A Shooting Star
Pradeep Sen
Powerless city; fans and lights out; eight hours of day and four of night. Mugs of sweat and pits of darkness fall on pillows like sheets of heat. Not a leaf moves.
Obnoxious summer! Humidity clings to climbing Celsius, mosquitoes peer from perforated nets
that hang like giant cobwebs, tucked on the four poster bed.
Arana puts a cassette on the deck player, the clicking sound jolts her heart; she looks towards the bedroom door.
Her mother enters, her mouth open, her eyebrows raised like question marks; a glass of milk and two glucose biscuits on a tray. She holds the tray with both hands.
‘Ari,’ She splutters. ‘What are you doing, my precious heart?’
‘Ma, I want to hear one song.’
‘Not now, my precious; after your exams; now you must get back to your books.’
‘But Ma.’
‘Oh! My dear heart, you must not be disobedient; this is not the time.’ Her mother turns her head at the approaching footsteps. ‘Akash, please explain to Ari how important these exams are.’
‘Your mother is right, Arana; after your exams you can listen to music all day.’
‘Listen to your father, Ari; it is a question of just one month.’
The torch shines in a ring of light, its beam serrated on mosquito netting, a criss-cross of light falls on diagrams and texts of shadowy formulas and contours, on maps in concentric circles.
She commits to memory, wiping sweat, the mind blown, swelled into corners:
“Summer rain winter drought;
Tea in the east; coffee in the south.” Rice, maize and cotton here and there, Tropic of Cancer and that of Capricorn. History falls from pages like scrolls; War of roses and of Thermopylae;
Dates, sub-dates and updates, she commits to memory, her mouth a babble of blurbs.
‘Ma, it’s Shanu’s birthday today; there is a tea party at her house…only from four to six...’
‘Oh! Ari, my child; did you not listen to your father’s words; Akash please explain to her the importance of these exams…’
‘Your mother is right, Arana; there will be many birthdays and celebrations, but now, you must only think of your exams…’
‘But Baba, you said the same thing last time.’
‘But Arana, you knew that after school comes your graduation; this is the last one; after this…’
‘Only for cake cutting; half an hour…’
‘Ari, my precious—you must listen to your father; after this you will have your whole life to do what you choose…’
‘That’s right, Arana, you will be free to listen to music, go to movies, attend birthdays…’
Indus Valley Civilization, the Reformation, the timeless flow of the river Nile, the Magna Carta; invasion of the Aryans; Restoration of the crown; Unifications.
Standard six forwards, the mind protracted to the theorems of Pythagoras; Euclid.
A story from Premchand; passage from Lear; ‘The Deserted Village” she recites in trance.
Endless bottles of ink and pen and paper, Cambridge sheets, margins she consumes for marks and distinctions; a medal, a robe, and a certificate for the elder’s council, marching ahead in scholastic triumph.
‘Ma, my eyes are hurting.’
‘Oh! Ari—you must not watch so much television; you will damage your eyes. Lie down, my darling, and close your eyes. I will put chilled cucumber slices on your eyelids.’
References and notes she transfers from pages, peering behind the teacher’s mask for hints, questions, and answers; by heat and the fluttering moths under the table lamp, her sleep-laden eyes jerking and opening by the crude clangour of alarm clocks to pin medals on the chests of her parents with degrees, diplomas, and commendations.
Now, at semester’s end, she is a graduate. After 20 years of severe academics, childhood lost in a whirlpool of information; through the long nights, and packed lunches, with tutors and public tuitions—Pitman’s Commerce, the Reformists, Civics and essays on ‘Your favourite holiday’—a hundred questions and a hundred answers.
In the Sunday papers, a leading city daily prints a two-page column: Arana Roy is on offer.
The credentials presented in abridged lines;
‘Groom wanted for Hindu girl; medium height, slim, not fair, but not dark. Can cook, can clean, can dust cobwebs. Excellent homemaker; god fearing; good family, accomplished, schooled.
Excellent prospect as mother and wife; can knit, thread and stitch.
Demure, diffident, self-effacing; suitably trained, tuned, and timed; flexible, conditioned, tractable, compliant, noninvasive…”
Having retired from the Commercial world after twenty years as a corporate executive, Pradeep has turned his attention towards writing, and completed two works of prose fiction and nine short stories; all with Indian themes. In addition, he has completed a book of fifty poems called- Still life Two poems have been published- ‘The forgiven spaces,’ by Deracine magazine for their 2019 winter collection, and ‘Antimoon’ by Mono publications, on their website; Mono have selected a short story- ‘Fish- dead or alive,’ for their October issue. Pigeon Review has published another Short Story titled- ‘The man who came for breakfast.’
