All You Need is Love

| Debarati Chakraborty | July 2024 | Short Story |

Saswata was the best thing that happened to me, in my otherwise humdrum life. Before I met him, I thought love was ever elusive, bestowed upon the privileged. I was too strait-laced to be chosen in matters of the heart.

Then, Saswata happened. He was the ideal partner, tall and handsome, his wet black hair combed to perfection with fragrant styling gels, wearing the most sensual aftershave, the contours of his six packs peering invitingly from beneath his translucent white shirt. He was someone who made women swoon over his youthful looks while impressing men with his suave mannerisms and great oratory skills.

It was not just the physical aspects though. He was a great listener who gave me space and respected my freedom. While other women complained of feeling stifled in overbearing relationships, Saswata had this Bengali intellectual charm about him, which knew how to offer advice without sounding opinionated, how to enchant while never possessing. We looked up to each other with a covert admiration, conspicuous to only a select and observant few.

We would spend winter afternoons strolling through the by lanes of College Street, smelling books, browsing through pages of bestsellers, making stimulating conversations over the plot and prospects of a new author. Finally, after enjoying the old-world charm of the Coffee House, we would step out into the nippy evening.

“So where were we, Pragya?” … Saswata would slip his arm over my shoulder, drawing me a little towards him, before we resumed the last bit of our intriguing conversation while waiting for the Rajabazar B.B.D. Bag tram.

We did have our share of arguments too, albeit more on matters concerning the world at large. After watching the premier of a Bengali art film at the Annual Film Festival at Nandan and hobnobbing with the film critics from different dailies, we would earnestly look for an unoccupied bench under the canopy of the Shirish trees in the open campus while homebound birds chirped, twittered, and warbled about their nests right above our heads.

Then, we would regale each other with our respective takes on the piece of art that we were so enamored of.

Balancing a burning cigarette expertly between his lips, Saswata would slump right beside me holding two cups of steaming hot milk tea, dying to share his perceptions about the story, the technique, the cinematography, and the prospect of any awards that could follow. After all who could beat a Bengali when it came to brewing a storm in a teacup.

“Pragya, I know you are simply blown away by Ray’s style and mannerisms, but I tell you Mrinal da would have treated the characters in a different light altogether.”

And then after taking a long sip from his paper cup he would smile indulgently, “What do you think?”

I would listen to him with rapt attention. How I adored that flush of excitement that blazed through his face, the intensity of his gaze while he mused over the areas of his passion: Cinema. Art. Kolkata.

Surprisingly we had an uncanny alignment on our life goals too. We wanted to keep fit and eat healthy and travel the world and save up enough to retire to the house atop the mountains, where the clouds drifted in and out of the grid-free windows all day long. We never intended to have children.

Saswata and I agreed emphatically over the last bit. Although there were people around me, especially women who advised me otherwise. To love children and to have one’s own and make them the cornerstone of a happy marriage was the ideal kind of life by Indian standards and they opined, I dare not make an exception. Although I had nothing against motherhood, I abhorred the whole idea of the mess that it would summon in my otherwise orderly life. I had seen how my sophisticated colleagues had metamorphosed into fussy, grumbling, anxious and worrisome mothers once they had kids. I found the whole idea agonizing and detestable. Even the sight of a messy house, piled up dirty linen, food crumbs all over the countertop, spilled milk smelling of mold and above all a restless kid crying the world down, terrified me. How I loved coming home to my tidy room with spotless sea green curtains accentuating the olive shade of the walls. Where, after a warm bath, I would brew myself a cup of Darjeeling over the Borosil tea pot gifted by my mother; and in between long sips, I would resign to Robithakur, while Chopin played away softly in the background.

At that time Saswata and I were both journalists with ‘The Daily Oasis’. He was with the sports section while it was my job to ferret out daily scoops for informative and bingeworthy headlines. I often had to travel deep into the suburbs for good coverage. On one such occasion, while covering a breaking news on the declining quality of mid-day meals, I met Noori, all of four years, a regular for mid-day meals at the “Nobogram Sadharon Pathagar”. As all the other kids flitted in and out of the recess area that served the simple meal of rice and dal porridge with specks of paltry veggies, Noori crouched by the kitchen door with a resigned face, waiting for her turn. She had large questioning eyes, bright but doleful, disheveled hair hanging loose on her temples, an unclean face and wore an oversized frock that certainly was not hers. Just before packing up, I reached out and asked her name. She cowered more towards the corner and that was when I spotted the bruises and scalds on her hands. Ones that looked partly like burns and partly like she was caned mercilessly.

“Who would, for the love of God, cane a child her age?”

I lifted her chin and asked her who would come and fetch her, to which she trembled a little but kept looking at me with a pair of wistful eyes that soon filled up with large teardrops. 

“No use talking to her, Didi,” one of the volunteers offered.

“She barely speaks any more than her name. Noori comes by during the free meals, and ravenously shoves down all the food we offer. She leaves as quietly as she comes. No one knows where she belongs”

“…And no one cares” … I reasoned in my mind.

As my car zoomed past the lonely and empty school, I couldn’t help looking back from the rear window. Noori had got up and was now standing by the school gate, clutching its dusty worn-out railings like they were her only resort in the whole wide world. There was something about the sepulchral air of the scene and surroundings that shifted something inside me. Forever.

Halfway along the drive, I made the annoying discovery that I had forgotten the lens cover of my Canon DSLR during the site visit. I knew it was late but driven by an uncanny impulse I instructed Ganesh, my driver to reverse the car.

As dusk fell steadily, we drove past paddy fields and across small village homes resounding with the sound from conch shells. My mind was a strange maze of disarrayed thoughts. The sight of a four-year-old with large brooding eyes that had a mix of hunger, pain, fear, and tenderness came back again and again and troubled me in a strange way. It filled me with a deep sense of foreboding I never experienced before.

When I reached the school premises it was already night. The school building looked desolate and hollow, the darkness stripping it off the life and laughter it embodied during the day.

There was not a soul around. I instinctively located the hallway by the canteen, where the crew from my team had assembled that morning, and there it was; the letters ‘Canon’ etched in fluorescent white, glowed from the back of a big black lens cap under a plastic chair.

Almost instantly I noticed an unsteady glimmer of light from a “lompho” that came from the chowkidar’s room on the other side of the passage. I would have taken leave without wanting to trouble the tired soul at this hour, if not for a strange sight that beckoned me from the door that was left half ajar.

 There was Noori half bent over a bowl from which she picked strands of puffed rice stuffing them zealously into her mouth with both hands, the skin from her bare legs glistening in the yellow light from the lamp. She was not wearing the tattered frock either, maybe to escape the heat. I instantly remembered what the volunteer had said,

“The Chowkidar is a generous man. He gives her dinner whenever she comes by his room at night.”

The Chowkidar was indeed a generous man. His inebriated hands touched Noori as she ate. It swept over her bare shoulders, her petite arms, her undernourished frame in what didn’t seem to be very affectionate strokes.

My mind teetered on the edge of conflicting thoughts; the good, the bad, the true, the untrue, the real and the illusive.

“Leave her alone,” I tried to yell. My voice quivered and sounded hoarse, loaded with pent up fear.

The chowkidar was jolted out of his reverie.

“Madam, Aap? Abhi?”

By then I was already by Noori’s side who was looking up at me with the same doleful eyes, her expression blank but acknowledging.

I yanked her out of the Chowkidar’s one room shanty taking her by her tiny hands that still grabbed at some puffed rice. I kept running with her in tow, till I reached my car parked outside the school gate.

The child limped and fell behind me twice, I didn’t know whether from fear or injury.

***

I managed to call up my senior that night still very much in shock from all that had transpired. She gave me a patient hearing never for once interrupting. She said she would contact Child Protection Services in the morning to discuss the next steps.

I did not have the nerve to call Saswata.

“I will put her into an orphanage as soon as I can get in touch with the right people,” I assured him when he came by the next morning upon my request.

“It may not be as simple, Pragya, what if we don’t manage to get her a shelter home?” Saswata reclined on my Tahiti three-seater tan-brown sofa that I got from the great Amazon sale last year, casting rings of smoke from his cigarette, a behavior characteristic of him when he felt anxious.

The disapproval of my outrageous doing was obvious in his tone. I knew I was offending him but for the first time I felt an urge too strong to resist, even if it meant breaching our joint vow, a sacrilege of sorts.

For the time being, I decided to shift my focus on Noori and make her comfortable till whatever time she would be at my place. Maybe she never got a feel of a home in all the four years of her tiny life.

It was not easy. Noori sat resigned on the floor of my living room and decided not to budge even with all the temptations that came her way. Things that would enliven any other kid her age. As she overslept in the morning, I had stepped outside and shopped for talking dolls with real hair that could be combed and remote-control cars from the supermarket on the other side of the street from my apartment. I got her Ferrero Rocher and blueberry ice-cream.

Noori was uncannily silent for her age, a veil of permanent despondency drawn over her petite face. She would not allow me to touch her, comb her hair or change her ragged clothing. She would cower like a hurt animal looking for a safe cover when anyone got so close as her shadow.

I decided to let her be. Till she acclimatized to her new surroundings.

When I brought her lunch, a humble home cooked Bengali comfort meal consisting of rice, lentils and alu posto she was fast asleep, resting her head on one of the hard wooden legs of the dining table. I called her by her name and after a few failed attempts she stirred.

The surprise came right after that. Upon opening her eyes and seeing me, she let out a frightened gasp and blurted out “Nahi maaro”

I was aghast. The poignancy of her response left me startled. Who could have treated a four-year-old so mercilessly to render her this vulnerable?

Eventually she came to her senses and quietly ate all the food that was offered, my glances weighing heavy on her, which she cautiously avoided. Nevertheless, I felt disconcerted the entire day.

“Child Protection Services would come in for a home visit in a couple of days and pick her up. They would then escort her to a safe place”. My senior assured over a call. She certainly had good connections with the right people.

That night Noori slept on the small makeshift bed in the living room made with sofa cushions arranged in a row. Once she was asleep, I cleansed her dirty face with cotton dipped in rose water. I applied an ointment on the blemishes of her hands that had turned knotty from clotted blood, the skin crinkled and broken at the edges.

Saswata called me again the next morning enquiring for updates. For some unfathomable reason I reserved the part about Child Protection Services from him. Instead, I said it would take time. Such things took time. He advanced an excuse for a cricket match and canceled the dinner date we had planned at my home.

While I spoke with Saswata, Noori was glancing out of the kitchen window. She quickly lowered her gaze and tried to escape when she saw me. I was resolute this time. I took her hand and led her to the open verandah and offered her a bowl of fresh watermelon. To my amazement she accepted the bowl and started helping herself to the ripe red fruit, occasionally licking the juice off her hands to stop it from trickling down. It was obvious that she loved watermelons.

I stroked her hair while she ate, pushing some unruly locks behind her ear and she looked up at me sans inhibition for the first time. Sensing this was an opportune moment I enquired more about her perpetrator.

With a mouthful of the juicy sweet fruit, she looked up at me naively and whispered with all the innocence of a four-year-old,

“Amma.”

Inside my chest an ocean heaved and crashed and heaved again.

“How could a mother do this to her child?”

That night I slept beside her on the floor of my living room. I kissed the nape of her neck while she was asleep, making her flinch. After a while she stuck out an arm and clutched the trail end of my dupatta. She slept peacefully all night while holding on to it.

Saswata called the next morning. It was becoming a ritual. I did not have a plausible answer to his queries.

“Pragya, you are stretching this a bit too far. It is ridiculous that you haven’t made any progress yet in matters concerning handing over the child to the authorities.

Can you tell me what exactly is going on inside your mind?” He hollered over the phone.

I kept silent till he hung up, flustered.

I was not able to comprehend my own emotions, I was only a witness to their breaking free from whatever I thought was my orchestrated path.

***

Noori talks more, these days. The blemishes in her hands have healed considerably after a few doctor visits and I have been reading to her from “Thakurmar Jhuli’ as a daily bedtime ritual. She sleeps cozily by my side on my single bed by the window which opens to a canopy of trees. I will think of getting a bigger bed when she grows up a little more.

Noori’s custody was not the legal quagmire I imagined it to be. Only a few people showed interest in abused children with a disability.

Waking up beside her every morning is as liberating as starting a new life. Upon waking up and seeing me by her side, she beams and then slowly sits up on the bed and cups my face with her tiny hands. It is I, she whispers, who she loves most in the world. It gratifies me beyond words.

My breakup with Saswata was uneventful, as we drank ginger lemon tea sitting on one of the forlorn benches by the lake. Children were never his thing, and it was I who had broken the rules. The evening sun had cast long shadows on the sidewalk and itinerant birds were on their way home. I needed to be home too, for Noori feared the dark.

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_{Debarati Chakraborty is a writer from Kolkata. Her short stories, flash fictions and memoirs have found a place in numerous online and paperback magazines and journals like ‘Muse India’, ‘Ethos literary Journal’, ‘Readomania’, ‘Earthen-Lamp Journal’, ‘Kitaab’ to name a few. She is working on her first novel and blogs at debaratipens.wordpress.com. She has a three-year-old daughter who inspires her every day to appreciate the little joys of life.}

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