(part 8 ----- fiction in series Rebel is a Middle Name
Continued from part 7
Chapter 5 Do not edit your Soul
Like all saints have a past and sinners would have a future. Shampa too had a past. So did Moloy and the wedlock between Moloy and Shampa too has stories and would have a future too.
Shampa was not a friend of Moloy initially. Moloy had grown close to Shampa's cousin Drishti and the bond had slowly matured into a well known Love story of their time in Durgapur.
Moloy and Drishti's meeting was somewhat accidental on the City College Fresher's day. Drishti had played a prank. Just when the meeting took place and Moloy complimented her on her bright blue sari; Drishti told Moloy: "Can you guess why the day is special for me ? It's not just Fresher Social."
Moloy was a popular Left cadre and an active member of the student wing. So he was always accompanied by a few fellow class mates and cadres. So he had to answer Drishti. After all it was a sort of challenge from her and Moloy had to safe guard his prestige in the campus.
He responded trying to display a rare confidence while there was an added extra excitement in the eyes of Drishti. "Of Course. I KNOW," Moloy stressed - "It is your birthday".
"How do you know? You are so right," responded Drishti showing agreement.
Like any young man would feel proud of his judgement, Moloy's eyes showed that kind of special satisfaction. On the other side, Drishti also seemed to enjoy the moment as she carried a mysterious smile on her face.
Then the day was spent in the campus. Moloy told Drishti at one point around evening just before the start of the Cultural programme, "The boring part of the day would start now. Their will be singing and dance. My advice is that kind of boring time should not be one's birthday".
Drishti had that her usual mysterious smile. "But what is the better option?", she asked. Moloy again felt happy that he could pre-decide some thought process of Drishti.
He replied quickly: "Well, there can be a fantastic evening outside. A small cake party or even Rosogolla party as the Birthday girl can decide".
Drishti smiled and said- "You leave the campus first and wait for me at Dijen Da's Mishti Mukh".
Moloy: "Fine, but you do come or else I may turn a Freud admirer and develop all kinds of hatred for Rabindra Sangeet and Nazrul Geet".
Drishi responded - "Dont worry I will come".
The evening was spent together at DijenDa' Mishti Mukh. But like all smart young friends, they spent time talking and trying to open up to each other. The focus was hardly on eating.
Slowly the friendship had blossomed into a 'love affair' and their intimacy became talk of the town as Moloy would be generally busy on his bike and long drive.
Durgapur roads were always good; and the city always looked properly planned. They had good time in more ways than one.
Shampa came in much later. But her entry into Moloy's life was dramatic.
It was Drishti only who had introduced Shampa to Moloy. Shampa's family hailed from nearby Dhanbad.
Some months later, Moloy got a marketing job. Though he quite did not like the nature of the job; he had joined it as a Bengali young man would need a job anyways. Just being a Left cadre was no excuse not to get a job though hundreds of that identity avoided leaving home town. Moloy's dad was very strict about it, and he disapproved too much of politics in his children.
The business or Byabsha too always had a negative connotation in Bengali Hindu middle class value system.
However, this was not the case with Bengali Muslim boys, as they would not mind opening book stalls or even clothes sale units. Muslim boys would also work hard to develop skills in running tailor units or working in motor garage.
But Bengali Hindu young men needed 'jobs' - 'chakri' ---- preferably government jobs; because it was given out that in private companies people had to sweat it out.
But Moloy's family was always different, not run of the mill type. His elder brother Mrityunjoy was already working with a foreign company then at Allahabad. So Moloy too did not mind taking up the assignment in Dhanbad.
There at one marketing related visit to a residential area, he once hit upon Shampa. She looked very sad taking some grocery items from a store.
Moloy went close to her and when he enquired, Moloy was shocked to know that Shampa had married only a few months back; and now she was a widow.
The husband was kidnapped and eliminated. Bihar then faced the worst law and order situation and kidnapping for ransom was a sort of a cottage industry.
Moloy was shell shocked. He could not sleep for a week. Then one day, he went to Shampa's place and was doubly sad to learn that she was in a mental depression and was hospitalized.
Moloy felt in a way, he was himself traumatized by the turn of events in Shampa's life. Next few days Moloy spent time running between Shampa's house and the hospital. He was moved. All of a sudden, one evening he went to STD - Long Distance call booth and had called up Drishti back in Durgapur to tell her that she should forget him.
Perhaps even a couple of hours before, he did not know he would take such a decision.
The Leftist ideology and long time romance or close friendship with Drishti appeared something very meek and unstable. Moloy thought his responsibility lay more now with Shampa.
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| Snap: Manisha in Assam |
Shampa had returned to her parental house. Moloy wanted to meet her.
By then he had already developed acquaintance with Shampa's family members. Of course, they all knew him as Drishti's friend. So meeting between Moloy and Shampa was easy.
But for Moloy what was difficult was how to convince Shampa to take an out of box thinking.
As Moloy tried to convince Shampa again and again that he had fallen in love with her and it was genuine and not mere 'sympathy'; Shampa would say: "I am sorry".
One day, she was a bit forthcoming - "I know, you really want to hear about it, but you should know how bad or lousy my childhood was like. I have been a looser and ill-fated type. Perhaps my parents .....there was a kind of crap all around. But, I really don’t feel like going into these".
But Love or attraction often defy all logic. Moloy felt more than the 'responsibility', he was in love with Shampa. He could not give up the idea. So, he should marry her.
Shampa remained defiant.
"I cannot forget my husband Tushar. We were friends for a year. He was from a rich cloth merchant family, but we were close friends, and exactly at the end of one year and thirty two days; he left me alone," Shampa told Moloy with moist eyes.
Moloy still argued forcefully. His point was around the line that he appreciated Shampa's love for her dead husband.
But life has to go on; and to make it go on ... one needs a partner.
"The loneliness is the foremost reason of depression and you are making a choice of this loneliness itself. Even your husband would have been upset, and would be upset up there".
Shampa replied: "It seems you do not know much about life. Even staying in a big family and with many children and a husband, one can be lonely. What's the guarantee I would not feel lonely and isolated tomorrow".
Moloy would still not give it up so easily. The argument went on for sometime.
Shampa still remained defiant. "My demand from life is very much limited. You have seen our family. My father and grandfather were mazdoors in the coal field here. We have come up the hard way. I could be Drishti's cousin, they are much better off than us. But our lifestyles are different. Moreover, I know you are a friend of Drishti, and so how do I accept such a proposal?"
Moloy understood her point. So he told her that Drishti has been a good friend and could continue to be so. But here was a different case altogether, he felt the 'love' was strictly for Shampa.
He also explained the combination of his Left leaning and love for her made a lethal combination. Stubbornness ran deep in his vein. This stubbornness has created a murky pond.
Besides being sincere to her, he felt the urge to be with her. He explained again and again that with Drishti, he just like the company. While everyone must have presumed to be a love affair, actually it was not.
It was a Platonic friendship.
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