Half Torn Hearts

by Novoneel Chakraborty

  ‘I know, Aunty. Actually, I have come to meet you two. We’ve been given an assignment by our teacher. We need to collect funds for an old age home named Umeed. I would be very grateful if you could make a contribution. Please?’

  Mrs Bose included her husband in her pleasant smile and said, ‘That’s wonderful. How much do we need to donate?’

  ‘That’s up to you, really,’ Raisa flashed her most appealing smile.

  Mrs Bose went inside one of the rooms and returned with a fifty-rupee note.

  ‘Will this do?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Raisa said, extending the slotted can. Mrs Bose slipped the note through the slot.

  ‘Aunty, you need to sign here,’ she offered a paper on which, Mrs Bose noticed, there were three columns: name, amount and signature. Mrs Bose signed it and returned the sheet to Raisa.

  ‘Uncle as well,’ Raisa pleaded.

  ‘Do we both need to sign?’ Mrs Bose frowned.

  ‘That’s okay. Bring it here, Raisa,’ said Mr Bose, putting his teacup down. His wife took the pen and paper to him and he signed it without a fuss.

  ‘Thank you once again.’ A happy Raisa left.

  Sitting in her room, she practised forging Nirmaan’s parents’ signatures almost five hundred times before she mastered them. Feeling confident, she went down the stairs and sat on the narrow bench beside the main gate. Half an hour later, as Nirmaan returned from his tuition and was wheeling his bicycle through the gate, she waylaid him.

  ‘Go and fetch me your suspension letter.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Just do as I say. And don’t show it to Uncle or Aunty.’

  Nirmaan took a few seconds before he said, ‘Okay.’

  It took a minute for him to go home and return with the letter.

  ‘Don’t tell me you wanted to see what a suspension letter looks like?’ he muttered as he gave the letter to Raisa.

  She knelt down on the ground with the letter on the bench. Nirmaan watched in disbelief as she signed the letter on behalf of his parents and most importantly, just like his parents. This accomplished, she stood up and handed back the letter to him.

  ‘You don’t have to show this to your parents now.’

  Nirmaan glanced alternately at the letter and at Raisa. A moment later, he hugged her tight.

  ‘Thanks a million-trillion-zillion times, Raisa.’

  ‘Are you happy?’ she asked.

  After giving her an obviously-I’m-happy look, he beamed at her and said, ‘You bet I am.’

  ‘All right, now I have a confession to make.’

  ‘What?’ Nirmaan was still staring incredulously at his parents’ signatures, unable to believe his eyes.

  ‘Affu and I spiked the roshogollas with cannabis.’

  Nirmaan’s smile disappeared. He slowly raised his head to look at his friend, who looked apologetic.

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ he breathed.

  ‘Yes, we did. But, believe me, we didn’t know that you would be suspended for it.’

  ‘I knew that idiot Afsana would ruin you. Why don’t you stay the hell away from her?’ Nirmaan demanded, finally speaking his mind.

  ‘Calm down. I told you we were both involved.’

  ‘But I’m sure it was her plan, wasn’t it?’

  ‘In a way.’

  ‘What “in a way”?’ Nirmaan mimicked her cruelly and sat down heavily on the bench.

  ‘She wanted to inject vodka, but cannabis was my idea. We got it from one of her cousins.’

  ‘I’ve been suspended, Raisa. Do you even know what that means?’

  Raisa sat beside him and said, ‘I know. But at least now you won’t have to involve your parents. Moreover, you have one hundred per cent attendance. One week off won’t make a difference.’

  ‘But what will I do for an entire week at home? What will I tell Ma and Baba?’

  ‘Who said that you will sit at home? You will go to school on time and return from school on time, but you won’t enter school, that’s all. And I’ll be there to keep you company.’

  Nirmaan glared at her.

  ‘You can study if you want to, at a bus stop or wherever, we won’t disturb you.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Affu will be there too. If you’re my best friend, she is my soul-sister. I can’t do anything without her involvement.’

  ‘It has only been a few months and she has already become your soul-sister?’

  ‘Time has nothing to do with people coming close or drifting apart, Nirmaan. It happens like that,’ she snapped her fingers.

  Nirmaan sighed.

  ‘Moreover,’ she went on, fishing out the fifty-rupee note from the can, ‘we have money as well,’ Raisa beamed.

  Nirmaan couldn’t help smiling at his best friend and bumped his head to hers lovingly. She headbutted him right back, but with greater force.

  ‘Ouch! What’s wrong with you?’ Nirmaan rubbed his head.

  ‘Sorry. Ma says that if we bump our heads once, both of us will sprout horns, unless we bump our heads twice.’

  VOICE NOTE 15

  ‘Wow! Is this where you live, Affu?’ Raisa was awestruck at the sheer magnificence of the bungalow in the CF block of Salt Lake. They had graduated to Class X with Raisa just about scraping through and Afsana with mediocre scores in all the subjects. This was the first time Raisa had accompanied Afsana to her place.

  ‘I stay here. I live when I’m out of it,’ Afsana replied cryptically, walking into the house.

  Raisa felt like she was walking into a film set where everything looked close to perfection, boasting of class and opulence.

  As the two girls entered the vast hall room, a servant came over to take their school bags. Raisa readily handed over her bag to him and then noticed that Afsana was clutching hers even as she removed her shoes.

  ‘Sorry, Affu. It’s not every day that someone offers to take my bag,’ Raisa placed her shoes by Afsana’s.

  Afsana laughed and said, ‘And it happens to me every day so I don’t care.’

  She ordered the servant to bring two cold drinks to her room. The girls went upstairs.

  ‘How many bedrooms are there in this house?’ Raisa asked.

  ‘Six,’ replied Afsana, impassively.

  ‘This only gets better. And how many people?’

  ‘Twenty.’

  ‘Twenty? That’s like impossible. How can you live with twenty people even if the house is this big?’

  ‘You have no idea how.’ Afsana entered a room. Raisa followed and paused by the door, stupefied.

  ‘Gosh! Don’t tell me this is your room.’

  ‘It is.’

  There were two life-sized posters—one of Michael Jackson in his ‘Bad’ avatar and another of Tom Cruise from his Top Gun days—above a small, cozy-looking bed.

  ‘The first thing I do when I wake up every morning is kiss Tom. I want to marry him,’ Afsana said.

  ‘Shut up! We can’t both marry the same guy,’ Raisa went ahead and planted a kiss on Tom Cruise’s lips.

  ‘Sorry, sweetheart, I can kill for Tom,’ Afsana said, grinning.

  ‘Okay, let’s do one thing. You keep him during the day and I’ll keep him during the night.’

  ‘How convenient!’

  They laughed and shared a high-five as they collapsed on the soft bed together.

  ‘No Tom needs to come between us,’ Afsana said.

  ‘Exactly. I, anyway, won’t ever marry,’ Raisa quipped.

  ‘Why so?’

  There was a momentary silence as Raisa stared at the designer lights suspended from the ceiling.

  ‘Marriage is garbage,’ she replied.

  ‘The world is garbage,’ Afsana sighed and shut her eyes. The servant tiptoed in and placed two bottles of Coke on the bedside table.

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t need straws?’ Afsana yelled at the hapless servant, who meekly took the straws away.

  Raisa sat up. She took one of t
he bottles and gave the other to Afsana.

  ‘It’s so nice to command people like that, isn’t it? I wish I could do that.’

  ‘We all like what we don’t have, Rice. I would like to have a place where only my parents and I stay, like you do.’

  ‘And I could kill for a place like this, Affu. I wouldn’t mind even if I had to live with fifty people!’

  ‘My point exactly.’

  Afsana sat with her back against the wall, her head tilted up and her eyes closed as she gulped her Coke.

  ‘Is there any problem, Affu?’ Raisa asked, realizing for the first time that her soul-sister was not sounding like her normal self.

  ‘The Afsana who lives here and the one you see in school are two different people,’ Afsana said heavily.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Raisa scooched up close to her curiously.

  Afsana opened her eyes, glanced at Raisa for a moment and then squeezed them shut again. Seconds later, tears rolled down her cheeks.

  ‘Affu!’ Raisa cupped her friend’s face in alarm.

  ‘Do you know why I’m such a brat?’ Afsana asked. ‘It’s because that’s my best chance to get noticed.’

  Afsana’s tears disturbed Raisa in ways she hadn’t felt before.

  ‘I told you there are twenty people staying here,’ Afsana continued, with shuddering breaths. ‘That sounds good when you say it, but the ugly part is nobody has time for anybody. Look at my parents. They don’t even know which class I’m in.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘The first time I got their attention was when I broke a costly vase. Both of them scolded me. I liked it. And I kept doing something out of the ordinary whenever I wanted their attention. And now they think I’m a brat. They give me everything I want but they don’t know what I really need.’

  Raisa hugged her and Afsana broke down, her face burrowed into Raisa’s shoulder.

  ‘Promise me you won’t ever leave me, Rice. I know we’ve known each other for only a year, but I’ve never had anyone so close to me before.’

  Afsana tightened her embrace. Raisa marvelled at the way people lived a grammatically incorrect life, just waiting for the elusive emotional punctuation to happen. Nirmaan’s every action and very existence was dictated by the pressure of his father’s aspirations for his son. There was a time when Raisa wanted to redeem herself before her father without even knowing what her mistake was. Affu too seemed to be labouring under a sense of neglect, even though her father wasn’t even an alcoholic like hers. Wait a minute, Raisa thought, and said aloud, ‘Affu, is your father an alcoholic?’

  ‘Not really.’ Afsana rubbed her eyes and excused herself to the en-suite bathroom. Raisa got off the bed and went over to the study table laden with academic books untidily strewn all over it. She slid open a drawer in the desk and casually picked up the thick encyclopaedia that lay within. She caught sight of an old issue of the salacious Debonair magazine beneath it. Raisa picked it up with a shy giggle. A half-naked man and a skimpily clad woman adorned the cover. She heard a sound and spun around, holding the magazine aloft, ‘Affu, they’re naked!’

  But it wasn’t Afsana. It was a boy in a leather jacket and jeans, with a bandana around his brow to keep his long hair from falling into his eyes. He stared at her in frank admiration.

  ‘Wow! Who are you?’ the boy asked.

  ‘Raisa. You?’

  He walked up to her, his hand extended, ‘Rick.’ They shook hands. Raisa was suddenly alert. She could feel her hackles rise. Except for Nirmaan, she was always uncomfortable around boys—something about the way they looked at her made her jittery.

  ‘Did anyone ever tell you that you’re damn beautiful?’ Rick asked.

  Raisa’s throat dried up. She gave him a tight smile and said, ‘Thanks.’

  Afsana came out of the bathroom and paused. Raisa’s eyes darted to her. Rick followed her gaze.

  ‘Is she your friend?’ Rick asked Afsana, cocking his head.

  ‘Get lost!’ Afsana snarled. The abrupt rudeness hit Raisa.

  Rick narrowed his eyes at Afsana, suddenly looking mean. To Raisa he said, ‘We’ll meet again.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ Afsana quipped.

  Raisa looked alternately at the two of them during this exchange. Rick left. Afsana followed him to the door and slammed it shut.

  ‘That’s why I prefer to keep my room locked,’ she said.

  ‘Isn’t he someone from your family?’ Raisa asked.

  ‘He is. My uncle’s eldest son.’

  ‘Then why were you so rude to him? He is family.’

  ‘I hate him. He is a rascal and a player.’ Afsana clambered on to the bed.

  ‘Who’s a player?’ Raisa joined her.

  ‘Players are men who can’t be anything else but men all their lives, if you know what I mean. Forget him.’

  Raisa couldn’t.

  VOICE NOTE 16

  ‘Who told you that you’re beautiful?’ Nirmaan asked.

  Raisa, who had come to his flat on the pretext of trying to learn algebra from him, told him about Rick. They were seated on chairs flanking his study desk in the glow of the table lamp between them. The confession made Nirmaan look at Raisa sceptically.

  ‘Why do you sound so surprised?’ Raisa frowned, ‘Am I not beautiful?’

  For a moment, Nirmaan was at a loss for words. He had always liked her but he had never asked himself before if he considered her beautiful. What is being beautiful? Is it about having a flawless skin (which she did), about possessing a healthy figure (which she did), nice features (which she did as well)? The fact that he liked her told him she must be beautiful. The fact that she helped him win all those races in Guwahati as a kid made him believe she was beautiful. The fact that she helped him get away with the suspension letter convinced him that she was beautiful.

  ‘Who’s Rick?’ he asked.

  ‘Affu’s cousin.’

  ‘Where did you meet him?’

  ‘At Affu’s place.’

  ‘He said you’re beautiful the very first time he met you?’

  ‘Yeaaaaah,’ Raisa drawled and shrugged in a what’s-wrong-in-that manner.

  ‘That sounds weird.’

  ‘Come on. I’m thrilled and you are focusing on the boy instead.’

  ‘So what should I do if someone finds you beautiful? There are so many girls who find me cute. I don’t take them seriously.’

  Nirmaan feigned to focus on the algebra problem while Raisa seemed momentarily lost.

  ‘You mean that I too shouldn’t take Rick seriously?’

  ‘No. You shouldn’t,’ Nirmaan said and noticed her frowning. He chose to explain, ‘Look, Raisa, this boy doesn’t know you and so he finds you beautiful. It doesn’t mean that you’re not. What I mean is, I’ve been your friend for so many years. Have I ever told you that you’re beautiful? Do you know why? It’s because I know you’re beautiful. Friends don’t point out the obvious. Imposters do.’

  Raisa sighed as if Nirmaan had just burst her little bubble of joy.

  ‘See you tomorrow in school,’ she said dejectedly and stood up.

  ‘What about algebra?’

  ‘Do I look like I’m interested in algebra?’ She left.

  * * *

  Afsana was absent the following day in school. Nirmaan was busy with his friends preparing for an upcoming inter-house debate competition. Without her partner-in-crime, Raisa felt like a toothless hag. She slept through the classes.

  After school, she noticed someone waiting by a motorbike outside the school gate. One look and she recognized Rick. His hair was loose.

  ‘Hi!’ he said when Raisa approached him.

  ‘Hi!’ For some strange reason, she felt happy for the first time that day.

  ‘Going home?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Want to go for a ride?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I’m not a kidnapper,’ he smirked. The way he said it made her heart beat faster.


  ‘Okay.’

  The thrill in her brushed aside her apprehensions. She straddled the pillion seat and the bike roared away.

  Instead of taking Raisa straight home, Rick took her to an amusement park in Salt Lake.

  ‘Have you been here before?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve only heard about it from my friends.’

  They rode almost all the rides in the park, ate, talked and within a span of two hours, Raisa felt he wasn’t a stranger any more. Rick seemed to imbue her with a weird sense of self-confidence that she had never felt before.

  As the two rode the toy train, it passed through some shrubbery within the park campus. Suddenly Raisa giggled pointing at something. Rick followed her finger and saw two couples, one pair behind the other, smooching. Rick grinned and looked at Raisa.

  ‘Why, what’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Didn’t you see what they were doing?’

  ‘What?’ Rick egged her on deliberately.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Raisa turned her face away.

  ‘Have you ever kissed a boy?’ he asked.

  Raisa could feel all her muscles clench and goosebumps appear on her arm as Rick held her hand. Suddenly the pleasure in her heart was substituted with a hunch that something disturbing was about to happen. She tried to break free of Rick’s warm clasp, but couldn’t. She looked at him. He was leaning towards her, drawing closer with every passing second. When he reached dangerously close to her mouth, Raisa stood up and jerked her hand free furiously. Rick let go of her hand and watched as Raisa hopped off the slow-moving toy train before it came to a halt. He followed her.

  ‘I like you, I love you,’ Rick said aloud, catching up with her. She stopped, so did he. She turned to look at him. Rick felt emboldened and came to stand directly in front of her. He gripped her shoulders and gently clipped her lips. She bit hard on his lips. Too hard. Rick pushed her away, wiping the blood off his lips.

  ‘You bitch!’

  ‘You swine!’ Raisa said.

  Rick punched her savagely and she toppled to the ground. Her nose was bleeding. He stared down at her for a moment, moistening his lips and then offered her his hand.

  ‘Now get up and don’t fight me when I smooch you.’

  Raisa took his hand, stood up and threw the fistful of earth she had scooped into her other hand into his open eyes. Rick howled in pain as she ran away holding her injured nose.