The Boat

I hear the sound of the oar splashing the water as I row the boat slowly through the water. I look around and smile, looking at my family, the young man that smoked in the corner, the curly-haired girl with the book, the old man with the photograph in his pocket, the woman in the silk sari with her two children and finally, me.  We weren’t blood related and none of us had even spoken to each other, but they were my family, the few people I saw everyday as they traveled in my boat, the few people that were a storybook for an illiterate like me.

He stroked the creased photograph with his fingertips. He was going to see her again today. He missed her, every second of every day. He stared at her picture, listening to the boatman whistle and the woman in the silk sari scolding her children. Everyday he would get up, dress himself in a crisply ironed shirt, pay the boatman exactly ten coins for the trip across and visit his wife’s grave. People often wondered why he went to that place everyday, none of them knew the peace he felt. The joy he felt to be in her presence again. Over time he had began enjoying the boat rides to his wife, the gentle rocking of the boat over the water made him relax. The whistling of the boatman would change its tune everyday just the way his wife used to hum a different song everyday. The silk sari of the woman sitting across him reminded him of how his wife would fuss over her own saris, ironing them carefully and folding them perfectly. He found tiny pieces of her everywhere and it made him feel great.      

                     

She flipped the pages of her dog eared book, completely absorbed in the story it had to tell. She loved each character and every description, she loved how the words twisted and turned to fabricate a brand new world. She didn’t travel on the boat to reach a destination; she simply rode the boat to find some time to read, to peacefully disappear in a world with the soft sound of the rippling water in the background. She would push her curly hair out of her face over and over again but the stubborn strands never stayed back. Her boat ride was her escape from the city noise, her work and her messed up life. Sometimes she would close her book and look around at the beauty of nature and think of how in the hectic daily lives people forgot the true essence of beauty that surrounded them. She would close her eyes and hear the wind talk in its own language to her; tell a story much like the one she was reading.

“Bhaago mat! Gir jaoge!” ("Don't run, you'll fall") She scolded her children. She wanted to laugh at her own statement, since she was running too and knew she would soon fall. She ran day and night to make ends meet, ran a bit too much perhaps. She often thought of how she had devoted most of her life to her children. She loved them with everything she had, her children had taught her many things, things her long life hadn’t. She adjusted her silk sari, it was one of her favourite ones, she felt the soft material between her fingers as she looked around at the people in the boat who were absorbed in their own worlds. She wondered whether they were running too, perhaps from something or towards something or maybe just running, like she was.

He inhaled the smoke and let it fill his lungs before letting it out through his nose. He couldn’t stop thinking about the amount of work he had piled up at home. He sighed as he tried to remember the last time he was at peace, the last time that he had actually done something fun and spontaneous. He closed his eyes and the let the breeze hit his face he smiled as it brought a childhood memory to him, a memory that had gotten lost over time. He opened his eyes and looked at the water an idea coming to him. “Yeh paani kitna gehra hai?” ("How deep is the water?") he asked the man rowing the boat. “Yaha zaada gehra nahi hai, kyu?” (Its not too deep here, why?")  The boatman replied. They were very close to the coast, so the boatman had to be right about the water being shallow, the man took his cell phone out of his pocket and kept it on the wooden seat of the boat and without thinking twice, he jumped. The boat rocked mildly back and forth but the boatman got it under control. The passengers of the boat panicked as they rushed to the edge of the boat to see the man, he gave them a thumbs up and shouted “Kinaare par milte hai!” ("I'll meet you on the coast!") The people on the boat sighed with relief and took their seats again, talking about what a crazy man he was, while the young man felt the cold water drench his clothes as he swam without a care, he remembered how he and his friends would jump into the very same waters after school every afternoon. He smiled to himself and swam ahead.

I continued to row the boat as the usually silent boat for the very first time was full of chatter about the young man, or well ‘idiot’ as they referred to him as, jumping out of the boat. I whistled as I saw the old man laugh, the woman with the two young children giggle with the curly haired girl and the two little children wave at the young man swimming ahead.