Platonic Imprint
Ranadhir Mukhopadhyay
Platonic Imprint describes a lonely love. Rapid and perfect recovery from a near-fatal injury in the lower spine of a beautiful young daughter in New York led the entire family in Bangalore into a quagmire of questions, distrust, and infidelity before pure and unflinching love offered the answer.
TEN
Today was the first day of Tiya and Cleta’s stay in the ancestral residence of Indraneel in Rarhpur, in Mathuragarh. It’s a two-story white colour building. The lush green surroundings of the seventies when this building was built by Indraneel’s father, have however now been replaced by many concrete buildings around. Still, this typical Indian village has a military (railway) yard, agricultural lands, Delhi-Calcutta Main Railway tracks, and National Highway # 2 on four sides.
The girls were welcomed inside by Molly and Nilima, the wife and sister-in-law of Indraneel, respectively. After a formal introduction, Nilima took them to their allotted room and said- “Ours is not a city, so you may not get all the comfort that you are used to. The same thing I tell Molly who stays in Sindapur all through the year and comes here maybe once a year for two weeks.”
Molly added- “Get yourself comfortable, the washroom is that side, if required you can take bath, meanwhile, we shall prepare breakfast. Later we will talk about”
“Yes, we need to refresh first. But won’t take breakfast as we had it already on the train.” Tiya replied.
“That we will see later, now you please freshen up quickly”
Indraneel met the girls after an hour or so in a sort of ice-breaker session. In a snuff colour cod-ride trousers and black T-shirt, clean-shaven Indraneel looked handsome even at this age. He was very warm, yet polite, and shook hands with the girls before parking himself on a sofa. The two girls kept themselves busy tallying the description of Indraneel they acquired from Ahana’s description.
“How are you now Tiya? Sorry to learn about your accident and that you were in the hospital for a long period, your mother told me. How is the injury now?” Indraneel asked.
“Thanks for enquiring. Yep, it was a major accident and my spine had to be operated”
Indraneel was of course informed in advance by Ahana of the coming of her daughter to meet him. Indraneel welcomed the gesture of the little girl but told Ahana that he is now in Mathuragarh and would not be going back to Sindapur till the middle of the next month. If the girls can wait, he could meet them in the former Portuguese colony, or they are most welcome to Mathuragarh.
After his schooling, followed by his college and university education, Indraneel left Bengal and went to Sindapur in the early eighties to pursue research in Oceanography. Fresh from University, Indraneel did fairly well in his career and completed his first doctoral degree in Earth Science within 40 months, a sort of record in the University. He has been a forerunner of the sort in his village, school, and college. Not only in studies, but also sports (soccer and cricket) he was good, maybe very good, but never had given much weightage to such excellence.
It is still told by many in Mathuragarh that when he was only 17, Indraneel once with few friends of his age (and armed with lathis and iron rods) dared to have a physical conflict with many senior authoritative persons in the neighbourhood. The showdown immediately made him a person to be reckoned with in the entire Mathuragarh area, much to his amusement. He has always been at the forefront of student and village activities. In college and university, he had even been the class representative for a few years elected by his University classmates. Much later he became the Director of a foreign research institution, besides being the leader of several international research projects.
Amidst all these, the incident of him speaking over the phone to a girl based in Delhi in 1985 could not go out of his mind. However, the fact that a 17-year-old girl could have had a huge crush on him after talking only for 15 minutes was beyond his comprehension. Even though the shadow of Ahana did never go out of his radar during the following three decades, Indraneel could hardly remember the conversation of those few minutes.
Truly, Indraneel failed miserably to gauge the repercussion of such indifference. Even if one could agree to the presence of inefficient and inadequate communication channels in the mid-eighties, the inadvertent indifference shown by Indraneel can hardly be let off easily. The irony is Indraneel does not want to even put across any alibi for such indifference and just accepts his fault.
We do not know yet the actual reason for such indifference. Was it that Indraneel was fully occupied those days with the demand of his career and doctoral work, or afraid of taking an early responsibility of marriage, or just had spoken few words with a teenager without realizing its implication on an innocent mind far away, or that he was happy that elders in the family are taking forward this proposal of marriage and he need not do much except to wait?
Whatever may be the reason, the fact was, the way those 15-odd minute conversations in 1985 invaded Ahana’s mind and soul, it could not do the same magic to Indraneel. Indraneel was however never in denying mood. But he remained simply clueless why the marriage did not take place, and why he did not seriously question the elders in this regard.
We leave Indraneel here to focus on Cleta and Tiya, again.
What is so special about this gentleman that my mother gave everything to this guy? Tiya questioned herself. Slowly they got free with Indraneel, as he started showing interest in the subjects being pursued by Tiya and Cleta. Molly appreciated their subjects by saying that both science and art are important for society.
“Tiya, I heard your injury was in a very critical area of the spine, is it not?” Molly enquired.
“Yes, but now I am fine
“Yes, we could see that. Looks like you never had this injury.” Indraneel looked happy
Surprised by Indraneel’s words Tiya quipped- “Seriously, you do not know anything about how I got recovered quickly”
Indraneel looked clueless- “No, we do not know.” A surprised Indra uttered- “Is there any story in it? Your mother did not tell me anything.”
“It means you do not know why we have come here, what is our aim?”
Indraneel and Molly exchanged a glance in disbelief- “Aim of your visit? We thought Cleta wanted to see an Indian village and you wanted to meet us.”
Cleta and Tiya looked at each other and kept quiet.
As coffee was served, Molly and Cleta got into a discussion on nature, society, and science, as they both agreed that deviation from nature is a deviation from happiness.
Indraneel signalled Tiya to get up and follow him for a stroll around a small pool-sized pond within the campus of this house. After a few steps, Tiya heard Indraneel saying- “today is a great day for me- it is difficult to believe that Ahana’s daughter has come to visit me. You could have been my daughter, as well.”
“I would have loved to be….”- Tiya murmured and could feel that she is fast losing control over herself. She came to Mathuragarh prepared to challenge and confront this guy for ruining her mother’s life and peace. Cleta on the train tried to comfort her by saying that we are going there to thank him. Fighting is not our mandate, just think had he not been around your Mom, you would have still been lying in the hospital bed.
Indraneel and Tiya sat on a small bench by the side of the not-so-clean pond.
Indraneel started speaking slowly- “I do not know what your mother had seen in me. In the beginning, it was infatuation, but did not realize when it got transformed into love.”
“Why did not you love her the way she loved”- Tiya could muster the courage to ask this question.
“Maybe I am not emotionally capable enough to love so intensely, so passionately. I must admit that I have a deficit in that, whereas your mother is blessed.”
“Do you respect my mom, if so why you have insulted her?”
“You think so? I cannot even think of disrespecting her, leaving insulting her. She is much ahead of others, and I am just not emotionally equipped to respond to her feelings.”
“But then why you did not keep the words of 1985? A 17-year girl of pure heart agreed to marry you then”.
Indraneel kept quiet for a while, – “I am happy that you are asking me today this question. You are confronting me on behalf of your mom.”
“Why not?” Tiya wanted to be rude, yet she could end up asking softly
Softly holding her palm, Indraneel replied- “In fact, I have been waiting for this question. I know someday, somebody will interrogate me. And today I should be honest to answer this question.”
The touch of Indraneel’s fingers was probably the ultimate for the girl. Tiya lost her control and started trembling and a tsunami of exclamation flooded her eyes. She quickly lay down on the bench to hide her face on Indraneel’s lap.
Startled enough in the beginning, Indraneel recovered and started softly stroking the thick bushy hairs of Tiya. Nobody talked further, silence prevailed,- and only a few birds, a soft breeze, and Molly and Cleta through the bay window from inside the room were witnessed to this picture-perfect shot, as both were getting relieved of emotion. Molly drew Cleta close to her, as she could see this Spanish girl developing weakness in her knees.
Lunch was taken at around 1.30 pm and all were in praise of Nilima for preparing such tasty food. The items included basmati rice, green salad, chholar dal (gram pulses), vapa-sorshe-chingri (steamed mustard prawn), and curd. As no Bengali lunch can be considered complete without a plate of sweets, Nilima brought some Sandesh. Cleta took a special interest in sweets.
…..to be continued ……
About the Author :
Dr. Ranadhir Mukhopadhyay is a Marine Geoscientist. He had retired from NIO, Goa as a Deputy Director. He now lives at Goa.