The Promiscuity

Abhimanyu was huffing and sweating as he stuffed his bag under the lower berth of the train. His heart was pounding with a threatening pace. He flumped on the seat and gasped for the breath. With his eyes closed he thanked the god to delay the train. He was late for almost half an hour from the scheduled departure time of the train and had almost given up the hope to board it. The sweat beads on his forehead were started to subdue as he settled. After few minutes when he opened the eyes, he saw two men in their late 60s were sitting cohesively on his opposite seat. The stare of the men upon Abhimanyu was stony and lifeless evoking a striking resemblance with Dumbledore of Harry potter. Abhimanyu thought men are aggrieved with some deep sorrow and returning back to home after attending some funeral rites in holy city Banaras.

It is very hot outside. Abhimanyu answered to the stare which uttered no words. Seeing his wordless fellow passengers, Abhimanyu realized that he is cocooned with the senile who have passed their age of humour long ago. He closed his eyes again to avoid the pugnacious stare of his fellow passengers.

When Abhimanyu took a deep breathe his own scent filled up his nostril that smelled like the mildewed furniture. Embarrassed, he took his deodorant and rushed towards the washroom.

Abhimanyu stood on the gate and watches a girl who was standing in front of the mirror and splashing the delicate water on her inculpable face. The hue of the beauty in the mirror smothered the pace of his heart. Girl's face in the mirror looks like it was crafted by god to epitomize the beauty for this mortal world. He was excited to have a beautiful girl aboard on his coach but instantly a malice of doubt rose in his falling heart to say ‘see the beauty of this girl, will she ever speak to you.' His childhood belief of being handsome was splintered in the miserable pieces with the force of his self-made doubt. The girl's water therapy was over. She dried her face with the white towel offered from the railway department and checked her face by pouting and puckering her lips.

She thrust the door inside and gone without paying any attention to good looking Abhimanyu. Her callous act of ignoring him, made him feel trivial. He locked himself inside the bathroom and washed his face and his stinking armpit.

The train took a jolt and began to run with a creaky sound. Abhimanyu stood still on the gate and allowed the air to wipe away his newfangled fondness for an unchivalrous girl.

Vivacious Varanasi junction was now blurred from his vision.

Melancholic Abhimanyu when returned on his seat, he was astonished to discover the girl sitting near the window on his opposite berth. His heart was filled with the colossal stream of happiness. The sage who lived in his heart whispered him, that one day this girl will be yours. Feeling triumphed, his lips spread in a cunning smile. The short-lived furore her beauty had created in his heart was allayed with a mere thought of owning something that seems absolutely priceless. He sat on his seat hoping that his debonair charm will work this time. But this beauty was nowhere to be impressed from something which ended to be ordinary in comparison to her beauty.

Abhimanyu didn't sleep until 11:00 pm. Something was bothering him. He belonged to Balia district of UP. In his village Sundarpur, he would perform in Ramleela. And from last 6 years, he has been performing as lord Rama because of his good looks. But his good looks failed to leave an impact on a girl. The girl who was busy with a Dan brown novel.

                                                     ~

I am Rangnath Jha from Bihar. A young boy said in his Bihari tone and extended his hand. Welcome to AMU friend.

Abhimanyu smiled and shook hand.

I am your room partner. He said.

That's great. Abhimanyu said and get inside room no. 31.

Which course? He inquired.

Electronics and communication. Abhimanyu replied.

Abhimanyu sat on the third row close to the entrance in his classroom. Rangnath sat beside him. The classroom was getting filled with the future engineers. Abhimanyu grew worried seeing the charmless faces, mostly were bookworms. He had never thought that among these unanimated faces, there would come a face which will dazzle the engineering block of AMU.

Almost 50 students, mostly beauty starved male were startled to see a girl entering in the classroom. Abhimanyu's eyes were hung in surprise to see her. She was the same girl whom he had met in the train. A mini celebration ran through his face as if God has sent her for him.

I had never seen such a beautiful girl in my life. Rangnath said caressing his smugness. In Bihar, such beautiful girls are very rarely seen.

Abhimanyu smiled. She is Bengali. Kornica Ganguly. She is not Bihari. He taunts.

Rangnath like a lost poet just looked at Abhimanyu. Bengali women are really such beautiful. He said and began to write something on the white wall. He wrote ‘August 1997- June 2001- A love story of a Bihari boy and a Bengali girl.'

Abhimanyu didn't say something and smiled. He knew that like him Rangnath too was charmed of her beauty. Miss Kornica has just aired the scent of her amazing beauty in the modest campus of AMU only to make the campus breathless.

It was 2 months over now. Abhimanyu and Kornica have become well acquainted with each other and were a good-friends now. The two of them formed a group of common friends and their college life just moves on.

Soon Kornica has become the inseparable habit of Abhimanyu. He sees her everywhere, the only time he missed imagining her is the time when he is with her. The heart of Abhimanyu is smothered with the sudden conflagration of desire when he would see the beautifully carved lips of Kornica. Her lips were red like pomegranate. Her fingers were long and bony which she oftenly thrust in the stomach of Rangnath for him proposing her every day. She always looks pure and fragrant like morning petals of the rose. Her unimaginatively beautiful face and greatly shaped frontal seems to be impeccably great supplement to ignite the soul of a poet for his vivid creation. Her beauty was astonishing. Abhimanyu would see her as the inculpable creation of the god who is not touched by the malice of vanity in spite of being so beautiful. However, Abhimanyu failed to notice that his heart has started playing truant with him and have begun arranging a different kind of inappropriate longing for his darling friend. It was love, perhaps, to be more appropriate, a love for her amazingly beautiful body.

But Kornica has the different view on him. She finds the deep serenity in his company. For her, he was her darling friend, the most closest in her life. With whom she shared everything. Even one day when she was feeling gloomy and paled, she told him that she was passing through a difficult menstruation cycle and needed to see a doctor. Abhimanyu, however accompanied her, but he was astonished. When girls shy to discuss this issue with their parents, she didn't hesitate to discuss it with him. This episode stirred and tainted the pristine brain of Abhimanyu with some culpable illusions.

One day, two of them went to watch Titanic together. The movie left an eccentric impression on Abhimanyu. He thought, if needed he too can sacrifice his life for her. When both of them came out the theatre, he said ‘he can die to keep her happy and protected.' Kornica found his proclamation childish but loved to see the love of his friend for her. With teary eyes, she hugged him. It was the first hug for him. The touch of her majestic body was like a prayer of centuries been heard by the almighty which introduced a strange sense of fulfilment to his soul.

Years passed quickly and summer has just begun spreading its wing. The heatwave of campus selection and final semester exam was over now.

University hostel bustled with a never seen before bonhomie and cry. Hostel rooms were prepared to bid adieu to old bags and were buoyant to welcome the new bags, new comrades.

Harshita called up to Abhimanyu, a night before the four friends were set to depart. She pleaded him to profess his love before Kornica but he couldn’t amass the courage to admit it. Disappointed, she told about it to Kornica. Kornica was overwhelmed to know that her best friend with whom she has shared all the layer of her life loves her. But simultaneously she was sad that her best friend loves her. For her, Abhimanyu was someone like her brother, with whom she can share anything, she can do any damn thing but can't make love. It was too late now, she has committed her life with her school friend and her engagement was a couple of months away in September.

She thought to meet her darling friend one last time before leaving for Kolkata.

Abimanyu's heart ceased to beat when she cushioned him between her delicate arms which Abhimanyu finds stronger today.

Harshita stood heartbroken on failing to unite the true love.

After a couple of weeks, Kornica joined Infosys in Bangalore and Abhimanyu made himself busy with Accenture in Delhi.

Kornica married to a man of her life, Marvan roy. Marvan was pursuing MBBS from Bangalore.

Abhimanyu married to a relative, Maya. Maya was a gold medallist in MSC from BHU. She was intelligent and almost equally beautiful as Kornica. But the eyes of Abhimanyu have already been dazzled with the scintillating beauty of Kornica and have lost its all urge to open for another.

Days passed, months passed, but Abhimanyu didn't cease to forget Kornica for a moment. Even the sensuous arms of Maya failed to curb his dissident desire for Kornica.

After his year-long stint with Accenture, he left his job and joined banking and left it too within a month. He then got a job in archaeology department, where he worked for six months and left it too. Without Kornica his heart finds no solace. Maya was worried for her so well educated husband who was quitting one job then another and adamant to be ruined.

Abhimanyu's eccentricity fell in love with painting brush and canvass. He began to make painting. Distressed Abhimanyu's dexterity thrives, he uses the colour like his blood and draws Kornica's emotion and beauty on the canvass in such a magnificent way, it seems that the Kornica on the canvass would come alive and stun the beauty made up of the shining and sensitive flesh where runs the fresh blood. Every time he depicts her in painting, she appears more beautiful than before. Canvass was blessed to adapt the wonders of her sensuality, her pulchritude which has no parallels. When Kornica came to know about him, she was livid. She was worried for his married life.

One day when Harshita called Abhimanyu to counsel him, he surprised her. Her heart wept convulsively with disbelief that her friend is suffering from some incurable rare disease and will soon be dying. When Kornica learnt about it, she was disheartened. The imminent death of her best friend who was still in love with her made her to realize his sacrifices. She cursed herself for being rude to his true love and choosing Marvan over him. Emotionally baffled she took a decision which was inappropriate for a married woman. She thought to give her everything to Abhimanyu. She thought to surrender the pleasure of her body to her best friend who will soon be dying.

Marvan was aghast, his mental equilibrium was deranged listening a brazen decision of his wife to sacrifice her married life for a man who was already married. He tried to counsel her, but her heart filled with a pity love for her friend has no place open to accommodate his moral teachings.

She left him and came to Delhi to be with Abhimanyu. Her friend Harshita helped her in getting a job in IBM in Delhi.

Abhimanyu's heart was wickedly overwhelmed. His long wish to make love with his darling friend was about to be true.

Abhimanyu finally relishes the ambrosia of Kornica's lips, his lips has feasted the softness and warmth of her flesh. He was happy to have made sex with the most beautiful woman and on the other side she felt the elite contentment for fulfilling the wish of her best friend.

Soon the scent of their affair reaches to Maya. She was livid to know that her husband is involved with Kornica. Wives have the myriad of unexplained secret sources to watch the fling of their husbands.

One day suspicious Maya summoned Abhimanyu's friend Sanjay. Sanjay was the only person who was aware of his friend's unsolicited fling.

What the hell is going on between my husband and that bitch?' Maya's patience was at its lowest ebb and she was ready to burst.

Sanjay knew that she is enraged. 'Look, Maya. There is nothing going on between the two of them. Just a little bit of healthy flirting, I'd say.'

'Flirting? Healthy flirting? Really Sanjay . . .' she rolled her eyes in disgust. 'That's what you men call it? There is nothing healthy about flirting, Sanjay, not for a married man.

Healthy flirting is a term introduced by perverted men who want to lend legitimacy to their extramarital dalliances. Flirting invariably has a sexual connotation to it.' She got up from her seat and walked around the room gesticulating and muttering something to herself. Suddenly she stopped, turned back, looked at Sanjay and asked, 'Did my husband sleep with her? You are his friend. Did he ever tell you anything about it?'

He is just a friend to her and there is nothing between them. Sanjay said keeping the curtain drawn on his friend's promiscuous life.

One day when Abhimanyu was sleeping in the bedroom of Kornica. She woke him up with the warmth of her lips on his chest. She slipped away and smiled when Abhimanyu tried to kiss her. Do you remember what did you say when we watched Titanic movie together?

Yes! I do.

I couldn’t understand your love then. I thought you are just being funny. She spoke in regret. But I can say it proudly today that I can die for you. You can’t imagine how much I loved Marvan all these years. But you were never away from my memories. I had never cried in my life the way I cried when I learn about your health and unceasing love for me. It doesn’t matter how long you will stay with me. My life will survive with your memories after you are gone. You will be missed but never forgotten my darling. She said and splayed on the broad chest of Abhimanyu.

Hearing her, guilt seeped in the heart of Abhimanyu. Her warm body and scented kisses which he always wanted to feast suddenly seemed undesirable. His heart was filled with a tumult of regret which almost killed him from within. He realised his guilt of cheating his best friend by concocting a lie about his illness which he never had. He was fallen from the grace in his own eyes. He wished if he were incurably ill. He had cheated everybody around him. The looming burden of spoiling the life of Maya and Kornica rendered him sleepless. He thought to avenge himself and commits suicide to cope up the heaviness of regret.

Love has a weird way of ending its story. When love becomes obsession, it ends in a tragedy.