C R Dash

Abstract Crime Others

4.0  

C R Dash

Abstract Crime Others

An Unusual Match

An Unusual Match

7 mins
1.2K


Kalipada Satpathy was about to retire from government service. He was in Odisha Financial Service and his wife was the owner of a strategically located boutique which was expanding every day. She was a truly God-fearing person.


Kalipada could have landed a private job. But his inner voice told him no, not to engage in money-making again. He had done that all life. Now it was time to spend time among his friends who took special interest in God, prayers, holy books and holy thoughts. He profoundly loved the company of sadhus,yogis and ascetics.

Kalipada's wife spent all her leisure on prayers and worship. Both were devout Hindus. In the evenings and mornings we certainly heard devotional songs and smelt a sandalwoodlike sensuous fragrance wafting in the air issuing from their place. Being like-minded individuals,we frequently visited them and exchanged our views and experiences. Both were charitable and loving.

They had a separate room where they had installed innumerable photos and tiny idols of Hindu gods and goddesses.


Kalipada's wife Sagarika Sarkar had not been able to gift either a son or daughter to the Satpathy family for which her mother-in-law who lived in Kalipada's own village,teased and taunted her bitterly. Sagarika was a paragon of beauty and had a most laudable smile. She spent almost all her earnings in charity. Her generosity and magnanimous nature was a matter of deep curiosity and appreciation. But she didn't seem to enjoy the accolades people showered upon her. The moment she came out into the street,the stray dogs surrounded her producing their strange and spectacular delights and enthusiasm both physically and audibly. She fed them heartily.


On the other hand, Kalipada never touched food or water before his puja of Lord Jagannath. He never minded being issueless now. He had decided to adopt a child. Sagarika was equally interested to do so. At this juncture Kalipada's childhood friend Shubhankar Das and his son Priyabrat paid a visit to the religious couple.


Shubhankar and Kalipada were ecstatic to see each other after a gap of thirty years. Kalipada said to his friend,"Shubhi, you have changed a good deal. But you still have the same way of talking. . . . Then you were so fat and now so skeletal. . . ?" In fact, the childhood friend appeared inappropriately gaunt and haggard. He concealed his enthusiasm to know what had actually gone wrong with him. By and by,he came to know that the friend had lost his wife two years ago.


Priyabrat was a very shy and introverted kind young boy of fifteen. He had passed his class 10 boards with a brilliant score and was thinking of doing 2 science. Subhankar wanted to get him admitted to a premier science college in the city. When he talked about his son's accommodation in a college hostel,Kalipada said:

"Let your son stay with us. We have two extra rooms. . . We are not going to charge you any house rent. Your son is our son too. Don't think I am a typical city Babu always calculating their losses and profits. " His wife said energetically,"Son, you will never face any kind of difficulty when you are with us. . . . . "


Both Kalipada and his wife Sagarika were filled with happiness and thought God had sent them the child as a precious gift.Kalipada would be highly delighted when the boy did something extraordinary in academics. The old man had a penchant for mathematics and he assumed the task of teaching the boy mathematics. He had a huge building and a beautiful car. He had a lot of savings, fixed deposits and LIC policies. He had no idea as to what would happen to his property worth crores after he and his wife would passed away.


Years passed. Priyabrat completed his engineering. He was a software engineer now. He was deeply attached to Kalipada and his wife. He seldom visited his own parents in his village. Subhankar would call the boy everyday. He and his wife Mrunalini talked to him and often became morose. People in the village thought Priyabrat was after Kalipada's wealth. A day came when Mrunalini travelled to Bhubaneswar and insisted that her son be shifted to her brother's house in Bhubaneswar. Kalipada thought someone else's son can't be his. But his wife was inconsolable and shed tears. 

Priyabrat left.

Kalipada and Sagarika began to live as usual. Two years passed and the boy landed a lucrative job with a leading American software company. He had to work in Mumbai, but had also a choice to move to Canada if he liked. He decided on working in Canada. He came to Kalipada's house with a lot of sweets.

Kalipada once made a visit to his village and stayed there for some days. Sagarika was in Bhubaneswar. She had told Kalipada that it was dangerous to leave their palatial house empty even for a day. . . !

When Kalipada returned to the city,he found his house locked. He called his wife but there was no response. This had happened a number of times the day before. So he had driven to Bhubaneswar at 100 km per hour. Some neighbours had told her that his house was locked and they knew nothing about his wife. Their closest neighbour who was an SBI manager came and handed over a bunch of keys to Kalipada. When Kalipada enquired about his wife, she told that her son who was in Class 7 had got the keys when he was playing outside with his friends.

Kalipada was profoundly grieved and didn't know what to do. Now Sagarika's phone was switched off. He carried a nagging fear in his heart that someone had kidnapped his wife and was going to extort a heavy ransom from him. He lodged a complaint with the local police.

After a week he was called to the police station and was grilled for an hour. There was an allegation against him that he had been torturing his wife for a long time. He was perplexed and confused. He received the greatest shock in his lifetime when he was told his wife wanted a divorce from him! His bewilderment knew no bounds.

Kalipada racked his brains in vain to discover the cause behind his wife's strange behaviour. Gradully the shocking details of a most horrid and abominable fact came to light. Sagarika and Priyabrat had been in a romantic relationship for a long time. They had decided to get married to live a happy conjugal life. Few could believe such a strange thing to be true. A 24 year boy getting married to a 53 year old woman! How embarrassing. . . . !

Kalipada lived his life alone. His wife was divorced from him. He spent most of his time in prayers and worship. He also devoted some of his time to listen to audios on YouTube. He would be puzzled to see and hear things about love and marriage in different corners of the world. Once he saw a white woman 35 or 40 with a school-going boy astride her waist just as a mother carries a child in India. The white woman and the boy who looked like her son were in love and used to have sex regularly. Kalipada used to wonder a lot about such things.

Now a young lawyer frequently called at Kalipada's lonely house. He too loved to talk about God and religion. It was he who told him that an era of pure anarchy had started. Animalism and brutish instincts of men and women ruled rampantly supreme everywhere. He gave the names of some well-known celebrities who were age-wise like sons and mothers and yet had married to fulfill their animalistic thirst for sex. He learnt that in the West people lived like dogs and bitches and no decency or order existed in society. Family was going to be a thing of the past. Nishant, the young lawyer said to Kalipada,"Uncle don't you think Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas or Malaika Arora and Arjun Kapoor are just like sons and mothers. . ?

With tears in his eyes, Kalipada said,"When I was 11 and my brother 7,my father died. My mother was 32. . She sacrificed her time and worked the hardest to bring us up. Her greatest pleasure lay in our happiness. She never disappointed a beggar who came to our door. The West doesn't know that the supreme happiness comes from giving and not from taking. Now nobody is willing to make the slightest bit of sacrifice but everybody seems to be taking things from others. It is a very cruel and dirty world.Those who have never been unselfish in life how can they realise how it feels when you do things without the slightest expection for anything in return. . ?"


After a short break, Kalipada said,"My mother was only fifteen when I was born. Then child marriage was in vogue. " Then he laughed bitterly and said:"I am watching a programme called PATERNITY. I saw a girl with 12 possible fathers yesterday. . . . What the Americans call freedom is nothing but license or more appropriately speaking, licentiousness. . . . "



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