Love

It was her eyes that met you first. Like marbles on sand, they stood out, placid and silent,  as if weighed down by sorrow. You wondered what they had seen, and what was the pain that held them hostage. You did not ask. You noticed her warm brown skin and her thick long hair, braided on two sides. There was no smile that was forthcoming.

You heard it said that it was her father’s demise that had brought her to your town. In the classroom of a new school building, with its freshly painted walls, she sat quietly, absorbed in her work and unperturbed by the hustle and bustle of youthfulness around her. You saw it fit like everybody else to give her space to come to terms with everything new in her life.

After a few days, you noticed that she was slowly stepping out from the confines of her sorrow, showing signs of life and vigor. There emerged the signs of a very bright and motivated student, and a good natured self, that tended to look like gullibility at times. Often it seemed as if she was too good to be true.

It was the last year of high school and a simple friendship took root between the two of you. You yourself had just overcome the awkward period of being a new student, and it had taken you around two years to do it. You reveled in the newfound friendships with many others, and she was not too important in the overall scheme of things.

The academic year soon came to a close bringing with it many celebrations and the great fanfare associated with being an outgoing batch. An excursion was planned to a waterfall a few hours away. The trip took a fateful turn for one family. A young man who was one of the quietest in the class, and who was ill during the trip, fell down from a rock on which he was solemnly perched for the lack of energy to join his boisterous classmates frolicking in the water. His friends did not realize that he had fallen, until it was too late. They could only bring out his lifeless body from the depths of the water. It shocked everybody to their core. It devastated his close friends.

On the day of the funeral, you went with the rest of your classmates to the home of this young man, the oldest of the two children to his widowed mother.The house was a modest, traditional one, set in the countryside. You gingerly went into the house, with the rest of your classmates. You stood to a side and watched the mother lying on a mat spread on the floor, rolling to and fro in her traditional white sari, her hair in disarray, and wailing with her eyes shut. All of you were dumbstruck. There was nothing to say. You felt as if you had let her down by not safeguarding her only son.

The air around you felt tight. The warmth and odor of the bodies around you stood heavy, adding to your stupor. All of a sudden, you noticed a movement from your midst. It was her. You saw her move towards the mother slowly. She sat down beside her. She moved her right arm and rested the palm of her hand on the mother’s head. She began stroking her hair gently, comforting her, trying to calm her.

You did not take your eyes away. You could not. There in that moment of pure compassion, she took on a different light. She seemed so different from everybody else. Life seemed to have taught her something that the others were not aware of. She looked so mature, so intent, and so serious in her mission to comfort. There she sat for quite a while as the rest of you watched.

They took his body away to cremate it. It was time for the rest of you to go home. Like young and immature school children, you forgot the mother’s sorrow and your own too. You laughed and talked as you journeyed home.

Your friendship with her found a new meaning after that. You were in love with this kind soul whose good natured spirit had seemed so unnatural before. There were many days that you spent getting to know her anew. You heard about her father, and you heard about her many old friends left behind.  You bonded with her mother and her sister. You spent many lazy afternoons in the warmth of her simple home, you happily joined the family at lunch time, much to chagrin of your parents who warned you against being emotionally involved with friends.

So many friends after that one. So many beautiful souls that beckoned you to something more. Something you did not possess in terms of character. So many loves.