The Unventured Passions

In sickness and In Health

~In joy and in sorrow,
in sickness and in health...
as long as we both shall live!!~

It was the year when Spanish Flu had taken it's deathly tolls in every household in Bengal. The affluent city dwellers of Calcutta were fleeing to the mountains, the hospitals were overcrowded with abandoned patients, the crematoriums were overflowing with lonely corpses of the infected ones, their families counting deaths in fear...
1920, Entire Bengal was burning, the menacing Influenza was at its peak, killing hundreds of people, the rich and the poor alike. Although some did survive the flu, but the lack of medicines, treatment, and the unknown fear surrounding the disease had made it worse for them. The fire was spreading rapidly, and the worst sufferers were perhaps the infected villages, where once caught under the fatal flu, all they had to do was await their end!
The family members would abandon them, considering them to be good as dead. The fear and lack of knowledge would prevent them to go near the patients, confined within the four walls, in isolation, from the rest of the world. Sick and ailing were everywhere, rolls of wailing cries had made the air heavy, and Tulsipur wasn't any different.

Anirudh Roy Chowdhury, the young vicenarian Barrister with a brand new degree from the Oxford was looking at the fresh shipment of Quinine and penicillin, that he had requested from England.
Two cartons of small glass vials, two cartons of life for the people of Tulsipur.
The thermocol boxes were kept on his study table as he sat infront of them with his face buried in his palm. The typewriter was kept infront, an unfinished letter still attached to it, and beside it lay a small Polaroid with an impression of a white woman, smiling, her long gown standing out from even a distance!
The afternoon was chilly and agonising, Anirudh had just returned from the Calcutta Port, bringing the shipments home, under his untiring supervision. His head was aching, the sleepless nights and his constant monitoring over the villagers had taken a toll on his mind.
His eyes were closed, head held back on the cushioned rest of the chair as he felt a soft cold touch on his forehead.

"Dada... Are you feeling unwell?"

Anirudh had opened his eyes at once, his lips curving a soft smile as he saw his baby brother standing infront of him.

"I'm fine Batuk. How are you?"

He held Batuk's hands in his, and pulled him closer, tying him in a warm soothing embrace. It's tough for these two motherless young souls to survive these hard times, and all they had was the company of each other.
And, ofcourse, their uncle, Zamindar Trilochan Roy Chowdhury.

"Dada... Will she be my boudi once that talkative one dies?"
His soon to be nine years old brother had picked up the Polaroid in his hand, as he questioned him innocently about the possibility of getting another 'boudi' who would probably not talk so much.

Anirudh's eyes had however narrowed automatically at his question.

"No... You just have one boudi... And that's Bondita."
He took the picture from his brother's hand and kept in inside the drawer lazily.

"Oh... So, when Bondita dies, I won't have anymore Boudi? Then whom would I play with?"
Batuk had hugged his elder brother tightly as his repeated questions were giving rise to an uncomfortable restlessness within his tired heart.

"Why would she die? Stop saying that Batuk... I know you don't like her much, but that doesn't mean you can talk such about Bondita!"

It's been almost two months that Bondita was living with them, in the Roy Chowdhury Haweli, as his wife, and although Anirudh had developed a natural bond of affection for the little girl, she was yet to reserve that special place in his heart... A place in which only his dear ones dwell, his brother and his uncle!