A Love Story Retold

Mr P is my friend. Every day we meet during our morning walk. He retired from government service in 2006 after rendering 34 years of service. He admires my stories and reads whatever I write whenever he chances upon it. A few months back while doing our ‘brisk morning walk’ he suggested, “Why doesn’t you write a story on me?”
“On you?” I could not get him.
“Yes, on me. I had a love affair, just after I had completed my Matriculation. It had lasted exactly four years and three months. But we were intensely in love with each other. “
Everybody loves to read a love story. The story may be Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina or Chetan Bhagat’s 2 State Story of my Marriage. Irrespective of nation, language, region, age or time, a love story always interests a person.
I said, “You have to tell me.”
And he told me his love story. He took the whole one hour we did our morning walk to describe his story with all the tit bits. He must have replayed his story many times in his mind during the last 40 years; otherwise he could not have made the story so interesting. In fact, I enjoyed the hour listening him without any feeling of fatigue for the ‘brisk walking’.
It was just a usual love affair in the sixties between two young persons who belonged to two different castes. Since their castes were different and also social standing of their parents in the village, the affair could not be translated into marriage. They had to succumb to social pressure, and part their ways.
I wrote a story based on his affair. The story is published under the caption ‘seshachithi’ (the last letter) in the anniversary special issue of SAMBAD, 2011.
I got a phone call at 10.30 in the night. I do not entertain any call after eight. But it was Mr P, my morning walker friend. He said, “Sorry to disturb you. I know you don’t like to be disturbed after eight, but I could not wait till the morning. I just finished your story. It’s really excellent…. the way you have ended the story… I don’ find words to describe it. It’s one of the four or five best stories of Odia literature I would always remember …”
Of course, I was pleased. But I felt he was over rating the story, it might not be as good as he described. I said, “It’s your story, that’s why it interests you. Others may not appreciate it…”
He stopped, took pause. Perhaps, he could not believe me. He said, “Maybe, that’s a point. But I think it’s really a good story. You will get good response from others… definitely… I am sure...”
I did not want to discuss on the subject more in the night. I said, “Okay, we shall meet tomorrow.”
I switched off the cell phone.
The next day in the morning we met. He again eulogised me and the story. He said, “I gave you a skeleton, but you injected life and put the soul. You have added something which I had not told you. But those were my real feelings at that point in time and in that kind of situations…. It’s really amazing... how could you imagine other’s feelings exactly …”
To change the discussion I said, “But I committed a mistake. I have changed the names of the characters. But I forgot to substitute some names for Manas and Manasi.”
Manas and Manasi were the code names they were addressing each other in their letters though Mr P and his lady love’s names were different. I had substituted some other names for Mr P and his lady love in the story, but forgot about Manas and Manasi. Of course, besides Mr P and his lover, the code names were only known to two of his closest friend and his wife. Yes, his wife knew the affair. He had burnt all of her letters except one. Somehow one letter out of a trunk full he had received during their affair of four years and three months had escaped the destruction. And that letter reached the hand of his wife who could discover the real Manas of Manasi with little investigation.
He said, “No, rather you have done the right thing in not changing the code names. She may chance upon the story. After all, Smbad’s anniversary magazine is widely circulated, she may get to read it and….”
In the story Mr P has met his lover after a gap of thirty three years, but in real life they have not met till now after they had parted their ways forty years back.
I looked at him. He stopped and did not complete the sentence.
Mr P is now at 63. His wife would be at 60.
“And…” I asked.
He smiled. I understood.
xxxxx