Short Story: The Poison Of Happiness
Originally
written in Balochi by: Ghani Parwaz
Translated
into English by: Uzair Mehr
After
reaching the age of adulthood,
She was also
feeling the same at that moment when she was going to fetch water from the tank
of the hospital accompanying with her friends. They were three friends. Her
both friends were laughing and jesting but she was preoccupied. She became
conscious when all of a sudden, the pluvial wind started blowing. They
expediated their steps to fetch water and return home before raining, however,
the clouds had promptly enfolded the sky, and pouring started like the flux of waterskin.
Now neither there was time for consideration nor it was of any use. Therefore,
they looked hither and thither and hurriedly entered to a courtyard of a nearby
building for shelter. It was a firm building whose yard doors were open. Entering
inside there ahead was its veranda. They went to stand under it. After staying
for a long time, the rain and wind still didn’t stop, so they became very
uneasy and kept watching here and there for searching a better place of
shelter. Meanwhile, they heard a voice.
“Come inside
the room”. It was a virile voice.
“What?” Among
the friends one unintentionally said and three of the friends paid their heed
to the voice.
“I said come
inside the room. You will be distracted by the rain and wind”. The owner of the
voice appeared from a corner and guided them entering into the room. They entered
into the room one after another. An Irani carpet was spread inside the room,
and some cushions were propped up the wall. Three of them put their water pots
inside the room by the door and sat shoring the cushions next to one another.
“Don’t
worry. Sit comfortably”. He said courteously.
“We aren’t
any worried,” said the eldest friend firmly.
“Would you
like to drink water?” he inquired.
“No,” the
eldest friend replied.
She looked
at him thoroughly. He was a handsome young man with a moderate figure clad in
the white dress and his smooth hair was combed backside. Her friends didn’t
heed much but she was absorbed in him. She thought his feature, height and
body, clothing, gait, talks, sympathy everything was peerless. She felt such an
attraction in him that pervaded into her eyes to her heart in a flash and sprang
up a storm in her heart.
“Ah! My
heart!” she felt colossally inquietude but didn’t express anything verbally.
“I wish this
young man were my life’s….,” a desire arose from her heart but her modesty soon
stifled it.
A period of my
efflorescence had passed but there also might be another one…” a gleam of hope glinted
from deep down her heart. When the rain
and wind stopped, they filled their water pots and pitchers and returned their
home but she felt as if her life had remained in the room of that very building
no matter how much strive but cannot be retrieved. Howsoever she felt much
perturbation, but this restlessness also carried such a serenity for which one
could sacrifice every wealth.
Then
whenever she went to fetch water along with her friends, that way was her path
and her gaze stared the very building. Sometimes she saw that the young man was
standing at the doorway and looking here and there. She knew that the building
is of ‘Doctor Colony’ that’s why she guessed that he would be a doctor.
She considered that what is her status to think about a doctor. The Baloch
antecedents said,
“live a
simple life as per your status.”
But one day
while returning home, she separated from her friends and lagged behind then
this story took a new twist. She was moving toward her town alone, when that
very building reached and that young man was standing before her. While seeing
him, her eyes adhered to him in such a way that it was hard for her to move
them aside. It seemed as if he bewitched her. Suddenly she impinged on a stone
and fell face down on the ground. Her plastic jar sliding from her hand fell
and turning over went away. She promptly rose and sat down and started looking
her hands and feet that might have bruised. The young man swiftly moved near
her and apprehensively expressed sympathy with her,
“Didn’t you get
any major contusion?”
“Contusion?”
it seemed as If she wasn’t understanding well.
“Yes,
contusion,” the young man said again.
“I don’t
know!” she looked at her hands and feet and said bashfully.
“Oh! You are
injured” the young man sympathetically expressed his feelings.
“Get up,
let’s go home, I will salve your injuries.”
“Should I
come along home?”
“Yes, come
along home, it’s just a matter of an instant.”
“A matter of
an instant?”
“Yes, a
matter of an instant.”
The girl
looked hither and thither, got up helplessly and went indoors with the young
man.
“Sit here, I
will come soon.”
“OK, alright.”
The girl said gratefully and sat into the room.
Then the man
came and applied medicines and bandage on her bruises.
“What is
your name?”
“Shargul!”
“Very nice
name.”
“Come
again?”
“Yes, it’s a
very nice name.”
“What is
your name?”
“Jahanzaib.”
“You are a
very affable man.”
“What is my
affableness?”
“Sympathy
and…. many more.”
“Anyhow
sympathy is sympathy but what is many more?” he smiled.
“Many more
is many more then what they can be.” She watched him longingly.
“You are a perspicacious
girl”. The boy looked heedfully and said merrily.
“From where
did you learn this perspicacity?”
“From my
school.”
“From your
school? are you studying?” the boy discovered.
“I passed
matriculation and I am a teacher now.”
“A teacher?”
“Yes, are
you a doctor?”
“Obviously.”
After the
treatment of teacher’s wounds, the doctor went to the second room and brought a
plate of some bananas and served her. She picked up one tardily, peeled its
rind, bit off small bites, ate and finished it. When she cast her look higher,
so she saw that the doctor was staring at her. She didn’t know with which
intention he was looking at her however, she looked at the doctor with yearning,
affectionately. Then she figured that the doctor was also looking at her with
love, yearningly. Afterwards, it seemed as though the downpour of affection and
love began pouring and it kept showering for a long time with a purpose. After
the rain stopped, she went to fill the jar again and with the thoughts of
affection and love she friskily returned home. That night was not any less than
a heaven for her. She yearned for that night many times but never expected it
so much because she didn’t consider herself deserving of it. It had been eight
or ten days in her luck that she was overwhelmed and every moment her happiness
was increasing. She felt that if her happiness increases this way so will she
have the power in her to endure the accumulated happiness at last or no? she
thought that she always heard the talks of excessive sorrows and intolerance
but never heard of any talk of such excessive happiness and intolerance. She
tied the knot with her cherished doctor. she was a bride sitting in the canopy.
After the nightfall, the bridegroom entered the house. She was lost in the
cogitation out of excessive happiness and due to the excessive thirst of
contemplation she was greatly quivering. She was unceasingly thinking about the
same fear in her heart that will she tolerate much happiness or not?
After a
while, all people left the room and went outside. They both were left all alone
there. The bridegroom wanted to fulfill the longstanding desires of his heart now.
He awoke the bride twice or thrice to “come” but out of modesty she
didn’t go near him. The bridegroom himself went to bride and embraced her and
gently tried to bring her near himself. All of a sudden, it seemed as if she got
a shock because she was lying like a dead body in his embrace. He dementedly
checked her heart and pulse. Her soul flew away; she panicked owing to the
excessive happiness.
Reference:
Monthly Balochi
Labzank May 2005
Page No.
19-22
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