It had been a year since their return from US. Mukundo had still not accepted his life in India. He missed his friends, his school, his sleepovers, his pancakes and baseball!  His parents had tried their best to make up for everything, taking him to best continental and American restaurants in the city, enrolling him in swimming classes, getting him video cassettes of his favorite movies and shows, but he had stayed cross with them. They expected him to get over his tantrums over time. But what really worried them that he had difficulty making new friends here. He was a fairly well-adjusted kid back in the US.

Mukundo remembered the fateful day when his mother had dragged him with her to their neighbor and long-time friends the Banerjees. Their daughter, Piyali, was three-months old. He had looked at the baby curiously as his mother had rocked her in her arms. Her eyes were already big then. Apart from them her little hands had drawn his attention. Curious, he had touched her hand, and to everyone amusement she had gripped one of his fingers. It must have been a coincidence that she had decided to exercise her hand at that moment, but Mukundo had found it quite hilarious. He had laughed heartily with others. He had come back the next day on his own.

“Would you like to hold her, Mukundo,” Debangi, her mother, ad asked him.

“She is so little. What if I hurt her?”

“You won’t. I will teach you exactly how to hold her… Come here…”

And he kept coming back. When she grew old enough to follow him, she went to him as often.

Apart from music, in which his father had started training him when he was much younger, Piyali became the anchor of his life.

—

“I haven’t slept the entire night,” Pronab declared when he entered her room. She had decided to meet him at her home instead of a public place today.

“Me neither.”

“So, what was Mukundo Babu’s verdict?”

“What are you talking about?”

“That was the reason for last night’s dinner, right? You needed his approval.”

She shrugged and smiled, silently accepting his speculation.

“So?” he continued walking towards her.

“You passed.”

“In his exam. And yours?”

“That is more difficult to answer.”

“Tell me, then, what should my answer to my parents be, when they ask me.”

“Listen to your heart.”

“Right now, it says that I should…” he drew her in his arms, “crush you in my arms.”

“Listen to it, what can I say?”

“Don’t stop me, then,” he bent down and planted a peck on her lips. Encouraged by her reaction, he sucked her lower lips, then attacked her mouth, tasting her to his heart’s content.

She was shaking by the time he pulled back. He tightened his grip further. “I was very skeptical when I had come here, Piyali. But impossible happened. Your charm was impossible to avoid. I fell in love.”

She rested her head on his chest.

“So, what was the ‘it’ that you saw in me?” she asked him later.

“What?”

“’I will know it, when I see it.’ What did you see?”

“You are fishing for complements?”

“I just want to know, because I want to live up to whatever you see in me…”

“Hmm… Let’s see… I think what bewitched me about you is that you are innocent, without being dumb. I see the hopes of a fairly-tale romance in your eyes. But you will forgive me if the fairy-tale doesn’t come true. Because you accept people with their faults.”

“We have barely known each other for three weeks. How could you have seen that in me?”

“Pardon me for saying this. But your father, for example, is by no means an ideal father. What I have heard from Kakima, and from what I have seen… You have to turn to others, Mukundo Babu, for example to help you in time of need…”

“Pronab, please…” she looked distressed.

“Yes. THAT. See – how you still love me. I hope to learn that from you. To accept people with their faults. My parents,. Myself. And hopefully, my wife – if she has any faults that is.”

“What do you know? I, of course, have many faults.”

“Like?”

“I am not at all disciplined. I would have failed all through if Mukundo Babu hadn’t made me follow a strict schedule for studies. I would keep postponing everything to the day of the exam. It is true with everything. Music practice, getting a job… He has literally made me do everything in time by being a tyrant.”

Pronab smiled, “I will learn to live with that. There is enough goodness to compensate for that one fault.”

“Nobody has given me complements at this rate before. I might as well be floating in sky right now…”

“How is that possible?”

“Why not?”

“Your Baba never praised you?”

“Oh! He is so blind in parental love that he sees no fault in me.”

“Mukundo Babu?”

She laughed out loud, “Can you imagine Mukundo Babu paying me complements? No way. He scolds me all the time. For good reason. But still… Do this… do that… Go home and sleep… Don’t eat ice cream, it will affect your voice… finish your homework first, then only can you go and play….”

“I can’t imagine him doing any of that… All I have seen in him is concern for you and your well-being…”

“That has always been there. But you are right. He has been strange recently. Sometimes too aloof. And other times too tender. So unlike him.”

Pronab opened his mouth to say something, but stopped and changed the topic. “Ready to meet my parents? They are coming tonight.”

—

“Piyali. Are you ready?” Mukundo knocked at her door. Pronab’s parents had come home.

“Mukundo Babu. Come in, please. I need your help.”

“What happened?” he came in hastily and stopped in his tracks as soon as he saw her. She was wearing a deep maroon, taant-silk saree, along with a heavy gold jhumka and necklace set. He worried for a moment that those thick bangles on each of her delicate hands might sprain her wrists. Her hair was already done in a loose, low pony tail and she was finishing her makeup with a simple red bindi. There couldn’t have been a more faithful representation of traditional Bengali beauty. How grown up and mature she looked. No wonder, she was getting married.

“Promila Kaki is too busy with guests, Mukundo Babu. I don’t who else to ask for help. The saree is so difficult to manage. I need a pin in my pleats. I am unable to put it myself. Can you? Please?”

He literally bit his tongue to stop himself from blurting out something inappropriate. He took the pin she chose and knelt to bunch together the pleats of her saree.  It took some effort, but finally he managed to set them straight.

“How do I look?” she was anxious.

“They might not wait for the wedding to take you with them,” he smiled and replied, “You already look like a bride. And the most beautiful one at that.”

She stared at him curiously.

“What?”

“Nothing… You have never given me complements like this before?”

“I haven’t?”

“No. Never.”

Yet another thing he hadn’t realized about her. That she had grown up to be a beautiful woman, who wanted her feminity and beauty acknowledged, appreciated…

Outwardly he just gave her a weak smile. “Come quickly. Everyone is waiting.”

People in the drawing room was as awestruck with her beauty as Mukundo had been. Mr. Banerjees eyes grew moist when he saw her.. He got up and gave her a quick side hug. Mukundo noticed appreciative smiles on her soon-to-be in-laws’ faces and the amorous glow in Pronab’s eyes.

The now familiar knot in his throat came back. He left the room, though he came back soon. In the hustle-bustle of seating Piyali and the introductions with Pronab’s parents, he felt that nobody noticed his brief absence.  Unknown to him, Pronab did though.

—

To be continued