The boy stood there as a sentinel ,not being able to control his thoughts ,his anger  was boundless. The memory was still fresh in his mind  as it was entering  the dangerous terrain of agony . He remembered the huge fire, the debris that had left him and his mother looming large in the jaws of a monster . It was almost twenty years back that this vast area which used to be an army barrack,  perished in minutes ...a flame struck the lives of many people living in the vicinity . Thoughts of his father made him grit his teeth now . This massive bomb-shell  killed his father and  left him and his mother in complete catastrophy .

Rony was born in the middle of a grey winter .He remembered sharing major portion of his devastated childhood in the war-front with his mother . A shell-shocked child of a soldier , who grew up with the sounds of guns , shells and the sounds of war. His mind was  overloaded with the gory stories of war , killings , cuts and deaths. At the age of five , he understood the significance of  the tones that the wailing sirens reeled....he knew , the amount of destruction each signal carried with it . The world outside his house was messy and  noisy but ,inside had no sign of  life  and maintained a fragile silence . Little did he know that this crude silence was preparing him to walk in a narrow passage which was leading  him to connect  the  world's worst  loop ! Rony was  totally unprepared for what happened next.

He and his mother were forced to go back to his father's ancestral home . Rony had been there on many occasions before. Infact , the house used to be extremely exciting for that little boy .He was treated like  a royal prince there and was addressed as "chotey babu " !!! Rony had started looking forward to living with his grand mother .The train was to leave at 5 in the evening  ; they  threaded their way through  the platform crossing porters , tourists , stall-holders , travellers and finally boarded the train. He was  quite excited about the journey till now .But suddenly his eyes met his mothers' . His heart wrenched seeing his mother weeping quietly in a corner .He crawled up on his mother's lap  and laid still .The future was unplanned and virtually undestined for both of them.

The train reached  Chandrapur next evening .The joy of freedom, the red-rimmed milky dreams that this little boy had weaved was short-lived . Soon  the dark world  outside flashed out stark realities . No body came to receive them at the station , they ducked their way through the streams of buses and cars to finally  reach the farm house. It was a huge house , which  was built of local red stones and had become almost pink with years. Granny was a social worker and used to keep herself  busy with diferent projects all the time.As they entered the house ,  ayeeta ( that's what he used to call his granny ) and mommy held each other and sobbed uncontrollably . Rony didn't say a word and stood  like a brave boy next to his mother. Within seconds,  the house absorbed all the happiness and reflected back the irreversible symtoms of a long struggle ahead.

Rony could see the sad fields , the sad sprawling green lawn ...his most interesting pool was also reflecting the sobbing sky this time ! Sheltered by a shallow porch , the front door stood dead in the long facade.  Rony shrieked this time , for no reason what so ever . It was a continuous cry .Granny  looked disturbed .The mother kept pacing  with the child outside in the garden , trying  to pacify the unfortunate  ; but, Rony remained unassured and insecured and continued to cry helplessly . The grandmother could not take it any longer ; like a poisonous arrow she appeared and rattled out some sharp words to his mother and  and went back.. The only sentence that Rony could grasp freezed him to death . He paused for a while and revised the words  ,"..... People from the neighbourhood are waiting in the room. An important meeting is on and I would like you to come and attend the meeting so that you can actually start learning something. Ask that fellow to be quiet , else, dump him with Ramu ....."  Dumped ? He knew words have power .Rony's body became cold and ayeeta's tongue was like scaples ripping through his skin. He remembered how the dead bodies from the debris used to be taken out and 'dumped ' in a place for mass cremation ! Is he also going to die now ???? Like innocent men, women and children , would  he also be stacked away for an unceremonial  burial ??????????

Time moved on as he grew and  the texture of his life kept changing  .Rony's mental growth was faster than his physical growth ; home wasn't a home for him anymore .It was his internal battleground !!!.Solitude made him a loner especially , after he'd lost his mother at the age of twelve . Grandma passed away a year after that. He learnt with age ,that  the easiest thing in the world is to lose oneself in the maze of tiny alleys .Reading had become his insatiable vice. He made no distinctions: he read whatever came his way, as if it had been ordained by his faith .Despite so many years of reading , he still could not judge what was good or what was bad for him to read. The only thing came clear to him was,  that he preferred verse to prose , and in verse the love-poems.These lovelores were probably helping him to concern himself with matters more mundane than heart aches. His youthful adventures gradually moved from reading into his initiation into the secrets of a loveful life.The traces of his past : scars of knife thrusts in the belly, starbursts of gunshots slowly started disintegrating and love and compassion started sewing the razor-cuts !

This is the time when he met  his class-mate Namami  one evening in a party . The moon was hazy and full over the garden .He watched her carefully for sometime and remembered the poem ' my mistress for one night ' . The thought made him a little uncomfortable and he tried to stare at the other side of the shadowy hedge .But the urge to be with her,  was more than anything for him. Rony took a deep breath .His knees started shaking , feeling as if he has sold his soul out to someone for the first time in his life. Namami's eyebrows rose , moonlight cascaded over Rony's  handsome face and shadowed the chiseled outlines of his cheekbones. She gently  shivered ....just thinking what was ahead her , she clutched the arms of her chair as her world seemed to hover and spin around him.They fell in love with each other. 

Rony had realised, before fate had any other chance to throw light on his path ,  he needed to act now to retain complete and absolute control over his destiny. Marriage  became a necessity , not an option any more for him . He had inherited a lot of property after his grand mother's death.He couldn't have lived all his life  alone in that forsaken territory.

The hedge was sharp and full of thin branches. Rony gave a cold appraisal to Namami from a distance, which  caused her cheeks go warm and red. She silently rose and went to him . Rony suddenly thought , that he had almost given up all the things in life which he loved  most , in order to stay out of a ruthless , vicious world . Why sacrifice her ?  The most important time in his life was about to begin. He held her and pulled her against the sharp branches and said , "Be mine"!  Pushing aside her fear , Namami pulled up her chin and said " Let me go ". Rony left her and said , " Is that what you want Namami? " His eyes were dark , angry and mesmerizing. His arrogance made him even more attractive. She flinched , hunching on the ground and covering her face with her hands....she felt no guilt . Rony stood in a faded jeans with an old white T-shirt so tight that every ridge of his muscle showed.The threat of him flinging over his powerful shoulder publicly gave her a fright. With a deep breath , she rose and and placed her hand on his hand and said ," I have succumbed , almost impossible to resist....am yours ".

The  world stretched away to a brighter horizon  for them. Rony brought her home that night .The wedding plans had to be quick thought Rony. Namami didn't understand the urgency , but, kept quiet in that unusual night .She couldn't believe that she was here , talking so intimately to an almost stranger. It was odd , but thrilling too for Rony also , to confide in a person after so many years. The plans were chalked out . Sreet light fell on Namami's face, Rony reached over her forehead and started stroking her hair very gently. Namami liked the awkwardness , his calmness. She half drifted into sleep suddenly heard Rony planning for a honeymoon. His plans surprised her, but later on , she  understood  the essence . He wanted to take Namami to the place where he had left his father , his memory behind. The happy township  which was re-built after it turned into ruins.....the post which gave him and his mother the "death sentence " !!! He wanted to go back to the same place and challenge his destiny once again.

   
 
A FICTION