First Love, Remembered

Arun-da, that time I had gone to see the puja at your house, just before dusk fell there was suddenly such a fire in the puja pavilion! I remember, in the crowd of people running about, I stood there gaping at the flames blazing fiercely. You came running from somewhere and with trembling hands gripped my hand tightly, pulling me away to a safe place some distance off.

Arun-da, you know, that night I couldn't sleep a wink. In the full moon of my sixteenth year, throughout my room and mind, there kept rising again and again the fire of a man's first touch. Such a strange thrill coursed through my entire body! Arun-da, you were exactly twenty-seven then.

That day, holding onto the window grille, I was thinking only of you. Imagining so many things about you all alone, laughing with embarrassment, hiding my face even from myself! Oh my...!

You entered the room from somewhere and gave me a gentle tap on the head, saying, "What's up, little one, where's your brother?"

Without waiting for my answer, you went chattering off to brother's room.

I kept my hand pressed to the spot where you had tapped me, gazing at your absent-minded departure.

You know, Arun-da, in the happiness of your second touch that day, I couldn't sleep that night either. Standing before the mirror, I kept touching and touching the place you had touched, closing my eyes to feel you, telling myself, "Right here, yes, right here Arun-da touched me!" Ah, what a wonderful resonance of feeling!

Arun-da, you were my life's first one-sided love. You never even knew that secretly I would wear vermillion in your name, stealing it from mother's box.

Sometimes I would wrap mother's red sari around myself from her wardrobe and see how I would look if I were your wife. Since you loved firni, I learned to make it like an expert cook. Since blue was your favorite color, all the blues in the world seemed like beloved rainbows to me. You used to stroke brother's cat Mini on her back with such affection. You don't know that after you left, I would bring Mini to my room and kiss her back hundreds of times!

That pen you had left behind once—I would secretly hold it to my chest and shower so much love all over that pen!

Ah, how busy my private city would be with all sorts of arrangements for you! Night never fell in that city. In this world, I understood only you as man. Hidden from everyone, I wanted you so deeply with my entire body and soul.

Do you remember, Arun-da, one drizzling evening you came to our house completely drenched? Asking where brother and mother were, you entered the room shaking water from your body and bolted the door. I said there was no one home. You didn't hesitate at all, rather with complete authority as if it were your own room, you said, "Go on, bring a cup of tea, and give me the towel."

You were wiping your whole body with the towel while playing music from brother's laptop on the table... "When the clamor stops, when all around sleeps in silence..." You paid no attention to me at all. I watched you doing this and that just as if it were your own room. Humming along to the tune, you took the teacup from my hands. You know, Arun-da, for the third time your fingers touched mine that day.

I ran to my own room, closed the door, and panting, pressed that finger against my chest and held it there for nearly an hour.

That night you stayed at our house. You were in brother's room and mine was just one room away. In my heart I was desperately wishing you would knock sharply on the door and say, "Boishakhi, I love you so much!" Or taking it as an opportunity, you would force your way into my room and press your lips to mine and kiss me deeply!

No, nothing like that happened. I waited all night, you didn't come. At half past three in the middle of the night, I slowly peeked into your room to see what you were doing. I saw you sleeping peacefully, snoring. I wrapped the quilt around you, turned off the light, and came back to lie down in my own room.

"In the next room, just a few yards away, you are there!" This thought didn't let me sleep even a moment that night! Before you woke up, I had made tea and filled a flask and brought it to your room. As you were leaving after drinking the tea, you said, "Hey little one, you make really good tea!" Hearing this, I kept my head bowed in embarrassment. In my heart I was desperately wanting to pull you close and say, "Arun-da, stay today too! Don't go, please!"

You kept walking away stubbornly, and something inside my chest was breaking and churning up a storm. The faster you moved away, twice as fast someone from within kept shouting countless times, "Arun-da, don't go, please! Stay, Arun-da."

On some auspicious Thursday in Choitro, you put vermillion in Choitali's hair parting.

When your house was filled with the hubbub of a roomful of people and wedding festivities, I felt like some insignificant particle drowning in the infinity of a black hole. That night I locked my door and wailed like a madwoman, and you never even knew, Arun-da!

After marriage you set up house with your wife in some lane in the city. After that we never met again. No one kept in touch with anyone. Still I wait. What exactly that waiting is for, I don't know myself.

Arun-da, I loved everything about you strangely. Your swaying walk, your sudden bursts of laughter. Your eyes, nose, ears, throat, your way of speaking somehow, I loved it all, Arun-da! I'm telling the truth, I loved everything. Even without getting you, I got as much as I did—did she, even getting you, get even a fraction of that? I'm so curious to know!