Stasis

Roopa got up from her bed to look out whether there were any signs of a sunny day ahead. It was very cold. She had worn the warmest wollens yet her limbs felt numb with cold.Her bed she noticed was empty.Her husband had already left for his work.Sunday was the only holiday when he stayed back.It usud to be a much awaited day for Roopa but now no more.Her husband had become so accostomed of outdoors that he could hardly spend a holiday happily at home.All his aches and troubles surfaced and they could only be alleviated by getting glued to the t.v. set and viewing sops and movies of any genre.On other days she could cope with her lonliness and the emptiness of the house in her own way since she knew that there was nobody to give her company.But now she had either to sit quietly alongside her husband and savour the hackneyed fare quietly or go about her work and leave him alone.She would sink into deep ennui and hopelessness.sometimes She would remain away for hours loitering in the nearby market and to avoid the curiosity of the onlookers go to the adjoining public park and rest in some secluded corner.It was generally occupied by the wanderers and the stray dogs lazing around on the dirty littered grounds.The dogs getting up lazily in between their snooze to smell the wrappers and whet their appetite for any left overs with which the park was littered.The fecund smell of the stale and rotten food stuff would nasuate her but she continued sitting there biding her time.The stray dogs unmindful of the rotting debri lolled around with carefree abandon They would gambol together and create a riot.She got immersed in this thrilling display of carefree playfulness of the dogs. Close by sat some forlorn humans who seemed to be a constant fixture of such a public place. They never took notice of their surroundings and stretched out motionless as if in some deep reverie.The clothes they wore gave them out as homeless mendicants or wastrels, a pathetic scene.Their old grimy jackets and worn out dirty trousers which had never seen a regular wash wrapped them up so indifferently.Roopa felt sad .She was perhaps far away from experiecing the vagaries of real existence faced by the people who were lost in the wilderness of inaction and penury which plunged them into deep despondency.She avertd her eyes and would feel pleased to see the nimble squarrels skirting away with their gleaming bodies and pretty clean snouts sniffing around in a fretful manner for any stray grain of any sort.She felt the urge to touch them and caress them and feel their streaked shiny fur which looked so spruced up.They took her away from the grime and sleaze of defunct relationships into a fresh air of innocence and grandeur A life replete with the ultimate cosmic piety and dignity which perhaps mattered the most.