Marianna grew up in a sleepy little neighbourhood,
In another part of the day and world.
When she was young and all of sixteen,
She would paint her toenails a bright red
Her hair always gathered in a mass of tumbling brown curls.
Their paths often crossed those days,
She describing him to her friends as an unsuitable boy
from amongst all her other suitors
Who would wait below her two storeyed building,
Vrooming in their flashy bikes
Making catcalls with their collars upturned
And their slick hairstyles.
He with his ordinary mannerisms,
bespectacled; carrying an air of unusual calmness,
He hiding behind books most of the time
or tending to roadside kittens, by feeding them milk and other titbits.
He who would look at her from the corner of his eye,
When she took short walks with her mamma.
Wearing bright purple and yellow dresses
and to church on Sundays a red pleated one
with frilly smocking in the front,
Stitched by her Papa who was the best tailor in town.
He who would always patiently wait,
At the bus-stop, outside the library,
And next to the college canteen,
He who would seamlessly blend into a crowd without anybody noticing.
And then there arrived that one day
When he walked up to Marianna with faltering steps
And handed her a note.
The previous night she had seen him waiting long enough
for the other boys to finish a game of night football
And then he had sat under the flickering light
Maybe pouring his heart out onto that piece of paper.
There was a kind of wretchedness in Marianna then
One could only blame it on the age of raw adolescence
No words were exchanged.
She left the note unread
crushing it under her feet
Tossing it onto the nearby brown puddle.
His look said it all then
As though the gates of hell had opened up,
Mighty dragons spitting venom all around
All his dreams and hopes getting crushed in an instance.
She felt the tiniest bit of regret
But was too flippant and young enough to care much.
She watched him walk past
Never turning back
His broad shoulders glistening under the glare of the hot sun
******
Marianna still likes to paint her toenails a bright red
with a shade called as Fiery Rasputin,
Her hair is whiter than ever before,
And there are weight laden bags underneath her eyes now.
Her feet has purple spidery lines running all the way up to her knees
That creak a little whenever she walks for more than half a mile.
Now at the age of sixty, married but separated,
She has three children and six grandchildren
A whole boisterous lot
scattered across different parts of the world.
She has come back to her home in Toledo
where the papaya leaves still turn a shade of olive green
when monsoon settles in
and the jackfruits hanging in the garden are all big and sombre
resembling her papa's mood when he used to come home tired and weary
after a hard day's work.
Word gets around.
Marianna's friends tell her that he has always remained single;
Some days she sees him at the sidewalk
with his group of old cronies
Looking all distinguished and sacred
Today it is she who waits to catch a glimpse of him
From behind the sheer curtains of her window
Knowing truly well that he shall never again approach her
And neither will she.
But there is a memory of a little boy
etched in her mind
Wearing worn out slippers
Hair in a tousled mess
But his eyes carrying a searing flame
That would light up every time he saw his lady love passing by
Marianna still wonders about the unread note
Did it profess undying love
Did it contain vows
Did it mention about growing old together
And was it finally sealed with a kiss
Her heart stalls for a second
She would never know
She would never ever know….
