She looked at the picture of the Goddess Saraswati that hung in her pooja room with indifference. In fact, she looked at all the pictures that hung there that way. She went about changing fresh garlands, clearing out the dried ones, washing out the lamps, and getting everything ready for the morning pooja as always. Yet another task that she had been doing for almost the last thirty-five years of her life. She wiped the huge Tanjore paintings of the deities methodically, and her hand lingered over the Veena in Saraswati’s hands just a second longer. Her lips quivered with distaste as her mind took her back to a distant memory. 
“It’s as though the goddess Saraswati lives in your fingers, Ammadi!” Her father used to say. The naïve 15-year-old girl believed him whenever he said that. Maybe she was not even close to a decent player, but it was very believable when her father said it with such conviction.

And then everything changed.

She was wrapping up her Veena lessons with her guru, who had given her one of his Veenas and wholeheartedly believed in her. Her younger sister, who was just a couple of years younger than her, had rushed in panting, with tears running down her eyes. Her mother had a freak accident when one ox in the Zamindar shed lost control. She had died instantly. Things took a worse turn for the family after that. Her father had become a ghost of his old self, drinking to oblivion and losing his will to live as days passed. It had landed on her to fend for the family with whatever little income she could fetch from herding their measly cattle. On the day her father died, he left behind five daughters, leaving her with dry eyes and a bleak future. The guilt-driven Zamindar had then married her off to his wastrel of a son and promised good marital prospects for all his sisters. Thankfully, the old man had lived enough years to keep his promise. 

But she had waned every day. Her husband had hated her from the moment they had married. Much to her chagrin, she understood she was an unwanted bride, for his heart was elsewhere, and he had given in only because his father threatened to cut him out of his will. Thus, the beatings began. Her Veena had been her only solace, and one day, he had discovered that. He cut the strings one by one as she watched, threw the instrument in the storeroom, and locked it. He had carried that key in his pocket and rage in his heart for almost 35 years. It was a known secret that he lived with the woman he loved and had her stationed in a stately mansion near the end of their lands. He bedded his wife for a legitimate heir, and she had endured the many nights of loveless acts purely out of a sense of duty and for what she felt she owed her father-in-law as he had taken care of the lives of her sisters. Her husband had three children with the woman he loved and one son with her. The poor woman passed away during the birth of her third child, which turned her husband into a heartless monster. He dumped all three children on her to care for. With a smile, she embraced that adopted motherhood. She cared for them as her own children, and they took to her as their mother. She tried to smile for her children, but her husband consistently crushed her happiness. When her children tried to stand up to him, he sent them packing away to cities, claiming they would get a better education there. 

She sighed, returning to reality, thinking about her life’s emptiness, going about her chore of cleaning the pooja room. That’s when she heard someone screaming out for her. When she went, her husband’s caretaker stood there, his face a picture of grief. She could see the news he had come to deliver in his eyes. Her husband had died.

Everything went in a blur after that. She kept staring at the lifeless form in front of her, and something like bile rose in her throat. She stared at his face, the serene expression in his mouth, the streak of ash on his forehead. He looked saintly in his death. She remained expressionless when the village widows adorned her with flowers, bangles, and vermilion. She stayed that way when they broke it all in front of his corpse, dropping her thaali in a bowl of milk and taking her away to change her into a white saree. She would have stayed that way forever, but someone came forward and pressed a few things in her hand. Her late husband’s Zamindar insignia ring, a gold chain with a locket she knew had his late lover’s photo, and a small rusty key. She calmly handed the ring to her biological son as per tradition and gave back the chain to bury with her husband’s corpse. She held onto that key like a lifeline. 

She was asked to stay away for 16 days and mourn for her husband. She passed the sixteen days without a word. For the world, she looked like a grief-stricken woman, but only her children knew the emptiness and the indifference that lived there. On the 17th day, they gave her a fresh set of white sarees. She gently ran her fingers over the soft cotton saree with a sardonic smile. She hadn’t yet come to terms with the death of her husband and what it meant to her. His death… her life. She took a long bath, taking her time to wash her hair and scrubbing herself till her skin felt raw and red, trying to wash away the years of abuse and neglect. She put on her white saree and slowly walked back home. There was no urgent chore that she had to get to. There was nothing she had to prepare for anybody. The freedom felt strange. She saw the outhouse storeroom that looked in shambles while walking back to her house. She rushed inside her house, took out the little, rusty key from her cupboard, and ran back to the storeroom. Her fingers trembled slightly as she touched the rusty old lock. She placed the small key in the lock and turned. It opened after some struggle and fell to the ground with a soft thud. She opened the door slowly… it creaked and groaned, annoyed about getting disturbed after decades of rest. She slowly walked into the dusty room, pushing away the thick cobwebs that had settled around.

The room had a gloomy look, and she shuddered looking at the abandoned state of the things inside, and on the pile rested her once glorious Veena. Abandoned, lifeless, and standstill. Just like her. She pried some of the dust with her finger and lifted the Veena with all its cobwebs, freeing it from its confinement of nearly three decades. She brought it home and placed it down with reverence. She scrubbed the dust off it rigorously, with all the energy she could find within. When she was done, it sparkled dully, with signs of age and abuse still visible, but there was a subtle breath of life. She re-strung the instrument and began to play.  

It was catharsis.

The strings soulfully rendered her anger, grief, and desolation. It filled the emptiness of the corridors and her body. It broke her years of deafening silence as tears that had been dry for multiple decades flowed from her eyes in rhythm to the music that flew from her through her Veena. She was one with the music, reliving every year of the life that she had lost within those swarams and minutes. 

“You look and play like Goddess Saraswati, Amma!” her son said when she finally finished, and for the first time in years, she smiled. 

———————————————-The End—————————————————-

Glossary:
Saraswati: Hindu Goddess of Wisdom and music
Veena: Indian string instrument played by Goddess Saraswati
Ammadi: An endearment
Zamindar: Landowners in villages, popular during the British rule
Pooja room: Place of worship
Thaali: South Indian version of Mangalsutra
Swarams: Muiscal note or tone in Indian music