The Blue Planet

Hasan Sharif

                                        -1-

I couldn’t figure out where I had smelt this before.

I was in the Macy’s store in the Burlington Mall named after the town I had been staying in since the last three years.

My wife, Smita, was sniffing an immense collection of perfume samples before two reluctant Chinese sales girls, poking her long nose into a small bowl of coffee beans in between each sniff.

The mall was unusually empty. It was a Monday and I had taken off from work without any pressing reason. Smita had grabbed this opportunity for a visit to the mall. As we were to return to India in a few days she wanted full utilization of every non-working day. This mostly meant spending the whole day shopping and eating out. She had this self-imposed onus to procure gifts for everyone we knew in Kolkata: parents, in-laws, cousins, their parents, neighbors. The list had new entries on them every few days.

Smita wouldn’t notice me any time soon. So I took the opportunity to look at other women. There weren’t many around. I looked at the sales girls at the other counters. I saw one yawning, another one was picking her nose. 

Disappointed, I looked away and trudged a few more steps into the store.

At that moment I smelled it. The sweet aroma of jasmine mixed with the warm vapor of earth. I breathed in the sweet air again.  There was something special about the scent. I wanted to figure it out, but it eluded me. Did Ritu wear it someday? Or was it Trina? Or someone else? It was a mystery that I had to figure out right there.

I went few more steps into the shop to the place where the scent was stronger. Then sitting on an otherwise empty sofa lying nearby, I closed my eyes to remember, to shut the world out.

I didn’t have to try hard. As soon as I closed my eyes a corridor appeared through the darkness. I could see a small window on the corner wall.  Green and orange leaves rustled through the window’s grills. Sunlight breached through the foliage. The slanted light beam crossed the corridor before resting on the opposite wall. From the other side of the beam, she was walking towards me. I would soon see her face in the angled rays. But I didn’t have to wait, I already knew who she was.

I was studying Engineering then. Second year. Our class was Aparna Di’s first class of her teaching career. She was a fresh graduate, hardly two years older than us. I remembered the first day when she came in the class wearing a green cotton saree and a matching blouse with flowery frills. She hadn’t worn any ornaments other than two small moss-green button earrings. Nothing seemed missing though. She was perfect.  Standing between the rows of semi-circular desks that we occupied and the table close to the blackboard behind her, she smiled nervously at us, the hormone-ravaged college boys. We were unsure about how to react to this unexpected fortune and ended up giggling and elbowing each other. Some of us had no sense of our dropped jaws as we pulled our shirts to uncrumple them and ran hasty fingers through our disheveled hair.

As for me, I can’t recollect specifically if my jaw dropped. I can still remember that I felt like I was watching a green mermaid. A green mermaid whose lips were moving but I could only hear incoherent bits and pieces of speech, as if they were the sounds of her tail twitching on the unknown ground. 
During my college days, I had two girlfriends who knew each other. Their names, like them, were sweet and simple - Ritu and Trina. I had a cunning habit of exaggerating my admiration for Ritu while I spent time with Trina and vice-versa. Since they knew each other as their potential competition, both of them treated me with much more care and love than I deserved from them. 

The day Aparna Di took her first step into our class, everything changed.

In between two consecutive classes, I began to hang around in the long corridor connecting the classrooms, whenever the next class was hers. I would pretend to study the notice board hanging on the corridor wall near the classroom door. There I would wait for her appearance. Aparna Di would come through the far end of the corridor, briefly bathed in the morning light that beamed through the corner window. She would appear in slow-motion to me like the heroine of a Hindi movie. As she approached the classroom, she would notice me and smile. Her eyes would touch mine and linger on them. As I smiled back at her, my heart would start racing.

This would happen every day she had a class with us. Like a ritual. 

Perhaps she knew my infatuation for her. She, like a proud goddess, would expect me to wait for her there, worship her in silence. I, like a devotee, would long for her one glance. Just before stepping through the door, a sweet fragrance would waft in. I would breathe in the air. It would smell like a clutch of jasmine but would feel like smelling a secret. The world would turn bluer. I would float like an astronaut in space without tethers, marveling at my blue planet.

It was this same perfume I was smelling now in Burlington. 

I opened my eyes. That was fifteen years ago.

I wondered where Aparna Di was.  She had gotten married before my studies were over. Her husband, a tall, handsome man with acne, was from IIT Kanpur.

Somehow this moment, which had bored me to death just a moment ago, made me relive those days: how good it felt to love someone. What madness, what bliss I felt when she looked into my eyes.

I had not felt anything like that for more than a decade. 

God, what the hell had I been doing? 


                                        -2-

I found Aparna Di on Facebook. She was living in Kolkata. Her last Facebook update was six months back though. I sent a friend request from Boston. When I didn’t get a response even after a week, I started to call up my old college friends and asked about her. 

It would have been better if I hadn’t tried to dig out all these memories. But it was too late now.

I remembered our first chat in the college canteen. 

I arrived there an hour before the first class was due to start. The canteen was empty except for a group of third-year students having breakfast at a table near the canteen door. I could hear their angry loud voices discussing communism even before I entered the canteen.

I wasn’t prepared to see Aparna Di amid all the ruckus they created. She was sipping from a cup of coffee at a table close to the counter. She saw me entering the canteen and waved at me. Perhaps she wasn’t feeling very comfortable sitting alone.

“Hey, how are you? Samaresh, right?” She signaled to me with her hand to take the chair in front of her.

“I’m good! How are you?” I was concentrating hard on keeping my racing heart on a leash and appear cool. As if beautiful ladies asked me to sit with them everyday. 

“Great! You’re early, isn’t it?” She asked.

“A bit, you come at this time every day?”

“Not really. I’m staying at my aunt’s place this week. It’s just near the bus stop. Thought to check out the canteen today.”

“Oh..how do you find it?”

“Not bad at all.. right?”

“Yeah. It’s ok, given that it is the only one we’ve got,” I smiled.

“Do you want some bread-omelette? I’m going to order one.”

“Ok.”

She got up to place the order at the counter and brought two cups of tea in her hands when she returned. Curly ribbons of thin smoke were rising, twirling and fading into the air over the hot cups. It felt as if I was acting in a movie and this was the scene in which I was supposed to confess my love for her. 

“They’ll serve in a minute.”

“Thanks,” I took the cup from her right hand as she adjusted herself on the plastic chair.

“Is this your second cup?” I asked.

“Yeah, I had a cup of coffee already. It wasn’t bad. Why not taste the tea as well!”

“Haha.”

“So tell me.”

“What?”

“How are you liking or not liking my class?”

“It’s good.”

“You don’t sound enthusiastic at all.”

“No no, it’s really good,” I tried to sound as enthusiastic as I could.

“Why?”

Why wouldn’t she let it go? “I mean, I like the subject, Computer Networks.”

“What about my teaching?”

“It’s good,” I wanted to add that if someone less beautiful imparted the same knowledge to us, we could concentrate better.

“Thanks! Teaching is my passion,” she declared.

A few sips later, as if to keep the conversation going, she said in a casual tone, “I don’t think you’ll be able to help but just in case, do you know any good pediatrician?”

“I thought you were unmarried!” The words came out of my mouth with such spontaneity and bewilderment that even I found them ridiculous. I immediately knew I had messed up.

She giggled and rolled her eyes, “Well, who said it is for my baby?”

“No, no.. I mean normally people ask such questions for their own babies,” could I ever cover up this stupidity?

“Don’t generalize everything you see.”

I shook my head, “I don’t.”

“Perhaps you will, someday. As people grow older, they generalize everything. They believe they have seen enough. They stereotype..”

“Do you generalize?”

“Not yet, at least. What is great about being cynical? And anyway I’m not old enough!”

“I know.”

She smiled, “You mean you know that I passed out of college just two years ago?”

“Hmm.”

“Everyone seems to know that! Do you know when Gargi Di graduated?”

“I don’t actually,” I knew where she was headed, “She might have forgotten herself, I think.”

“Hahaha... clever!”

She broke a biscuit into two halves, held one half in hand and dipped the other in the tea,“By the way, what do you look up at the notice board every day?”

I didn’t imagine such a direct question to come from her. No clever answer came to my mind, “Nothing as such, just take a look if anything new is there.”

“I see. How often do you find new things?”

“Rarely.”

“But you keep looking at it, is it? Revising?” She laughed out.

I could feel my ears turning hot, blood gushing to my face. But strangely it also made me feel at ease with her.

“No, no, nothing like that. Anything new can come at any time, right?” I couldn’t look at her eyes. I looked at the other table.

She lifted her hand over her mouth to hide her laughter.

The third-year boys were looking at us. All the giggling and smiling was being noticed. She probably felt it too as she stopped laughing somewhat abruptly.  Or perhaps she realized that I was more embarrassed than she had thought I would be.

“Well, do you know one?”

“Who?”

“Pediatrician, of course?”

“Yeah, my cousin. Last year he completed his MD.”

“What? Really? What luck! It’s my aunt’s boy..he has asthma. When can we see him? Where is his chamber?”

“I’ll take care of all that. Tell me when you want to see him. His chamber is in Gariahat. It’ll take 20 minutes in an auto. Should I fix it for this Saturday evening?” I was too eager to prove myself useful to her, and besides that, this held a good possibility of seeing her outside the classroom.

“Yes, please.. thanks a lot.”

The bread omelettes arrived. Some of the boys lit up cigarettes. I had a tremendous urge to smoke too. Every smoker knows that smoking is not only injurious but contagious too. If one smokes, other smokers watching this noble act must also light up their cigarettes to keep their sanity. I knew the canteen would resemble a chimney in few minutes.

I said, “I hope you don’t have asthma!”

She followed my eyes to understand the context, “I don’t, I actually like the smell of cigarettes.”

“Really? You should visit the canteen everyday then!”

“Hahaha.. do you smoke?”

“Um…Do you?” What if she was playing a trick? I needed her to commit in one way, then I could blindly follow her to the same side. There is a difference between liking the smell and actually smoking it.

“I shouldn’t tell you that. I’m your teacher,” she brought a pretentious seriousness in her voice.

“But you just told me not to generalize!”

“Hahaha….” She reached for the glass of water and took few sips, “Well, I did smoke on a few occasions...I like it. But no, I’m not a regular smoker.”

“To avoid comments from cynical people?”

“Yeah, that and the fact that it causes so many health issues.”

“You want to live long.”

“Healthy and happy. Don’t you?”

I had been smoking cigarettes since those days. I was still healthy, apparently at least, not sure whether I was happy though.

But Aparna Di wasn’t. 

As I kept calling my classmates one after the other and enquired about her, I learnt from one that she was undergoing chemotherapy in a hospital in Kolkata. 

How could she be happy if she wasn’t healthy? 

I wondered if seeing me would make her feel better. If it would make her a little more happy. Would remembering the old days, our chats, her initial days in college bring a smile to her face? Would she recount my stupid love and laugh again?

I believed there would be something in those memories that would bring her at least a moment’s relief.

                                         -3-

“Hi, I need a patient’s information, which bed and all. I’d like to see her,” I told the help-desk receptionist at the hospital.

“Sorry Sir, we don’t give away such information,” came the curt reply.

I knew this would happen. I had looked at Aparna Di’s husband’s Facebook posts and had figured out that she had been admitted to this hospital. I was still not sure if she would remember me at all. Or if I would be able to see her. But I wanted to try.

“I know, I appreciate this. I would’ve done the same,” I said, as if I would have shouted at her if she let me pass through. Actually, I couldn’t come up with anything else to say.

She looked at me. She sounded confused, “Sorry Sir, cannot help you on this. Call someone close to the patient to get the information. You need a visiting card.”

“That’s the thing, I don’t know anyone else.”

“Well too bad then. Can you please move? How can I help you?” The last sentence was directed to the man behind me in the queue.

“… Wait, can you please call her up?”

“Sorry?”

“Her name is Aparna Mitra. Can you please call her up and ask if she can allow me? My name is Sameresh Dey. She was my teacher in college.”

“Well.. I really don’t have time to search names. Don’t you even know the bed number or phone number?”

“Don’t even give the phone to me, just talk to her. If she doesn’t remember, I will not bother you anymore. Please, I was out of the country for a long time. Couldn’t keep in touch, please,” I blabbered like a filmy hero to my would-be mother-in-law.
          
                                        -4-

My green mermaid was lying on a narrow, railed bed before me. Several electronic instruments formed a semi-circle around her, witnessing and recording her days in the hospital. The instruments appeared like well-wishers empathizing with her condition. Her body was covered in a white blanket.  Her right hand rested on her belly. I could see a long needle inserted into her wrist. A transparent tube connected the needle and a pouch that hung from a stand beside the bed and dripped foreign chemicals into her. 

It appeared the well-wishers were actually conspiring to slowly poison her.

I would have laughed if someone claimed that this lady tucked under the white blanket was Aparna Di, had her eyes been closed. But they were open. 

I could see those eyes light up upon seeing me.

“Samar, this is such a surprise!” Her voice was feeble but as clear as I remembered it.

“Aparna Di, I got a bigger surprise hearing about you,” I tried to sound as jovial as I was in my college days and realized I had been out of touch for too long.

“It is so good to see you. It’s more than ten years, right?” She was trying to take a better look at me, but was struggling to do so.

I held her head, lifted it a little higher and pushed another pillow in the gap, “Something like that. How are you now?”

“I’m fine.. much better this week. They are saying that I can go home in a few days!”

“Great! That’s really superb!”

“Tell me how you’ve been. Why don’t you sit.. take the stool.”

I settled on the stool, “I thought you wouldn’t remember.”

She smiled, “Why do you remember?” Then added, “You guys were my first batch.”

We remained silent for a few seconds.

“I never thought that I would have to see you in a hospital.”

“People get sick. Are you thinking you shouldn’t have come?”

I tried to smile.

“It’s not as bad as it looks…”

“You look the same. No change!” I cut her short.

“..Plus they give sedatives, when I need them..Morphine,” she rolled her eyes just like she used to do when she wanted to make the words mean more than their meanings.

“..How are your friends?”

“All are fine. Although I’ve not seen most of them after leaving college. We keep in touch on Facebook.”

“Hmm, damn Facebook! No one visited me. Only you.”

I remained silent and studied her wrist where the needle made its entry.

“I knew you would come.” Her voice became feeble.

I looked at her eyes. I wondered if the liquid that dripped into her had some fancy truth-telling agents. I looked back to check if any of her relatives were coming. 

Whatever it was that was dripping into her, it wasn’t powerful enough as she stopped talking.

I asked her, “How is your family? How many kids you have?”

“They are good.. we are fine now. Once I go back, I’m sure things will get back to normal. Rajat will come soon with Diya.”

“Diya is your daughter? Which class is she in?”

“Class six,” her eyes smiled at the mention of her daughter.

“What about you?” She asked.

“Married for 5 years. No kids.”

“Good, good. What’s her name?”

“Smita.” 

I wanted to leave before her family arrived.

“Aparna Di, I won’t take much time. I just wanted to see you. I’ve brought a gift for you.” 

As I was about to take out the perfume bottle that I had bought in Boston, I felt shy. I felt she might think it inappropriate. It was the same reason that I could not tell Smita that I had come to visit Aparna Di. Some part of me still wanted to keep my love for her a secret. No one else needed to know, not even Aparna Di.

“Oops! I forgot to bring it, I thought I had it in my pocket.” I shoved the bottle inside my pocket again.

“What was my gift?”

“Um.. chocolates!”

“Go buy me one, and bring me a pack of cigarettes. Now that I already have cancer, I should smoke at will.”

“Hahaha.. you haven’t changed a bit!”

“You didn’t bring me chocolates, I know.”

“What do you mean?”

“My nose is still alright. When you walked in, I already knew what my gift was. Don’t tell me you wear lady’s perfume.”

Damn! Hadn’t I closed the cap tight enough?

“Actually you’re right, I brought one perfume for you, the same one you used to wear. I just thought I’ll give it to you later when you’re home.”

“That’s wrong thinking. Why wait? I need it here more. This place smells of phenyl all the time.”

I heard footsteps approaching. As I turned back, I could see a tall man sliding the curtain to the side and entering into the small space that had been somewhat private until now. He left the curtain strung together at one side. He was holding the hand of a little girl. I stood up and extended my hand for a hand-shake, “I’m one of Aparna Di’s student from IEMS. Yesterday I came to know about her.” He shook my hand and said, “Please sit.” 

He then looked at Aparna Di, “How are you feeling now?” 

She let the question float in the air, “come here Diya. What did you eat for lunch?” Then said, “I’m fine.”

Diya said, “Paneer masala, Papa cooked!”

“Meet Samar Uncle. He was one of my students.”

“Hello uncle..”

“Hi Diya, so good to see you!” I wanted to get out of this place now. I couldn’t pass my gift to her here. Today it was no longer possible. I got up again.

Then I heard something I wasn’t prepared for.

Aparna Di said, “Diya, uncle has brought you a gift.”

I felt a sharp piercing pain in my chest. The words hit like bullets. Didn’t she know my gift was only for her? That it could never be given to anyone else? I felt I didn’t know her. The corner of my eyes were burning.

But, of course, I had to be nice, I had to say, “Yes Diya, do you like perfumes?”

“Depends on how it smells!”

“See if you like this,” I picked out the glass bottle and she extended her little hand to grab it.

As soon as the bottle was out, looking at it, I could see the corridor again - her face, her smile, our conversations, her covering of her mouth when she laughed. 

My old self, the young college student, the rascal, who was subdued under the morbid stench of a hospital, wafted up to me like an angry ghost. That rascal pleaded with me to not give the bottle away to Diya. It was not a child’s toy! It was much more than just a fragrance. It was my little blue planet. I suddenly knew how much I loved her.

Before Diya could grab the bottle, it slipped from my hand. As the bottle hit the floor before Diya’s bewildered eyes, my blue planet shattered into a thousand pieces.

“I’m so sorry, I’ll give you a new one.” I lied to Diya  before I said goodbye to them.

I was glad that a familiar scent was floating around Aparna Di when I left the bloody hospital. It felt like I was around her.