A death had not saddened him more. He saw her wrapped in a sari, eyes closed, faint smile to imaginary eyes, before her pyre was lit. Her voice echoed whenever he observed silence, and her smile, danced in front of his eyes refusing to evade. She was not his lover. He was busy loving when he crossed her house and heard her voice ring in his heart, asking him to step in. He had shut the voice whenever it arose. He wrote to his lover rhyming metres, while he wanted her, to be his first reader. She would wait he assumed, unaware of her battle, without ever considering to rattle.
She, the one who had taught him to write.
She, the one who had made him smile at lines.
She, the one who had asked him to observe silence and find his inner balance.
She, the one who had asked him to visit her without an invite.
News about her death, he struggled to handle, and spent no more time describing his lover’s ankle. He got up to his feet and stepped into her street. The sight of her in a freezer box froze him to his bones. He walked up to her and placed a wreath of paper, filled with an incense of his words in ink. She, his teacher and philosopher, had not stopped teaching him even at her funeral pyre.
homelytruthisunpalatable 