Ink story

                                                                     

The Indian handmade paper welcomed him with splayed arms. Unlike the machine mades she might not be smooth and bright but she enthralled him like the Banaras saree draped Indian beauty personified. Her aroma, the scent of a freshly unrolled parchment, is intoxicating. Yet he is not bewitched by her charm today.

The pen perspired as he thought ‘Creative writing is nothing but an art of spinning something out of nothing…. But…How am I to do that today?’ Of course he knew he doesn’t need a wand to do some magic. With a single flick he can conjure either a Hogwards school of witchcrafty and wizardry or a ‘nothing-so-special-about-me’ Esbella swan who dies to live with a vampire with frozen heart.

A fat drop of ink sweated out through his pores and slid down to the waiting parchment before he could wipe his brow. She imbibed it like it were the first drop of rain. No pertrichor.

“Ouch” he yelped. “Never mind” she reassured.

Moved by her passion and patience he reached out to nuzzle her with his words of love. She blushed like the newly wed. Though it tickled where he touched she didn’t wither away. He did. He shook his head, as if trying to shove the apparently-not-so-good-idea at the back of his mind, splashing more drops of ink. She smiled as she danced in the pitter-pattering shower. More pertrichor. 

‘To write something you must risk making a fool of yourself’ The American author Anne rice quoted quiet aptly. He gathered courage and raced head-on to pen down his pent up thoughts. He ran out of ink. The empty ink bottles, black and blue, mocked him from the desk. He drank gustily from the bottle of red ink instead.

Recapitulated, he touched her eagerly. A blotch of red ink spread over her like wildfire. She appeared to bleed. She never winced. He did. She bore the sindhoor ka tika like a tiara However he backed away from her as if he were charred holding red  hot embers. He plonked himself on the table hiding his shameful face under his cap, knocking the remains of the ink bottles all over her.

She is no more a white paper. His signature is all over her. Yet he disowned her. She would have crumpled….but she is not a toilet paper to be treated like S***. She held her head high with a pride that never edged on arrogance. She did what she always did. Awaited patiently, whether white or not, for the priceless moment of triumph.  

Then she met him accidentally.  The waters colours were his world in his youthful vigour. For reasons known best to him he preferred to step off the pedal. He retreated to a dark colourless world that seldom sees through the day light. A look at her and she brought the memories flooding back. He thought she looked like a lady doused in a curve hugging, wet, shiffon, white saree on the eve of Holi, the festival of colours. He brushed her. She Blushed. A delicate shade of baby pink. They made up with each other. 

She had her priceless moment of triumph when the pen signed “A creative mess is better than a tidy idleness”.