My high school that situated in a country town was a boys’ school, because of that we hardly saw girls adjacent. And there was also a girls’ school not very far from ours. Often the teaching period the girls’ school came to an end before the proper time, or sometimes at our tiffin period. This was a great opportunity for us to look at the girls of the girls’ school through our classroom-window, while going back to their houses along the earthen road going beside our school. This was our only enjoyment in tedious classes and we waited ardently for them to come. But sometimes having overwhelmed us with distress, they came after our classes had been over.
However, after I had passed HSC examination, I got admission in a college nearby our former school, which was combined for both boys and girls. For the first time, we had the good luck to enjoy their beauty thoroughly and for a long time with ease. Sometimes, we were astonished to see the girls sitting beside us. Many girls of our class were well-formed and shaped and looked beautiful. But there was a girl more handsome, blonde and striking than others, and even she was the most attractive girl of the whole country town. Many boys of our class became admirers of her and in return she was very friendly with each of them and never showed any kind of ruthless manners. However, in six or seven days, I perceived well that I had fallen in love with Kate desperately, and no one of her follower was crazier to her than me. I and everyone else who loved her in silence was fortunate to see her whenever wish during the teaching period of our college because she came to the college every day and attended almost every class. She enjoyed the madness of her admirers, particularly mine. However, enjoying her stunning beauty appeared to me with a burden, since I was not accustomed to amuse myself with the lectures of the teachers frequently. Nevertheless, I was bound to be present in every class to see her beautiful face. Therefore, I used to attend the class, though I couldn’t concentrate my mind to the teachers due to my unaccustomedness of listening the monotonous lecture in the class and my enchanted mind by her beauty.
My home was in a village two miles away from our college and every day I came to the college riding bicycle like other boys who also lived in the villages around the college. Apart from us, the students who lived in this country town would come to the college riding rickshaw driven by rickshaw puller. This difference between two groups of students made two kinds of social status. We were in low status and they who lived in the country town were in high status. Kate had lived from since her birth in this town for her father was a teacher of Bengali literature of our college. So I and Kate were from different social ranks: low and high. The love affair between me and Kate was not possible, since she would not have sexually attracted to me, because on my face, whole body and conduct a rusticity was stuck. This rusticity drove her away from me.
Consequently, I couldn’t even dream of telling her about my feelings. I apprehend surely that she would not engage with me, and I was right about that. Though I hadn’t revealed the emotional state of my mind to her, in short time she could realize it by noticing the feelings of my heart to her graved in my eyes so deeply. Now I have to discern that she had really one pair of acute eyes. However, In return I saw in her eyes that she refused me. Notwithstanding, I didn’t restrain myself from loving her. As if I was a planet in a solar system where she herself was the sun placed in the center of it and I was bound to orbit her owing to a great love force like gravitational force in the real solar system.
She also had fallen in love with a boy named Gabriel from high social status and of good looking. Sometimes I saw her having a conversation in a grave mood with the boy in a secluded place of our college corridor. At the time of walking along the corridor to my class, whenever I came close her in this state, having been sympathetic to me, she paused to talk to him and called me in a gesture very near to her. She would try to talk to me with a smiling face and almost every time taking out of her purse, gave me some chocolates. Though I was reluctant to take those chocolates, but since I was totally capitulated to her, so I couldn’t restrain myself from what she bade to do. I pondered, alas! What a farce! Instead of love I got chocolates! I became angry, though had not the slightest courage to uncover it before her, but screamed inside and my body shook as the buildings at the time of earthquake in high Richter scale.
One day while walking on the road beside Thana health complex, I saw them together upon a rickshaw directing to a village. Later, I heard from a classmate that they had gone to the house of their mutual friend to date. Thus they continued to make love with each-other and everybody of our class knew about it. After some days, I heard from some classmates that the boy had ignored her because there was a rumor that she had had a sex scandal in her childhood. She felt torment of having been refused from the boy. I had nothing to do, but just felt sorry for her. Then the boy offered love to a girl from another college, but lived in the same town and also had studied in the girls’ school of that country town. This girl agreed with him, and they continued to make love without registration, they got married at last and then with registration. I won’t tell about it anymore because this thing has not any effect on this story.
However, after the break-up of their love affair, having forgotten the social difference between me and her, I thought that now there came a chance of making love with her. But in my distress, I realized by noticing her attitude to me that she was too rigid to involve with me as a lover and didn’t feel even the slightest attraction to me. Nevertheless, my feelings for her was the same, which had got dominion over me. I didn’t see no way to surpass it and even hadn’t courage to combat against it. So I left myself to my fatal fate, which couldn’t be avoided. As before, still now almost every day in my college life when at class I always squinted to her appealing countenance without hearing any word of my teachers. I also continued to try to sit beside her too.
One day during class hour, I was looking at her sitting on a bench just behind her. No sooner felt my looks with sixth sense, she turned her face to me and gazing into my eyes, said, “Do you feel any urge to say something, okay then just tell me what is it, I am ready to hear you.” There was something very dangerous in her expression and I got afraid. In prompt I told her, “No, no, nothing, please concentrate to your teacher please.” Then taking her face to my ear, she whispered, for the teacher was in serious mood lecturing, “So why have you looked at me for long, tell me what you have in your mind. When you keep on looking at me for a long time with your mouth wide open, you know I feel humiliated.” However, from then on I didn’t dare to look at her for long.
Every day, after the class has been finished in the afternoon, I went back to my home with an aching heart for I would not be able to see her stunning face till tomorrow class time. Every moment when not beside her, only one sentence whirled in my brain “when I am going to see her? When I will have got the chance to be near her again?”
Notwithstanding, time had passed away. We came very near to our HSC examination. Because of the images of Kate in various gestures in my mind all the time and sometimes these images having linked with each other, like movie reels moved continually before my eyes, and I saw her on the pages of books as we watch the images of characters of the film on the screen of Cineplex, I couldn’t concentrate my mind on study. What I would have become of me for my mind was still scattered! Sometimes I thought I lost my studious mind forever and wouldn’t be able to revive it again. Though I knew that if I couldn’t have passed the examination, my life would have been collapsed and the hope of my family member about me also would have been ruined totally. So that I tried and tried to concentrate my mind on study but failed repeatedly. The time of the examination was approaching towards me as if a northwester was coming so furiously.
One day I was wandering lonely on the college campus. Suddenly I met with a friend, who asked me to go with him to another friend’s house to take some notes from him. I agreed and we set off. The friend, whose house we went, told us that he had studied a great deal as a preparation of upcoming examination. At this word, I become envious of him because as a student, he was not better than me. Well, this envy to him conducted my mind to concentrate on study. No sooner I got envious, I left his house. I remember of going home like a bird flying and my mind was throbbing tumultuously. After reaching my home, I entered straight my study room and started getting prepared for the imminent examination. The more I read, the more deleted the images of Kate which had been bothering me for a long time. After one week I perceived that the images of Kate became too few in quantity and too weak in quality to disturb me horribly. However, there was no hope to pass the examination because only forty days were left before the examination. Nevertheless, I studied heart and soul forty days continuously almost twelve hours in a day. In those days I didn’t go outside of home for a single day. However, finally I passed the examination in the first division, this was even beyond my imagination. Kate, whom I had fallen in love with, couldn’t pass the examination as well as others, who each of them of high social status. Everyone who passed the examination in the first division or the second division was the students from villages with low social status.
Just after the examination, we some classmates came to Dhaka to get admission in varsity, medical and engineering college admission coaching centers. We, four friends- me with low social status and three others of high social status- rented an apartment in Merul Badda at Dhaka to live through a friend lived there with his family. Kate also came to Dhaka and rented some rooms of a ladies hostel with some other girls of our college. In the meantime, Kate had made a love affair with Adam, who had helped us for having rented an apartment. This boy thought that he had some right to the apartment we rented as without his help we couldn’t have managed the apartment. So Adam started to come to our apartment accompanied by Kate to date. They used to go into a room that I shared with a friend and closing the door, passed a long time dating. At that time in another room we four friends would have a conversation sitting on the bed.
One day when they were in our room dating, we heard a hard knock at the main door of the apartment. Generally, there used to be no knock like that at our door. So, we got suspicious if the guardians of Adam came. With time the knock was becoming louder and louder and this was very unusual. Then we came to a conclusion that it must have been someone among his guardians. When someone was knocking at the door, whoever it was we were bound to open the door unless they were dacoits. We were sure that it was not dacoits by our common sense that in open daylight in Dhaka city, dacoits would not dare to do their job. So I went to the door and the moment I opened it his mother and maternal uncle rushed into the apartment. They tried to enter the room at which the couples were dating. But the door was closed from inside. So they started to knock at the door like mad and at the same time calling his son by his name. “Adam, Adam, I am your mother. Just open the door.” But no one in the room seemed to listen and the door was closed as before. After a long time had passed away, the door got opened. Followed by them, we entered the room too and saw Adam sitting on the floor with his head downward but didn’t see Kate. His mother was somehow informed that her son had been dating with a girl here. So at first not seeing her in the room, she searched for her and found out her behind the door. She looked at her fixedly for some time. Then she, Adam’s mother comes to him and holding tightly on the collar of his shirt, dragged him out of the room then the apartment followed by her younger brother. His guardians didn’t like him to make love with a girl who had sexual scandal. However, Kate sobbed for a long time in the room alone. Then she went to her living place.
Next year I got admission in the University of Dhaka, as for the first time I had failed to get admission in any varsity. After passing the HSC examination for the second time Kate got admission in Eden girls’ College. After my classes had come to an end at the University of Dhaka, I would go to her college gate and wait for her. After six months, I happened to see her at last. She was crossing the college gate covered with a hijab. I noticed that she got chubbier. I shouted to her by her name. She was more or less astonished at having seen me. “Hey, what are you doing here, crazy boy?” she said to me smiling. “I was waiting for you,” was my brief answer. Why, what you wished me to do? She said. “Just only for once, give me an opportunity to be seated beside you for one moment,” I implored her. She said, “Oh, sorry, I am in a hurry. But you can leave me your phone number, I will contact with you later and I may go to your campus tomorrow or day after tomorrow. Okay, bye for now, see you later.”
She kept her promise by coming to my campus and meeting with me. I was not satisfied fully, because I wanted to be alone with her. This was not possible because she came accompanied by a girl of her college. When she was parting off, I beseeched her to give me phone calls in the future, so that I could keep her in touch. Saying, “I will try.” She set off. But she didn’t phone me.
Two years after this, one day at noon, I was going by foot along the road by the arts faculty of our campus to the bus stand so as to go home. Just as I reached in front of the second gate of the arts faculty, I heard a vivid sound of a girl’s giggling. At the moment, I recognized the giggling. She was sitting on the staircase on the second gate beside a couple who were making love with each other. Instead of going to the bus stand I went to Modhur canteen followed by her. We, sitting at a table, took tea. Then she asked me to conduct her to the couple. The luck was in favor of me. Gone to the second gate of the arts faculty, we noticed that they had already left the place. Then we strolled only side by side, but not hand in hand through the campus for some time. Later, she told me that she had long for to walk holding my hand. She was hungry and me too, so we went to a restaurant in chankharpul adjacent campus boundary. We had our lunch there. Afterwards, she had to go back to her hostel. And I came back to my hostel in order to lend some money since my bus fare had been totally consumed due to lunch.
I didn’t have a chance to meet with her until two years or so when her father had died in a deadly road accident. The day was the second day of Ramadan Eid. That day at night I met a college friend, while wandering on the market place. He said to me that Kate’s father had a severe motorcycle accident and he didn’t even know if he was alive or not. As said before, Kate’s father was our college teacher in Bengali department. At this word, I phoned Kate’s younger brother in order to know how the physical condition of his father was. He told me that his father was no longer alive and would be buried in half an hour. Resolving in mind that I should go to attend his funeral, I asked him to tell me their exact country house address.
Well, after finishing with him, I asked a village friend over the phone to set out the moment cut the phone call to the market place. After he had come, I told him about the grim consequence of our teacher and now what I wished to do. Her country house was adjoining Ghatail cantonment area. In order to reach their house, we would have to go some way by bus to Ghatail bus stand and some way by rickshaw to their home according to the direction of Kate’s younger brother. So we kept ourselves waiting for the bus which would go via Ghatail bus stand. As the day was the second day of Ramadan EID, there were a few bus on the road, and every bus was Dhaka-bound. And Ghatail bus stand was in the opposite direction of Dhaka from that place. We waited for a long time and then at last came a bus that would go far away via Ghatail, and the bus was reserved for groom passengers of a nuptial ceremony. Well, we made the bus stopped with the signal of the hand and requested the conductor to let us get in because we would have to join a funeral. At this word, he let us get on the bus as in our social conscience everyone is bound to help them who wish to go a funeral.
Getting out of the bus in Ghatail bus stand, from which we would have to get on rickshaw in order to reach their home, we saw a few rickshaw standing at the junction of highway and subway. We rented a rickshaw with the fare three times more because of the religious festival. The rickshaw puller knew the directing of their house because her paternal uncle was familiar with people around due to his leading position in local politics. After we had passed a long way along an uneven earthen path riding in a rickshaw, at last we reached at their house. There was a marriage gate adorned charmingly in front of their house. That day was scheduled to be the day of Gaye Holud (pre-preparation of marriage ceremony of our society). However, she was not to get married to her lover named Adam, because this boy also under the pressure of his guardian abandoned her because of the rumor of her sexual scandal. However, at noon, her father was going to a market to buy some things riding on a motorcycle driven by his niece. The motorcycle along with them collided with a highway bus and was trespassed by the massive wheel of the bus. As a consequence, died on the spot.
Some men were strolling in the backyard of the house. One of them came to us and said, “Who are you? And where have you come from?” we responded, “We are the students of the late man and Kate’s class-mate. We have come from a distant place to attend the funeral.” The man said, “Oh, the funeral finished just only five minutes ago.” I said, “Okay, then tell her that her two friends have come to attend the funeral and now wish to talk with her.” The man entered the house and after a moment coming back to us, said, “She is having her meal for a whole day with others, and after that she will come to you. Just as the man pronounced his last sentence, I saw Kate coming to us in a newly bought yellow colored Shari. She came to us from the middle of her dinner and we saw under the electric light dimly the remnant of food stuck to her right hand. She said something in a very low voice about her father and his death. And plead us to forgive him if he, when was alive, would have made some mistake and offended us by his any action or word. As she was speaking, I was totally mute, but my companion tried to console in her mourning plight with some solace words.
Her marriage ceremony was supposed to be held on the next day. But due to the death of his father, the scheduled date of her marriage lingered some days. After one week she got married with his supposed groom, who had a chartered account degree and was a job holder of a multinational company.
When she was pregnant with her first child, I managed to get her phone number through a college friend. On getting her phone number, I told her over the phone, “Hey how are you? I haven’t seen you for many days.” She said with her accustomed giggling from other side of the phone, “you are a liar, you saw me only some months ago when you went to my country house.” I said, “I went there not to see you, but to attend your father’s funeral.” “No, I don’t believe you, you must have gone there to see me.” I didn’t know whether she was right or not as to that matter. Some days after I had talked with her over the phone, one day she asked me not to phone her any longer. So I deleted her phone number from my phone book and thus I lost her from my connection for many days.
Just some days ago, I was chatting with a college friend, with whom newly connected and who was very close to me, through Facebook massage option, suddenly he asked me if I had any connection with Kate or not. I typed, “No,” and at this word, he asked me whether I wished to contact with her. I asked him how it was possible for I didn’t have any option through which I can contact with her. Then he sent me her Facebook account link. At the moment I sent her a friend request with a short message and my phone no. The next day she phoned me. In a few days, she told me almost all about her present and past life; her break-up with her lover, newborn-children, husband, sorrow, sickness, grief, pleasure and a great deal of other things I can’t mention here. And she tried to claim that she also had fallen in love with me, as I didn’t offer love to her and I had a betrothal, so she didn’t take attempt to make a love affair with me. And she also said that it was my fault that I couldn’t convince her. She also told me why I didn’t send match-maker to her parents. If I had offered my love to her or sent match-maker to her parents than her life would not have been ruined like that. And after break-up with her boyfriend, she, as her words, had searched me like mad but hadn’t succeeded in finding me. If he had found me she would have got married me and lived happily with me ever after.
