Time

He neatly brushed his oiled hair to one side, pushing tiny strands behind his ears. “A side parting suits you, in my opinion”, he remembered her coyly smiling as they walked to school on a winter morning. Placing the bottle of coconut oil back in the shelf, he carefully put the marigolds wrapped in paper lying on the table in his cloth bag. “You brighten my life like these flowers”, ten year old Shyam would excitedly tell Bindu every time he brought her marigolds plucked from his garden. After all this time, he was going to meet her again. Time had wrapped all their memories in a scarf of warmth, tethered together with summer afternoons that were spent galloping around mustard fields, long, slow-paced walks on kuchha roads to the local school and evenings watching the sun set, tucked under a gigantic banyan tree. He always carried this scarf around, through the winter of life. Occasionally, when life dealt him a bad hand, he’d rummage through these memories and soothe himself. Something about your first love and time. Twenty-five years later, he would see her face again.

He nervously walked in, consciously tucking the tiny strands of hair behind his ears. There she was, her biscuit brown skin shining under the yellow light. A red bindi sat between her neatly shaped brows. Beneath her thin lips, there was a tiny birthmark. “Three. I have three birthmarks on my face ”, she had excitedly told him one day as they walked to school. His eyes instantly searched for the other two. One under her right eye and the other on the arch of her nose. Even when time had metamorphosed over the years, her features still remained the same. He slowly walked toward her. Wrapped in the moment, he struggled to utter any word. “Panditji, you’re finally here. Can we start the rituals?”, a man asked him. “Yes”, he responded as he glanced at her lifeless body, a tear rolling down his eyes, pressing the marigolds between her clenched fingers.