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 SAFFRON

                                                                           Unsplash

 The body lay on the ground, covered with a sheet which must have been white at one time. All that could be seen was a portion of the saffron robe worn by the man who now lay motionless, shrouded in silence. The police had managed to locate his family – his wife, his son and daughter – all of whom had seen him three years ago when he had had a fight with his wife and stormed out with a tiny suitcase.

Before he left, he had turned to his long-suffering wife.

“I never want to see you again!” His voice had been strident, and she had winced, even as she made no effort to stop him.

The children, teenaged, ran after him as he walked away.

“Where are you going, father?” Achyut had asked, his voice shaky.

Preeti, his daughter, whimpered, tears streaming down her face as she pleaded with him in turn.

“Please don’t leave us, father. We need you.”

He had looked at them, despair in his eyes, wanting to placate them, but he had no intention of changing his mind. His life was a living hell, and he never wanted to lay eyes on his wife again.

His wife was relieved. She had married him when she was extremely young, when she had stars in her lustrous eyes. The first few months revealed the kind of man he was, violent and self-centred, often using his fists to dominate her. The lustre disappeared only to be replaced by a tired resignation. Too late she realized that they had nothing in common, and she started rebelling. The day he was unbearably brutish, she would begin to meddle with his food, lacing it with a certain powder that would give him the ‘runs’. Two days of intense cramps and diarrhoea, and he would climb down his high horse and turn more human.

When the children came, she found that he lavished all his love on them, the love that she had never once got from him, which made her more resentful. The powder came out more often as did his cramps, a practice that continued over the years.

Surprisingly, he never caught on, maybe because he never expected her to act thus. Every time he went to the village doctor, the latter would give him more powders or ‘golis’, trying a new dose every time as he had no idea what was wrong with the man.

Over the years, his wife had also become complacent. One morning, covered in bruises after a particularly difficult night, she took the powder and just as she was stirring it into his cup of tea, he walked in and caught her at it.

“Are you trying to poison me?” he roared, grabbing the bottle from her, even as she resisted.

“If I had poisoned you, you would have been dead by now!” was her defiant response.

He had shoved her aside roughly, and she went down with a crash, hitting her head against the wooden door. As she lay in a haze, she saw him striding into the bedroom and throwing things around. The children rushed in after hearing the noise and helped her up. Preeti brought her a glass of water and Achyut went in to see what his father was doing.

“I am leaving, son! Your mother is a witch, and she will poison me if I stay here!” A shocked Achyut tried to stop him but to no avail. He hugged both his children, glared at his wife, and walked out.

Now he was back, a corpse in a saffron robe, his hair matted and his toenails long and dirty, as they curled inwards. There were two men who had travelled with the body, and they were in a hurry to hand it over and leave. Apparently, over the years, he had been living in an ashram which allowed him to work as a gardener with three meals and a tiny space to live in. He had taken to wearing cast-off saffron robes and he had become so painfully thin that the robe enveloped him like a tent.

“How did he die?” The burly policeman who was writing the report asked gruffly.

“It was an accident. He fell upon his own spade as he was walking across the garden. It caused a gash on his head, and he bled to death.” The men looked at each other, and then back at the policeman.

“He had no one. As we were going through his paltry belongings, we found this envelope in which there was a photo.”

One of the men held out a dirty white envelope. The policeman took a cursory glance at the photo of the man’s wife and children, nodding. There was no doubt in his mind at all.

When the wife was summoned to the police station to identify the body, along with her son, she stood still, and stared in wonder at his saffron robe. She had no tears for him. Her heart had dried up like an apple seed when he deserted her. The son was more overcome. He bent down and touched his father’s scaly feet. The body was taken home. The funeral was to be held the next day. There were no mourners, apart from his children.

The next morning, there was a knock on their door. Two policemen stood there, stolid and forbidding. The body lay in the front room, still wrapped in the dirty white sheet, the saffron robe fluttering in the slight breeze that blew through the open door.

“We had a message early this morning,” one of the policemen said. “Your husband did not have an accident. He committed suicide by falling on his spade on purpose.”

The wife stood shell-shocked; the children were motionless.

“How do they know this?” she finally asked in a quavering voice.

“Well, they found a note in which he wrote that he had had enough of this life and that he was going to end it all.”

“Who found him?” the daughter asked sorrowfully.

“His only friend, Ghanshyam, who was heartbroken.”

More details came their way. Apparently, Ghanshyam had come to the ashram a couple of months back, and they had hit it off immediately. The other inmates were astonished because he had never had any friends before that.

The post-mortem was done. The body was divested of saffron, and once the procedure was over, it was wrapped tightly in a shroud and handed over to the family.

The wife stood, stony-faced as she watched the pyre burn. The children wept, both at their father’s death and at their mother’s lack of emotion. They asked no questions because they knew the agony she had been through when he was alive. They had no idea of how her mind worked for she had always been an enigma to them.

That evening, she waited till night. The children were asleep, exhausted after the traumatic day. The knock came, a soft tapping. She opened the door, a finger on her lips.

“They are asleep,” she replied to his questioning look. “Come inside without making a sound.”

As she boiled water for some tea, Ghanshyam sat back, stretching his exhausted legs. They could finally live together.  

The saffron had gone from their lives forever.

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