VERMILLION
A short story
By Sitara
She stood in front of her full length mirror and scrutinized her face. She was poised with vermillion powder on the tip of her ring finger. The wedding ritual usually brought back memories.
***
"Himali!! Hiiiiiiiimaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaali, Hiiiiiima......! Her mother called from the living room. "Do not wear the white dress, white kurtha, white anything! I can't understand your obsession with white and blue! Don�t you know white is inauspicious, it means widowhood in our Hindu culture. We are going to the temple, wear something red." At the time, Himali was 17 yrs old, a rebellious teenager. She could not understand why color mattered in rituals. "Mamoo, I will wear a white kurtha, a red dot on my forehead and red bangles on my hands, Is that alright?" "Himali, wear whatever you please;I am tired of arguing with you�and, please don't bring in your western-book-philosophy into our discussions. Himali, I don't care what the philosophers say. Just get dressed; we are late!" Himali put on her anklets as her finishing touch and skipped down the stairs.
"Mamoo, you named me Himali. I love the color of the Himalayas; the sky, and the clouds adrift above the peaks. Mamoo, what do you expect?� Himali argued. �And, anyways, you are wrong; I also love silver; not gold mind you. I want to get married in white and silver. You know mamoo, those silver Banarashi saris without red or gold." Her mother glared at her and answered in exasperation, "Listen to yourself! You are only 17 and talking about marriage!" "Why mamoo? Would you be shunned by your friends, if I married in silver instead of red and gold?�
***
Five years later, married to the love of her life, she continued to wear white. HE never minded, "White is not the color of widowhood. Not for me. You look good in white, wear it!" As a matter of fact, Himali had been wearing one of those short white summer dresses when he first saw her at his college picnic. The dark color of her hair contrasted attractively with her stark white dress. HE had playfully serenaded her with a modified Santana song, �Your eyes are the color of the muddy Bagmati....you look my way and the waves wash over me..." An impressionable Himali was swept off her feet.
***
"Mamoo, please don�t cut my hair! I promise, I will wear white! Please don�t wash the vermillion dot from my forehead! Just break my red bangles. Why don�t you leave me alone!" Himali pleaded inconsolably. Her mother had no strength to reason with her. Heart broken and incoherent with pain, Himali had refused to let anyone near the vermillion dot on her forehead; it was the only remaining token of her husband. "Mamoo, he never minded the way I dressed, when he was alive. He is dead now. He won't care if I don't wash away my vermillion or if I don�t cut my hair!" Defeated, her mother asked the family members attending the funeral to leave her alone. "Himali has been traumatized enough. Allow her, her grief. It does not matter if the holy scriptures instruct otherwise.� They all left her alone; she was a widow.
***
Two years later, poised in front of her mirror, she waited for the waves of emotions to wash over her. They did not come. She waited, bracing herself for the fresh onslaught of memories. Surprised, she opened her kohled eyes and stared at her reflection. The hurt in her eyes was gone. The wounded look of a startled deer was fading; it was replaced by something deeper. She had loved with an abandon; lived with a passion and experienced the depths of pain. Himali had known deep shadows and the play of blinding light. She looked at the vermillion powder on the tip of her ring finger which was poised at her forehead. Without a second thought, she wiped it off on her handkerchief. Deliberately, Himali picked up her black kohl pencil and placed a black dot where her vermillion one used to be. She was no longer a widow pushed into the well of personal grief and social exclusion. Himali was free. She stepped out in her blue dress; her hairs winging at her waist and the silver anklets melodious on her light-hearted feet.
The End
Originally published in Nepal Vision, 2004
