Gabriel and his Virgin Lady

              Gabriel and his Virgin Lady

Gabriel was a tourist, who loves travelling and to explore deep and unsafe places without any worry on those troubles that is hidden there. His travels earned him with many friends such as Traders, pilgrims, gypsies, smugglers, tribal, weed farmers and has influence on the bureaucrats, politicians, government officials and even small leaders and of them his most favorite was the Whores for what he calls as his “Melancholy whores”. In his early travels, he has observed a strange truth that, in every village there will be a prostitute, which was the personal pride of the village men. But the timely influence of modernization and the fear of communicable diseases and unsafe sex has completely erased the person monopoly of the woman of pleasures and came under the control of Brothels managed by a caretaker. Gabriel kept-up good contact with the whores and he was a constant visitor of their brothels. Being a bachelor and who value love more than the usual banging’s and who hates being hooked up to a single woman made him to taste the bodily smell and the love that emerge from the whores of each country. Most of his contacts source were obviously from the brothels where he saw the other face of the officials and the respected bureaucrats.

It was how he reached India, the land of gods and of the lady’s with a fair complexion. On his way, he befriended a long bearded pilgrim who hasn’t revealed his name to Gabriel. He introduces himself as an ascetic and the faithful disciple of lord Shiva. They sat together on a hillside and shared the chillum filled with marijuana, which the ascetics call as Shivabanam or the Favorite leaf of Lord Shiva and both got high. The ascetic told him about his travels and his experiences and Gabriel also shared with him about his journeys to the dungeons deep and to unsafe caverns. Slowly their subject changed to the women and especially to the Virgin women’s, and the pleasure making love with them. Gabriel being not experienced the feel of a virgin woman yet, kept silent while the eremite continued to talk. It was then, a wish came to him to make love with a virgin.

He visited Padmarangini, the caretaker of the Indian brothel, his friend and told her about his wish to sleep with a virgin woman for once. She told him about the difficulty to find a virgin woman, which was rare to find in this business. He pleaded her to somehow arrange a woman for he is willing to pay any sum that she demands. Padmarangini asked him to give her some time to check on the availability of a virgin who allows her flower to pluck by a foreigner. Gabriel waited in the whorehouse, among other whores who signals him to have them with their enchanted smiles and looks. He avoided them and waited for the Virgin that he wished at this night.

The hours passed and there is no news of the caretaker’s return. Customers come and go after their needs, but he waited there with clenched hope. Some more hours passed before Padmarangini came to him. Her face was rich with smile and from that smile it is visible that his waiting has been fruitful. She led him to the room and there sat a woman in the bed, which got decorated with the flower of jasmine. A long cloth-covered her face. Padmarangini pushed him inside the room and asked him to lock the door from inside. He slowly moved to the lady’s side and sat beside her.

Gabriel got stunned by the beauty of the woman beside him and for her age it was a mere transcendence. Both looked deep into their eyes  without making any move, but tears started to roll down from her eyes. It is unbelievable and strange that a woman of her age remains a virgin. He asked her name and everything about her. When she moved her lips, he felt the words spilling from her lips as the honey dripping from the honeycomb, but the words were sorrowful and it carried a tragedy that she has gone through in her life.

Sugandhy was her name that means the “woman of fragrance”. She was exactly like her name, a woman who smell of a new perfume. Her face was wrinkleless and was soft like milk and her eyes was wide but yet pale. Her story was more of a tragedy and utmost a woman could go through in her life. She was just released from the prison after a 20 years imprisonment for a series of murder she has committed, they say. She faced the punishment for the crime she hasn’t done, for brutally murdering her own parents. In truth, the accused is her brother who poisoned her parents to acquire the wealth of them and to live in luxury. The crime was well planned and executed and manipulated every evidences against her. Her brother presents her before court as mentally challenged that locked her in an asylum for nearly 5 years and after that 15 of imprisonment. At her age of 40, still she remain as the same old woman who hasn’t lost her physical charm but who has lost the charm of her soul. After freed from the prison, she felt she was alone in the world without a coin to spare for food. Then also, there were demands for her body but she was not yet ready to sell it. But, soon the struggle to live made her to decide on to rent her body and it was how Padmarangini found her.

She was weeping when she finished her story and it made Gabriel’s eyes also wet. He caressed slowly on her neck and gave a kiss on her cheek and let her rest on his shoulder. He patted her till she fall asleep. He has completely forgotten the motive for which he has been here and dwelled fully in the sadness of the woman. Slowly, he could feel the powerful fall of love on him and the happiness that he felt from the touch of her body. He thought of suddenly taking her with him and to get settled somewhere in a peaceful place surrounded by the field of marijuana, as was his wish of a house. To wake up with her at the touch of the gentle breeze that reach swaying the field of cannabis and filling the air with the aroma of hemp. He fancied them bathing together, fully naked in the falls deep inside a forest where only birds and brutes to peep them. Then he came back to the reality that he doesn’t even have a house. The reality pulled him to a state of despair, but his dreams made him strong to conquer everything for her, everything for the love on her.

He went away even before the rooster’s crow. He escaped in hurry to arrange a shelter somewhere, so that they both could live there happily ever after. He has learned, in short, that love is not a spiritual condition, but the sign of the zodiac. It will happen when at its time. He felt a new light shone upon him and on his life. His fantasies about the woman was suddenly taken aback by a sudden shake of earth. An earthquake. By gods luck he was standing in an open land, but behind him was total destruction. The tall buildings and the beautiful platforms he passed by was fully ruined. He looked around him in wonder and suddenly remembered about the love of his life, his Sugandhy. Her face flashed through his mind often. He ran to the brothel where they parted without a farewell.

The place cannot be seen. It was totally grounded and the dust was blocking his view. He hurried to the grounded remaining of the brothel to find her. But the rescue team blocked him from entering the area. He stood there and checked everywhere to find a glimpse of the woman that he left before, but it all was fruitless. The men and the rescue team could find many dead bodies, but the woman he was searching for could not be found anywhere among the ruins. He shuddered on seeing the corpse of Padmarangini being taken away in a stretcher and he heard a man saying that no one has escaped the agitation. He felt like a heavy rock put on his mind and he could not resist his tears. He screamed her name, but nothing or no one replied.

He cursed the god on letting the woman pass through his life. He was happy and alone all his life, even before some hours, but now he is going through a stage that hurts more than the scars and falls that has happened on his life of travels. He kneeled down and screamed louder cursing the god on letting him pass through this. He stood up and walked back, wiping his tears with the back of his palm.

He turned back for one last time to the place that showed him the magic of true love and suddenly got vanished. It was then his eyes saw Sugandhy, with arms wide, her eyes filled with tears, running to Gabriel. She run to him and hugged him so tightly that he will die in the tight hug of love. He pushed her slowly and asked her how she escaped from the shake for which her reply was “I saw you leaving me without saying. But I didn’t want to let you go. It was the first time I saw a kind eye on me rather on the charm of my body. It was the first time I saw an eye weeping for me and on my story. From then on, I decided this is my man and everything that has happened for me is for you to find me. Suddenly I felt all my past burned to ashes and the reason that god spared with you. We don’t settle anywhere, let us be birds who fly to places that they wish. We could be rain that downpour anywhere without any premonitions and I need to blend on you every time as the river blends up with sea. Apart from everything, I want to live with you.”

The words of her bought in him sudden goosebumps. He hugged her and came closer to her with their lips blending together to a deep kiss. Suddenly the thunder rumbled and the rain started to fall on them. They stood their kissing under the protection and the happiness of nature on joining two souls which was born for each other. From there on they travelled together through the mounds and bushes and sheltered themselves where they could find a bare land. Life is pleasant as long as love shines in it.