For seven days now, red-green-gold fairy lights of every hue have blazed at the Chakraborty house; decorative lights for the wedding of Sutapa, the family's youngest daughter.
Relatives have streamed in from villages, from the city, even from abroad. After all, this is Sutapa's wedding! A renowned chef has been brought in from Delhi. One dish after another has been cooking all day. The sweets, laddus, moas, vermicelli, rice pudding—all finished by morning. The elders of the house are each overseeing different tasks, while the children are lost in joyous commotion.
Today, in this bustling house, only one person has abandoned her duties to sit alone in the prayer room. She is Sutapa's mother, Arunima Chakraborty. Tears keep welling in her eyes. Her little Sutapa's turn to leave has come at last.
At seven forty-two in the evening, at the auspicious moment, the vermillion touched Sutapa's forehead. From today, she is the daughter-in-law of the Sengupta house.
By the time they finished bidding their daughter a tearful farewell, it was half past twelve at night.
As the sound of the shehnai faded into the distance, at some point it seemed as though a group of people were passing by Sutapa's car, chanting "Bolo Hari," "Haribol." Sutapa's cousin asked the driver to pull over and got out to see what was happening. When he returned, he said that a boy named Binoy from their area had committed suicide by taking cyanide. He had apparently been Sutapa's classmate.
Her groom asked, "Do you know him?"
Sutapa shook her head in denial, as if hearing this name for the very first time!