A HOUSE BY THE MOUNTAINS

 

A HOUSE BY THE MOUNTAINS 

The winds of Sarmoli village were cold. People were busy in thier livlihood. Children were returning from school, Sarmoli was a place where people practiced a simple life and lived peacefully. A man's cough was heard in Mrs Singh's house. She had a quite small house. A mud house, with a small garden, a typical mountain house with limited resources sufficient for her.

              There was a man lying covered in bandages, hsi face and body having multiple cuts, shivering in cold. Mrs Singh enters the house and says "You were lying by the road, had a high fever, Kalyani spotted you and informed me". Mrs Singh moved her hand forward to check the young man's fever, "Aah you'er buring with fever, you must be from the Indo-West battalion?".  The man shivering looks at her and asks "How do you know?".

Mrs Singh: " I read your badge , most wounded ones are from there only"

             Mrs Singh walks up to his shirt takes out an old photograph from the man's shirt hands it to him asking "Is that your wife?".

Wounded man : No, we'ev known each other sinch childhood, I love her..after this war we were going to get married...She must be waiting for me.

Mrs Singh : You know, I have seen hundreds of warriors, healed them, many with a photograph like you have & many with nothing to have, but one thing is common "THE WAITING"

           Mrs Singh gives him some medicine & moves outside the house. Kalyani was washing utensils in the veranda. She comes to Mrs Singh & asks "Will he recover?". Mrs Singh nods her head in disapprovement says "You know Kalyani, the most pain I ever felt was not that I was unable to cure them, but for that wife who kept waiting for her husband, that son who was waiting for his father, that mother who was waiting for his son, that heart that was waiting for a heart thats going to stop its beat forever".

          The warrior overheard the conversation between them. With the photograph in his hand, he closed his eyes remmbering the beautiful memories with her lover suitor

, running in filed, chasing each other,returning from school as kids & finally the last kiss they had after he went for war.

          Tear drops from his eyes the photograph falls on the ground, the tear drops falls on the photograph. Mrs Singh enters after few minutes knowing what has happened, ask Kalyani to bring some people to honor him and do his last rites.

         Mrs Singh picks up the photograph, walks towards her shelf and slides the curtains, there were hundreds of photograph of such men with their family, kids, wife and yet this was added too.

                                         -by Aditya Upadhyay