“Karishma…” It was almost nightfall. The word was unfamiliar in that voice, because he always called her Ms. Gupta otherwise. But she could have recognized that voice from amongst thousands.

“Prof. Sen,” she shouted back, but heard him calling her again. From behind the rocks, her voice was not reaching him. She dragged herself out in the open braving the rain and shouted again. “Sir, I am here.” He heard her this time and ran towards the voice. “Call again, Karishma,” he shouted after a while. She shouted back. In two or three such attempts he had reached her.

“Thank God. You are safe,” he hugged her to her surprise. “How could you wander away so far? Leaving your phone behind? Without informing everyone? Do you know how worried I was? All of us? Come inside. It’s raining crazy.” He tried to drag her back, but she cried out loud.

“What happened?” he was alarmed.

“I have sprained my ankle.”

“Oh God!” Without showing the least bit of embarrassment, he picked her up in his arms and took her inside. She wasn’t thin. He was strong! The rocks were now shielding them from rain. He settled her on a flat stone, took out a cigarette lighter, and kneeled to examine her ankles.

“It’s nothing,” he said, “It can be fixed. But it will hurt for a moment? Can you bear that?”

She nodded, but howled worse than a woman in labor, when he did jerk her ankle. It was fine after that though, as he had promised.

Temperature had dropped considerably because of rain and she was shivering. He had only a thin cotton jacket over his shirt and that too partially wet. But he took it off and offered it to her.

“It’s okay,” she hesitated, “You’d be cold too.”

“I’m the chaperon here,” he said and forced her to accept the jacket.

“Can we go back?” she asked.

“It’s dark already. Even I would not be able to find our way back. The police would have been informed. It is better if we wait for someone to find us”

She nodded.

“Would you be fine?” he asked looking concerned.

She nodded and spoke after a pause. “Sorry. For all the trouble. And thanks for finding me. As if getting lost was not bad enough, I also sprained my ankle.”

“I suppose I would want my children to be chaperoned, if they are accident-prone as you are.”

“I’m not accident-prone. It can happen to anyone on hills.”

“No? And what is that?” he pointed to a scar on her forehead, “You got that last Sunday in the football ground, didn’t you?”

“How do you know?” she was surprised.

“I was there.”

She knew he was there. He played tennis on Sunday mornings. The court was adjacent to football ground. And it was to watch him that she went there every Sunday. What she was surprised about was that he had noticed.

“Well. Not my fault really. The ball came my way. They should have been careful while playing.”

He laughed pleasantly, “Indeed. They should have been careful? And not you? Karishma! People come to the grounds to play. Not to watch opera. What were you thinking, sitting there, lost in some other world?”

She pouted outwardly, while dying with embarrassment on the inside. Did he know why she was there?

“You like children excessively, don’t you?” she said to change the topic, although regretted even that. Why couldn’t she hold her tongue before him? It would again go back to marriage and what not.

He stared at her for a long moment before answering, “Yes. I like them very much.” He knew what had prompted the question. She had seen him with the school-children. He did not ask the reason even for pretension.

“Then you should have your own?” she was uncomfortable with the silence and was unable to think of anything else to talk about. Jane Eyre. May be she should discuss Jane Eyre with him. But heck! She couldn’t remember even the opening line of that novel.

He took a long pause again before speaking making her restless, “I can’t have them.”

“If you won’t marry, you can, of course, not have them.”

“No. I can’t have them even if I marry ten times, Karishma. It’s me. I have a problem.”

She was tongue-tied for a while. “I… I am sorry… I… Obviously I didn’t know… I should… Is it… just…” She stopped. She couldn’t give words to the question that came to her mind. Was it impotence? Or just the infertility? But he understood it. Since he had already spoken so much, he went ahead and clarified that too. “It’s not impotence. But quality of semen…”

She let out her breath that she had been holding for a while.

He was facing away from her. She walked to him after a while. “That is hardly the end of life, Prof. Sen. There are so many options in today’s world. You can adopt. There is IVF. There could be other treatments.”

“Thanks to your feminism, Karishma, men don’t have to fight duels in defense of their manliness. But there are certain manly things whose absence even the modern society does not accept.”

“And it is one of those things, about which the society is more cruel to men than to women,” she added thoughtfully. A woman unable to conceive would be an object of pity. But not in the same way as a man not being considered man enough.

A silence prevailed, which she broke enthusiastically. “I agree that a large part of society can be quite stupid. But that doesn’t mean everyone is. I’m sure there are women who know better.”

He turned to her with a sad smile. “Give up, Karishma. The woman I loved didn’t know better. I don’t want to dream any longer. Looks like nobody is going to find us now. We’ll have to spend the night here. Sorry.”

“At least, I am not alone,” she assured him with a smile and went back to her seat. He also found a corner for himself and sat down.

She started discussing Jane Eyre with him now and after a while they both felt sleepy.

“Try to get some sleep,” he said.

“Yeah,” she acceded.

But once she laid herself down on the rocks, despite the exhaustion, she could not sleep. She kept her eyes closed for a while. But deliberately keeping them closed was irritating. She opened them after a while. The lighter was still on. She looked at him in its dim light. Then she could not stop herself. She got up, went to him, bent down and planted a quick kiss on his forehead. She stayed still for a moment to ensure that he had not woken up. They came back to her place and lied down. After a while, she drifted off to sleep, despite the dampness and cold. She didn’t see him opening his eyes after she had lied down, and looking at her tearfully.

—

To be continued