Sharada : The Orphan girl

Sharada: The orphan girl (Copyright)

Written by Aniruddha Roy Choudhury

It all started with a retired old widow who decided to care for people who had nobody to care for them. So, she landed at a mental hospital.?

The story begins .

"Have you ever loved anyone?" Gautam asked me even while spittle began to form around his lips and dropped on the hospital floor.

The poor nurse was rushing from patient to patient wiping and cleaning or attending to many patients during this busy visiting hour.

I had requested to meet any one patient who did not have visitors visiting him. And so, they guided me to this man of around thirty plus years of age.?

I found him sitting alone facing the trees beyond the park around which there was a jogging track which was now being used by a patient to push a pram. He imagined his daughter was still alive, they told me. And they did not have the heart to take the pram away from him.

I looked at Gautam and replied, "Well! I love all of you."

He stared at me for a very long time, and then said as if somebody had taught him to say so, "You can love what you see".

I said nodding my head, "Yes! You can love what you see".

He spoke English fluently. He seemed poised, dignified and in control and yet, he was a mental patient.

Then he said something profound, "You can love everybody but then you end up losing the one who truly loves you!".

Now it was my turn to stare at him. Was he pretending to be mentally disturbed or was it a sudden repetition of what was being taught to him by the doctors and or the nurses? Maybe the latter.

He was looking at the trees now and he said, "Sharada used to stand next to the trees there".

Now I asked the Head nurse and she explained that Sharada was his girlfriend who had stopped visiting him since the past seven months. He had got himself admitted eight months ago immediately after his car accident when he realised that he was losing his mental faculties. Gradually, he stopped reacting to external stimuli in-spite of the best efforts of the resident doctors of this mental institute. He had previously paid his twenty-year security deposit and had signed the necessary permission in front of his lawyer to permit the hospital to withdraw from his bank all health-related expenses. Hence the hospital was not concerned about his treatment expenses. Further, he kept fairly to himself. So, everybody was happy with this patient.

The hospital suspected that Sharada was due to get married to Gautam as she used to embrace him and cry literally every day when she used to come to visit him. But she was requested by the hospital authorities that to cure him it was desired that she makes him feel happy. So, she would from then on walk in with a smile and she would create a lot many happy stories about herself and yet he would simply stare at the trees with no expression whatsoever on his face. He would suddenly come out with sentences which had no relevance at all to what she was saying. He would suddenly stare at her and express his displeasure about something she might have done several months ago. She would apologise anyway and persistently visit him during visiting hours.

I asked the hospital about why she had stopped visiting. They expressed no knowledge about why. So, I got her phone number from them. The recording said, "This number is temporarily unable to receive calls". So, I asked about her address. The nurse expressed that she had no knowledge. Then one of the doctors said that she had Sharada’s residential address because she was unwell one specific day and had met her during her visit to this hospital for some time then. So, I requested for her residential address and visited the same after my office hours one Saturday.

The landlord said her luggage was kept locked away in a store room in the basement since she had not visited the flat and had also failed to pay the rent for the past seven months plus. I told him about the hospital patient and explained that her office address was important. He showed me a copy of the rent (Leave & License) agreement that he had signed with her. The office address was provided therein. I visited her office and the Assistant Manager Human Resources heard me explain about the patient waiting for her in the hospital. He went through her file and a frown appeared on his face. "She stopped coming to the office around seven months ago. But I have just joined a month back. Let me speak with my senior". So saying, he went to the next room and then returned to escort me to meet Mr. Sridhar Ravi, the Chief Manager Human Resources, a man of around thirty years of age.

When we were alone, Sridhar got up, walked up to the window, and he turned around to ask me why I was taking so much pains to find Sharada. "How are you related to Sharada Mistry?" he asked me. I had to explain about the patient at the hospital once again.?

He stared out of the window for a very long time and then said, “She died due to a serious viral attack which she probably contracted while visiting the hospital", he said in heartless tone. "Her uncle and aunt came around eight months back. I helped them release Sharada's body from the Government operated Morgue. A lot many of her friends within our office accompanied them to the crematorium". He sounded like a rude robot. A very rude one!

I glared at the young man as he kept staring out of the window. "How can you be so heartless when you say so". I asked him.

"Because she never listened to me when she kept visiting a man who had no future. He was a vegetable for God's sake. Now he remains but she is gone!”, he exclaimed.

I suddenly realized that this young man was in love with this girl who was no more. "Why did her parents not come to receive her body?", I asked.

"Because she was an orphan” he said. "She was brought up by her maternal aunt", the HR Head signed, sat down and said. Then he looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "Gautam was a playboy! He had so many girlfriends and I would know better, because we studied together since we were in school. I was good at academics and beat him there. I was good in sports and beat him there. But he was good at debating and his communication skills were excellent whereas I could hardly open my mouth! Further he had a magnetic personality! The all mighty did not give me even a single girlfriend whereas his life was flooded with so many admirers. And wealth came so easily to him. He got his job faster than I did. I joined the same company one year later. He was a glib talker and his promotions came faster.?

Then one day, I interviewed and recruited a girl named Sharada Mistry who said she was an orphan who had been brought up by her maternal aunt. I was an Assistant Manager of the Human Resources department in those days. I took her under my wings and began to train her. I wanted her to be an empowered woman, in order that she would never feel insecure henceforth. She began to soar high into the skies in terms of performance quality, under my tutelage. Very soon, we began to have coffee together and we used to see movies after office hours. I was a perfectionist and never allowed to break rules set. We travelled together and her recruitments from various distant colleges began to prove themselves within the office environment. The Managing Director began to reward her with salary increases too. But I fell in love with her innocence, her honesty, her sincerity, her dedication to note and perfect minute details, and most importantly, that I could trust her to keep her word. I just fell in love but I could not tell her that! Then one rainy day she hugged me close. I proposed to her and she gladly agreed! Those were the happiest days of my life!

But Gautam came to know!

Around this time, Malika Tandon was thrust upon Gautam after she completing her MBA from a foreign University. But she just could not be trained to follow rules. She was the Managing Director's daughter. A pampered papa's girl who refused to be at the airport to take the morning flight for an important campus interview.?At the last moment, the names were changed and as fate would have it, Sharada was asked to take the flight and she did!

The world changed for her from then on! Gautam was tall, muscular and handsome. He said the right things to a young starry-eyed fresh recruit who had never been exposed to the evil world outside the protected cocoon provided to her by her aunt and uncle. He proposed to her, that got her thinking and she was in a real dilemma!

I would have protected her. I would have given her all the love that she needed. I would have been the best friend that she could have ever imagined. I would have also been her father and her mother to her. And yet like all other women, she competed with the rest of the girls just for Gautam, the playboy's attention.?

Come the time for the annual appraisals, he began to flirt with Malika Tandon, the owner's daughter and began to visit their home. Very soon he became my boss! He knew that Sharada had nobody in her life. Gautam knew that Sharada and I planned to get married! After her parents died, the real love that she expected, would have come from the man she would have married. But he began to tease her by strutting around with Malika Tandon in his arms. Starry eyed Sharada felt that if all the women were aiming for Gautam, then the real achievement would be Gautam and not Shridhar. She began to avoid me. That was when I saw my first love slipping away from my life".

The tea arrived just then and so we sat in silence for a very long time.?

Then he said, “One day, he came into my office cabin, switched on the intercom and began to dial a few numbers just to hurt me even further. He asked all of them whether they would marry him and all of them said yes. All of them accused him of two timing them and yet agreed to meet him in private. One of them was to Malika Tandon, and she oohed and aahed over the phone when asked if she would marry him. The last call was to Sharada. I heard him asking my fiancé if she would marry him and because the intercom was intentionally switched on by him, I could heard her scream in childish delight and she had exclaimed, “Yes ! Yes! Yes!" The Managing Director was very happy too for his daughter. But I sat down with my hands folded and I prayed for Sharada's happiness. I asked God why he was being so cruel with an orphan. I asked him what crime could an innocent girl have committed for the supreme lord to punish her in this manner. My boss saw me with my head on my table, in pain. I looked up to see him smiling gleefully. And then he strode out of the room, as if he knew that he had won the battle! True that we always competitors ever since we became room-mates way back in school but he had always lost in academics and sports. This too was sports, a game for Gautam - and he had won!?

That evening I heard that his car had met with an accident and that he had been hospitalised. Was I happy? Yes! Very happy! I was happy for Sharada. I felt that the supreme Lord had saved the day! My prayers had been answered, I felt.

But I received a call from the owner the next morning. "Congratulations! Sridhar you are being promoted to Head of Human Resources and Administration. I want you to move into Gautam's cabin right away!" I was reluctant and so I kept sitting in my cabin. I was correct in my reluctance. Sharada rushed into my cabin to accuse me, "You could not wait for him to recover? You had to grab his chair right away? Did you by any chance, cause the accident?"

She did not wait for me to answer. I kept opening my mouth to reply like a fish does when out of water, but she strode out in disgust! That was the last that we spoke. The owner's daughter got married to another rich man's son within a few days and I found her hugging and kissing him near a rich man's restaurant cum bar joint, as if he was always this one, she had wanted.

The person who continued to love the handicapped man in hospital was Sharada.

Then she came sniffling to the office one day, asked for leave and she left the office premises. She was found unconscious with a very high fever and was hospitalised by co-passengers in a bus. Our office personnel rushed to her assistance. She was breathing with great difficulty?through a mask and I was permitted to enter her room alone. She opened her eyes for a moment and I wanted to tell her that I loved her and that everything would be okay. But I did not have the courage. My room-mate had been good at saying so to a hundred women, but not I. He had won the battle and I had lost!"

He was silent for some time and then he said, "I never got my chance to tell her that I loved her".

It was then that I handed over her diary to him and said, "She did love you Sridhar! But her duties towards Gautam made her continue to protect him till her last breath".

Sridhar's eyes looked up at me with doubt. Then he raced through the diary like a child and his eyes welled up with tears!?

"I know you love me and I loved you too Sridhar!", the diary began. “You taught a girl from a poor family to learn to be the best! You taught me efficiency, you taught me systems, you taught me perfection. And we together discovered a new world of flawlessness! But Gautam taught me how to enjoy life and how to break all the rules. How to fly high into the skies and yet be a woman! But I had promised to marry you. I was in a dilemma! One day, however, Gautam came to my door very late at night and I do not know how it happened but then we created a child. You would argue that if it is impossible for innumerable women to create a child over so many nights then, how could we do so in one night. God willed it and it happened Sridhar, so, grow up!?

I am not angry with you Sridhar. I am angry about my emotions. I am angry that I cannot control the same. That I could not discipline myself into becoming the perfect person that you wanted me to become. I am so sorry that I was rude with you in your office cabin that day. I did not mean to. You are a good man Sridhar. I was angry with myself for having asked the supreme lord to intervene when I came to know that Gautam had asked the MD's daughter to marry him, and that she had agreed! I was carrying his child Sridhar and I asked the lord why he was getting Gautam married to a rich woman when all I needed was a family of my own! Was I wrong Sridhar for asking the lord for happiness? All that I had asked for from the lord was for a wee bit of happiness! Was I asking for too much Sridhar? I did not want Gautam to meet with an accident! Why then did the Lord make such a cruel decision?

Sridhar, if you are reading this then it means that I am either hospitalised or I am no more! My prayer to the supreme lord is that he sends a warm and caring girl into your life and fills your heart with all the love that you deserve and more. And Sridhar - I am truly sorry that I hurt you on that day. You deserved that chair a very long back. Gautam was devious but I was carrying his child. Make that chair proud Sridhar! Make the company proud! Make me proud!

I wish you all the best Sridhar.

Your best friend,

Sharada"

Sridhar held onto the last page and his body was heaving in convulsions even as he cried like a child. Then, he got up abruptly, wiped his tears away and requested to me, "May we go together to the hospital where she expired?"

"Why?" I asked.

"I feel that she remains in the hospital", he got up to walk towards the exit door and said. I was perplexed that a young man of his stature would believe in ghosts & spirits. But I guess, pain due to loss of a loved one, does cause such aberrations in behaviour. However, I decided to humour the poor man.

We travelled to the hospital in his car in silence.

At the hospital the doctors became very excited on being asked about Sharada. "She asked us to give up the child for adoption if you fail to arrive Mr. Sridhar Ravi. We asked if we could give the child to her aunt and uncle but in her dying request, she kept repeating your name. You did arrive when she was under artificial respiration. But you rushed away soon after and we did not have the courage to contact you. The child is seven months of age now"

They then escorted us to a children’s ward where many children were in cribs wriggling their hands and feet like so many football players. "Which one!”, he asked like an excited father. They pointed at a girl who seemed the most energetic with her hands and feet. She was trying to climb out of the crib!

"You look cute!", Sridhar spoke to the child.

The baby girl gave him a toothless smile and stretched out her little finger towards him. He kissed the finger, picked her up in his arms and exclaimed, "Darling! You and I are going home!"

The baby giggled!

This short story has been Authored by

ANIRUDDHA ROY CHOUDHURY

(ONI)

The above story is titled "Sharada"

The author has also published the Novel titled Those Forgotten People ( https://www.thoseforgottenpeople.com )

13th October 2019