Myriad Reflections. Shastri Akella

She
Her hazel eyes, moving incessantly in milky-white sockets, peer eagerly at me, awaiting an answer that may satisfy her question. Golden curls cascading down her crevice, frame her face in thick, luscious strokes. Her cheeks – aglow like a Tuscan summer and pastel like caramel custard, make me shifty – I can no longer think of the answer I must provide. I am buried under an overwhelming desire to touch those cheeks – soft as a cushion and tender as a feather – and run my forefinger along the length of her cheekbone and the little cleft that sits prettily on her chin. She repeats the question and despite forgetting the question altogether, I don’t concentrate on what she is saying. The lapse somehow does not rivet me with the prospects of being reprimanded. I instead, stare at the deep crimson imprinted on her lips, and am reminded of the tulips of Amsterdam, how the sway in all the glory of their color, to the flirtatious flutter of an autumn wind (no, I have not had the good fortune of seeing either Tuscan or Italy. What I gather of these ethereal environs, is from longing glances affixed on postcards sister sends me religiously each time she pays a new foreign terrain a visit). How nature – in all its bounty and color, replicates itself with such precise clarity on a woman’s face does not cease surprising me. A man, even at the zenith of his manly splendor, appears pale in comparison to the brilliant mural that a woman’s visage ably lends itself to. Even a neutral God has a heart that palpitates with added vigor when creating a woman, I decide. So the mantle is laid carefully, every feature depicted by the divine brush in careful strokes, the overall developed after painstaking attention to the finest detail.
Suddenly, she snaps her finger, drawing me out of my state of poetic enrapture. She states her question again, a slight tinge of irritation now creeping into a carefully maintained phlegmatic tone (her Spanish accent delivering the vowels with an additional layer of air, her tuneful uttered words melting my sensibilities even further). Her mantilla – a fine lace cloth that is predominantly white, gently slides from her hair and falls to the floor. She chuckles and bends to pick it from the dusty carpet. Her legs are elegantly placed over each other, and as she picks up her fallen treasure, the floral patterns imprinted on the turquoise shirt pulled over a tautly sculpted upper body are creased. Placing the mantilla on the glass table she folds her hands across her chest and looks at me intently, oceans of hazel locking my dream-laden vision, ever so delicately. I nod my head, careful not disturb the cosmic connection so magically created. She breaks into a smile, her teeth – like perfectly cut marble stones, creating a brilliant instance of perfect alignment. She softly says, “thank you” and leaves the room, her stride certain to put even a doe’s jungle exploration in poor light.
I continue sitting there, staring at the vacant place that was once the chair she sat on, perhaps wanting to embrace the air of warmth lingering in the wake of her absence. I do not know what I have agreed to or where I have led myself to, but this much is true: when the heart leads, we have no option but to follow, even if the destination were an abyss or dungeon. For, in the cuddle of love, even the most formidable of places become reincarnations of what poets so emphatically describe to be paradise.
I collect a pinch of the warm air that is alive with her presence and feel giddy with delight. An unconscious finger patting over the table – providing rhythm to the sonnets the heart sings, abruptly encounters a soft piece of cloth. Without opening my eyes, I realize that it her mantilla and draw it close to my nose and take a deep breath; I’m instantly hit with a million smells – a drop of honey, mingled with the taste of figs, or perhaps a sprinkling of cinnamon over a small piece of sandalwood, or better still, a breath of frankincense sticks, imbued into an air, already divine with the smell of oil lamps set alive with ghee. I fold the mantilla and slip into my breast pocket. Subtle encounter with love, folded, encompassed and précised into a single mass of square cloth, and placed close to where such tales are nurtured – the heart (is there an invisible connection created now between the mantilla and my ululating heart?). I walk out of the room, humming a tune I had long forgotten. “She’s always a woman to me”