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My muse from Afghanistan
JAN 18 - Now when I am on my pilgrimage I leave in the evening flowers of worship And my salutations to you all.
- Rabidranath Tagore
I hold Tagore and Poetry in higher esteem now, more than even before” said Wendy MacClinchy as our car raced towards Indira Gandhi International Airport to catch her early morning Kabul flight.
The time was four o’clock. Quarter past three we had reached the Hotel to pick her up. I had a strange feeling of being back in High school.
My cousin Anish drove the car. He had requested me to sit on the front seat to keep the competition to win Wendy over fair and even.
Wendy originally comes from the United States. “Both my parents have remarried. My father lives near the sea, fishing. My mother has married a politician.”
“But Wendy you are leaving” Anish uttered his refrain, Wendy giggled at this and I leaned over to pat her hand.
It was Tagore that had brought us together and Wendy acknowledged the debt to Poetry in extending the frontiers of human relationships.
Wendy was reading Tagore in a socialite bar named ‘Spirit’ in Connaught Place when I first saw her.
It was a fascinating sight to see a young woman relishing Tagore’s book, smile meaningfully, even laugh as if enthralled by Tagore’s high verse and jot a line or two in her notebook in the middle of her leisurely reading.
“This is my last day in civilization” Wendy had disclosed, “and Tagore is going to be my lone companion in the coming days. Day after tomorrow I go back to Afghanistan”.
After a brief chat I learned Wendy worked in Afghanistan in a remote district away from Kabul in a UN related Development Project set up in the snow-laden mountains.
“You are a brave girl,” I told her.
“Thanks, but life there is riddled with risks. Journey from Kabul to her workplace districts is fraught with hazards. Security forces always escort us. Even now most of the routes remain littered with landmines. Even mountain paths aren’t safe. When snow melts, the mines come down, blowing up human settlements.”
After a while Wendy opened up like a water lily, without much fuss and accepted my cousins’ invitation to a party at Hotel Intercontinental near Bengali Market.
She accepted to ride in our car around eleven o’ clock in a dark night with the innocence of a young child, so much so I had to warn us. “You should be careful here. Only a week ago a foreign woman working in an Embassy was raped in a car.” She looked at me amicable and smiled. “Don’t worry, I can tell a person. I do have a feel of what’s right and what’s wrong”.
After three hours we befriended Wendy in such a way that she became part of our ‘gang’ and disclosed, “Today’s my birthday! “Elated, we wished her a very happy birthday and offered to organize a small party in her honor at ‘Spirit’. We offered to take her around in Delhi, helping her in shopping. And I offered to write a poem for her.
“Would you be my Muse for a day” I asked and then Wendy giggled. “But Wendy you are going to Afghanistan,” Anish repeated, making her giggle again.
We helped her buy a rose-petal colored Sari at South Ex. Market. Wendy appeared celestial as the salesgirl wrapped the sari around her. God-like, she stood watching herself in the mirror. “I will buy this. Karzai might invite me in one of his parties. I need something special for an official party.
Later we took her to a salon, at Priya Cinema Complex of Vasant Vihar. We waited outside like school kids as Wendy spent the hour with the manicurist and came out, walking like fairy.
“The airport at Kabul is like a war zone,’ Wendy spoke, looking sadly out of the car, foreseeing her arrival at Kabul. “Our plane would go up above the airport, high up in the sky and crash-land for guerillas might hit the plane and blow it off.”
While leaving, Wendy entrusted us with most private task of posting some two dozen greeting cards. Anish took them obediently and said. “But Wendy, you are leaving for Afghanistan!” Three days later I received an email from Wendy, thanking us.
“Of all things two things I remember the most,” I replied to Wendy in my e-mail, “your nimble feet and the silence of the ocean of your green eyes.”
Guests of my life,
You came in the early dawn and you in the night,
Your name was uttered by the Spring flowers and yours by the showers of rain.
You brought the harp into my house and you brought the lamp.
After you had taken your leave, I found God’s footprints on my floor.
- Tagore, Crossings
This writer can be reached at yuyutsurd@yahoo.comPosted on: 2004-01-19 04:28
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