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In the Palaquin she sat, a vision of pure loveliness in her red bridal sari, rich exquisite jewellery and the intricate mehendi decorations on her hands and feet. She was for this special day a queen, her untouched innocence, beautiful in every way. The procession reached the river where the ferry awaited and nervously she lifted her head and through the thin veil covering her face, she saw the wide expanse of water where beyond was her matrimonial home.
A soft cry escaped her lips and she closed her eyes to stop the tears.
“Don’t cry, my dear child,” her father had said when he had bid her ‘goodbye’ that morning though his own tears were unchecked. Words so easily uttered, words so hard to obey when the heart ached and the sadness of parting shadowed the wedding celebrations. The daughter was leaving her father’s home to begin a new life with a stranger to whom she was betrothed. She was the price her father had to pay to save his family from bankruptcy and ruins. The floods of the May/June rains had destroyed all the crops and she could not erase from her young mind, her helpless father sitting in the flood waters crying his heart out. Such a great loss had brought untold hardship on an already struggling family and as her father, a man of great determination, worked to regain something, rich businesses moved in to buy out farms from those who were in dire crisis at low costs.
Her father was unwilling to part with the only thing he owned, his farmland, a family inheritance he was hoping to pass on to his young sons. It broke his heart that he would have to give up and sell, then came the unexpected offer for his young daughter’s hand in marriage in exchange for all his debts being written off. The business magnate proposal was angrily turned down by her father because the worth of his children were not measured in dollars, despite there was hardly any food on the table. He cried, uncontrollably, that day when she had told him,
“Take the offer, papa, you can’t lose the farm, we will suffer even more.”
She breathed deeply as the Palaquin was lifted on the ferry and her lips trembled as the tears escaped her eyes, not her dream or her desire, it was her sacrifice for her family, as designed by fate.
A common farmer girl, she had been, free as a butterfly roaming the fields, riding the horses, swimming in the creeks, but all that changed the day when the rich stranger, an older man, took her hand and she became the lady of a mansion. It was all she could have wished for in a dream, but it wasn’t her dream, just a life where happiness couldn’t spread its wings, smiles were faked and laughter unreal.
The years went by and the girl became a woman, her beauty and simplicity graced with sophistication befitting a lady of her standing, but hidden, not forgotten was the simple farm girl, her life, her love. Many days she spent on the private beach of the estate’s lands, the only place she was allowed alone, the only place where her thoughts could roam free and she would stand looking across the water wistfully. Such a long time, since she had been home, so far away from those she loved, for only one short visit she was allowed per year.
“Dear papa,” she said quietly, an uncomforting ache in her heart, “I wish I was home, again.”
Home to live free, to laugh, to sing, to play in the rain, to share each other’s lives. She twirled the diamond ring on her finger and smiled wryly, “A price to pay for life.”
She lived, each day, for those hours, she could spend on the beach, for it was all she had, swimming, collecting shells, pieces of wild shrubs and twigs and sitting on a rock under the shade of a palm, she would inscribe with the shell on the broken pieces of tree barks, verses of her thoughts, her longing to be free, like a bird in the wild, than a bird in a golden cage.
“If only, I can taste, sweet, the rain drops,” she wrote, “Laugh with the wind and feel the perfumed breathe of love, somewhere you must be to read these words and come take my hand.”
She threw them in the water and watched them ride away on the waves, somewhere, knowing in her heart, no one will find them. Time moved on and nothing much changed, even as the seasons did, but for spring, when flowers and fruits were in abundant bloom.
“Is this all that’s designed for me?” she asked of the wind, the sand and the water, “Isn’t there something for me, in this life, that I can love?”
Then, one day, when spring had gone and the winds blew colder, she found stuck on the rock, where she often sat, a small tree’s bark with the words inscribed.
“I feel your desires, your longing.”
She looked around the beach, but no one was there, it was empty life every day. But someone had been there, someone who had found her message. She felt the spark of a tiny ray of hope and she closed her eyes, to believe it was real. The next day, she found another bark with words that said, “You are as beautiful as the words you write.”
It was real, someone had seen her, but who was he, where could he be? She saw only the trees, the sand and the water and a half sunken wreck lying way out. On the sand, she wrote, that afternoon, before she walked back to the house, “Are you real?”
The rains came, that night and it continued to rain for a few days. She didn’t go to the beach, trying not to think nor hope for what may not be real. The skies soon clear and as she walked to the beach, that morning, she felt a little fear and anxiety.
“If he’s real, what do I do?”
There was no one there, no message by the rock, nor written on the sand. She stood at the water’s edge, her long skirt whipping around her legs, the wind whistled pass ruffling her long tresses of black hair. She breathed deeply, the tiny hope flickering out, that was when she heard the sound, a splash coming from way out, where the wreck lay. She could vaguely see someone as the drizzle got heavier, swimming towards her and like a vision he rose from the water’s depths, walking towards her, the water glinting on the taunt muscles of his body. She gasped, for only in a dream could someone like him walk into a woman’s life. He smiled, and she didn’t know what to do, what to say, standing there in the rain. He took her trembling hand and said, “I’m real.”
He was indeed, real, living beyond the wreck on a small island, a fruit and citrus farmer. He had seen her, ever since she came to live in the mansion, watching her from the wreck, when she was on the beach, not sure he could talk to her, until the day, when he picked up the tree’s bark from the water and read the inscribed words.
He was the answer, she had asked of the wind, sand and water, something, designed for her, to set her free, so on the wings of happiness she could fly and return home.
*** PULL QUOTE: He was the answer, she had asked of the wind, sand and water, something, designed for her, to set her free, so on the wings of happiness she could fly and return home.
