The Unventured Passions

Always and Forever

There are days the tiredness comes in both forms, physical and mental. There's a kind of tired that needs a good night's sleep, and another that needs so much more. For Anirudh and Bondita, one became the other, they needed each other as much they needed to rest their worn out mind and bodies, but the thought of the unforseen future, the lurking danger, and of their family's whereabouts, made sleep a far fetched dream.

"You need to get some sleep Barrister Babu." Bondita was combing her fingers through Anirudh's matted hair.
"Things would definitely look brighter tomorrow morning. We'll find a way, trust me, we will."
Bondita continued, and her words were like a sweet lullaby to his ears.
And, it was in no time, she felt Anirudh's breathing regularising into a calm softness.

The man needed a break... He needed to be off trouble, for once in his life!

Bondita had closed her eyes too, lying beside her husband on a hard mattress laid on a corner of a dampened large room, a bedroom probably, and the last thing her eyes counted were the ancient wooden bar on the ceiling.

The night was finally drawing it's curtains.

..............................................................

"No... No...Kaka... Please, I need another boudi, do something..." The eight year old boy was in tears, sitting on his bed, he had sank his face in the cotton pillow, sobbing uncontrollably.
It was only a couple of days that his elder brother had married a small child, same as his age, shattering his lifelong dream of getting a 'mother'. He had never seen his mother, and in a way had always craved for one. Although his uncle had always been a caring guardian, but secretly the young boy had always wished for the warmth of a mother's bosom.

"She is your Boudidi Batuk." His uncle had sighed, looking away from the wailing child.

"You... You said when Dada marries, his... his wife will be a mother to me." Batuk sobbed, "but this girl is a tyrant... She... She ate my pastries yesterday... She... She broke my pencil." Batuk was rolling on the bed in acute heartache.
"How can she be my mother Kaka... I'll never have a mother now..."

The wailing continued and Zamindar Trilochan Roy Chowdhury sat by the boy's feet for sometime, in silence, letting him cry, before he finally decided to speak again.

"She didn't break it intentionally Batuk. Give her some time. She's new here... You should be kind to her."

"No... No....I don't want to... No..."

Trilochan exhaled sharply looking at the flushed face of his little nephew, and suddenly it felt like a mirrored reflection.
He too had cried the day his elder brother had married, he too was a child then, but slowly that same new girl had become his biggest confidante, the bearer of his secrets.

"Batuk... Listen... You need to..."

But Batuk hadn't listened. Instead, he had jumped down from his bed, and stormed out of his bedroom, climbing up the staircase in a great urgency, and... and it wasn't long when Trilochan heard his loud sky piercing cry, capable of shaking the walls of the Haweli.

"What happ... Oh my god!"
Anirudh had reached before, and he saw his baby brother lying on his stomach on the stair steps, with a broken hand and a broken tooth, his mouth covered in blood.

...

"Two days in the household and see what you have done."
An old widow house help was frowning at the small girl standing at one corner of the kitchen with her long saree held up in her hand.