Her nest

 The steam from his purple coffee mug rose to the sky and became a part of it till it was no more an entity. The aroma of freshly pounded beans wafted the air, reaching out to neighbors till it belonged no more to him. The beverage sat lonely on the window sill till it turned cold like his contemplative stare. Exhausted, waiting for his eager lips to touch its rim, the mug wept steamy tears.

Shanmukh stared at the canvas with the paint on his brush drying and the coffee untouched. The painting missed a crucial element. What the painter couldn't tell.

******

The cold waters streamed down her long silky mane. Each time the bucket emptied itself on her taut caput, she said a small prayer. Twenty-two buckets from twenty-two springs were washing her off her past karma. Or that was what her Amma had believed. She only knew whatever it was she would be relieved of her barrenness, her infertility. At this very Rameshwaram Theertham, Lord Rama's exile had ended. Her, too, would end. Belief. Faith. The only tools that were in her hands after the test tubes had failed. 

Rajanigandha waited for the last bucket to enrich her empty self. In the foreign lands of Ontario, Sreelekh must be calling it a day with scotch by his side, a fleeting thought touched her. Not him, not for her family but solely for her sake, Rajanigandha desired to be a mother. Isn't that what the next step in marriage ought to be? Eight years into an arranged marriage, the couple was childless. To be more precise, according to her Amma, she was the cursed one.

"Men can do away with another woman. What about you? Who will empty your ashes in this holy sea?" Amma had remarked after they had reached for the ritual the previous day. The previous day had dawned after innumerable attempts from Amma for Rajanigandha's infertility. 

"Amma, a research scientist like me shouldn't be following these absurd terms. Science is much more evolved than all of this." She had barked into the telephone, exhausted and excavated of all her logical reasoning.

"Nature has its ways, Rajni. Science doesn't rule the world. Gods still do. Obey and come down for the pilgrimage as soon as possible. " Amma made her point and hung the receiver down. Age made her less excited over such matters. 

After the third test tube cracked, Rajnigandha boarded the first flight to Tamil Nadu. All alone.

*****

The gargantuan peepul tree stared back at Shanmukh. The bottle's green leaves with yellow-tinged borders looked pale to him. The specs of blue sky painted amidst the replenished foliage failed to rouse his admiration. Disliking your creativity is the first step towards reconsidering your work. Shanmukh wanted to tear off the canvas. Days of consistent strokes were about to terminate in a pile of scrap. 

The tree looked lifeless despite the best hues. A little birdie tweeted at his window. As if sent by the inspiration of God, Shanmukh's brush had an idea. He pressed a neat nest in one of the convoluted entanglements of the branches. The brown mesh work worked as a beauty spot for the new bride.

******

With the bathing at Rameshwaram Theertham completed, Rajnigandha was now relaxing at her maiden home in Salem. 

"Akka, drink this."

A petite figure dressed in a humble cotton saree woke her. Kamla smiled from ear to ear setting her dangling earrings in a sparkle. 

"What is it, Kamla? Let me sleep some more. I'm dead tired." 

"No, no Akka. You need to drink this right away before the sun reaches the pinnacle. Onru varunkal, get up fast!"

Amma's efficient assistant Kamla worked here since Rajnigandha's college days. Kamla had come to Salem from a nearby village after marriage. Unable to run a house and feed a drunkard husband, Kamla had nestled in Amma's kitchen as a helper cum cook. 

"Yucks!!" Rajnigandha spat the drink on the first swig.

"What horrible things you cook Kamla?"

"Arey, Akka this is fresh guymutra with fresh ghee. Drink it your baby will be freshly delivered."

"Kamla, infuse some fresh sense into your thinking. It takes a man and a woman to produce fresh babies. Not urine and ghee." Rajnigandha slapped her forehead for there was no use reading a reproduction thesis in front of a docile cow-like Kamla.

"I know that." Kamla blushed to caress her fourth pregnant belly.

"How do you even manage that bewada to offer you this nine months luxury?" 

"Akkaa.."

"Don't you answer, spare me the agony!"

Rajnigandha left the room for Kamla to wallow in her pride.

******

The nest now stared back at Shanmukh. What was the painting demanding? Like a misbehaved toddler, it was throwing colorful tantrums. The lone twigs looked forlorn without company. He tweaked the brown to ochre and added some green shade to brighten the palette.

Nah. Nothing still felt right. 

******

Rajnigandha was taking the fiftieth pradakshina of one of the 81 shrines of Srirangam temple. The scorching sun made deep, wet patches in her silk blouse. Sweaty rivulets submerged her trimmed brow. The day was testing the drowning woman in challenging waters. For a moment, she stood gasping for breath when her phone jumped. 

"Rajni, where the hell have you kept the champagne gifted to me by Mr. Watson?"

What was Sreelekh celebrating when she was working for a celebration? Why on earth was she desperate to beget a vampire's progeny? Shouldn't he, too, be doing this tumultuous merry-go-round with her? Was marriage meant to be a bond of only merry times? Rest of the time the woman suffers in solitude. In India, you weren't supposed to question your parent's choice and destiny's fate. Why had a logical mind left for foreign lands? Why was she undergoing this torture? Only to be a mother? In Ontario, she displayed a flawless public facade only to hide her inner vacuum. Here, the naked Gods, too, couldn't sympathize with her.

"Rajniiiii..."

Her reverie was sliced by Amma's blood-curdling cry.

"Rajni, we need to go back home. Kamla's husband assaulted her after the fourth girl was born. She is hospitalized."

Amma's words raced with her heaving chest. The duo left for Salem immediately. 

In a dimly lit hospital room, Kamla smiled from ear to ear but her dangling earrings had no sparkle. A little pinkish, shriveled bundle lay next to her.

Rajnigandha carefully picked up the baby. In oblivion, the baby slept. Her lips twitched. Maybe, the baby was trying to smile like her mother. Just a day old, the baby was successful in imitating her mother. Rajnigandha held the mass close to her palpitating chest. The beats lessened. Calm enveloped her. The touch healed her. Like a warm poultice, the infant soothed Rajnigandha's cold barrenness. 

She was soaked at the moment. Realizing this wasn't forever, she eventually considered placing the child back, next to her mother. But she lingered a little more. With the baby in her arms, she spoke to the mother. 

"Kamla, your daughter is beautiful. "

Kamla just smiled.

"She resembles every inch of you."

Nothing but just the same smile.

"Kamla, what will you name her?"

Still the smile.

"Kamla, you buffoon, can you hear me?"

Only the smile responded. 

"Kamlaaaa... Doctors pls rush. Pls pls, do something. "

The smile was unwavering. It was plastered permanently to the dead woman's face. 

Rajnigandha stood transfixed with the baby now wide awake and brushing her nose to Rajnigandha's breast. As if she had smelled maternal material, the baby nudged her for nursing. 

Had the Gods answered her prayers? 

******

Shanmukh painted a little white globe in the empty nest. A tinge of grey to a splash of white, a pearly white whose presence camouflaged the greens.  The little birdie flapped its wings and chirped merrily in the skies. The painter smiled for the first time in two years of this painting sojourn. The nest now had an egg.

The world felt like a better place.

*****

Rajnigandha's phone jumped in excitement. 

"Rajni, Shanmukh here. Remember me?"

How could she not remember her childhood friend? Her first love and maybe last.

"Rajni, I hear you are in India. Please join me for my art exhibition. "

How could she ever decline meeting him? 

At the exhibition with Kamla's gift, Rajnigandha, for a long time pondered at the nest with the egg portrait. It indeed felt complete to her. Shanmukh was the real artist.