A Knight in White

Diligence comes in different colours, and not often does one wear it on their sleeves. Mr Animesh Biswas was hardly the kind. Each morning, on his way to the police station, he changed from his colours to the whites of the Kolkata Traffic Police uniform. Mrs Biswas was unable to yield a child to the Biswas family in their four years of marriage. His father passed away last year, taking along a hefty amount of savings for his treatment. The widowed mother was homebound, and all the more verbally active. His tiffin was carefully packed by Protima, his wife, perhaps the only change in his regime of roadway. The only thing remaining, which portrayed a shadow of concern from her end. Everything else, was like the traffic lights – stop, get ready, go.

Couple of days back, he had pulled a car for the driver not wearing her seatbelt. Prarthana Sen. “I teach in the college nearby, Sir. I just opened it. I won’t repeat it, Sir. Please Sir.” He let her go. The thought of her lingered on his grub of luchi and notun gur. It was her fragrance, and her eyes. They were over-riding with the halo of truth, even though he knew she had lied. When she put up her sunglass on her head, their eyes met and he knew this case wouldn’t earn him the weekend dinner with Protima. Strangely, at tiffin, he didn’t even wish it did. He wished it was with Prarthana Sen instead.

Next day onwards, he was on duty, adept as usual, but a casual mistake here and there did occur, in the hope of her taking the same road, at the same time. She did not, of course. “Thank you, Sir” she had said. And smiled through her jet black eyes. As she pulled down the window, the car interiors had given away a maximum sense of warmth, as if saying it was proud to be owned by her. Her college id made her look younger. She looked better in that reckless age, thinly beginning to line her forehead. One of the rare educated instances where the driver came out of the car and began the conversation. Animesh was already melting with the abundance of gorgeousness that emerged – in the form of greetings, looks, communication – all of which, he knew, deep within, were a lie.

His mother’s words wafted in Prarthana’s soft, polite voice. Protima’s cooking showed the deft skill of Prarthana’s driving. It had to happen that she would cross that way, thought Animesh. And one day it did. Busy in patrolling the sides of an overused bridge, while he was speaking into the walkie-talkie, he spotted the scratches of the familiar blue sedan – Prarthana’s Honda Civic. He wished she made a mistake, uncompromising, so that she would be made to bribe him, and he knew he would ask for a dinner with her. But she made no mistake, and smiled past him, acknowledging the previous help he had courteously offered. The sound of hopes crashing is louder than a truck hitting an auto and the ensuing commotion. A middle-class traffic police, Animesh had to get a hold over his mind. I must stop thinking about her. But, as fate would have it, the next day, Prarthana passed by again, and this time with a definite smile. On the third day, she signaled him to the nearest curb. As he sped on his bike to her rescue, he looked nothing short of a knight in white. Spotless, clean, efficient, alert, kind and very, very responsive. Just as she wanted.

Prarthana Sen sat at the traffic police office and waited for him. She was looking at the new green of the trees, some flowered in pastels of pink and ivy, while other blurbs of yellows popped in from almost, what seemed, out of the air. Admiring the beauty, she looked at the front glass. It was clean, rare for a lens to be so, so as to usher in the landscape amidst the smoke. In the lost process of getting lost, she violated a signal and was immediately hurled with a case. She did offer the name ‘Animesh Biswas’ all she had, all of her truth, and finally asked to report it in courtly decorum. He was taken aback. Barely did people know of this bit of the rule. As she sat at the foul smelling, chamber, overhearing loud remarks of those in lower rungs, she wondered what would have happened, had it happened the way she weaved in that span of waiting for the officer. Just as she wanted.

Animesh Biswas finally came in and clarified the charges and gave free advice on getting a driver and being more alert. She did not bother to hear the rest. He was a knight in white, right behind her, in his bike, flying through the traffic to take in her fragrance, to embrace the romance. Just as she wanted.

It did not happen, of course. When were nights white, anyway?