Wind Beneath My Wings - 1

If love is a trick, it would have a beginning and an end, but what lies in between is magical.

Come to think of it, his love story was rather simple. A girl falling in love with a boy, how difficult or complicated could that be? Not much I thought at the start, its just that the circumstances surrounding it, skewed the gravity of it all. Although it might be fair to say, not everyone experiences this magic, but this story had no dearth of it. To begin with the name itself fascinated him and then when he saw the accompanying work of art with it, he really fell in love hook line and sinker.

I am talking about Ms.Rosalyn Gonsalves. Let me take you through a day in Rosalyn’s life,well not just  any  day, it was a special day, where it all began,and perhaps ended, where her routine and predictable life met the charm of unpredictability and perhaps a shock of reality. I guess morning never shows the day.…

Rosalyn did not look thirty-two at all. Her tall yet curvy figure was a perfect distraction for most in the office, except her boss who perhaps swung the other way. She was a simple good-looking woman from the Kolkata Anglo-Indian community. Well mannered, educated, did her masters in communication and schooling at Loreto Convent, yet a little change in style, could make her look dramatically glamorous, something like a butterfly effect. There was an element of serendipity or perhaps subdued aristocracy in her.

With every sunshine came the regular morning cup of lemon tea, in the same stained porcelain mug, the familiar noise from the neighbors balcony, screaming about the empty water tank above, or the eternally stationery traffic lights, mute witnesses to the perpetual stream of cars and the discordant lives within, or the timeless wait to cross the tramlines, where life had its own pace and existence, meaning and purpose.

The same faces of the nameless voices, running somewhere she didn’t want to know. The same old grill-cage elevator, gingerly latching on to the lonely cable, going up each floor with yawning repetition, and as it went higher her enthusiasm ebbed lower. Though she felt boxed, trapped and stuffed inside, the choices outside the elevator, were hardly uplifting.

Not that sundown brought any greater relief, the morning routine repeated itself with a weaver’s perfection. As I watched her closely, a single drop of sweat glided down from the forehead, then stopped to think at the interruption of the dimple on the cheek, then shedding all inhibition, leapt on to a heaving breast. A soft exasperating pat of the ‘kerchief was all she offered in resistance. Afterall, horses sweat,men perspired and Rosalyn glowed.

The reminiscent Yardley died a slow death as the pungent nicotine and vibrant mint engulfed the environment. The tube light, streetlights, flashlights, headers, dippers, neon’s looked just as tired, yet doing their job just like everyone else. On her way out of the Kalighat station a small katti-roll shop “Gazebo”, made the familiar chicken-egg rolls, which she sometimes carried home, walking slowly and wondering what new challenges lay ahead in fifteen minutes.

Gyanban Thoughts : A mini series in the offing.This is the first episode, stay tuned for the next shortly.

Read Part  - II