A Bend in the River of Life (13 page)

Those days it used to be considered a height of impudence to seek an interview with a senior officer without an appointment. One of the secretaries on the platform asked him if he had an appointment. He replied to the negative but introduced himself and explained that he went to the upcoming branch and the Manager there advised him to see the OM at the Main Office. He also gave her the note from the new Branch Manager. She called the OM's secretary on the internal phone system. Rana did not hear what they spoke but she
asked him to take his seat, saying that the OM would call him in a few minutes.

In about ten minutes the OM's secretary came down and guided him to his office upstairs. He realized later that OM's office was located at a vantage point on the second floor from where he could see Rana but Rana could not see him. OM interviewed him for about forty minutes and said, “The Executive Trainee position that you are looking for is not available at this time. However, we are in the process of installing our first generation computers. I think you could be a valuable member of our inaugural Computer Team. If you agree to accept this position now, I can extend you the opportunity to undergo the interview process for the next Executive Trainee Program. You have to trust my word on that. I can't give my promise to you in writing.

Rana liked the OM. It was just the sixth sense. He thought the OM was sincere and could be trusted on his words. He agreed to accept the computer position and be a part of one of the premier banks in the world. OM accepted his application and said, “I can't confirm the date of appointment as yet. Please keep calling me every week. As soon as the computers are delivered at our premises, I will appoint you.”

So Rana kept calling him every Wednesday. The OM kept him advised on the status of the arrival of the computers. On the fourth week the OM said matter-of-factly, “I have just signed your appointment letter. I am sure you will get it before the weekend. Congratulations. Please come and join us on Monday.”

It was almost dramatic. Rana was thrilled, so did Keka and friends and family of both. In the context of time, it was well-nigh impossible to think that one could walk into one of the largest corporations in the world and walk out with a handsome job.

The fortunes of Rana and Keka were moving concurrently. She got her admission to the college and he obtained his new job simultaneously. It all happened just about six weeks before the
autumn festival season. It was hard to believe that another year passed away at the blink of an eye.

And that is what the River of Life is. It does not have a moment to pause. It flows incessantly from the past to the future. Present does not exist. Present is an illusion of mind. It prevails only as the figment of imagination. The River of Life is a symphony of time, space and mind. The span of time in terms of days, months and years is constant. Space is the function of time and velocity. Velocity is determined by the degree of growth and progress in a specific period of time. The seeds of growth and progress lie in the mind, which is the greatest gift of our Creator to His greatest creation mankind. It is the interactions of the aspirations and the contentments, emanating from the depth of mind that makes the River of Life so fascinating. Mind is immeasurably elastic. It can travel faster than lightning, traversing ten universes like ours in matters of seconds. It can create a zillion castles in the air in the fraction of a second. The same mind can also be slower than deadwood creating nothing but filth and slime. Mind is always in a state of flux, swinging like a pendulum between aspirations and contentments. When the aspiration is in high gear, the creativity thrives. The activity is multiplied. The banks of the River of life cannot contain the volume of the creative juice. The velocity of growth and progress increases manifold. Time seems to be in short supply. Days appear to be whizzing past. On the other side of the spectrum, when abundance drives the mind to a comfort zone and the mind is contented with the pleasure of plenty, the aspirations take soulful refuge in hibernation. The River of Life becomes slender and slim. Time appears to be slower and longer. Days do not seem to pass by. However, the River of Life carries with it both the aspirations and contentments along with all their progressions and regressions on its relentless journey toward its endless destiny, the ever escaping Eternity.

Keka and Rana were floating on the waves of aspirations. They came a long way from the time they had been thrust on each other
at the whirlpool of the River of Life. They no longer had any restrictions with regard to the frequency and duration of their dating, which at long last earned freedom from the parental watch. They obtained enormous credits by not abusing the limited liberty given to them at the beginning of their journey together. Keka became a student of Loreto College, the most prestigious and glamorous college for women. Her college was not very far from his work. As a result, it was much easier for them to plan and coordinate their activities. Sometimes, they would have lunch together. Some other times, Rana would pick her up on his way back from work. Often times, they would go to the strand for their favorite riverside walk and have snacks or dinner at the Riverfront Café. So life became hectic, but full of fun and pleasure.

Days seemed to be gliding past merrily. But life would not be colorful and spicy without interesting episodes strewn around its path. Rana brought an important piece of news from his work. He thought it would be welcomed by everyone wishing him well. But for once he was proved wrong. His OM advised him that a new Executive Development Program would be announced soon. But in view of his excellent on the job performance, the Senior Country Management decided not to put him through the entry level Executive Development Program. Rather he had been chosen to go to the Bank's training center in Delhi for Executive Skills Training to be attended by the senior officers of the bank of the entire Asia-Pacific Region. The training would be for three months effective the first Monday of November. OM gave him further impetus by saying that on completion of the training he would be promoted as a Departmental Manager. There was nothing negative in this information. Everything was indicative of his rising stock in the company despite his youth.

At first, Keka became very happy hearing the information, almost ecstatic. Subsequently, however, the possessive side of her character got the better of her. It made her brood over the reality that Rana
would be staying alone a thousand miles away for three long months. Keka would be out of his sight and out of his mind. He would come across many other young women and forget her. The more she thought about it, the more depressed she became. She began crying intermittently, she could not sleep and she would not eat. Rana was in a quandary, her family non-plussed. Her parents and grandparent began working on her mind. They said Rana had no choice but to go for the training because it was his company's policy to give opportunities to its employees for their development and growth in the company. Mita said that she had to live without Keka's father for four years when he had gone to England to be a Barrister. Ramnath said that her grandmother had to live alone at their ancestral home at Burdwan for four years while he was studying law in Calcutta and only when he could set up his law practice successfully, he brought her to Calcutta. He added that success in life was not easy to come by and it needed sacrifice on the part of everyone. Rana said it would not be easy for him also to navigate three months without seeing her. But nothing convinced her. She remained virtually in a coma.

Obviously, Rana did not want to scuttle that God given opportunity presented to him by his employers. So he came up with a practical proposal according to which during the three months training, he would manage to come to Calcutta for a few days at the end of November and Keka would go to Delhi with her parents during the week between the Christmas and New Year. He promised to take them for a trip to Agra to see the Tajmahal and to Jaipur and Udaipur to see the famous Rajput palaces.

Keka displayed semblance of a smile. She made faces to Rana, but accepted the proposal. On further deliberations, her family decided that only her mother Mita would accompany her. That broke the log-jam and brought peace and sanity to the earth. After two agonizing days and the longest forty-eight hours of her life Keka smiled and became her own-self again.

That was not the first time that seemingly unreasonable emotions
were displayed by a romantic partner in the River of Life, nor will it be the last. For that is the nature of love. Despite all the trappings of unshakable togetherness, it is apprehensive of the evil casting its spell on the object of love without rhyme or reason.

Rana's training commenced in Delhi on schedule at the beginning of November. And as promised to Keka he came down to Calcutta for four days at the end of November. Now it was Keka's turn to go to Delhi chaperoned by her mother Mita. Both Rana and Keka were counting days. In consonance with the time frame the mother and daughter arrived in Delhi. Their objective was to tour the Delhi-Agra-Jaipur-Udaipur belt known as the Golden Triangle of tourism, covering a part of Northwest India rich in history. There were unbelievable numbers of touristic objects to visit in that triangle. For over thousand years that corridor had been the base of governance of the successive rulers of various dynasties, trying to extend their control and authority over a large area of the country. So the Golden Triangle was strewn with the relics of the past. Each relic had its fascinating story of love and romance, power and greed, triumph and tragedy, honesty and treachery, artistic eminence and the failure of the art of governance. The sites of special interests that they visited in and around Delhi were the President's Palace, Parliament House, other important Government buildings, the Red Fort, the Diplomatic Enclave and the mausoleum of Emperor Akbar. The President's house was formerly the Viceroy's House in the colonial days. The Red Fort was the last bastion of the Mughal Empire during the dying days of the dynasty. Emperor Akbar's mausoleum on the way to Agra bore characteristics of his religious tolerance and the influence of his wives of various faiths on his mental spectrum and his architecture.

The excitement was mounting on Keka and her mother for the Agra leg of the trip, mainly due to Tajmahal. But the first stop of the visit was Fatehpur Sikri, a beautiful city that Emperor Akbar founded at a phenomenal cost. It became his citadel of power for a short period of time. Fatehpur Sikri was a well laid out city, an architectural masterpiece, just at the outskirts of Agra. However, in about fourteen years he moved his site of governance to Lahore, now in Pakistan. No one knew for certain why a beautiful city like that built at a cost mind-boggling to an ordinary citizen was abandoned within such a short period of time. Some say water shortage was the reason. Some others opine that the Emperor was concerned over the frequent incursions by the Persian and Afghan rulers at the western frontier of his far flung empire and he wanted to be closer to that frontier to smother any large scale invasion. Whatever might be the reason, Fatehpur Sikri would always be seen as the symbol of an Emperor's privilege of imposing his whim on the subjects at a considerable cost to them during those idiosyncratic mediaeval ages.

Nonetheless, there were some important relics in Fatehpur Sikri. Among them, the tomb of the Sufi Saint Salim Chisti with its intricate and sensitive filigree and engravings in marble would remain as one of the masterpieces of the Mughal era. Among other interesting relics were the palaces of the principal wives of Akbar. Keka spent a lot of time in and around those palaces. For a modern day young woman like Keka, it is a mystery how the multiple wives of the royalty of the yore used to share the same household without being belligerent to each other. All in all, Fatehpur Sikri was a good prelude to Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal.

The next stop was the Agra Fort, the seat of control and power for about two centuries. The construction of the massive Agra Fort got off the ground around 1590 AD when Akbar decided to take back his capital to Agra. The Agra Fort was perhaps the strongest and technologically most advanced fort of that era. The sound system of Diwan-E-Um or the King's Court appeared to be way ahead of his time. Akbar governed his empire from the Agra Fort till the end of his reign at his death in 1605.

Tajmahal was built during the reign of his grandson Shah Jahan as a loving remembrance of his beloved wife Mumtaj, who died while giving birth to their fourteenth child. The Tajmahal was situated
about three miles north of the Agra Fort on the other side of the River Jamuna and was clearly visible, even though in a minuscule form, from the Royal verandah. Shah Jahan ruled from 1628 to 1658 and then he was put under house arrest by Aurangjeb, his son and the self-imposed new ruler. When Shah Jahan's distant vision became dimmer with his advanced age, a precious stone was set at a specific angle on the redstone wall of the royal balcony to facilitate his easy viewing of the Tajmahal in its clear reflection. That stone and all the other precious stones of the Fort were stripped by the British Raj. However, a cheap replacement stone was in place and Keka, Mita and Rana took turns to see the reflection of Tajmahal on that stone. Nevertheless, it was from the royal verandah that they had the first glimpse of the Tajmahal in the distance. As they walked down the steps of the verandah, the Tajmahal disappeared from their sight. Then the tourist taxi began its seemingly endless three-mile drive through the narrow streets of Agra till guide Khushwant announced in a dramatic fashion, “Here's the Tajmahal, the mother of all Mausoleums, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.”

They craned their necks to the right and lo and behold! There stood the Tajmahal, the visual outburst of a lyrical and romantic mind rendered silent in sorrow for its inability to find its exquisitely tender and loving expression in the fluidity of a poem, breathing its sublime beauty to the space, ever mindful of the memory of the beloved long lost in the passage of time. Yes, Tajmahal is the finest piece of poem curved in pristine marble. It is the visual effect of the perfect meeting of minds of the lover, the beloved and the architect. It is the consummate blend of design and architecture; a masterful display of the interaction of the size and space, tempered by the outpouring of intense feelings, evoked by a delectable combination of love and grief. It is one of those rapturous and exalted masterpieces of mankind, which transcend the highest intellect, ingenuity, craftsmanship and artistic refinement and blessed with the grace of God, attain divinity. There is no linguistic repertoire of the beholder
which could adequately describe the elegance, the purity and the artistry of the Tajamahal.