Nine years now, and yet she could neither forget nor forgive herself. It was so vivid, as if memory had a grudge against her and would never let her forget what she most desired to wipe out.
It was the first marriage in the family, and a grand one too. Guests from far and near, invited and uninvited were pouring in. As the night progressed, chaos began to stir. Food was beginning to run out, the catering girls and boys listless, the parents of both the groom and the bridegroom flustered.
It was just becoming impossible for the bunch of girls and boys to cater to the guests.
Zuhelina saw it all. She could see the marriage apparently turning into a real-life drama. Invited guests unable to meet the hosts, returned without anybody asking them for food, nobody to acknowledge their presence. On the other end, she could see the never-met-relatives busy packing food, stuffing delicacies away in their bags, unmindful of their children running all over the place She saw it all.
She scanned her eyes for her mom and dad. She saw her worried mom in the kitchen trying to take stock of the situation. The cooks were telling her something and she was scribbling them down on a paper. She was sweating, all flushed. She looked at her father’s direction. He was hardly visible with the bunch of people around him. They were shaking hands, laughing. She saw the uneasy smile, the hesitant laughter in her father’s face as he tried his best to keep the guest entertained. She saw it all.
She took a deep breath, and walked towards the gate. She stood near the entrance and looked at her watch. “Still more time to go, more chaos in store,” she thought as she threw a toothy smile to welcome the new bunch of guests.
There at the entrance she received the guests trying to do her bit. Most of the guests she could not even recognise. Marriage is for the relatives and the guests, not for the couple, she thought. All the expensive and painstaking arrangement to prevent people from gossiping, people who anyway would find a reason to crib. Her thoughts ran on. She was not hungry, the excitement which she had had a couple of days before the marriage had vanished. She no longer cared about how she looked, about how her beautiful dress got crushed.
As she stood there engaged in her own train of thoughts, she suddenly saw a bunch of very out-of-place guests. She looked at them; she looked at them again. The guy must be 21 or 22 and the kids between 4-10. They were standing a little away from the entrance, their attire and appearance in complete contrast to the ornate dresses of the guests.
They were 7 or 8 of them, all shabbily dressed. The guy must have brought the kids; they were clinging on to his hand and in train to one anothers', some on his shirt. He also had one little gal in his arms. They were looking inside the marriage venue from the entrance, but they did not dare to enter. They stood a little away, but within anyone's view. Zuhelina knew why they were there; she knew why they were eagerly waiting for somebody to notice them, to offer them some food. She could actually run the scene in her mind, how the guy (brother, cousin, acquaintance whoever he was) must have brought the kids to the marriage venue, promising them that they would get good food. They had come with great hope. They were all smiling as they waited there outside the entrance with lots of anticipation; the food could arrive anytime. But, as they began to wait longer than they expected, the children began to tug at the man’s sleeves, and looking up at him, questioned him with their eyes about the food he had promised. Zuhelina saw it all.
She turned her face away, she could not continue to look at them. She tried to engage herself with the other guests. But her eyes ended up following the queer group. She did not know what she was wishing for or what she was expecting. She wanted to be indifferent, and yet she looked towards their direction, one part of her heart wishing that they have gone and another part wishing they were still there. She knew the situation inside well; the number of guests pouring in and her worried mother’s face in the kitchen, worried to death that the food might not be enough and guest would have to go home dissatisfied. Deep inside her heart, she wished desperately that somebody, anybody would take notice of those children and give them some food. Or she wished somebody, an elder or even a friend would tell or at least suggest or hint at her to give them food. But standing there alone, aware of the situation both inside and outside the marriage venue, she felt helpless. The food. The food. Oh! The damn food!
They were still waiting. The children looked listless. On seeing Zuhelina, the guy looked at her, the children’s eyes followed. They all seemed to be screaming, to be telling her that "yes, we know you are the daughter of the host and you can give us some food'. She turned her faced away,again. She hated the way they looked beggingly at her, and she hated herself.
She went in again. She deliberately engrossed herself in other works. After 15 -20 minutes she was back again. This time they were not there anymore. She went a little ahead of the entrance and looked again, again unsure of what she wanted. They had left. She went up to the group of guys sitting near the entrance. “Did you see those kids who were standing here a few minutes ago?” “Yeah, they left, we drove them away. Nuisance!”
“They must have waited. What explanation could have the guy given to the kids. Did they turn back to check if I have come out with the food?"
So, they had left without food, with nobody bothering to throw them even a sympathetic glance. Gradually, the guests left, the din subsided. Zuhelina dragged her heavy feet and a heavier heart towards the dining tables and saw the wasted food, the half eaten delicacies on the plates ready to be thrown away. In a state of giddiness, she slowly headed towards the kitchen, and as she saw the huge steel containers still half filled with dishes, she was suddenly seized by a desire to run into the darkness and called out to the nameless, the voiceless, the faceless...
