There weren’t too many people on that railway station, given how
small it was and how infrequently trains stopped there. She was already
dreading the excess baggage which she’d got from home. Eatables, spare grocery,
woollens for the far-fetched winters, fragile gift items as gifts to future
friends she’d make and the list went on and on. She was already regretting
being called the ‘responsible’ and the ‘organised’ one in her family.
Twenty-two years old Meera was struggling to keep her stuff from falling when
she noticed, form the corner of her eye, a kind face smiling at her.
“Do you
want me to help you?” a young man offered help. The home-inculcated alarm
alerted her instantly- “don’t talk to strangers and refuse all offers for ‘help’!
You know what they will eventually lead to, Beta!”.
“No”, Meera said, “thank you though”. She acted against her wishes, she
realised she did want his help, not because she couldn’t manage her stuff but
because she impulsively imagined his company to be a relief from the long
tiresome journey she’d had. Her thoughts were interrupted by a chuckle. It was
the same man again- “Alright then! Tough-independent-woman and all that jazz?
Do take care though” and he started to walk away.
He reminded her of a guy she
used to like years ago, probably she still did. He had the same laughter. Would
it be too much if she told that stranger just how familiar he seemed? She
decided to concentrate on getting to her new institute, the famous Florence
Institute of Arts, where she had secured a full scholarship and was going to
pursue her Masters in cultural-studies. How proud she was of herself! She never
really got the time to congratulate her own self since the university had
declared the results. It was her dream institute, situated in a sleepy hill
station Maleguri. She started moving towards the exit. Little did she know her
whole life was about to change in those two years. Upside down. Irreversibly,
unknowingly, unintentionally and irreparably.
Shyam, 35 years old, a newly appointed cultural-studies lecturer at
the Florence Institute of Arts was a jovial young man who, after completing his
doctoral research at the University of Birkbeck in London, had consciously
chosen to spend his next few years in the sleepy town of Maleguri. His interest
in the cultural studies was a subject of amusement for men around him in India.
Being an Indian man, he was expected to become an engineer, or maybe a lawyer, doctor,
chartered accountant or some other ‘masculine’ professional. And what does
culture have to do with being ‘manly’?- they used to say. Upon having received
world-class education and exposure to philosophy and arts, he knew that if he
wanted to settle in India, which he fully intended to, he could not live in a
conventional native surrounding.
He had heard about the Florence Institute of
Arts before and it seemed like the perfectly customised choice for him. He had
been divorced once from a French wife and today she met this young lady who reminded
him exactly of her. She was clumsy too. Fidgety much, but beautiful. He usually
would have offered to help her a second time had she not resembled his ex-wife
so starkly. Laughing to himself, he walked out of the railway station but his
thoughts were still stuck on the young female struggling to safeguard her
luggage. He guessed she would have refused the second offer of help too. Little
did he know that she wouldn’t have! His life too, just like Meera’s, was about
to change soon. Very soon.
