"Is this my last night on earth?"

Raimoti hadn't looked up. In the yellowish light of the table lamp, she was still looking at the evening bulletin spread on her bed.
"Atleast, you haven't stopped my access to news... not yet!"
She let out a loud sigh and folded the papers.
"Tell me, RayBahadur Neelmoni Mukherjee, what do I owe you the pleasure?"
She had finally looked up at her father, standing at the door, in silence.

"May I enter?"
His voice was grave.

"You didn't order to break the lock to ask for permissions, did you?"
She set the papers aside and looked away disinterestedly.

"These... These words of yours have become a nuisance, Raimoti!!" Neelmoni had walked a little inside and paced uncomfortably, unable to face his daughter directly.
"I wish you understood why I did what I had to."

Raimoti opened the newspaper once again, and focused on reading.
"Enlighten me, Father."

Her sharp sarcasm sounded like a piercing spear in Neelmoni's ears.
"The English isn't our own... I stole from them so that when time comes I have the required backup to fight them!"

"To fight them?" Raimoti had looked up at him.
"To fight whom? The British?" She let out another chuckle.
"So you kidnapped people, a twelve years old as well and had kept her locked in your baganbari, while you extorted her parents, because you were fighting the British? You murdered, killed, extorted... all because you were fighting the British this entire time? Really? Tell me more Baba, I'm suddenly intrigued."

"Raimoti!!"
Neelmoni growled, suddenly unable to conjure any immediate excuse to counter her direct accounts.

How did she even know all these? It's impossible!! She's a threat now!!
Had it been someone else, they would have been removed from the face of the earth already!!

Raimoti chortled suddenly, her eyes still on the pages of the newspaper.
"You talk about fighting the British. You know what it really looks like? It looks like this!" She held the paper up and showed him a column, but the darkness only allowed Neelmoni to skim through the small greyscale picture of a face, a pixelated face of a slim-jawed boy with a head full of curly hair.
Neelmoni frowned.

"Who is this?" His words were full of disdain.

"This one is called Satyakirth Sen. Sacrosanct Satyakirth, hope you have had the pleasure of knowing his name atleast!" She smiled fondly, running her fingers on the picture.
"This grumpy looking little boy had looted an entire British armoury last night. And the fun part is, not a single British officer is harmed." She folded the paper and kept it on her lap.
"Somehow, he and his people had drugged the entire platoon with simple opium pills, and sneaked inside." She paused to let out another sigh, a sigh of pride.
"That particular English platoon had become a terror for the locals, extorting, raping women, all because of their weaponry and arm power. And, Sacrosanct Satyakirth had ripped them off this very pride." She smiled once again.
"This is Deshbhakti Baba... This is fighting the British in the true sense... And, what you do is called Crime!"

"Raimoti!!" Neelmoni barked angrily.
"You're crossing boundaries now."

"Really? And who defines my boundary? You?"

Neelmoni growled and gritted his teeth in anger.
"Tomorrow... Tomorrow you'll realise what your boundaries are... And how I still define it."

Raimoti smiled at his words. Her expression of amusement has the old man mad with rage.

"RayBahadur Shashi Chandra Chakkotti is coming to see you tomorrow."

"Shashi Kaka? Why?" Raimoti's eyes had narrowed, a cold sweep of fear had washed her spine all of a sudden, the name flooding memories back in her head, dark indelible memories!

Shashi Chandra Chakraborty, an affluent Zamindar of Dhaka was her father's dear friend, whose presence in their household was a regular affair when her mother was alive. She had faint memories of going on picnics together, and to a broadway during their London trip, and it was the memory of that night inside the dark Broadway that still haunts Raimoti's dreams.
Young Raimoti had befriended Shashi Chandra's youngest of the three wives, Mukta, and that night when she sat beside Mukta inside the theatre, she had felt Shashi Kaka's hand trying to reach her, touching her arms and more, over his teen wife's shoulders. He has tried to touch her chastity that night and her protest had earned her a slap on the cheek in the darkness.
Her mother was her protector that night!

She had seen him less since that night, and after Mukta's untimely death, she hadn't heard him name either, until then.

So he is a RayBahadur now!
Raimoti sighed.

"Shashi Chandra seems to be in need of a wife, after his fourth wife's sad demise."

"A fourth wife? She died too?" Raimoti's mouth gaped open.
"Did you ask how? Was it kitchen fire this time, or slipped inside the well like Mukta!" Her words were a hush, a sharp terror coursing through her veins.

Neelmoni didn't reply.
"Shashi seems to be in a desparate need of a heir, and you, my girl, are in desparate need of a husband who would teach you respect and submission."

Raimoti felt her heartbeat stop for a second, giving rise to an acute palpitation that tried to break free from inside her ribcage.

"Why don't you kill me instead?" Her words sounded quivered, making Neelmoni laugh in silence.

"I wish I could Raimoti... But this arrangement isn't bad too." He inched a little closer to her bed and eyed the thick bandage wrapped around her feet.

"I'll bring him here... To your room."

"No!" Raimoti swallowed.
"You won't!"

Neelmoni had chuckled once before leaving, filling her room with it's reverberation, as Raimoti stared at the door helplessly.

How could you do this, Baba!! How?

But, she probably had known the answer all along.
Raimoti sighed again, as she picked the newspaper from her lap and kept it down on the bed, carefully.
She shifted to her left and bent down, her face contorted in pain, as she pulled out the last drawer of the bedside table and took out a small glass bottle, unlabelled.

Her body was aching, making her writhe in excruciating discomfort, but what ached more was her heart.

The small bottle was lying on the newspaper, right beside the tiny pixelated photograph of the famous Sacrosanct, and Raimoti leaned back on the bed and let out a sharp exhale, her eyes still fixated on the greyscale impression.

"Tell me little boy..." She murmured.
"How many of these opium pills would make one sleep? And how many would kill!"
Raimoti had closed her eyes, smiling.

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

"Bondita... Maa..."
Bondita turned her neck and looked up, smiling.

"KakaSasurji... !"
Her face had that same happy calmness that was radiating from the toddler asleep on her lap. Her hands were busy rubbing a small rectangular piece of sandalwood on a flat wet stone slab, gathering sandalwood paste for the Puja next day. She was seated at the threshold of their thakurghar, infront of the small idol of goddess Durga. Her head was unsheathed, her hair tied up in a loose bun.

"Food Bondita Maa... I've got you some luchi."

Bondita saw the covered plate in Trilochan's hand, as he bent down a little to keep it beside her.

"But, KakaSasurji?" She smiled at once, the same pristine smile, unblemished, and Trilochan couldn't help but feel a sharp pang of repentance in his heart.
"I'm fasting tonight."

"No mother would ever want their children to fast... I'm sure the goddess won't want that too." He sat down on the floor infront of her.

"But... Well... The rituals..."

"Rituals are made by men like us." He let out an exhale.

Bondita's eyes were lowered down as Trilochan touched her chin lightly and held her face up.
"I know what you are thinking."
He looked away, trying to hide his eyes from her.
"I don't want you to starve." His voice had a subtle crack in it.

"I'm not hungry KakaSasurji..." Her eyes had a genuine calmness.

"Are you still... You still scared to eat from me... After that night, what I, we, did to you... with Nanibala on my shoulder... and I was completely..." Trilochan suddenly couldn't speak anymore, his words were choked by a sharp surge of emotions, and all he could do was join his trembling hands infront of her.

Bondita gasped.
"Please...!

She left the sandalwood block and held his hands at once, as Trilochan lowered his head, touching his forehead on their joined palms, drenching her heart with one single tear drop that had fell on her hand.

"In Gita it's said that the one who stays blind to a sin, commits an even greater one... I'm a sinner, Bahu... I'm your sinner."

Bondita's eyes were flowing too, as she slowly left Trilochan's hand and picked her sleeping baby up from the lap, and before the old man could say anything further, she just handed the baby in his arms.

"See... how your granddaughter is sleeping, not a worry in the world." She chuckled softly, wiping her tears as Trilochan looked down at the angelic face of the sleeping child.
"This is how I have always felt around you... At peace, protected." She paused to pick up the plate in her hand, as she broke a small piece from the luchi and put it in her mouth.
"I don't recall my father well, KakaSasurji. And, since the time I had met you, it's only you... It's always been you."
Renewed tears streamed down her eyes and so from his as well.

"Bondita Maa...!" Trilochan's voice quivered again.

"Whatever happens, there's always a greater good hidden behind it. May be we don't see it that time... But, it's always there... guiding us, silently." She swallowed the food and spoke again.
"That night... All I can say is that it shaped my life, all our lives. Dehradun, my education, years of separation from Barrister Babu, then meeting him again, our marriage... That night had induced the course of my life bringing me to where I'm today." She sighed and took another bite of the food.
"You and I are just mediums KakaSasurji... It's all destined!"

Trilochan nodded his head and tried to smile. His eyes fixated on Rudhita's tiny happy face.

"We won't get my Rudhi baby married soon, she would study... as much as she'd want to and she'd become a Barrister like her father, or may be... may be a doctor like her uncle..."

Bondita was smiling at his words.

"But, Bondita... I haven't seen him studying at all...Batuk... I mean what does he do all day!! Is he really going to become a doctor?"
The tone in his voice had suddenly changed as Bondita grinned gleefully and shrugged.

"I'm never going to get myself treated by him anyway... So... "

Trilochan rolled his eyes at her and both of them burst out into fits of laughter together, in unison.

"Neither am I..!!"

The ambience around had suddenly lightened up in the purity of the moment, as the silhouettes of two men standing at a near distance stirred a little, one a few inch taller, crutching on the shoulder of the other, both out in the dark verandah to breathe some fresh air after a long time.

"It's so not fair... Why does it always end with me being the prodigal one!" Batuk's lips were pouted, as he wiped his uncontrollable tears with the back of his palm.

Anirudh's eyes were smiling too.
"You have a good heart Batuk... It's a different discussion all together that you aren't studying these days!"

Batuk was rolling eyes at his elder brother
"Et tu Brute?"

Anirudh smiled at his brother's words, as both of them turned their eyes to look at the mesmerizing scene infront.

Rudhita was half awake and Bondita had taken the baby back in her arms, trying to rock her to sleep once again. The half eaten food was kept infront, and Zamindar Trilochan Roy Chowdhury, with all his regal demeanor, was seated on the floor, in that pristine calmness of the night, as his hands were busy feeding the woman infront with tiny morsels of the food... slowly, tenderly!

"You did it Dada... You did it!" Batuk's lips had quivered in emotion.
"You made a man out of a rock!"

"Not me Batuk, it's her... Bondita!"
Anirudh wiped his eyes too.

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

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