Non-erotic Dawn at Midnight By Pinuram - {Completed}

[usaiha2]

The rain started as we came out of the college waiting for the taxis. We were seven friends and all wanted to go together.


Debobroto said---“Hey we can’t go in one taxi at least. Else girls have to sit on the laps.”

I shook my head in dismay.

My umbrella stuck and was not opening. Debobroto came near me and held his umbrella over my head. I looked at him with grateful eyes and thanked him.

The drizzle has already soaked sides and back of my dress. I tried to hide my bust by the dupatta.

Just then, I felt Debobroto has left arm on my left shoulder. I felt his touch like a shock, send goose bumps on my arms. The touch did not have any lewdness or lecher. It was a friendly loving touch. I looked around, Teesta and Delisha was smiling at me.

My creamy bare upper arm touched his left chest. Cold, humid breeze were blowing around us. I tried to feel the warmth of his palm on my shoulder. I looked down on the footpath.

Sankho called two taxis.

He looked at me and ushered me into the taxi.

In one taxi, I, Delisha, Teesta, and Debobroto boarded. He sat on the front seat.

Both of us were very quiet. The touch of his palm, send a string of thoughts racing in my brain. I looked outside the window. The raindrops splashed continuously on the glass panes.

Teesta asked me---“Why are you so quiet today? You should be happy. It is your birthday.”

“Nothing, I miss my Mom, everyday” I hid my pains.

“Was he coming back? Was there any type of communication he was going to have with me?” I could see the old wooden mast on the horizon of the ocean. Gradually the old mast was going down the line, the separator between the blue sky and Prussian sea.

Debobroto was quiet for a long time. I felt that he was also not in his old composure.

I tried to bring myself out of my confinement and slapped the back of his head---“Hey why are you so quiet?”

He smiled back at me---“Nothing.” He joked at both of us. “Today every girl is in salwar and I am having three most beautiful girls with me. Huh… everyone would be jealous of me I am sure.”

“Come on at least leave Delisha.” Teesta scolded him.

In the restaurant Debobroto sat between me and Teesta. I observe that Teesta was showing lot of concern about Debobroto. The way she was talking to him was not the way she used to talk to him.

I asked---“What to order?”

Teesta---“Chello Kebab, what else. Debu, what do you say?”

Debobroto was also astonished to hear his short name from Teesta’s lips. He contracted his brows and looked at Teesta. She smiled sweetly at him.

“Come on don’t give that look.” She smiled back.

After that we came out. It was still drizzling, that time I could open my umbrella. I and Teesta were on the same route so we were walking towards the main road. Debobroto was also walking with us.

Teesta asked him---“What are you going to do after M.Sc.?”

He shook his head and said---“I have not thought of anything yet, probably a lecturer or do research.”

He asked her back---“What are you going to do?”

“I am tired of studying. I will settle down after my college” she asked me as what I wanted to do.

I said---“I want to be a teacher. Let us see what happens. Ambitions are always not fulfilled; wishes are not met by fate.”

Debobroto looked into my eyes, our eyes met and I felt a deep writhing pain inside my chest.

He said to me---“Why are you so gloom now-a-days? Why is your voice sounding so cynic today?”

“Nothing” I said.

Teesta stood near to Debobroto as we waited for taxi. Her arms were touching his arms. I felt the closeness that was brewing inside her. I restrained myself from some unknown vacuum.

We were to board the taxi. I looked back over my shoulder, Teesta still stood by his side looking at his face. All the while he looked at me and approached me.

He handed a small box wrapped in a cellophane paper in my hand and said---“A small gift from a demure friend.”

I smiled back at him and said---“If you are demure then the world is mute.”

Teesta laughed at him and said---“Where is my gift?”

He scratched his scalp---“I don’t have the license to gift you. Do I?”

I boarded the taxi along with Teesta.

Before the taxi started, she threw some words at him---“I will wait for your gift.”

I thought, as the taxi cut through the streets and drove though the drizzle “What was happening to the world around me?”

Both of us were very quiet all along the return journey. Both of us lost in one’s thought. She was probably thinking about her future and I was thinking about my past.

She had to get down before me. When her stoppage came, she got down.

She looked at me and said---“Thank you for the treat.” She kissed my cheek and waved her hand.

The sun already went down. It was getting dark and there was no sign of rain to stop.

I entered my house. Babu and ChotoMa were waiting for me. I was surprised to see ChotoMa as she usually returns late from her school.

I asked them---“What?”

ChotoMa told---“I promised you to gift a music system. So hurry up. Change your dress.”

I said---“I don’t want any music system. I told you beforehand.”

She came near me and asked---“What happened to you?”

I felt a pain and wanted to tell the bitter truth “You all have done a lot for a girl who is not your own. Do not drown me in your debt more. I won’t be able to stand.”

Unwillingly I went with them and they gifted me a music system. I kept that on my reading table. Seldom had I used to hear music.

In the night, when I was alone in my room, I opened the box that Debobroto presented me. There was a small glass sphere filled up with transparent liquid. In that glass sphere there were two tiny cute looking statues of a boy and a girl with entwined arms. I smiled by looking at that “Debobroto what are you asking for I don’t have that with me. I can’t give you what I have lost.” I packed that sphere back inside that box and kept that in one corner of my bookshelf.


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