The Woman in The Photograph
I was obsessed with her. I had been all summer. Her. The woman in the photograph. An old photograph I had found in the hidden compartment in my father’s almirah; away from his archives. Grainy. Monochromatic. Dented. From the 1980s when single-lens reflex cameras were a thing.
Short hair peeking from underneath a hat; the kind of hat you would see at a derby. Light t-shirt, collared. Lighter pair of trousers. Dark jacket. Her feet did not make it inside the frame. I assumed she was wearing a pair of boots, but I would never know. She was pretty, but her looks were not what intrigued me. I could not put my finger on it, but perhaps it was the way she looked at the person behind the lens, presumably my father.
Woman. Steps. River. Tree. A smudged scribble behind the photograph in my father’s handwriting left a clue. “2 December 1982; Assi Ghat, Benaras.” A little more information would have been helpful, dad. But then again, perhaps he never meant for the photograph to be found. I wondered why.
The woman in the photograph. She drew me to Benaras, to Assi Ghat. I walk the discordant stone-brick and concrete lanes; their curves, steps, and corners; by close-knit houses, and through bustling markets. The lanes smell of pera, rabri, ghee, incense, camphor, jasmine, and cow. I look for answers, but my questions are incoherent. Sadhus watch me as I wander, aimless.
It is sundown. Men, women, and children are flocking to the Ghat. I am exhausted. I choose to blend in. The priests and their assistants are busy while devotees scramble for a place to sit. But I am no devotee. I claim an empty patch of concrete by a distant tree, and I stare at the photograph again. This time, it feels as though she has a hold on me. I cannot move. I cannot turn my eyes away.
The Ganga Aarti has begun. Conch shells have never echoed so ominous; bells have never rung so sinister; and chants have never sounded so macabre.
From the photograph, the woman stares back at me, and her knees aren’t in the frame anymore.
The Woman In The Lane
I’ve lost time. How long, I do not know. My wristwatch stopped ticking at 11:55. My phone lies abandoned somewhere in my luggage in the dingy hotel room. I have lost time. And time has deserted me. Poetic. Perhaps even a little more poetic than the Ganga, but tonight her grim serenity is a different genre of poetry.
Assi Ghat sleeps, deserted and lifeless. It was kind of the August drizzle to rip me out of her hold. Her, the woman in the photograph.
I walk away from the Ghat and step into the hollow streets of Benaras. The night and the mizzle have chased souls out of these ghoulish lanes and driven them home. Faint pastel yellow streetlights and shadows bleed in and out of each other. Gone is the cacophony, the chatter, the chimes, and the clatter. I can hear the quiet. Afternoon scents have faded; now it is just petrichor and cow, with a hint of metal.
Footsteps. I look up from the wet stone bricks. Wide-brimmed off-white hat with a black lace strip for a hatband. Dark faux leather jacket. Khaki trousers. Dark flat ankle boots. She is ten feet ahead of me, walking in and out of the streetlights and shadows, leading the way. I think I know her, but I must be certain.
Steps. River. Tree. No woman in the photograph. I stuff it back into my jeans pocket. Then I look up and start sprinting towards her. She has the answers I need.
She walks. I run. She keeps walking, I run harder. I am sweating, but the distance between us doesn’t shorten. Desperate now, I call out to her, “Hey! Stop!” But she just keeps walking, either oblivious or apathetic.
A sudden gust of wind characterized by sharp-hitting rain and low whistles blows a newspaper at me. It slaps me in the face and breaks my run.
I remove the grimy sheets of paper covering my eyes to find myself standing alone, panting, heartpounding, veins throbbing. She’s gone. Disappeared just as she had appeared, out of nowhere.
And sure enough, she isn’t in the photograph either.
The Woman In The Well
I am drained. The bell-shaped lights underneath the ceiling fan spin in a ring. A ring like the one I saw when I looked up to the slate skies from the floor of the well, waist-deep in befouled water.
She had called me here. No words, just gestures. The first – an ad in the grimy newspaper — ‘Rent Bike/Scooter, 24 Hrs, 700/- Only’ — followed by a misplaced headline below the ad — ‘Chunar Kile Ka Jeernoddhaar Aur Marammat Mahatvapoorn Hai’ (The Renovation and Repair of Chunar Fort are Important).
River. Hills. Green. Rock. The eldritch grounds of the fort invited me in, history of close to ten centuries whispering through its sandstone walls. Empty. Rain-soaked. I was alone. Wisps of smog led me to the well. Her third and final gesture.
Down I looked for answers. And there she was, her hand stretching out, like she wanted me to take it and lead her to some place only I could find. Faint hollow echoes, I thought, called out to me. I found my way down the unkempt stairs, shadowed for the walls rose on either side. I found my way to her.
Face to face we stood waist-deep in water that bore toxic love from city dwellers. She whispered something, my name perhaps. I had questions but I found no voice. Instead, I watched the white in her eyes creep into the hazelnut of her iris and into the dark hollow of her pupils; I watched the warm tawny of her skin wrinkle and turn to pale white and purple-blue; and I watched, helpless, as time and his cruel scythe took hold of her wilting breath like he had taken hold of the crumbling fort and this dying city. Her cracked blue lips moved but whatever she wanted to say was lost.
She took my hand and placed in my palm a necklace. A stone pendant. Teal with viridian veins and a thin crack. My father’s gift to my mother on the night he wed her — 2 December 1983.
Loyal, it lay by my mother’s side when a fall cracked open her skull. Loyal, it lay by my father’s side when his heart stopped. And loyal, it now lies by my side as I stare into the ring of light while she rests in the photograph.
Illustration: Suman Mukherjee
