The Voice of Silence

                                        

“Hello…”I waited for reply. No response. After some painful seconds, I shouted into the mouthpiece, “It is me, Kalyan”. The silence lingered. I grew restless. As the agonising moments ticked by, several questions crowded my mind. Would she or wouldn’t she approve of my obtaining the phone number from Swapna,  held the number a well-guarded secret. On many occasions earlier she had never heeded to my pleadings to part with Enee’s number. Until yesterday…I can’t reason out why.

Thirty long years…My mind drifted back again. After doing schooling from two different places, destiny drew us together as Enee and I joined Science College at Rourkela for our Inter Science and as luck would have it, we were not only front door neighbours but also got into the same group for lab practicals.  From the window glances at home to cycling together to college to practical lab sessions, our closeness grew. So much so, our separation during graduation, as I shifted to Ravenshaw at Cuttack, couldn’t draw us apart. Nay, rather the distance turned our closeness to intimacy as our friendship blossomed into love which was reflected in numerous love letters written during the period. And two years later, as we met again at the Sambalpur University to pursue our Masters, our love matured from romance of letters to real life experiences. We started meeting compulsively every day and became talk of the town, especially in the campus. When the news reached our parents there was a storm of protest. But that was when, after the Masters, I moved to Delhi and she IIT, Kharagpur. Soon as our family pressure mounted, I thought of Civil Service as my only saviour. But she, however, couldn’t sustain. Then when our contact dropped to almost zero and my goal of Civil Service grew bleak, I got the bolt from the blue. I heard from someone that Enee’s wedding bell was about to ring. I tried frantically to contact her to ask her to wait but in vain.

Since then my life became a dull, drab, lack-lustre affair. And that was perhaps the reason Civil Service too ditched me. Ultimately I had to settle down with a mediocre government job and started living like a recluse. Until yesterday…
When I received a surprise call from Swapna, now a Senior Manager with the Nuclear Corporation of India at Mumbai, who had come to Delhi on a conference at FICCI near my office. There with her trademark exuberance of vivacity, a broad grin on her face, she led me to a coffee table and looking into my eyes, revealed that Enee was now at Chennai with her South Indian husband who was her IIT mate. For a moment I felt a total blackout and could not decide how to react as Swapna gently pushed a slip in my hand, a number scribbled on it and said I could directly talk to her as she had herself lifted the ban.

“Hello…” At last I heard a female voice from the far end. My flashback snapped. Rather undecidedly I repeated, “It is me, Kalyan”. “Hi, this is Enee. You remember?”, she said. “How are you?” As though heaven fell upon me and the whole world slipped off my feet. I could not believe my ears as the voice resembled that of a typical South Indian old lady. Still not very sure, I tried to remind her of the by-gone campus days. But I had hardly finished when she shot back “They were our pre-mature days, unreal and dead. Instead of dwelling on them couldn’t we start afresh just like friends?”

Just like what? Before I steer clear of the confusion the voice goes off, ripples of silence ringing in the echoes “just…like…friends”.

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