A heart of gold

In the school they said, write what you wanted to be in your life.She came with a big blank paper and a 5 letter word ‘HAPPY’. Ms. Raima said i think u didnt understood the assignment and everyone heard her “You dont understand the life”

Now you must be wondering to know more about her, where is she,what she did,is she happy after a good 23 years.

Let me take you back to eighties when dharmendra and dev anand were everywhere and we were at Bokaro. A girl and a boy and many other boys and many other girls….she was never an epitome of our group, she was a bit boyish, a bit outgoing and to say the truth she was more forthcoming and mature than all of us. At that time, we never knew ‘Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus’….we thought we all belong to this mother of all planets, earth and Bokaro was the whole earth for us.

She was a golden girl because whenever we didn’t do our homework, we copied from her, whenever we did something wrong, she owned the responsibility……she always felt happy when we ate her lunch…we loved her heart shaped golden pendant……I used to touch it and love the touch.

We saw so many pictures, publicly screened by Bokaro Steel Plant authorities but we knew they were not from our planet and they really looked different with so perfect screen presence.

So, lets go back to the story….priyanka did well in studies,so did we.Just like good fellows, we bid good bye to each other and flew in different directions….i did engineering,prakash did biotech, sarla got into medicals and priyanka got into speach therapy. I know a speach therapist story among all those doctors,engineers and management looks weird, but life do have weird ways to teach you and mind you….. speach is most important aspect of human existence.

We got busy in our own worlds, far away from each other and not aware of each others existence.

Now our story has to take a turn and as they say “chhoti si yeh duniya, anjane raste hain..tum kahin to miloge, kabhi to miloge………toh puchhenge baat “ and I met priyanka at shimla airport about 4 years ago, she was with a guy on wheel chair, crippled guy with or without movement. I was getting late for my tech conference and was the lead speaker so just exchanged our numbers and got going.

The conference was fine, people appreciated and jotted down management lessons i shared with them but to say truly……..i was still thinking about priyanka and dat guy on wheel chair. Way back, Kamlesh had told me about priyanka’s affair with Rohit…she was good, he was a gem and i heard he also gifted her a 32 Carat potato sized diamond ring on her Birthday. She was always a girl of dreams…she had heard it all; para gliding,go karting and bungy jumping….and at that age, we knew non of them.When kamlesh asked me about bungy jumping, i could only tell them about the one i did; wearing my elder brother’s baggy green pants and jumping from 6' high boundry wall,when my father was chasing me for a pretty bad score card.

To worsen the situation in Shimla, snow gained muscles, turned into heavy snow and started falling everywhere; consequently all flights and connecting routes got closed….in a nutshell for 10 days i had to remain in shimla. I did prepare some slides and posted some nice pictures on my blog but in a day or two….slow internet connection and boring routine made me contemplate suicide.

When life bores, we look for friends and i could see one of my school friend in form of a visiting card,lying on the table. It read “Priyanka Mukhorjee,CEO-Akash Bangla “ . In eastern India Akash Bangla was a leading channel.I tried calling her but to no avail..line was dead like hell. I decided to take a walk and may be drop in at Priyanka’s address.

I had to take a long stroll as it was snow, snow and all snow. It was a old bunglaw and had to bang umpteem times to see it open. And here at the gate, a different priyanka sans her non chalant voice was standing,…..she looked a godess of sacrifice(weird imaginitation….mind can paint anyone red).

There was nobody home, it was a big house with 1 servant and my friend priyanka with crippled guy.

She was still intelligent though,made me do away with my rinsed fur coat and had me seated near to bone fire; by that time i had renamed our crippled guy….Bone.

I was self invited guest at lunch,surprisingly a veg affair;priyanka the self pledged ‘will not start day without chicken’ eating veg gave immense pleasure to a pure veggie like me.

The crippled guy had to take rest so servant took him away. P looked at my question filled eyes and ‘i know you have quite a few questions’.

She has to marry someone else,at the behest of her dying father and crying mother. Ranjon Mukhorjee was not a bad man but she missed rohit like hell. She was not used to gentle care & unconditioned love and that made him different from her childhood sweetheart’s ways of violent & passionate love.

Ranjon was a trainee pilot and he always pushed air baby to full throttle to quest his thurst of speed. He was good, brave and couragious that made him a good fighter and in turn got pushed to all corners to fight the battle. In one such insurgency fights in sri lanka, LTTE shot down his MIG13…..he tried reasoning with the mean machine but to no avail….his legs were numb and when Ranjon crashed on the rocks, his legs could not take the load of body. When he woke up, the ‘body to die for’ had turned to ‘near dead body’….and thereon he was responsibility of Priynka.

P was not yet settled into the married life and this casualty took a toll on her. Ranjon was the only son of his dead parents; so she has to look after him. Ranjon’s family also owned Akash Bengla TV Channel so she has to also take care of family business. To her surprise, She met Rohit, who was working as Marketing Head. Rohit knew the conditions, bumped into her house, wanted to embrace her and follow him leaving everything right there.

Although P didn’t liked Ranjon so much, could not find a reason to stay with him but leaving him like that’s was not acceptable to her golden heart……so next day Rohit was fired.

She wanted to research for some medical advances and when I contacted my other school mates; it was pretty easy. Shantanu was in Michigan and he was into medical.

The history was made, we all pooled together and gave them time of a life……and a healthy and active Ranjon.

I Reached Shimla………..we friends had a great time, Ranjon and P were great host. They gave each of us a momento……when I opened the packet in the flight, it was a golden heart pendant….seems like a piece of her heart.

originally written at 10. February 2009 07:11