As Manish walked out of her house into the street lamp lit evening, life had moved imperceptibly through the open front door into the interior of her house. Life, in another form.

It was a life that was born in Sunil’s study the day Saibal, the would be film star, had walked in to be posted up on Manish’s infatuation. That was yet another evening. It was winter, or at least the balmy spring that passes for winter in Kolkata. Manish recalled vividly the woolen cardigan that Sunil wore. Saibal too was reasonably well-attired in a chocolate cots wool kurta and white pyjamas. Manish couldn’t help smiling. The pyjamas Saibal wore had an unmistakably bellbottom look. Sartorially speaking, Bengal was far behind the Nehru style churidaars. Colour-wise too, men’s clothing, as well as women’s, was remarkably sedate.

Saibal reclined comfortably in a chair with his kurta clad long legs stretched out atop the window sill. His kohlapuri chappals made a strange contrast to the vase out of which the money plant grew. His father was a businessman as far as Manish was aware and he wanted his son to complete a degree in commerce prior to joining the family profession. Saibal, however, was as doggedly averse to academic pursuits as a hydrophobic might be to the sight of water. He had managed to bag a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce and landed a position in a pharmaceutical company through his father’s connections. But his ambition lay elsewhere and he was biding his time as an amateur stage actor.

“You’ve got to admit this is a nice match! Perfect complements, weight-wise,” he observed.

There was much truth in what he had said. Shyamali was plumpish and Manish definitely bordered on obesity. And overweight people are definitely not recognized as models of romance. Sunil guffawed in response to Saibal’s statement. Manish smiled back sheepishly, his ears turning crimson. He felt stupid. How could he have ever imagined that he was the object of a woman’s attention? Doubts had returned.

He began to feel as though he was a criminal. What would his parents have to say if they found out about this unforgivable luxury? Leave alone his physical looks, did his economic circumstances permit woman chasing? He couldn’t remember a single day during his adolescence when his father hadn’t reminded him that his sole duty in life was to lift the family out of its economic woes. He had to pay back his parents, those were the very words he had heard a million times and even digested, for having brought him up. He was born into eternal liability and the single minded goal that was preordained for him was to help the family avoid insolvency. And a natural corollary that followed from this was the life of a celibate devoted entirely to ensuring creature comforts for his parents.�

“Hee, hee, hee … I wonder if they have designed furniture for copulating hippos!” interjected Sunil. Saibal smiled back, but there was a distinct human touch in his smile. It helped Manish feel somewhat less miserable.

“Oh, come on,” said Saibal, “Manish is no hippo.”

“Hippo!” said yet another voice. “What’s Manish got to do with hippos?”

All three persons in the room turned around in surprise to discover that Mukul had come in quite unobserved. The slim and smartly attired business executive drew up a chair and sat down facing Manish on the other side of the table.

“What’s this hippo talk about?” he asked.

“We were discussing how hippos make love. For Manish’s education,” said Sunil shaking with laughter.

Mukul looked totally confused. “How do you mean? What’s Manish got to do with hippos?” he repeated.

It was Saibal who replied. “Sunil is being unfair. It’s just that Manish and Shyamali have discovered that they are in love. And Sunil is wondering if this isn’t a weighty problem.” He grinned at Manish, who didn’t know where to hide his embarrassment.

“Whaaaaaat? Manish and Shyamali? Really … ? How thrilling!” said Mukul. “How come I never noticed? Hmm … I must say Manish is a smart operator. Since when man?” His studied Manish mirthfully.

Manish’s discomfort was unbearable. He began to stammer. “Well … you see … they are exaggerating … They are just pulling my leg … Nothing serious really …”

“Come on now,” roared back Sunil. “You told me less than half an hour ago that you’ve been making passes at the hippo bitch and she’d responded. Don’t try to cover up now. Besides you never know what a female hippo in heat does if her mate withdraws halfway! Ha, ha, ha, …” He was totally out of breath. “Just imagine,” he was gasping for breath now, “a male hippo withdrawing its …”

And now everyone in the room had begun to enjoy Manish’s discomfiture. He felt himself sinking in a sea of vulgarity, a sort of vulgarity to which his middle class upbringing had not prepared him for.

“This calls for celebration!” said Sunil. “Let’s go out for drinks.”

Both Saibal and Mukul were open to the idea and soon they found themselves walking down the immaculately polished marble staircase at Sunil’s home. Mukul’s car was parked under the portico and as they got into it, Manish had to excuse himself, for he knew he couldn’t possibly afford the adventure, neither morally nor monetarily. They drove off towards a destination that Manish had little idea about. Much, much later, Manish had discovered from Saibal that they had gone and enjoyed themselves in one of Kolkata’s red light districts.

Yes, this is the way it all began, remembered Manish. And soon the news spread like wild fire. Amongst the many common acquaintances Shyamali and Manish had, there was not one who didn’t know about their ‘relationship’. Few lost the opportunity to poke a question or two at him on the matter and, what he was unaware of, they were repeating the same antiques in Shyamali’s presence too and her disgust probably knew no bound.

He had discovered the truth of her situation only on the evening she drew his attention to the fiasco she had been exposed to, but he had found out too late. It was impossible to undo what had happened and there was no way he could ever raise himself in her eyes anymore.

He never found out if he was truly in love with her. But he did realize that his feelings for her had been the talk of the town long before he himself had found an opportunity to open up his heart in privacy. Whether he loved her or not, and indeed whether she loved him or not in return, the last thing a woman would enjoy was public gossip on the issue even before her suitor declared himself.

***

It was a month perhaps since the day Manish left Shyamali and Mukul in the room where electricity was yet to find its way, when he walked into Saibal at a wayside tea stall on Lake Avenue. Saibal lived nearby and he was sitting on a wooden bench with his cronies from the area.

“Hey Manish!” Saibal called out. Manish had not noticed him till then.

“Oh hello! Is this where you hang out nowadays,” he asked smiling.

“Of course. I am a regular here. Don’t you know that I live in that house?” He pointed straight ahead at a two storied building opening out into a well-maintained lawn.

“Is that so? Well, I knew you lived here, but not the exact building. How have you been?” asked Manish.

“I am fine dear, no problems. But tell me, how have you been?” Manish noticed the emphasis on the word ‘you’. He wasn’t sure what Saibal was referring to.

“Well, I am OK I guess. Carrying on, you know …”

Saibal’s lips opened up into a broad smile.

“Hasn’t Mukul spoken to you?” he asked.

“No … About what?” His heart began to tremble and the last trace of a smile disappeared from Manish’s lips. There was an ashen look on his face.

But Saibal kept smiling and, sensing that something was amiss, his friends, total strangers to Manish, began to smile too, curiosity writ large in their eyes.

“Why, about Shyamali of course. She’s asked Mukul to tell you that you need not entertain any hope at all,” Saibal said bluntly. His friends began to titter. Embarrassed beyond endurance, Manish stood gaping at Saibal, totally unable to move for a while. And Saibal continued. “Fatso! Your lady love has rejected you. Ask Mukul for the details …”

Manish tried to smile now. He might even have succeeded to an extent as he mumbled a confused string of wordless sounds. And then he slowly walked away, aware painfully of the jeering eyes at the tea stall that were trained on him as long as he was visible. How uncouth his oversized bottom must appear in their eyes, he thought.

His achievements were so few in life that he accepted the event without a murmur. The message need not have been conveyed to him he thought. He had not visited Shyamali’s house since the fateful evening. But she did not have enough respect for either his sensitivity or his intelligence. Hence, a messenger had been employed to deliver the blow. It hurt, but not overly so. He was used to failure.

***

As Manish kept walking along the corridors of destiny, stray bits of news reached him. Shyamali had come out with a brilliant performance in the university examinations and had now joined a prestigious institution in the city for further studies. Sunil on the other hand had left for the United Kingdom for a bachelor’s degree at Cambridge University. Saibal had finally made it to the screen and Mukul continued to work for the multinational rising in tandem with his ambition.

Manish too kept doing whatever came his way, but he was way behind fulfilling his father’s expectations. Besides, the sense of failure had rid him of whatever self-confidence he possessed and it was in this state of suppressed agony that he saw Mukul driving past as he was leaving the home of one of the many students he tutored.

Mukul noticed him too and pulled up. There was a brief exchange of pleasantries. There was little of course that Manish had to proclaim about himself.

“How have you been?” asked Mukul.

“OK, I guess. I have little to declare … not even my genius …” said Manish with half a smile, recalling Oscar Wilde.

Mukul ignored the comment. Instead, he asked the strangest of questions.

“Do you know Shyamali’s address?”

Manish was taken totally aback. “Of course not,” he said. But it shouldn’t be hard for you to find out. You know where she lives. Just ask her.”

“No, no. She doesn’t live in Palm Street now. Didn’t you know?”

“No, I didn’t. How should I?”

“Well her father was transferred to Delhi and her brother too left Kolkata. So she is now living in a girls’ hostel.”

“I see,” said Manish without much interest, thought not without a pang in his heart.

“Well, you see,” continued Mukul, “Sunil wanted me to find out. He’s in the UK now. You know that, right? He says he has a score to settle with her.”

It hurt once again and he didn’t know why. By now Manish had realized that it was not possible for a person to be in love with a woman who doesn’t love him. But he didn’t yet know what love itself was. Why on earth did it hurt at all? Was it ego? Was it his ego that was hurt by the refusal? If so, it was silly. He didn’t know what love meant. He was not even sure of his own love for Shyamali. Yet his ego hurt as he thought of the refusal.

Yes, hidden under his carefully nurtured pretence of humility, there was a terrifying ego. It was an ego that ensured that he would never know what love for a woman meant. He was cursed to know what a woman’s body offered, but never her mind.

Now, so many years later, he found himself remembering the immortal lines from the Bengali novelist Manik Bandyopadhyay’s classic, The Puppet Dance Tale. Shashi, the hero who ended up loveless, had asked Kusum, the could be heroine:

“Body Kusum, body? Don’t you have a mind?”

Kusum of course had not heard the question and merely expressed her bodily discomfort during a conversation with Shashi.

Will hopefully continue …

***

It was the dismal house alone that still stood its ground in defiance of the ravages of time. As did Manish himself. Yet, he refused to feel his age and ruminated over the decaying house as Dorian Gray might have over his crumbling portrait.

The realization dawned on him all of a sudden, a reminder as it were, that he had lived far too long, longer indeed than the house itself, or even probably the characters that had once played their roles in the drama surrounding the house. He really didn’t know if a once vital part of his world had lost its own vitality and vanished into nothingness.

Except of course Mukul, about whose whereabouts he knew for certain. Paradoxically enough, he was aware of Mukul precisely because there was nothing left of him to be aware of. He was no more. He had ended up in the municipal morgue Manish recalled, prior to undertaking his final journey to the incinerator. Mukul, despite his snooty, business executive behaviour, was far too soft inside to cope with the harsh realities of life. Mukul, who drove a flashy car provided by his multinational employer, Mukul, who complained of having to drive his flashy car to the club in the evenings for his scotch on the rocks, had died in penniless ignominy in a small town cheap hotel, leaving behind him nothing other than a suicide note.

And it was Mukul who had showed up unannounced, in the candle lit ground floor room of the house where Manish faced Shyamali and swung between hope and despair.

Shyamali’s family had already moved into its still unfinished dwelling. The first floor was yet to come up and the electric connection to all the rooms had not yet been installed. The front door opened into the dark living room where one had to sit surrounded by unpacked furniture. A single candle burnt on the window sill casting ghostly shadows on the walls. Electric bulbs shone beyond the hallway leading out of the room though, perhaps in the privacy of bedrooms. Faint light beams from the interior flowed into the living room too, mingling curiously with the candle light.

They had been sitting in the room for a while, chatting about inconsequential matters. There was no one else in the room and Manish’s heart throbbed in desperation. This was the right moment he knew to profess his feelings for her. Yet he had no idea where to begin. It was Shyamali who helped.

“You know, there is something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Manish almost fainted. He knew the moment had arrived. In the darkness, he could not study the expression on Shyamali’s face. Nor could she see his blanched countenance. He summoned the last bit of courage he possessed and responded, hiding carefully the tremor in his voice.

“Why yes of course, what is it?”

Shyamali waited, as though searching for the right words to employ. And then she proceeded, faltering in embarrassment. Manish was too inexperienced to know that women often feel embarrassed when they reject a man. Besides Shyamali herself was young too. This was almost surely the first occasion for her to turn a person down.

“What’s this I have been hearing from people? … I mean … you seem to have been … saying things about us … All our friends keep asking … it’s uncomfortable … I mean … why have you been doing this?” Her voice trailed off behind the flickering shadows in the room.

Manish lacked the sophistication to come out with an appropriate answer. He felt guilty as accused. His ineptitude was boundless, his gullibility profound. He did not stop to think how he could possibly have begun to appear as a nuisance in Shyamali’s personal life.

“I guess I couldn’t … hide the truth,” he stammered. And then he waited for her to carry on the conversation. But all he could force out of her was a soft and almost inaudible laugh. It was short, dry and signified nothing at all. Yet Manish’s expectation was aroused and he tried to be bolder.

“Well, since we have spoken about this now, do I have …” He left the sentence unfinished and waited for her response.

“Do you have what?” would have been a natural question for her to ask. But she didn’t ask the question and sat quietly amongst the shadows. He had no choice left but to push on entirely on his own.

“Do I have … any hope?” he asked pathetically. The darkness came to his aid. He did not have to worry about the expression on his face, the clothes he wore or anything else about himself for that matter. He was practically an invisible man proposing to a barely visible woman.

Awkward stillness reigned again. It was the strangest of love scenes ever enacted. Neither speech nor vision nor touch appeared to have much to do with the exchanges between the parties. Manish knew there was nothing more for him to say and waited uneasily for Shyamali to break the silence. And then, after what seemed like an eternity, she came back to a semi-conscious state.

“These things are very hard …,” she said. She spoke so faintly that Manish had to strain his ears to catch her words. And what she had said amounted to nothing. Manish wished desperately to request her to explain what she had meant but sat instead in dumb surrender.

How long did the event last? No, this was an absurd question, forty years too late to ask. As he sat fidgeting, there was a soft knock on the front door. Shyamali went and answered the door and a shadowy figure entered.

“What’s this? Don’t you have lights in the room?” said a new voice. Manish recognized him immediately. It was Mukul.

“Who’s this?” asked Mukul peering through the darkness at Manish.

“Oh, that’s Manish,” said Shyamali.

“What are you guys doing sitting in the darkness?” Mukul chuckled as he asked.

Shyamali quickly explained. “There’s no electric connection in this room yet. We have been visiting the Electricity Company almost everyday. It’s so tiring, really. Come in, do sit down … if you can find a seat.” She was giggling now. Normalcy had returned.

Manish rose to leave and Shyamali said nothing. But Mukul asked.

“Have I disturbed you? Why are you leaving?”

Manish had found back his senses by now. He knew that Mukul’s question had made Shyamali feel more disturbed than she already was.

“No, no,” he quickly replied. “I have to leave to tutor a student. My livelihood you know …”

And then without waiting for Mukul to carry on the conversation, he walked out for the last time from the house.

***

Manish had spent an entire life without discovering what love between a man and a woman meant. He had found women, he had lived with them, he had even missed them when they left him. But he had no idea at all about the expression ‘falling in love’. What is falling in love like? He was sick of asking himself the same question. But he didn’t know the answer, he would never know now either. Life for him was much too near its end.

A few years after the evening he had left Shyamali’s house forever, he was walking down the Avenue of the Americas on a bright August afternoon in front of the Radio City Music Hall. He was watching the crowd at the entrance of the building and enjoying the almost festive atmosphere, when a very young girl rushed out of the crowd and stood in front of him. She was at least ten years younger to him, probably just out of high school. She had a face full of smile as she looked straight into his eyes. He smiled back, not knowing what she wanted.

“I love you,” said the young beauty.

Manish was taken aback, but by now he had far outgrown his Shyamali filled days. Womankind was no longer a stranger to him. He quickly regained his poise.

“You do, do you?”

“Yes,” she answered eagerly.

“Well I love you too,” he replied smiling as dazzlingly as the girl.

The girl waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. Instead he waved at her and walked on. She stared back at him and he preferred to remain ignorant of what her intentions had been.

But she had inadvertently reminded him of Shyamali. Isn’t this exactly what happened between them? He had dropped out of nowhere and declared his love for her and she didn’t know what on earth he was talking about. Today, so many years later, he had found out that he had never fallen in love with her. Not because she was not lovable, but because he didn’t know what love meant.

Nor did she probably.

Yes, probably. Only probably.

***

As Manish walked out of her house into the street lamp lit evening, life had moved imperceptibly through the open front door into the interior of her house. Life, in another form.

It was a life that was born in Sunil’s study the day Saibal, the would be film star, had walked in to be posted up on Manish’s infatuation.

Will hopefully continue …

On his way back home, he dropped in at Sunil’s residence, itching to bring up the subject. And Sunil was all attention.

***

“No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous –
Almost, at times, the Fool.”

Manish was silently reciting to himself these immortal lines from Eliot as he half reclined on his bed and watched a midnight movie on TV. It was a Bengali soap from the mid-sixties. The hero, played by Soumitra Chatterjee, had the right father, the right long dead mother, the right huge but unkempt house, the right quantum of all the goodies money could buy and, most importantly, the right degree of need for a comely, young woman’s attention to protect him from the machinations of servants and butlers blissfully engaged in leading him towards bankruptcy. And then the right woman fell on his plate like manna from heaven in the shape of Tandra Barman, a long forgotten matinee idol. She was hit by a passing car and promptly lapsed into life long amnesia and the hero, at his gullible, humanitarian best, offered her shelter in his palace, which, conveniently enough, his widower father had left his unworldly son in charge of, to wander away in search of extra-worldly wisdom somewhere near the Himalayan foot hills. And of course, Ms Barman, who had forgotten her way back home, transformed Chatterjee’s dungeon to a five star convenience in no time and retired there for ever afterwards, wedded to and hopefully bedded by the hero, much to the relief of a sniffling audience.

Manish smiled wryly as he recalled the Bengali culture of those forgotten days. It was a culture that lacked as much in wisdom as it was packed with conviction that the purest of romances was only a bus stop away. Manish too was no exception and his heart throbbed wildly as he had tried to speak to Sunil sitting next to the window in the study. It had taken a while for Sunil to show up though. His personal valet informed Manish that the young master was taking a bath and he waited patiently, watching the elegantly nurtured money plant creeping up the black painted decorative window grill. As he looked back on those days so many years later, nothing in Sunil’s home appeared to resemble the helplessly wealthy movie hero’s enviable predicament. Indeed, at the precise moment that Sunil emerged from the bathroom and stood on the mat outside, the valet reappeared with magical precision and kneeled in front of the master to wipe his feet dry with a snow white towel! It was a scene that stuck to his memory through his entire life, for he never saw it being repeated in the real world. He did come across comparable events on celluloid of course, but they related mostly to the days of the Holy Roman Empire.

Sunil took his time as his valet clothed him up in a pair of immaculately tailored grey trousers, a matching shirt and once again a spotlessly white woolen cardigan. And then sitting comfortably across the table, Sunil took up a book from his desk and began studying it with immense concentration.

Manish was taken aback. “Have I irritated him by showing up?” he asked himself. “He has obviously noticed me …”

“Am I disturbing you?” he asked pathetically.

Sunil did not respond immediately, making Manish feel like a supplicant before an alter. His attention remained riveted on Dante’s Divine Comedy for the next three minutes or so and then he raised his refined bespectacled eyes to meet the wretched pair of low middle class eyes that Manish held up to him. The stony silence in Sunil’s eyes roared and thundered, but Manish persevered.

“If you are busy, I shall see you later …,” said he. “Nothing important really.”

And then to his total surprise, Sunil’s lips parted in a broad, though somewhat lewd smile.

“No, no, it’s OK. Carry on.” Sunil’s voice was as normal as any dear friend’s would be. Manish found back his courage.

“You know, … you were probably right in your observation the other day.”

“Right? About what?” Sunil was freezing back again. But Manish quickly intercepted.

“About Shyamali, you see. I am just back from her home and I did detect something special … you know what I mean, don’t you?”

Sunil stared at Manish with quizzical eyes and then, without any notice, he began to guffaw. He went into a fit of uncontrollable laughter, leaving Manish totally dismayed. Eventually though, he found back his breath.

“I see, ha, ha, ha … So the pussy’s responding, is she? That’s what you came to tell me? Ha, ha, ha, … You had better start massaging your own organ dear. You never know when the occasion presents itself.”

Manish was totally taken aback by the word Sunil chose to describe Shyamali. There was an absurd incongruity in all this he thought. The coarse language Sunil spoke, the copy of Divine Comedy that he held and the elegant plant decorating the window next to them.

But Manish digested the ugliness with patience and waited for Sunil to proceed.

“OK, tell me. Tell me what transpired.” There was crudeness again in Sunil’s voice.

“Nothing much you know,” said Manish. “She said she had missed me.”

“She did, did she,” said Sunil with a theatrical concern, bordering on mockery. “And what did you say to her?”

“What could I say? I told her about my exams and so on … The usual stuff I guess.”

“But usual stuff won’t do my friend,” replied Sunil. “You need to raise yourself further. Rise man, rise, ha, ha, ha, …” The bawdiness was back in his voice.

Manish felt increasingly uncomfortable as he sought in vain for a way to proceed further. He was saved the trouble however. At that very moment a third person entered the room. This was Saibal, one of Sunil’s cronies. Saibal was tall and handsome and known to be a good sportsman. His academic pursuits had ended up with indifferent results and, to the best of Manish’s knowledge, Saibal was then studio hunting desperately in search of an opening in the movie industry.

“Come in, come on in Saibal … We have interesting news from our one and only Manish. He’s made a conquest.”

“Conquest, what conquest?” Saibal asked in surprise.

“Why, no less a person than Shyamali! How come you didn’t know?”

Saibal was puzzled. “Shyamali? Which Shyamali? Palm Street?”

“No other,” replied Sunil with a snigger.

***

Manish travelled forward forty years to switch off the TV and then the lights. He lay down on his bed in darkness and awaited sleep, perchance a dream, to erase the memories of a wasted past. Saibal did make it into the movies, but luck had evaded Manish most of his life. He stared hard into nothingness trying to recall the room where he had witnessed his hopes rise and fall in tune with the intonations in Sunil’s voice. And then it suddenly occurred to him that the room no longer existed. The entire building had been torn down a few years back and a commercial complex stood now in its place. Much of his accustomed past had vanished with the changing times.

It was the dismal house alone that still stood its ground in defiance of the ravages of time.

Will hopefully continue …

Manish’s family, on the other hand, was far worse off. They hid behind a facade of middle class dignity, but in truth had little to hang on to. Manish was used to waiting for the clothes and shoes his elder brother and older cousins had outgrown and he did his best to cover up his material wants by pressing his threadbare trousers and polishing his worn out shoes every time he presented himself before Shyamali. He must have been a pathetic sight, he recalled now with a sardonic smile, and perhaps looked no better than Pip himself when he was called upon to play with Estella.

Shyamali had been no Estella though. Neither pretty nor unfriendly, she was a plumpish girl with brown cat-eyes that didn’t seem to suit a dark haired Bengali face. Yet, her eyes did possess an attractive shine about them and Manish was never sure if the spectacles she wore had a role to play in the matter. On retrospect, Manish felt Shyamali’s looks never concerned him too much, though he enjoyed her lively company as much as anyone else. It was plain friendship with not a trace of flirtation on the part of either individual.

Till that is Sunil took a special interest in the psychology of Manish’s relationship with Shaymali.

“I know you have fallen for her,” said Sunil sitting at his well appointed desk next to the window through which the winter sunshine flooded the small study attached to his bedroom. The study, like the bedroom, was decently furnished. It had everything money could buy, not loudly displayed, but arranged in a manner that expressed the quintessence of culture prevailing during the day. Sunil was endowed with a rich father who, in his turn, belonged to the social elite. Erudite, sophisticated and, to Manish at least, awe inspiring.

To Sunil’s credit, he admitted Manish into the sanctum sanctorum, thereby granting him the status of a friend, an unlikely bond given the social chasm that separated them. Sunil was a bright student, an accomplished musician and a reasonably handsome young man. Manish, even if he possessed any of these qualities, was blissfully unaware of the fact and looked up to Sunil as a role model in his life.

And it was this Sunil who now drew his attention to his feelings for Shyamali. There was a smirk in his face as he pointed out to Manish his romantic inclinations, inclinations about which Manish himself had certainly not been aware till then. But once Sunil brought it up, Manish was no longer sure of himself.

He smiled coyly and protested. “Oh come on, that’s never been the way I felt for her.” But at the bottom of his heart, a desire had already been planted.

 ”But then, how does it matter,” said he. “She is certainly not inclined towards me — at least not romantically!”

 ”How can she be?” Sunil had started to giggle now. “You never approached her, did you? Besides, you notice so little. I think she often expresses a special interest in you.”

 ”She does?” Manish asked back round-eyed. He had to admit that he had never noticed anything remotely close to special attention in Shyamali’s eyes. Given his social background, it was beyond his wildest imagination that a romance was brewing between him and a woman. He had never believed there was anything more than casual familiarity between them. But now the seed had been sown and the next time he visited Shyamali’s residence, he felt queerly nervous, a feeling that he had never experienced before.

Shyamali lived in a rented apartment with her parents and an elder brother. And her family was always warm and welcoming. Their residence was located only two buildings down the street from the house they built later, the one that stood today shrouded in mysterious melancholy. But there was no sign of melancholy the day Manish rang the door bell of the rented apartment with a quiver in his heart. He was greeted into a living room that was a sad contrast to Sunil’s study. It was too ordinary a room, with fixtures and furniture that would not catch anyone’s attention. However, what it lacked in terms of museum pieces, it made up for with its lively atmosphere. The room was abuzz with teenage conversation. Both the brother and the sister had a large number of friends.

Manish was greeted as normally as on every other day he had visited Shyamali, except for the fact that he himself had begun to travel along tortuous by lanes in his mind. He spoke as casually as he could and Shyamali did not have the slightest idea about the endless sea that stood between them now. Strangely enough, Manish would have felt more at home in Sunil’s sterilized, morgue like silent room surrounded by comfort few could afford. The simple living room at Shyamali’s residence was far closer to the world Manish inhabited. Yet, today he was a stranger here.

His discomfort increased as the conversation proceeded and each sentence Shyamali uttered appeared to Manish to be laden with meaning. Things were pathetic from the word go, but Sunil’s giggle kept surfacing back in his mind and egged him on.

“Hey Manish,” said Shyamali, “haven’t seen you for a while. Where were you hiding?”

“Ah, she’s missed me,” thought Manish. Sunil is indeed clever. Only someone as sensitive as he could have figured this out.

“Exam time you know,” Manish said. “The last two weeks were wasted mugging up Aristotle’s Politics.” He carefully inserted Aristotle into the conversation. Hopefully, this would impress her and the others present in the room.

The intended effect was achieved. “Ah, that’s most exciting. Did you hear that friends? He is well versed in Aristotle!” said Shyamali half in jest. But there was a trace of respect in her voice too, or so Manish thought.

“Do you read Greek too,” someone present in the room poked at him. And everyone began to laugh, much to Manish’s embarrassment. Shyamali too joined them and asked with feigned admiration, “Greek? Really? You never told me you read Greek!”

On any other day, all this would be pure fun and Manish would have taken part in the humorous exchanges. But this day was different. He could hardly participate in the exchanges. Instead, his mind was wandering.

“You never told me you read Greek!” he repeated to himself. “She said ‘me’, not ‘us’. Yes, there could well be something in this. Hmm … Sunil has surely noticed what I had missed. But then … can it really be true?” He looked down at his worn out shoes and suppressed a sigh.

On his way back home, he dropped in at Sunil’s residence, itching to bring up the subject. And Sunil was all attention.

Will hopefully continue …

Haven’t been here for a while. However, the warmth of your company at Chandannagar brought back memories. I am putting up something I have been working on for a while. I might even complete it if some of you wish to follow the tale to its conclusion.

Life, like Einstein’s vision of the universe, has a way of turning back on itself. Or else, why should Manish have ended up buying an apartment so close to the dismal house that stood at the crossing of S.N. Roy Road and Palm Street. It was a white-washed, two storied house, with two rows of windows on the first and the ground floor, all painted green. Architecture wise, the house had little to commend for itself even during its salad days. Now, however, it had clearly fallen on bad times. The green paint on the windows had pretty much surrendered to the ravages of time and the walls bore a dirty grey look. Besides, the ivy that climbed down all the way to the ground level from the terrace did not receive much attention either. It looked more like a collection of dried twigs clinging on to the southern face of the house, with little patches of green desperately trying to survive, reviving memories of happier times.

The house badly needed a repair job, but few appeared to be interested in its restoration. The windows were permanently closed and the single one on the first floor, through which a light glimmered in the evenings, revealed nothing but mystery lurking behind the grimy curtain that cut off the house from the flow of life that surrounded it. To Manish’s mind, the house bore an uncanny resemblance to Miss Havisham’s residence in Dicken’s Great Expectations. He couldn’t help wondering what lay inside the single lighted room. Was daylight banished from it forever as Pip had discovered in the room Miss Havisham occupied? Did someone sit there in her decayed wedding dress with her ’sick fancies’ advising an Estella or the other to ‘break his heart’?

He wished he could avoid the house, but it stood stubbornly on the only street that led to the grocery store nearest to his home. And each time he passed in front of the house for the five years that he had spent in the locality, he found it hard not to stare at the building and wonder about the tightly closed windows and the only door that led to its interior.

***

A century seemed to have passed by since he had walked out of that door for the last time. The house was still incomplete at the time, but Shyamali’s family had already moved into the ground floor. The construction of the first floor was probably held up on account of fund shortages, her father having been a person who belonged to the lower rungs of middle class existence.

Manish’s family, on the other hand, was far worse off. They hid behind a facade of middle class dignity, but in truth had little to hang on to. Manish was used to waiting for the clothes and shoes his elder brother and older cousins outgrew and he did his best to cover up his material wants by pressing his threadbare trousers and polishing his worn out shoes every time he presented himself before Shyamali. He must have been a pathetic sight, he recalled now with a sardonic smile, and perhaps looked no better than Pip himself when he was called upon to play with Estella.

Will hopefully continue …

 I know some of you have read this in my web-journal, which I failed to keep going on account of time constraints. Today, however, I thought I wanted to put it up on ibibo, just in case someone were to find interest in it. I have been posting some of my revised stuff from ibibo (that didn’t attract much attention in ibibo) to a site I talked about during the meet at Swabhumi. As with ibibo, I stuck to my responsibility — visiting others and commenting on their posts seriously. To my total disbelief, I found that one of my posts had made it to the ‘most read’ category in that site. This will never happen again I am sure. But it made me feel bold I guess.The fact that ibibo could still ignore the post will hurt less now! 

Sudden Encounter by Rabindranath Tagore

Translation: Argha Bagchi and Dipankar Dasgupta

Never thought

We would run into each other in a rail-compartment.

Many a time have I seen her in the past
In red saree-
As red as the flowers of pomegranate,
Today, dressed in black silk,
Her lustrous magnolia face,
Head covered.
She had created a dark, unfathomable distance,
That ran till the end of vast mustard-fields
And forests lost in the blue horizon.
My mind jolted to an abrupt halt
Seeing a known face in the garb of a sullen strangeness.

Suddenly, putting aside the newspaper
She greeted me formally
Clearing up avenues of social propriety.
I started up a conversation-
‘How are you’ and ‘how’s your family’
et cetera.
She stared out of the window,
With a look that had crossed over to the other side of our days of proximity
Offered brief replies to a query or two,
Did not respond to some at all.
With restless waving of her hand
She conveyed that silence was preferable
To vain conversation.

I was sitting in a separate row with her mates.
She motioned to me with her fingers to sit next to her..
How intrepid! I thought-
But I went and sat on the same row with her.
Her voice concealed under the noise of the train,
She softly said,
`Do excuse me,,
Have no time to waste.
I am about to get off at the next station-
You will be travelling far,
Never shall we meet again.
Hence, I wish to hear directly from you
The long held up answer to my question.
You will speak the truth, won’t you?’
`I will’, said I.

Staring outside at the sky, continued she,
‘Have our bygone days,
Gone truly away for good-
Leaving nothing at all behind?’
I fell silent for a while,
And then replied,
‘All the stars that glitter in the night
Lie deeply hidden in the glow of the day.’

But then I doubted myself, did I make it all up!
She said, ‘That’s all. Go back to the other side now.’
Everyone got off at the next station.
I continued on my journey. Alone.

I have been working frantically on my earlier Kingfisher post. The idea was to squeeze it down to the size of an atom. Failed, naturally, but it’s well below 400 words now. I will keep  working on it. This is a preview of work in progress.

There is a new dimension to the earlier composition now. I follow it up by a haiku. And the two stories put together could now be rechristened:

Who’s the predator dear, who the prey?

Predator and Prey 1 — A short Story

Along the bank of the big lake there was a deep, blue forest.

A pair of kingfishers had built its nest in a burrow on the lake shore. It was carefully hidden from the outside world under thick undergrowth.  The birds dazzled with colour. All through the day, they snuggled against one another on the branch of a tree. Whenever they spotted a small fish or insect, one of them would dart out like a flaming arrow, turn luscious somersaults in the air and nosedive into the lake to catch it. They shared their food on the tree and carried back feed for the chicks waiting in the nest. And then at night, they slept in the warm comfort of their nest.

This is how their simple lives contributed to the magnificent symphony of life.  Unfortunately though, life had other plans for them. One day the male of the pair was caught by a group of bird trappers and carried away. His mate sat and watched helplessly as he struggled in vain to escape. She wept, she cried and she pleaded with the captors. But they didn’t understand her language.

Left alone to fend for herself, she lost interest in life. Her enthusiasm for fishing departed forever. Soon her brilliant feathers began to fall off and she turned into a ghost of her former self. Her nest was broken. So was her heart, which soon stopped beating. She thanked God for his mercy as she breathed her last. Her once bubbly little home turned into a cold grave for her motionless body.

Shrimati, a lively young girl from the nearby village, bore a striking resemblance to the kingfisher. She decked herself in gorgeous colours and loved her fish. But then whimsical nature widowed her at twenty one and left her to the mercy of a conservative Hindu society. It made her part company with colours, cropped her hair and forced her to turn vegetarian for life. They demanded tangible proof of her grief in her renunciation. Her heart, like the kingfisher’s, was broken, but it refused to stop beating. So, every night, she was treated to whining voices at her window, dripping with lust.

She prayed to God with the last bit of strength she had to spare her the agony of living. Unlike the kingfisher’s God though, Shrimati’s God was hard of hearing.

The stupid man thinks

He’s painting — but the world knew

He was a beggar.

Along the bank of a big lake in the valley, there was a deep, blue forest. It stretched all the way to the mountain peak.

In the forest lived a kingfisher and his mate. They dazzled with colour and built their nest in a tree whose branches hung over the lake. Every now and then, one of the birds would dart out of the tree like a flaming arrow, turn somersaults in the air and dash into the surface of the lake to catch a fish. The kingfishers lived a simple, happy life. The chicks would arrive at regular intervals and they would sleep in the cosy comfort of togetherness every night.

Then one day, a group of bird catchers arrived in the forest and trapped the kingfisher. He struggled in vain to escape, but his strength was too feeble against man’s wily ways. They carried him away in front of his mate’s eyes. She pleaded to these people for their mercy. But no one understood her language. And her mate screamed to her, "Fly away, fly away. They will catch you too." She listened to him and flew over to a tree some distance away and sat there watching helplessly.

She was lost in despair for many days. She stopped fishing. She stopped eating. She lost the magnificent shine of her multi-colured body. She turned into a ghost of her former self. And she soon realized that she could not survive without food.

Food meant hunting for fish. She emerged from her broken nest and flew out in search of fish. But her somersaults lacked the enthusiasm with which she played around over the lake in the past. Her limbs felt tired though she managed somehow to catch a small fish.

As she started to feed herself, a horde of kingfishers, her neighbours, arrived and sat on the branch of the tree, watching her keenly. She felt uncomfortable.

An elderly kingfisher asked, "Where is your mate? You seem to be living alone."

She could hardly hold her tears as she told them her woeful tale. But, to her surprise, no one appeared to be too sympathetic towards her.

"Look, this is not our way of life in the forest. Either you have a mate or you go and live elsewhere."

"But where can I go," she wept. "This is where I was born and brought up. This is the only world I know. And how can we kingfishers live without fish. I don’t even know where to find another lake full of fish."

"Well, that’s your business," said the elderly kingfisher. "Our forest laws don’t allow this kind of existence."

"You want me to love someone else and start life afresh? How can I do that? I loved him too much. I am always thinking of him. I don’t know what suffering he is going through in a world to which he doesn’t belong."

The kingfishers were most annoyed to hear this. They simply shook their heads in resentment and flew away. "You have seven days to decide," they warned before they left.

She sat in her empty nest and looked up at the sky and gave out a soul splitting cry. And then she dropped dead.

Shrimati had always been fond of colours. Her husband called her a "kingfisher", so colourfully did she dress herself everyday. And her vitality knew no bounds. Her way of running around the neighbourhood reminded people of kingfishers somersaulting in the air. Besides, everyone teased her as a kingfisher because she simply loved her fish.

And then her loving husband died in an accident.

 Her sorrow was boundless. Paying little heed to the state of her mind, the family elders ordered her to wear nothing but white. Her long, lush hair was cropped to give her a crew cut look. And of course, she was told that for the rest of her life, she wouldn’t be allowed to eat any fish. She would be required to cook and serve fish for the people in the house, but not permitted to taste a single piece herself.

She was only twenty one years old and didn’t know how to hide her physical attraction. Every night, a man would arrive at her window and whisper to her in a voice full of lust. "Come, run away with me. I will make you a queen."

Shrimati sat on the banks of the lake, where she had come to fetch water along with other village girls. She stared vacantly at the sky and prayed to God to take her away.

But God couldn’t hear.  

Ephemeral

This freshly blossomed

Rose, as her lovely, young face –

Pity, both must fade.

With increasing popularity of the haiku form amongst English language speakers, the art form has undergone subdivisions. Here is a quote that explains: ‘English-language haiku consist of "three content categories": Nature haiku, Human haiku (senryu), and Human plus nature haiku (hybrids).’ After reading a detailed discussion, I tend to classify this post as a "hybrid".  It appears, moreover, that the 5-7-5 rule too has now been relaxed to some extent. However, I have stuck to it.