Kankana

To Love ...

Kankana was her name. A dusky Bengali belle. She was a clay goddess moulded to perfection without a blemish. Smooth like alabaster with twilight on her skin. Enticing, enigmatic, alluring, attractive, eerie, unearthly — I came up with a new adjective every time I saw her. I thought my vocabulary was pathetic after attempting the GRE English tests but Kankana proved me wrong. Kankana was my inspiration, my muse, my deity, my demi-goddess, my poetry, my heart, my soul — my life!!!

I was the absolute antithesis to Kankana. Ordinary was written all over me, from my heavy rimmed glasses that shielded my myopic eyes to the dusty chappals that clad my weary chapped feet. I was the standing joke of my classmates, they ridiculed my well-oiled hair that often streaked down to the collar of my shirt and face, my gangly skeletal emaciated figure, the bedraggled shirt scuffed at the collars and cuffs and my frayed hand-me-down trousers. I was the “nice boy” for the ladies of the neighbourhood. “Nice” because their daughters were safe from my sexual clutches. I was “Nice” to my neighbours and a “Nerd” to my contemporaries.

Come hell or high water, I would not change my appearance. Kankana would come to me impressed by my personality and not by my looks. She would look into my heart and see her soul reflected in mine. She would transcend beyond the trivial. I sat in the classroom listening to the droning of the lecturer harbouring this secret ardour in my heart. I would sit listlessly gazing into infinity to drink every drop of her form. She sat there unaware of my thoughts, wishes, inclinations — unaware of me.

My fingers itched to touch her black mane. It was a plaited black cobra ready to strike at my touch and then run slowly through my fingers like satin soothing the heated skin. The two little gold studs that adorned her ears begged to be taken off by my fingers although my fingers would be chisel against marble. I knew that she would relish the sensation of my calloused fingers on her taut supple soft skin.

I sat there with Kankana in my arms and in my thoughts oblivious to the world around me and to the innumerous catcalls and jeering. My hand was on her columnar graceful neck. A sudden whiff whipped her away from my hands and blew her away. I sat there flummoxed staring idiotically at Kankana blowing in the breeze. The jeering and catcalls got louder but they were so far away. I ran towards the floating piece of paper with my life etched all over it. She stood suspended in mid-air gently taunting me, teasing me to catch up with her, waiting for my advances, waiting for my touches, waiting for my life to be her own, waiting for my life “ waiting ”