"Black and White Memory"
Like every evening, the doba at the namghar had been beaten. With that, it was a message to all the villagers that darkness was just some moments away. The cowherds marched home with their cattle, the men returned to their homes after a long, hard day in the fields. The women of the village broke away from their evening gossip to tend to their beloved husbands.
Ganga, too, went inside the house, straight to the Guxaai Ghar, completed the customary ritual of lighting the sakis, and sang the hymns. When she went outside to the square-tiled verandah, it was already evening. She looked towards her neighbour Protima, a sister more than a neighbour, with whom she had spent her youth; together, they had seen each other give birth to children after children. Beautiful Protima, whose cheeks were whiter than milk, and which had flushed with the happiness of a newly-wed, long ago, hadnow turned into a dusky old woman, marked by the wrinkled skin and the red-betel-nut coloured teeth. She had knelt down on the ground to pay her respects to the Almighty. Ganga looked at the scene, a lump forming in her throat, as she suddenly remembered what Bohag had been like many years ago.
She had hours to kill before the night came, carrying with it the rains and the wind. With no errands left to do, she decided to clean up her trunk, the large steel trunk that she had brought with her on her marriage. She never opened it on the evenings, but today she felt the strong urge to open the trunk, look at everything again, and live a little bit of the past. A past, some parts of which she had forgotten and some parts, she remembered all too well.
Bohag was so different in her times, when the road that ran in frontof her house was only a narrow path of small rocks and pebbles. Bohag was so different with her husband. Herhands trembled when she picked up an old black and white photo in her hands. Just an old memory she had been preserving. A beautiful black and white memory, of her sitting on a chair and her husband standing near her. She was just 16 years old when shewas married off. She blushed when she looked at the newly-wed girl frozen in time in front of her. A little girl, draped in a cream-coloured paatmekhela sador, the one she wore onher wedding day. Her eyes reacheddown to the tender hands of the girl, half-covered by bangles, and then thelong stretch of vermilion on her forehead, which could still be spotted bright in the black and white picture. And the tall man, in a white dhoti and suriya, standing tall, just next to her, his youth and the advent of manliness in the slender framework of the body, captured forever in a black and white memory.
It had been ten years since Ganga had last seen the vermilion on her head. Like a snail, time never seemed to end. Did she remember his voice? Ganga asked herself. Now she looked at the ceiling of the dimly-lit room, contemplating hard, trying to remember what he sounded like. She closed her eyes, and for an instant, everything around her felt numb, the twitter of the birds faded away in the distance, the sound of the rotatingfan wasn’t what she could hear. She could only hear someone calling her, a faint distant call, yet humble and simple in its style of affection.
"Ganga, O' Ganga!"
She shook her head. She closed her eyes again. Her wrinkled skin wrinkled further in contemplation. She still couldn't hear him. It was her own voice in her mind, imitating her late husband’s voice. She was too old to keep fighting, so she gave up. It shook something inside her to accept that she didn't remember his voice anymore.
"Aita (Grand Mother), do you still love 'Koka' (Grand Father)?” Her 16-year-old grand daughter’s voice echoed in her mind. Ganga had laughed it off then. Never the less, inside, at that moment, she felt a turmoil brewing, waiting to be released. Yet, shestopped. Ganga dismissed the thought. Ganga couldn’t answer it then, and she couldn't answer it now. Perhaps, she knew the answer. And the day she became aware of that, was the day she stopped looking for answers. It had been ten long years; she vaguely remembered his face, a face she once so dearly loved, but had never expressed. Love between husband and wife was not expressed in her times. But she knew that she had loved him, her husband. Yes, loved him. She remembered all too well, the days shehad spent with him. She was 16 then, a tender age. She remembered all toowell, how he had taken her to the small landing that they had on the opposite banks of the Brahmaputra, on a small boat. She was 18 then, a maturing age. On that landing, where they had a very small house, was the first time they had made love, in the soft dim light of the lamp. He had waited for her to grow up, restraining himself, his long deep desires, because of her tender age. She knew it; all of it, for it was so evident that night.
She remembered all too well, her blush, his blush, when they held their first-born together. She was 21 then, the features of her body slowly taking the shape of a woman, a mother. Together, they had brought up five of their children, they fought, but always kept up with each other. That man, she knew she had loved. But like a Tsunami, time sweeps everything on its way, and in her case as well, it did.
When she looked for the answers, that had stoked her long ago, she felt guilty, ashamed of how she could forget her husband, a man who carried his love for her until his last breath. How could she not remember his voice? The question that her grand daughter had asked her was frozen in time. She knew the answer, but she found it so hard to accept.
Going outside to the verandah, she looked towards the starry heaven and let the cool breeze of Spring calm her down. Bohag was so different ten years ago. Bohag was so different with him!