Mrinalini♦

17. Autumn leaves

"The autumn leaves that die and wither away do not indicate the end, instead they signify a new beginning."

-Elegiac_Damsel

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30th September

Third person's point of view:

In the wee hours of the morning, at 4 am, when the sun wasn't quite up, the radio was being tuned in every household. The immortalised voice of Birendra Krishna Bhadra echoed the opening lines of Mahishasura Mardini, a radio programme that has been in existence since its interception in 1931, with the verses dedicated to the ferocious mother goddess, Durga. 

Unlike most days of the year, when people chose to sleep over the dawn, this one autumn morning saw everyone awake, awaiting the sunrise. Although old with the years, the simple radio programme remains popular among people. Its significance marks the first new moon of autumn, Mahalaya Amavasya, occurring just a week before the festivities commenced. Although the day after Mahalaya marks the beginning of Sharadiya Navratri, celebrations in the Eastern states of India, like in Bengal, begin from the sixth day in the Northern and Western parts of India.

In the Acharya household, Mrinalini and Debarghya were still lying on their bed, side by side, the old battery-powered radio nestled in between their two pillows. They had both awoken with the help of an alarm set on Mrinalini's phone, having been determined to not miss the AIR broadcast. With drowsy eyes and a groggy self, Debarghya had tuned in the radio to the right frequency with great difficulty as Mrinalini had watched him struggling to keep his eyes open, amused. There was silence in the room apart from the booming voice from the radio, interrupted briefly for songs which were decades old, which were a part of the radio broadcast, the recording sounding rusty and high pitched, especially in the early, quiet morning. And yet, despite the random bursts of static that brought momentary discontinuity, neither spoke, their attention remained uninterspersed. 

Watching Debarghya gradually drift off to sleep even as the radio continued blaring, Mrinalini sighed. She felt lazed, unwilling to wake up although it was close to half-past five, the broadcast on the cusp of ending. Taking her time to shut down the radio, she reached out to keep it on the bedside table before rolling over on the bed, snuggling in a foetal position, indulging herself in a few more minutes of lazing around. She could do the work later. There was enough time.

Sleeping wasn't an option, and Mrinalini knew that she couldn't fall back asleep having been awake for so long. And yet, she chose to give in to her desire of lazing around, mentally transporting herself to a state of superficial relaxation whilst she was awake, contemplating thoughts that she shared with no one but herself.

Her life had begun seeming dull. Although she had settled in well at her new home, she felt utterly bored, often rendered lonely and unenthusiastic. She couldn't help but go over the changes that were apparent in her life. It was barely 3 months ago when she had been happy, going to college, carefree and free. She hadn't imagined getting married this early. She wasn't unhappy with her new life, but a part of her fervently wished things hadn't turned out this way. Being married to a man several years older than her, living in a household with two other strangers, who were a part of her family now, staying home for an entire year before she could get back to college, it seemed tedious, quite often asphyxiating. She had come to like Debarghya, and perhaps things would work out between them in the future. Dealing with her bittersweet mother-in-law and her daughter was also something she could manage, but the weighing questions of what could have happened had things been different never ceased to cause a gnawing feeling of regret in her. 

Looking back at what the past month or so had yielded, Mrinalini knew that she was in a way grateful for whatever had transpired in her life, grateful for learning about her uncle's deceit and crime, grateful for Debarghya's patient maturity, which had helped her absorb the shock from what Rai had revealed unceremoniously.  She was thankful for his sense of individualism, financial and otherwise, that had inevitably prompted her to harbour the same. She was grateful for his demeanour and behaviour with her, glad and relieved that he hadn't tried to force marital obligations upon her.