His belief in his work and its importance was ferocious. It was difficult not to get impressed and impacted by it. We often got talking in the evenings that followed. He was in Pune for some fundraising events and was quite satisfied with the way things were going. “Monetary help is not a problem,” he told me repeatedly, “What we lack are the people who can make a difference on the ground. This is not a job for the careerists, but for the passionate.”

“I know that monetary help is not a problem for you, Amol, but I hope it still helps,” I said as I handed him a check written out for half the amount that had accrued in my allowance account.

He looked at the check and was startled. “Sarah. Naman had told me about you. Are you sure you want to give away so much?”

“It doesn’t really belong to me, Amol,” I repeated my mantra to him too, “Talking to you has given me ideas about how best to use it. My church here can also use donation for its charities. And the poor children I sometimes teach can make use of books and stationary.”

He looked at me curiously, but did not say anything. I could read neither approval, nor skepticism in his demeanor. It was strange, but Amol was strange in many ways. You had to be strange to be able to do radical things with your life as he did. So, I shook off the feeling.

Naman and Amol stayed for two weeks. Then Naman left for his business trips and Amol to a village some hundred kilometers away from Pune. His organization was working there to improve the quality of education in the government school.

But couple of days later, I was surprised to find Amol waiting in the drawing room when I came back from school.

“Hi! What a surprise.”

He bolted out of the sofa on seeing me, almost toppling the laptop he was working on.

“Sorry. I startled you.”

“No!” he shook his head rather vigorously, “I’m sorry to have come unannounced, without asking you first.”

“If you are really worried about formalities, this house is your friend’s really. It doesn’t matter how many places he makes me sign.”

“Yeah… Even he doesn’t know I am here.”

“Okay?” his strangeness started sounding eerie.

“I need your help, Sarah.”

“How can I help?”

“You have given beyond your means to my cause. Monetarily. But Sarah, in you I see a person who can give more. You have led a life of deprivation. You can understand people who suffer it like even I can’t do. You can contribute much more than your money to the cause.”

“You are asking me to join your NGO?”

“NGO is just a vehicle for what I want to achieve. I am asking you to join me.”

“How?”

“Be my partner. In work and in life.”

“Excuse me?”

“The journey I have chosen is tough, Sarah and roads abandoned and lonely. I need company and support to keep me on the right path. But it isn’t just any woman’s cup of tea, to put up with a man like me. I don’t offer romance and roses. I only offer hard work, mud roads, thorny rides, in return for a vague satisfaction of doing the right thing.”

I was unprepared for this. “You are asking me to…”

“Marry me, Sarah. Together we could do wonders.”

I stayed silent for a long minute. Then I picked up the jug and glass from the coffee table and gulped down some water before speaking.

“Amol. This is… I admire your work and I would happily join you.”

“Should I take that as a yes…”

“But it doesn’t have to depend on us marrying. I don’t mind hard work, mud roads or whatever else social work brings in one’s way. I’d happily be your companion and learn from you and give your cause my all. But I can’t marry you.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Sarah. Without marriage, a young woman and a man would always be viewed suspiciously by the common people among whom we have to work. We need to gain their trust and it can’t come without a legitimate relationship.”

“You are my brother’s friend. We are as good as brother and sister.”

“You are not my sister.”

“I can be and that’s how you can introduce me to the people.”

“That would be a deception. And a brother and sister cannot sleep together under the open sky, or in a one-room hut, which is the best we’d often have.”

“Surely people other than husband and wife work together on such causes…”

“Not a young woman and a man.”

“We can’t get married, Amol. We barely know each other. We don’t love each other.”

“Love is more than the teenage romance, Sarah. Love need not, in fact should not, be for a single person. It is for the mankind.”

“I will marry myself to the cause of mankind, then, Amol.”

“You can’t be a part of this cause with me in any other way. You wish to stay away from it, then?”

“I have told you. I would happily work for the cause, but I won’t give you my heart that you don’t care for.”

“The conditional offering won’t do, Sarah. You must offer all, if you want to tread this path.”

I admired him, I really did. But the way he had framed the entire issue left a bad taste in my mouth. Did he really believe in what he said, or did he want to gain something personal without making a personal commitment, using the shield of this bigger cause?

I didn’t want to feel bitter about him. So, I decided not to dwell on this question. I chose to believe that he was being true to himself, and I chose to disagree with him without doubting his intentions. Because my heart would not allow me to submit to him.

But he spoke before I could.

“Who are you holding back for, Sarah? The man who deceived you with a promise of marriage while he was already married?”

I was aghast. Who told him? Naman? How did he know? Did he ask his father? I hadn’t intended to be rude to him. I only wanted to refuse him politely. But this attack on Protim blew my fuse off.

“Don’t presume to know and understand everyone, Amol. You don’t know him.”

“What you need to know is that world is full of people who would take advantage of you. Probably your love has blinded you about him. But…”

I motioned him to stop talking. “Did you hear that?” I had heard someone screaming out my name in pain.

“Hear what?”

“My name?”

“Sarah! Nobody said anything…”

“It was him,” I declared  and ran outside screaming, ”I am coming!”  Could he have found me? Could he have come here?

—

To be continued