Part Omega: Agonizing Swan Song.
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Life is a game of chess, thirty two squares and black and thirty two squares are white. Who knew that a small move of a tiny pawn would destroy our lives forever?
I sat sipping the morning tea in the drawing room, it was about ten thirty. I was reading the newspaper. Paree was in the kitchen doing something. Dad already left for his office. Due to the last night shower, the sky was gloom and cloudy. In Kolkata once it starts to rain then it rains for days. I heard Mom’s voice from my room in second floor, she was probably changing the bedcovers and pillow covers of my bed. That day she didn’t go for her school as she was not feeling well.
She came down to the drawing room and gave me a fiery look. My pillow cover was in her hand.
There was a calm roar in her voice ---“Paree, come here.”
She probably heard her ChotoMa talking to her in that tone for the first time.
Paree came running to the drawing room, panting hard and asked Mom ---“What happened ChotoMa?”
---“You were searching for your, gold and pearl earring since morning, have you found that?”
She looked at me with baffled eyes. I had no idea that she has lost her earring.
She nodded her head ---“No ChotoMa. I am still searching my ear-ring.”
She plucked the earring from my pillow cover and showed to her.
---“Is this your earring?”
On seeing the earring in Mom’s hand, my throat became dry, my face burnt and my chest trembled in tension. Someone has poured boiling oil on my head. I looked at Paree’s face; her ears were red as blood and eyes were big. Her cheeks turned red as she saw her earring coming off my pillow cover. She clenched her jaws in sheer horror.
Mom looked at me and spoke in a calm yet fuming voice ---“Can I have an explanation as how this ear-ring has gone to your pillow cover?”
I told to Mom to hide the truth ---“The ear-ring might have somehow fallen on my bed, I don’t know how. May be it happened while she was cleaning my room.”
---“I saw both the earrings on her ears last night and I find one of them on your pillow cover in the morning.”
She walked to Paree and removed the hair from her left shoulder and asked ---“What is this red mark on your shoulder?”
Paree froze as an ice effigy, clutched the curtain and bit her lower lips. She looked down to the floor. That was my love bite. I bit her last night while approaching the summit of pleasure.
Mom spoke in the same tone---“So matter has gone to this extent, that you have teeth marks on your shoulder. Huh?”
I stood silently with my head bend down, looking at the floor. My eyes turned hazy and my nose tips burnt.
I felt a hard slap across my face. Mom slapped me for the first time in last fourteen years.
She screamed at me ---“What were you two doing under my nose?”
She sat on the couch with a thud and slapped her forehead ---“Even in my worst nightmare I could not have dreamt that you will be doing this with her.”
Paree came near Mom and tried to mumble something to her, but the look she got from Mom, Paree forgot to speak and stood as a granite effigy.
She yelled at Paree ---“What is this Paree; you are elder than him and you……? You are his Aunt, Paree.”
Paree kneeled in front of Mom’s feet and looked down. I could not bear that scene anymore.
Mom asked me ---“Was this only for your warm boiling blood, that you have maligned her? Not for a single second you thought that she is you aunt and you were doing sin?”
I saw large drops of tears rolling down her cheeks, dripping down her nose tip, spilling on the floor. Her whole back was trembling like a candle flame caught in a violent storm.
---“YOU are a DISGRACE for me. What you did was just for your burning desire.”
I shouted at Mom ---“NO, I LOVE HER.”
---“WHAT? How could you do this with her and do this with me? You knew very well that she is your aunt and she is elder than you. She is my cousin sister. She is yours Grand Aunt’s daughter.”
I tried to persuade her in a calm choking voice ---“Mom, she is not my aunt. She may be your cousin sister, but she is not my aunt. She is a very distant cousin of yours and you know that very well. There is no blood relation between us, Mom. She is not my Aunt.”
Mom shook her head in utter dismay ---“NO, NO, NO, I can’t think that this was happening to me.”
Mom asked Paree ---“What was in your head when he did this to you? What did you felt in your heart? Tell me Paree. Do you love him also?”
Paree gently nodded her head to say that she loved me.
On learning that Paree was also in love, Mom’s eyes were also deluged; those tears were not of happiness or sadness. They were full of disgust and anger.
She placed her palm under Paree’s chin and pulled up her face. Paree had her eyes tightly shut.
---“Not for a single instance you thought about your Mom and other family members? Not for a single instance you thought about me? You both fed on my milk.”
Paree was unable to say anything. Her face was red; thousands of huge waves crushed inside her chest. Her tender figure was shaking as a solitary twig caught in a violent storm. I felt her heart racing like millions of trains running down the iron rails.
I spoke to Mom, yet again in a pursuing voice ---“She is your mother’s maternal uncle’s youngest daughter’s youngest daughter. There is no blood relation between us. She can be older than me, but age makes no difference, Mom. She is only two years older to me, Mom.”
She roared at me ---“YOU shut up. You were always a disgrace for me. From your childhood days, you were always against my words, to whatever I said.”
Those words were too much for me. From my childhood days I had to hear all these. My parents took away all the things that I loved, on every nook and corner of my life. They took away my love for arts and painting. They never gave me the love of child. They always measured the money they have spent on me and asked for return, return in doing well in studies and doing well in job. I was always compared with others in each step of my life. I felt that my last and best love was getting towed away.
---“You never loved me as your son. Why Mom, WHY?”
That day I came to know a bitter truth as why her love for me was so little and measured.
---“I and your dad asked for a daughter from God. But GOD didn’t answer our call. Due to some health problems, after your birth we could not have another child.”
---“That was not my fault Mom, but I bore that pain for whole of my life. You have taken everything from me. My mental peace, my love for painting and many more. Please don’t take her away from me. Paree will not be able to live, neither would I.”
There was a painstaking silence in the room. The sky was getting gloomier with each passing second. It clouds rumbled after sometime. The weather inside the room was getting heavier with each passing second.
Paree somehow gathered some courage and touched Mom’s hand. She gave Mom a painstaking look.
Mom looked down to her painful face and asked ---“What do you want to say?”
Paree cried out ---“Please ChotoMa, Please don’t take away Abhi from me.”
Mom moved her head in immense dismay ---“No, I can’t allow this to happen. What will the society and our relatives will think?”
I screamed at her ---“Did the society come to feed Paree, when her father passed away? Did any of her relatives come to feed her when she cried for milk? NO. None came for her rescue except you.”
I paused a little, took a deep breath ---“It was you who fed her. I don’t care for any relatives Mom, I just care what you and dad will think. What do you think Mom?”
There was a long painful silence in the room. Mom spoke at last ---“I have build a reputation of a teacher and you dad is a respected person in this society. We all live in this society surrounded by relatives. I will not allow this to happen till I am alive. Abhi, you can’t stay with Paree, you both can’t be together. I don’t want you to be in hundreds of miles near Paree. You have to leave this house.”
I looked at Mom’s face as to understand as what was she saying to me. Was she banishing me from my house or rather say her house?
Mom continued ---“I have promised my aunt, her mother, that I would take care of her no matter what happens. I have to keep my word. Twenty-three years ago I divided my breast milk, my affection, so that she could live. I can do that again so that her dreams can be fulfilled.”
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Paree screamed out her heart in immense agony ---> “Abhi is everything to me, ChotoMa. I don’t care whether I study masters or be a teacher. I don’t care what anyone thinks. Please don’t take away Abhi from me. Please, ChotoMa. I will not live anymore.”
My Mom was not in a mood to listen to our pleas.
I shouted at Mom ---“You are fulfilling your dreams, your ego, and your snobbery. If I have to go I will take her along with me.”
---“NO, no one can take her away from me. You come here and keep your hand on Paree’s head and promise me that you will leave Kolkata, you will not see her again.”
I didn’t buzz a single inch from my place. Stood there as a dead corpse when I heard that I had to touch her head and to make a painstaking promise.
Mom held my hands tightly and placed them on Paree’s head. My lips quivered everything in front of my eyes shook. A violent earthquake jolted and devastated our lives forever. Paree was then unable to control herself as she felt my hand on her head.
She cried out a long painful ---“NOOOOOOO…….” She hid her face on Mom’s lap. Mom didn’t care to touch her head.
Mom spoke to her---“I have given my word to your Mom. My prestige and my life is at stake. He has to leave this house and leave Kolkata, forever. I don’t want his filthy shadow to touch you or even to come near you.”
She looked at me and ordered ---“Go up stairs and pack your bags and belongings. I am calling your dad and will ask him to buy an air ticket for Delhi, for tomorrow morning. I don’t want you to stay under this roof even for a single day. You will not return to Kolkata till I ask you to return, you will not call us till I call you. If you don’t obey then you will see her cold bloodless face.”
I could not move my feet, they were nailed to the floor. Paree sat at Mom’s feet, continuously weeping. A huge volcano of agony erupted inside her. She clutched her left wrist to control herself somehow. Her grip was so tight that her thin gold bangles, on her left wrist, ruptured her skin, cut deep in her wrist and blood oozed out, dripped on the floor.
Mom shouted at me ---“GO AWAY FROM MY SIGHT. I don’t want to see your face again.”
Somehow I carried myself to my room and locked the door. I didn’t know what happened to Paree or what Mom said to dad.
For the whole day, I thought of as what I have done. Was it a sin? I lost at last, I heard Maithili laughing at me saying to me “Abhimanyu, you lost the battle.”
In the evening, dad came to my room. He silently handed me the air-ticket and a white envelop.
He spoke in an ice cold voice---“We are your parents, we will always think better for you. I will deposit some money in Suprotim’s account till you get a job.”
It started to rain heavily. The heavens poured down, both our hearts were bleeding. There were no rain water but it was blood that the heavens were pouring that day. Blood from our broken heart and soul.
At about one o’clock I came downstairs to the drawing room carrying my bag and suitcase. I searched for my diary all over the place. I could not find that. I assumed that Paree might have taken my diary the other night after I slept.
I called Debi for one last time. She answered in her sleepy voice.
---“What happened? Whay have you called me so late?”
---“I am leaving Kolkata forever. Tomorrow, morning flight to New Delhi. Meet me somehow at the airport.”
I heard her scream at the other end ---“WHAT HAPPENED?”
---“I will tell you everything at the airport.”
I kept the receiver of the phone for one last time.
I was unable to sleep for the whole night; I sat in the drawing room with my bags and suitcase packed. Tears continuously rolled down my cheeks as the outside downpour.
I felt that Mom was also awake for the whole night and Paree has locked herself in the room. I could not steal any scope to meet her for the last time, say her good bye.
At about four o’clock, I knocked Mom’s room and said to her that I would be leaving. She didn’t answer anything.
Dad got up and said to me ---“It is only four o’clock and your flight is at seven o’clock. Why are you going so early?”
I said to him ---“I had to go. My time in this house has come to an end.”
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I bowed down to touch his feet and touched the floor so as to touch Mom’s feet for one last time.
Dad came with me till the gate.
I looked around the house for one last time before going out of the gate.
I looked up to the open window of the drawing room. The curtain shook a little. I saw Paree standing there. I felt the immense pain that she was having inside her heart. Her eyes told me that she has broken into thousands of pieces. Her big dark eyes were gorged red then, her face was swollen and tears flowed down like a huge dam has ruptured. They were filled up with tears of painful separation, tears of agonizing heart. It was her heart that was going away from her forever.
Our family was against us, even if the society would have accepted but there was no one to make our parents to understand about our love.
I bowed down for one last time to pick some earth from my garden and tied that in the small silk handkerchief that Paree gave me as a gift, and put that in my pocket.
I was about to board the taxi, I looked up again to the open window of the drawing room. I raised my index finger gesturing as “I” and then I raised my index finger and thumb, perpendicular to my index finger gesturing “L” and then raised my index and middle finger to gesture as “V” or “U”. Paree clutched the grills of the window as if she would like to free herself from those iron rods and jump to me, but those were made of iron and guile values of relatives and society.
All of a sudden she fell down behind the window. She had probably fainted. That time no one called me to look after Paree. Once my Mom called me to look after Paree when she fainted as Mom was leaving. But then the situation was different, I could not run to her to take her in my arms and soothe her with my love and water.
I could not even express my feelings to her for one last time, only I had to board the taxi with heavy heart and pleaded to GOD, that make Paree happy in her life. The only thing that remained with Paree was my brown coloured diary. In which I wrote about our love, about the promises we made, about the romantic trip in the lonely heaven, about my friendship and her valuable present, a tiny drop of blood running in my veins.
Her tiny drop of blood, running in my veins pumped to my heart, asked me to take her with me. But that drop was too tiny against the wrath of our families and the excuse of relatives around us.
It was 21st July 2001, Saturday. I arrived at the airport by four thirty and found both Debi and Arindam were waiting for me.
She came running towards me and clutched my collar and screamed ---“Tell me what has happened? Why are you leaving Kolkata? What will happen to Suchi Di?”
---“I am leaving Kolkata forever.”
I told her the whole painful story as how my Mom smelled about our relation and how bitterly she reacted to.
She clenched her jaws so as to control the flood behind her eyes, but she could not.
---“Why didn’t you informed me before?”
---“How could I? All these happened as a thunder storm and Mom’s flared up eyes were hovering around me and Paree all the time.”
She shook her head in disbelief. She was unable to come in to terms that I was leaving Kolkata forever.
Arindam stood behind her and he didn’t have any words to console her. Debi was crying profusely.
---“I will go and meet auntie and Suchi Di.”
---“The way is also closed, Debi. Mom knows very well that you knew all these beforehand and you never informed her. Probably she is very angry upon you. She had made me promise as not to come back to Kolkata again. She forced me to place my hand on Paree’s head to take that oath. I would die rather than to harm Paree in any sense.”
She threw her arms around me as if she didn’t want me to leave. My chest soaked with Debi’s flooded eyes. Already a writhing pain was hurting my heart and then her tears made the pain more unbearable. I was unable to breathe properly as my heart ruptured. I hugged her in my arms and crushed her almost. I pressed my lips on Debi’s head and looked at Arindam with my deluged eyes.
With quivering voice I said to him ---“Just take away Debi, before I go for check in.”
His eyes were also hazy, voice shook ---“You know her very well. You know her how she is attached to Suchi Di. She won’t buzz from here till that black board says ‘IC-264, Kolkata to Delhi, 0700, departed’. I don’t know what will happen to her.”
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---“Promise me you will take care of her. Don’t hurt her, please. Please give her Paree’s love also. I made a promise to Sarmishta.”
With immense pain in my heart, I freed myself from her arms and handed her hand in Arindam’s hand.
She clutched my collar; I tried to free myself from her grip. One button broke and remained in her clutch forever. I turned my face and didn’t look back. I didn’t have the courage to look in her sniveled eyes.
Debi was uncontrollable, she screamed ---“Today I have lost everything I had in this world.”
Before going for security-check, for one last time I looked back in the painful, deluged eyes of Debanjana Bannerjee.
The engines roared and the airplane started to run along the runway. I clenched my jaws and closed my eyes to control the violent rupture inside my broken ribs. I banged my head on the head rest, repeatedly.
Once that same flight took me in the arms of my heartthrob to whom I gave my heart and soul, and then that same flight helped me to find my lost apple of my eye. But those journeys were different from that one. Flight was same but journey was different, it was taking me away from everything I loved. My EVE and My Goddess.
The main landing gear was pulled up inside the fuselage, all of a sudden I felt thousand of chains jostling inside my brain and they all broke. Those rings got scattered all over the green fields down below.
Every bond and every promise, I made to my beloved, got shattered that time.
The promise, that I will build a new home for my Aphrodite.
The portrait of hers, that remains unfinished in my suitcase.
The promise, that I would read her my diary as we get old.
The promise, to sip the tea while swinging on a swing in front of a cottage on a hill.
The promise, we would stay at Kye old age home.
All those promises I made to her was never fulfilled.
Three faces came in front of my deluged eyes.
Paree’s red swollen eyes, tears rolling down her cheeks. Heart broken into millions of pieces.
Screaming and sniveled eyes of Debanjana.
Stone cold face of my Mom.
Good Bye Suchismita, God Bye Debanjana, Good Bye Kolkata.
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Life is a game of chess, thirty two squares and black and thirty two squares are white. Who knew that a small move of a tiny pawn would destroy our lives forever?
I sat sipping the morning tea in the drawing room, it was about ten thirty. I was reading the newspaper. Paree was in the kitchen doing something. Dad already left for his office. Due to the last night shower, the sky was gloom and cloudy. In Kolkata once it starts to rain then it rains for days. I heard Mom’s voice from my room in second floor, she was probably changing the bedcovers and pillow covers of my bed. That day she didn’t go for her school as she was not feeling well.
She came down to the drawing room and gave me a fiery look. My pillow cover was in her hand.
There was a calm roar in her voice ---“Paree, come here.”
She probably heard her ChotoMa talking to her in that tone for the first time.
Paree came running to the drawing room, panting hard and asked Mom ---“What happened ChotoMa?”
---“You were searching for your, gold and pearl earring since morning, have you found that?”
She looked at me with baffled eyes. I had no idea that she has lost her earring.
She nodded her head ---“No ChotoMa. I am still searching my ear-ring.”
She plucked the earring from my pillow cover and showed to her.
---“Is this your earring?”
On seeing the earring in Mom’s hand, my throat became dry, my face burnt and my chest trembled in tension. Someone has poured boiling oil on my head. I looked at Paree’s face; her ears were red as blood and eyes were big. Her cheeks turned red as she saw her earring coming off my pillow cover. She clenched her jaws in sheer horror.
Mom looked at me and spoke in a calm yet fuming voice ---“Can I have an explanation as how this ear-ring has gone to your pillow cover?”
I told to Mom to hide the truth ---“The ear-ring might have somehow fallen on my bed, I don’t know how. May be it happened while she was cleaning my room.”
---“I saw both the earrings on her ears last night and I find one of them on your pillow cover in the morning.”
She walked to Paree and removed the hair from her left shoulder and asked ---“What is this red mark on your shoulder?”
Paree froze as an ice effigy, clutched the curtain and bit her lower lips. She looked down to the floor. That was my love bite. I bit her last night while approaching the summit of pleasure.
Mom spoke in the same tone---“So matter has gone to this extent, that you have teeth marks on your shoulder. Huh?”
I stood silently with my head bend down, looking at the floor. My eyes turned hazy and my nose tips burnt.
I felt a hard slap across my face. Mom slapped me for the first time in last fourteen years.
She screamed at me ---“What were you two doing under my nose?”
She sat on the couch with a thud and slapped her forehead ---“Even in my worst nightmare I could not have dreamt that you will be doing this with her.”
Paree came near Mom and tried to mumble something to her, but the look she got from Mom, Paree forgot to speak and stood as a granite effigy.
She yelled at Paree ---“What is this Paree; you are elder than him and you……? You are his Aunt, Paree.”
Paree kneeled in front of Mom’s feet and looked down. I could not bear that scene anymore.
Mom asked me ---“Was this only for your warm boiling blood, that you have maligned her? Not for a single second you thought that she is you aunt and you were doing sin?”
I saw large drops of tears rolling down her cheeks, dripping down her nose tip, spilling on the floor. Her whole back was trembling like a candle flame caught in a violent storm.
---“YOU are a DISGRACE for me. What you did was just for your burning desire.”
I shouted at Mom ---“NO, I LOVE HER.”
---“WHAT? How could you do this with her and do this with me? You knew very well that she is your aunt and she is elder than you. She is my cousin sister. She is yours Grand Aunt’s daughter.”
I tried to persuade her in a calm choking voice ---“Mom, she is not my aunt. She may be your cousin sister, but she is not my aunt. She is a very distant cousin of yours and you know that very well. There is no blood relation between us, Mom. She is not my Aunt.”
Mom shook her head in utter dismay ---“NO, NO, NO, I can’t think that this was happening to me.”
Mom asked Paree ---“What was in your head when he did this to you? What did you felt in your heart? Tell me Paree. Do you love him also?”
Paree gently nodded her head to say that she loved me.
On learning that Paree was also in love, Mom’s eyes were also deluged; those tears were not of happiness or sadness. They were full of disgust and anger.
She placed her palm under Paree’s chin and pulled up her face. Paree had her eyes tightly shut.
---“Not for a single instance you thought about your Mom and other family members? Not for a single instance you thought about me? You both fed on my milk.”
Paree was unable to say anything. Her face was red; thousands of huge waves crushed inside her chest. Her tender figure was shaking as a solitary twig caught in a violent storm. I felt her heart racing like millions of trains running down the iron rails.
I spoke to Mom, yet again in a pursuing voice ---“She is your mother’s maternal uncle’s youngest daughter’s youngest daughter. There is no blood relation between us. She can be older than me, but age makes no difference, Mom. She is only two years older to me, Mom.”
She roared at me ---“YOU shut up. You were always a disgrace for me. From your childhood days, you were always against my words, to whatever I said.”
Those words were too much for me. From my childhood days I had to hear all these. My parents took away all the things that I loved, on every nook and corner of my life. They took away my love for arts and painting. They never gave me the love of child. They always measured the money they have spent on me and asked for return, return in doing well in studies and doing well in job. I was always compared with others in each step of my life. I felt that my last and best love was getting towed away.
---“You never loved me as your son. Why Mom, WHY?”
That day I came to know a bitter truth as why her love for me was so little and measured.
---“I and your dad asked for a daughter from God. But GOD didn’t answer our call. Due to some health problems, after your birth we could not have another child.”
---“That was not my fault Mom, but I bore that pain for whole of my life. You have taken everything from me. My mental peace, my love for painting and many more. Please don’t take her away from me. Paree will not be able to live, neither would I.”
There was a painstaking silence in the room. The sky was getting gloomier with each passing second. It clouds rumbled after sometime. The weather inside the room was getting heavier with each passing second.
Paree somehow gathered some courage and touched Mom’s hand. She gave Mom a painstaking look.
Mom looked down to her painful face and asked ---“What do you want to say?”
Paree cried out ---“Please ChotoMa, Please don’t take away Abhi from me.”
Mom moved her head in immense dismay ---“No, I can’t allow this to happen. What will the society and our relatives will think?”
I screamed at her ---“Did the society come to feed Paree, when her father passed away? Did any of her relatives come to feed her when she cried for milk? NO. None came for her rescue except you.”
I paused a little, took a deep breath ---“It was you who fed her. I don’t care for any relatives Mom, I just care what you and dad will think. What do you think Mom?”
There was a long painful silence in the room. Mom spoke at last ---“I have build a reputation of a teacher and you dad is a respected person in this society. We all live in this society surrounded by relatives. I will not allow this to happen till I am alive. Abhi, you can’t stay with Paree, you both can’t be together. I don’t want you to be in hundreds of miles near Paree. You have to leave this house.”
I looked at Mom’s face as to understand as what was she saying to me. Was she banishing me from my house or rather say her house?
Mom continued ---“I have promised my aunt, her mother, that I would take care of her no matter what happens. I have to keep my word. Twenty-three years ago I divided my breast milk, my affection, so that she could live. I can do that again so that her dreams can be fulfilled.”
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Paree screamed out her heart in immense agony ---> “Abhi is everything to me, ChotoMa. I don’t care whether I study masters or be a teacher. I don’t care what anyone thinks. Please don’t take away Abhi from me. Please, ChotoMa. I will not live anymore.”
My Mom was not in a mood to listen to our pleas.
I shouted at Mom ---“You are fulfilling your dreams, your ego, and your snobbery. If I have to go I will take her along with me.”
---“NO, no one can take her away from me. You come here and keep your hand on Paree’s head and promise me that you will leave Kolkata, you will not see her again.”
I didn’t buzz a single inch from my place. Stood there as a dead corpse when I heard that I had to touch her head and to make a painstaking promise.
Mom held my hands tightly and placed them on Paree’s head. My lips quivered everything in front of my eyes shook. A violent earthquake jolted and devastated our lives forever. Paree was then unable to control herself as she felt my hand on her head.
She cried out a long painful ---“NOOOOOOO…….” She hid her face on Mom’s lap. Mom didn’t care to touch her head.
Mom spoke to her---“I have given my word to your Mom. My prestige and my life is at stake. He has to leave this house and leave Kolkata, forever. I don’t want his filthy shadow to touch you or even to come near you.”
She looked at me and ordered ---“Go up stairs and pack your bags and belongings. I am calling your dad and will ask him to buy an air ticket for Delhi, for tomorrow morning. I don’t want you to stay under this roof even for a single day. You will not return to Kolkata till I ask you to return, you will not call us till I call you. If you don’t obey then you will see her cold bloodless face.”
I could not move my feet, they were nailed to the floor. Paree sat at Mom’s feet, continuously weeping. A huge volcano of agony erupted inside her. She clutched her left wrist to control herself somehow. Her grip was so tight that her thin gold bangles, on her left wrist, ruptured her skin, cut deep in her wrist and blood oozed out, dripped on the floor.
Mom shouted at me ---“GO AWAY FROM MY SIGHT. I don’t want to see your face again.”
Somehow I carried myself to my room and locked the door. I didn’t know what happened to Paree or what Mom said to dad.
For the whole day, I thought of as what I have done. Was it a sin? I lost at last, I heard Maithili laughing at me saying to me “Abhimanyu, you lost the battle.”
In the evening, dad came to my room. He silently handed me the air-ticket and a white envelop.
He spoke in an ice cold voice---“We are your parents, we will always think better for you. I will deposit some money in Suprotim’s account till you get a job.”
It started to rain heavily. The heavens poured down, both our hearts were bleeding. There were no rain water but it was blood that the heavens were pouring that day. Blood from our broken heart and soul.
At about one o’clock I came downstairs to the drawing room carrying my bag and suitcase. I searched for my diary all over the place. I could not find that. I assumed that Paree might have taken my diary the other night after I slept.
I called Debi for one last time. She answered in her sleepy voice.
---“What happened? Whay have you called me so late?”
---“I am leaving Kolkata forever. Tomorrow, morning flight to New Delhi. Meet me somehow at the airport.”
I heard her scream at the other end ---“WHAT HAPPENED?”
---“I will tell you everything at the airport.”
I kept the receiver of the phone for one last time.
I was unable to sleep for the whole night; I sat in the drawing room with my bags and suitcase packed. Tears continuously rolled down my cheeks as the outside downpour.
I felt that Mom was also awake for the whole night and Paree has locked herself in the room. I could not steal any scope to meet her for the last time, say her good bye.
At about four o’clock, I knocked Mom’s room and said to her that I would be leaving. She didn’t answer anything.
Dad got up and said to me ---“It is only four o’clock and your flight is at seven o’clock. Why are you going so early?”
I said to him ---“I had to go. My time in this house has come to an end.”
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I bowed down to touch his feet and touched the floor so as to touch Mom’s feet for one last time.
Dad came with me till the gate.
I looked around the house for one last time before going out of the gate.
I looked up to the open window of the drawing room. The curtain shook a little. I saw Paree standing there. I felt the immense pain that she was having inside her heart. Her eyes told me that she has broken into thousands of pieces. Her big dark eyes were gorged red then, her face was swollen and tears flowed down like a huge dam has ruptured. They were filled up with tears of painful separation, tears of agonizing heart. It was her heart that was going away from her forever.
Our family was against us, even if the society would have accepted but there was no one to make our parents to understand about our love.
I bowed down for one last time to pick some earth from my garden and tied that in the small silk handkerchief that Paree gave me as a gift, and put that in my pocket.
I was about to board the taxi, I looked up again to the open window of the drawing room. I raised my index finger gesturing as “I” and then I raised my index finger and thumb, perpendicular to my index finger gesturing “L” and then raised my index and middle finger to gesture as “V” or “U”. Paree clutched the grills of the window as if she would like to free herself from those iron rods and jump to me, but those were made of iron and guile values of relatives and society.
All of a sudden she fell down behind the window. She had probably fainted. That time no one called me to look after Paree. Once my Mom called me to look after Paree when she fainted as Mom was leaving. But then the situation was different, I could not run to her to take her in my arms and soothe her with my love and water.
I could not even express my feelings to her for one last time, only I had to board the taxi with heavy heart and pleaded to GOD, that make Paree happy in her life. The only thing that remained with Paree was my brown coloured diary. In which I wrote about our love, about the promises we made, about the romantic trip in the lonely heaven, about my friendship and her valuable present, a tiny drop of blood running in my veins.
Her tiny drop of blood, running in my veins pumped to my heart, asked me to take her with me. But that drop was too tiny against the wrath of our families and the excuse of relatives around us.
It was 21st July 2001, Saturday. I arrived at the airport by four thirty and found both Debi and Arindam were waiting for me.
She came running towards me and clutched my collar and screamed ---“Tell me what has happened? Why are you leaving Kolkata? What will happen to Suchi Di?”
---“I am leaving Kolkata forever.”
I told her the whole painful story as how my Mom smelled about our relation and how bitterly she reacted to.
She clenched her jaws so as to control the flood behind her eyes, but she could not.
---“Why didn’t you informed me before?”
---“How could I? All these happened as a thunder storm and Mom’s flared up eyes were hovering around me and Paree all the time.”
She shook her head in disbelief. She was unable to come in to terms that I was leaving Kolkata forever.
Arindam stood behind her and he didn’t have any words to console her. Debi was crying profusely.
---“I will go and meet auntie and Suchi Di.”
---“The way is also closed, Debi. Mom knows very well that you knew all these beforehand and you never informed her. Probably she is very angry upon you. She had made me promise as not to come back to Kolkata again. She forced me to place my hand on Paree’s head to take that oath. I would die rather than to harm Paree in any sense.”
She threw her arms around me as if she didn’t want me to leave. My chest soaked with Debi’s flooded eyes. Already a writhing pain was hurting my heart and then her tears made the pain more unbearable. I was unable to breathe properly as my heart ruptured. I hugged her in my arms and crushed her almost. I pressed my lips on Debi’s head and looked at Arindam with my deluged eyes.
With quivering voice I said to him ---“Just take away Debi, before I go for check in.”
His eyes were also hazy, voice shook ---“You know her very well. You know her how she is attached to Suchi Di. She won’t buzz from here till that black board says ‘IC-264, Kolkata to Delhi, 0700, departed’. I don’t know what will happen to her.”
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---“Promise me you will take care of her. Don’t hurt her, please. Please give her Paree’s love also. I made a promise to Sarmishta.”
With immense pain in my heart, I freed myself from her arms and handed her hand in Arindam’s hand.
She clutched my collar; I tried to free myself from her grip. One button broke and remained in her clutch forever. I turned my face and didn’t look back. I didn’t have the courage to look in her sniveled eyes.
Debi was uncontrollable, she screamed ---“Today I have lost everything I had in this world.”
Before going for security-check, for one last time I looked back in the painful, deluged eyes of Debanjana Bannerjee.
The engines roared and the airplane started to run along the runway. I clenched my jaws and closed my eyes to control the violent rupture inside my broken ribs. I banged my head on the head rest, repeatedly.
Once that same flight took me in the arms of my heartthrob to whom I gave my heart and soul, and then that same flight helped me to find my lost apple of my eye. But those journeys were different from that one. Flight was same but journey was different, it was taking me away from everything I loved. My EVE and My Goddess.
The main landing gear was pulled up inside the fuselage, all of a sudden I felt thousand of chains jostling inside my brain and they all broke. Those rings got scattered all over the green fields down below.
Every bond and every promise, I made to my beloved, got shattered that time.
The promise, that I will build a new home for my Aphrodite.
The portrait of hers, that remains unfinished in my suitcase.
The promise, that I would read her my diary as we get old.
The promise, to sip the tea while swinging on a swing in front of a cottage on a hill.
The promise, we would stay at Kye old age home.
All those promises I made to her was never fulfilled.
Three faces came in front of my deluged eyes.
Paree’s red swollen eyes, tears rolling down her cheeks. Heart broken into millions of pieces.
Screaming and sniveled eyes of Debanjana.
Stone cold face of my Mom.
Good Bye Suchismita, God Bye Debanjana, Good Bye Kolkata.
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