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.
NINE
The conversation over the telephone was short, but its implication was pervasive.
For several months before this talk, many in the house of Ahana in Delhi had been mentioning the name of Indraneel, how good the boy is, how cultured their family is, how distantly related they are, and how the fitting finale will be to see Ahana becoming the bride of Indraneel.
Ahana was of only 17 years those days. Emotion flooded her banks and that affected her studies, and her behaviour with friends and at home. Now with this phone talk, albeit short, Ahana was hugely elated. They have never met, but she could make out that her feelings for Indraneel are growing stronger every passing day and it is beyond the level of infatuation.
Ahana started spending sleepless nights, her every movement was reckoning for Indraneel. Close friends became very distant, as she lost enthusiasm for spending time with them, caring for the kittens, in talking to parents. She was simply devastated by the affection shown by Indraneel. She started stitching dreams of a home with Indraneel- full of life, romance, and sweet spirits. Oh my God, the 17-year-old lass has fallen in love.
Seeing the condition of their daughter, the parents sent the formal proposal of marriage to Dida through Sudarsan. Dida had a very positive idea about this family, as they both were from Dhaka-Bikrampur, now in Bangladesh. Dida did mention the ten years gap in the ages of Indraneel and Ahana, but seeing the overwhelming interest from the bride’s side, she agreed to take things forward and ordered for khusthi-vichar of Janam-Kundli of both Ahana and Indraneel (examination of birth chart).
We lost track of these two lovebirds after a critical scrutiny of their birth charts, which did not match, not even by 30%. It was predicted that if the marriage takes place the couple will have unending physical, emotional, and mental problems. Nobody heard anything about this proposal after this prediction.
Since that day many millions of cusecs of water passed through the River Yamuna (the river passing through the city of Delhi).
Ahana is now full-grown, a 24-year-old beautiful lady getting ready to marry Siddhartha.
But between 1985 (the phone-call day) and today’s marriage in 1992, Ahana could never forget those few minutes in her life when she spoke to Indraneel over the telephone. Even for several years thereafter, she could cherish those moments of the telephone conversation. She could remember how her life changed after that phone call and then again when the news came that this marriage is untenable as per scrutiny of Janam-Kundli. From that day she started focusing on her studies and avoiding going out with friends. But never could she forget those fifteen-odd minutes of conversation.
Ahana wiped her eyes. Both Tiya and Cleta came close and hugged her from either side. This time surprisingly both the girls joined her in this unique emotional outburst. They sobbed for a long. We are unsure whether their exclamation represented the unfulfilled desires of women of all classes at some time in their life, or the yell represented the inability of women-folk to control their own emotions and sentiment. But whatever it may be the tears from six rivers were a clean and pure expression of mind, body, and soul.
Slowly girls regained their composure. Ahana went to the restroom, Tiya remained busy completing the noting, while Cleta got up to prepare coffee for all. After an emotional, biological, and coffee break they were prepared to resume the session.
Cleta drew the line for resumption- “The talk with Indraneel happened in 1985, you got married after seven years in 1992 and Tiya came into your life in 1996. But still, you could not forget the 1985 incident even for a day. Why so? Is it because you felt humiliated and let down by Indraneel? Or is it because you wanted to take revenge and never allowed yourself to forget the incident? Or is it that you never permitted yourself to forget the first love, the first man in your life?”
“Honestly, I do not know. But taking revenge- oh no way. I still love him dearly, just think….he was the first man to engrave his name on my clean unblemished heart, and how one can forget such a person?” Ahana said.
“Do you know anything about Indraneel now?”
“I was completely out of touch with him. Never met or talked. I was knowing from Sudarsan Kaku that he is working in Sindapur. We went very close to that institute where Indraneel was researching, Tiya you remember? Twice we travelled to that place during our tours to Sindapur in 1999 and 2008. But I never felt like meeting him.”
“Why so? Was it hate? You could have met him to see for yourself whether he also feels the same way for you, as you feel for him.” Tiya argued
Putting her hand on Tiya’s one, Ahana with a voice of solace said- “Do not castigate anybody whom you do not know in-depth. I never hate him. Hate never came to my mind as an option. Rather it was probably fear”.
“Fear, of what and from whom?” Cleta softly asked
“I do not know, probably I was fearing the circumstances. Say, in case I meet him and find that he has forgotten the 1985 incident, or he starts taking pity on me, or alternately starts feeling so small in front of me.”
Ahana continued- “By bringing up the 1985 incident again, I was not going to gain anything, but lose everything. Again 1985 incident has the potential to break two families…I am not sure how your father and Indraneel’s wife would have reacted to this development?”
Tiya got up and now crawled before her mother, hiding her face on Ahana’s lap, murmuring – “I never realized your largeness. You are sentimental, yet so rational in your thoughts. I am proud to be your daughter.”
Ahana indicated Cleta also crawled onto her lap. Running fingers of her both hands through the curly hair of Tiya and the long blond hair of Cleta, Ahana continued- “nobody would have known about the 1985 incident and follow-up activities had this situation not come around, Tiya’s unfortunate accident, Doctor’s conclusion and insistence of you two to reveal the identity of the seventh person. The whole story would have gone to the grave with me.”
“And then you never met Indraneel again?” Cleta asked
Taking a pause, Ahana said- “No, although the distance between Sindapur and Bangalore is hardly 600 km, we never met in person, but we spoke over the mobile-first time after 31 years in October 2016.”
“Oh, no!! This is not fair.” Tiya was disappointed.
“Maybe you are correct, we should have met, but then we never wanted to damage our present. Because you, Siddhartha, Molly, and Alok…you all are innocent. There will be unnecessary and embarrassing pressure on you all individually, as well as socially. Why you should all suffer?”
Now we get a new name…Alok. Who is he? Cleta asked this time.
“Alok is Indraneel’s son, maybe now 27-28 years old young boy, very smart and handsome. Indraneel did share photographs of his family.” Ahana just could blabber.
“Does he also stay in Sindapur?” Cleta continued her query.
“No, I think he is in Bombay, working with a top global-Indian company after completing his engineering and management,” Ahana replied.
After a pause, Ahana continued, “You see two persons who shaped my life are my parents. I was extremely close to my father, who left us in 2010. And only two years ago in 2016, I lost my mother to neurological disorders in Calcutta. Being the only child I went to Calcutta to perform the last rites. Siddhartha was there with me all through, yet I felt so lonely in this world, once again.”
Ahana continued- “on arrival in Bangalore at the luggage belt while collecting my suitcase I received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number. On learning about the sad incident of my mother’s departure Indraneel sent this message of condolence. In the end, he wrote- “valo-theko.”
“These last two words valo-theko, simply means stay-well, or take care sort of and are harmless simple words. But it struck me like thunder. I do not know what happened to me. I was awestruck, I could feel the strength of those two words. A feeling of goodness was flowing through my spine. Was I waiting for this?”
“The 1985 telephonic conversation again started flooding me like a tsunami and threatened my existence, once again. Over the next few days, I tried my best not to think about those two words of Indraneel, but the more I tried to go out of this loop, I could feel that I am dragged into it. In the end, I was very angry- how could he ask me to “keep well” after deserting me for 31 years?”
After struggling for a week or so with herself, Ahana replied to Indraneel with a series of messages that she was feeling low with the loss of her mother, that how she felt devastated after coming to know of her marriage to Indraneel was not possible, that how she got shattered with the marriage of Indraneel in 1988, so on… Ahana wanted to talk to Indraneel, and now.
Indraneel agreed to talk. Ahana called Indraneel and spoke to him as if they have not been separated for long 31 years, but by only a few days. The warmness of Ahana took Indraneel by surprise, but he quickly adjusted and responded with equal warmth. Ahana picked up the thread to say she had never forgotten that 15-minute talk during the last 31 years, as Indraneel was the first man to reach her heart.”
On the third such talk, Indraneel enquired about Ahana’s family and found that she is very proud of her family, a well-settled intelligent husband, and the best possible daughter. Ahana, however, agreed that her husband may be a little weird emotionally. The finer aspects of mutual relations are not respected all the time by Siddhartha, and he may want to control things rather than win over the heart. A wife and a girl expect a little bit of respect, equality, freedom, love, and affection. Unsure how much she received those from Siddhartha during the last twenty-six years of their marriage.
As a consequence, she is still lonely on the inside. She longs for something which she believed came very close to her once….that warmth, that finer confluence of Indraneel’s nature and Ahana” art, that completeness. She has been feeling the presence and warmth of Indraneel all around her during the last 31 years, as he pervaded her mind, body, and soul.
……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.