There are days the tiredness comes in both forms, physical and mental. There's a kind of tired that needs a good night's sleep, and another that needs so much more. For Anirudh and Bondita, one became the other, they needed each other as much they needed to rest their worn out mind and bodies, but the thought of the unforseen future, the lurking danger, and of their family's whereabouts, made sleep a far fetched dream.

"You need to get some sleep Barrister Babu." Bondita was combing her fingers through Anirudh's matted hair.
"Things would definitely look brighter tomorrow morning. We'll find a way, trust me, we will."
Bondita continued, and her words were like a sweet lullaby to his ears.
And, it was in no time, she felt Anirudh's breathing regularising into a calm softness.

The man needed a break... He needed to be off trouble, for once in his life!

Bondita had closed her eyes too, lying beside her husband on a hard mattress laid on a corner of a dampened large room, a bedroom probably, and the last thing her eyes counted were the ancient wooden bar on the ceiling.

The night was finally drawing it's curtains.

..............................................................

"No... No...Kaka... Please, I need another boudi, do something..." The eight year old boy was in tears, sitting on his bed, he had sank his face in the cotton pillow, sobbing uncontrollably.
It was only a couple of days that his elder brother had married a small child, same as his age, shattering his lifelong dream of getting a 'mother'. He had never seen his mother, and in a way had always craved for one. Although his uncle had always been a caring guardian, but secretly the young boy had always wished for the warmth of a mother's bosom.

"She is your Boudidi Batuk." His uncle had sighed, looking away from the wailing child.

"You... You said when Dada marries, his... his wife will be a mother to me." Batuk sobbed, "but this girl is a tyrant... She... She ate my pastries yesterday... She... She broke my pencil." Batuk was rolling on the bed in acute heartache.
"How can she be my mother Kaka... I'll never have a mother now..."

The wailing continued and Zamindar Trilochan Roy Chowdhury sat by the boy's feet for sometime, in silence, letting him cry, before he finally decided to speak again.

"She didn't break it intentionally Batuk. Give her some time. She's new here... You should be kind to her."

"No... No....I don't want to... No..."

Trilochan exhaled sharply looking at the flushed face of his little nephew, and suddenly it felt like a mirrored reflection.
He too had cried the day his elder brother had married, he too was a child then, but slowly that same new girl had become his biggest confidante, the bearer of his secrets.

"Batuk... Listen... You need to..."

But Batuk hadn't listened. Instead, he had jumped down from his bed, and stormed out of his bedroom, climbing up the staircase in a great urgency, and... and it wasn't long when Trilochan heard his loud sky piercing cry, capable of shaking the walls of the Haweli.

"What happ... Oh my god!"
Anirudh had reached before, and he saw his baby brother lying on his stomach on the stair steps, with a broken hand and a broken tooth, his mouth covered in blood.

...

"Two days in the household and see what you have done."
An old widow house help was frowning at the small girl standing at one corner of the kitchen with her long saree held up in her hand.

"What have I done?"
The little bride rolled her eyes, not scared to establish her points.

"My... My... " The house-help patted her forehead in disbelief.
"A new bride, and look how she talks!!" She gasped, "have you no shame girl?"

"Why should I be ashamed when I haven't done anything wrong... and why would I not talk? I'm not dumb... Also, you didn't tell me what did I do?"
The little bride was standing with her hands on her waist. She had come to the kitchen in search of food, but this unnecessary attack made her appetite vanish.
"Maa was right, the richer the people are, the poorer they behave with others." She pouted her lips and walked back slowly, heading towards the only place where no one would stop her, and there would always be something to eat... the durga temple!

...

Batuk was lying in his bed, his eyes closed, and his mind dwelling in between a state of visions and awakening. His hand rested on his chest, bandaged, and was suspended to a sling tied to his neck.
Batuk was crying, even in his dream, he felt the pain of being robbed off a mother's love. His tender heart unable to bare the agony of his crushed dreams... The dreams to be touched by a warm tender hand, someone who would brush her soft fingers through his hair, someone who would feed him... Just like Ganesh's mother.
Why was he so unlucky? Why? What would he not do to feel that touch again, the touch that he had felt on his head in his dreams... a vague, but a soft red saree, and jingling of bangles, and those wide red sankha Pola, those red alta tinted fingers... Yes, his mother's touch, almost real, almost... as if he could feel it, the soft fingers caressing his hair gently, the warmth of the palm searing through his skin, making his heart full with an overwhelming happiness.

"Maa..."
Batuk smiled in his dream, his eyes closed, as a small tear rolled down the corner of his eyes, fading in his hairline, and then... he felt that soft touch again, wiping his tears, his heart cried out loud to open his eyes and see her once... his mother! But, his awakened conscious told him that she would go away, like always, the moment he opened his eyes.
Batuk exhaled, now awoken completely, yet pretending to sleep, fearing to lose the reminisce of his dream... But, instead, the touch felt more palpable, more tangible... real!

"Maa..."
Batuk couldn't contain his anxiety anymore. He opened his eyes slowly, fearing the worse, but instead he was greeted with a lovely sight... the red saree was very real now, it had a thick yellow border, the jingling of bangles felt like a music to his ears and then he saw her... sitting by his head, her large eyes looking down at him, her long eyelashes fluttering in a gentle rhythm...
It was the same small girl... His Dada's tyrant wife!

She was smiling at him brightly.

"You can call me Maa if you want to." The child was applying something cold on his bruised forehead. Batuk wanted to resist, but it felt deliriously good.

"What are you doing here?"
He asked her instead, softly.

"Why? I'm applying Sandalwood paste on your wound. Maa would always do that to me whenever I fell from a tree."

"You can climb trees?" Batuk's eyes had widened, as the little girl nodded her head enthusiastically.

"And, you have a mother too?"

The child nodded again, but sighed.
"Not any more. She left me."

"To the gods?"

"No... I don't no where... But I miss her."
Her voice had cracked and Batuk saw glints of tears in her eyes, reciprocating the burden of the same pain that he too had shared.

"Are you upset with me? Like everyone else?" The girl had suddenly asked.
This was the first real conversation that they shared.

"I thought... I thought my boudi would be my mother, Kaka told me she would be..."

"You can call me Maa if you want."

"No. You are a small girl."

The girl rolled her eyes.
"I'm NINE years old!" She emphasised on the number, proclaiming her seniority.
"I've heard you're eight."

"I'll be nine soon."
Batuk looked away, and sighed when the girl started to speak again.
"You don't know Dhabali, do you?" She asked him, and Batuk nodded in negation.

"Dhabali is our white cow." She smiled fondly. "So, I used to milk her everyday, and then I used to keep a small bowl of milk aside for old Ramdas."

"Who is Ramdas?" Batuk asked, earning another eye-roll from his sister-in-law.

"Uff ooh... You don't know Ramdas? Arey... he's that old man who sits under the huge Banyan tree in my village..."

Batuk nodded in agreement, despite being clueless of where her village was, and she smiled.

"So, old Ramdas had no family, no one actually... And, I used to give him one bowl of milk everyday... And you know what he used to call me?"

"What?"

"Maa...!" The little girl smiled.
"So, you see, age isn't the problem."

Batuk tried to sit up, and his new sister-in-law held him with her tiny hands, guiding him to lean back against a pillow.

"But, I want my mother to be someone bigger."
His complaints were getting weaker every minute.

"How big?" The girl raised her hand and held up in the air in a measurement. "Yee big?"

Batuk nodded, and saw her stand up on the bed at once, her hands on her waist, and she grinned at him happy.
"See, I'm yee big now."

Batuk was grinning too.
All his pain suddenly seemed to be less inflicting.

"What's your name?" He asked her, and she sat down once again.

"Bundi... And yours?"

"Batakrishna Roy Choudhury."
Batuk smiled proudly, suddenly he had so much to tell her, to show her... starting with the old mango tree in the backyard which he always wished to climb.

"Oh... Like that... Then I'm Bondita Roy Choudhury." She folded her hands on her tiny chest and looked proudly at him.
"And, I'm sorry for breaking your pencil yesterday... I didn't mean to, I was just trying to draw and then..."

"It's alright, I have many." Batuk smiled gently.
"Bondita, what have you tied in your saree?"

Bondita narrowed her eyes and then widened them, making her eyes look like that of Maa Durga, or so did Batuk think.

"Ohho... I had completely forgotten." She opened the knot tied on her saree and laid it out on the bed.

"Mowaa!!!"
Batuk cried out.

"Yes, and Sondesh." She smiled. "Wait, let me feed you."

Batuk sat still with his broken arm, while Bondita fed him the sweets, one bite for him, and two for her, and they argued over the count, and all at once the sad gloominess inside the household changed into lively banters, the happy ones.

"Batuk, mother or not, I'm the only Boudi you'll ever have, alright?" Bondita had pulled up a serious expression on her little doll-like face, and Batuk had nodded obediently.

"I understand." He had smiled.
"Friends?"

"Friends... Always and forever."
She had hugged him tenderly with her tiny arms.

"Always and forever." He repeated back.

......................................................

"Haven't you slept all night?"

It was almost dawn when Bondita had woken up from sleep, as she came out of the room in search of water. There were boys sleeping on the floor outside the room, hurled up, and there was Satya sitting on an armchair, leaned back, his eyes closed and a book kept opened on his chest.
He was sleeping!
And, then there was Batuk too... Sitting on the open porch, his eyes sky-bound, as if waiting for the sun to come up.

"Batuk? Why haven't you slept?"
Bondita asked again and he turned around, smiling at her.

"Sit, would you?" He patted on the seat beside him on the porch and Bondita took the glass in her hand and sat down on the raised brick platform.

Both sat in silence, looking up at the sky, their thoughts diversified, but their souls connected with a common thread.

"Do you think... "

"Kaka and Rudhi..."

They spoke up at once, together, and the subject was the same.

"Yes Batuk, that's the only worry eating me up." Bondita sighed.
"No matter how strong I'm pretending to be infront of him, but inside, I'm just dying... My baby... My baby girl is away and..."
Bondita's voice choked up and Batuk let out a sharp sigh and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

"Rudhi is fine, boudi, and so is Kaka... You understand me?"
He had pulled the crying woman closer, as she kept her head on his shoulder, sitting beside.

"I'm worried for your Dada as well, Batuk." She wiped her tears.
"I'll die if something happens..."

Batuk stopped her.
"Why talk of dying Bondita? What not have we crossed together, we, the Roy Chowdhurys, always and forever, don't you remember?"

Bondita lifted her head and nodded slowly.
"Would you go once to Tulsipur and see if they are there?"

Batuk nodded.
"I'll. But, first we'll have to get Dada and Raimoti to safety. They are needed for the final hearing, which would be in a month."

Bondita was listening quietly.
"I'm scared about Monday too. What if someone attacks him while submitting the case evidence?"

"I'm thinking about that too."
He took the glass from Bondita's hand and took a sip from it.
"What if I go and submit instead of Dada?"

"No Batuk, your safety is equally important." Bondita nodded her head vehemently.
"Absolutely not!"

"See, Bondita...think... Dada can't go, Satya Da can't either, so it's me, I can act as his proxy and submit the evidence file, it's just about submission and signature."

"And your safety?"

Batuk bit his lips as a smile played on his eyes.
"I've thought about that too... There is someone I'll ask help from."

"Who?" Bondita widened her eyes.

"Marietta." He smiled.
"Mrs. Marietta C. McKenzie!"

The starlight had began to fade and the two sleepless souls smiled at each other, signing a pact in silence, and the goal was to save that common thread who had bound them together with the firmness of trust that no matter what, they'd be always for each other... Always and forever!
The man who would lay his life for them in a heartbeat, and whom they both loved more than they loved themselves!

Anirudh Roy Chowdhury.

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Dear readers,
This was the 100th chapter.
Hope you enjoy.

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