Stories      
Rinanubandh
by Julia Dutta

A soft tap on my shoulder pulled me out of the pages of the book I was reading at the Manny’s Book Store in Pune. It was late evening and I had returned to that city to take a longish break and complete a painting lying the in attic of a dear friend. I turned around and looked at the face staring down at me. Soft aquiline features of the face were framed in a cascade of salt and pepper hair falling from the head to below the shoulders, gently covering the well-formed breasts of a woman, not more than forty-eight years of age. I searched my mind – she looked familiar, but….

She smiled. The laugh lines on either side of her mouth looked sad to me.

" Sagar…." she said. " Remember we met at Prem’s a couple of years ago?"

How could I forget! " Of course I remember you! How have you been?" I said looking at the book in her hand.

" Pretty good really" She said with another smile that could have melted the Book Store.

" So what are you reading" I asked.

" Inheritance Of Loss by Kiraaaan Desaaaay"

" You are not planning to buy it, are you?" I asked quickly.

" I thought I might….it’s won the Booker".

I had to say my line –

" Oh, well! Man Booker has become a God of Small Things it seems. No literary genius this! Buy the last one, if you must, God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. That really was a literally genius".

She bought Arundhati Roy. We moved out of the Book Shop. " So what are you doing for the rest of the evening? Any plans?"

" Not really. I am here on a holiday to complete a painting. Just thought I would like to revisit the past….?

She looked questioningly at me and then said, " Would you like to come home with me? I have some lovely tea from Darjeeling!"

Oof! The romance of tea! It’s something I can’t resist. " Thank you! That will be lovely".

Sagar’s room, on the top floor of a building in the small inner lanes, was tastefully done with a large French window opening out to a private terrace.

" I’ll just put the kettle on." she said trying to make me comfortable on a large cushion. I picked up the blue crystal lying on a wad of cotton wool, on the shelve, with a light bulb over it, "May I, please?"

" At night, I put all the lights out and just that one over the crystal, and the room fills with blue waves. It’s so soothing." She said putting her hands on her heart.

I could imagine.

She returned with the tea carefully placed on a tray made of bamboo. I recognized it as Made In Meghalaya – my part of the country.

" Where did you get that from"? I said in astonishment.

" Well from the shop outside the German Bakery. They sell some great cane stuff".

She settled down and we both looked at each other for a long time.

" You look tired and withdrawn….not like I remember you from last time" She was very observant.

" I am coming off a relationship" . I said without much ado.

" Oh? Long one?

" No! Actually a very short one. Only three months! Yet it has been so intense for me as if it was something I have experienced for over lifetimes. I feel tired."

The aroma of tea had already filled the room She poured out a light liquor in a fine china cup – white with a light lace of gold around the rim. I took the first sip without being invited to. Lovely! The aroma and the warm tea filled my senses.

" So tell me ……" she was saying.

I did not feel like talking about it. It was too close for me to look at it with distance. I had come to paint the pain away. I knew that when words were hard for me to speak, the brush made up for the loss of words. Colorful strokes of on the canvas always changed the picture in my mind.

" Too close to it, still. Can’t talk," I said simply.

She began to talk instead.

" Relationships come and go. They are like boats sailing. You climb on to some. You let go of others. And you just watch some happening to others. They are both real and unreal…real because they bring you very close to yourself and unreal because, when they pass you are still left with yourself, quite untouched by what has passed"

" But they do change you don’t they?" I was sure.

" You change yourself through them." She said thoughtfully.

Something hit me like a bolt of light. There was truth in what she was saying. So why was I passing through this mental muck, before the "sky cleared" so to say?

Sagar continued, " We change ourselves through them", she repeated. " We become aware of things we did not know we were capable of. Love changes us, transforms us and takes us to places we never thought we could visit ever. Like an onion peeling off, it exposes different layers in ourselves, we did not know even existed. But the question is, why do we jump on to some boats and not others? Why?"

Suddenly, my head began to clear and I knew –

" Past connections. We have known each other before. We have a word in India for it…."

" What? Sagar was curious.

" Rinanubandh " – when two people are " tied " to each other from past lives, it is called Rinanubandh. They meet because there is a thread of continuation from the past to the present and to the next if you like…."

" Interesting! So you are never out of the karmic cycle of things. You are never free of each other".

" No, not exactly. The cycle runs itself out in time. You are attracted or call it attached to something or someone so long as the cycle of karma does not end. The moment it finishes, if you are to watch yourself, you might say to yourself - how surprising! I had a great delight for this person only sometime ago and now I am off it. The cycle has indeed completed itself."

Sagar sat pensively looking out at the trees bending over to touch the floor of her private terrace.

" That is why I suppose, relationships are both real and unreal…real because they bring you very close to yourself and unreal because, when they pass you are still left with yourself quite untouched by what has passed." She said finally.

" Not quite! The relationship has helped you evolve. You are not the same person, even to yourself are you?" I repeated what I had heard her say just a while ago.

" No! You are not the same person. You have changed and because you have changed, everything around you changes because your perception of things have changed".

" In other words Sagar, the outside only reflects what is inside of us. Time is not the essence; it could take only three months to come to the same results….."

" …..or nine years, as it did in mine!" Sagar concluded.

I looked at her again deeply, as I now knew why the laugh lines on either side of her mouth, looked sad to me. Sad because they had a history of tears behind them and yet they did not affect the serene beauty of her face. The feminine quality of sadness had in fact enhanced her already far away, distant looks of Enya’s country.

Growth, is such a beautiful thing to happen to you!   

December 3, 2006  

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Image under license with Gettyimages.com

The Week of December 3, 2006    
India's Security Environment: Turbulent and Uncertain by Dr. Subhash Kapila
Sensible Security Strategies by Gaurang Bhatt, MD  
Nepal: Raising Hopes of Normalcy by Col. Rahul K. Bhonsle
Lawless and Vibrant: Criminal Union Cabinet Ministers by V. Sundram
It is Not Women Who Declare War by Mehru Jaffer
Living Among Enemies by J. Ajithkumar 
The Fate of Mankind: Is the World Heading Towards War or Peace? by TA Ramesh
Impact of Globalization on Indian Culture by V. Sundaram 
A Rebel of Innocence by Ashwini Ahuja
Trip to Heaven by Arya Bhushan
When the Sun Sets by Dr. Manasi Dutt 
Meenaxi by Dibyendu Ghosal
Rinanubandh by Julia Dutta
A Country Deluged by VK Joshi 
Food for Thought by Attreyee Roy Chowdhury 
Skiing in Dubai by Rajesh Talwar 
That Thing Called Love by Tuhin Sinha 
The Witty Side by Melvin Durai 
Mothers Feeling Blue by Rasana Atreya
'Silence is Complicity' by Elayne Clift 
Dissent through Dance and Drama by Deepti Priya Mehrotra 
Concrete Threat to Goa's Beaches by Lionel Messias 
Imprisoned by Daylight by Swapna Majumdar