Connected by the Dots

by Tapan Mozumdar

“Your telegram,” said Baro Mama, pointing to the left as he entered the drawing room. “There, on the top rack, below Desh magazine, got it?”

Dipen was concerned. He didn’t trust the telegrams for any good news. The last time he got one was five months ago. He had lost his Kaka. A year ago, in college, it was from his father, informing his Dida’s end. Occasional good news, such as one confirming his appointment, came last January, but he was expecting it anyway.

It was late September.  Autumn had arrived in Bengal. Sharadiya magazines, harbingers of the Durga puja in Bengal, were at the stalls. Dipen was a practical man, but his Bengali mind couldn’t deny the excitement that the sight of such magazines and the bamboo skeletons of Durga puja pandals brought to him. It’s not some divinity but a dear guest who was coming for four days, he felt, as she did every year.

The day-long shift in the Merchant Mill of Durgapur Steel Plant had sweated his juices out, but when he tore the telegram open, adrenaline rushed in to compensate for that loss.

“YES”, it said, in all capitals. About a week back, after working on a long poem till dawn, his sleepless passion had filled up an Inland letter. He had copied the poem there, written about its triggers and his fears if the poem came true. He had ended the letter with an inane “Can we call ourselves lovers now?”

The single word that he read countless times had the answer. From a distance, a Dhaki upped the tempo of the beats he was practising.

Panchhi banoon, udti phiroon, aaj gagan mein  – Mama’s trusted Bush Transistor was playing Radio Ceylon.

The Universe seemed so connected!

Juni, Juniper, June… her name tap-danced in Dipen’s mind. Mama had his company-allocated flat on the ground floor, not so well-ventilated. The still day had mercifully released a little southerly breeze. Courtesy that, he watched the pattern that the streetlight crafted through the window curtains on the opposite wall. A few curvy edges of shadow and diffraction of the diffused light waltzed to the beats of Dhak, in synch with the spasms of the breeze. The wild aroma of Shiuli flowers sneaking in through the open window added an intoxicating effect to the cup of piping hot tea that the maid had made for him.

“Coming for the rehearsals?” Mama asked, putting on his favourite chikan kurta.

Mama lived alone for most part of the year as Mami spent months visiting her various prosperous siblings. For company, Mama had asked Dipen to stay with him during his ‘Trainee Engineer’ stint with the Steel Plant. Dipen liked his company. They had long hours of conversation on films, literature and theatre.

“Not today.”

A sudden load-shedding deepened the darkness at the end of the twilight hour. The darkness set the right mood for humming and remembering. Dipen got his feet under a bedsheet to ensure that such bliss didn’t get disrupted by the mosquitoes. Mama left him alone.

Dil dhoondta hai, phir wahi, fursat ke raat din – the radio had its batteries to give him company.

—————————-

Ten days later during lunch, Mama handed over an Inland letter to him. It was her second letter in a week. Dipen had not opened the last one. He was still buoyant with the “yes” and didn’t want to exit such stupor. Two letters in a row made him worry. Did she wish to correct her yes through these letters? He decided against opening the second one as well.

Dipen had met her during the rehearsals of an aborted play at the IIT. His visits to her room in the Girl’s Hostel started for the reading sessions. Her room had a homely charm that beckoned him for an escape from the anarchy of the Boys’ Hostel. It used to be dotted with ethnic artefacts, littered with books. The sound of light classical music filled the air. Dipen often overstayed the scheduled visiting hours. The long chats and the longer silences dwarfed the time.

“That I come unannounced to your room, you don’t mind, I hope.” Coming to the Girl’s Hostel always made Dipen feel like Captain Kirk from Star Trek, “to boldly go where no man has gone before,” even though there were many other adventurers as well going to the girl’s hostel, but mostly for a “relationship”. Dipen had no such pretence, or expectations.

“That you come unannounced is what I like about it.”

—————————-

Unannounced, she had decided to travel all the way from Kanpur to visit Shantiniketan. Knowing her, it would have been like a pilgrimage. She was a huge admirer of Tagore and other Bengali things. Dipen couldn’t tell for sure whether this was triggered since she began to know him.

“Will you come with me?” she had written in the third letter that Dipen received the same week and had to open to trivialize Mama’s curious looks. He blamed himself for doubting her ‘yes’. He took out the two unopened letters and read them. She had written about her visit over the week, citing all the places she desired to see during that. Her decision to travel didn’t seem to be dependent on his confirmation. He noted that her date of departure from Kanpur was the previous day and she was expected at Durgapur that evening.

Dipen complained to his manager about a giddiness that he was truly feeling. He never knew that unannounced joy can have such a physical effect. He got himself a half-day leave. The next two days were holidays due to the Mahalaya and the customary Sunday.

He purchased a Shantiniketan style jhola and filled it with a couple of T-shirts and a pair of undergarments from the local Benachiti market. The jeans he was wearing could keep its freshness during his travel time. For the first time ever, he purchased a deodorant that claimed to accentuate manliness. Other essentials, he was sure, he would get in a lodge or a hotel. He left a note with the security guard of Mama’s office and took a Minibus to the station.

In 1988, young folks, howsoever in love, didn’t hug or kiss. Keeping with the times, when Dipen found Juniper descending from the S-6 compartment of Delhi Express, he expressed his happiness by offering peanuts from the packet he had just purchased.

“I was not sure you would come.” Juniper picked up a peanut and cracked the shell open expertly.

“You are crazy!” was all Dipen could make up.

Musafir hoon yaaron, na ghar hai na thikana – a new singer named Kumar Sanu had just released an audio cassette of Kishore Kumar songs. It was fast becoming the rage with the bus drivers and conductors. Juni had put on her favourite eau-de-cologne. Dipen’s deodorant mingled with his sweat. Sitting in the long distance bus next to Juni, en route to Shantiniketan, their fragrances intertwined to create a heady concoction, Dipen hummed along with the song .

“You have a good sense of tune,” Juni nudged him lightly. Feminine touch could do unexpected things to a man raised in conservative Patna. In his case, he dropped the newspaper he was holding.

“What are you carrying a newspaper for?” She chuckled.

“Oh! It’s an old habit while travelling. You can sit anywhere using each page of this fat piece, helps to keep the dress clean, you know?”

“I never knew poets can be this practical.” He knew her love for his poems. She got ecstatic with every poem he wrote for her.

“I am an engineer as well, dear girl!”

The rush season of the Durga puja vacation was yet to start. In the government lodge, they got one room easily. They waited for the other, to keep their conscience clean.

That night, before they parted to sleep in their separate rooms well past midnight, Dipen knew that he needed just one move to consummate their romance. He wished Juni made that move. Juni, perhaps, expected the same of him.

—————————-

“Listen, listen – horns from a bus – heard? From such distance, even horns sound so musical, na?”

Juni’s feet were deep into a muddy puddle of Khowai. It looked like she had read a lot about Khowai to know where to find this isolated spot they were sitting at. Since it was just after monsoon, Khowai was not dry. The river got its name from the erosion that its flow had caused through the centuries on the red earth of Birbhum.

The quiet that followed the passing of a bus and their own tentativeness was soon broken by a cuckoo.

“The birdie has started on his mating season quite late,” quipped Dipen.

“All you can think in this heavenly place is mating?” Juni giggled.

Quickly, her giggle got hysterical. Dipen had to hold her head and kiss her lips to stop that. She closed her eyes, caging the moment there forever, held Dipen close to her and rested her head on his shoulder.

“What if we stay here forever?” Her eyes were moist when she opened them and looked straight at Dipen’s.

Juni seemed impatient, but Dipen knew his commitments. His father had withdrawn the last of his provident fund savings to fund his graduation. He would need 5-6 years to build some reserve to start a family. His mother had fallen sick missing him when he had left for the hostel. She sure would display many more tricks if she heard that her son was in love with a Christian girl from Kerala.

“Why not?” he murmured.

Dipen realised that the water hyacinths trapped in the tiny puddles around had the same fragrance that they conceived in the bus, together. He held Juni’s hand tightly in his palms. Truth could wait.

Aajkal paon zameen par, padte nahi mere – a Durga puja pandal had begun to test its loudspeakers quite early.

Pic from https://www.flickr.com/photos/mryrbnsn

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