The Fifth Rebellion – XIII
The story of a youthful rebellion that might sound like a “love story” in part, but isn’t.
In response to her short query, asking me to state my purpose for being at her front door, I repeated exactly the same sentence I had used the last time, asking if I could see Mohtarma.
Her eyes focused and then sharpened on me. It was an inordinately long moment of indecision, but in that long-stretched moment I didn’t detect the puzzlement I had seen on the young man’s face on my last visit. Or the disapproval I had expected. I could almost hear the machinery in her head rattle and shift gears (excuse the slight exaggeration) as she thought what to do next. She was probably trying to string the right set of words to send me away, I thought, and waited for the go-away sentence to surface.
After the long, thoughtful pause, she cast a quick glance into the corridor and, in what felt like a set of resolute movements in rapid succession, took a swift and sure step forward, unlatched the front door and held it open. “Oh,” I nearly verbalised my unadulterated surprise. With another quick look into the corridor she nodded me in.
She led me into the front-most room of the house (the drawing room was long way down the corridor) and politely offered me a seat. The books, notebooks and papers strewn all over indicated that this was where she studied. She seemed to be preparing for the board exams for Class 12th. So about two years younger than us, me and Mohtarma, I guessed.
After I sat down, she disappeared inside the house without another word — to get Mohtarma, I thought. It seemed to be going way better than I had expected. So far there was nothing hostile around me in stark contrast with what I had imagined. And then it flashed to me that I had not thought of what I was going to say when Mohtarma entered the room. The “if” seemed to have pussyfooted out of the equation without notice for the moment. But only until the girl reentered the room with a glass of water on a tray. She sat the tray down before sitting down with a polite smile. I took the glass and a slip. She let a courteous moment slip before she spoke.
“Didi to hain nahin… wo apne ghar hain,” she said. Okay, so she was indeed the (or ‘a’) younger sister, but ‘apne ghar’? I looked at her, puzzled. She quickly added, “Umm… wo unki shaadi ho gayi na.” “Oh, achcha,” I said. I was in second year of graduation, and since we were in the same class (not the same school, of course), she could also be only an undergraduate. Married already? What was the tearing hurry? Those were my first few thoughts. The visit was certainly not going the way I had thought in more ways than I could have possibly imagined. There was a brief silence because having disclosed what she considered relevant information in the given circumstances, she probably didn’t know what more to say, and I didn’t know how to respond to it because I didn’t have any particular feelings about it. I just remember being utterly perplexed at her unusually early marriage but didn’t think it proper to ask.
“Okay, I’ll get going,” I said and got up to leave. She nodded and stood up. “Umm… wait,” she said as I turned to go. She was standing by her desk. She pulled up a notebook, tore a piece of paper off the notebook, bent over and quickly scribbled something on the paper and handed it over to me. “Her home number. Call in the afternoon. Didi hi uthayengi,” she said. I nodded and stepped out. She closed the door behind me. This time I didn’t ask if I could return because as far as she was concerned, I clearly could, and as far as I was concerned, I wasn’t going to.
Although the cause of the rebellion, so to speak, had been served, the second visit had raised many more questions because of the unexpected reception and the news of Mohtarma’s early marriage. Clearly, a lot had happened between my two visits and I did not — and do not — know for sure exactly what, but there were only so many possibilities even though those possibilities could occur in many different combinations with drastically different results leading to what I knew had ultimately happened — the early marriage.
From a general, wide-lens perspective, this is what had happened: A guy met a pretty girl in a coaching class; was on talking terms with her briefly; much of their exchange was academic; coaching ends in a couple of months; and the guy comes visiting the girl at her place, uninvited and unwelcomed. What’s the easiest and commonest way for a girl to explain the imposition to her family? “We just met in the coaching, talked a little about a few maths problems, nothing else. Don’t know why he came. We were not even friends.” It is exceedingly usual for a guy to be unilaterally “interested”. And that fits perfectly well with her ignoring the two letters I wrote. That’s why I had expected a cold, even hostile reception on a rebuff. Here was a guy clearly crossing an inviolable line, and deserved a cold rebuff. I was quite prepared for it. What I wasn’t prepared for was the reception I, in fact, received.
I had the number, and could call (in the afternoon) to ask what happened. And I did call eventually but not to ask.
…to be continued
