Baring the Soul
When Gautam was done with his painful confession, time seemed to have come to a standstill to witness the interactive silence of the tormented father and his penitent son. Soon, as if pushed by a synchronous urge for solitude, they both rose to their feet. And avoiding eye contact, they moved to their own portions in Misty Nest. Lightened by his confession as Gautam reached his room to pray for Sneha’s soul, an insatiate Suresh made a U-turn to her quarter to know more about his mother.
As Suresh reached the threshold tentatively, her life-size painting appeared to greet him affectionately. Yet, as he stood rooted benumbed, her welcome smile seemed to beckon him. Thus, aided by the radiance of her persona that emanated from every square inch of its frame, he found himself moving closer to her. Having seen her in an angelic light, he was seized by an urge to touch her feet. Then, as he looked into the full-length mirror that was witness to her charms, he thought he could discern the true image of his mother.
Experiencing an unusual fondness for his mother, he was seized by a compelling urge to caress every object of hers. Oh, how he scanned her cupboard as if to seek every nook and corner of her heart. At last finding a secret shelf beneath a false bottom, he thought it could be a treasure trove of her memory. Spotting a bunch of diaries therein, he wondered whether they would lead him to the essence of her self. Yet, he picked them up with a premonition that they might bare her torturous soul as a woman. As his urge to gauge her mind goaded him to read them, his sense of decency to preserve her privacy tied his hands. But, his hope that they would put the aberrations of her life in proper perspective gave a go-by to his qualms.
He was struck by the very first entry he encountered!
'G is my God, oh, God don’t mind that.'
Overawed, as he went through the dairies one by one, he found in them many a facet of her extraordinary life and times. It became clear to him that she was a sensitive woman who loved her man from the depths of her heart. She was caring and considerate to one and all, what a fine soul she had! Wasn’t her ambition to make a prince out of her son the recurring theme of her scheme of life? How pleased he was that his mother had cared for him though she had failed to let him perceive her feelings for him. But, he was perturbed by that phase of her life that heralded their eventual ruin.