A sudden miss called from her surprised me. I knew there was something particular. I called her back. “Oh Ripon, I am dying to tell you. My parents have arranged a marriage for me. The boy is good and I am happy about it!” she said without any breath once I said “hello.”
“Congratulation! I am so happy for you.”
“I know you cannot come for my marriage but on Feb 6, on the day of my marriage you must call me and send a gift for me.”
“I will try.”
“What do you mean by you will try. You must. You have to. You are my friend and I can demand certain things from you. This is the right of my friendship.”
Then she kept on speaking…
When I put back my phone, I was in deep thought of the nostalgia. I sank in the memory lane. It was in the year of 2003. After three years of initial Jesuit formation, I was asked to do my graduation studies in a public college rather than going to a Jesuit run college. In the college I was like any other ordinary boy, and almost nobody knew that I was preparing to become a Catholic Priest.
On the first day, when I entered in to the class-room, I was a bit surprised to see that there were roughly forty girls and only three boys. I have never before studied in a co-educational institution. I was puzzled of where to sit. At this point I saw a girl from the last row was asking me come next to her. I went and sat next to her.
During the first hour, I introduced myself as Bangladeshi, a foreigner and lone. During the second hour the Principal came and spoke to us in English. As he did not know Bengoli, he asked someone to translate in to Bengoli of what he said. I was the only one who could speak English. Thus from the first day itself I was the centre of attraction!
Within a few weeks we formed a group. We were five in the group- two boys and three girls. Soon I discovered among the three girls, a particular girl was taking interest on me. Outside class she would try to be close to me. As I was aware of my identity of a celebrant and did not want to 'fall in love' with a girl, one day I told her that I was preparing to be a Catholic priest. I had to explain to her what it meant to be a Catholic priest, as she was a Hindu. I thought, after hearing the aim of my life, she would keep certain distance. But to my surprise, I found she was becoming more close to me.
Then time came for vacation. The college was closed for almost for a month. On the reopening day, she said that she had brought a gift for me. During the break we went to the college canteen. She handed over to me a Crucifixion. Then looking at the Crucifixion, she said, “Ripon, I want to see you as a holy priest like Him.”
That was enough for me. That gave me a lot of freedom to grow. There grew a mutual trust and faith. We have grown in a loving friendship. She would often say that she loves me like a friend. We were in the college for three years. Many memories! Many incidents!
Just before leaving Calcutta for Dublin, we five of us got together for a ‘farewell party’. It was somewhere near Victoria Park in Calcutta. We all sat together, recalling our past days- specially days of exams. Laughter, jokes, eating spicy food…! When it was getting dark, we knew that the girls needed to be returned home. At the end we were rather silent for sometimes. In silence, we felt the presence of each other. There were no words but just our being together. At the time of departure, she handed over to me an envelope. She asked me to open it when I get back home. When I opened the envelope, I found in a small paper she wrote,
“Remember me when you are sad, when you are alone, when no one is around you, when things do not go well with you. I will be there with you.”Then we parted…it is almost four years that we have not seen each other. We all have taken different roads. After so many days, I was happy to know about her marriage.
Yes, in life we cross across many people. But only certain people remain in our hearts. We may not meet them anymore. But their presence is always with us. We grow in a loving relationship. We create a love story. In this love story we do not need to be lovers.
It is true that we do not have any problem to find people to share our joy, happiness, success, dreams... But to find someone to tell about failure, stupid mistake, shortcoming is not easy. But there are people…perhaps sometimes we do not notice them…
