“I will have to talk a lot to explain myself. So, please be patient and please listen to me fully before coming to a decision.”

He paused to see if she would say something. She didn’t; so he continued, “I don’t pity you, Piyali. Like most other people, I have always been in awe of you. And I have felt proud of you. Very irrationally, I must say. I have this dialog with myself sometimes, where one part of me asks the other part – why are you so proud of her achievements. What do those have to do with you. But the other part remains adamant in feeling the pride. And I have loved you for a long time. Not always romantically, of course. You were so young. But I suppose you can’t help loving someone about whom you think so much. All the time. I missed you so much during the years you spent away from Kolkata for your studies. I never told you any of this; in fact, I worked hard to not accidentally reveal any of this, because I didn’t think you would care and I was terrified of being snubbed by you. A fear that, I now think, you understand. But then, over last few days, you revealed yourself a bit more, Piyali. A connection that I had always felt finally seemed to be getting established. But when I realized last night that you might be thinking of going away again, and even getting married, I was… I don’t know what I felt. I didn’t know what I should have felt. Then you talked about a meaningful relationship. Between us. I think I subconsciously thought that you wouldn’t be averse to the idea of us being together. Perhaps vainly I even thought that I might be the only person– I shouldn’t have blurted out like that, Piyali. But it wasn’t thoughtless and it was definitely not, God forbid, me pitying you. I feel a lot of things for you, but that is not an emotion I know where it concerns you.”

“Mukundo Babu–”

“No. Please let me complete. I may not be able to gather strength to speak again. There are a thousand reasons for you to say – No. You may not feel this way about me at all. And that is fine. Or as I had said earlier, you are twenty! You don’t need to take this decision now. Or that–” he paused here and took a deep breath, “You are twenty and I am thirty-two. Too old for you.” He didn’t notice her startled look here. “Or for no reason at all. You are not obliged to give a reason for refusing. But the one reason that isn’t valid is that I am pitying you.”

With that he stood up and stepped back.

“So much is at stake, Piyali. I don’t want to hope for more and lose what we have. So please don’t be upset with me if what I said is not acceptable. What we have right now is not something I want to lose. And I hope you don’t either.”

She stood up and came near him. “I am–” she started speaking, but soon looked lost for words. “I need time,” she finally blurted.

Mukundo sighed in relief. “Of course. Take as much time as you need. Don’t take any decisions in a hurry. And Piyali, please, keep talking to me.”

She nodded.

Mukundo left with both trepidation and hope weighing on his heart.

—

By later afternoon, Mukundo was restless. What was she thinking? What were her considerations? What was she doing right then? And, most importantly, how was she? Unable to wait for her to come back to him, he made his way towards her house. A tense sight awaited him there.

“For God’s sake, speak up, Pihu. What is wrong? What is going on?” her father was screaming.

She sat on a plastic chair, still like he had seen her go earlier in the day, when he had started speaking to her.

The door to her tiny room was open and her mother seemed to be busy turning everything there upside down.

Mukundo grew nervous. Did it have anything to do with their conversation earlier? Had she told anything to her parents? Was there reaction unfavorable?

“What is going on?” he croaked with difficulty.

Piyali jumped out of the chair on hearing his voice and gave a miserable look to him. His heart sank.

“Ask this wretched girl, Mukundo, what does she think she is. She wasn’t picking up Pronab’s phone this morning. So, Debangi went to her room and guess what she found her with.”

He displayed the rope he was holding in his hands. It was Mukundo’s turn to jump in shock.

“What is this?” He didn’t really need an answer. It was a noose, plain and simple.

“What is so wrong in her life, ask her, Mukundo? We are not rich, but you and your Baba have always taken care of her needs. The best schools, the best education – she is spoiled for choice in the jobs she can take, she is spoiled for choice in everything life has to offer. But this is the choice she opts for?”

Mukundo looked back at Piyali. She was no longer looking at either of them. Her mother came out of her room and slumped on the chair Piyali had vacated.

“Hold on, Kaku, Kaki. Piyali, come with me.” He took her hands in his and led her out of the house. He didn’t have the patience to go all the way back to his house and the library. So, instead he made for the shade of a tree nearby and stood facing her.

“It was some kind of a misunderstanding, wasn’t it?” he said, “You didn’t really have that noose for—Why didn’t you tell them that?”

“I need to explain a lot.”

“What? What does that mean? Were you really–” Mukundo panicked, but quickly reined himself in, “Sorry! Tell me, what do you need to explain?”

She sat down on the ground, resting her back against the tree trunk and started talking. It had been many month, perhaps over a year since she had found herself saddled with extreme depression. The situation must have been building up over the years but had become dangerous now.

“So that noose was indeed–” Mukundo started asking in a trembling voice.

“Not any longer,” she hastily interrupted him, “Not since you knocked at my door that day.”

Mukundo sat down in front of her and took her hands in his. “Thank God, I at least did that. I had been such a jerk earlier. I–”

—

To be continued