Please Shut The Door.

Art:Pascal Campion

Sia lived in the flat above Sunny's apartment in Park Circus, a middle class locality in Kolkata. She was only fourteen when she first started noticing him, while playing badminton with her first-cousin, Suchita. He used to hang around with his friends near the muddy football field after Chemistry tuition.

It took him a year or two to start noticing her. And how could he not? Sia was beautiful. With honey-brown skin that shone when she was walking with her mother in the bazaar (Market) buying vegetables and her shy smile as she coyly put in another stick of dhania  (coriander) into her cloth sack. Her fish-like eyes were a riot of emotions ranging from initial hurt and disappointment when Sunny was oblivious to her existence, to a giddy  love-sickness that struck her to her core when he first held her hand under the shady mango tree the year they turned sixteen.

It was first-love.

And like most first-love stories, it came to a bitter end when Sunny's parents split in the winter of 1998. Eighteen year old Sia was caught between circumstances adults always trap young teenagers in love in and she cried her cotton handkerchief to a purple pulp when Sunny broke the news to her that he was leaving for a bit but that he'd be back. His father continued staying in the house above her.

The 90's were not an age of mobile phones and gadgets, so every Thursday and Saturday, Sia made her way to the local telephone booth to call Sunny, who was now living with his maternal uncle near Lalbazaar (Red Market).  Young love is always passionate and rebellious, hoping for a miracle.

But a miracle was far from the red-hued Kolkata skyline that monsoon when Sia turned into an adult. The last thing that had miraculously happened was when Sia's old neighbour, Miss Melanie had suddenly adopted a kid from a broken home near her place.

Three Monsoons passed. 

Sia was now studying medicine at the National Medical College. She hadn't heard from Sunny in a year a half. She had called every Thursday and Saturday for a month, but nobody had picked up. She had even, coyly ended up taking bus No. 42B to Lalbazaar, but without a fixed address, she had hung about there only for an hour, before coming back dejected.

 Yes, her heart had broken but when you’re in Medical school, you only get that much time to dwell on first-love, however precious, amid practical files and crisis situations in OPD’s.

And so, with much trauma, (Because Sia was more pretty than smart), she got her Doctor’s degree.

After her graduation, Sia and her parents made their way slowly to her aunt’s place in Ballygunge, an uptown residential area in the heart of Calcutta. Just outside Beena Mausi’s ground floor apartment, a delivery boy on a scooter showed up. It was from the new Chinese joint, ‘Momo Plaza’ that had just opened a few blocks away, Sia’s aunt informed her animatedly.

But Sia just stood there, speechless. The delivery boy, in a horrid red t-shirt and matching red cap, pulled low above his eyes, was getting the change from Beena Mausi. He half- turned to go and turned back again, catching Sia’s eye. He stood rooted on the spot.

It was Sunny.

Sia took in Sunny’s face, weather-worn and sweating, his dirty shoes and decimated frame and looked down at her black graduation robes. She looked up at Beena Mausi’s questioning face and back at Sunny- so obviously in distress.

“Please shut the door.” She replied in an eerily calm voice.