As the priest entered the temple,he would beam his majestic smile towards Apsara as he continued murmuring his slokas.The next few minutes would see them both exchange information just by signals as Apsara would take care of drawing water from the temple's well for the abhishekam,opening the milk packets and pouring them into the vessels,tearing the page out of the date calender and putting some Vibhuthi and Kumkum into it for her family and hurry back home to start yet another eventful day.
Nothing had changed in the last 12 years,except for her father falling from an electric lampost during work and getting partially paralysed,her brother leaving their house due to a squabble with their father and all this making her virtually the sole bread winner for the family,which she did by running a small catering business in the mornings and working at the local tailor's shop in the evenings.
It was one evening that set the pace for a change in Apsara's life,the sudden twang of pain that ran through her nerves as she bolted out of the theatre where she was watching her favorite movie hero's movie on the first day of its release.Midway through the movie,she suddenly realised that she had watched that particular hero act as a baby actor,then as a school goer,then as a college going sidekick actor and now he was doning the role of the protagonist and projecting himself to be the next superstar.It was then that she felt that she had grown in age and that people around her were progressing at a frenetic pace while she was being well anchored day after day much more into her current state of lifelessness.
She hurriedly peddled her way back home in her bicycle, all the way recounting the happenings in the past few years.She realised that the rickshaw man had changed,their neighbour Paati was no more and as she dragged her cycle across the side of her house to park it in the shed,she overheard her parents shouting and arguing vehemently about something.She stopped and tried to overhear what the issue was and that turned out to be the shock of her life!
She heard her mom shout at her father as to how careless and irresponsible he had been with the family and had not even thought about getting his daughter married,to which her dad shouted ...
"What can I do?Who would marry such a useless girl,who is uneducated,26 years old and is guaranteed to be a burden all her life?I don't know what to do with this Shaniyan!
In fact,my colleague is ready to get his son married only to our second daughter Meena!She is 19 years and may be we should proceed with that."
Apsara stood startled as she still stood outside her house,overhearing the conversations.As she treaded to the well area to wash her feet,she remembered her childhood fantasy about the world on the other side of the well and how she used to talk with her own reflections.
She peeped into the now defunct well,which had been covered with an iron mesh, and spoke in her soft voice,just as old times..
"Hey Apsara..
See..how everybody is talking about me...Am I at fault for whatever I am now?Have I ever done any wrong to anyone in my whole life?huh?Please..Ippo atleast..Take me away from here!"
As she peeked in,she was horrified to find that there was no reflection as before,as the water in the well had receded very low in the years of severe draught.She started sobbing uncontrollably as reality dawned upon her again that she had no one for her - not even her virtual friend from the well!
To be continued.
-Raapi
Posted by rajesh | 
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