Kill You,Sure

                   Kill You,Sure

                                                 Nidhu Bhusan Das

           Bithi’s on her way back to Dhaka to spend the summer vacation with parents. Now in the region of cloud, she’s very much down-to-earth, instead of being ascending high in dream. “Kill you. Kill you, sure. What does it mean,” she thought and remembered,” Heard ‘killjoy, but it’s noun and ‘kill’ is a verb, the two cannot be the same, can they?” She isn’t sure. She knows one meaning of ‘fire’ is to dismiss from job. Is ‘kill’ has such a meaning? She’s puzzled, she’s contemplative while the plane’s nosing its way down the cloud-way to destination where her parents are waiting to receive her. When he tells her “kill you” he wears a gentle smile and maintains inviting eye contact. It isn’t grim like that of a killer. The difference’s significant. Really. She understands it. Yet she’s clueless. She felt the urge to contact him right now to ask what he meant. But her cell phone’s in airplane mode. The cloud’s floating on the vast expanse. She’s smiling in the sun, looking for someone she wishes to meet, maybe it’s a rendezvous with someone she loves. Her eagerness suggested that.Bithi doesn’t have any such eagerness. She isn’t jealous of the floating lover. She doesn’t have such tenderness for anybody. Yet she cannot but dwell upon the tender warning “Kill you”. Anik repeats the warnings every time he meets her at the Department.They’re doing Anthropology at JNU. Anik Lal’s from a kulak family of Hariyana.The grand lineage and heritage are the pride of their family, and wouldn’t shed their greatness at any cost.Bithi doesn’t know this. In fact they’re in the early phatic phase of their interpersonal communication. But the smiling face of the Aryan face of the boy often surfaces in her mind.

          At theShahajalal International Airport lounge Anis and Reba Chaudhury frequently look at the watch with their ears cocked to the announcement for the landing of the Air India flight from Delhi.Bithi comes. It’s a great joy for them …their only child and cause of pride. She’s beautiful; she’s different having academic excellence.

         Bithi read Dickens and Tales from Shakespeare, Saratchandra, Manik Bandyopadhyaya, Tarashankar and science fictions, City of Joy and Da Vinci Code. She analyses them in the social context. Her interest lies in sociological study. If you talk of something romantic she, unlike her friends, would say digging the past and looking into the future flashing forward as in science fiction is romantic. To her, the story of Romeo and Juliet is romantic because it takes her to the ancient Roman world and feudal pride and feud there. On 20, she hasn’t till now understood the primrose path her friends are eloquent about. But right now the warning “Kill you” intrigues her. Available dictionary gives the literal meaning, and she cannot find it compatible with what Anik might have meant.

         The pilot’s announced they’re hovering over Dhaka and it’s time to land. Bithi’s meditation’s ceased. Her parents have pattered into her mind. She comes out of the plane and looks around to see the parents who wave to her. The brief time for customs clearance seems to be hours to the girl and her parents. This is affection, she understands, and that much. She rushes to the parents and kisses them. They’re now on the latest version of Toyota Raum which heads to their beautiful bungalow at Uttara, a posh residential area in the burgeoning mega city. The hitch’s the traffic snarl which slows down the movement to tortoise-pace. However, it couldn’t slow down the tender interaction between the daughter and the parents.Bithi’s all praise for the academic environment at JNU and the fast life outside the campus. The openness at the campus, a knowledge hub, is the primary experience of the girl she’s eager to share with her parents. The sultry summer hasn’t come in their way of a lovely chat in the AC car. Summer’s scorching now in ever expanding Dhaka which brims over.

        Bithi jumps out of the car as it’s pulled up in the driveway in the symmetric bungalow.The gardener Prafulla, the cook Mariam and domestic helps Rabeya and Rafique are the other residents in the complex. They’re a happy lot, and don’t feel aloof from the Chaudhury family.Bithi’s also their loving child. Her return has brought no less joy from them. She skips along the driveway and hugs the exotic plants that adorn the huge lawn.

“Come baby, let’s go in. We’ve the evening to be here for tea,” calls Reba like she calls a school-going girl. Her papa takes her hand and patters up the stairs to the drawing room followed by others.

Lolling on the sofa Bithi fondly says,” Mom, am I still a baby?”

“You’re and will always be to us, dear –our little child,” says Reba fondling the daughter.

“They call me little Bangladeshi!” Bithi giggles.

“Is it? They’re right, perhaps,” pokes the father.

“You’re so naughty, papa. Silly it is, you should say.”

“They don’t know you’re the little mom of Anis Chaudhury, right?”

“Maybe, how should they? Am I like a mom?”

“You aren’t, true. Just 20, not the time to be mom. Yet you’re our sweet mom.”

“But not little, at that!”

“Little of course when it means ‘dear’. Aren’t you dear to us?”

“Everyone around knows I’m your dear dear baby.Papa, is there any such out-of-the-way meaning of ‘Kill’ when someone says, probably endearingly, ‘Kill you, sure’? They use it in the campus.”

“Let me think, mom.Is it love? Not sure. We won’t tell so, your mom and I.At Harvard! You know, jargon differs from place to place.Could you guess anything, dear?” asked the father, eager, to understand.

“I haven’t. Trying.”

Mariam calls,” Lunch is ready. May talk at the table.”

“Well mom, get ready, have a quick bath. What’s there, Mariam, for my mom to have for lunch?”

“Pineapple ilish, katal kaliya, chicken curry…”

Bithi rushes to the bath tub, with tongue watering. She’ll have a real Bengali dish after a gap of three months and that too at home with mom and papa. ( continued on 2 July 2015)

*  Dear readers,
This is my new novel for your consideration. please read,comment and share.Also give suggestions.