The Unventured Passions

Waiting for You

The scanty scattered sunlight had already submitted to the menacing black clouds. An occasional growl erupted from the eastern corner of the sky announcing a heavy shower.
Beenapani was still standing, rooted under the Krishnachura tree, as she saw with widened eyes Bondita getting down from the backseat of her car. She looked disarranged, like a storm wrecked bird, lost and messy. Her hair was disheveled, her saree was undone, and Beena's eyes failed to miss that constant reddened smile painted on her entire body.

"Isshh... Bondita!!" She pressed her eyes shut, her hand automatically raised up to cover her mouth in stupifaction. And, before she could have called her, she saw Bondita almost running towards Anirudh's Jeep as she unlocked the door and got inside, driving away from the campus within moments.
Beena's eyes had furrowed in suspicion.
Why was she driving his car?
The question hammered her head until the next scene caught her attention.
With gaped mouth, she witnessed Anirudh getting down from the backseat of Bondita's car, his white shirt in crease, his fingers brushing through his ruffled hair, his face flushed. He stood outside for a minute, adjusting and tucking his shirt in his trousers, before he opened the front door and positioned himself in the driver's seat, driving away in the opposite direction than the former.

Beenapani Ganguly had felt stupified, horrid, as her mind repeated one line in a loop...
Cheating is a choice, not a mistake... And Bondita had chosen this!

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Bondita had always been fond of mirrors, big pretty mirrors. She always felt them to invite her to love herself, to learn how inner beauty could create the most attractive self. Stepping out of the bathroom after a shower, Bondita was sitting infront of her large dressing mirror in her white bathrobe, devoid of any ornaments, her eyes eager and heart racing in anticipation.
Anirudh would come home that night, and the thought of his scent, his voice, his body, just the whisper of her imagination, and she felt incapacitated. There were no other thoughts, no focus, only desire and the pain of waiting. Waiting for his touch felt as if it was a divine punishment and a divine reward all at once.

"O Boudidimoni... Rudhi Sonamoni is asleep... Shall I stay or leave?"
Monimala's sugarless voice shook Bondita into the immediate reality, momentarily.

"You may leave tonight Kaki." She raised her voice a bit.

"And the keys?" Monimala's asked again.

"Wait. I'm coming."
It's been a custom with the Roy Chowdhury's that at night whenever Monimala would leave, she would lock the main gate, and the brothers had keys, so that if they are late, they may enter without disturbing anyone inside.

Bondita got up from her dressing stool, grabbed the keys from the chest of drawers and walked towards the door.
Monimala was standing right outside.

"O Maa... Ishh... Boudidimoni!!!"
The middle aged woman bit her tongue and pressed her eyes shut at the sight of Bondita.

"What happened Kaki?" Bondita asked, a little distracted, as she handed the keys to her.

"Chi chi Boudidimoni, it's a sin to even see a married woman without sindoor." She shook her head violently.
"You aren't even wearing your Shanka-Pola... " Her eyes had widened in shock and astonishment.
"Don't you have a little regards for your husband? Such godlike he is!"
She raised her hands to her forehead to mutter a prayer.

"But, Kaki... I just took a bath..."

Monimala bit her tongue again.
"Boudidimoni... I probably shouldn't speak out of my turn, but bathing shouldn't be an excuse for this. Sindoor, Sankha... all these are for your husband's long life... Don't you want him to live long? Don't you want to die a Suhagan, Boudidimoni?"

Bondita didn't reply, instead she let out a sharp sigh and turned to leave.

"You are a learned modern woman... Why would you believe all these!" Monimala picked up her cloth bag and prepared to leave as well.
"But how can you deny sindoor and sankha to be a part of your existence? You are someone's wife... And these are the marks, the proofs... Without these what are we really!" She eyed Bondita's bare hairline and let out a sigh before leaving for her home.

Bondita had lowered her gaze as she shut the door of her bedroom gently, hearing the sharp soft click of the main gate being closed.
Monimala had finally left.
She slowly walked back to her dressing and sat down once again. The silver vermillion case was lying right infront. She picked it up and held it open infront.
Is this what defines her worth?
Is that what gives her an identity?
Her thoughts wretched her heart a little, as a silent sigh escaped her lips.
"I define myself, Monikaki... I define my own identity."
She kept the vermillion case back on the table and picked up the small glass bottle of ether instead.
"Tonight, I want you to see me as myself Barrister Babu... Just myself."

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The storm in the city had brought electric sky's, drawing patterns of light in the darkness, the streets were sweeped, the gale brushing away the memories of the dusty day from its core. Dry yellow leaves were swirling around, along with a menacing gushing sound, the howl of the wind. It was a little before midnight, the stormy streets of Calcutta looked devasted, scarry. There wasn't a human soul outside, barring the two shadowed figures, hurled up inside in small red telephone booth outside Alipore Judge Court.

"How much longer? Would he even come out tonight?" One of them pulled down his shawl further to cover his body properly, as he looked up at the other one, rubbing his palms together to beat the stormy chill.

"Look for a black Jeep. That's what Maalik said." His eyes were perched at the gate.

"What if he doesn't come out tonight?" The first man muttered, shivering in the cold.

"He would. Maalik said he would."

"So we just kill him?" The first man touched the unlicensed revolver tucked in his dhoti.

"If necessary. Yes. But, Maalik needs the red file, remember."

The two men hurdled inside in tiny booth, waiting expectantly for their prey, their prized target, as occasionally a few private cars zoomed past them.

"Where is the damn Jeep!!" The first man gritted his teeth, as another black sedan with tinted black glasses came out of the main gate and sped past the telephone booth.
"Damn!!" He hissed again.

"Patience Fatik, patience... The RayBahadur won't just pay you hundred rupees... Patience." The second man kept his hand in his companion's shoulder as his eyes too fell on the black shiny object tucked in the man's waist.
"Patience bears fruits." He hushed.

They say that the two most powerful weapons in this world are patience and time, and Anirudh Roy Chowdhury knew the importance of both. He knew very well that to lose patience was to lose the battle, and he can't afford to lose this one, at any cost.
Sitting in the driver's seat of Bondita's black sedan, Anirudh's mind had two things, first the entire plot of the case that he would fight the next morning, and last, a little respite in Bondita's arms, after long one week, probably the longest one week in the last one year.
He started the glass wiper, brushing off unwanted gifts of the storm, the dry leaves mainly, as his eyes brushed on the red file kept beside, in the front passenger's seat... And on top of it was two identical letters, love letters, sealed and beautifully decorated with red hearts and stars.
"Now... let's see who does the final checkmate, Neelmoni Mukherjee."
Anirudh smirked.

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