Some Friends Are Forever

Chapter – 3 (MITA : The Sheer Bliss Of Adolescence)

“Hello, may I talk to Rathin Bhattacharjee, please,” the singsong voice at the other end queried.

I was listless. The lass had been calling me on and off for the last one month and try hard as I might, I couldn’t trace the owner of that melodious voice, for the life of me!

She would call me, ask about my day, talk to my people at home unfuzzled, and liven up my day! One day, she surprised me no end by singing a song from a latest Bengali movie:

Jato bhabna chhilo, jato swapno chhilo/ Sab dilam tomai, tumi nebeki amaei?

(All my thoughts, dreams are yours now. Will you take me as well?) God! It is really difficult to recapture those magic moments of adolescence after all these years. To say that I was simply stumped by the unbelievable voice, will be an understatement! What was even more interesting was the way she would tease me.

“Hi, I’ve been thinking of you all day. I can see you in the faded jeans with that checked shirt tucked in, lying in bed (I literally jumped out of my skin and started looking across the garden at the house in front) but there was just the Club Room, dusty, with the paints coming off, latched from outside! There was another house at the dead end of our galli (by lane). I doubted if anyone could see me from any room of that house as the bed I was lying in was completely blocked from any interfering eyes!

That day when Baro, the wife of my first cousin glided in, I handed the phone to her and introduced the stranger. Baro and she hit it up like they were meant to be one another’s Ja (sister-in-law)!

Till the end of our telephonic relationship, we remained two love-birds, least bothered about what the world felt about us.

Back in the real world, I was leading Mita to my Ma’s room. Oh, sorry. I forgot to introduce you to Mita, the girl, who many of my people, thought, would be Mrs. R.N.Bhattacharjee one day. How do you describe such a vibrant lady, graceful, full of the joy of life? I find I am wordless at the precise moment of bringing her alive on this page. 

Mita, was my brother’s student pursuing Honours in Bengali from a reputed college in Gariahat. She resembled a Bengali actress of the day down to a T? I still remember the two postcard size photos she handed me once. When I showed it to a relative, she refused to believe me, stating that the photos were the photos of the Bengali movie star, Debashree Roy. I thought it best to keep mum.

That afternoon she was talking to Ma like the old lady meant the world to her! Ma was extremely fond of her too! Their love for one another was mutual. Anyone would have seen that!

I had scores to settle though. I took Mita to be the stranger teasing me on the phone those days. I HAD TO FIND OUT. I had already identified the song “Jato bhabna chhilo…” from the super-duper movie, “Bhalobasa, Bhalobasa” starring Tapas Pal and Debashree Roy. If Mita was the teaser, I’d sing (I used to sing a lot in those days regardless of the place, people or whatever!) another popular song from the same movie. Let me watch her reaction intently, I thought to myself. If she was the one, she would give in. She would do something to let me know that the lass, who had stolen sleep from my eyes and left me clueless, was none other than Mita.

She was still completely engrossed in the conversation with Ma. Both of them were alive and enjoying their talks. It was time, I thought, to make the cat out the bag:

“Khopar oi golap diye, monta keno eto kachhey dakley..?” (Why have you endeared yourself to my heart, handing that flower from you hair?) 

I was expecting her to leap out of Ma’s bed, do something silly to let me know that the game was over. I should have known her better. She kept talking to Ma, sitting beside her, as calm and composed as she normally was! Then, casually, turning to me, she remarked that the song from ” Bhalobasa, Bhalobasa” was getting very popular. That was all there to it! End of the topic!

A few days later, she sang another song at my request:

Pathjhar shawan Basanti bahar,

Ek baras ka mousam char, mousam char.

Paanchma mousam pyar ka intejar..( Sorry, my competency of Hindi doesn’t let me dare translate it into English). But the song was all about love, longing and the pangs of intejar, waiting.

Mita proved to be a great friend or should I call her a family friend instead? Everyone loved her as her De ja vous was infectious. People like Mita come to touch your life for a brief while and by the time you realize their worth in your life, they are gone so far away from you that you are left with nothing but some enriching memories that keep you going when the tide is high.

I can write pages about Mita and my friendship with her but let me keep her entangled in two chapters for the time being. Let me now delve on another incident featuring her that no novel, no book can ever replicate…!

Mita knew all my relatives. Be it my nephew and my best friend, Subho, or Bhaiya, the brother of his sister-in-law! She was a friend to everyone. Subho Bhaiya and Mita became first friends. Natural, because we three were close buddies and Mita was turning out to be my best friend. I don’t know how it happened but one day Bhaiya told me that he was falling for Mita. Now, let me tell you, dear reader, that I never looked upon myself as a lover material. I loved making friends with the fairer sex, and that was all there about it.

India is no America. We Indians have our own culture and values. We don’t gloat about our conquests of the opposite sex. There is so much to Life other than taking someone to bed! We believe in relationships, friendships and a lot of other things. So, when Bhaiya bared his heart to me, I simply pitied myself. Bhaiya after all was turning out to be a charming young man.

So far as Subho was concerned, he was not all that much into Mita. But the truth of the matter was that we all liked this vivacious beauty. So no sooner had Bhaiya bared his heart, the three of us closest buddies had a round table meeting. I knew I had to act the eternal Devdas, the sacrificer!

At the end of tbe meeting, we decided to leave the choice to Mita. We ALL THREE would propose to her. Let her choose whoever she thought was closest to her heart! God! Now looking at those fun-filled days of adolescence, I can’t help smiling to myself. Real life is very different from Reel life. In reel life you may have the heroine facing a dilemma between two wooers. But there we were, three desperados trying to make life difficult for this girl with a pure heart.

As we were on our way to drop her home after the coaching class with my bro, I was the one who decided to bring up the topic to her.

“You know, Mita, we all three have had a talk. Finally we decided that we would leave the choice of selecting one of us as your life partner to YOU. The other two WON’T mind, we promise you that. We won’t be the proverbial pain in the as-. But choose one of us you MUST.” I thought I was very smart in conveying our decision to Mita.

I was a child even at 20! I never thought about the fix we were putting her in, her feelings and all. Sweet-natured as she was, she recovered from our revelation in quick time. By the time, she looked at me, I had no inkling into the whirlwind going on in her mind at that precise moment.

I lost Mita, my best mate on that night.

Three months after the incident, Mita came to 41 one afternoon with her mother. She had a wedding invitation card in her hand.

To be continued…