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curly, dark hair against a fair skin and almost flawless face made her look like Sheela, the erstwhile heroine of many Malayalam movies.
    “Rita herself was the dowry,” Thoma declared. “Tim should consider himself lucky to have got a Malayalee heroine as his wife,” he told Ann. “Pairing up with a real-life heroine like Rita gave Tim reflected glory that placed him on a pedestal similar to that of a matinee idol of the Malayalam movie world. The bondage that tied the pair led Tim to a magical world of stardom that is farmore covetable than a dowry. Not all the gold in Kerala can deliver such a presentable wife. She is more valuable than a dowry of one lakh rupees,” Thoma declared with undisputed finality.
    Thoma and Ann were always happy to see Rita. They loved her immensely. Their love for her stemmed out of concern for the lot they pushed her into. They had deep sympathy for her because she was childless. All the rest of their children, ten altogether, were blessed with children, and Thoma felt that God misplayed his hands in the case of Rita by offering her no offspring.
    They were aware what merciless future Rita and Tim would be thrown into because of childlessness, the offspring of infertility.
    They knew that there would be no torchbearer of their bloodline and of their memories. They knew that there would be no one to remember the couple when they would bid their final farewell to Kerala and this world. They knew that there would be no one to tell their stories to in the long, lazy monsoon evenings soaked by heavy rain.
    They knew there would be no songs written about them. They knew their funeral hymn would be forgotten as soon as their dead bodies were commended to six feet of mud and their spirits entrusted to God. They knew there would be no reminiscences about them that future moms would sing as bedtime lullabies to their little babies. They knew there would be no tears shed if anyone would care to recount the sad story of their lives.
    They knew that none, including the closest relatives, would visit their tombstones to lay fragrant flowers. They knew that weeds and spider-woven webs would overrun their graves to render the couple invisible to generations to come. They knew that their wedding and death anniversaries would neither be celebrated nor remembered. They knew that their birthdays would remain uncommemorated. They knew that they would fade away from memories forever.
    Like a candlestick extinguished and forgotten forever
    Like the receding sounds of a trumpet no longer audible
    Like a cascade of effervescent waves boisterously joyous inthe mid-sea and yet destined to come to shore to die a silent death
    Like a story recited for the last time in a classroom
    Like a day that dies in the lap of the night, leaving no trace of sunshine
    Like yesterday gone forever, never to come back
    Like a movie screened before the last curtain drop in a theater now obscure, abandoned, and forgotten in the canyons of time
    Like faded and fallen petals of jasmine that used to instill the still night with their heavenly fragrance, once upon a time.

3FROM KAREENA, WITH LOVE
    Kareena was Thoma’s third child and second daughter. She was born during the glorious days of Thoma’s family history. She was the product of the affluent days of Thoma’s past during the forties. Those were the days when he was able to support his wife and their children. Those were the days when he was proud and strong. Those were the days when he did not have to drag his family through a quagmire of rental houses.
    The affluence did not last long, however. Misery followed affluence and seemed to last forever in Thoma’s household, just like seven famine years followed seven affluent years in the Old Testament. The difference here was that just a few years of affluence were followed by an inordinately long period of famine. Poverty and misery were so indispensably linked to the childhood through youth through adult years of Thoma’s