How blue is the Sapphire - Bhaskar Sinha || Short story || Prose || English Story

 How blue is the Sapphire

         Bhaskar Sinha

It was an arduous and over stretched journey, being the only son of a village usurer going to a reputed medical college to the capital city of the country. The closed and unswaying mind dazed with the enormous lights, sounds and extravaganza.

…And there were Naveen, the classmate who seldom went to the class, but reading novels and poetry most of the time in his cosy hostel bed. The whole world admired him with an awe. To get his trivial attention, Avi was ever than fervent. If any time he was searching for some bucks, he was more than eager to open his purse. If Naveen was picking one or two big notes, Avi was reaching for cloud nine.

Shelly, Byron, Keats, Dante, Vinci, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Ruanda, Michelangelo, Picasso, Oscar Wilde, Tolstoy, Mark Twain, Dostoevsky, Nabokov, Pasternak, Pablo Neruda, Chee Guevara, Mao, Mandela, drama, music, guitar and some many other first heard words from the mouth of Naveen captivated Avi. He wanted to be orbited around him, but Naveen used to spin on his own axis and had other planets in his sphere and numerous satellites surrounding him. To Naveen, Avi might be a silly comet at the most.

Avi’s Babuji had a writhing life and fought poverty with tooth and nail. Now people feared him not because he was asking for a huge interest on loans, or he had plenty of properties, but his self-styled obeyed hoodlums could do anything and everything just by the drop of his hat. Babuji very much wanted him to settle down in the village itself. Given chance, he started lecturing him on the rural development and the human welfare. When in particular there was no qualified doctor at the village, it should be Avi’s moral responsibility to treat the ill-nourished villagers. Avi understood the inner meanings of those lectures and responded diligently that rural development was the government duty and his agenda was the utilisation of his knowledge properly for the betterment of humankind, including himself. Babuji was shocked when Avi planned his post doc plan at the overseas. He tried his best to pull Avi back and he tried all his judgements to fly away.

Arcita could have stopped him. Her parents, Avi’s maternal aunt and uncle left for the heavenly abode while a trip to Uttrakhand. The ill-fated cab slipped and shattered into pieces from almost six thousand meters top down. It was an enigma that how an Oak branch pinned her tiny ruffle romper during that mighty fall and kept her hanging and alive. Babuji calmly acknowledged the brave police volunteer, Tiwariji’s super human hill climbing ability with a rope and reaching her by taking chance on his own life.

Arcita was like a fresh air in that dogmatic village atmosphere. Small talks, gossips, ponds, never ending melodramas, etc. etc. all were stifling, but Arcita was far away from those sully muck. Even they came pretty close during their teenage years while spending some lazy summer afternoons, but lastly the butter remained intact, not got clarified. May be Babuji’s strong village ethics in the back of his mind and Arcita’s virtuous innocence saved those days.

Arcita used to realise her life with songs and flowers. The village boys were too lesser taste for her, but in one summer break Naveen visited my village from nowhere and how Babuji whisked away both of them and got them hooked, still not very clear to Avi. Interestingly neither Naveen nor Arcita are in touch with him now. Avi even doubt that whether Babuji keeps a tab of any one of them. He sincerely and secretly hopes that she still loves her songs and butterflies like before as well as was talking gently with the Kash flowers in a windy autumn afternoon. Probably Naveen also still immersed himself into Wordsworth, Beatles, John Lennon, John Denver, Bob Dylan and other great’s works.

Avi understood Babuji’s difficulty of a clear conversation with his own adult educated posterity. Inheritor should follow his footsteps- that was his yearning. Avi was nonchalant. Babuji even pretended health scares to bring Avi back several times. Sometimes Avi returned hurriedly stopping all the work. After some time Avi fathomed those melodramas and tried to reason with him calmly, but he would not listen. Poor Babuji never appreciated that Avi’s anchorage was now somewhere else.

Though how cruel it may be, but Babuji’s and his thought processes are quite divergent now and will never meet. Globe itself has turned into a village and it is of no use to remain confined in an isolated pond. Avi though respects Babuji and will continue to perform his duties towards him, but for sure, he would live his own life. Avi though becomes frustrated with these theatrics sometimes, currently takes a fervent resolution that he will continue to serve the humanity in his way. Probably that will be his way to pay a scant tribute to his beloved Bibhutibhusan, Apu, Ray, and Sarbajaya.