Virgin Of The Roads

Note: The crux of the story is inspired from Delacroix's famous painting of the Greek civil war, Massacre at Chios. A similar sketch exists in Bruigel's Triumph Of Death. The title is intended as a pun on Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks.

The flowers were of a different shade today, the brilliant orange, which had so flamed the desolate roads, were replaced with a pale pink, but I was still burning with the raw love of my native hurting me with poisoned arrows. I was trying to take a lonely walk along the side of the vast field which maybe still had the footprints of my baby steps parading around it. I could see myself some 7 years back playing football with my friends on the hard laterite which had cut and bloodied our skins but we still continuing with the game and now I was finding it difficult even to take the leisurely stroll. I stared up again at the flowers of the huge trees which had provided a canopy for the roads for some strollers to walk in peace and some poverty stricken wretch to catch a nap under the tree and over the flowery bed. The flowers had always amazed me when I was a kid; it was huge and flaming orange.. the fruits were poisonous, my brother had said then and I had believed him.. now I wanted to find it for myself but then being lazy dropped the idea. I looked at the field, the early kids, were looking like solitary figures marking the huge field like pegs. They were watching the wrought ironed gate which having stood for a lot many years was rusting, not able to battle the elements. Those much awaited friends instead of coming from the main gate were jumping the barbed wire fence, looking like valiant young knights ready for the battle, Some others were trying to slide themselves between the barbwires which were widened by some vagrants to make a thoroughfare. Some of them were getting cut by those wires but ignoring those small scratches they were ready for play. All these made my lips twitch with a smile and I reminisced under the flaming tree waiting for the games to commence.

The games had begun and I was beginning to get bored and I walked away towards the main road, which this desolate road joined. The road was as busy as this was desolate; it used to bustle with buses and trucks, cars and jeeps added day in and day out. Some steps down the road there used to be a bus stop, which held some half broken seats, the walls had been painted with betel juice spitted out by some moronic traveler. I remembered the day when I was trying to walk the busy road to go back to my house on the other side and I saw this ninny for the first time, the crazy female was short and had dirty, unkempt long hair, her eyes were wild but she had that goofy smile on her face.. her clothes were falling apart and she didn’t even try to hide her breasts that were popping out. I looked away embarrassed and then tried to look back at her breasts feigning a nonchalant look. Those days a glimpse of raw skin used to make my day, be it the wonderful Naomi Campbell from the magazine that I had hidden under my bed or the disgusting lunatic scrambling on the busy roads.

I was not that desperate or frustrated as my previous statements may make to me be but then one cannot lie to himself. I remember my feeling very clearly, it wasn’t lust at all.. Actually what ever I say I was disturbed then as I am now. She was a picture of distress with no one to care about her.. she was forsaken by kin to take refuge in the dilapidated bus stop, struggling to stay alive by begging from the bystanders, who gave her some money to make her move away from there cultured self. The ubiquitous paanwaalahs were her mainstay, they teased her.. pulled her flowing tunic and sometimes even threw stones at her, but gave her the moth-eaten biscuits and cakes to eat and ramble around on the busy road. I remembered me on the cycle, my eyes were no longer looking at her half popping breasts and searching for her nipples but it was filled with guilt-ridden piety. I had no longer looked at her and had sped away. I used to avoid that road, maybe because of the traffic but also because to avoid the pitiable crazy lady about which I couldn’t do anything but feel guilty, don’t know what for.

Today I was walking towards that bus stop; today I had coins in my pockets. I was contemplating of giving her a tenner but would she understand the value of money.. I had no idea but did I even care. All I maybe wanted to do was try to atone my sin of that lustful gaze with some money and then may be walk away free. The road looked busier than before.. there was a traffic jam with the vehicles lined up. There was crowd gathered at the center of the road looking at something.. Some accident I thought. We Indians are quite philosophical about death, we are never disturbed with death just take it in our stride.. with a billion strong population and half a million getting added every month.. we have someone die every minute.. we just stare at death with a disenchanted glance and then carry on with work. I forgot to add, we also love prancing around the dead with a sorry on the lips and none in the heart, and try to poke the mourning living with bullets of deprecation for being alive. I walked slowly trying to have a glance at the dead too, to find out who was dead and who was alive, trying to look concerned and questioning about the incident.

There were various different stories floating around.. Some one slit someone's throat in view of everyone but no one had seen anything. I smiled.. seven years and nothing had changed. Neither had I, I pushed around to see what had happen, there was the mad woman lying on the roads. She still looked the same... disheveled hairs.. short height .. maybe a little bit more fat, the same ugly nose and dirty face. The lips were cut with blood marking her face.. A few flies were hovering around sucking those fast drying up blood. Her neck was slit and blood was oozing from there too and had colored the road crimson. Some other swarms of flies were hovering there too. Her white dirty cloths were scattered around her body and had formed some crooked curvilinear circle inside which she slept, may be peacefully. Her legs were a little open revealing those essentials, which some "Gentleman" had tried covering with his white handkerchief. On her chest was lying an infant of maybe two months.. It was as beautiful as she was ugly and it was trying to suckle those dead breasts for milk.. Not able to suckle and hungry it was wailing aloud and the crowd of gentleman were asking each other for help and looking at the dead mother and the dying baby.

I looked back at the mad woman.. she was dirty but now she was now looking beautiful to me.. her face was looking so serene. The world bustling around, she was sleeping in peace. I reflected about the baby and it's father. Did the crazy woman had even understood when some ruffian from the crowd of gentlemen had molested her, had she enjoyed the process of procreation which had resulted in the blessed birth. The moment before she died, did she still think of her as a virgin.. some innocent daughter of some loving farmer, near a lake of still water, reflecting the sun. There was no one to answer my silent questions.. not even myself. The baby was still trying to suckle her virgin mother.

I took two tenners from my pocket and threw it on the dead woman and walked back fallen.