This guest article is written by Suchita Mundhra. Read about her at the end of the article. If you wish your article to be published in this blog, please contact at mahanagar.net[@]gmail[.]com with subject as “I Want To Write”.
Aurelia never spoke a word since birth. The childish ‘bubaloo’ and ‘amms’ remained her manner of speech even at 21. She was examined thoroughly, as a child as her parents grew concerned regarding her inability to speak, yet there was little that came out of it. The problem could never be detected and always remained a mystery.
Only a gush of air emanated every time she moved her lips to mouth words. Only air. No words. No audible sound. But, at her current stage she had accepted her body the way it functioned. She heard herself through other voices around her. There were times when she would hide herself in one of the corners of her house only to hear her mother shout out her name over and over again. “Aurelia, Aurelia, where are you? We need to leave immediately. Why do you always do this? Aurelia.” And then she would spring up from one of the corners and beckon that it was her hair that took her long.
Her mother never questioned her and ostensibly she managed to hear the echo that her name produced in the large corridors. Her name was her favourite word. She enjoyed the sound produced by the vowels placed at the beginning and how they would make her mother’s lips look like a fish. Her name sounded beautiful to her. Despite her inability, in the solitude of her room she would sit with a piece of paper with words scribbled all over it. She would try twisting her lips and yearn to hear them in her own voice. But, no miracles ever happened. In dismay, she would remain alone in the silence of her room. She would sit on her large upholstered beige sofa and stare out of the glass paned window.
There was no spectacular view that it offered to her drooping spirit. All she could see was the open sky stretched between the infinite ends. The view was so comforting that she would sit enthralled in this state for hours. It was the silence of the sky that consoled her, speaking to her through that silence. The two silent beings poured out their hearts to one another in their own clandestine language.
She would refuse to step out of the house to bring little Ivan back home from school. The medley of voices made of the children and how much she wanted her voice to drown in these voices. This only reminded her of a worsening dream. One day as she lay in her room with the fever burning her body, all she could think about was to convey one last message through spoken words. The house grew worried about her deteriorating health and when one night her body could no longer endure the struggle; she lay still, looking out of the window. When her room was cleaned all that was found under her mattress were scribbled words and a note that said, ‘leave these on my grave to wither away the way I did.’
Suchita is in final year of Masters in Arts Journalism from CEPT University, Ahmedabad. Apart from reading and traveling she just keeps dreaming… Her only wish she can think of at the moment is to buy a vintage beetle.
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