In memoriam: Srutimala Duara

A year and half ago, Sruti pressed a small bunch of books into my hand and told me to read them. Among them was a poetry collection, a travel diary and an anthology of short stories, all written in the last ten years or so. I looked at the lyrical poems, mostly on nature, about everyday life and some around her own womanly emotions and read them, one by one, lingering on the pages for the ones I liked as I made the journey back from her house to mine. She had been ailing for a while, but she had battled well and was looking good and purposeful as she and Bubu planned to take a trip abroad to see their beloved children, Neha and Geet. Meanwhile, her two books found their way to my writing desk that same evening, with a promise I made to myself that I would read them at leisure.

On that fateful Monday of 27 February, Sruti lay among the flowers, under a fading afternoon sun, silent and undisturbed by all that had made her life beautiful, sometimes frenetic, a dash, and a blur of activities she tirelessly slipped in and out of, amidst a tinkle of laughter and with that flamboyance and energy few others could boast of. She had made her peace, but did we, her friends, make ours? I remembered the title of her book of stories I had put away in the drawer of my desk: Waiting for the Last Breath. It was as if I had willfully chosen not to read that slim book which lay unopened in the dark corner of the drawer while I had pulled out other books that kept piling on the desk since I added hers. When she first left for Delhi, fragile and exhausted, I had spontaneously given her a charm to protect her through her struggle and I wouldn’t believe in anything else at all.

Sruti, or Rashni as her mother and many of her family called her, was known as a teacher, poet, actor, orator and most of all, the friend that lit up a gathering, and the girl we loved to bits for her incessant dose of humour and her punchlines, and for her sense of daring and nonchalant wisdoms she sprinkled around us, regardless of the situation. Srutimala Duara, as others knew her was, unarguably, a woman of many parts: her creative exuberance however hid the quiet philosophical strain that was visible only in the last couple of years when she suddenly encountered the unexpected. A fashionista, she never appeared without her trademark nail-art and that gorgeous mane of rich coppery hair carrying effortlessly a kaleidoscope of hues and colours of sarees and mekhalas that she donned like a diva.

But with Sruti there had been countless seasons in the sun, and when spring is in the air it is hard to say goodbye to someone who has forever breathed life and excitement into us. And equally hard to attempt to write her memorium. What do you say about those earliest and hazy memories that one has of little school-girls lined up with ribbons in their hair chirping away in unison, of teenagers sharing their first romantic secrets, of university mates who worked hard to read literature and then bracing later to teach it to others… and of sisterhoods and of mothers, and of women who have remained the thickest of friends five decades later?

Sruti wasn’t one to say die. She had often though, in banter, let us believe that long-lost school friends from St Marys’ convent where we had studied, and from whom we hadn’t heard had crossed to the other side. We perhaps never stopped accusing her of “murdering” some of our hale and hearty friends and I couldn’t ever forget that trace of a quixotic smile lurking on her lips as she feigned innocence and even a certain peevish impatience at being called out again! That was she… but always impossible to ignore for her ways and the delights she brought into our circle. There was then the other Sruti, thoughtful about the fraternities she made and the unprivileged around her for whom she would cross heaven or highwater. And there was the pensive artist, taking her audience by storm with her tremulous oration of a classic like Momotar Sithi, a rendition she perfected with her flawless Oxomiya diction, part inherited and part honed by her own literary responses to poetry and theatre. That was quintessential Sruti… the voice I hear now, in the rustle of the wind as I sit by that same writing desk looking to the river and beyond to the eternal whiteness and patch of blue to write and speak to her again. I shall not say farewell to you Sruti, but fare forward dear friend as you carry your loveliness and light to a better world.

– Rakhee Kalita Moral