The Debt

Rajesh Singh and Nirup Mishra were always found together. At B B College(Bidyadhar Brahma College), boys and girls had hardly seen the duo separately wandering the college grounds. People at Bhanjapur Sasan and the surrounding countryside knew them as hardworking and scholarly students. Rajesh had a penchant for economics and was working hard to secure an Honours degree in the same. Nirup was fond of living in his magical world of history. He entertained a desire to be a historian. The two friends finished graduation creditably. Niru's father was not a man of means who, to the boy's misfortune, was diagnosed with cancer and pegged out the very next year. 

Niru's mother was determined to get her son admitted to Utkal University and he had to earn his post-graduate degree in history. However, their

dreams were too big to be fulfilled. They lacked the required means to materialise them. We know determination can defy, challenge and destroy most of the odds people have to confront in this world.

Niru began his life of gruelling hardship and endless struggle. They rented a house not far from the university. The monthly house rent was very low(eighty rupees a month), yet it was to be paid under great strain and pressure. Niru's mother had sold most of her father-in-law's lands to sustain herself and rear her child. Presently, they were going to have no lands. The boy worried a lot but he was resolute and assertive and oath-bound to reach the target she had set herself at any cost. She breathed courage and ebullience into her son. She had no money but plenty of hope and profound faith in God. 

However, the son would argue God didn't exist because he didn't help them. He was cruel enough to take his father's life at an early age. 

His mother Sneha would try to din into him that God didn't want people to grow rich because in the wake of riches come vices and Man forgets his original Creator and makes a mess of the beautiful God-given gift called life. He starts to look upon other people as mere nonentities and gets entangled in useless mundane pursuits.

Niru was very much attached to his friend Raju. One thing he boasted of the friend was the affluence. Niru like any other young man had the ambition to be rich. His tried her utmost to fulfil all his requirements. But very hard times came the year the super cyclone struck coastal Odisha. Driven to desperation, and urged by his mother he requested a loan of rupees three hundred from his dearest friend Raju. A month passed but Niru could hardly believe that his great friend was terribly worried about the realisation of the paltry sum. I call it paltry but it might have appeared big to the university boy Niru those days.

Raju called on Niru once or twice every week, each time exerting pressure on the indigent boy and his hapless mother. They were at a loss. "What to be done..?" was the issue they pondered most of the time. Niru could scarcely perceive how the news of this reached their Bihari neighbour Mr Anupam Tripathi's glamorous wife Sonalika. She one day entered their house with a plateful of ladoos. She thrust some rupees into the speechless boy's hands and said, "Make the payment to your friend. He has been nagging and pestering you for a long time.." Niru counted the notes after she had gone. Seven hundred rupees..!

She was exceptionally beautiful, fit to be a heroine. 

Mr Tripathi was a top engineer with the Indian Railway. He was also tall and handsome but he would be often drunk and mutter abusive words. They were newly married. His charming wife got his behaviour rectified. They were the most admired couple. 

She became a frequent visitor to Niru's house and didn't mind sitting on the cold bare cement floor. Niru's mother Sneha loved her and never failed to serve her tea. Niru would often tell her, "Bhabi, you are so highly educated...You could find a job." She would merely give her characteristic smile evading an answer. She held a first-class master's degree in political science from JNU.

When Niru paid the debt to his greedy miserly friend, he experienced a profound sense of relief and ease. Some months passed and Niru was again panicking about making the repayment to the neighbour's wife. They came to know that they were going to receive a sum of fifteen thousand rupees as compensation for some of their land that the government had taken for building a road.

Niru made a euphoric journey to his village to grab the money and fix all the irking troubles. When they returned, Niru ran to the neighbour's house to return the money. Sonalika said to him, "You call us your brother and sister-in-law. 

..Don't you..? And yet you are returning the money..? Mr Tripathi guffawed and said,"Yes she is right..You are treating us like outsiders.." Seven hundred rupees was a big amount, yet she refused to take it...! But his friend Rajesh had been with him since their early school days...!

Niru's M A results were declared after    Sonalika and her husband had shifted to a  locality somewhere near Fire Station Square. They were living in their own house. Niru visited them with a packet of sweets.

Next, there was a long gap of some eight months. 

Niru got a probationary officer's job with the State Bank of Hyderabad currently amalgamated into the State Bank of India. Niru was overwhelmed with joy but exercised self-control and wanted to spring a surprise on Sonalika and her husband. He hired an auto and reached Fire Station Square.

He pressed the calling bell and waited. After a while, a gorgeous young lady opened the door. She was in black jeans and a white top.

"Who is this girl...?" Nirup gaped stupidly. 

She went back and returned with Sonalika who said, "Congratulations on getting your dream job."

"But Bhabi how did you come to know...?"

She smiled cheerily and said, "This is my sister Monalika..Don't know her..? She was doing psychology....? Never saw her?"

"But you never told me..?" said Niru. 

"Hmmm. I felt somewhat awkward..!"

"Why ...?"

"Because I wanted you to marry her.."

Niru blushed a little but attempted a gimmick.

"But I already have a girlfriend Bhabi... ?"

"Nirup, don't make a fool of yourself.." said Mr Tripathi. "You are so absorbed in yourself that you hardly know a girl who has been going to the same university for the last two years..!And you have a girlfriend..? Besides, there is also another reason...I never loved a girl during my studentship. Know why...? When poverty is at the door, love is out of the window."

Sonalika returned with coffee and said in a voice charged with real humour and teasing: "Mona darling come here...please!"

Monalika was reticent and preferred to stay inside. Both of them were sure to make a nice pair. 

Nirup returned home thinking how a petty debt had brought him into the midst of people so beautiful and so loving.