Rudali felt sapped of energy as she looked at the computer screen. ’64 new messages,’ it said. Most of them were from her so-called ‘fans.’ Some thought the dictionary had no words to describe her newly released novel.
“Madam, it was one of the best pieces you wrote. English vocabulary will never find a word to describe the superb writing flow and the unexpected climax. The way it got unraveled was marvelous indeed.”
Yet another guy thought she should give up writing. “I could guess the end in the first chapter itself. This novel didn’t play any trick on me, at least. Wonder what my brethren are up to, calling this one of the best works of Rudali Sen.”
Neither did the former mail exhilarate Rudali, nor was she disheartened reading the latter. Such myriad views had been part and parcel of her life for over a decade. Twelve long years, to be exact.
Couching on the cane swing in the verandah, Rudali closed her eyes in pursuit of some solace. She liked the new apartment she had shifted into this morning, but despite the advanced manifold technology, no one had found a mechanism to erase haunting memories with change in place. Those unforgettable memories would not leave her to rest in peace.
More than a decade had elapsed. The day, however, seemed to surface with greater vigor today, as it happened on some random days for obscure reasons that Rudali could never find out.
He had stared deep into her eyes, holding her hands, and spoken words that sounded taut and rehearsed. “I have too many ambitions to pursue, and I cannot be saddled with your love,” he said, shaking his head. Then, slowly but steadily, his hold on her hands loosened.
“I hope you understand. We need to move on. I wish you the very best.”
He searched her eyes for inexplicit dejection, but Rudali could vouch; he found none.
She wasn’t heartbroken when he broke the news of ending their two-year-old relationship. She was somewhat prepared for it. Yes, but she was angry—mad at herself for being so susceptible to falling for a worthless guy like Anshul.
Rudali wasn’t stirring. He hugged her as a parting formality. For a brief moment, she felt the love that had been a part of their life for the past two years. Composing herself, Rudali pushed him. “Leave,” she said.
As if Anshul had been waiting for this command, he turned and walked away quickly from her threshold and her life.
At 24, life had taught Rudali a bitter-sweet lesson. She had been far too naïve and immature to judge someone by their appearance. Anshul’s alluring personality, further accentuated by his six-pack abs and a genteel complexion, had set her madly in love with him. He worked as a sub-editor in the same media house where Rudali had joined as a freelance reporter.
Despite repeated warnings from her colleagues, Rudali got thoroughly involved with Anshul. A couple of years into this, she soon realized he wasn’t half as serious as she was. The news about his affair with the chief editor’s daughter reached Rudali. The ‘Ambitions’ he was talking about were nothing other than tying the knot with Avantika. He had been smart enough to go in search of greener pastures. She would make his concrete steps on the ladder of success, as Avantika was the only child born into a wealthy family with a silver spoon in her mouth.
‘The clock of life cannot stop at your will. It ticks on merrily. You have to keep pace with it.’ Rudali’s mother’s wistful words while on her deathbed reverberated into her ears. She had brought Rudali up single-handedly.
Certain relationships in life are better left unexplored. Rudali never made efforts to unearth any details about her father. Rudali knew her mother would not have maintained a staunch silence if it was worth sharing.
When Rudali was in the final year of her graduation in Mass Media, her mother thought it was the best time to leave her and embark upon her journey heavenwards. ‘You should learn to face the world alone from now on,’ She gasped for breath and lost her battle with cancer.
After some initial struggle, Rudali landed this job where she was destined to meet Anshul.
‘All good things come to an end,’ goes the saying, but should she term her encounter with Anshul as ‘good’?
Struggling to become an established novelist, Rudali moved far away from the place that held nothing more than bitter feelings for her.
Rudali had mastered the art of living alone, though living only on one’s terms and conditions wasn’t always welcome. Sometimes, one nearly felt the need for someone to restrict one’s moves. That may have irritated Rudali if it had happened, but when that nagging wasn’t a part of her life, she secretly yearned for it.
There was no specific time to drive Rudali to bed or push her out of bed. Well, if she was late for work, she skipped breakfast. If she was early but felt lethargic, she made noodles. There was no set pattern Rudali needed to follow to appease someone. That was getting monotonous, but then Rudali brushed aside all the sincere advice that her best friend Rhea gave.
“You swear that you do not care for what a guy called Anshul had done to you, so why don’t you bury the past and find someone?” Rhea sounded worried.
“Look, we are the same age, and I am married and settled with a daughter. It makes a lot of difference in life. You start living for others. I may not be a career-oriented female like you, but I am happy. In my husband’s and daughter’s happiness, I see pleasure. You must find someone and marry. You need not give up your career.” Rhea had given a good sermon, but then Rudali was unfazed.
“Perhaps there is an advantage in being alone,’ she remarked. ‘One is spared the worry. I need to worry only about myself.” She shook her head. “And I have learned not to worry overly about myself. What is the worst that can happen, after all?” She looked up.
Rhea gave up pursuing the matter five years ago. Rudali smiled, thinking that Rhea’s daughter would turn six this month. ‘How time flies!’ she sighed.
Rudali was jolted to the present by the buzzing of the doorbell. It was the milkman in her new house.
“Memsaab, I will come every day at this time. Is that fine?” He grinned, exhibiting a set of betel-stained teeth. “If you have any problem getting up early, you can leave a bag with the milk coupons outside your door. I will drop the milk packet.” He was a veritable house of ideas.
6.15 am was a perfect time for Rudali to wake up and get ready. She nodded, implying that this timing would be OK to answer the doorbell. The milkman smiled and left.
Rudali got ready to leave for her work. Today, she had to discuss a new novel with the sub-editor and had plenty of official work. She strolled fast towards the metro but suddenly stopped halfway, spotting someone.
Rudali never thought she would ever fall in love again. The new environment had pushed her to confront someone and had triggered the feeling of love in her otherwise barren heart.
Rudali had to admit that there was something inexplicable about him that immediately attracted her towards him.
Love happens when you least expect it. When someone needs attention, care, conversation, and laughter, love suddenly creeps up on them.
Love does not follow logic, for even though this guy didn’t fit Rudali’s age category, she couldn’t stop falling in love with him. It was because of those eyes, in the depth of which seemed to be embedded a story describing solitude very much akin to hers but tactfully camouflaged with a permanent grin.
He stood at the bus stop and kept smiling. His smile was so enchanting that Rudali found herself getting lost in eternity. In the blink of a second, a bus screeched between them and devoured him.
‘What is wrong with me?’ Rudali wondered. She could think of nothing other than his lovely countenance and those deep eyes that had some hitherto untold tale concealed.
Probably, her loneliness was desperately seeking to close its chapter. Rhea was right. She had said a time would come when one must have a companion. ‘Solitude bites hard at you,’ she had wistfully stated.
They say with age, your perception also matures. Looking at him, Rudali understood that, like her, he was despondent and would only be happy to find someone like her in life. However, Rudali could not just rely on her discernment. It needed to be established.
‘What if my intuitions were wrong? How could I be so sure no one was associated with his life?’
She took an off from work for the next week and meticulously began tracing his footsteps. He stood at the same bus stop every day with a group of friends. He was a stalwart in the crowd. He stood there with the same smile on his face.
He got out at the opposite bus stop in the evening, and on the fifth day, after making sure this was his timetable, Rudali followed him to see where he lived, though by now, she was almost sure where his abode was. As she had expected, he entered a two-story building at the end of the winding lane behind her house. She knew then and there that he had no one in this world.
He was also alone, like her. After all, her instinct was right: They would make a perfect pair.
The following morning, Rudali found herself seated in the sofa set of the vast drawing room of the building where he had entered the previous evening. A lady in a green sari ushered her into another room, where a middle-aged female was sitting.
“Hello, madam. I am Rudali Sen. I stay just behind this lane.” The lady listened to her politely, inquisitiveness writ large on her face. She asked, “Are you interested in adopting any kid from this orphanage?” Rudali nodded.
She had come prepared with all her details, as she knew they would be needed for the procedure. The lady browsed through Rudali’s papers and smiled contentedly. A brief session followed with yet another gentleman who was the chief of the orphanage, and they were convinced about her intentions.
“Come, let me show you around. Today is a Saturday and a school holiday, so all the inmates will be here. You can select any child; we can then begin the formalities. It will take a fortnight,” she added as an afterthought. Rudali followed her, not showing she was only looking for a particular child.
Walking through the corridor, she found him playing with some blocks. Rudali had made her choice.
The lady sat across her chair and opened a register in the office. “You should know details about the kid and his parents. In some cases, we are not aware of the parentage. We, therefore, cannot do much about it. Still, in cases like Animesh, wherein we have details of the parents, we are bound by the rules of the orphanage to inform the person willing to adopt them.”
Rudali genuinely wasn’t interested in that. She had fallen in love with this kid and had decided to take him home. Whether he was the offspring born out of wedlock or if his parents came from a financially poor background and had left the kid in the orphanage, unable to raise him, whatever the reason, she had nothing to do with it.
However, the lady seemed determined to part with details about the boy. She had to abide by the decree of the orphanage.
“He was born to affluent parents a couple of years after their wedding,” she twitched her lips remorsefully. Rudali’s eyebrows rose involuntarily as this fact unraveled.
“How come here then? Did they meet an untimely death, an accident, or something?” Rudali quipped, getting a little curious. She was not sure if the parents were still alive but was making her assumption that affluent parents wouldn’t leave a kid in the orphanage.
“Untimely death, of course. This boy was hardly one year old then. However, it wasn’t an accident; it was suicide.” This aroused Rudali’s anxiety.
“They were embarking on some huge venture,” She started turning the register pages to find his registration details.
“And then a treacherous cousin, who put up a scene of meticulously working with them, backstabbed them, and they were reduced to paupers overnight. Not able to repay the various loans availed for the business, the couple took this harsh decision. They hung themselves from the ceiling fan of their drawing room, leaving this kid all alone.”
She had found the page in the register where the photographs of the parents with their names were registered. She pushed it towards Rudali and said, “Here, look; they were called Anshul and Avantika. Animesh’s maternal grandpa left him here with these details when he was himself counting his last days.”
For a moment, the words fell into Rudali’s ears like molten hot lava. Her eyes turned misty as she tried to peer into the page to see the boy’s parents closely.
Animesh was standing behind her when she had closed the register. “Come, Animesh; this aunty will take you home in two weeks.”
The boy, all of eight, again flashed that lovely smile that had enchanted her, and now Rudali realized why she was so engulfed in his smile and so very drawn to him. It was the same pair of eyes that Rudali had deeply looked into and lost herself years ago. It was the same smile that had bowled her over completely ages ago. Yes, she had fallen in love again.
After Anshul, there was this guy, Animesh, the other man in her life.
Rudali walked home a changed woman and mentally began preparing a timetable she should follow after a fortnight.