~Eagam Khaling~
Apurva Pradhan was a first year’s English honours student of Saint Augustine’s College, in Darjeeling. She had lost her mother twelve years ago. She was provided many things that she demanded but there were some demands which her father, Mr. Arjun Pradhan, was unable to fulfill. He had always considered them almost impossible demands. She had ignorantly developed in her many irritating habits and they were only known by their former servants.
It was a Sunday evening; Apurva was playing her piano, a man with most known voice, shouts for permission from outside after rapping on the door of the room,
“Hi Princess! May I come in?”
Apurva ignored him intentionally and replied with a rudiment.
“Don’t come in, rather go away, and away!”
But the man entered into the room, then standing behind the piano, speaks convincingly,
“My princess! Why didn’t you come to receive me at terminus, and last night, you didn’t also pick up my calls?”
Hearing that, Apurva started playing her piano little faster than before, without a reply. Again, the man sympathetically tried to correct her, with a right of a father,
“Actually, I don’t like this, your rudeness!”
Showing a zero interest in him, Apurva sarcastically replied him making her face,
“Mr. Pradhan, I am not your wife.”
“And, I am also not your friend.”
Mr. Pradhan left the room slamming the door. Apurva paused for few seconds and again began to play and sing a song, just to pinch her father,
“You never know
What I am wanting,
I never know
What you are missing
My mother never knows
What we are becoming……”
It had been many days Mr. Pradhan was experiencing little comforts and peace at home just because his daughter had stopped arguing with him. She was spending most of her times playing her composition on the piano and using her laptop and that might be just because of the “Budding-Mozart–Show”, an inter-colleges solo music composition competition was approaching round the corner.
It was a Wednesday morning, Apurva wanted to eat some breads and vegetable-soup in her breakfast. So, after taking the bath, she moved to kitchen for it but nothing was cooked in the kitchen. After checking all the dishes she hurriedly opened the refrigerator but there were also nothing except some tomatoes. She damply sat on the dinning chair. She suddenly saw a small folded chit below a half-decayed cucumber on the centre of the table. She picked up the chit slowly and read it. It was written,
“Yesterday, again, you beat the cook-servant, threw foods on his head. From today onwards, you have to prepare your meal yourself. I am helpless till you don’t change for yourself.”
Apurva was so angry that she tore off the chit into small pieces and scattered on the table. After a while, with a change of her mind she came to kitchen again and made a cup of tea for herself. But, when she drank the tea she bitterly squeezes her face. It was such a bad taste. She furiously shouted in anguish realizing her own situation like that,
“Mum’, I hate you and I hate myself!”
As usual in the evening Apurva returned home from the college and remained glued to her piano to work on her new piece of composition. She wanted to be smoother and make her composition more beautiful and flawless as she was determined to win this year’s competition. At late night, she was quite restless because she was not able to connect her teacher on the net. She was also not getting any reply and suggestion from him. His face book and e-mail accounts were not working since many days. She had asked to other face book friends and had written e-mails to the concerned experts to know about the sudden disappearance of her teacher’s site on the net. She had got much information but not a single one that could connect her to her teacher.
Next day, when Apurva was busy trying to send an e-mail somebody knocked the door and politely asked a permission to get in,
“Madam! May I come in?”
“Come in!”
Apurva gave permission without much attention to him. But, after a while she became angry with the man who had brought breads, a glass of milk and some pieces of apples for her on a big tray and was standing like an attendant of a royal family. He was looking quite a descent man. But she suddenly got to her temperament thinking about the last time’s chit written by her father. She pulled the milk glass and poured on his face and screamed at him,
“You savage! How dare you call me madam? Take your rubbish meal, and get lost for forever! Man, I hate you!”
But the new servant still stands calm and cool; he slowly with his mild disposition kept the tray on the table and started cleaning his face with a clean white hangerchief. Again, he dared to speak softly to Apurva,
“Please, take these breads and apples, I am going to bring another glass of milk!”
There was no any reaction from Apurva because, at then, she was completely drawn to her work in computer.
After some hours, Apurva was going out for her college; Mr. Pradhan was sitting in the courtyard and reading a news paper. When she reached the gate he shouted from there to hurt her intentionally,
“Apurva! How do you like our new servant?”
Apurva turned around and threatens him,
“I will kill him, tonight!”
Later, at evening, Apurva was very busy arranging her things for tomorrow. She was having lot of excitements and worries about tomorrow’s competition. Nobody knows who will win the competition but some of her friends were expecting her. After finishing some of her must do works for tomorrow, she made a mind to take her dinner before two hours than usual time because she wanted to go bed early and sleep well for tomorrow. At sharp 9 pm she rang the calling bell and asked the new cook-servant to bring dinner for her in her room. He did exactly what she had told. She wondered that the foods were so tasty. Her heart melted for the cook, whom she had hurt without any reason, she sympathetically looked at the servant’s face. His face had become red and swelled and in some places of his face white powders were pasted. In the morning, she couldn’t know how hot the milk was. However, ignorantly, she asked him with some foods in her mouth cavity,
“What happened to your face?”
“Madam, it’s only like that!”
On hearing him calling her ‘Madam’ Apurva suddenly got short of her temperament and at once lifted a glass of water targeting his head and barked on him,
“I said, don’t call me ‘Madam’, you big pig!”
The cook-servant was so frightened that he without a breath immediately vanished from there.
Next day, competition started at college auditorium on time. It was over crowded by the invited students of different colleges and their friends, parents, guardians and teachers. At the end of the programme, the result of the competition was declared by the honourable juries of the competition. Apurva was jubilantly shinning in the auditorium and all her friends were taking her name but she was declared the second. When she heard that she couldn’t believe it and was broken and deserted in her deep emotion. She denied to receive her prize and left the auditorium weeping like a little girl. Her friends tried to console her but she was not able to help herself.
That day, Apurva’s room, at home was decorated with various flowers and all the things of the room were arranged decently. They were cleaned and looking beautiful. But, when she entered her room crying she couldn’t notice all that. She threw all the flowers and the things of the room in her huge frustration. After crying in that way for sometimes, she decided to finish herself but before to do that she wished to leave a letter for her teacher. She quickly connected the electricity to her computer and after a while she began to write,
“Dear Sir,
I tried many times to connect you but I couldn’t. Why this happened I don’t know but in this moment I desperately needed to share with you. Today, I lost my hope for music. In these moments of frustration and humiliation I want to be with you. As all know I can’t be lucky and worthy daughter. I am beaten and I couldn’t be like you. I hate second and hate myself. Now, I am going to end my life, here. I can’t be a musician. I am a naughty and unworthy daughter.
Goodbye! If possible see you in another life….
Yours ………………….”
After finished writing the letter Apurva hurriedly clamped up to the top floor of their building and stood on the grill to jump doom. But, when she closed her eyes and about to let her body fall she suddenly heard a music soverignly played on her piano by someone and the piece played on the instrument was the one that she had played for the competition. Then, she was godly shaken by the composition and cried silently closing her eyes on the edge of death. When she cried she suddenly experienced a word ‘T-e-a-c-h-e-r’ somewhere in her core heart. She forgot everything and hastily ran down from there to down stairs crying and shouting,
“T-e-a-c-h-e-r! T-e-a-c-h-e-r!!”
Apurva saw the man flawlessly playing her piano from the middle staircase and was breathless. The man was not other than their new cook-servant whose face was wounded. She just can’t believe herself and couldn’t speak out anything except a word in trembling voice, “T-e-a-c-h-e-r! T-e-a-c-h-e-r!!” When the man heard her voice he quickly moved out from there. She started blankly running after him, crying and shouting like a mad, “Teacher, don’t go! Please, don’t go! Don’t go, please!” Apurva and her father searched the man in many places of the town but could not find him. Later, when she was crying before her piano she finds a message card on the piano’s board and it was written, “Discover your ‘Self’. We musicians need to be born twice. Once you discover your ‘Self’ you are already born twice. Life is so beautiful, live it.” After sometimes, Apurva sat before her piano with lots of changes in herself then softly putting her all ten fingers on the piano’s lids closes her eyes and whispers to God, “God! I am sorry and thank you!!”
