A letter of adieu from the site of Timru brook ( Part-4 ) …

(Recap – In the previous episode, I described about the nomenclature of Timru brook and a specific custom, that happened to be observed, after a boy as a newly wedded bridegroom happened to come back in his village along with the bride, and then bride was taken to the such water source to fetch the potable water. This was a customary, post- marriage ritual.)

In the house of the parental aunt, the natural ambiance of the village, of which I was fond of, ever helped me to concentrate and conduct my self study. Along with, in between the local festivals and occasional wedding celebrations in the village were so colorful and fascinating one. People inhabiting in the cities can’t imagine of the joy of ceremonious celebration of  marriages of that era! How such village marriages were arranged by collecting the local available facilities in a cheerful, merry hustles in a traditional, customary style. At present, those days are too forgotten in the hill sides; there now every marriage function is being observed in pursuance of the modern city culture fashion.

Now a days, the water sources of that old era exist, but with the spread of the wave of development, that water from the natural sources is collected in big shaped concrete reservoir, built by the government departments and from there, tap water connectivity been facilitated to every house. In that era, no electricity was seen in those remote hill sides and every wedding ceremony or religious gathering used to be arranged in the night session;under the patromax lamp light lit by Kerosin (paraffin oil) oil as the chief source of light.

In that ambiance, it chanced, there got fixed the marriage of a boy in the village of the parental aunt. As it was the custom, invitation were sent to denizens of villages in the vicinity on account of relationship or acquaintance. Since, I was the nephew of the aunt and besides a brilliant student of M.Sc. course, whose repute already expanded in the area, hence along with the family of the parental aunt, I was specially invited to attend the Marriage-procession as well. And in the same marriage function, I chanced to get introduced with a girl for the first time in my life. In fact, she belonged in relations to the family of aunt’s husband and her native village located on the other side of the downward hillock, from the site of  Timru brook.

She had been there to attend the marriage ceremony along with her other family members. As it was customary in those days,  guests would arrive few days before the main wedding ceremony in advance and continued their sojourn for some days past the main ceremony in the house of the marriage. This customary concept of receiving and entertaining the guests in the hill sides was quite informal and all guests tend to stay like a family member, intermingling with one another.

That was the time when the youthful girls of the hills’ sides looked like the natural beauty, endowed with the virtue of blushing and being shy by nature. Might be, I too was in my prime youth and found that girl so attractive or for some reasons unknown to me either, she looked beauteous to me !!! In villages, ethical norms were observed strictly but social norms of conversation between boys and girls had ever been permitted and acknowledged widely and never looked upon with suspicion. Might whatever be the reason, she too developed  an attraction for me and to me, she already had begun to look beauteous, as I told earlier.

The dreams of adolescence and deep rooted ethical norms, in shape of platonic love drove us closer to the extent, as if, we were so familiar like old friends. Astonishingly, all this occurred  in between those few days of her sojourn there only. An another remarkable phenomenon, I came to know that in such crowd of function, at least one or two persons certainly be present there, who with the gift of extra sensory perception, catch your this kind of  specific affinity with some girl. As it happened in my case, my own cousin sister Saroj ( Parental aunt’s daughter,) at once took notice of the affinity being germinated between her and I.  This gift, liberally endowed upon females and in my case, my cousin had this gift,  further, she and the girl were in kinship  and good friend as well.

Though, cousin sister was younger than me, but in such kind of development between a girl and a boy, other girls step ahead to help knot such friendship as a mediator. Why is so, is the matter of research but it seemed in helping such lovers coming closer, the mediator girl feels a sort of contentment in shape of, as if, some charity is conducted on her part. To me, it seems in the way, every girl pacifies her concealed wish to be in bonding with some boy in that tender age of adolescence. During that sojourn of her, one day my cousin sister abruptly and mischievously asked, ” brother, if you are interested in her, I may be helpful to convey your messages to her!”

This offer, at the first flabbergasted me and made me blush like a girl, because I had a conviction that none had knowledge of my bonding with the girl. Girls are gifted to understand such signs, the same occurred with sister, she realized my demur and spoke sagaciously like an old woman, ” Brother, it’s not  city. You can’t deal in relationship candidly here. I can arrange your secret meeting with her and get your errand on both the sides. But be careful, no one should come to know a bit of your relationship. As far as the future prospectus is concerned, one thing is favorable, she belongs to our acceptable community. Second thing is, she is in her twelfth standard of school. On this hill side of ours, people are not inclined to provide higher education to girls. At the utmost, hardly one or two years further, parents can wait. If you agreed upon this, I can initiate and proceed with her.”

Now I have no reservation to admit, I already was mad after her and I surrendered before the offer of cousin sister to help in this matter. The story that took speedy disposal, run in short as such —-

At that period of time, women or girls were not permitted to become a part of the marriage procession. It was an exclusive male domain, but at the initiation of marriage procession from the house of the bridegroom, women in a customary way happened to see-off the marriage procession up to the village border. My that girl too accompanied the procession up to the marches of the village. From there onward, I attended the procession physically but my soul was left behind. I felt, as if, I existed not properly. Next day, when we retreated back with newly wedded bride and the ritual of fetching of water from the brook got observed, on some pretext I too joined the same ritual. I knew, she too had to become a ‘part and parcel’ of women crowd of the ritual.

In between the ritualistic journey, we had had some short conversation and on reaching the Timru brook, she made me know, people from her village too fetch the water from the same Timru brook. Not only this, she revealed, at least once at the evening time, she regularly visits the site to fetch the water either. That was an old time, the crime rate in the hill sides were at naught. This prompted any girl or woman to visit such lonely sites without any fear. From there at some higher altitude, she had betokened towards her village side. And there, a taciturn compact between us transcribed mutely; to keep our love story alive, on every evening I would have to visit the site of Timru brook regularly.

Need not to say, my cousin sister was so helpful in this entire drive. Now, it was her daily routine to visit the site to collect the water at evening time. There I was to accompany her on the pretext, it was evening time and wild animals apprehended in hill side. Simply I was to protect her from animals, but in fact she was there to protect my position, if I was caught having conversation with my girl by some people of her village side. To dodge the people, now I too had begun to carry the same metallic pitcher  to fetch the water. Never in my city life I had carried the water weight yoked on my shoulder, but to preserve the love story, every lover tended to do whatsoever needed not. ( End of the Part- 4 . Cont’d ). Penned by — Vinay Pharasi —–