She Won’t Reveal (17)

                    She Won’t Reveal (17)

                  Nidhu Bhusan Das

           Winter isn’t felt much in kolkata, notorious for her heat. The demon of Global Warming has worsened the situation in the sprawling mega city.Nilu, born and brought up in Meghalaya, is really in a hell of fire in the City of Joy in this early January. But for the A/C flat and the A/C car of Amal, she could have opted for going back to the comfort of her Himalayan abode. Had she not the academic ambition, she might have avoided being in Kolkata.Moreover, an accidental development has been the cause of her feeling  distressed. She’s disconcerted and distraught. She feels like cursing herself for being in a strategic relationship with Amal who believes, rightly or wrongly, he’s, ultimately, been able to win Nilu for life.Nilu knows how much Amal’s conviction could be tenable.

            Joy and concern are the dominant emotion in the flat of Amal Bose.Nilu’s menopause has led to this mixed feeling. It’s Sunday. North wind isn’t felt. They’ve lunch at home.Abed, Amal fingers the hair of Nilu.She’s concerned that she’s going to be mother.She, in fact, doesn’t want it.Amal’s definitely happy, not because he’d be the father. He understands Nilu’s now his consort for ever.Nilu insists on abortion, Amal puts up resistance.

“Dear, it isn’t the right time for us to be parents,” she says persistently.

”Why, dear, what’s the problem,”Amal asks, kissing her.

“Let’s not spoil our joy being parents so early.Besides, we should be married first.”

“It isn’t necessary, honey.”

“Who’ll be recognized as the legitimate biological parents of our child? Think on it, seriously.”

“That’s no problem. Judicial decision recognizes the legitimacy of a child born of live-together.”

          Here the last defence of Nilu appears to crack. But she’s desperate, won’t give up easily. She’s for maintaining simultaneous strategic relations with Amal, Jerry and even Professor Jyotirmoy Sarkar. She knows Jerry and Prof Sarkar are also infatuated with her. Jerry’s in regular communication with her.Prof. Sarkar cuddles up to her whenever she’s in his chamber with him alone. Naturally it’d be unwise for her to be a mother. Amal is just a step for her to climb the ladder of her academic career. Maybe, she’s now in a position to exert her own influence on Prof. Sarkar.If the professor has an inkling of her being pregnant, he may be disinterested. So, she cannot right away accept what Amal decides. His decision cannot be in keeping with her ambition. She knows she must use her glamour and Aryan features to have her dream fulfilled. Amal isn’t aware of what’s in the mind of his virtual consort. He continues to fondle her, licks her, face to knee, front and back while she feigns sleep to ruminate.

“The blunder’s at the hotel in Jowai,” she thinks.

“What else could I do to take him into confidence?” she ratiocinates.

“Amal wanted it.I couldn’t resist his animal spirit,” she recalls.

“Even then couldn’t I prevent what he sprinkled into me?” she asks herself.

“But Amal’s determined,” she understands now.

“Jyotirmoy had already shown interest in me at the hotel in Shillong,” she feels now.

“Couldn’t I respond more intensely that time to get rid of Amal?” she thinks.

“Jyotirmoy’s Sauvé, his eyes speak of love, I could read it,” she understands.

“Why couldn’t I say ‘I love you’ sir?” she regrets.

“But Jerry’s in mind. I rely on him. He’ll do something for me, I believe, to take a sweet revenge for the maltreatment meted out to him by Anu,” she argues.

        With the right hand on the breast of Nilu, Amal has gone back to his Saint Xavier’s days and remembered how he came to be the cause of the suicide of Rituparna Ghosh.Now he feels for the girl who’s, unlike Nilu, meek and credulous, and, therefore, couldn’t stand the shock when he turned his back to her.Nilu, he understands, isn’t reliable, and may leave him anytime without scruples. It would be unwise on his part to go by what she asks for i.e., to terminate the pregnancy. In that case he would lose her, he thought.

“I cannot let it happen,” he believes.

“But if Nilu sneaks out?” he’s suspicious.

“Where may she go? She’s ambitious. Is it Jyotirmoy that she’ll go to?” he tries to guess.

“Jyotirmoy’s lascivious.Nilu could be his attraction,” he’s certain.

“Well let me take her to Dehra Doon.We may live there a couple of months in the comfort of the Himalayan spring. During the time her pregnancy will be prominent. This will deter her from dating with Jyotirmoy,” he plans.

        Amal and Nilu are together for tactical reasons- Amal wants to drink the beauty of Nilu and satiate his lust; Nilu uses him as a step of the ladder she climbs to achieve her academic dream. They’ve no love lost between them. A tributary or a distributary has a natural relation with the main river which an artificial canal doesn’t have. In a confluence the rivers come together willingly as the lovers do. No emotional relation exists between Amal and Nilu.Amal’s, therefore, apprehensive of the sustenance of the relation while Nilu knows it’s a temporary alliance and they’re two strange bedfellows only. Even an arranged marriage isn’t meaningful and easy-going if it isn’t immediately fertilized with the emotion of love. Any such relation’s simply a socio-economic alliance or strategic come-together sans emotion.Nilu and Amal understand it.

          The ambience in the flat isn’t that of love and finer feelings but of intrigue. Even in the inclement weather a couple of doves make love in the mango tree outside in joy which this live-together cannot generate. Their hearts are incapable of having tenderness. They’re cerebral. They tend to go by the logic of convenience. Amal doesn’t want to win the heart, what he wants to have is the serpentine beauty of Nilu while her interest in him has evaporated as soon as she’s understood that  Jyotirmoy’s there to take her. Does she have any feeling for Jyotirmoy? She’s now in the spacious bathroom, and remembers the time she spent with Amal naked in the tub gulping beer as they could see themselves making love in the mirror covering the walls. She again looks at her reflection in the mirror to understand if there has been any change in her after the menopause. She smiles, and feels she must terminate the pregnancy in no time and tell Jyotirmoy, passionately “I love you!” She knows she would protest love keeping in mind Jerry who would be a bigger catch. She sees her armpit is clean and the pubic hair is trimmed. Any one with taste would like it. She decides she would go to the hairdresser this late afternoon.

       Amal has been waiting for her to come out. He clasps her and pulls her onto the bed. Libidinous after being assured of her physical glory, she yields. She now lies on her back with Amal on her, kissing her beautiful eyes. The sun’s gone down, the usual refreshing breeze from the Ganga blows, and Nilu remembers her first encounter with Jyotirmoy in the hotel room in the cold December in Shillong. ( continued on 14^th August 2014)