The Plucked Jasmine

The Plucked Jasmine

Renu was fond of jasmine flowers.There was a long row of the plants in the park.Renu waited each year for the arrival of summer.When the sun travelled northward and started scorching everything under it, the jasmine bushes erupted into small star like blooms, at least a hundred on each little plant, filling the air with their glorious intoxicating scent, in the evening.

The gardener who was entrusted with watering,weeding and looking after the plants had a new joy in his life.

Renu had been a little more than a street urchin when he had first met her. Her thumb stuck  in her mouth, she had stood staring at the lovely flowers late one night, hardly four years of age.

It was also the gardeners job to shoo away the tresspassers in the park, particularly at night. Vagabonds, beggars and urchins often strayed in and slept on the benches under the wide open sky especially in summer.

Renu had come in, one such night looking animatedly at the flowers.Her dirty face was poised on the brink  of wonder and greed to touch the flowers.

Shiv, walked down the path menacingly.In his hand , the seemingly lethal weapon, a stick about a yard and half long.Renu had not seen him coming,so enamoured was she with the vision.Shiv came close to the tiny thing and stopped. Something caught his voice and he could’nt  bring himself to yell and shoo away the child.

Renu turned toward him. Her eyes large and wonderous, pointing a finger of her left hand at the flowers.The face of the middle aged man, tall and lanky towering over her, appeared to her innocent eyes quite benign. She continued  pointing at the flowers.

Shiv  did not know what to do. He felt torn between duty and kindness. Finally, he bent down to get himself at level with her.

“You are new here?” No answer. Only continuous pointing at the flowers. There was a silent admiration  in her innocent eyes. Was this man responsible for the beauty of bouquets?” There seemed to be something special in the child’s look.As if she silently understood that Shiv had miraculous powers.How else could anyone produce star- like –sweet- smelling  things that appeared out of nowhere on tiny shrubs and plants?

Shiv had never  known or faced the emotions with which he was confronted that day. It was so much easier to run after hollering kids with a stick in hand!

He caught hold of Renu’s hand and gently removed the thumb from the mouth. Then he pushed back a few dirty curly strands of hair from her eyes. Her dress, or the semblance of it was a shapeless colourless tunic which hung from her frail shoulders. Her face was not pretty but it had a softness. The eyes were the most stricking feature.Dark and large they changed expressions fast and firmly.From the initial wonder, now they had an understanding far beyond the years. Something told Shiv, this little creature was a child of god.

Shiv had loved a girl named Chanda in his village.They had been very poor.Shiv’s parents worked in the field which was leased by the landlord.After each harvest they had to give away huge amounts in levy, leaving barely enough to feed three mouths. Shiv had not gone to school beyond primary.That was all the facility the village had.His father took him with the bullocks to the field to work under the sun and rain even at the age of seven. It was there that Shiv had learnt  how to plant, weed, water, add manure, harvest and above all to love the plants. “It is love and reverence which will transform the soil and and water into beautiful fruits and vegetables!”His father used to say. Shiv had imbibed it with his whole heart and soul.

When he grew onto strong and virile youth of nineteen, he fell in love. Chanda was shy and would hardly speak to him. Both had secretly decided to be each others life partners. However it was not to be. Chanda’s uncle who lived in the city , arranged for a wealthy plumber from the town to wed her. Her parents willingly agreed and Chanda, although she cried and wept, could not disclose her secret passion to them. “All girls cry when they leave home,” is how her mother  interpreted her daughter’s  sorrow, wiping away her own tears which flowed a sa reaction to this touching thought. The ‘rich plumber’ groom , however turned out to be a good son-in- law , taking them all to the city and letting Chanda’syounger siblings go to school.

Poor uneducated Shiv  was heartbroken for life. He would  never marry, he vowed. He wrote to his childhood friend Nagesh who had migrated to the city a year ago. Nagesh found him work in the District Park in Nehru Nagar, in the only job that Shiv knew, that of a gardener.

Young Shiv took to the park with a vengeance. It was his vent against all the wounds the world had inflicted on his young mind. His magic fingers produced amazing results. Nehru Nagar Park soon became the winner of many flower shows and horticultural contests.

Shiv’s dwelling improved from a shanty to a cottage and now he had proper quarters with electricity and water and was also the proud owner of an old motor cycle.Instead of a soiled, torn lungi and banyan, he now had a smart uniform in navy blue. He had learnt to converse and behave like city breds. Yet his heart remained that of a villagers. Inside he was a simpleton, caring and loving towards all.

Tonight he ahd brought the child home,having nowhere else to send her. When he had held her hand an gently tugged she had willingly walked with him. They reached home and he sat her down on a charpoy which was spread outside the two roomed quarters.

“What is your name , my dear?”

“Reynoo,” she had shyly drawled.

“What were you doing in the park?”

“I come everyday at night to smell the flowers.”

She opened her clenched fist to show the single one she had she had plucked .

“Why do you like them so much , my dear?”

“My granny says that these flowers are my mother and father.”

“Are your mother and father not alive then?”

“Alive?” She looked up. Shiv realised she did not understand.

“Have you never seen them?”

She shook her head. There was no sorrow in her eyes only belief. She simply believed that her parents were manifest in the sweet smelling flowers.

Shiv was touched to the core.

“My  friend Raju says that you make the flowers? Is  it true?” She asked firmly .

“I do only what God makes me do , my dear. It is He who makes everything in this world,” explained Shiv seriously.

“Granny saya so too.”

“Where does your granny live?”

Again a semi-blank look.Something  incomprehensible  had happened.

“She was sleeping. They covered her body and carried her away. I was scared. Since then she has not returned. They told me she was in God’s house. I do not know where that is .”

Shiv was near to tears. He realized she had lost the only one she had , to death.

“Do you stay alone?”

“I am scared,” was all she offered  as an answer.

Shiv cooked some chapattis and vegetables in his  makeshift kitchen. It comprised of a rickety table with a kerosene stove, one girdle and one pot. There was a pitcher with an upside down tumbler on its neck.

When he carried the food outside, on a thali, Renu was fast asleep on the charpoy, her tiny fist  still clutching the jasmine.

After a week , Shiv decided  to adopt Renu as his own child. God had sent him a lovely gift. His lonliness  had been miraculously erased by her presence. She was quiet, observant and asked pertinent questions. Shiv wondered whether she would go to school. He was by no means rich. Most of his earnings he had earlier saved to send home to his old parents. A year ago both his parents had died in quick succession,one within two months of the other. The villagers remarked that it was rare and showed how much they loved each , despite their hardships.So now Shiv’s salary was completely his own to spend. Nurturing this little child  would give a new meaning and direction to his unfulfilled life , he thought.

Renu however had no desire to go to school.She always shook her head vehemently and pointed to the flower beds. All she wanted was to see how Shiv  ‘made’ the flowers appear. It was still a mystery to her.

Shiv was her friend. She called him chacha  and loved to sit clinging tight to him in the pillion, when Shiv rode the old motorcycle o the bazaar.

She was very useful with household chores. She could clean the utensils, fill the  the pitcher,help knead the dough and sweep the floor. Her granny had been a good trainer, thought Shiv. Later she told him that she had accompanied her everyday to work in homes as maid.

Shiv found her a new job. She was thrilled to bits with it. Shiv spoke to the park manager and sought permission  to pluck some jasmine from each bed in succession. This way the plants  bloomed better and the fresh flowers did not fall and rot. Before sunrise, the twosome tiptoed to the flower beds and carefullyplucked the precious flowers. Just enough to string ten garlands. These Renu displayed near the park gate between four and six in the evening. Soon she had a fixed a clientele of buxom ladies who came  for fresh air and ‘evening walk’ and walked away with the divine smelling garlands stuck in their hair. Renu had pocket money. She grew radiant and happy. Slowly she had learnt  to count too.

If she was ill or could not sit at the park gate , the ladies waited till darkness fell. Then they left downcast. Renu was everyone’s  pet. When the jasmine season got over, she went to an informal school run in the afternoon by one of the ladies, called ‘aunty’. Soon Renu turned seven.

Shiv was a very contented man. He did’nt holler as much as before and smiled more often. The park broke all records at the flower show  that year.

One evening Renu did not come home .It was summer once again . Renu had taken her ten garlands to sit at the park gate. After night fell , she normally did not venture away from the park.Shiv was very anxious. He had been to every corner of the park and also  searched everywhere around it.

When it was nine thirty the next morning and still there was no sign of Renu, ‘Aunty’ suggested they inform the police. Just then Raju , another urchin who went to aunty’s school and was a self appointed guardian for Renu, caming huffing and puffing. He was so out of breath he could hardly speak. So he pointed at the second hand TV set in Shiv’s room.

Hurriedly they switched it on. There was a girl with a microphone in hand trying to talk to a couple of policemen. It was on the national news. The police said that they had discovered an unidentified corpse of a girl whose age they guessed to be about seven.The girl had been mercilessly gang raped and then throttled to death.

Her body had been discovered badly mutilated in a ditch, early that morning by some local field workers who had informed the police. It was neary ten miles outside the city limits, the policeman said.

The girl with the microphone went on and on about crime being on the rise. It was barbaric and inhuman to rape a mere child. Shiv remained speechless. The police still had no clues as to who she was . They had only found, clenched tight in her fist, a single jasmine flower.

For days afterward Shiv existed in stupor. Aunty sent him food regularly through Raju fearing that he would starve himself to death. For a whole week she kept on insisting they tell the police about Renu and try to get the culprits arrested and punished. Shiv merely looked blank and shook his head . Invariably , his eyes turned to the flowering bushes in the park.

The season of jasmine was over.It was November and a crisp autumn morning with dew drops glistening  on the leaves of every tree.Unable to stay inside the cottage, Shiv had come to dig up the beds. It would be good for the soil to be turned over now, he knew.

Renu’s spirit seemed to him to be hovering around. That morning he made up his mind. She had believed in his magical powers. She had also felt manifest in the flowers a godly presence, which connected her to her granny and parents. He would ‘make’ the flowers as she wanted even more ardently than ever before. He would find his lost child through the star-like-sweet-smelling blooms.

Long before spring the following year , the beds were ready with clean manure, moisture and pruned bushes. One morning in April, at sunrise Shiv spotted the first bud of his beloved jasmine. His heart filled with a strange peace.

Aunty organized a bunch of kids led by Raju, to pluck the flowers at sunrise that summer. They strung them into garlands and set up the ‘Renu flower stall’ at the park gate. The buxom ladies that season narrated the legend of the lost Renu to the newcomers in the neibourhood. The kids saved the money they made and bought books and clothes for those younger and more destitute than themselves. For all Shiv chacha was a favourite .