Entry Id 1140: Forever Mine, Forever Yours by Arundhati Khopker
Standing under the blazing sun, she stood looking around as if looking for something. She looked high and low but then in distraction bowed her shoulders as if giving up at the futile attempt. She lifted her hands to her eyes and her shoulders shook in a sobbing motion. “Its useless now, I’ll never find it! What will Dad say?” she exclaimed.. As she turned around to give up her search, she heard someone say, “Excuse me, Ma’am are you searching for something?” Lifting her tear-stained face, her eyes reflected a glow of hope as she turned eagerly around to see the speaker. What she saw was a young man in white slacks, red t-shirt and a diamond ear-ring in his ear glistening in the bright noon sun. “Did you say something to me?” “Yup, you seem to be searching for something very precious and I thought I might help you. Don’t get me wrong, I was just trying to help since I might have found what you seem to have lost.” She looked at him with a quizzing look but he said, “I found this mobile on the bench where you were sitting earlier this morning before the invocation programme.Then you left leaving it here.” She looked at his extended hand to see that her precious mobile was safe and as she grabbed it from him. He looked impishly at her as she stared at him and muttered a brief ‘thank you’. Bowing her head so as not to show her embarrassment, she was about to turn away when a loud flapping of wings sharply brought her head into the direction of the sound. It was a gray and white pigeon with a red band around his neck and a purple string wound around its feet. It flew around both of them taking two turns and then after gazing at her in suspended astonishment, flew away in the near by bushes. She froze but then looked at her savior saying, “What was that?”
Entry Id 1145:You Just Know When You Know by Sumedha Menon
“A Tale of Two cities”- It was one of her favourite books. She had read it so many times, she could narrate it in her sleep. And on this 8 hour flight to India, she wanted to rekindle the romance. She was exhausted, for she had been swamped with work for days and was looking forward to being home after 6 months. Although, to be honest, she was unsure how much time she would actually be able to spend at home. Afterall one of the reasons she was flying back in the first place was to meet and get to know this ‘boy’, before they finally (hopefully) gave their consent to get married to each other. It still seemed a little strange to her, how she had got herself into this whole thing. She never really appreciated the Indian institution of ‘arranged marriages’. The same way she never understood the fuss about ‘blind dates’ .The whole idea of meeting someone with the sole purpose of judging them made her queasy
Not that there was any pressure from her family, for her parents were fairly open minded. But both they and she realized that it was improbable that an ambitious, successful 27 year old Indian lawyer living in London for 5 years and working 60-100 hours a week, would just run into a ‘suitable match’ (as they liked to think, or ‘man of her dreams’ as she did) one fine day. So when her parents had mentioned that a family friend had told them about this ‘eligible boy’, Rudra, she thought what the heck! His background seemed impressive – Kellogg MBA, worked for top tier I-bank, well read, well-travelled, and she liked what she saw of him on Facebook.
Entry Id 1146: Blue Rose by Souvik Das
Polly is already on her way to India. She is my co-researcher in our botany project named “Lucie”. We had been trying hard for more than 4 years now to win the 0.5MM Fr prize money declared by the Belgian Botanical Society for creating the first true sustainable blue rose in the world. In these 4 years we never met, but just shared our research progresses regularly. We believe to be very near to the huge breakthrough. Today the 28th of January, 2005. We plan to succeed by the 7th of Feb, the Rose Day, and gift the whole world the first beautiful blue rose ever.
I called up Polly from my mobile. “Bonjour Madame. How far are you? Pas de problem? Call me as soon you land in Nagpur. I will be waiting at the airport”.
I have a small lab here in Nehru Nagar, Nagpur. My dad, a puritan school teacher, passed away when I was just 10. Since then, it was my mom who brought me up along with my grandfather. My dadaji was a gardener to the great Nehru family. He had seen Jawaharji become the leader, the PM and then expire, but always with a red rose close to his chest. I remember dadaji always telling me “Papa, I have named you after Papa Meilland, a famous exotic breed of dark red French roses, my favourites. You must grow up to become something special amongst others. You must make us proud”. These words rang in my ears. For dadaji is suffering from a rare form of silicosis, helpless, for it is a disease for the very rich. I thought for a moment. We have to succeed. We have to win the prize money. I have to cure my dadaji. My eyes filled up with bitter water.
Polly is a middle class, young botanist. Very talented in flowers, as well as in literature. She has a special likeness for Victorian novelists, esp. Charles Dickens. His ‘Tale of Two Cities’ is her favourite since it portrays Paris and London during the old days. It is after the beautiful Lucie from this novel that our research was named. Polly won’t accept any other name at all. We have reached very near to the end of our mission, our dream, our life. Name really matters no more.