The Unventured Passions

Start from the Beginning

'My Dearest Candy'

The golden yellow gas lamp kept on the study table flickered a bit. It was still stormy outside, although the menacing outrage of the nature had taken a more mellowed stature now, the wind only drawing patterns on the shadowed walls inside. Anirudh Roy Chowdhury exhaled sharply as his eyes passed from the frightened lamp to the written words.
He scratched it.

'Dear Candice,
Hope this letter finds you well and you find in your heart to forgive me. Things in India are worst than I had expected. The satanic practice of Child marriage had planted it's seeds in almost every household. They burn small girls in the name of rituals, alive... '

He stopped, the silver nib of his pen finding it's refuge inside the inkpot once again. Anirudh leaned back against his chair.

'God!!' he exhaled, brushing his fingers through his dampened hair.
He had just taken a bath, changed into his regular cotton nightsuit after the unexpected adventures of the day.

It was his fifth day in Tulsipur, after his supposedly brief return from London that he finally decided to submit his Barristry documents at the Alipore Judge Court in Calcutta for an internship evaluation.
He had practiced in London for a year, but some Indian experience would definately add weightage to his professional biodata before he returns back.
But, fate definitely had some life altering plans for him.
The abrupt breakdown of his Fiat car, accepting invitation at the village headman's house, visiting a local village wedding, it all started with simple incidents until he had realised it's destructive undertones.
The first nail was looking at the semiconscious little child sitting as a bride beside a moribund old man. And, the final was snatching her away from an angry mob and tainting her tiny hairline with the sacred vermillion.
The pyre had burnt, with a raging fume, infront of his eyes as he stood there clutching the little child to his chest with all his might.
How could he had let her burn?
It all felt like a daze, a dream... a nightmare perhaps.
And now, he was a married man... Atleast to the world.

Trilochan had underwent a series of emotions that night, seeing his beloved nephew cradling a nine year old in his arms, his clothes mudded, his eyes bloodshot, his heart tattered.
From being exasperated, to flabbergasted, Trilochan had finally reasoned that perhaps it was better for Anirudh to marry this little dough of clay than to marry a western educated woman, even worse, a Britisher. And the little cloud of doubt in his heart had cleared away once he had looked into the child's pristine face and large lotus eyes.

'Maa Lakshmi...!!' he had gasped.

With a broken heart and an ironed will, Anirudh had finally sat to write that letter when a soft jingle of anklets tore his chain of thoughts into a thousand pieces.

'May I come in?'
A soft sweet voice had broken the silence of the room, making Anirudh look up and sit upright.

'Yes, come inside.'
His hands had automatically crumpled the paper he was writing in, as if instinctively.
He spoke politely as in the golden flame of the lamp he saw the little cherub tiptoed inside the room.

'May I sit?' she has asked again, in the softest voice possible and Anirudh nodded his head pointing his hand towards the mahogany couch not very far from his chair.

'Why haven't you changed yet?'
He had turned his chair to face the girl.

'I... I... there is nothing to wear.'
She muttered.

Anirudh remembered how he had picked her up in an unconscious state and drove her to Tulsipur, without any of her belongings. He had just shoved his address in her mother's hand, as the widow cried a river on their way.