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Gauri, a young village girl ho...
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My veil tarnished, how do I hide it,
How do I go home or drop by?
My spotless veil was sullied,
My cover unassailed like my unblemished body.
How do I look my father in eye?
All I promised him evaporated,
In the heat of my lover's embrace.
My immortal soul is dark and impure,
The gleam hidden beneath the dirt of lie.
The world beyond these walls is my father's abode,
This home is my lover's bestowed.
Now how do I look my father in eye?
How do I go home or drop by?
The young maiden sang in a melodious voice while the bells of the temple chimed in background due to gentle breeze. Her hair was braided into thick tail and traditional clothes covered her lithe form. Her beautiful collarbone glistened with sweat as she brooms the premises with a lost mind. Heavy anklets adorn her dry feet and glass bangles in her wrists click with every moment made in haste.
A small smile was plastered on Vasundhara's lips. Her frame was leaning against one of the temple pillars as she listens to the sweetest melancholy full of devotion. Serenity oozed from her pores. Worry lines evaporated from her forehead. The burden on her shoulders seems to lighten with the resonance of shlokas chanted by five priests as they adorned the idol of the Goddess with finest jewels and garments. She swore she napped twice or thrice during the entire exchange. The air here lacked suffocating troubles, greed, and hardships that she battles daily inside the walls of her doomed household.
She wished to stay here and never return for this peace might not follow where her family seeks her return.
And the meager thought breaks that smile. Her stretched lips wrinkle into a grimace. No matter wherever she goes, at the end of the day, before the night obscures the brilliant sun, she has to go home. The responsibilities keep her tied. For once she wished to be a free woman, to dive into the body of the free-spirited teenager she used to be before becoming a clueless Queen.
"Vasundhara"
Her moistened eyes opened and her back straightened. A hand landed on her head and she heaved a breathless sigh. Her lips quivered. Her face turned to greet the entity whom she has been waiting to see for a month.
The saint of the Nilgiri, the holy man who found all his answers within himself, the man who is foresighted and has challenged destiny.
Yogi Sundaram Arya Madhusudan
Floodgates opened in Vasundhara's eyes and from a blurry vision, she drank in the details of his bright persona.
A tripund tilak was made on his forehead. The front portion of his long mane was tied in a small bun over the top whereas the rest was allowed to fall down his back. Rudrakshas of different kinds and sizes were roped into garlands and worn around a neck painted with ash and biceps covered with the same. His honey-brown eyes were trained on her and small pink lips twitched beneath the bushy beard that reached his chest. A hint of grey, a sign of aging could be seen scattered here and there. A saffron robe hung loosely around his slim frame. The countenance of the saint held a light that shined brighter than the gold adorning Goddess's frame.
