She can’t go on. She had to do it now. Devising ways to commit suicide is by no means a pleasurable pass time, but for her it moved time like no other hobby. And she has indeed a brilliant plan, about how to kill herself. Hanging by the ol’ jack fruit tree will do well for the family history. The old jack fruit tree… so many memories coursed through its veins. The fruit was thus especially sweet, but if late in plucking, it reeked an ugly smell too strong to ignore, like life itself. Her life too was in splinters, too many ignored pieces now reeking a strong rotting smell, choking her.

She remembered her marriage, those festivities and happiness. Now looking back those memories stunk. She had walked into matrimony like walking into life, no body asked her if that’s what she wanted and she didn’t mind too. It had to happen and when it did, she didn’t think, didn’t fight. Thinking and fighting, perhaps for a woman both is same. Those who think will fight. Those who won’t, will live on. She started thinking when she saw her husband drinking. On her first night he had come to her drunk heavily and taken her harshly without any words. She remembered the moon exceptionally bright then, for, she had only the moon outside to look to, afterwards, when she stood by the window crying over what she had lost and to whom. Life from then on reeked of alcohol. She would spend hours in the bathroom scrubbing herself ,trying to get off that stink from her body .During those first few days, she was desperate and then gradually she succumbed to the stink.

2 thoughts lead her to the end. Like Neeli, on the banyan, she too was ostracized from humanity. Neeli’s legend was the story that had made her eat, sleep and generally obey her grandma coz Neeli was a yakshi, a ghost, bound to the banyan with a nail stuck on her forehead. Neeli can’t think now, she did that for a while and that’s why she killed so many men crossing her path starting from her husband. But now, Neeli is forbidden from thinking and the nail on the banyan smeared in saffron, rests like a warning to all the passing females. She used to spend her afternoons near that jack fruit tree and she remembered quite well when she saw him first. Those emerald eyes had bewitched her every time. When the evening lamps were lit, she used to go by the jack fruit tree to lighten the lamp for the Guardian of land, Brahmarakshas. She was 16 then and she had seen him first there behind the rocks. Someone was yelling about a giant cobra in the backyard, but grandma had rebuked every one from harming it, after all he was a king and he knew the Gods. She remembered how she had run back in fright, and from then on every night she saw emerald eyes in her dreams. Even when, she lay sleepless stinking in alcohol, she thought of emerald eyes. She remembered their trysts, especially once when she was taking bath and he had watched her transfixed from the roof. She remembered him caressing her in sleep and she had awoken to a chill on her breasts. She thought of Gopalan, how one evening she had fallen asleep by the jack fruit. Gopalan had come from no where and before she realized she saw him screaming in pain. The King had struck him down. Gopalan had died instantly and she knew she had been saved. If only the King could suck away the rot from her life, if only he had taken her that night. The jack fruit smell was intoxicating, and she had gone by to light lamps. She hadn’t seen him for two whole days. She had been looking every where, behind every crack and she was growing miserable. She saw him by the lamps and she had to touch him.

The urge was unbearable, he surrendered his majestic hood to her caresses, and she enjoyed his cold slithering feel. They loved and that night, they ended. When, someone caught her with a snake, they ended. She remembered the cries though no one else could hear it. She remembered the blood and the purple pulp, all that was left of him. She remembered the matrimonial pier that she had walked into,soon afterwards .

Now the rope  tied on the jack fruit beckoned her. She placed her head on the loop, she had to swing. She took a last look at the potholes beneath, she felt a tickle on her toes and something struck in a hiss .She smiled in love for that last kiss.She swung in blue …everything around danced in blue.

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