Retrospection

“Bye mom! See you tomorrow”, Alankrita leaved the room after placing a peck on Pramila’s cheek.

As she locks the door from inside a world of silence and loneliness surrounds Pramila. For last twenty four years, Pramila is living with her daughter in this flat. Pramila’s father Mr. Pranoy Mitra used to be the who’s who of the area. So, when Pramila was looking for a safe nest for her daughter and herself she got this flat in very low price just because her father’s influence.

From balcony Pramila saw, Kaushik has come with his car to give Alankrita a lift to their office. Pramila knows Kaushik from his childhood days. He was Alankrita’s classmate from the kindergarten school. This guy has never shown even a hint of arrogance in his behavior rather his open minded attitude is something that keeps Alankrita hooked to his love.

Pramila also respects that man for his behavior so she never opposed her daughter’s relationship with Kaushik. Kaushik’s parents Mr. and Mrs. Basu Roy are among the noted personalities in the city as eminent poet and lawyer. On the other hand, Pramila just own a small dental clinic of her in the city.

Though she earns a decent income from this yet it is too negligible in comparison to the Basu Roy’s eminence.

That sometime makes her worried of the future of the love story of her daughter with this man. A retrospection of her past life compels her to turn her thoughts towards negativity. Still she wants to keep her finger crossed and redirect her mind to positivity. During this week, she had noticed that after Alankrita leaves for office, she starts to think about these things. A retrospection of her life comes in front of her as live and makes her retain the dubious thoughts about the Basu Roy scion.

Suddenly, Pramila returned to real world hearing the ringing of the phone.

It’s Alankrita. “Hello mom, had your dinner?

“No, will have it in few minutes.”

“Mom! You are breaking your routine!” “You will have to take medicines then!”

“Yes, I know my child. I will take it”, Pramila assures. “Have you reached safely?” “I saw Kaushik came to pick you up.”

“Yes, he gave me a lift.” “So, why are taking tension? I have reached safely”

“Please take all your medicines after dinner, else I will be left with no choice than scold you mom” Alankrita says frantically.

After disconnecting the phone line Pramila thinks about the sincere love and care of her daughter towards her. It feels like very astonishing to her that how her baby girl whom she used to hold in her arms one day, is taking care of her just like a mother. It seems like a wheel of life’s journey to her that how a mother turns to daughter for her daughter after she starts getting old.

Pramila can’t relate the sleepless nights she kept waking up alone beside Alankrita when she underwent major surgery for an accident which she met with during her final years in school. It was not easy for a single mother like Pramila to tackle both her work and taking care of her seriously ailing daughter.

The pained face of her girl sometimes left no other chance than ruining her confidence of running her family alone. The days and nights of those tough days of two ladies were fought alone by them. There was none to give them shoulder to rest over it. After getting over from that problematic situation Alankrita had successfully bagged a good percentile in her final examination. That day was the real big win day for both of them.

Pramila enters her bedroom. Whenever Alankrita goes for her night shift job Pramila sleeps in this tiny room. In this room a large window provides a really lovely site of night sky. She turns off the night lamp. Now, the room is inundating with milky white bright glow of full moon night.

The beauty of night sky sometimes left people sleepless through the whole night because there used to have a seductive beauty of these glittering stars and that pale white moon. A longtime gaze to this sometime takes one to a hypnotized phase.

Today this hypnotic beauty took Pramila to her past life. That life taught her how to live alone, how a single mother could raise her only daughter while living under the nose of such patriarchal society. Sometimes, Pramila thinks that her torn and distressed fate is the only cause that compelled her to keep a dubious perspective towards Kaushik. Pramila knows it is not correct to measure every people in same parameter though it is her mother instinct that says her to be overprotective for her child.

The mesmeric moon and its bewitching glow take Pramila twenty four years back. In a terrific July night, continuous rain was keeping the morning sky gloomy all the day. The night was no different and the cracking thunderstorm was pushing the whole city life to a complete distress. Around 9PM when Pramila was unconscious in her delivery pain no one was there with her.

Not even the man with whom she was head over the hills in love with. He has many important works to do in his office. In that night Pramila was blessed with Alankrita. The day after that night the baby girl was kept with Pramila beside her hospital bed.

A pair of eyes was eagerly waiting to see her loved one. She was eagerly peeping through the door of the maternity ward to see if that man was coming or not. But, after waiting for too long, Pramila was very sad and quite a bit complainant towards Sudhir. Yes, Sudhir Mitra, the man of her dreams, the man who fitted with into her every dreamt aspect of a perfect prince charming.

Pramila come across with Sudhir in her collage days. In those days both boys and girls see life with different spectacle and want to live and lead their life in their own condition. Pramila was no different from this type. Though, the proposal came from another side Pramila hadn’t taken too much time to convey her consent to her paramour.

Though, some phase of denial and confusion was also there before that consent and girls are always allowed to make their man waiting for their opinion.

After five years of courtship they wanted to start their nuptial relationship. But, neither Pramila’s family nor Sudhir’s family was happy for their decision. After much argument, when neither of them agreed to come out of that relationship, two families washed their linens off the matter. They were told that they are mature enough now to take their own decision. That day Pramila decided to keep away with her parents because they refused to stand along with her when she needed them the most.

Their two years of married life can be best described as a perfect example of marital bliss. Sometimes, she wondered why Sudhir’s and her parents disagreed with this marriage while they are living happily together. After two years of that heavenly nuptial life Pramila conceived with Alankrita and one day finally she became mother.

But there is no sign of Sudhir even in the second day from her delivery. Pramila was left aback by such unnatural behavior of her husband. That condition collapsed her in such a way that she forgot to shed tears on her fate. After getting discharged from hospital, Pramila returned to the house were they used to stay. The landlord was at his wits end to see her along with two days old baby.

He informed that Sudhir had paid all payments and said that he was shifting to another country with his wife and their new born. Finally, she returned to her parental house. It was hard for them to console a mother abandoned by her husband with whom she got married by going against the society.

In those days Pramila made out that life is really very unpredictable and anyone can hardly decode its jigsaw orientation. She got abandoned by her husband and got welcomed by her parents with whom she kept away two long years just to spend her life with a wrong person. 

From that day, Alankrita was the world to her. Her working life, every decision generally get revolved around her daughter’s wellbeing. Pramila lived a life of a single mother from that day. In the initial years she had filed police complaints and decided to trace Sudhir out so that she can know the answers of all the wrong doing of that person.

But gradually the pressure of leading the life of a single mother made her indifferent from all these things. The only aim of her was to bring up Alankrita in such a way so that she wouldn’t face the financial tremor that was felt by Pramila during her initial days after being estranged by Sudhir. So, for Pramila the only important thing was Alankrita and making her self-dependent and self-reliant.

Now, Kaushik is also there in Alankrita’s life and that’s why that gloomy past is making the boy more suspicious to Pramila.

Suddenly, a beep sound from cell phone broke into Pramila’s retrospection. It is “good morning” message from Alankrita. It is 5 O’clock right now and in few hours she is going to be free from office. Pramila gets up from her bed. Before her daughter returns to home she has to cook something for her. So, she decided to postpone her retrospection for few minute.