Each afternoon, sharp
at 3, Mandira’s mother noticed her leaving her room and locking the gate from
outside and going somewhere, which she distinctly admitted she would never
disclose. Pursuing a PhD, she put in all her waking hours to pages and writing,
and reading and comparing, editing and thinking. It was a pain for which a
grant paid her. What she felt she had to most pay for were her hours – to
herself. Each day replicated the other, with the sameness of a song, achieving
near-perfection. Even Aniruddh was unaware of her whereabouts from 3-4, and
that would be saying a lot, for they were, again, an ideal near-perfect ‘pair’. Their
wedding was scheduled as soon as she would submit her thesis and there was no
squirms about it from either family. Aniruddh was a rare man, a gentleman,
earning and looking well in his IT position.
This afternoon as
Mandira locked the gate from outside and left for her hour, she decided to walk
rather than take out her car as she usually did. One Amit followed him, unknown
to anyone. For the past two months, this girl had captivated his imagination
with what she did in that hour. Today, he decided to pursue and find out. With
nothing striking about him, Mandira was not aware that she was followed into
the nearest park. She sat there, by the pond, on a bench which Amit decided
must be her favourite, and fiddled for something inside her bag. Amit was
betting it would be fish food, or a sketch book or her phone.
She brought out her
earphones and a liquor bottle instead. One quick swig later, she plugged in her
earphones and took out a brown paper packet, from which came out a strip of
what looked liked some kind of medicine. Giving it a hard look, she put it
back, and now stared deep at the pond. After sometime, she closed her eyes. There’s no point of all this! She could have
slept on her bed! Amit was curious, beyond suppression, yet he lurked
around. Exactly at fifteen minutes to the hour, Mandira opened her eyes and let
out a sigh. It was a strange sigh, not one that he could hear, but one he saw.
It was not defeat, nor return. It was boredom spelled widely. He followed her
back, all the way and overheard the same exchange between mother and daughter
that everyone around was aware of, each afternoon:
“Where were you?”
“Ma, you know I won’t
tell you...”
“What are you doing?
Does Ani know?”
“Ma, please. Stop.”
“He should know, even
if we don’t. You are going to spend the rest of your life with him!”
A thud demonstrated
Mandira’s shutting of her door and returning to her room. She went back to her
thesis, everyone thought. Instead, Mandira lulled into the hour she had just
spent on her own. She put back the earphones and closed her eyes, thinking what
could have been different in that one hour. How it could be the ideal one? Each
day, she spent an ideal hour from 4-5, imagining how different each of those
previous hours could have been – were she in Russia, or in Iraq, someday in
China, perhaps Vietnam, even Hyderabad. As soon as she closed her eyes, a world
came alive, one to which she had never been but she belonged more than where
she now was. She lacked the courage to end her life each day, because she could
not go there.
She did not intend to
complete her thesis, or spend her life with Aniruddh. She just longed for such
hours to come alive.
And when the
grandfather clock struck five times, she changed into the Mandira the world
knew, the Mandira everyone wished to be – sitting at home, writing a thesis and
earning. By the end of the fifth chime, Mandira put back her phone from silent
to ringing mode and started the day as uselessly as she began at five in the
morning.
On the day of her
thesis submission, Mandira finally harnessed the courage to commit a long
pending suicide. Nobody ever got to know how she spent her ideal hour and what
she did in it. What could never come alive, she commanded at death. The suicide
note only read: “I have written enough for these many years.”
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