My Sis: Through My Eyes (29)

Chapter – 29 (Suspicion, the Great Relationship Ruiner)

I have so much going on in my head at present that I do not really know how to leave one topic to address the more pressing one. How did all those great writers of yesteryears write so voluminously? Writers like Tagore, Tolstoy, Tennyson?

Anyway, let me try to focus on the work in hand. I called my Sis this morning. She is aware of the fact that I haven’t recharged my Airtel Unlimited Pack as I wanted to enjoy the free 10 GB gift offered to me unconditionally for the next one week or so. I will try to find out then if Life in the 21st century is IMPOSSIBLE without Airtel or not. Sis didn’t pick up her call even after the fourth ring. As expected, she called me back almost immediately. I chatted with her over the phone about my interview yesterday for TCS ( Tata Communication Service ) and the happenings at the BPK (Brittee Prashikshan Kendra). Of late BPK has become a happening place in the true sense of the term. Only the other night, at around 10.30 at night, so did Sis tell me, she was driven to the gates by the noise. One look at the three bikers and Sis knew there was trouble brewing. There were a couple of more bikers waiting outside the gate. Sis also informed me, in a casual manner, that all three of the bikers inside the premises of the BPK, looked like real trouble mongers (Cutthroats, Bodyslitters?). Without so much as a preamble, they straight away asked for ‘the three boys’. Sister was courageous enough to ask the reason. The ferocious looking bikers with the murderous look in their eyes then showed her a video recorded in their mobile. The three inmates of the BPK were found to be enjoying themselves in a local ‘mela’ (fare), completely boozed. One of them was even found to be teasing a local lass passing by. The problem arose due to this as the locals treat their women almost reverentially. Sis somehow promised to do something about the miscreants. A thorough search was made inside the hostel for the three boys. All three of them were found to be missing. The goons, sorry, the menacing bikers, left on the condition that the three culprits would be handed over the next day. No sooner had the men with murderous intentions left BPK than the three culprits emerged from no where. Sis was naturally livid with anger. On enquiry, the boys told her that they were hiding in the roof of the hostel and had seen, along with the other hundred plus inmates what had transpired between Sis and the Goons. By the way, while the big, boisterous bikers were braying for the three boys’ blood, the other hostellers had all come out on to the courtyard stealthily and taken their place behind Sis. If anyone dared lay a hand on their favourite ‘Didimoni’, they would not let him go away unscathed!

Well, to cut a long story short, the latest I know of this incident is that the parents of the three boys were called and their wards were handed back to them. (There is another story here, but narrating that will completely drive me away from the topic of this Chapter, which is, Suspicion.

As Sister was about to hang up the phone to begin her battles at the hostel, I asked her to write down all these unbelievable happenings at BPK. Sis told me she had no time to jot down all this as her day begins at five in the morning and ends, on most of the days, at two in the night! It was only then that I told her what had my head caught in a cesspool lately. How my Sis is about to ruin life due to one of the greatest vices known to mankind – Suspicion. I know there are other evils like Anger, Greed, Envy and so on, but no evil can be so self-inflicting and self-torturing and relationship-ruining as SUSPICION.

I guess till now I have tried my best to be honest in the portrayal of my Sis. She is a great human being and many will vouch to that. I never suspected her of being suspicious till she left Arunda, her husband. One great proof is, had she been suspicious, she would have easily caught me doing a thing or two utterly bad things in my adolescence. We are very close siblings after all. She was more of a tom boy in her childhood and made friends with boys, men and the likes of them without any fear or fervour. That doesn’t mean she had no girl friends. Very few 41 Deblaners, especially girls, had such varied girl friends of all shapes, sizes and senses as Sis did! So, when one is looked upon as a good friend by all and sundry, one has to have some qualities. And one such quality may be that the person has to be devoid of suspicion. For none likes a suspicious friend, right?

Sis got married early (against the family will, remember?) and spent 36 glorious years of conjugal life under the care and protection of Arunda, a person, I could have written an epic about, had I known him all that intimately. ( If he happens to read this writing of mine, let me just tell him that I have rarely loved a man more than him and he shouldn’t forget that these men include my Barda as well.)

You ask anyone at 41, and unless that man is a complete failure socially, he will readily admit to Arunda being a good human. He must have loved my Sis a lot to shower so much love on us. And don’t you forget, dear reader, that ours, I mean, my late Baba’s family was really large! How such a man could become a villain in the eyes of my Sis, is simply beyond me. When I asked her last time about it, she replied: “Do you think I’m such a fool, Bappa, to have left such a secure overhead roof behind…?”

I had to keep quiet as I didn’t know the answer. But my heart tells me she is completely WRONG about Arunda. She is wrong because the third party involved is also a dear relative, who would have been treated differently had my Bardi been alive today. Arunda, as is his nature, did, from the beginning, a lot for my nephew when he was in the last stage of lung cancer. They were close friends. He even accompanied my nephew with his wife to Bombay for his treatment. After the sad and sudden demise of my nephew, who could have been a Manager of SBI by now, had he been alive – when her wife was struggling to come to terms with the stark realities of the world with a son aged only seven, Arunda must have been an exception. Instead of talking big like most of us do, Arunda must have been the moral support that the widow of my nephew needed, desperately. If the widow showed her gratitude afterwards, that is no reason why my Sis, should be pointing a finger at her and calling her character to question. The lady had lost the husband she gloated about, in her thirties! Good upbringing mandates that one should have some respect for this fighter of a lady in the Bhatta Family. Some respect for our deceased nephew ( I am sure that I won’t get to see a handsomer man in this life), and finally, have some respect for Arunda for there can be few better human beings in today’s world than this gem of a man. I can at least expect my Sis to be a bit different from the masses and be able to judge a man on his true worth, can’t I, Sis dear?

Please do not slight or slander God’s Grace that He showered on you two, unasked. Please also call up to mind the thirty or so years of blissful married life that you two were fortunate to have. Some couples spend a couple of years of happy lives and then when the dear ones are snatched away by a cruel stroke of fate, they spend the rest of their lives not by blaming God for the injustice of it but by thanking Him for letting them at least learn the true meaning of Love and Life. Make amends, while there is still time, letting go of your ego ( Unfortunately, Arunda also suffers from this vice). Don’t ruin your tomorrow regretting what you could/should have done today.

P.N: If I have hurt anyone by this jottings of mine, I offer my sincerest apologies.