Rishta Tera Mera

Love and Loss

This was absolutely not what Anirudh Roy Chowdhury had thought when he travelled 72 hours through the back-jolting and mind numbing journey from Kolkata to Dalhousie.

He was flabbergasted , was an understatement.

He was terribly shook and lost for a few good minutes before the words of the hostel warden registered in his mind.

Sorry sir, she has denied to meet you.

No matter how hard he tried to meet to her or talk to her in past one week, he failed as it was against the rules of law to forcibly meet an ex-spouse owing to the new Child Marriage Act he himself had fought for the past five years.

He was the one who had proffered this rule in the Act for the safety of girls from her in laws. It now seemed as if he was digging his own grave for the last five years. He felt like ripping his hair off his skull.

How he had managed to live without seeing her for all these years still surprises him , because now even a single moment feels like a century to him.

For the first time in his life , he had the taste of utter desperation and it was so bitter that now after a week of torture,
he is sitting in the principal Sister Virgin's office and has asked all the graduates to gather in the office. He has some words of wisdom to share with the brilliant minds, he says as he sips the bitter coffee from the porcelain cup, making him realise how he still misses the taste of her coffee.

He has a list of things he misses , to tell her . Only if she would listen.

Every minute is a never ending torture as one after another students come and go, sharing their ambitions and hardships, as he waits for that one face to come in front of him. He has deliberately kept her name in the last of the list so that after this whole session, there is no scope of her running away.

When finally he gives a last call for Ms. Bondita Das , she enters the office and he looks at Sister Virgin to leave the room. She goes to Bondita and whispers in her ear if she is comfortable in the absence of chaperone, Bondita nods even though the thought of them both in a room makes her heart pound like a tribal drumbeat.

Anirudh drinks in the sight of her in the long path of the room from the doorstep till the stool near him, which she crosses and realises that he was holding his breath. He exhales deeply.

"Good morning, sir." She says softly as she sits on the stool and looks into his eyes blankly.

"B-bondita" He stammers as he stands up.  His knees weaken and hands shake. He had thought millions of things he would say to her when they'll meet but when she is sitting in front of him, he has even forgotten to breathe and a huge boulder sits on his chest as he sees her bare hairline and wrists. She has been stripped of all her marital signs and truth be told, he feels as if she had been widowed and he had died a thousand deaths in this small duration.

"Yes sir." Her words are rehearsed and automated. Her eyes lack the lustre, her voice is devoid of the cheerfulness he was used to, and her lips are pursed as if all this is nothing but a big bothersome task she is assigned to complete.

All the guilt, the cacophony of his second marriage , his yelling voice, her cries, her innocent accusations, his kaka's pleas,  everything revolves around him like the surroundings of a huge roller coaster and he could feel blood pounding in his ears. His vision turns blurry. It's the impending tears or the black out, he doesn't know. The exhaustion of the last week adds to the draining energy of his body.

It's a matter of seconds when Bondita shrieks as his large frame falls on the floor but she holds his head in the nick of time before it hits the nearby table.

The last words he hears is her cry for help and a small smile lingers on his face as he feels the warmth of her lap in which she has kept his head as she fans his face with the corner of her blue bordered white saree and screams for help.