If It’s Not Forever: It’s Not Love

by Datta, Durjoy

  I wish I could see her tomorrow.

  Nivedita

  Shrey and Tiya are still sleeping when we leave the hotel for the mental asylum where Nivedita is admitted. We had looked up the address yesterday and everyone we asked knew where it was. Avantika and I have hardly talked since morning. We are a little unsure of what we’ll say to Nivedita. Not only that; we don’t know what to expect.

  According to his notes, Nivedita doesn’t talk or understand anybody other than her brother. She talks through her smiles, which only Ritam understood. We won’t be able to tell her anything. And even if we do, what will we even say to her? I sweat thinking what I would’ve done had Avantika not been with me.

  ‘This is going to be strange,’ I tell Avantika.

  ‘I know.’

  We enter the building. It’s an old one, probably standing since the early 1890s. We ask the receptionist if we could meet Nivedita. She asks if we are from her family. We nod. She brings out a register, goes to the alphabet N, painfully slowly, and then gets to Nivedita.

  It has a log of all the visits made to her. Our eyes light up as she turns the register towards us. All the entries are of one name—Ritam Dey. We check the dates—he used to come there every fifteen days, except for a few occasions. The last day he visited the asylum was two days before the blast. Avantika and I look at each other and we feel sorry for Nivedita. She will never see her brother again and she probably has no idea about it.

  ‘Ma’am? Do you know Ritam?’ Avantika asks the lady.

  ‘Yes,’ she nods.

  ‘Did Ritam come alone to meet Nivedita or with someone?’

  ‘Alone,’ she says and gets busy knitting her sweater.

  ‘Thank you so much.’

  The lady shows us to the visiting room and we wait there. It looks like an expensive place; the waiting room itself is done up in expensive wood and well-designed wallpapers. A little later, a ward boy in a white uniform wheels in a girl, wearing a slightly old and worn-out hospital gown, in a grey wheelchair.

  The head of the girl is tilted towards one side and she looks at us with deadpan eyes. The ward boy wheels her towards us and stops inches away from Avantika. Nivedita’s face is expressionless. She must be around nineteen, but her hair is a little sparse and I’m guessing it’s due to the medicines. Even though Nivedita is thin, frail and slightly pale, I’m sure she must have been a very pretty girl. Her bony frame is quite visible from outside the hospital gown. Her eyes have sunk in but there is an inherent twinkle in them. Like the last flicker of a burning candle.

  ‘Who are you?’ the ward boy asks.

  ‘Umm, we are friends of Ritam. You know him?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes. He comes here every fifteen days. Nice boy.’ the man says without thinking twice. ‘Are you cousins?’

  ‘Actually, we don’t know him. He died—’ I start to tell him but Avantika interrupts me.

  ‘I will tell you. Come with me,’ she says and takes the ward boy a little away from Nivedita. She starts to tell him everything that she knows. I wait with Nivedita and watch them from a distance.

  I look at Nivedita and she seems to look at me. I smile at her, but she doesn’t respond. She looks blankly at me, motionless. I know she isn’t expecting me; she is expecting her brother to be near her and to make her smile. There is no way I am telling her that her brother is dead. I look at the ward boy, who looks shaken as Avantika tells him everything. He takes some time to let the news sink in. They come back to where Nivedita and I are.

  ‘She doesn’t understand anything,’ the ward boy says and looks at me. He looks perturbed.

  ‘What should we do?’ Avantika asks.

  ‘I don’t know,’ the ward boy says helplessly. ‘Almost every patient here has been abandoned by their families. Only a few of them get visitors. Nivedita is one of those lucky few. I don’t know much about medicine, but human contact and love are what keep these people alive. I have seen many people … die when they stop getting visitors. Their bodies get weak and they stop eating. Nivedita needs her brother.’

  His voice trails off. Nivedita is not smiling. Her eyes seem even more sunken now. Maybe she sees the horror in our eyes.

  ‘Can she hear us?’ Avantika asks.

  ‘Yes, but her brain can’t process it,’ the ward boy says.

  Avantika kneels down near the wheelchair, takes Nivedita’s hand in hers, looks at her, smiles and says, ‘Your brother, Ritam, loves you a lot, still does and will always do. You are the most precious thing to him. He sent the two of us to tell you that. You’re the best sister he could have ever asked for. You are very beautiful, Nivedita.’

  She kisses Nivedita’s hand and runs her fingers over her face. My eyes well up and the ward boy looks at me. He is moved too. Slowly Nivedita’s lips curve into a smile. The ward boy is wrong. She does understand. There is a moment of silence. Avantika smiles back at her and Nivedita smiles more.

  ‘She reacts to that name,’ the ward boy says. ‘Ritam.’

  ‘Have Ritam’s parents ever come here?’ I ask the ward boy.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you ever seen a girl come here with Ritam?’

  ‘No, but Ritam often used to say that a friend of his wanted to meet Nivedita. I can’t really remember her name. Oh yes, Raaa … Ragini. That was her name,’ the ward boy recollects.

  ‘Wait,’ Avantika says. ‘Say that again.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ragini,’ Avantika says.

  ‘What Ragini?’ I say.

  ‘Look,’ she says. And we look at Nivedita. She is smiling.

  ‘You know Ragini?’ Avantika looks at her, clutches Nivedita’s hand tighter and says, ‘Do you remember her?’

  Nivedita smiles.

  ‘Do you want to meet Ragini?’ I say. Nivedita smiles again.

  ‘You like Ragini?’ the ward boy says. Nivedita smiles yet again.

  ‘You want to talk to Ragini?’ Avantika says. Nivedita smiles.

  The ward boy looks at us and says, ‘She never reacts like this. She only reacts to Ritam.’

  ‘We need to get Ragini then,’ Avantika says. I nod and we smile.

  ‘Do you know Ragini?’ he asks.

  ‘We don’t know her, but we can find out,’ I say. ‘Nivedita probably doesn’t understand the words people say to her, but she can feel the love of the people close to her. From what just happened, it looks like she considers Ragini as one of her own. Even though she has never met her in person. Ritam must have told her all about Ragini … We can’t tell her or make her understand what happened to her brother, but we can make her meet Ragini. If that’s possible.’

  The ward boy looks concerned. It’s sweet of him to care about this crippled girl so much. Things like these make you love the world again. Despite the corruption, the hatred, the animosity that engulfs everything around us, sweet souls like his make the world a better place. The ward boy tells us that it’s time for Nivedita’s medicines and she needs to be taken away. He tells us that this was not the scheduled day for visitors and Nivedita had to be checked up by doctors, and also that she has been growing weak lately, and not been responding to treatment. We nod worriedly.

  ‘We’ll come back to see you again,’ Avantika says. She takes Nivedita’s hand again in hers and kisses it. I don’t know whether anybody else notices it, but Nivedita smiles. Everyone loves Avantika.

  Avantika tells the ward boy that we would be back with Ragini and asks him to take good care of Nivedita. He smiles and wheels her away. We thank the lady at the reception and leave the asylum. Days like these make me feel so lucky. The girl in that wheelchair has nothing to live for, just the sound of a few names. That’s her only happiness in life.

  And I? I have everything—a loving family, great friends, the love of my life, a little money to live on … I have absolutely no right to complain. But I still do. We all do. It’s our tendency. We crib. That’s our default state. We always look at people with a better life, a better car, a bet
ter girlfriend and wish to have a life like theirs.

  Nivedita smiles once every fifteen days when she sees her brother. A stupid, irrational bomb blast took that away from her. Now she has nothing to live for. So unfair. I have everything.

  I clutch Avantika’s hand and tell her that I love her, and we head towards our taxi that waits outside the asylum building.

  Avantika is a little disturbed after our meeting, quite understandably. We get back to our hotel and can’t find Shrey and Tiya. Their stuff is still there, so we assume they haven’t run away again. But this time, we don’t even care. We are a bit ruffled from what just happened. Now we desperately need to find Ragini. It’s no longer about letting someone know how much she was loved, but a matter of survival for Nivedita. Nivedita needs Ragini and we both know that. Avantika sits in one corner and holds the diary in her hands. Tiny pearls of tears have collected at the corners of her eyes. They trickle down her cheek and wet the page of the diary she has opened.

  ‘This is unfair,’ Avantika says.

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘She is such a pretty girl. How can life be so cruel to her?’

  I shake my head in distress.

  ‘And we do nothing about it,’ she says and hides her face in her palms.

  I stare at her helplessly. She says nothing and looks away. Avantika clearly doesn’t like how this story is turning out. Things have changed. The diary has entrusted us with an even bigger responsibility. It’s no longer just a diary of a dead man telling his story. Now we are responsible for the people he has left behind, Nivedita being one of them. We have to find Ragini and we have to do it quick.

  ‘Where do you think we should go next? Mumbai?’ I ask.

  Piyush had told us that Ritam had completed his college in Mumbai and we knew Ragini was there too, so it made sense. Other than that, we have absolutely no lead to go on. I call up Piyush to check whether he has found anything, but he is as clueless as we are.

  ‘I just hope we find her in Mumbai,’ Avantika says, closes her eyes and says a little prayer.

  We have no idea where to start with in Mumbai. It’s a huge, confusing city. The city that never sleeps. Maybe that’s because they never manage to get home in time. I like the city though. It’s big, lively and very unforgiving.

  Avantika and I are lazing around and discussing how to go about it when there is a knock on the door. It’s Shrey and Tiya.

  ‘What’s up?’ I ask. ‘We thought you had run away again.’

  ‘Not this time,’ he says. ‘Can we talk, Deb? Outside?’

  He looks serious. I look at Tiya and she doesn’t really look tense. So she’s probably not pregnant. Yet.

  Shrey and I go outside to have the talk.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asks. He looks a little pissed off.

  ‘As in?’ I ask.

  ‘This trip? What’s it all about? Not that I care, but I would like to know,’ he says.

  ‘It’s … umm … nothing.’

  ‘Just tell me, Deb,’ he says.

  ‘It’s nothing important.’

  ‘I want to know, Deb! I want to be a part of anything fucked up that you do. And this, by the look of things, is very fucked up.’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ I reply shortly.

  ‘I know about it. I talked to the ward boy of that fucked-up place this morning. He told me everything. Now I want you to tell me.’

  ‘Ward boy?’

  ‘We followed you this morning. I thought you’d gone crazy and I wanted to check what you were up to,’ he confesses.

  ‘So then, why the drama? You know now, right?’ I say.

  ‘I want to see the diary,’ he says sternly.

  ‘Fine,’ I say.

  I get the diary for him and hand it over. His eyes light up. He runs his fingers through the burnt edges of the diary and flips through the pages. He feels the crumbling edges of the pages and looks at me.

  ‘This is freaking awesome,’ he says.

  I knew he’d say that. This sort of stuff is very Shreyish. He is the one with the passion and the zeal to do things that one would normally stay away from. He is the crazy one.

  ‘You have read it all?’ he asks.

  ‘About fifteen times.’

  ‘Do you mind if I read it?’ he asks.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘As if I care …’

  He starts to read it, and I read with him. Even the zillionth time around, it evokes the same feelings. It brings the same feelings of pity and love like it had brought the first time round. Shrey finishes it in about an hour and then rereads certain portions of it, just like Avantika did.

  ‘So this is why you chose Dehradun? The school?’ he asks. I nod. ‘And then Bhopal?’

  ‘Piyush, the guy called Pappu, lives there.’

  ‘You bastard. So?’ Shrey asks, ‘Where do you … we head to next?’

  ‘Mumbai. That’s where everyone is, I guess,’ I say. ‘Plus, we need to find Ragini. Nivedita needs her.’

  ‘So what’s our next lead?’

  ‘No idea.’

  Shrey smirks. It’s one of those faces that he makes when he’s hiding something.

  ‘Why that expression, Shrey?’

  ‘I like what you’re doing,’ he says. He smirks again. Something’s up for sure.

  15 December 2010

  ‘The crushing helplessness you feel, when the person you love the most is hurt by someone else and you can’t do anything about, is one of the worst pains anyone can ever endure.’

  I wouldn’t say she was sad, just a little disturbed maybe. Thankfully, she chose to talk to me about it and tell me the reason behind it. Our distances had been on the rise ever since we had reached Bangalore, and today was the first time we got a chance to talk to each other properly. She has been way too busy with Nigel otherwise. So today, I was just glad that she was around.

  She told me that she was out somewhere last night with Nigel and a few of his friends. It was the first time she was meeting any of his friends here in Bangalore. Otherwise, it would be just the two of them. Alone. The very thought makes me a little sick.

  She told me that she had noticed that every friend of Nigel’s was a regular drinker. And even Nigel drinks, for that mater. But that wasn’t what bothered her. What really bothered her was that—despite her constant refusal and evident displeasure—they wanted Ragini to drink too. Despite her pleas and rude refusals, none of Nigel’s friends backed down. Irritated, she turned to Nigel for support, but amazingly, even he was in favour of her drinking. But she still said no to even tasting any drink. No matter how much they insisted, she did not cave in. When she told me this, I felt proud. I have not consumed even a drop of alcohol after that accident when I was fifteen and I am strictly against it. It’s just a wrong thing to do.

  And I really respect her for standing up to them and holding her ground. I remember she had once told me that she wanted to try some drinks. But that was different. She had just wanted to taste it. Being forced to drink is another thing altogether. And caving in is even worse. She asked me if she did the right thing and I told her I was proud of her. She told me that Nigel was probably still mad at her for refusing what he had asked her to do, that too in front of his friends. During our entire conversation, Ragini kept looking at her cell phone. She told me Nigel had not called her since. She was scared that he was really angry about last night.

  Though a few minutes later, her phone beeped and her lips curved into a smile. It was a text from Nigel. Sometimes, all I can do is look at her. It feels so good to see her smile. It suits her. It makes her face light up and her eyes twinkle … a little colour rises up her cheeks and her lips look lovely in that upward curve. I can stare at her smile for an eternity. But I am not too happy about her smile today. Behind that smile is a mistake. I can see it clearly now. Nigel is not the guy for her. I am.

  I wish I could see her tomorrow.

  19 December 2010

  ‘Between seeing her cry and not se
eing her at all, I would choose seeing her cry because of the simple reason that I can’t live without her.’

  Ragini had been looking a little subdued for the last few days. I had sensed something was wrong between them after that drinking incident. I feel like breaking Nigel’s nose. Why can’t he just let it go? If she does not want to drink, what is his problem? Let her be. Isn’t she perfect the way she is?

  I was concerned about her, so I went over to check on I was concerned about her, so I went over to check on her tonight, and found her in her room. She had not come to office because she did not feel well. Tough tonight she looked better and happier than she had in the last few days. It was evident that she had reconciled her differences with Nigel. Before I spoke to her, I had hoped that he was the one who gave in and not her. But I was wrong. I was disappointed and crushed. I could not believe it at first, when she told me. I still do not want to believe it. But living in denial would not change anything. She told me that yes, she had agreed to drink with Nigel a little. But just a little.

  It angered me. I was not angry at Ragini. I can never be. I love her. But I was angry at Nigel. What kind of guy does that? When he knows that she does not like to drink, why would he force her to do so? To socialize? That enraged me even further. Nigel lost the little respect I had for him. I wanted to go back home that very instant and take Ragini with me, but I knew that wasn’t happening.

  There is no such thing as a few drinks. It inevitably goes out of hand and then, you do things you regret later. But you cannot do anything about it. You just have to live with it for a lifetime. Just like I am living with it. And the guilt … it never goes. It is always there … haunting you. I do not want Ragini to change into something she is not and do something she would later regret. I wish I could tell her what I had gone through. But I won’t. What if she judges me? What if she thinks I am a murderer and never forgives me? I must keep that secret within me.

  I cannot let her leave me. I need her in my life. It will be so empty without her. I have already lost most of her to Nigel. She hardly has time for me nowadays. I cannot afford to lose her completely. But the very fact that she is changing herself to ft in with someone else infuriates me. Where does she find the need? Does she not know she is perfect? Does she not see it is Nigel who is wrong? Does she not see he would never love her the way I do?