The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.
-Thornton Wilder
Let me tell you a story. [Fictional names]
In the snug town of Nainital, burrowed in the foothills of the Himalayas, love birds Dheeraj and Nina made a handsomely delightful couple. Dr. Nina Dwivedi was the subordinate of the town’s most renowned ophthalmologist and Dr. Dheeraj Mishra, PhD., taught English literature at Kumaun University, Nainital.
The fortunate childhood sweethearts married in a modest, yet congenial Hindu ceremony in presence of family and friends, celebrating their blissful and blessed union. After an enchantingly regal honeymoon among the palaces of Jaipur, Dheeraj and Nina moved to a cottage apartment in Nainital, closer to Nina’s newly opened clinic where she resumed her practice. The following summer, Dheeraj and Nina celebrated his promotion at college.
At dawn, as Dheeraj hugged her waist and kissed the nape of his wife’s neck in their garden of lilies, (Nina’s favorite flower), they bathed in the joy and contentment that engulfed their home and hearts.
As a person who’s life and profession was dedicated to service, Nina’s clinic was frequented by the minted and less – moneyed alike, for her deft diagnosis, expert medical advice, benevolent waivers and affordable fees. As a professor who took up teaching for the love of the language, Dheeraj enthusiastically gave free private lessons after uni hours, for the late bloomers and the underprivileged in his classes.
Dheeraj and Nina never cared for monetary affluence. They prayed and wanted, only to be rich in people, blessings and love. They were proud of each other’s achievements and beyond thankful for the resonance of their thoughts and principles.
After a few weeks, to their absolute euphoria, Nina became pregnant with their baby. It appeared in definite certainness, that Dheeraj and Nina’s rainbows had found their pots of Gold.
But, as the old saying goes, life is a mystery box of (in)glorious uncertainties. One unfortunate night, as Dheeraj and Nina drove down from their friends’ wedding, they met with a fatal accident, leaving Dheeraj in unfathomable sorrow, solitude and silence.
This poem is the Soliloquy of Dheeraj’s shattered heart on his Nina’s first death anniversary. He lays down lily posies near her photo, as he struggles to find a glint of hope to illumine his future and find a reason to smile again.
*****
It’s not to celebrate my marital bliss,
Not to commemorate my child’s first kiss,
I now lay down two huge lily wreaths!
To ‘celebrate’ the first anniversary of their deaths!
For 3 months, in her womb, my child bore she,
And He took her before she gave him to me.
That fateful night, onto us, that wretched truck sped
And awoke the new orphan on the hospital bed!
It took more than a fortnight to sink in, the fall.
My Nina had bid her adieu, once and for all!
Vanished with her smile, warmth and bonhomie,
Bequeathing deafening silence and melancholy!
Perhaps I had done some huge grave wrong,
Perhaps, left alone, she wouldn’t have been strong,
Perhaps that’s the reason why she was taken before me!
Perhaps now she’s breaking down too, hearing my soliloquy!
I know she watches over me from above, my Veela!
As I sip down the special anniversary Tequila!
Sans love, sans peace, yet she coaxes me to cope,
For not all candles are blown out, there’s still a flame of hope!
Kreamy O' Cheddar 