You are blessed with life
You are blessed with death
You will reap,
What you have already sowed.
Why are you scared?
Oh! Silly, soul.
Here, embrace me,
Your almighty lord.
Two voices with different pitches kept singing at the door of houses they got invited to. The hoarse voice of the man in his forties harmonized well with the high pitched voice of the girl of thirteen. The man kept balancing himself with his stick and single right leg. The reverbration of the girl's voice echoed in the surrounding as if the air molecules were dancing perfectly in sync with it.
A woman in her late thirties came out in old worn out saree. She had brought a plastic bag full of rice and put her hand forward.
"Durga," said the man in a soft voice looking at the thirteen year old girl.
Durga took the plastic bag and took out a small portion of rice in her right hand and splashed it on her left hand. Looking at the way it got spread on her hand; direction and alignment of rice, she then closed her eyes and said a mantra under her breathe,"Guide me to the reality. Let the lies vanish and eternal truth reside. Oh, mighty lord. Help me to help this soul." After few minutes she opened her eyes putting back rice grains inside the plastic bag.
She looked at the woman in front, looking into her soul through her eyes. "Your paralyzed husband will get better with time. You need to be patient for one more year. Keep praying and medicating him till then. I will be praying for his speedy recovery."
Tears rolled down the woman's eyes and she held Durga's hand exclaiming,"Thank you!"
"Please come inside and purify my household. I will prepare food for you." The woman said.
"Sorry, but I don't eat outside." Durga said.
Smile started to vanish from woman's face and sadness started to loom on her face. Quickly a hand came from side holding the woman's hand. "Mohit!" Durga said looking at the forty two year old man with her red beaming eyes.
Mohit smiled back at Durga and turned towarda the woman raising his hand trying to get her name from thin air. "Shirley" she said looking at him trying.
"Don't worry. I will come and eat. I eat on her behalf, I am the reason she has become so able. So with me coming it will be better. Till she become an adult like me, she cannot eat anywhere else. You know tradition, ritual, purity and all those stuff."
Shirley kept looking at him with quizzled expressions but she was happy either of them was ready to come in. She started walking in guiding the way through.
Durga held Mohit's hand and said,"Behave yourself. Please?"
"I will." He removed her hand and started walking through gate.
"I will go fishing then. Will see you at night."
Mohit kept waving hand without looking back and went inside.
Durga walked towards the forest, breeze hitting on her face while her bare feet touched the mud on ground. Birds started chirping as soon as she entered the forest, and a gush of wind flew, trees danced to the rhythm and a sound could be heard in distance; it was river flowing constantly.
Durga went and sat beside the rock near the river. She joined both of her hands and said a prayer," Let the curse of death guide me. The life I take let it be useful to everyone around. Lord! Let your death be fruitful to us."
Durga opened her eyes, bent towards the flowing river, cupped her hand and held water from the river and drank it. She bowed to river and put her hand in a swing inside river and pulled two fishes at once. As soon as her hand touched the fishes, they became calm and surrendered themselves to her. She then kept themselves in her bag.
The crushing of branch echoed in the surrounded and Durga turned around. The drool was constantly leaking on the ground from jackal's mouth, its eyes fixated at Durga. The hunger in its eyes made Durga frozen and the cloth handbag fell from her hand. Jackal waved its tail and slowly started to move on side, slowly taking two steps backward it immediately jumped forward towards Durga. Durga stunned, closed her eyes and joined her hands in prayer clenching her teeth and blood started dripping on the grasses around.