It started with a fail

“I am going to watch Kaho Na Pyar Hai today,” Tithi said hurriedly. She was trying to catch her breath in between.

She ran to Purna’s house just to give her this essential piece of information. She left soon after riling Purna, pouring water over her ebullient morning.

Purna sighed inwardly and strolled back to their verandah. It is the only place in their house that she loves most. She resumed her floor asana and started peeling nuts. Her mother left for Ritu Kaki’s house half an hour ago. She decided to stay home and not go to college today. Her mother wanted to stay with her, but she insisted. After what happened yesterday, she could not walk to her college on her own. So, these innocent nuts are getting derobed as she refused to stand inside the laboratory. Today’s experiment could have been dodgy for her heart.

She heard Tithi screaming adieu to her mother as she left. Purna could see her from here. She was wearing a peela suit, the same design that both of them saw in a magazine last month. Purna’s mother did not let her buy the piece as it felt too filmy. But Tithi bought them after shedding buckets of tears.

Purna walked to the kitchen and pulled the heavy-bottomed kadai out from the lower shelf. Their kitchen exists right in front of their parents’ bedroom. And the second bedroom, which used to belong to their grandmother two years back, is now her and Vaidehi’s room. The passage of their house runs through the room only. The verandah is just in the front, which is lit throughout the day.

The haphazard design of their house dates back to the family feud that divided the Bose family, and those who share blood vowed to never see each other again.

Her uncle Brijmohan bought this piece of land sometime between 1985 87. No one remembers the exact date now. Though Purna and Vaidehi believe that each of them remembers, they just do not want to discuss it, because everything has changed. Though it is Vaidehi and Purna’s father who built this common-walled house brick by brick, the land belonged to his elder brother.

The feud was venomous, and the relationship between brother and sister never stayed the same.

Their alley is quite populated. There are ten houses in total, which stand together. There used to be a huge banyan tree at the beginning of the alley, close to the pond. A few summers back, when she was in school, a cyclone wrecked Bengal. It was the sacred thread ceremony of her elder brother, when dust and loud thunder washed the city. That night haunted Simulpara.

People were stuck in trains and buses. Many died, and the number of injured people went up. It was not just a calamity, but left people with a never-fading scar. The front page of every newspaper was occupied with different tales of casualties, leaving people in cripple in aspects of life. It was not just houses, roads and lives that rain and wind changed; everything was affected.

That night, that humongous tree, which had been nesting so many birds in its branches, broke. It was uprooted from its roots and fell on the road. Three days were taken by the Panchayat people to remove the corpse. Their Simulpara had both a Panchayat and a municipality. Their house is on the other side of the Palash River, which was under the Panchayat. Still now, when watching movies on DVD players is getting popular in every home, things happen more slowly when measured.

She put nuts in the pan for dry roasting and walked to their washroom. The new floor almost made her not spill water on them. But she had no other alternative. She needed to wash her hands and feet before getting inside the Puja Ghar. She changed her clothes and wore the saree her mother keeps as puja wear.

She has an oval face, and her eyes are crooked at the corners. Her lips are thin. This is something both she and her sister, Vaidehi, had from their father’s side. Her mother had thick lips, which look way more attractive when she curls them. Purna is tall and has broad shoulders, but a thin, stiff neck. Her legs are thinner than her hands. This is the reason she does not wear jeans. It makes her appear lanky, which she hates. She prefers heavy salwar and saree over Bollywood tops.

She marched to the puja ghar after trying to adjust her hair strands. She gave up after her initial attempts were futile. She sat in front of the marble Sinhashan and looked at the idols. She lit the diya and closed her eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Feel it or not, Kareena Kapoor is setting a new standard,” Purna sighed as her friend Anu was blabbering beside her.

After a week of evading, she finally showed up in college. She wore her jeans and only the kameez of her blue salwar suit. She did not want to wear a salwar kameez when all her friends were wearing jeans with tube tops and tank tops. Again, because her mother is not comfortable with those westernised outfits. She only sees them in Bollywood magazines, scrunches her nose, and that’s it.

Purna often doubts if she is the same woman who used to be a fashion icon in her college days. And that was just the 80s. Purna felt marriage had changed her mother, and that fact scared her.She sometimes feels annoyed at her mother for becoming a different person. Normally, people change over time. But her mother sometimes sounds like Bakul Kaki, and sometimes like her dadi. She even feels like them.

So, trying those different outfits is still difficult.

“Do you want to check out the New Market?” Anu’s eyes were shining. Purna knew that she would head to this plan soon. She had known Anu for the past ten years. A new girl arrived after summer vacation when they had just started fifth standard. Purna was reminded of the small smile that Anu was showing her that day as well. She has this warm, radiant smile that emboldens people. She has never been an exigent person. And that made them two best friends.

“And what about classes?” Purna narrowed her gaze. “I have been absent throughout the week.”

She could not manage to bring herself here. Every day after waking up, she thought about coming, but again retired to bed. She felt scared. It was yesterday that she found out from her mother that Sayan and his family had been going out for a week.

It is their mandatory Digha trip. Sayan’s mother’s hometown is Kanthi. Since their school days, they had a ritual of visiting the town during the summer. Sayan’s dida died a month after the marriage of his mother. And his Dadu went to live with his other family. The house got sold.

It has been more than twenty years, but the ritual is still observed.

“Let’s attend a few in the beginning and then leave.” Anu kept on persisting. Reluctantly, Anu agreed in the end. One day, bunking class would not make her fail in the examination.

They attended two classes, brushed their hair in the washroom, grabbed their bags and hopped the first train they found at the station.

Purna was worried. She has never skipped any class. It is not just because she is scared that her mother will scold her, if she learns about it. It is because she herself does not enjoy skipping classes. Her heart was throbbing hard inside. It is difficult to comprehend what Anu is thinking. Because all of a sudden, the girl has dunk her head down.

Purna is worried.