Some people can give you both, a nick in the stomach and a
stab in the heart. You are never
completely sure of the emotion they inspire.
Ira felt buffeted between sour jealousy and an admiring envy
around Janice. “What is it about this woman? She enters a room in a cloud of
music and leaves it in the debris of despair. It feels like the sun came in and
then there is the cloud in her wake.”
The two shared history. Alumnae of the class of 1995 at the St.
Mary’s Convent Allahabad, they had gone their ways in college. The sharpest
image in Ira’s memory of her years with Janice was of their last day together
at the Children’s Park, near their favourite concrete Elephant slide. Janice
was twirling and shaking her ‘churmura
cone’ in an effort to get the green peas up. Ira was silent with the effort of
absorbing the news that Janice and family would be moving to another town on a transfer.
“I feel sick,” she remembered muttering to herself. They
were moving out of the park gate towards the cycle stand. The evening was nearly
upon them and there was an annoying anticipation of maternal stress at home,
“You must come home before dark,” their mothers made a habit of worrying
themselves to ill health. The two had mounted their black, lady’s Hero bicycles
and were nearly out on the main road when Janice had braked abruptly, almost
causing Ira to fall. Ira remembered them pulling over to the side. Janice had
stood there on one foot, the other resting on the right pedal. The words would
not come, only her eyes shone extra bright. “Are you feeling all right?” she
had asked. She recalled the determined
shake of Janice’s head and they were both off, soon enough, towards their respective homes.
Now, a decade and more later, they were back in the same
space, two well-trained professionals at the TV 20, a news and entertainment channel.
Ira was a writer-cum-production manager and Janice, a highly successful news
anchor and analyst. What was missing was their old connection, that sweet
sentiment of adolescence, bordering on the romantic. Ira pinched her forearm
hard, “Idiot!”
“Hello, but how long is Janice going to take in the
conference room, her computer has been blinking on and off with that floral
screen saver,” Ira dragged her thoughts back to their office. She drew closer
to Janice’s table in an absent minded flow, “I could put the machine into
hibernation,” she tapped the cursor pad smartly, focused on the left corner
bottom icon. But her peripheral vision caught the bold black letters right at
the top of the screen: New Age Online Confessional! There was an incomplete
note, “I confess to almighty God, and to you, dear brothers and sisters. I am
told I have a disease and have sinned for I am consumed by a “degrading
passion” for my childhood friend Ira. It is a lust that will destroy our
physical bodies, ruin relationships and bring perpetual suffering to our souls.
I honour your word, seek your salvation and ask for your forgiveness. I
understand that I will never inherit the Kingdom of God. I am grateful for your
respect and sensitivity. I do not wish to walk on hot sands under a rain of
fire. My friend must not so much as guess or else…”
Ira moved back heavily, rubbing her eyes with violence. They
had begun to smart with the grit of agonized emotions.
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