To Maria

Every time I open a fresh new notebook, before writing anything in it, I glance at it admiringly…so fresh...clean and white… that as you move it closer to your face, it brings a whiff of fragrance like a new born baby powdered with a dash of lavender.. There is a frailty of the untouched…unblemished piece of work which sometimes make you pause before you write those first words in a blank page…There is a feeling of responsibility because you are going to change the life of the notebook for ever…it might pass across several hands...its edges lose the fineness and the pages bereft of aroma of fresh papyrus…I am in a way the first person the book came across in its life…This is what I feel when I start writing the first letters on this book because you were just like this new book for me when I met you and I want you to know that it will remain like that forever… ~ Fred.

Fred was sitting at the hospital verandah where the shades from the maple tree nearby gave patients much needed relief that summer. After writing those few words in the moleskin notebook which he had bought, he relaxed back on his easy chair…intermittently closing his eyes in rhythm with sunrays that escaped through the thick foliage of leaves above….He was soon tired playing this game and closed his eyes, as if making a point to the sun that he was not interested in the mischief it was playing. And soon he drifted in his thoughts…

It was infact one sunny day several years ago, Fred and Maria got married at the Catholic Church in Cologne…

It was the 70’s and Germany was booming…..When the young Goan girl Maria arrived in the country she had no clue about her future…After studying nursing in Madgaon, she was one of the lucky few who got a job in Germany…. A place far different from sunny palm frilled Goa where the flavour of fresh fish curry cooked with coconut milk would hang in air till dusk…A place full of white people with pink cheeks and blue eyes, far different from tanned lean Goan men who took to the sea back in her hometown…But she was sure about one thing….she wanted to embrace the new land….

Maria quickly adapted to the new culture and place….She was the sprightly one among a bunch of Indian girls who where brought in by the catholic mission …Her eyes glowed in eagerness to the new sights and smells while others cowered in fear timidly…. She was the darling of german nuns who took a special liking to the cheerful girl from India who would sing and dance like Julie Andrews to the delight of the kids in the hospital where she was working…. There was a spring in her walk and a song in her heart which was hard to resist for anyone not to notice…And it was no surprise that a fellow Goan chap called Fred did not need much reason to talk to her…a talk which went on for long durations followed by long letters and poems and made official by something pretty short actually….when both eagerly said at the church to each other…”I do…….”

And it was a truly special time of their lives when they were looked upon as the perfect happy family by the whole community…As years passed by, Maria aged beautifully unlike others who were at peace with a age when people didn’t mind gaining a few pounds or greying hair…After all Maria was the athletic lady who would jog every day morning and cycle her way home along the Rhine promenade taking delight in the breeze that caressed her mind and cheeks alike… She was youthful as ever in mind and body in unison….Her children adored her and she was a lovely mother who deserved the adoration….Like the roses in her patio, the orchids and blueberries in the garden she was the color in epiphany for her kids and loved ones….

One day as usual Fred made the morning coffee and woke her up for their morning jog….But that day she was almost frozen…Maria told Fred she could not lift herself up from the bed…Two days later the doctors informed Fred that the paralysis which Maria was affected with was a rare kind off poisoning which affected her nervous system….She would be bed ridden for life…That day when Fred met Maria at her bedside they did not speak…after all in a beautiful relationship like theirs silence did speak a lot…

There were plenty of get well soon bouquets and cards at her hospital room…but the docs could not do anything but feel helpless about how unrealistic those wishes were… Fred’s close friends asked him to move back to Goa where he could live comfortably with his savings and Maria would be cared by nurses whom he could employ… After a few days Maria was lifted on to a wheel chair and taken home….to their little home in Cologne…

Fred held Maria’s limp hand and squeezed it…A tear fell down from Maria’s eyes in a desperate attempt to return the squeeze…but she couldn’t….From that day in 1983, Fred did what not many men have done…He became a mother for their kids…He cooked food for all three at home…He ran the house along with his regular job…He took care of his beloved wife’s needs….bathed her…fed her….Months later, to the surprise of the doctors Maria could finally walk with some help….

Maria is fade shadow of her older self…. She doesn’t anymore look like Julie Andrews…She cannot hold anything heavier than a pen…But her face effuses a glow of contentment… contentment of having a husband who took care of her… a contentment in being able to fight the doctor’s predictions….for being at peace with her unconventional life…

‘Uncle Fred…’….. Someone touched Fred’s shoulders…

The nurse at the hospital woke Fred from his thoughts…and he walks slowly back to the hospital…Maria would be discharged today after her annual blood transfusion....He held her frail yet warm hand and gives it a little squeeze…This time she squeezed back…..

In a few days, Fred and Maria would be celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary… Fred as always is never sure with birthday gifts….He is quite tense whether Maria would like his little birthday present….a brand new moleskin notebook with the preface he wrote that morning…Maria would write poems and bring color again………


P.S. inspired by a real life couple i know in Hamburg..taken liberty of fictionalising into a story..
P.P.S. Post dedicated to a good friend of mine from Cologne.