"The Evening Star"
"Men of all hues come to me seeking comfort." It wasn’t what she said that drained out the colors inside me, but it was how she said.
Her eyes heavy with liner had an unusual spark in them; her blood red lips smiling, radiated the room. She had a striking figure of a 21 year old diva at 40. It was like time and age could do no harm to her beauty, with appeal that of a Greek goddess, she could have been anything she wanted; yet she chooses to be in the dark. Nevertheless, I saw no resentment or any sort of indignation in her. Instead she had an aura of self chauvinism.
She wasn't one of those damsels in distress who was deceived and forced into this trade. "My body is a temple, where a man sacrifices himself," she said out loud as if the whole world should be aware of the fact. When she saw my horror struck face, her Cupid’s bow shaped lips turned into a cunning smile.
She sat there in front of me on a magnificent Queen Anne chair, her delicate hands pressed against the handles. She was calm and poised. There was nothing sordid about her. In fact she was more elegant than many ladies I've known all my life.
Yes, she was extremely beautiful but clearly undesirable in the society. In the eyes of her fellow neighbors, she was shame and a disgrace. Everybody shunned her for what she was; at the same time they were jealous of her prime and independence. There was this ambiance of enigma that concealed her, protected her from the 'etiquette glares'. I was obliviously lurked by it.
There was nothing I ever felt for her. It seemed all my emotions were locked up in a Pandora’s box whenever my curious gaze fell upon her. As a child, I saw her bargaining venomously with the vegetable seller. Later she would head home carrying the vegetable bags in one hand and the other neatly gathering the pleats of her emerald green chiffon sari. Her gestures had always been pleasant, but then, there was the clamoring gossip of her night activities. About different men leaving her house at odd hours, the audacious noise lurking in the air. No one really talked to her, nevertheless, knew whatever happened behind the closed curtains.
Her soft laughter brought me back to our quiet tête-à-tête. My absent-minded expression had amused her. "But tell me why? Why did you become this?" I finally asked.
She became serious now, her brows knit and her expression turning hard. "This is not just a means of earning a living, it is the lifestyle I choose," she retorted.
Silence fell upon us. I shut my eyes, unable to look at her. She was studying me and after taking a deep breath she told me calmly, "One should be comfortable in their skin. One should learn to appreciate what comes naturally inside. This came naturally to me child, and I embraced it."
I was on the roof- top, watching the sky it was a bright fort- night. The moon was lit high up in the sky, like a light bulb illuminating the entire room. Stars were dancing all over the black sky. Stars. Star. Evening Star. She called herself ‘The Evening Star’.
Why does she call herself The Evening Star? Questions about her always troubled me. When one question was answered, others would pop up and torment me. When I asked her, she handled these questions gently, sometimes bitter, but gently.
Sleep came easily to me after long hours spent gazing at the dazzling stars. In the mid-night, little fairies would come and whisper her stories into my ears and my mind would turn them into dreams. In the morning, only fragments were left of those dreams.
She was always kind to me. She waited patiently as I asked her about her life answering every question thrown at her. Every word she spoke weighed with passion.
"I'm blessed." She once told me turning her hands up towards god, thanking him. She was a great devotee of Lord Shiva. Never in her life had she missed Mahashivaratri. “Like Shiva, I take away the pain and give happiness,” she asserted to my curiosity. Her life was a chapter of an old book and I was welcome to read it anytime.
I knew everything about her, yet she was a stranger to me. It perplexed me. How did she find heaven on hell? What most people believed was a sin; she accepted it as god’s gift? Most importantly how on earth was she happy doing what she was doing? I was drowned by these thoughts. She took pride in her work and turned deaf ear to the sarcasms. She was unaffected and untouched by the outrageous neighbors. Most of the time it was hue and cry.
Suddenly one day, people completely cut her off from the society as though she never existed. However, every nook and cranny of the vicinity secretly showed interest in her life.
Men, who turned their heads away from her in broad day light, would bend down on their knees for her at night. At this, she used to laugh heartily. Such things never bothered her. “Look at the bright side child” she used to say.
“When a man buys me for an hour or more, he doesn’t only make love to me. He pours his heart out. I’m his confidante with whom he shares his sorrows and secrets, which becomes my sorrows and secrets. What’s been said in this room never ever leaves this room.” My mouth slacked. She had a completely different perspective towards life and her profession.
It was mid afternoon when I sat with her, to listen to her fables. The sun was blazing powerfully, but its rays couldn’t reach us. It never did actually. Her bungalow was protected by shadows of thick antique trees; cool breeze lingered around her compound all the time. As usual she looked exquisite, and today with no make- up on, she was as eye pleasing and pure as an angel. She had in herself a chaste beauty and for the first time I understood what it meant. Her lips were moving to form words, “its time child time for me to retire now.”
These were all fragments of what was written in my brother’s diary. She was real, but not as real as flesh and blood. She was his imagination carefully shaped by ink on paper. And I as a reader, never really got the whole story of her life. She was a fragment of his imagination; she was his fragment, whom he called 'The Evening Star’.
Timeless beauty of words.
