Buddhadeva Bose - My Kind of Girl

She had no lack of relatives in Calcutta, but she chose to stop at our house. I never asked myself why. My brother’s wife loved her very much and she loved everyone in our family — even if there were a larger reason, a different, more real reason, I did not have the courage to acknowledge it.

No, I had not the courage. Pakhi arrived in the evening, I merely caught a glimpse of her, “How are you?” are the only words we exchanged. Thereafter she became the property of everyone else, especially the women, for there is no creature more interesting to other women than one who has just gotten married, be she seven or seventy-seven. Late in the evening, everyone settled down on the veranda under the moonlight to chat, while I slipped away to meet my friends at their hostel. We used to meet often like this, but I remember how special that evening was, each of them like soul mates. They agreed unanimously that they had never seen me in such good spirits either. Spirits? I don’t know what name to give that feeling. Joy? Yes, it was a heartbeat-accelerating, fear-inducing, extraordinary kind of joy. Just as the miser cannot put his jewels out of his mind, deriving joy from the certainty that he has them, hidden away, so too was I joyous at being possessed by this joy — except that the miser fears losing it, while I feared seeing it, getting it, owning it. This was why my heart beat faster all the way back home, in pleasure, in hope, in apprehension, in happiness.

That moonlit summer night was truly wondrous.

I went to my room after dinner. The women congregated on the veranda again, outside. I sat and listened to their voices, their laughter, Pakhi laughing in her soft voice. As the night advanced, conversation flagged. I sat before my table lamp, a thick book open before me. I was really reading it, or trying to, even turning the pages occasionally, but what I read, or even what book it was, was something I remembered absolutely nothing of the next morning.

Meanwhile, near the kitchen, the servants fell silent and the session on the veranda finally broke up. I sat on, listening to them shuffling around, to the small sounds of doors being locked. The noise on the road had died down too; the night was silent. I sat there, still, with my book open.

Suddenly I saw Pakhi standing by my desk. The moment I saw her, I realized this was what I had been waiting for. Yes, no point trying to hide it. I felt I had made her appear with the force of my longing — she had no choice, she could not have done otherwise. So I was not surprised, I said nothing, I only looked at her in silence.

What was she like, the Pakhi I saw that night? That slim girl of fourteen, and this glowing young married woman — could the two even be compared? Tonight she was dressed in a blue silk sari, bedecked with jewelry of all kinds. I never could stand the sight of jewelry, but that night, that night they didn’t look bad at all; they did suit some people sometimes.

Pakhi was the first to speak. I remember her words clearly.

“I’m a lady. You should stand up when you see me.”

I stood up obediently.

“Reading so late in the night?”

I glanced at the fat, open book in response.

“Are you up only to read?”

My head lowered itself in guilt. There was a silent pause. I could hear the ticking of the clock in the next room. There was one more sound, probably a sound in my heart, a strange one.

Pakhi spoke again, “You’re going abroad soon?”

“Planning to.”

“How long will you be there?”

“At least two years, maybe longer.”

“When will you leave?”

“In September.”

We exchanged only these words as we stood there, and then silence descended again. Several times I felt the urge to look at her, directly, face to face, properly, but I don’t know what shyness prevented me. I kept my face averted though I knew in my heart, with all my heart, that she was there, near me, so near. But soon she wouldn’t be.

Suddenly Pakhi came around and stood in front of me. “Listen,” she said.

I raised my face to look at her. Her expression was severe, almost stern. I could see the rise and fall of her breath in the hollow of her throat; it was so silent all around, and she was so close, that I could practically hear the sound of that breath.

“You must do great things in life.” All of a sudden, I heard Pakhi’s voice. “Don’t stay up any longer — you might fall ill. Go to bed, I’d better leave.”

I think I tried to say something, but not a sound emerged from my throat.

“I’ll switch the light off before I go.”

I saw her hand touch my table lamp, and in a moment I was transported to another world. A dark, bluish moonlight came to life, my room was a room no more. Her blue sari looked almost black, and as soon as she moved her eyes glistened, her lips painted by the brush of the lunar glow. I saw her for a moment like this, and then her long, strong, soft yet firm arms wrapped themselves around me; she held me hard and kissed me on my lips again and again. My eyes closed, my breath stopped, I felt the foretaste of death.

Then she moved away and said, “I cannot give you anything more.”

She spoke and left. That night, too, I could not sleep.

Gagan Baran paused again. He tried to pour coffee into his cup, only to be disappointed: there wasn’t any left, whatever there was had been drunk long ago. He lit a cigarette — he had probably been thirsting for one — inhaled deeply, filling his lungs, and then blew the smoke out slowly.

The writer shifted and said, “And then?”

Gagan Baran seemed startled to hear the sounds of another person, perhaps a shade embarrassed. What misguided notion had led him to start this tale? Never mind — what did it matter, after all? He was not going to meet any of them again. He tried to return to his present reality; he tried to think of Delhi, his job, his wife, his children, but none of them seemed very important at the moment, his head was filled with the echoes of the events he had been recounting all this while.

Transferring his cigarette to his left hand, he resumed.

Then I went abroad, came back: employment, marriage, children, promotions at work, getting older in spite of oneself. In other words, just like millions of others, my life too was proceeding along its pre-arranged, banal orbit. Yes, no matter how much you take care of yourself, live healthy, eat healthy, run to the doctor and the dentist, when it’s time you have to get older, no one is exempted. My hair had grayed too, though you can’t see it at first glance, but how long can you hide it? And I admit with shame that I see nothing to be proud of in having gray hair — I consider those who can leave this earth before they have gone gray fortunate.

There would have been no harm in not meeting Pakhi again, it would have suited this story better had I not. But that romantic chapter was far from my mind when I ran into her, which I kept doing, several times, at intervals of a few years. Each of those encounters was trite, abridged. She kept getting plumper; she loved her paan a little too much; she was perpetually cheerful, very happy, completely immersed in her children and household. I saw her daughter too once: she was growing up, suddenly she seemed to be her mother, the way her mother used to be as a child, all those years ago.

It was at this daughter’s wedding that I saw her last — about three years ago. The wedding was in Calcutta, on Madhu Roy Lane. She had sent me a printed invitation card, to my Delhi address, along with a couple of handwritten lines to my wife: “My dear, how happy I’d be if you could somehow make it.” She had met my wife a couple of times. My wife is a convent-educated woman, she found Pakhi rather rustic, but Pakhi had found an opportunity to tell me, “Oh, you’re a fortunate husband.”