Dr. Deepjyoti Lahkar shifted in his seat dizzily, the time difference weaving sleep in his eyes, as the cab pulled outside the Rosenberg Hotel at the corner of the Chapel Street, Prahran city. He looked out of the window and stretched his neck to see the majestic building with blue transparent windows and a perfect British dome, when the car ultimately came to a halt. The `Pran Central` was taller than what his vertical field of vision could capture. He had to flex his neck backward to complete the entire view. After paying the cab driver, he reluctantly stepped out of the car releasing his personal resistances at seeing such alien architecture—Victorian and Edwardian terrace houses on one side with tall city lamps after every ten to fifteen steps on the other. It reminded him of a colonial city with halogen lamps and broken green coaches for the locales overshadowed by the metros, in his land he was so fond of but in vain.
He collected his single "American tourister" leather bag stuffed with less of clothes and more of self pity. As he started walking inside the hotel and setting things in order, he gradually realized how far he had come from his home; just to exorcise his mordant emotions, a part of his living self; parasitic enough to be killed without any morsel of remorse. After taking a hot shower in the month of July that felt like a parallel reality he switched off the Air Conditioner, letting the Australian winter through the tainted windows of the Rosenberg. The corners of the window panes had lost their silver paint over the years perhaps succumbing to rain and snow, and now seemed to be a mixture of copper and white gold.
Resilience comes with metamorphosis. This he never learned, nor did he show any aptitude for the same. Even symbols and signs failed.
Looking towards the evening sun he recalled a day perhaps a year from the present, in a local beach overlooking the Bay of Bengal in a small suburb called Frajerganj. The evening sun was going down and the red crabs were making their way back home. The wind was unbearable and had snatched away Gerard`s glasses as he had turned away from the sea. As Deep ran to collect the glasses from the silver sand dunes, each of the crabs burrowed themselves in less than a nanosecond as if his footsteps were the primal pretext to an apocalypse. Deep panting halfway had burst into howls of wolfish laughter to see the hilarious sight and Gerard kept looking at him amused, thinking how beautiful this little thing could be. That was when Deep was just nineteen. In desperate rumination of lost existences Deep had somehow lost tract of the Australian clock. It still was evening for him at 9:00 pm, as the sun went down the rippling depths of the far away Yarana River washing away Melbourne through several banks. The commercial hustle and the red lights burning in serpentine fashion all through the street suddenly broke his reverie and he dropped his bathrobe on the floor, kneeling down to unzip his leather bag.
Surprisingly his excitement had taken a toll over his jet-lag. And he felt sleepy no more as he put on his snickers and took the steps instead of the lift. The night seemed too bright for his eyes, as lights reflected through lanterns and lamps, in marvellous lines of restaurants, bars, cafes, whore houses and strip clubs. He smiled to himself at the irony of Praharn being called a suburb. He made his way across Reeds Emporium and Maples Corner, and stopped to see a pub `Promises` burning in Cursive—tubes of liquid light.
The name made him smirk in delight, remembering his inherent tendencies and cultivations. No one could see the silent movements of his lips in a dusk far too late, with other reasons contributing to every rationale of his qualities and characters unlike one.
One that made him hear distant vows everyday in churches while he lay miles away peacefully in his cot. Pulling the duvet over would still not help. They would ring in his ears uncontrollably and his mother would grow irritated at having to rock her child crying with frustration over promises made on heaven and earth. It was by five, that he could master the skill of choosing over his inheritance. He heard only those, he wished to hear. He had heard his father speaking of the legendary Python in the backyard that came out in the nights of summer. He had never seen it and after countless wishes and attempts he was denied going there to see it with his own eyes. So he kept his ears open in case it made a promise and seven days later to his horror he heard it swearing to challenge a certain mongrel from an unknown territory. The presence of the beast was thus confirmed and he never took a step against what his father had warned him. In yet another episode of testing himself he found his sister returning one Friday afternoon from her school giggling to herself and shining like a marigold under an April sun. On being asked she just ruffled his hair as any elder sister would do and kissed his cheek showing her love born not out of mutual altruistic family values, but out of the passion she had seen in her lover promising her a lifetime of eternal love. He didn`t know it then that they break too. But acquiesced feeling guilty that he couldn`t support her, six months later when she came running to her room with the remains of a broken promise, and vowed herself never to fall in love again. He knew she would break it too; he believed so at least but couldn`t approach her with a similar caressing hand and a kiss to shower her with whatever he had learned of love, out of the fear of interrogation he would have to face, as to how he came to know all of these. However things were different when the same happened to him and it was perhaps only his sister who understood the perplexity of his situation, when in nights of betrayal she found him wetting his pillow silently and leaving blotted salty marks. He was twenty one when he fell hopelessly in love with the thirty three year old Gerard Robinson, an officer at the American Embassy of Kolkata. It was an excursion trip from the medical college, but turned out to be a blazing July affair so much so that he extended his stay and on returning back got his no-objection certificate from the Principal for Interning in one of the government hospitals of West Bengal. Mr. and Mrs. Lahkar couldn`t comprehend the reasons behind such a drastic step which he cleared off waving his hands dismissively that he couldn`t learn anything in this god forsaken medical college and wanted to do better in his life by practicing Parasitology in the city of Ronald Ross and so his decision of interning there was the founding step towards a brighter career. The affair lasted for a promising one year during which they made their courting trips to Digha, Henry`s Island, Puri and Frajerganj. It was the night after his Diamond Harbour Medical Health camp trip that he came to know of Robinson`s secret affair with a Mongolian beauty from South Korea, whom he had promised to marry on his return from Bengal. He had heard Robinson scratching his Chinese pen into unfamiliar strokes. It was not in his element to doubt Robinson but in the dark hours of the night with an un-enthusiastic lover leaving the bed midway, compelled him to open his ears once more. Before the dawn could complete itself he was on his way back to his homeland carrying nothing but shock and guilt promising himself never to return back to the colonial city.
It is difficult to get over dreams that turn into reality and back to dreams that one must remember and sulk in its terrible aftermath like walking over broken glasses. For years Dr. Deepjyoti Lahkar tried to divert his trail of thoughts like winds do the clouds, by immersing himself in his books and working overtime in a hospital he didn`t much approve of earlier, but continued thinking that he would clear his entrance exams for a postgraduate post only by learning more. He continuously tried for four years but failed as his depression crawled over his neural fibers and from the mind it became a disease of the brain. His sister on one of her annual stay at the family house had already assessed his condition being a psychiatrist, without his knowledge and insisted that he spend time preparing for his entrance exam with her and her husband in Bangalore. He agreed unable to keep his frustration and pain at bay. It was during those six months in Bangalore that he told her everything about the untouched part of his life. She understood and helped him with all she could. Dr. Alakesh Chaudhury her husband, a clinical researcher at Biocon, went out of his way to please his wife and catered to whatever she ordered in benefit of her brother. And in the midst of such comfort Dr. Deepjyoti Lahkar finally cleared his entrance exams and managed to get a rank that would enable him to take up Parasitology as his field of expertise in at least one of the colleges of India.
Somehow he had found a reason to be happy, although he wasn`t the only one. His sister and Dr. Alakesh Chaudhury were equally elated that their efforts paid off at last. A week later, after his results were declared, his sister insisted that he should go somewhere for refreshing his inner and outer spirit. And the next day, Dr. Alakesh Chaudhury like an obedient kitten bought his wife the ticket she had ordered him to get within two days. Before he could retaliate or refuse his sister`s gift, Dr. Deepjyoti Lahkar found himself facing the interview for his Australian visa.
He knew his mission well. To erase his confabulations, clearly what he considered as "false memories" or things that never happened to him or if they did, were then a part of a parallel reality as this—winters of July. What could be a better place than this to freeze his unnecessary depressions to death? Kill the parasite living within? And as he thought so, the brute in him raised its head from its hood, smelling alcohol everywhere and took possession of his body, so that he went inside the pub and ordered for some Australian beer. He chose to keep his ears close, to take delight in every sip he took from the heavenly can, and hear only his tongue smacking against his palate. As he finished his second can, he began to lose control over his autonomic hearing tendencies. Yet he chose to close that deliberate part of his capacity to hear promises. He didn`t want to disturb himself with anyone else`s grief or love, although both seemed similar in character than in their perception. But as he ordered for his third can, he seemed to hear someone muttering a promise in his most feeble voice, a voice residing in the deepest alcove of the tavern. He suddenly looked at the waiter considering him to be the closest resource. But the waiter was silent and tired working all day long and was not in a state to think of bizarre relations, as this mind, somewhere nearby making a promise out of one such. Incest? Yes, he got it right.
Shubhroto Haldar, by the age of twenty four was sinfully in love with the daughter of Jyotsna Bhowmik, Deboleena his first cousin. He didn`t know when the scent of her hair braided into
`Khejur Beni` that no Bengali girl of her age could plait made him realize that she had grown up and was now not immune to love unlike in her childhood. They stayed in the same house acting like strangers on the same river rowing through purgatory of infernal love. They didn`t know their destination though, except that eloping would be the only satisfying scandal. He was aware of the consequences and didn`t care after losing his mother a year after confessing his love to Deboleena. One evening while searching through the chest of drawers for some lost documents, Taposh Haldar, Shubroto`s sixty eight year old father came across the forbidden letters, and slipped to death instead of his afternoon siesta in the patio surrendering to a shock that shook the foundations of Shubhroto`s love. After having performed the final rights and leaving the entire house under the care of Jyotsna Bhowmik, he left the city promising himself never to return to the city of joy, clearly now that he had lost all of it. Deboleena got married to a businessman from Ultadanga. That was the last news he heard of her as her wedding card landed in his doorstep in New Orleans and he found his promise entwining its roots, penetrating deeper into his soul.
After what followed like a brief introduction Dr. Deepjyoti Lahkar in his fluid romanticism and alcoholic mind recited little of what he knew of Tagore`s poetry sharing another two cans with Shubhroto Haldar and when he realized that they were no longer strangers, blooming out of the same promise, he insisted Shubhroto to reveal his curiosity for the alternate world. Masking his amusement and surprise radiating in his eyes he said,
"The promiscuous world of men is perhaps better than love" wounding Dr. Deepjyoti Lahkar right where he thought no one could. And with loveless bodies, like animals acting out of lust they indulged in coitus with no third person to blame for their misfortune.
After a week when Dr. Deepjyoti Lahkar landed in Delhi for his counseling, Shubhroto Haldar had been wiped away from his mind like the forgotten Gods at the fulfillment of one`s prayers. He was given one single seat at the Calcutta Medical College for pursuing his post graduation degree in Parasitology. Having already sacrificed four years of his life for this opportunity, going back to the city he promised never to see again, came as an axe man`s blow and fever gripped him in the July heat of the ruthless Indian summer. He thus succumbed and didn`t let his zeal liquidate by vapors of memories bygone. He broke his promise.
Dr. Deepjyoti Lahkar actively participated in his research for some enigmatic pupa of a centipede that turned into stone after making love with the female of its species but bloomed into a beautiful flower under artificially controlled same-sex intercourse. It was coming to a practical conclusion that procurement was not the ulterior motive of this rare creature, when Love stealthily walked into the second floor of a Chinese restaurant at the Park Street called B-A-R-B-Q. Two years had gone by and he had not seen the man who didn`t have a French beard when he last met him at a Victorian pub. Having heard the news of the accidental demise of Deboleena and her husband, Shubhroto Haldar had to come to claim the child that would have been his own daughter, if circumstances would have been otherwise. He was the only living relative, as Jyotsna Bhowmik had left for her abode just after the year Taposh Haldar passed away. The child would have been handed over to SOS Village, if her Guardian didn`t make a choice. So reeling under the dilemma of adopting, an elusive daughter, Shubhroto Haldar lay there on the second floor, literally sleeping away in his chair and drops of Vintage Red Wine dangling like clotted blood from his salt and pepper French beard. He looked like an aging vampire, a tamed one though and quite obviously it dawned on Dr. Deepjyoti Lahkar that he too had broken his promise. But in the most obvious of all situations, it was inexplicable how Dr. Deepjyoti Lahkar fell for this sleeping man the instant he saw him there and in his distressing nature of capturing his own emotional capabilities he first confused it with sympathy or pity for worse as he always did for himself. But after taking him to his apartment and in prostrate attempts of begging him to stay back for a month made him realize that it was nothing but love. Love that couldn`t recognize itself years back in the curls of the feathery sheets of Rosenberg, purely out of the metamorphosis he was going through then. Yet he let it go this time, not pushing or pulling the man under the load of his own shell. He didn`t let Shubhroto Haldar break his cocoon that he had so meticulously woven around himself to derive comfort in a world he thought promiscuous and infertile to love. While accompanying him to the airport Dr. Deepjyoti Lahkar pressed Shubhroto Haldar`s resting knuckles and broke the silence "Only when you need and not before that. Till then waiting would be a joy in this joy-less town."
"New Orleans" was all that he could hear as a silent promise, coming from Shubhroto Haldar perhaps as a token of respect for his love. And as he let the child wander into one of the airport book shops he took Shubroto Haldar`s face in the cup of his pale hands, and smiled as he whispered—
"I will and it`s a Promise."
