Adulterous Thoughts

A century seems to have gone by since the day I saw Manisha for the first time in my life. I must have bunked a class and strolled into the first floor of the College Street Coffee House. She was sitting with my class mate Animesh at the table closest to the swing door that separated the restaurant from a mysterious, poorly lighted interior that Coffee House regulars referred to as a kitchen. In hindsight, the standards of hygiene maintained there must have fallen short of pristine purity, but our minds were too preoccupied with members of the opposite sex outside the kitchen to be overly bothered by rules of cleanliness observed inside.

Manisha was undoubtedly the prettiest woman I had seen during the entire course of my youth and she continued to retain her beauty for the best part of her life. She never wore any make up and kept radiating the beauty nature had profusely endowed her with. She was always simply dressed in her plain cotton sarees, behaved as friendly as the girl next door and never failed to appear as innocently attractive as a newly born puppy. Her skin was the colour of gold, her features sharp yet soft, her smile angelic yet devastating and her male admirers as numerous as sand grains on a sea beach.

My first encounter with her in Animesh's company was relatively eventless. But I was struck by her good looks and used the occasion to employ all the fishing tricks at my disposal to attract her attention. The meeting, however, was short, for Animesh, sensing my intentions, quickly disappeared in her company in Kolkata's crowded streets.

Perhaps that's where the curtain would have fallen too, if I did not see her in the college precincts soon afterwards, not once but almost everyday that followed. Our friendship grew and I discovered tid bits of her personal life. Her parents lived elsewhere, her father being a successful lawyer in her hometown, while she lived in Kolkata with her sister and grandmother, to continue with her education. She attracted me inexorably, like a flame attracting a fly. Yet, naturally inclined though I was to run after every other girl I came across, I never found the courage to proceed much further.

We dated only once as I remember, during my entire college life, when we went together to watch a popular Utpal Dutt play at Minerva Theatre in North Kolkata. It was a purely friendly excursion, bearing no semblance of a secret meeting of love birds. Despite her beatific smile, she had by this time acquired reputation as the most notorious of men killers in town. Consequently, the pressure of competition forced me to suppress the quivers I felt in my heart and play the role of a "good friend and nothing more". There was no miasmal mystery therefore that accompanied our dating.

As Manisha moved from conquest to conquest, leaving behind her a trail of corpses of multifarious shapes and sizes, I too kept myself engaged in chasing a variety of women. Each one of my chases though ended up in disaster. And Manisha remained the only woman amongst the ones I fell for, who, despite occasional disappearances for varying lengths of time, never vanished completely out of my life. We continued to be in the best of terms and she was always ready to lend me a sympathetic shoulder to weep on after the tragic denouement of each of my romantic adventures.

Then one day, Sandipan arrived in her life. I knew him from the past and liked his approach to the world at large. He was a tall, handsome person, plucky when circumstances demanded. And when circumstances didn't demand, he was tension free, ever smiling, and full of humour. He was certainly a gentleman worth cultivating. It was a most interesting development from my point of view. There was a time when every new paramour Manisha acquired would make me turn green with jealousy. With time, jealousy had turned to indifference. But upon Sandipan's arrival, I felt, paradoxically enough, truly happy for the couple. They were two great friends I had and I came pretty close to singing loud hosannas in praise of their relationship, which culminated in marriage.

We were not too regularly in touch after this event took place. I moved away to different parts of the world and they settled in a small town, both taking up teaching positions, one in a college and the other in the post graduate department of a university. After a few months, we lost touch quite completely.

Till that is, two years or so ago, almost fifteen years since our last encounter. My work required me to travel to the town where I heard they were located and I used my contacts to dig out their phone number to call them up before I travelled. It was Sandipan who answered the phone. Needless to say, he was surprised to hear from me and even more so to know that I intended to visit them. Of course, he did welcome me and gave me directions to his residence.

How was Manisha though? On being asked, he informed me that she was not particularly well, having been a victim of breast cancer in the recent past. She had undergone mastectomy I learned, followed by a course of chemotherapy. The news came as a shock and I braced myself for an encounter with a metamorphosed Manisha.

Fortunately though, her appearance was reasonably normal when I saw her finally at her residence. Chemotherapy had done some damage to her hair, but she was simply an aged Manisha in every other way. Memories flooded back with a rush and the rusty gates that kept us separated for a long many years gave way without much effort on either side.

Our contacts resumed and they started to visit us every time they were in Kolkata and we even called each other over the phone just for a chat. During one of these occasions, Manisha told me that she was visiting alone to attend an academic meeting.

As always, I was delighted and my wife and I hoped she would be able to come over for dinner during her stay. "Oh yes, of course, I will. Let's fix a day after I arrive," she said. And call she did during her stay in Kolkata. "Say, will it be too much of a trouble if I dropped in at short notice?" "Of course not," I said. "Just keep me informed, or else I may be away from home." "How about this evening?" she said. I checked with my wife and gave her the green signal.

She kept her appointment and spent the entire evening with us. There was nothing really new about the subjects we confabulated on. Except for one piece of information. She had suffered from other illnesses too and one of them required her to undergo hysterectomy, she informed us smilingly. I watched her in silence as I absorbed this piece of intelligence. The person who sat before me was the same Manisha, who conquered a thousand hearts with her female charm. But she was not just aged now. She retained few physiological characteristics that would qualify her as a woman!

Yet, she continued to appear to me the eternal woman she had always been in my eyes. What, I asked myself deep inside my heart, is a woman? Isn't there something far beyond physiology that defines the quintessence of womanhood? And, I found myself answering my question in the affirmative. Manisha was still the same woman I had known and loved when I was too young to imagine that I would ever be facing the person I faced now.

It was late when she left and I told her that it wouldn't be safe for her to go back alone. She protested, but I insisted on dropping her back where she had put up. We went out into the street and called a passing cab. I opened the door for her and then followed her in. Inside the cab though, a surprise awaited me. She had seated herself in a way that left me little room except to squeeze myself in. Yet there was ample space for her to shift and let me sit more comfortably. It would be rude to ask her to move to the other side of the seat and I accepted the space she had allotted me without protest.

We had a long way to go and we covered the distance in close physical proximity. I soon realised that she would let me hold her hand if I wanted to. She would let me move closer and perhaps even plant a kiss on her age worn face. This was the only time during our long acquaintance that Manisha revealed herself to me, when she had nothing left in her that would diagnose her clinically as a female. Yet the most fascinating of God's creations, the woman, had managed to survive.

It was the closest she ever came to returning my love. On my way back, I wondered if I would have committed adultery to hold her hand in the darkness of the cab or exchange a kiss. I thought hard but no easy answer presented itself. I could not solve the problem, ending up in utter confusion. I spent a sleepless night and, with the arrival of dawn, sat down paper and pencil in hand to write the only poem I ever composed in my life:

Her lovely face

In a smoke filled coffee house

Etched in my heart, forever.

Dear OJ,
Superb man superb.A true story ? if true, then man I envy u with a bevy of women in college days.I had a dry run in college.Everyone took me for a brother.HAHA.
Regards.kamal

Hello OJ,
The post dealing with the psychology of a woman, I am tempted to reply you!

With a hysterectomy, masectomy etc, a woman is suddenly pushed to a low ebb, in her mind, more than in others’ eyes. Her self-esteem touches an all time low.
This is a stage in life when she undergoes a rude shock, wonders whether she will look a woman in a man’s eyes at all. She has a psychological set back. The emotions deeply embedded In her heart surface and when an old friend comes all the way to meet her, she must have made out your thoughts running on the lines:
she continued to appear to me the eternal woman she had always been in my eyes.
She must have felt overwhelmed and I think, perhaps, this was her way of saying “thank you” to you !
Regards,
Chithra.

Hi oj,

Warm to the world of INDUS..

Really enjoyed and felt the feelings You encountered..The way of ur description abt Manisha was awesome not only external but also her lovely heart..

Hugs,
dg..

Friends!

Thanks to all three of you for your encouraging comments.

To Kamal first. Was this a true story? Instead of directly aswering your question, let me ask you back, is there any story that is not true? The truth of the story lies not in the events that ACTUALLY happened, but that COULD VERY WELL have happened. Does it sound true to you? Or, does it sound phoney? If it sounds true, then it is true. If it sounds true, then I must have succeeded in penning down what was revealed to me as truth. So, my answer is, yes it is true. It is true because my heart felt it was true.

To both ladies:

I felt I was writing about a women's issue. But I am a man and I had to try my level best to understand the female psychology. I think both of you saw this and probably found a rudiment of truth in my perception. If so, then I feel I had made a point successfully.

Best.

oj

Please ignore this. I had merely duplicated what I had written in my earlier reply.
oj

Dear OJ
Very well told story... do keep writing:)

hello oj,

GOOD one though a bit sad...woman with breast cancer..difficult to say if she suffers more psychologically or physically...

Mindi

An amazing piece... excellent.. kept me spell bound.

Anu

hi ojantrik,
thorughly enjoyed your post!!!!!
after all these incidents i am sure this woman must have been strong enough to smile through it!!!!and most importantly you giving her the same respect you did before must have definitely boosted her confidence!!!!
regards
pavi