Nandini Sen belonged to that group of women who knew their business well in life. She hated housewives, activists and teachers and held them guilty for the downfall of women's social image. She was a manufacturer. First generation. And she was, as her very name suggested, very dynamic. That was the word, and that was her business. Her company was unanimously loved by men and women who took to the convenience of frozen chapattis. It was called 'Matters'. And it made profits.
She lived in an apartment high enough to smell of her success, which came rather fast her way. On this Sunday afternoon, Nandini sat down with her books after years. Bookkeeping kept her busier. Each first page had scribbles of a time that belonged to the past. Of deaths and decisions. Of contacts and commitments. She outgrew all such emotions to become this compassionate, aggressive woman of the now. All such boundaries of memories that could have trapped her, she made sure were dissolved with the competition she lodged herself into. Today, those side torn yellowing pages seemed unfamiliar. But they called out for her attention.
To the many friends she had then, not one now. To the birthday parties gifts by educated relatives, who were all settled in their middle-class acceptance. To the inspiration she was, which she retained. To the one particular book, The Fountainhead, which had the inscription which said: "For, The person who is all that I wish were mine. Happy Birthday. From, Whoever you wish me to be." Nandini paused. She had read that book some few dozen times and each time she took to it, this inscription made her go weak in the knees like the first time. She knew who it was and hated the fact that he never gave in his name. But the same namelessness led her to a lifetime of wonder. Where was Manab now? Was he a college professor lecturing on Marx and Engels and Woolf and Millett? It had to be either Sociology, or Literature that would shape his life. It had to be language, not love.
Nandini caressed her hand over the tattered cover of The Happy Prince and other Stories. This came to her from a student of hers, when she gave tuition, who went on to take up language too. Language, she thought, became her nemesis. There was something indistinguishably harmful about it. Wilde's stories remained in her mind even as her own disappeared. Such was the charm of language. The student may have ended up marrying Manab, concocted Nandini, and fight frequently over refined oil or mustard oil and quote Keats in between. Or Coleridge. Who knows. She never liked the Romantics. Or Manab, or her student well enough.
Nandini Sen only had one unrequited love in her life -- language.
Manasi Roy, 2015.
Chairperson, Home Solutions.
Writer, Part-Time Wife, Full-Time Mother.
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