SCATTERED PAGES.............

The gust of wind tugged at her hair and while she pushed away the strands whipping against her eyes, the sheaf of paper loosened from her grasp and took their turns at tossing and turning in small whirlwinds around her. She immediately went down on her haunches to pick them up and was struggling to collect them against the insolence of the blowing wind. She was slowly getting frustrated at her repeated attempts at gathering all the sheets being foiled when suddenly she felt a towering presence swooping down on his knees beside her. Without even knowing who she had for company at that juncture she felt a sense of relief. The papers were then quickly gathered without much of a struggle and finally Anjali could look up to see the face of the person who helped her in her pursuit. What she found was a man in his early thirties, neatly dressed in formals with a smile that had a quality of pleasantness and affability. Quickly mumbling her “Thank you” in return, she disappeared into the corridor.

Anjali Parekh was the English lecturer in St.John’s college for almost six months now and already the students loved her. She was not the usual ‘dry’ lecturer who went through her copious collection of notes in a hurry nor was she one amongst those who had no interest in her students. In one word she was ‘involved’ with her students in a constructive manner. Boys admired her for her candour as did girls for her aura of unstated strength .Her first day in college as lecturer cemented her place of pride within the students. She in reply to a jab at her dress made by one of the ‘usual ruffians’ in the class turned back and gave such a resounding and emphatic reply that jaws dropped and everyone knew she was a ‘no nonsense woman’. So, they listened to her with intent and approached her with caution. Same was the mood in the staff room too. She quickly made her presence felt all around although being polite and submissive in her approach throughout.

She stepped into the staff room after delivering one of her lectures on Byron when suddenly she realised the person sitting opposite to her was none but the man who had helped her gather the scattered sheaves of notes in the morning. She was about to say something in appreciation for his help and to explain her hasty exit when Prof. Sharma interjected, “Anjali, this is our new Professor of History, Mr. Druv Pathak. He has just joined today.” He introduced Anjali with glowing remarks which embarrassed her no ends. Then he asked her, “Would you be kind enough to show Prof. Pathak around? He was my colleague in Janakilal College, so we happen to share a long association. Would you mind?” Anjali readily agreed to the proposition and escorted Druv to the class room where he was scheduled to deliver his first lecture.On their way Anjali felt his constant gaze on her and as was her nature withdrew into her private domains of coy temerity. Meanwhile she also noticed the unusual look of jaded expense on the face of Druv and somehow felt strange. At the entrance of the class room she said, “Here is your class room for the first lecture for the day Prof. Pathak. I will take your leave now. Good luck.” She was about to turn to leave when she heard him say, “Call me Druv. Will you Anjali? I am sorry but, can I call you by your first name?” A little startled by such forthcomingness she somehow managed a whispered “Sure.”

All her way back she debated the kind of person Druv was like and atlast decided to drop the issue from her head when she realised its triviality. Still a feeling of inexplicable buoyancy lingered in her heart without much of her consent or will.

It was almost dusk when Anjali stepped out of the college gate to board the usual bus to her place when she realised the person standing next to him was none other than Druv. He was talking on the phone unaware of the fact that Anjali stood right in front of him. After a while when he realised her presence he promptly went up to her asked her if she went back home everyday by the same route. “Do you mind having a cup of tea with me, Anjali?” Anjali, both anxious and unsure could not think of an answer when she found to her utter surprise Druv rushing her into a bus. She boarded the bus and found relief in the fact that the bus would take her to her home too. She enquired where he lived and discovered that it was not too long from her home even on foot. “A brisk walk of five odd minutes” she thought to herself “and I would be home in no time.” On disembarking from the bus she saw Druv’s flat to be in a neat locality dotted by gardens. On entering the flat she found it to be in a state of utter disarray, a sign of house without a proper manager to it. Then out of nowhere a small kid of about six years old rushed into Druv’s arms calling “Daddy, why are you so late today? I came back from school a long time ago and Seema didi is not ready to play with me ......” A young girl came out of one room and took the child by his hand inside to finish his unfinished plate of rice . The child struggled and refused and it was only on his father’s persistence that he agreed to finish his food. He was chubby and sweet and teeming with life and vitality. She noticed another unique thing about the child. He had a gurgling laughter which was loud and hearty yet soothing to the ears as it rang with the sincerity of innocence. Druv turned back to her and said in a hushed tone, “That’s my son, Vipul.He lost his mother at his birth and...”A sudden surge of emotion seemed to choke him completely before he again regained his composure to complete his sentence. “And now he is going to lose his father too.” The impact of these heart rending words and a contemptuous smirk that accompanied such devastating a news plunged Anjali into an unfathomable whirlpool of incoherent emotions.Druv tried to diffuse the situation by small talk and levity as he immediately realised what his careless revelation had done to his ‘one day old colleague’ .Anjali could stand no more of this staged drama and asked Druv “What is it with you? Are you ill?” He said that he had cancer in his lymphatic system which was incurable.While she left the house she saw Vipul run to his father’s arms and through the closed door behind her she heard his gurgling laughter. She could not stand the pain she felt and she rushed out in uncontrollable tears welling down her chin. She cursed Druv for the agony he had inflicted on her in a single day’s acquaintance.

* * * * *

The door bell rang with a touch of impudence. Anjali woke up to the present from her reminiscence of the past and opened the door. As soon as she unlatched the door a sporadic entry of young feet inside the house greeted her. Within no time the whole house was resonating with bursts of laughter coming from the other room. Anjali sat down to have her cup of evening tea when a sudden surge of gurgling laughter distracted her. And its element of inherent innocence gave her a sense of joy which was amazingly both painful and triumphant. She sipped her cup of tea and looked up at the two framed photos on her drawing room wall with a smirk which meant a lot, only to her.

THE END.

COMING BACK TO MEMORIES ................

He saw her at a distance, approaching him at a leisurely yet labored pace only hand-pulled rickshaws could offer in this city of colonial ruins. Through his deep seated spectacles he slowly followed the changes that had set in her face, her figure, her persona. What he saw he committed to memory in his usual harmlessly surreptitious manner.

She looked about her age. Forty-nine that would be. Time had stroked her hair with its grey fingers and the taut outlines of her placid face made apparent that she had asked for more testimonies of age than these. Her face bore the look of a woman-in-charge. A lady who knew what came next. Yet, there was a whiff of disenchantment in her elegant movements, in the settling of her sari, in the caressing of the errant tresses and in the manner in which she faced the worldly audience.

There was a sense of quiet assurance in her eyes.

-Those eyes he could once die for.

He took a few steps back and from behind the refuge of a road-side stall his eyes followed her. The rickshaw passed him uneventfully, jingling its bells, raising no alarm.

-Only a whispering reminder to people on its way to make way.

He took to the by-lanes now. Long, meandering and as lonely as him. He remembered how it was the August of 74 that had brought love in his life. Their lives.

And how it all faded suddenly. For good.

Now, back to the city of his birth after almost two decades he was roaming the roads in search of his past. A past he then wished to bury in the endless murk which met his eyes every time he crossed the nullah. He aspired to reach for the skies then.
To challenge the very limits. His meager livelihood combined with an ambience of constant need cemented his faith in ‘money’, the things it could buy, and the attendant relief that his restless heart so desperately sought those days.

Still, escaping the watchful eyes of his determination to prove his mettle , dodging and hiding from his near-Spartan resilience to rediscover himself love happened almost noiselessly, and he was more than glad it did.

Madhurima Sarkar, was vivacity incarnate.
A girl to whom good books and good food made for life in entirety an affair with a boy whose only claim to popular notice was a ‘Grecian frown’ was almost unbelievable. But, from the very day they met both of them in their most private moments of childish premonitions knew this could go far.

And yes, it did.

For four long years they shared their life. She was the inspiration behind his stories and

she felt her heart aflutter while singing a particular stanza that made intimate identifications to her own life inevitable.

Life with all its lyrical thrills unburdened itself on these two souls.

The fights occurred often with a loving regularity bordering on trivial issues.

The reconciliations proved tedious yet rewarding.

And then the rifts surfaced. While her family sough out suitors with a religious zeal, he could do nothing but wander the streets in search of a solitary job,

-A face-saver, A ‘something’ with which he could bargain his life in return.

But fate had other conspiracies brewing. Amidst tears that were a continuous stream of suppressed grief and sobs heart-rending muted with the screaming conch life augured a ‘new-beginning’ as a story reached its end.

A neo-natal death of a love was well mid-wifed by society. Onlookers of this incident lamented 'fate', enjoyed the sumptuous wedding-feast.

He walked the lanes in search of some momentary solace. And found none.

After weeks of desolation and unforgiving bitterness he came back to the realization of the void in his life. The void that now surrounded him till he could gather himself to do something about it. So he did. He finished his course, worked tirelessly in the day while the midnight oil grew weak from his nightlong endeavors at mastering borrowed books.

On the 23^rd of April 1981, from the stairs of a prattling train he bid goodbye to his past of misery and misfortunes.

Today, back as a near-affluent NRI to that very city, he could not help but look back in mournful retrospect. He turned back at the road he had traveled unmindfully, engrossed in his thoughts. And as he approached the nearby grocer for directions to the main-road, a white smoke billowed from an adjoining window which he hardly noticed amongst the gathering scene of daily chaos.

-The window that had filled the eyes of a girl with myriad colours, all of whom seemed dull and vacuous amidst the flourish of her sweet remembrances.

-The window that had muffled her soft sobs from homely disagreements with the inviting hum-drum of the outside world and its activities.

-The window that had made the rain and the clouds, the sun and the spring a delight to watch within its restricting frame as she drank in all their aromas and ecstasies.

-The window that for twenty-one years breathed life into the numbing nothingness amongst the din of worldly worries that accompanied everyday.

-The window to the kitchen of Madhurima Sen Gupta, who once was a Sarkar and loved a boy who sported nothing but a Grecian frown on his face.

LUST ACTUALLY.....................

Behind those calm eyes breathed a desire which could put all seething magma dwelling inside the earth’s womb to shame. She knew lust craved reciprocity. Her own did. She could feel the air between them getting charged with an emotion she had still not recognized. Undone by a shock of confused frenzy she was sure it was ‘lust’.
‘Lust’ it was for sure. Only that this hitherto unknown emotion came with no manual to be handled and she was too unsure for a trial at this momentous a juncture. She could not think of experimenting with him. He was too precious.Too suave. Too alluring.Then suddenly she sensed his trained polish melting and felt the same feral restlessness in the black of his eyes. Eyes which said nothing yet held a plethora of confounding challenges for anybody who tried delving deep into them...in order to find some meaning.

Something moved somewhere.....and he yielded. Coming forward in a motion that could only be driven by some primitive motive, he accosted her.

“ Would you like a drink”, he asked.