A Dream Eluded
A small window of a small kitchen and through this can be seen Shanti busy with her household chores. She puts the milk on the gas to boil and then rubbing the sweat from her forehead with the back of her right hand floats into a reverie.
She had been married off at the age of 21, an age yet of youth and dreams, even before she could complete her studies. That brought the end of her youth and her long cherished dreams started obliterating. With marriage came more responsibilities and confinement. Confined not just to the house but farther to a speck of the house, the kitchen. She had dreams of becoming a nurse and rendering service for the cause of humanity but with marriage she could see those dreams ebbing out. She had tried to seek out the very meaning of her name but this had seemed to be a fruitless endeavour. Confined alone in this cramped room with no one but herself is solitude, but never ‘shanti’ (Peace). The vegetables and foods, which have now become a part of her existence, haunted her. She remembered how, when she was a small child, she had a nightmare of a specter and had run to her mother for comfort. But now, the only nightmares she has are of her children going to school without their meals, and yet no one to run to, to console her. Her only dreams now were of spending some quiet times with her children and sometimes to just sit back and close those tired eyes and let no thoughts pass to obstruct the silence. But even this now seems to be too farfetched, for that small space of the house took out the larger part of her life. She thought she had married a man, but now she realized that it were the utensils that were her life partners, for it was with them she spent her quality time and it was with them she confided her private thoughts and darkest fears. These utensils seem to be scintillating listeners for they heard all her sorrows and thus pacified her too. All her dreams seemed to have eluded like a handful of sand let loose, scattered into oblivion.
It was only the other day when her 5 year old daughter, after her visit from the clinic, said that she wanted to be a nurse when she grew up. A déjà vu to her own dreams flooded her mind. Maybe life hasn’t been so unfortunate. She can still fulfill those long lost dreams through her daughters. Hope arose in her like the break of dawn, and she saw that those dreams could still be fulfilled if not by her but through her children. Fate may have never wished her fulfillment of those dreams, but such will never be the case with her children. They would grow, and within them those dreams, which had seemed to have eluded but now are visible on the horizon.
The milk boils and falls out and brings her out of her reverie to the real world. As she clears up the mess, a smile lingers on her face, just like the arrival of spring, which brings forth with it hopes and bliss. For the first time she found the raison d’être and what she has ferreted for her whole life, — ‘Shanti’.
She had been married off at the age of 21, an age yet of youth and dreams, even before she could complete her studies. That brought the end of her youth and her long cherished dreams started obliterating. With marriage came more responsibilities and confinement. Confined not just to the house but farther to a speck of the house, the kitchen. She had dreams of becoming a nurse and rendering service for the cause of humanity but with marriage she could see those dreams ebbing out. She had tried to seek out the very meaning of her name but this had seemed to be a fruitless endeavour. Confined alone in this cramped room with no one but herself is solitude, but never ‘shanti’ (Peace). The vegetables and foods, which have now become a part of her existence, haunted her. She remembered how, when she was a small child, she had a nightmare of a specter and had run to her mother for comfort. But now, the only nightmares she has are of her children going to school without their meals, and yet no one to run to, to console her. Her only dreams now were of spending some quiet times with her children and sometimes to just sit back and close those tired eyes and let no thoughts pass to obstruct the silence. But even this now seems to be too farfetched, for that small space of the house took out the larger part of her life. She thought she had married a man, but now she realized that it were the utensils that were her life partners, for it was with them she spent her quality time and it was with them she confided her private thoughts and darkest fears. These utensils seem to be scintillating listeners for they heard all her sorrows and thus pacified her too. All her dreams seemed to have eluded like a handful of sand let loose, scattered into oblivion.
It was only the other day when her 5 year old daughter, after her visit from the clinic, said that she wanted to be a nurse when she grew up. A déjà vu to her own dreams flooded her mind. Maybe life hasn’t been so unfortunate. She can still fulfill those long lost dreams through her daughters. Hope arose in her like the break of dawn, and she saw that those dreams could still be fulfilled if not by her but through her children. Fate may have never wished her fulfillment of those dreams, but such will never be the case with her children. They would grow, and within them those dreams, which had seemed to have eluded but now are visible on the horizon.
The milk boils and falls out and brings her out of her reverie to the real world. As she clears up the mess, a smile lingers on her face, just like the arrival of spring, which brings forth with it hopes and bliss. For the first time she found the raison d’être and what she has ferreted for her whole life, — ‘Shanti’.