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| 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.
