Kiss-curls of history

Fiction

“History is as shifty as the kiss-curl that moves so seductively across your cheek in the fan’s breeze,” He said running his finger gently on her cheek.

Outside the hotel room, the Sarayu continued to flow listlessly.

“Is your research coming to an end?” she asked.

“Well, almost. It’s not research really,” he paused. “I wanted to have a feel of this place. For a novel that I’m writing. Ayodhya of Rama and Sita finds an appearance.”

“Is this the Ayodhya of Rama and Sita?” She asked that more to herself than to him.

“For the novel’s purpose, yes. Otherwise the Sarayu mentioned in the ancient scriptures could very well be the Hari-Rud flowing through Afghanistan, Iran and Turkmenistan.”

“I knew you’d come out with something like that,” she said. “You were always like that. In the class too.”

“The names of rivers mentioned in scriptures can be very deceptive,” he said ignoring her mention of the class. “The Buddhist scripture, Samyutta Nikaya, has a verse which goes thus: ‘Once Lord Buddha was walking in Ayodhya on the bank of the Ganga river.’”

“Oh, yet another Ayodhya!”

“Needn’t be. Another verse of the same scripture reads, ‘Once Lord Buddha was walking in Kaushambi on the bank of the Ganga river.’ But Kaushambi is on the bank of the Yamuna.”

“Kiss-curls of history!” She giggled.

The giggles brought him memories that he did not wish to revive. In fact, he didn’t want to meet her at all. She had seen his Facebook status update from Ayodhya and contacted. “I’m in Lucknow,” she said on phone. “Practising the MBA theories.”

“I thought you studied literature,” he said.

“Yeah, first that, bewitched by you. Then I became more practical and went on to do MBA. So I have a job now.”

“Why didn’t you marry?” he asked when they met.

“Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and …”

“… it pricks like thorn.” He concluded the lines from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. “Like history, in fact.”

“History and love,” she giggled again.

Oh, no! He wished to tell her. Don’t giggle like that.

“Did Babur demolish a temple to construct his masjid here?” She asked.

“Most probably, no. There’s no mention of any such demolition in contemporary literature. Baburnama does not mention anything. Ain-i-Akbar does not. Not even Tulsidas gives any hint.”

“I read somewhere that the demolition theory was first mooted by some British academics,” she became serious.

“That’s quite possible. Academic excess more than divide-and-rule aspirations in all probability.”

“Nothing is quite certain, right?”

“Except this kiss-curl that tantalises.”

“Tantalisations of history.”

“Hmm.”

The fan went on whirring above them.

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