Chapter Two How deep his wound was he could not realize as his anger was stronger than the feeling of pain. When his anger would drop down to zero point, his pain would well up, and flood his heart. Would his anger burn his heart, his love to ashes? Would his pain make him come back to her overflowing the blocking stones? Would he be blocked by the stones? Or bounced back somewhere between ash and pain? Only time could say for sure. Bilas got on the crowded bus like a western storm through the open window, stepping over the helper. He squeezed through the people to find a little room to set his foot, held the rod, and hung like a helpless monkey nowhere to go. His little finger hurt while he was holding the rod. It was red and swollen. It took some seconds to make out why. The blow on her check was severe and violent. He felt sorry. Enough is enough, he thought. This chapter is closed forever. He could not let his life wander through sad smoky days. His life must not be tethered to the gloomy past. He wanted sunny days brightly shining his every nook and corner. He wanted to be happy. This return journey in the crowded bus crashing his love with a violent blow was like a passage from sadness to happiness. No, he would never try to open the page that was shut up forever to be a sad slave to his emotion again. Passengers were getting off, getting on at different stoppages, but he was not aware of it as the word emotion settled on his heart , and fused with the blood to spread through the vein all over his body to make it wet. He was emotionally wet, but he could not cry. Very few could. ‘It takes courage to cry in the crowded bus,’ the wave whispered slapping at the shore of his heart silently. What the hell had he got loving her? Nothing. Even she would not let him kiss her before marriage. She always hung the warning veil on her eyes that said before marriage touching her, kissing, loving her was a sin. Only once long ago, at the beginning phase of their relation, after three months exchange of love letters , she agreed to meet him in a secret room watched by a bribed friend with a mysterious smile on her lips, it was exceptional. There were some other exceptional too. In Alta Vavi’s room they were soaring up passionately like an arrow in the sky forgetting their whereabouts. He unfastened her pantaloon, and it dropped to the floor. Pulling her hair that was blinding her sight up, she saw him unzipping his pants. It was only some moments they would fuse together, but an abrupt thunder bolt shuttered that spell. ‘Buli !!!!!!’ Shahana Apa appeared at the open door like a shadow. Buli squeezed past her quickly to hide her shame in the books. She was a student of class eight, and was the first girl. Was her mind shaken to change her open track into an infatuated eternal urge so that number one girl would be lost into a bushy mass of common people? Number one cannot be always the number one. There are turning points that turn the number one into a guinea pig, and a sorry figure. Always so. Shahana Apa cast all her hatred at Bilas with her two cold eyes when she saw him standing with his head bent down like a criminal. She left silently. She must not spread scandal. Besides, the cold stream that runs between the families froze her anger to a curled up ball ready to bounce back in a favorable time. At that moment the bribed friendly house wife, Alta vabi, was busy taking her bath in the fishy river. Alta vabi met Bilas secretly at the river ghat where the giant hizal tree drops silently its small pink flower on the river. While Bilas was twisting grass with his hands like his guilty feeling, Alta vabi whimpered. ‘They hung her, and whipped her with bamboo twigs. Ah, the innocent girl!’ She wiped her tears with her evening hand. ‘What have you done to her?’ ‘Nothing!’ he said indifferently. ‘My relation is broken with them now. They will look at me with poisonous eyes. I am sick to think that she will not be allowed to come to my house anymore.’ She rubbed her watery nose. ‘I should not have let you do this. It was my fault.’ ‘No!’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Because she loves me, and I love her.’ ‘So what?’ ‘I will marry her.’ ‘What? ‘Yes, and right now.’ Bilas stood up. His eyes sparkled with wild determination. He would go straight to their house , and pick her up. Alta vabi blocked his way. ‘Don’t be mad. It will only make thing worse.’ ‘I cannot let them torture her.’ ‘Ok. What about your family? Your father will not accept you.’ ‘I damn care my father. We will go to Dhaka, and work in the garment factory.’ ‘Then wait, and let her come round.’ Alta vabi left. Bilas walked aimlessly here and there. He was restless, and there was a pain in his heart as if some one was piercing a blunt pin continuously. When he came across a friend, he looked up at his pale face, and asked what was wrong; he simply said nothing to avoid him. He bought cigarette, and puffed a thing he had never done before. Dead at night he stealthily went to Buli’s house, and stood before her room to listen if he could hear anything. No, she was not awake. Then he checked their secret place where they post letters to each other. It was empty. He posted a letter for her. Next night he went again to check the brick under which they post their letters. No, she had not taken it. He was disappointed, but he put another. He went there seven consecutive nights and posted a letter, but in vain. Not a single one had been picked up. He went mad to contact her, to have a look at her. He went to Alta vabi, but she snapped at him not to disturb her anymore. Then, on the tenth day, he saw her fetching water from the tube well when he was going to bazaar. As soon as she saw him, she threw hatred at him from her eyes, and walked away quickly. He was hurt. Then he tried to talk to her on her way to school, but she avoided him as if she had never seen him before. And there was hatred in her eyes, not love. When all his attempts were failed, he could not understand why she was behaving so strangely, he gave up, and went to Dhaka. The bus jerked to a stop. Passengers exchanged hot words with the driver, conductor and helper while they were getting off. The bus had gone out of order as the brake failed. They were waiting hotly to shift into another bus for the remaining distance. The conductor paid the fare back. Bilas floated up from the blue sea of his past like a diver who had gone deep, deep into the bottom to look for lost valuable things, but had to come up feeling the unexpected jerk at his chain from above. He got off with his sore finger, walked to the nearby stoppage without taking his fare back. He took a cup of tea to wet his dry throat, smoked a cigarette, and got on another bus. This time he got a seat by the window. He looked out to see his moving past. The passing air whispered of her young smelly beauty while she was going somewhere. Mouthy bubbles talked. Dreamy eyes glanced. Her eyes had the depth of the southern see, wavy with sudden intelligent spark, her breasts curved like twine pyramids, her slimy waist that held her swaying moony bums while she walked slowly with her mysterious seductive power she looked like a fairy. Her hair was the shadow to be lost in. Forever. Bilas could still remember her first day when she went to school holding the finger of her brother Labu. She looked like a doll. He caressed her affectionately like his own little sister. He bought chocolates for her. That was the beginning to infuse the sweetness of his love, innocent brotherly love that everybody shows for the small babies. When Bilas heard the mouthy whisper of her beauty, and looked at her with his lover eyes, she was a young woman, and was standing by the krisnachura. She understood his gaze, and smiled her first woman smile. That night she discovered her free open space of movement suddenly changed to forbidden territories, easy Bilas vai was not easy to talk with. That night Bilas blamed him not to discover her early. And they played hide and seek from the next day. He wrote the first letter in a big rose petal heart, ‘I love you!’ She replied tearing off the Mona Lisa from her text book and bordering her with, ‘I love you!’ The bus that was crossing the heart stopped at Niribili. Bilas got off with his swollen finger. His sad painful heart dropped blood on his angry hot pan, ‘Enough, I must forget her. I must get married in three days.’ He vowed.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Jul 2013 12:06:30 +0000
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