Platonic Imprint
Ranadhir Mukhopadhyay
Platonic Imprint describes a lonely love. Rapid and perfect recovery from a near-fatal injury in the lower spine of a beautiful young daughter in New York led the entire family in Bangalore into a quagmire of questions, distrust, and infidelity before pure and unflinching love offered the answer.
LAST PART
The girls – Cleta and Tiya- again met Indraneel after a short mid-day nap. As soon as Molly came inside with tea and some snacks, the girls stopped talking. Indraneel indicated that such secrecy is not needed here as Molly knows everything.
Both Cleta and Tiya were surprised and perplexed. How a guy could tell his wife the story about his former love affair? Is it another ploy to defame and ridicule her mother? Now that he has told all to his wife, God knows how many more he has spoken to this about. Is it to show that only girls were after him, while he did not give much importance to all these love demands? Is it not a unique example of male chauvinism? The emotional closeness of Tiya that hovered before lunch was withering off slowly.
Indraneel could feel the pressure of dislike building up among the girls. Maintaining cool, he said- “please do not get me wrong. Your mother also knows that Molly knows all this. I am not sure whether your mother could get the opportunity to tell you that once she murmured in her sleep, repeatedly taking my name.
Your father heard it, woke her up, and challenged her. And as innocent as she is, your mother told your father about me and that she madly wants to meet me, even once. The follow-up things you could visualize. Your father possesses your mom more than he loves her or cares about her. He could not take it that his wife could think of meeting some other man. He precipitated the scene with lots of shouting, throwing utensils, and confiscating her mobile. Ahana went into a shell and had nearly gone into depression.”
“Your mother is a gem, do not lose her. After a few days, she contacted me through your Payeli aunty. After briefing what happened with Siddhartha, she gave me master-piece advice that I will never forget”
Cleta understood, hold Tiya close to her, and both started taking attention.
Indraneel continued- your mother told us that we must not disturb the present because of the past. Let the past be our treasure, but that must not orphan the present, which anyway we are not trying even. She lamented she kept our acquaintance secret all these days from Siddhartha, and now when he came to know he could not cope with the pressure. Molly is your present, she may be told about our past and also that this relationship is in no way going to disrupt the existing setup. If she is intelligent, she will understand the situation and will help in your composure.”
You want to say- “my mother told you this?”
Indraneel nodded gently, – “you may wish to check up with her once you return to Bangalore. You see the story between your mother and me had never been physical we have never met so far.”
“Then why all these?” Tiya asked as the last straw
“See your mother is a strong person, that’s why she could take a risk in investing her huge resources of emotion in our relations”.
“And you, Indraneel?” – Cleta asked
“I must admit that I did not take much risk. I was genuinely interested in 1985 to marry her mother. I saw in her voice an innocent courageous beautiful girl. I also did not know much about life, but was confident to run a family full of love, excitement and compassion.”
“Now that thing never happened. You may say why I did not fight to save this relationship. But although I was interested in this relationship I did not invest the way your mother did. I do not give now any excuse for this, and do not want to offer excuses like my doctoral research, my career, my professional responsibility, etc.”
“But one thing remains clear. Although we were not in touch between 1985 and 2016, for the long 31 years, she had never gone out of my orbit. I do not know “WHY”. Probably that helped us to speak freely without any iota of hesitation from the very moment we got reconnected in October 2016. We were not even surprised by each other’s voices, as if we were just expecting that to happen. How that is possible, I cannot explain.”
“And you never had any problem with your husband having an affair with another lady?” Cleta asked Molly.
“Well, I must be honest,” Molly replied. “I remember those days we were in Calcutta and once visited Sudarsan-uncle’s residence. That is where we came to know about the unfortunate death of Ahana’s mother, who was sick by then for some years. It was I who collected Ahana’s mobile number from my uncle’s daughter-in-law and asked Indraneel to call her to express condolence. Instead, Indraneel, WhatsApp her the condolence message, and rest you all know.”
“But you did not feel bad?”
“Why? I was having some inkling of this unsuccessful marriage proposal when I came to Indraneel’s life and came to stay at Mathuragarh in 1988. My grandmother-in-law (Dida) told me this story when Indraneel was away in Sindapur. It made me only curious, and certainly not envious” – Molly replied.
“And after that?”
“I think they got reconnected when we were on stopover vacation in the Calcutta guest house. And it was a great relief for Indraneel when Ahana suggested sharing the matter with Molly if she could only appreciate the relation.”
“Yes, she has been my strength and supporting this reconnection.” Indraneel gave an appreciative look at Molly.
They discussed many other things, which may not be of our interest. Another round of coffee was warmly welcomed.
We again picked up the thread when Molly intervened to enquire about Tiya’s health, the surgery, and the untold story that these two girls earlier hinted at.
This time Cleta summarized the entire episode- right from the fall of Tiya while dancing, twisting of the L5-S1 junction, gruelling spine surgery, one after the other, and one-in-a-million quick and complete recovery of Tiya. The blood group of Tiya (O-positive) does not match with her parents (A and B), so also some parts of the genome composition and structure. And according to the top neurosurgeon, this mismatch had played a major positive role in her quick and complete recovery.
“That’s quite interesting.”
“Indraneel, what’s your blood group?”
“It is O-positive, but why mine one?”
Girls looked at each other, a complete silence occurs for a while. Cleta then resumed- “As we know a child’s genome composition, DNA structure, and blood group are contributed by parents and may reflect the imprint of another four persons- the parents of the mother and father of the child. So basically Child gets the mixture of genes of six persons.
The mystery started here. According to the doctor who operated on Tiya, the mismatch between Tiya and her parents, in terms of blood group and genome structure, although dangerous, came as a blessing this time for Tiya. The genetic structure of Tiya probably got mutated subtly due to the influence of a seventh person. It may happen when one of the parents while making love to conceive the foetus, in this case, Ahana, thought passionately and strongly about the seventh person, knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously.
“And who that seventh person was to be?” Molly asked.
“In all possibility, it must be you Indraneel,” Cleta replied.
Cleta continued- “In the case of Tiya, the image transfer of Indraneel may have occurred in the subconscious state to alter the genome structure of Tiya. Even the quite common complaint of libido deficit in a person who had undergone such an operation in L5-S1 contact was not found in the case of Tiya. In medical history, this unique one-in-a-million phenomenon of the seventh soul could not be explained accurately.”
While Cleta was excited enough to tell the entire story, Molly drew Tiya to her lap and started caressing her.
Indraneel was dumbfounded, and could hardly believe it. Ahana has put him on a pedestal, this enormous respect, this unfathomable love- all these his little girls of 1985 have given him in complete silence. Who in this world could explain such a gesture and how?
He extends his hand to softly hold his arm of Tiya. The girl was crying, and so also Indraneel. All were silently praying to God and thanking Him for this blessing.
The sleep of the two young girls on the morning of the second day was broken by Azan prayer from the nearby Mosque and the ringing of bells from the close by Kali Temple. Later, during the day, they visited both the mosque and the temple. Same-day in the afternoon, the girls were seen off at the railway station by Indraneel and Molly. Now that they have spoken to the seventh person in Tiya’s life, the two could relax about the successful completion of their investigation.
One month later, Tiya received a large envelope from Dr. Wisconsin from New York giving the result of Indraneel’s blood and swab test (sample collected by Tiya while in Mathuragarh and carried by Cleta to Dr. Wisconsin). The analyses confirm the doubt that it was none other than the influence of Indraneel’s genetic structure that has indirectly strengthened the immune system of Tiya. This alteration reinforced Tiya to come out of that worst type of spinal injury with the least scratch. It was the one-in-a-million case but did the trick this time.
While many were not exactly happy with this medical conclusion, particularly Siddhartha and his side of the family, all were however happy that Tiya has sprung back to her usual life with full vitality.
Ahana was correct. Consciously or unconsciously Indraneel was always around her, even when she was making love to Siddhartha to conceive Tiya. Concerning the privacy and sensitivity of the family, Dr. Wisconsin has agreed not to publicise this finding.
When last time we visited the BC family, there was talk of the likely marriage of Ahana’s daughter Tiya with Indraneel’s son Alok. What Ahana and Indraneel could not achieve, their wards could make it possible.
Ahana now could die (and live) in peace.
End
About the Author :
Dr. Ranadhir Mukhopadhyay is a Marine Geoscientist. He had retired from NIO, Goa as a Deputy Director. He now lives at Goa.