All of us live with our past. All of us allow it to shape our future. But some of us know how to shrug off the past. I always thought that, 'the past' per se was a bucketful of ashes, burnt up and gone. It was a waste of time to keep re-visiting memories. At least, that is what I would like myself to believe.
Working late shifts at my office, looking at the expansive city limits, glittering like vari-coloured gems, through the all-glass walls, at times I seem to be in a stupor. The silence of the normally busy lobby, just across my room with its dimmed lights allowing moonlight to pour in through the glass walls, slowly touching upon the furniture and the potted greenery was bewitching. I seemed to be slowly slipping into almost a psychedelic languor. Two beautiful, brutal and unrelenting blue eyes seemed to flash out from the darkest corner of my room, near the ceiling. An eerie chill shook me out of my haze as I strode purposefully towards the coffee machine at the end of the hall. A cup of piping hot coffee was all that I needed now to pull me out of the absurd debris that was littering my mind. I returned to my seat, and concentrated on the proposal that I was working on. I needed to revert to my client at the earliest. Yet, my concentration was disrupted time and again by that one incident, which kept coming back to me.
The sunlight oozing in through the curtains, startled me, as soon as I opened my eyes, forcing me to close them again. My fingers frantically touched upon objects on my bedside table, in vain attempts to stop the snoozing alarm clock. I had to brave the piercing sunlight in my eyes to stop the jarring sound. I lay on my back, still, contemplative. These few minutes of early morning peace and quiet, with the sound of water, left running in the kitchen sink by Beni, preparing my tea, and my outstretched hands rubbing against Niloufer’s back, were the ‘me’ moments that I cherished the most. These few coveted minutes provided me with an epicurean sensitivity and a feeling of security that perhaps nothing else could. This was my comfort zone, my home, where I could keep my mask aside, even if it was for a couple of waking hours. Beni’s entry, paused my thoughts in their tracks. I was pushed out of bed, as she started patting down my bedsheet in placeand fluffing up my pillows after planting the tray holding my tea cup on my bedside table, all the while grumbling and muttering about something that she was not so happy about. This time it seemed that the gardener was in her bad books. Beni’s well-intentioned but hyper activities strangely relaxed me.
Beni was my chum, my cook, my guide, my house-keeper as well as my alter ego, all rolled into one.She was the one, who I could call my kin, in this entire world. From the time, that I came into my own, understood that I was a girl, whom, nobody wanted to share their name with, whom, nobody cared for in particular. I realized that the big house that I grew up in and the other children, who I grew up with were none that I could call my own, Beni was the cook at the orphanage, where I had been abandoned as a baby and she had, taken me under her wings. She had a family, a husband and a son, and despite the fact that there were so many other similar children to feed and look after, I could clearly feel from that young age, that she reserved a special place for me and was always looking out for pretexts to spend some time with me and excuses to feed me something extra smuggled out from the kitchen.
Perhaps, the Greater Force tried to balance his act of depriving me of a family, right from birth, and tried to make up for my lack in attractiveness in terms of looks by providing me with superior grey matter. And owing to that, I financed my studies with the means of scholarships right from school through my university. In that particular area, I always stood out from other children of the orphanage and the authorities decided to let me carry on with my studies. After completing my M.Tech, and after securing a plum job with an even plumper salary, I secured my first accommodations, an apartment on the fifth floor of a tower, in a housing complex, a place that I finally could think of and call my own. The next thing that, I did after settling down in my apartment was to search and to locate Beni, who by then was living alone after the death of her alcoholic husband and her abandonment by her son. And for the first time in my life, I had a home and a family.
Niloufer came into my life, just a few days after I had settled down with Beni in my new life. My neighbour’s cat had a litter, and as I struck up a conversation with her, she offered me one kitten from the litter. The moment I saw Niloufer, I knew that she was mine. She was the albino of the litter, with a striking white coat and the deepest of blue eyes. As I picked her up from her mother’s side, she curled up and nestled in the crook of my arm, as if that is where, she had always belonged. With time she grew to be extremely possessive about me, disliking even Beni’s presence around me at times. She was one of the most beautiful, affectionate and pampered creature that I had ever met, and she strutted about the apartment with a lordly air and a regal contempt for the gross and sordid things of earth. At times, when my sleep was disrupted at night after my string of usual nightmares and I looked across I would find, Niloufer staring at me, her bright blue eyes piercing through the darkness and at times, this sent a chill down my spine, though I knew that this was baseless.
Beni’s grumbles were increasing directly in proportion with my late working hours. I could understand her concern for my safety, and at times, I even enjoyed them, as she fretted over me and pampered me, after I came back from work. After a hot shower, I had the privilege of putting my feet up on the sofa in front of the TV, with a plate of hot dinner, served in front of me, and Niloufer curled up at my feet.
My life felt really good as I sat watching the inference about the presence or absence of alien intervention in the course of development of human civilisation on the History Channel, when I heard the glass window panes slamming against each other. Before I could react and call out to Beni, to close the windows, thinking that a storm was brewing, my sofa started shaking and swaying. I heard, Beni’s footsteps running up to me and was astounded to find Niloufer retreating to the corner of the room, all the while hissing and spitting. My head had started to reel as the shaking increased, and the furniture had started to rattle and to move out of their place, I understood that we were in the midst of an earthquake. It took me a few moments to comprehend what exactly was taking place and in a blink and you miss moment, I scooped up Niloufer in my arms, caught hold of Beni’s shaking shoulder and guided them towards the door. Before I could reach the door, the lights went out and I passed out after I received a stunning blow from something hitting me on the head.
A dull throbbing pain was the first thing that I sensed, as I regained consciousness. I was lying under a pile of rubble, with my left leg stuck under a chunk of concrete. In the pale grey light that appeared to filter in from some corner, I found Niloufer, completely safe, excepting for a few scratches and a layer of dust on her coat, licking my face and trying to wake me up. As I pulled myself up, I found that I could raise only part of my body and that Beni’s unconscious body lay only a few feet away from me, but out of my hand’s reach. It occurred to me, that I was unable even to determine whether she was alive or dead. I had never felt so incapable or defenseless previously. Niloufer seemed to read my mind and with difficulty moved in between the beams, concrete slabs and the naked, hissing wires to where, Beni lay motionless. Then with the utmost ability she had, Niloufer, tried to wake up Beni, by pushing her head with her paw and scratching her hand and all the while making loud meowing sound.
After what seemed like an eternity, I heard Beni groan, and almost at the same time heard the sound of human voices and activities. Niloufer’s mews and my cries attracted human attention as I heard shovels working overtime above my head. Daylight was trickling in, as I cried out with pain and relief at a human face peering down on me. With a lot of effort, as the men tried to pry and move the concrete slab from over my leg, I screamed out in sheer agony, as I could hear the crackle of my bones before I passed out again.
Lying in the general ward, in a hospital bed next to Beni, who had suffered minor injuries only, fortunately, I knew the inevitable. While there were so many human lives at stake, the value of animal lives, were at the end of the priority list of the rescue personnel. My redeemer, who had saved Beni’s and my life, had hardly given a thought about saving Niloufer. And that night, the night after the earthquake, I first saw, Niloufer’s sapphire-blue, piercing, brutal eyes staring at me from the corner of the dark ceiling. And every night after that, my sapphires came back to me again and again. I have been able to shrug off so much of what life had unfairly meted out to me, but Niloufer, ensured that I would never be able to shrug off her presence, her memories and her remembrances from my life.
