A story of forgotten innocence by Nirupama Dutt
Purva is sixteen. She is beautiful. She has a lovely new watch and she is in love. She has the new watch as a present from her brother on her sixteenth birthday and she is in love because it is obligatory to be in love at this age. Actually, Purva and her best friend Lata are in love with the same boy — the handsome Harsh. It is a different matter that neither of them have exchanged even a few pleasantries with him.
These days to the sorrow of both Purva and Lata, Harsh is not in town. They have not set their eyes on him for a long time now. Purva glances at her watch which shows the dates and has a slick black leather strap. There are still twenty days to go for the annual school fete. Time moves ever so slowly before the fete and Purva counts every second on her new watch.
Walking down the school with her heavy hag on her shoulder, Purva stops a while at the chapel which she crosses twice every day. Closing her eyes for a moment she mumbles a hasty prayer that Harsh should come back before the fete. She is sure that her prayer has been heard even though the chapel houses a Christian and not a Hindu God.
In the moral science class, Lata passes a chit to Purva asking what sari will she be wearing for the fete. Both have decided to wear saris because they are grown up girls now. Instead of passing a chit back, Purva whispers, “I will wear Neela Didi’s peacock blue silk with a red border.” She likes to mention Neela Didi as often as possible to Lata because Neela, her distant cousin, has known Harsh’s family for many years. This is Purva’s edge over Lata. But then all the trump cards are with Purva. She is more beautiful. And she even has a photograph of Harsh stolen from Neela Didi’s album. It is a faded snapshot of a picnic party of thirty odd people taken eight years back. The ten-year-old Harsh is sitting amidst other children in the front row.
Mother Marina is talking about boy-girl relationship. At this age boys and girls, she says, have a passing attraction for each other. This attraction should not me misused. Girls have to be more careful for men don’t like wives with a past. Listening the Mother Marina’s lecture, Purva thinks that God — whether a Christian or a Hindu — has been very unfair to girls. For Mother Marina says that if a girl makes one mistake, it sticks to her for the whole life whereas a boy can get away with ten mistakes. Purva looks down at her watch to see how much time there is for the recess. She will have to bear with Mother Marina’s warnings against making mistakes for ten minutes more.
Purva knows that loving Harsh is no mistake. Even Lata loves him. After all, he is not their boy-friend. Amla is the only girl in their class who has a boy-friend. He is a boarder in the boys’ school. They dance close together at the socias because they are going to marry after they finish college.
It is not like that with Harsh. They have not even spoken to him except when he came to their stall at the last two fetes. Purva knows that he likes her more that Lata so she does not mind Lata loving him. At the last fete they had the “Hit and Win” stall. Harsh had come up to the stall and had stood quietly for a long time. The Lata had gone to him and asked if he would try his skill. He had pointed at Purva and said that he would try only if she asked him. Purva had not asked him for she wanted him to know that girls like her are not won so easily. Not now but may be many years later he will be my boy-friend, thinks Purva.
Right now she loves him as much as she loves her new watch. The watch is super and better than that of any other girl in the class. And Harsh is handsome, far better than the awkward school boys they dance with at the socials. What is Amla’s boy-friend before him! Harsh is tall and grown up. He is not a school kid but in the second year of college.
In the recess, Purva and Lata peck at their lunch and dream aloud about the fete. They have been given the paper horse race stall. It is not much of a draw but Harsh will surely come to it. He won’t be able to resist it seeing them in nice sarees. Lata will be wearing her mother’s mustard georgette with a thin silver border.
The two had discovered his two years back when they got the stall for the first time. Only the seniors were allotted stalls. Theirs’ was the “Kill the Rat” stall. Harsh came to it a number of times and always returned with a prize. Mother Marina who was keeping an eye on the stalls told them not to let this boy try again or they would run short of prizes. But what did Purva and Lata care about losing the prizes for they had lost their hearts to him. Their feelings had remained unchanged through these years for loving from afar is: loving the longest.
They saw him sometimes walking up to his college, at his father’s cloth shop and at fetes held by other schools. But now they had not seen him the last six months. Purva did not ask Neela Didi about him but it would be a pity indeed if he did not come to the fete. It was their last year in school and their last fete. She decides to pray for full five minutes every morning and evening for him to come to the fete. Mother Marina always preaches the powers of prayer.
Purva is true to her word. She times her prayers daily on her new watch. But ten days pass and there is no sign still of the handsome harsh. But with the optimism of a sixteen year old she is certain that her prayers will make him turn up even if it is at the last moment.
A week before the fete something terrible happens. Her lovely watch with the smart leather strap suddenly decides to imitate Harsh and does the vanishing trick. She leaves it on the dressing table after her evening prayer but it is not there in the morning. The whole hose is searched, the maid who comes to do the dishes questioned but the watch is not to be found.
Purva goes to school with a bare wrist and a heavy heart. Lata joins in her best friend’s sorrow. At recess, they talk only of the watch until an idea strikes Purva. She asks Lata, “Tell me truly Lata, have you been praying for harsh to come to the fete. Lata nods a yes and wants to know how Purva got an inkling of it.” Because I have been doing the same,” Purva replies. The two laugh and all worries are lost for sometime in the laughter.
Back home in the evening, Purva looks at the strip of un-tanned skin on her wrist where the watch was once strapped, folds her hands and says her prayer, “Dear God, I know I must not ask you for too many things for that will irritate you. So I withdraw my prayers about Harsh. Lata’s along will do. You please make me find my watch.”
The prayer over, Purva pats herself for handling God so tactfully. Both the problems are solved. Harsh will come in answer to Lata’s prayers and the watch will be found in answer to her own. For the fete would be sad without the watch and miserable without Harsh. Happily, she walks down to Neela Didi’s house to borrow the sari for she is sixteen and full of hope.
