternal symbol of The Mystery.
