As Nisha, Vice Chairman of Kotak Mahindra sits in her office at Sunny Towers, the land phone on the table starts ringing.
“ Madam, The Regional Manager is on the line, I’ve put his call on hold. Should I put it through?"
"I've something else to tend to. Can you direct the call to Ashish instead?”
“ OK, Madam. I’ll dial the Chairman’s number then……”
And the line went blank.
Looking out of the window of her office, Nisha stares down at the multitude of sky-scrapers below till her eyes fall on the row of trees near the wall enclosing Sunny Towers. An oak tree at the corner catches her attention. They had an oak tree in the garden of their house at Sonarpur. And her mind starts wavering to those childhood days ……….
Nisha was born a ravishing beauty. Her parents adored her as did all others. In her childhood albums, you would find her posing like a model, clad in a yellow and pink churidar, her hands on her sides looking intently at the camera. Even then her mother knew that her daughter was going to be an achiever.
Her dad was an ordinary clerk in a private company and stayed outstation most of the time.
Her mom, Tanushree, made sure that Nisha had the right kind of grooming from childhood. She would comb her straight hair from the roots back up down to her shoulders before Nisha retired to bed and wake her up with a glass of Horlicks the first thing in the morning.
Nisha proved to be an average student at school. She loved English and History and studied the subjects seriously but the other subjects were an eye-sore. She was good at sports and represented her school at Kabaddi at the district level.
Wherever she went, people would pull Tanushree's legs by remarking :
"When she grows up, you’ll have to offer her in marriage to my Raktim, ……"
“ She is so beautiful, Tanu, why don’t you send her to Tollywood? She’ll give our heroines a run for their money!” Another exclaimed.
Her first taste of a fling happened when she was in class ten. There was this boy in her class who started stammering every time Nisha found herself in her presence.
"Do…do you like flowers? I can give…. you a bunch of jui (Jasmine) flowers from the garden if you want…"
"You…. you’ve beautiful eyes. May I be your……boy…I mean, your friend?"
When Nisha shared this with her bestie, Mili, she broke into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.
"He's fallen flat for you, poor chap. He doesn't know he is trying for the moon…"
Nisha passed in third division in her high school board examination. One thing was clear to her mother by then that she was not cut out to excel in studies.
By the time she was admitted in college, offers of marriage started pouring in.
"My God, Tanushree Di. Your daughter has turned out to be such a looker! Get her married early before you’ve any occasions to regret…"
Mayank was on her way to the showroom at around 1 O’clock in the afternoon when he saw Nisha for the first time. In his mid-thirties, Mayank was already married and had a son.
Something happened to him the moment he set his eyes on the girl with wavy hair and a curvy figure walking along with a friend towards the Computer Centre.
She was the most beautiful thing he had seen in his life and he knew he had to have her. Unbeknownst to her, he started following her from that day on. He gradually learned where she lived, who her best friends were, her likes and dislikes and her dream of doing something worthwhile for her family. Mayank even came to know the people who frequented her one-storied house at Sonarpur.
Sujit was one such fellow. If you have money, it is not a big deal to manipulate people. Mayank sent his company Manager, Arup to talk to Sujit with a job offer in his company for Nisha. Sujit saw the immense benefits of being known to someone as powerful as The Tulshidasans. Nisha found the offer tempting. Though she was yet to complete her course at the Computer Centre, joining the company would open up new opportunities.
Her mother, hesitant, asked Nisha to weigh the pros and cons and finish her studies first. Nisha was adamant. So, her mother relented in the end and gave in to Nisha's desire finally. The rumour had it that the relationship between mother and daughter deteriorated from around this time.
The first few weeks of joining the office passed like a dream! She didn't have much to do. Just keep records of the normal transactions, receive an occasional guest from the head office, maintain the records of staff, their attendance and such stuff.
She was sitting behind her desk fiddling with the mobile when she could sense the excitement among the staff. On enquiry, she found out that the Owner-cum-Director was paying a surprise visit.
This was to start off Nisha's unimaginable nightmares. When she finally was introduced to her Boss by the Manager. Nisha was dazzled by his youthfulness and attractiveness. He was nearly six feet tall with a physique that would put many of our Indian heroes to shame. The best thing about him was his manliness or friendliness.
As he held Nisha's hand in his for perhaps a little longer than expected, the first thing he asked her was :
"So, you're Nisha, right? I hope you are enjoying working with The Tulshidasans?"
Nisha nodded her head while feeling something like a current passing through her entire body.
"Let me know if there is anything I can do for you."
Later, she overheard him telling Arup that he would be visiting the branch twice a week from then on.
A couple of weeks later, Mayank showed up in the office unexpectedly. He was busy in his room in a corner for most of the afternoon. Naturally, though it was six, the staff hesitated to leave the office. At around 6.25 PM, Nisha was summoned to his room. He talked about a few official matters before taking her aback by asking.
"What do you do normally on the weekend?"
"I spend my time visiting the nearby relatives and friends…." Nisha was still not sure whether to address him as Sir.
"Why don't you join me for a party we are hosting at The Taj? Are you interested in cricket? Chetan Sharma is the Guest of Honour."
Nisha was not so naive as not to have heard of Chetan Sharma. The new rookie fast bowler.
"Are you coming then? I'll pick you up from the main road near your house." He broke into his charismatic smile before adding. "How are you going back home, by the way? Let me give you a ride."
It took Nisha a couple of months more to find out that that was the way with Mayank. He was not in the habit of accepting 'No' for an answer and preferred to dictate terms.
The euphoric feelings Nisha had as Mayank asked her to sit on the front seat beside him as he eased himself behind the wheel and drove the BMW out of the parking lot in front of the admiring office staff including Arup, was doubled as Mayank dropped her near her house. She could see her mother looking down at them from behind the curtained window upstairs.
“ You two seem to have become ‘a thing’ in a short time. Given a ride back home by the Boss of your company, wasn’t he?” Her mother asked her a bit tauntingly as Nisha was taking off her shoes outside the living room.
“ I was but not in the way you seem to imply. There was a meeting. Everyone had to stay back till 7. He offered to reach me home in his car. I thought it wouldn’t be wise to turn it down. That’s all there is to it.”
“ Don’t give me that. I saw the look on his face as you were getting out of the car. All I can tell you is I wasn’t impressed and be careful, my daughter.”
The party featuring Chetan Sharma was a great hit. Nisha was busy overlooking a lot of things till she had time to take her seat. On the chair on her right, Chetan was sitting. He looked so dashing from up close. Later, she was introduced to Chetan by Mayank. She thought it was really sweet of him and asked Chetan if he would mind giving her his autograph which he lovingly obliged.
The office-boy comes in with her evening coffee and leaves it on the table. Nisha follows his retreating figure before noticing the her name tag and designation inscribed in black on the gold-coated name plate. Nisha Chatterjee, Vice President. She has really come a long way from those days…..
That party night, it was almost 10 by the time Mayank asked her to get into his car after the guests had left. The ride along the highway was one of the most enjoyable experiences since she joined the company. While driving, Mayank asked her to hand him the key from the cabinet in front. When she couldn’t find it, Mayank took his left hand off the wheel to open the cabinet. Nisha could feel herself tense up as his hands groped for the key and touched her lightly around the shoulder.
That was the first time she saw him in his dreams, in a very intimate position, while his hand was groping for her warmth…..
Things started happening at a breakneck speed from then on. Nisha was beginning to find herself irresistibly drawn to him. On her return home on the night, Mayank asked her to accompany her to Diamond Harbour in connection with a purchase. Hell broke loose when she sought her mother’s permission back home.
“ This’s insane, Nisha! How can a spinster like you even think of accompanying him to such a far-flung place? He’s unmarried, isn’t he? What happens if the car breaks down or the tire gets punctured during the journey and you two get stuck somewhere? Are you two, lovey-dovey pair, going to spend the night in a hotel in that case?” Her mother was hysterical and concluded with an ultimatum,” You aren’t going there.”
“ Ma, what’s wrong with you? I’ve just agreed to accompany him on an official project. Please, please don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. I’ll be back home the same night at any cost, I promise.”
Her mother didn’t press the matter any further. She had a premonition of an impending doom and gloom, and as fate would have it, due to inclement weather, Nisha couldn’t come home as she had promised to her mother. Call it a coincidence or whatever, she spent the night with Mayank in the same bed of a room in a hotel…..
Mayank wanted to sleep on the sofa but Nisha thought that wouldn’t have been proper. Mayank refused her request to lie down on the mattress on the floor. Finally, they decided to sleep on the extreme sides of the same bed!
Somewhere at midnight, Mayank’s toe, while he was turning over, accidently touched Nisha’s feet thereby sending shivers up her entire being. How they nuzzled up to the comfort of one another’s body…let’s not go into all the details.
Her mother didn’t even talk to her as she returned home straight from the office the next evening. And the next day, she learned from the Manager about Mayank being a married man!
Problems started cropping up in their relationship from then onwards. During their next sojourn, after love-making was not as terrifically unsettling as the first time and on the contrary, became quite a pleasurable experience, Nisha told him point-blank that he had to choose between his wife and her. The next time she brought up the topic, he assured her that he was thinking of buying a flat for her.
“ You haven’t understood me, Mayank. I don’t want to stay anywhere as your ‘kept’. I told you to choose between us.”
“ That’s impossible. We’ve been married for twelve years. I can’t divorce her just like that. It will break her heart and our family.”
“ Are you telling me to find my own destiny then?”
“ I didn’t say anything like that. I just told you that I can’t divorce her like that. What about my son?”
“ WHAT! YOUR SON! You’ve a son as well and you’re telling me just now? What other secrets have you kept from me?”
Nisha was literally yelling at him by then and at one point even raised her hand on him. It was not long after that that Mayank tried to throw her out of his running car on the highway. How she survived being killed by the traffic coming from behind will always remain a mystery! Perhaps God wanted her to be alive. Perhaps, he wanted to give her a second chance. Perhaps…..
When reality finally dawned on Nisha, she understood her mother better. She left her job and went to live with her father somewhere in the serene surroundings of Chandigarh. She spent nearly six months there and came back home a different girl altogether.
She started making a mockery of men. She toyed with their feelings and spared none who had the misfortune of coming into her contract. Starting with a cousin, a friend, she was even believed to have slept with her father’s best friend!
By twenty-one she had earned the dubious title of being a nymphomaniac…….
It was clear to Nisha’s parents that she couldn’t be married off with the kind of reputation she had, anywhere within the vicinity of Sonarpur. At one point of time, Nisha thought of remaining a spinster for life, but having talked to a close relative and her husband one night, she realised that she had to get married as she would not have age on her side for ever. Naturally, once she made her decision to marry known to her parents, they started looking for a groom. The parents of a prospective groom brought the proposal of an alliance with Nisha to their only son but had it cancelled at the last moment when they found out her history on enquiry in the neighbourhood.
Nisha was almost twenty-seven when her parents learned about someone through a relative who stayed in Kolkata. On the day arranged, the groom’s sister and sister-in-law came along with the man himself to talk to the prospective bride at the relative’s place. All three of them were bowled over and floored by her beauty and grace.
Later, when Siddharth was made to go to the adjacent room for some time with her to get to know one another better, he found there was a relative present. Unbeknownst to Siddharth or her family, Nisha’s family had taken every precaution to ensure that Nisha didn’t do anything wrong during her meeting.
Siddharth, almost ten years older than Nisha, kept on talking while Nisha sat on the chair with a smile hovering over the corners of her mouth without saying anything at all.
“ So, you’re going to keep your mouth shut, right!” Siddharth asked her before turning to her Sister-in-law and remarking,” Is she taciturn by nature or just pretending to be one?”
The relative broke into a smile too and didn’t reply to his question.
“ Whatever, I just want you to know that if we are going to be married, I’d like us to be the best of friends.”
Though the marriage was a hush-hush, hasty affair, the worst fear of the parents of Nisha came true when on the night of the wedding someone called Siddharth’s family to inform them about her past and that she was pregnant at that time. It created a furor between the groom’s and the bride’s families. Though Nisha was informed about the incident by a few close people soon afterwards, she was prepared for all kinds of eventualities long before the marriage.
On the night, they left for Siliguri, a thriving town in the north of Bengal, Siddharth kept talking about his family, his dreams and how, by writing in his spare time, he was making a name as a writer. When the bus stopped near Indian Oil Gas Station and Siddharth went down to see if he could get some soft drinks for his bride or not, Nisha, having looked at the energetic figure of her husband, going from one end of the station to another in order to fetch her a drink, took off her right wrist the Sonata watch, the last gift from Mayank and threw it out of the window. When Siddharth came back, looking frustrated, she told him about the loss of her wrist watch.
Siddharth moved heaven and earth to find out the lost watch – beneath their seats, the seats of the other passengers sitting behind them, beside them or underneath the seats of the people in front. But the watch was gone for good!
That’s when Nisha learned about the inert goodness of her husband. Though her revelation of her past later that night in the hotel room, made Siddharth suspicious, Nisha was too smart to know that she had to be careful of making the mistake of taking Siddharth for a fool.
In the first year of their marriage, there were innumerable scenes between Siddharth and Nisha and it was almost a year before Nisha started throwing up at odd hours. A visit to the local dispensary confirmed their suspicion that Nisha was in the family way.
It was a surreal feeling when she held her new-born for the first time in her hands. The baby, looking red in the face, made such a commotion crying out at the top of her lungs that it was not until the nurse positioned the child in her lap for breastfeeding, did she know that the baby was crying as it was hungry!
While Siddharth was busy with his office work, the baby became Nisha’s world. And time seemed to fly from then on. Feeding the baby, changing her diapers, bathing her was a new experience. It was not long before she started going to Tiny-Tots for elementary schooling. From there to the Primary school till Anwesha got admitted to high school, time flew by!
“ Ma, I’ve to skip the evening snacks as we are late for Maity Sir’s class.” Anwesha told Nisha while hurrying out of her Physics Coaching Centre at Kasba. She was scurrying to the bus stand with Nisha at her heels.
Luckily, the bus was not very crowded and they sat on the seat facing the driver’s . Nisha took out the tiffin-box while her daughter was glancing through the notes for the Chemistry class.
“ Here, take it.” Anwesha turned her head to see her mother with a piece of the home-made sandwich in her hand. She opened her mouth to take that in, chuckling, and gulped it down.
It was almost 9.35 PM when the Chemistry class was over. From the auto to the bus, the mother-daughter bonding scaled up to a new level.
All their hard work paid rich dividends when Anwesha secured ninety one percent in the Boards, having topped from her school.
Regarding her BCA Course, Nisha had already talked to a relative who had completed a diploma course from MSIT (Meghnath Saha Institute of Technology) and recommended it highly. When Anwesha was in the final semester and got selected as a Trainee Programmer at Wipro during the college campassing, Nisha’s happiness knew no bounds.
That day Anwesha was at home watching “Standing Next to You” by Jung Kook, BTS, when what looked like a verbal banter between her parents escalated into a vicious ‘scene’. When things were going out of control, Anwesha knew she had to interfere. She started screaming wildly : “Ma, what made you marry such a monster?”
Siddharth looked thunderstruck by her sudden remark while Nisha felt a surge of pride in her daughter. Yet, she didn’t like her daughter’s behaviour as well. After all, both of them were major stakeholders in the scheme of her world and there was no way she was going to support one at the expense of the other.
After Anwesha joined the Wipro Head office at Bengaluru, Nisha seemed to have a lot of time in her hand. She was already forty-five and getting a job at her age was not a cup of tea anymore, yet she started applying to various places and finally landed with Kotak Mahindra, an insurance company, as a trainee group member. She rose to be the Vice Chairman of the Ballygunge Branch at Sunny Towers in due course of time by her sheer merit and hard work.
But that, I guess, is a story for another time.
