10. Women in my life

I feel one should know every aspect of a man to evaluate him correctly. It is necessary to know about the role of women in his life to understand the emotions and feelings of such a man. I have talked about my wife in detail on the page of My Marriage and about my wife. I shall tell here about the other women with whom I came in contact at different stages of my life.  Maybe I had loved some of them from my heart but could not communicate, some others might have loved or got attracted to me, but I did not feel the urge to respond. Yet, for some others, it might have been reciprocal. It is necessary to unfold this part of my life. Without it, the depiction of my life, in relation to my emotions and feelings in particular, will remain incomplete.  So, it finds a place here.  I believe there is nothing to hide or feel ashamed of it.  Some people always have had the company of more than one woman or man in their lives from time immemorial. These affairs might have remained open or secret when they occurred.  

Let me start with my childhood love, which was illusory, which was one-sided. To cause my feelings to reflect its shades in colours in the backdrop of the then social set-up, I describe the whole of it in minute detail. In some parts of my life story earlier told, readers might have come across the name TOSHITA with which I have adorned my childhood love. While describing my school life, I have said that I avoided speaking with my female classmates, far from mixing with them. I was so shy and so much introverted. 

Notwithstanding the above trait or deficiency (as you prefer to call it) of my character, I had developed a deep love for a classmate of mine at that very young age of 12 or 13 years, though I couldn’t express it to her due to my timidity and shyness. I, being an introvert, could not also mention it to anyone else, including my friends. No one, including my best friend, had any knowledge of it. I feel it is now the time, while I tell the story of my life, to bring out that part of my life in which I had an overwhelming romantic feeling deeply hidden in my heart for decades, with no way to find its expression. The days and the emotions might have gone, but the memory stays on. We carry that memory deep in our hearts; Sometimes, they find vent, while at other times, they die with us.  

The classmate I am speaking of was of non-Bengalee origin and came from a family, cultured and affluent. Let me bestow upon her a fictitious name TOSHITA to make it easier for me to talk about her on these pages. 

TOSHITA[13]  spoke excellent Bengali, was dusky, beautiful, and had an overly sweet voice. She used to have bob-cut hair. She was learning the dance too. We were in Class VI when she came and joined us; she stayed in our school only for a year or so but had left an indelible impression on my young mind without being aware of it. I always had a craze for beauty; the moment I saw her, I fell for her. It may be called love at first sight. But the fact remains that the sense of romantic love was not there in me till then and before I saw her. It was thenceforth that I would feel an ecstatic joy in myself at the very sight of her. While in school, I would always look for her in the classroom; her presence in the room in proximity would fill me with joy. The day she would be absent, I would be dismayed; the day would become meaningless to me, and my ability to concentrate on any matter would get lost. So intense were my love and feelings for her. 

It was the kind of love that went beyond sexual lust and attempts at gratification; it was that kind of feeling that delved into friendship and kinship. It was, though, the passion for sex was developing in me at that time. I believe that was what was called the divine feeling of love. It is a kind of feeling that rarely comes into one’s life. It came to me despite my not knowing Toshita’s mind and her feelings towards me. We were not communicative with each other. It could be termed a silent one-sided love from my end. 

Long after, when analyzing Toshita's character, by picking up stray incidents here and there, it had appeared to me that she might have been somewhat bloated (not unlikely for an only child of a well-to-do family); probably, she did not have any weakness or feeling for me. 

During our school days, I had only once an occasion to speak to her, and that was when I was escorting her home in a rickshaw after she had a fall within the school premises; our Assistant Headmaster Ratan Mohan Ganguli had asked me to reach her home. I was delighted; I thought I would have a chance to open my heart to her. But that was not to be. In reply to my query about her injury, she showed me the spot where she was hurt, and there it ended, be it called a conversation or whatever else.  Due to my shyness and her silence (maybe because of the pain from her injury), there was no further talk. When we reached her house, her mother asked me in, offered me a glass of water, and asked about what had happened. Toshita rushed straight to her room. Later, I did not find any occasion to open my heart to Toshita. 

In our conservative society of those days, especially in a small place like ours, a boy could not mix with a girl without being frowned upon. It was all the more difficult for me. I was known as a bright student, and my association with any girl in the open, particularly in the context of our weak socio-economic background, would be the talk of the town and damaging to the reputation of both. It could have adversely affected my family, too. I couldn’t, therefore, meet Toshita privately at any place outside the school

We did not have cell phones or the Internet as today. I used to reach the school ahead of time, hoping to talk to Toshita in private in case she arrived before the others. But that opportunity had never presented. Thus, though within me, I was in deep love with her, I couldn’t communicate it to her; her feelings towards me, too, remained unknown. The love that budded in me remained intangible for my failure to carry it to the person for whom it grew.

When in Class VII, I did not initially know that Toshita had left our school. I thought that she had moved to the morning section along with other girls of our class on promotion to Class VII. I was in the hope that I would meet her someday at the break of morning section, and before our class started; both morning and the day section of our classes used to be held in the same school building. It was then that I came to know that she had left our school but had no inkling where she had gone.

I could not pull up the courage to enquire at her house because of the strict social order of those days.

As I learnt about my performance in the Matriculation Examination, the first name that came to my mind was Toshita. It was an opportune moment to get closer to her.  But, at that time the whole of the Brahmaputra valley was on fire with a violent linguistic (anti-Bengali) movement spreading around.  We were first confined to our home with a curfew in force and later had to leave Jorhat temporarily for safety and security. I could not contact Toshita at that time, though that could have brought her closer to me. Later, I did not get the opportunity to open my mind to her. 

Decades later, when I had an opportunity to speak to her, I learnt that she had been doing a course in Music in Shantiniketan when I had been looking for her in the early years after our Matriculation Examination. In due course, she graduated in Music from there.I had come to know about her family composition and occupation, too, at that time. It was then only that I learnt from her that she had joined the order of a renowned spiritual organization (Prajapita Brahmakumari1) years back. She told me she was in a turbulent situation and was searching for peace and tranquillity when she came upon a spiritual lady who inducted her to the order of Brahmakumaris. She has since found peace. I refrain from giving further details about her.

Incidentally, more than a decade and a half before I came to know of Toshita's association with Brahmakumaris, I had visited Ohm Shanti Bhawan, the main Assembly Hall of the Brahmakumari Spiritual University located at Mount Abu. My family was also with me. The serene white building radiates the spirit of holiness. It has a capacity of 5000 people with the facility to translate into 16 different languages simultaneously. Here are a couple of pictures below of Ohm Shanti Bhawan from our visit.

I could talk to Toshita because of one of my friends who helped me get her cell number. Getting her cell number was difficult as we did not even know where she lived. It required my friend much effort to accomplish it. I can't, but be thankful to my friend.  

I did not, however,  have the opportunity to meet her since she left our school, though I tried.  

The seed of a glowing love for Toshita was sown in my heart when I was twelve or thirteen years old. A year hence Toshita left our school, and I did neither see nor speak to her after that. But my love for her intensified with time and engulfed the whole of my heart. It had not died but remained deeply embedded in my heart and sublimed my feeling with a heavenly joy in my lonely moments. 

My love for this girl had overpowered me so much that, at later stages, I could not respond16  to the overtures of other women who felt interested in me and wanted to get closer. I could not look towards any of them the way I had looked at my childhood love. Two women had openly displayed their love for me in my early youth, but I did not feel the urge to respond. 

Continuing with what I have been saying about my love for Toshita, I must admit here that the memory of Toshita became somewhat dull during the last phase of my academic life. That phase had started at the mid-stage of my post-graduation days, when I had to some extent, lost myself amid friends and the glamour of city life, and it had continued till I joined the service at Berhampore. 

Real name, to which the name Toshita relates, had a romantic appeal to me for more than a decade. That name used to stir up my passion for the named person. In those days, Toshita had emotionally been an inseparable part of my life; a day would hardly pass without thinking about her, though I did not even know where she had been. 

My life’s depiction, particularly the emotional aspect of it, would have been incomplete and untrue without telling about her. That brings her up here. Her name might have already occurred at places in the narration of this discourse. 

It was the end of 1970 or the beginning of 1971. The place was Mekliganj. Balai had left on transfer, and I had moved to Second Officer's quarters. A law enforcement officer came to Mekliganj on a transfer with his family and occupied his earmarked quarters in my neighbourhood. I had by then started driving the car during my official tours to district headquarters and elsewhere with the government driver sitting by me; I did not have a driving license. In such a scenario, one day, I received a letter by post from someone claiming to be a well-wisher. In that letter, the writer implored me not to drive the vehicle. It did not take me long to identify her. I diagnosed the style of writing as of a woman. Next was to find who this woman was. Observing the later demeanour of one of my neighbourhood girls, I could surmise who the writer was. She was the daughter of my new neighbour, fair and beautiful though a little short in stature. That was her first sign of showing love for me without exposing herself. I can't say the manifestation of her concern for me did not touch me. But I preferred to keep quiet. I could not, however, ignore the letter altogether. Her appeal rang in my ears when I drove the car and made me doubly careful. 

Later, too, the girl gave me enough indication of her love and concern for me in different ways. I saw her several times standing on the pathway behind Jail Warders' quarters close to mine when I roamed inside the compound of my quarters in the dawn and pre-dawn hours. Possibly she wanted to talk to me privately when there was none around. I spoke only once. If I was not grossly mistaken, it was she again who had brought the news of a conspiracy hatched by the jail warders to attack me in the sub-jail (details under Jail Administration in Mekliganj Page) to the knowledge of the SDO via her father [2]. From her airs and manners, I could read she had been intensely in love with me and longed to have a ride together. I had spoken to her only once, and even then, it was only a few words. At that time, I might have also given her some indication of my mind.  Taking a cue from that, she later expressed her feelings to me. That was a winter morning. I was walking on the embankment of river Teesta. She was sitting alone while her friend was observing from a distance. As I passed by her on my way, she called me back and said she had been after me for a long time past. I felt sorry. I had nothing to give her or say in reply. Maybe she could make me a good partner for life, but I had already decided to marry elsewhere. 

The girl, it seemed, had carried her love for me in her heart even when she left the place we had been staying. For, she had sent her father to enquire about me at my new station of posting, where I had joined a few months after she and her family had left our old place. Her father had no business to meet me unless he was prevailed upon by his daughter to do so. He was socially not known to me though we had official relation. The gentleman met me and left after tacitly ascertaining my marital status. That was the last I had heard of her. 

That visit by her father made me realize how deep her love for me was. Time and distance could not kill it. I felt hurt. Though I had not done anything on my part to arouse her feelings, I feel sad at times for being a cause of her sorrow and disappointment. It is perhaps the curse of being a sensitive person.