Nyra Volume III

By Anindita Bose

""I am grateful that you were born, that your love is mine, and our two lives are woven and welded together." 

- Mark Twain"

""I am grateful that you were born, that your love is mine, and our two lives are woven and welded together." 

- Mark Twain"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ukiyoto Publishing
• Release date: Feb 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9789360490881

Book preview

Short Story by Anindita Bose

a friendship blooming after death

N

othing could have stopped her from feeling that the world would crumble and everything would be destroyed. It was a night when she took her mother to the cremation ground and waited for two hours before the rituals could be completed and her mother’s body was decorated with a new red saree, vermilion, garlands of white Tuberose, whose fragrance filled the air and created a strange smell diffusing with the smoke of the burning sandalwood incense sticks. Then it was time; her mother was carried and put on an electric pyre. Anne was fine till the rituals were carried out since it was her duty to focus on everything, so that nothing was left undone. The people around her did many things but she could only see her mother lying on the ground, something that was so impossible since that woman had always hated to sleep on the floor even though many times she had sacrificed for the sake of her family, or simply because she was born a woman. It was one such day when they had gone to visit a place called Puri, where enough rooms were not available, and Anne remembered how her mother had argued with her father and the uncles that they must try the other hotels since staying in that hotel would mean that some people would have to sleep on the floor with extra mattress. She had not won that day, and only three rooms were taken for twelve people. It was decided that the men in the family would sleep on the extra mattresses while the wives and children would take the beds. But in the night, it was quite cold and most of the women wanted to sacrifice and sleep on the ground, and that idea was initiated by Anne’s mother because she was such a compassionate soul that she could not allow anyone to suffer when she was present. Yet at that moment her mother was lying on the ground without even a mattress! Anne could do nothing, but wonder what had just happened. Was it real that death existed in the human world!

Her mother had always called her naive. She was twenty-nine years old when her mother had to leave the world because two motorcycles were racing on an almost deserted road. The two boys were in first years of college and yet they were bailed out because a team of lawyers and their family money could easily prove that they were below the age of eighteen, and what happened to them was not very clear since the case was very carefully managed by people who could pay and who could take the money. Her mother went through several operations and multiple medical mistakes in Kolkata and Vellore, and finally left the world because none could detect the major issue of her broken tail-bone that occurred when the two motorcycles had hit her; she was always silent after that accident, as if she could not imagine that human bodies could endure so much pain and humiliation because once someone went through a weak moment the others either try to show pity or behave indifferent to avoid the situation of getting affected themselves. Some called it her fate that she was not cured even though she was young - fifty-three when she had met with that accident and died five months after she turned fifty-five - and some were very shocked that such a lively woman died just when she reached her prime of middle age, a time when women can shed some responsibilities and relax. In Anne’s society people believed that women from higher middle-class families could be freer when their children reached their mid-twenties since then they would earn and spend on their parents. However, her mother never believed in most beliefs that the people said because most of her life she had suffered and faced problems that made her heart different compared to most women living around in the locality. But after she died, Anne realised that her mother was a very kind hearted woman who was hurt during most of her lifetime because of her own family, the in-laws and the people around her. Yet there were others who liked her very much since she was a person who helped everyone who needed support, and those people were heart-broken for many months after she was gone.

Sometimes a human’s heart beat and make him restless. There can be various reasons, but the most painful moment occurs when a wish to meet someone is not granted. The busy schedule of people keeps them away from their families and friends, and yet there are events when people choose not to meet others. However, time changes and situations arrive when the loved ones leave the world and the people realise that they cannot meet them anymore, no matter how much the desire remains. Many times, that had happened to Anne, and the most heart-breaking story was when her closest friend had gone to another city without meeting. Not that she could not meet that friend again, but somewhere deep inside her heart it remained like a time bomb that could have exploded any moment into showers of memories. Not that she had the time to feel sad for a long time, since soon it was time to immerse herself into the struggle of her mother. A human will always feel and remember. One may not show any more in this modern world, but one does have emotions that leave them exposed to that moment when they realise that they do feel pain and they do wish for a dear one’s company. And each time begins a new journey. After all humans are explorers and they learn through their own actions, each time creating a new chapter to their own stories, shaping humanity itself.

Anne wrote in her diary:

Echoes Of Life

a voice that I loved,

a voice that nourished me,

a voice that taught me

to be bold

I haven't heard that voice

for five years...

a void, empty, dark silence.

I sit, and wait for nothing,

since a few years are enough

for life to teach us that no

matter how much we cry, or

shout, or feel hurt - 

the loved ones gone, shall 

never return.

Now is the time...

to tell them

to love them

to be with them

…there is no tomorrow for love.

Old age is not a choice, it is a universal process of preparing the human body to accept that one day it has to perish. Yet people feign that knowledge and keep their eyes closed to that phenomenon as long as possible, accepting perhaps secretly since the signs are always strong and basic. Anything that is natural cannot be questioned then why in the modern world, there is always a