She danced and danced and danced quietly, softly striking the ground so that she doesn’t wake anyone. If you were to look at her from where I am, she was far away, far far away from reality. The night was cajoling the silence in which if you listen very carefully you will be able to hear her breathing hard into the silence. The sky was wearing distinct silver that glided in and out of the tender clouds.
It seemed like a dream. I watch her every night doing the same thing from my window. It has become a sort of obsession, a ritual for me. My sleep never goes beyond midnight, I often wake up in a semi disturbed state. I am not afraid of nightmares but it is the lack of them that scares me. There used to be a time I remember I used to wake up screaming as a child at the slightest element of fear in sleep when my mother would come in rushing and take me into her arms and sing me to sleep. Strange as it is this journey called life! Today I am craving for a nightmare, a dream or a little something to think…but no ….
I haven’t had a single dream or nightmare in the past 3 years. My world has come to be this cage with grey walls. I have a window, and this has come to be the most important part of my existence…my dialogue box with the world! I notice things I never noticed in the whole of 30 years that I lived on this planet… Now I talk to the wind, the moon, the sky and to shadows…
I would have laughed at myself a few years back. But now I have befriended this strangeness! I am learning to confront the darkness within me. But its never easy to pretend for such a long time. I find myself staring at the grey ceiling and counting my breaths for hours at a time…I sleep and then wake up with a start and stare into the oblivion. Endless monotony of the days, and long dragging nights when I wished I could at least have a nightmare…
I was almost at the end of sanity with this dreadful existence when I heard something faint in the silence of one of those torturous nights..I remember reaching up the window and scanning the deserted horizon! It took me a while to spot her….far away from the big barracades, on what seemed like a roof of a tall orange house, she was dancing away…I could hear the sound of her tender anklets softly piercing the silence. She was tiny, about 12 or 13 with long dark hair. I could not see her face, too far for the reach of my eyes…but I knew she was beautiful! Her arms cut through the mist while her body and her feet weaved a rhythmic phenomenon…There was no one to watch her except me and this excited me for no apparent reason. Under the starry sky there she was dancing oblivious to all like a divine spectacle…I could feel my heart race…
That was the first time I saw her, she danced until the dawn and I watched her all the while, and just before sunrise she stopped and fell on the ground only to rise again in couple of minutes and disappear into the misty morning! I felt a little wetness on my cheeks, I was crying for the first time in a long time. I sobbed and sobbed until I slipped into a state of trance….I knew I had stumbled onto something…I didn’t know what …but I knew it was special…!
From that day onwards, I have seen her many times. I would wake in the middle of the night floating in a state midway between dream and wakefulness…and find her there again!
It was not long before that my term of 6 years sped by and finally the day arrived when I would be able to bid farewell to these grey walls. I couldn’t say I was particularly excited. I was glad at the prospect of seeing the world again but strangely was quite sad to come to terms that I will miss the little window. I remember vividly, I changed into my civilian clothes that I wore into this place 6 years back, they felt strangely unfitting! I collected the little sum of money I had earned by doing little things around this jail for the last six years. I felt like a changed man. I walked out of those huge gates and took a deep breath; I knew what I had to do next!
I walked past the by lanes and the streets until I reached the big orange building. I walked around the brown fence, my eyes scanning for a proper glimpse of the angel that had kept me sane all these years! I was disappointed at not finding her anywhere. I turned around to walk away, when I heard the faint sound of anklets…I quickly turned and there she was!
She stood in the kitchen blowing into the black smoke! Her eyes were like diamonds and her face so radiant! She looked up at me, and stared blankly. I felt my ankles going weak and my throat drying up. That moment lingered on for sometime, it was like a thousand prayers rose up in the air in silence. However there was a certain sadness about those eyes. I heard some one from the house call out her name. She walked away jingling her anklets.
I walked through to the front of the house and I stole glance at her again, there she was as beautiful as she could be, she was scrubbing the floor and her hands were all covered in dust and water. I waited hoping she would look up! But she never did… Even as she moved about kneeling on the floor covered in dust her anklets jingled gently as if in a rhythm...
That day I was seized with an inexplicable sorrow. I found this new found freedom to be boring and unexciting. There was all the freedom around me that I could ever want, that I always longed for, but something was not quite right. All I could think of was her, and the sorrow in her eyes. I felt like a picture with no colours in it. My dancing vision came to an abrupt end!
I went to sleep that night with a numbing pain down my throat. My eyelids heaved of weariness. I felt lost …The night drew the same old curtain of darkness over my eyes. Once… again!
Next Morning at the Orange House:
Maya woke up with a start at the sound of the alarm bell; she was still tired as she had managed to catch only 2 hours of sleep. She likes the full moon and she loses herself to the rhythm on such misty nights with full moon like last night…
She looked at the alarm once again and started up from her mat on the floor, she was late by half an hour. She must get things done before the other wake up lest she will get told off badly like yesterday! She felt a surge of tiredness through her little body. Her legs were aching badly, but she knew she must go on, after all there is no place for aches and pains when you are fighting for a living to appease the hunger of a whole family!She closed her eyes and chanted her prayers. She looked out through the window; it was fairly dark and misty outside...
She opened the front door to go get the milk. The cats were lying smug at the corner of the veranda huddled up against the wall. In the distance she heard sounds from the nearby temple! She fetched milk and turned around to go in when her leg felt something on the floor. It was a bag and an envelope. She knelt down and took the bag in her hands…she knew straight away what was inside! Her eyes widened and glistened in the twilight, she wasn’t sure whether to open the envelope with it or not. She could feel her heart pumping. She resisted a lot but could not help her selves…she opened the bag and there it was…she recognised them from the muffled noses they made when she handled the bag…a pair of new and exquisite pair of dancing bells…!
She opened the envelope and there was a note in that which read
“ To my unknown Saving Grace, when you weaved magic in the night I wondered if I was dreaming…I thought perhaps you are an illusion! In my moments of insanity you put magic into my being….I don’t know how! Thank you for keeping me sane! I believe, no, I know, you are my guardian angel!
We both are the prisoners of night, you weaved magic in my darkest moments...its my turn now to put a little magic into yours...…I don’t know if I will see you ever again…but I know this for sure- when you dance with these bells on and if I listen very carefully in the silence I will be able to hear them chanting a rhythm in the darkness…!”
Maya was benumbed! Little pearls of tears rolled down those rosy cheeks…. she felt overwhelmed by the kindness! She looked at the bells again and talked to them with twinkling eyes. The bells made a muffled jingle as if they were smiling back at her! In the distance a prayer rose from the nearby temple …Om Asathoma Sath Gamaya…Thamasoma Jyothirgamaya…Mrithyorma Amritham Gamaya…Om Shanti..Shanti…Shanti hi….…
