Eternal …!

The first drop of monsoon had fallen some days ago and the trees never dried after that. This was a never ending season of showers with only difference being the amount of liters it poured! Sometimes the clouds did give way to dearly moon and it was one such night when the moon shined at her glorious best reflecting each drop that rained down. From a point below the banyan tree the leaves managed to look green like it was a bright sunny day! As her eyes rolled over from one corner of the sky to the other standing beneath the banyan tree that sheltered her for past few hours, she pictured the droplets that fell at the tail of innumerous lightening!

Whether she cried or the rain-gods did, she didn’t know! She was drenched like a duck and the sari stuck to her sleek tender body like petals to a flower! Each droplet at the tip of her eyelash resembled the morning mist on the tiny leaves! Her red lips turned crimson due to long cleansing! It was difficult on that rainy night to say if the glorious most was she or the moon! She sometimes stood still and for a while walked… the walk turned nearly into a vibrant motion. For the tunes of falling drops and ice mass she danced into pleasure. She moved on the grass bed with open arms as she reminded him of a peacock!

It was a wait that brought her every night onto the banyan tree where they had danced, chatted, made love and rested on each other’s shoulders. It was a wait that told her he would come… without knowing anything about his whereabouts she waited blindly for many months. Each night different and each wait was fresh as she smiled at far off distance as though she saw him. It was a gesture of being teased by him that she threw!

After pouring for so many days it was an unusual scene for her to feel the mute night for the rains had stopped! All of a sudden it looked scary and she hid herself beneath the rock bench down the tree. Only interruption to the silence was her brisk breaths until those footsteps that were growing into her ears…

Someone was walking down to her and her lips broadened with a mild smile. Hopes multiplied and heartbeat was faster and she was nodding as if welcoming the walker! As he approached the bench, he stood beneath the banyan tree and uncovered his flute. With a mere contented feel he whistled the flute gently once. This time the lightening was in her nerves!

He blew the second time and her hand had moved by itself. There was a third blow when she stretched her leg. The fourth blow was accompanied by the resonance of her bangles. Next few blows over the flute had brought her to a world of euphony… immersed in his flute he never stopped and she had picked up a quixotic dance! Both were going around the banyan tree without a glimpse of each other…

She almost fell in his arms as he held his flute away! It was an embrace that was long waiting!

‘I knew you would come back…’ she whispered.

‘I’ve come to say good-bye’ he countered her thoughts.

‘I’m going away and to marry another girl…’

She was now one foot away and for the first time their eyes met. She swallowed all that she wanted to say and he posed a warming smile. The distance started growing as they walked unconsciously, away from each other. The mammoth banyan tree stood there as the symbol of an eternal love that kept growing with the distance and the night had sunk in hell for her!

Radha was never made for him. And Krishna was meant for someone else…