Crossing the Mirage:Passing Through Youth

“Maybe, once we taste the creature comforts,” she said intuitively, “we turn insensitive to our fellow beings.”

“Oh, dear, it’s so like the Bengali articulation-- intellectually stimulating,” he said in apparent admiration. “You would come across that at the coffee houses and the tea stalls alike. At the bars, however, it could all be bawdy as intoxication and articulation make a heady mix. Gopal was a little too fond of drink. On occasion, he used to drag me to a bar at the Jaggu Bazaar that he frequented. Once I met there a marwari businessman who was trying to rope me in ever since I began rejecting his supplies. Inebriated by then, he demanded that I tell him why not I favor him by taking a bribe? I told him that my income lets me a drink or two at a bar and a fling or two at some brothel, that too occasionally. And if I start compromising, I said, the easy money could bring me to the bar daily and might lead me to the whores regularly, injuring my health permanently, and the Bengali, who overheard us, began articulating about the corruption of their culture by the marwari businessmen. And this led to a brawl naturally.”

“Oh you, sensible as ever!” she said ruffling his hair and smelled her palm for

Keo-Karpin.

“What a romantic reminder,” he said exultantly, “but I used to feel sad at the Victoria Memorial, designed to uplift Cal's haggard souls. You may remember my friend Soni from my Ranchi days,”

“The papaya lover you mean.”

“Not a bad memory,” he said, “we met again in Cal and I used to go there with him once in a way. Finding couples all over cuddle around the tree trunks, I used to crave for some fun with Kala but as he was critical of those lovers once, I told him that it‘s all sour grapes, and that he would find the company of a lass far more preferable than mine, if only he could manage one.”

“We shall make it to the Victoria Memorial,” she said animatedly, “well before our lovers’ tag starts getting faded. Why, we shall have our honeymoon in your Cal.”

“Won't I love it,” he said leaning over her shoulder.

“That is after Vasu gets his just deserts.”