UNMASKED BEAUTY

It was her eyes that caught his attention. They were large and perfectly almond shaped, framed by long curled lashes that threw shadows on her cheekbones every time she glanced down. The colour of her eyes was a light brown with specks of gold that deepened when she listened intently. But what really captivated him was the expression in her eyes. They reflected every emotion that flitted through her mind. Her eyes lit up with suppressed mirth even before their corners crinkled when she laughed. They sparkled like a star-spangled November sky when she was happy. In sadness they clouded over like monsoon thunder clouds before a torrent. They flashed with unexplored passion when anxious. And when she sat lost in her thoughts which she did often, they appeared like two limpid pools, so inviting that a man could drown in them and not desire to surface again.

Her name was Uma. Her father Shankar Bhadra was a patient of advanced diabetic nephropathy who needed regular dialysis. That was the only reason father and daughter visited the hospital every week despite the menace of the corona pandemic when everybody else stayed away. Uma was diligent about following safety protocols. Her mask was always firmly in place no matter how long she had to wait at the hospital. Unlike other patients and their attendants, she never lowered her mask while speaking to the doctors or orderlies or even her father. She covered herself in a full sleeve kurta despite the heat and wore no jewelry, not even a watch.

Vineet was in the last leg of his medicine internship when the pandemic struck and nationwide lockdown was declared. It was his first day of posting in nephrology when he came across Uma. She was waiting patiently for her father in the lounge area designated for attendants. As she heard footsteps she instinctively looked up and her gaze collided with Vineet’s. To say that Vineet was thunderstruck would be an understatement. He found himself gazing into a pair of the lightest brown eyes whose flecks of gold deepened even as they held him spellbound. Their expression was as calm and inviting as a pond without a single ripple on a hot summer afternoon. Then slowly in languid grace mild curiosity skimmed the surface for a barely noticeable second before a bashful veil descended and with the grace of a swan lowering its vast wings, her eyelashes lowered themselves as she gazed down in coyness.

 

It was a while before Vineet realized that he was still staring at her lowered gaze like a man in a trance. Clearing his throat in embarrassment, he asked her if he could help her. Startled she looked up, her eyes doe-like in confusion. No doctor had ever stopped in his busy schedule to offer to help her. Then her eyes cleared and brightened like the sun peeking out after torrential rain before the edges crinkled and, in a voice, softened with good humor she replied in the negative. Her voice had a slight lisp to it as if the words were slipping out. But it was really her eyes that spoke, at once amused and grateful.

That evening in his hostel room, Vineet took down his easel and box of paints. It had been more than a year since he had last painted anything. At one time Vineet had been passionate about art. Growing up he had fantasized about relocating to Milan, living in a basement and starving for the glory of art. With adulthood came reality and he relegated his passion to an occasional hobby. But today he was a possessed man driven to capture every expression of a pair of breathtakingly beautiful eyes. Sheet after sheet he filled with paintings of her eyes striving to get every nuance of her expression just right. Most of his attempts left him disappointed. In some, her eyes were not luminous enough. In another he was not able to capture the hint of amusement that crept in before they crinkled in frank laughter. The gold flecks that deepened so, were not the accurate shade. But a few paintings were so lifelike that Vineet stood hypnotized, losing himself in their shades. He wanted to reach out and touch them, he wanted to learn every secret buried in their depth, he wanted to memorize every expression, he wanted to possess. If it was possible to fall in love with a person’s eyes, Vineet was deeply in love with Uma.

With a little assistance from his fellow interns Vineet got hold of the dialysis schedule of Uma’s father. He made sure to be present in the nephrology department every week when Uma came in with her father, even when his posting in medicine department was over. He was totally besotted with her and Uma appeared to welcome his attention. Vineet often watched from the shadows as Uma entered the out-patient department. Her eager eyes would search for him. When her gaze alighted on Vineet, her eyes would light up like a million chandeliers blinding him in their unadulterated joy of seeing him. They spoke little and sometimes not at all. He would ask her if she needed any assistance and enquire after her father’s health. She would answer in monosyllables in her slightly lisping voice. Sometimes he would fetch her coffee as she waited for her father. Uma would accept with a perfunctory thank you even as her eyes would swim in gratitude.

In the course of time he learnt a little about her. Her father was a retired railway engineer. Her brother, older to her by five years was an engineer settled in the Silicon Valley. Uma herself worked at a call Centre and was working from home during the pandemic. She had lost her mother to cancer a couple of years ago. As she spoke of her mother, Uma’s eyes dimmed. Like the moon being overtaken by dark clouds before a tempest, her eyes lost their luster. A cloak of sadness shrouded her expressive eyes. Her pain was so palpable that Vineet wanted to take her in his arms and keep her safe there, promising her eternal happiness. But before he could offer any consolation, Uma’s eyes spied a toddler prancing across the out-patient lounge with unsteady clumsy steps, clapping his hands and shrieking with glee. At once the sadness cleared. Like the full moon peeking out from behind dark clouds and bathing the earth below in the soft glow of its luminescence, her eyes came aglow with merriment encompassing Vineet in their warmth.

Every evening Vineet returned to his paints and easel. Slowly he added other features to complement her eyes and complete her face. Some features that he could see like her perfectly arched brows and the soft tendrils of hair that blew across her forehead. But some features he added from imagination. A delicately curved nose. Pair of full kissable lips, the lower lips a wee bit more plump than the upper one but together forming a perfect cupid’s bow. A dimpled chin.

The days of lockdown passed. After 3 months, though life did not return to normal, many of the lockdown restrictions were lifted. The initial paralyzing fear that had gripped everyone had abated a little. People accepted the idea that they would have to live with the virus and they went about their life with less panic and necessary precautions. Uma’s brother Nilesh had returned from the US and sometimes accompanied his father and sister during dialysis.

Vineet’s year-long internship was almost at an end. The last fifteen days he was given duty in the COVID Ward where the virus infected patients were kept in isolation. During these days Vineet too would have to stay in isolation in the hospital sleeping in the doctor’s duty rooms adjacent to the COVID Ward. This was mandatory to protect his hostel mates from exposure incase Vineet got infected while on duty. After fifteen days of duty, he would again have to stay under home quarantine for another 14 days. Thus, Vineet would not be seeing Uma for almost a month.

The day before his COVID Ward duty started, Vineet gift wrapped one of his paintings. It was a painting of Uma lost in her own thoughts. Her eyes had a faraway expression to them. They appeared calm and fathomless, mysterious and inviting. A soft smile played on her lips. She looked at once naïve and sexy, an angel and an enchantress. He added a short note where he wrote “To the girl with the bewitching eyes. Waiting to behold the rest of her beauty unmask.”

Vineet smiled at his own clever use of words. He handed Uma the gift before he rushed off to join his new duty. But before he left Vineet assured her that he would see her after a month.

It was two months since Vineet had last seen Uma. His internship was over. He had rejoined the hospital as a house-staff because in these COVID pandemic times with so many doctors infected the hospital was understaffed. But his real motive to rejoin here was to meet Uma again, to pick up where they had left off. He was totally enamored with her or rather her eyes but now he wanted to get to know the rest of her. Not for a moment did he doubt that the rest of her was as beautiful as her eyes.

Yet Uma did not come. He learnt from his colleagues in nephrology department that she had not accompanied her father since the day he had last met her and had gifted her, his painting. Instead her brother Nilesh took her place. Vineet walked up to her brother one day, enquired after his father’s health and then in a casual conversational tone asked after Uma. He learnt that Uma was fine, working online from home. Vineet was at once relieved and confused. Relieved that health concerns had not kept Uma away. Confused that she did not feel the desire to meet with him again. He could have sworn that in Uma’s expressive eyes he had seen a reflection of what he had felt for her. Her eyes had always lit up when he had approached. Eagerness and shyness had chased each other like the butterflies in a meadow. Admiration and a flirtatious twinkle had co-existed like twin shadows in the hidden depth of her eyes. Yet weeks passed and Uma did not come.

Uma stood in front of the mirror. She was alone in the apartment as her father and brother had gone to the hospital for her father’s dialysis. She had donned her mask even though she was at home. The painting that Vineet had gifted was propped up against the wall next to the mirror. For the umpteenth time she compared the eyes in the painting with her own in the mirror. The painting was an exact replica. Yes, she had beautiful eyes. Her mother had always told her so, but Uma had never believed her. At least not till the pandemic appeared and Uma started wearing a mask. The first day Uma had worn a mask and stood before a mirror, she had been mesmerized by her own eyes. Uma recalled the family lore, that her mother had wanted to name her Sunaina but her paternal grandmother had overridden her daughter in law’s wishes and named her Uma.

Besides her mother, Vineet was the first person who had noted the beauty of her eyes. His painting did total justice to its sublime beauty. However, his imagination had failed him. Slowly Uma lowered her mask. The rest of her face was nothing like his painting.

Uma had been born with left sided cleft lip and cleft palate. She had undergone surgery at a tender age to repair it. Though the defect had been closed, the surgery had led to facial deformity. Her left nostril was pulled downwards and made her nose appear skewed. The left half of her upper lip was pulled upwards and a deep ragged scar ran all the way from her upper lip to her left nostril. The two halves of her lower face appeared like two mismatched pieces of a jigsaw puzzle forcefully fitted together. After the surgery, her voice had developed a slight nasal intonation and her speech a lisping quality. Once she reached the age of eighteen, she underwent plastic surgery to rectify the deformity. The surgeries were done in several sittings, but the result changed little. They only added more scars to the existing ones. Yes, Uma had beautiful eyes, but people only noticed her deformed face.

Uma could not return to meet Vineet. There was no more beauty to unmask, just the ugly truth. Let him seek solace in the memory of her bewitching eyes just as she would find solace in his painting of her perfectly beautiful face.