The Unventured Passions

An Innocent Ignorance

The road was midnight under the cloud, yet beyond was the dawn. As the sun set, its rising had already been promised to the land, to the green shoots who wait in faith.
But, at that moment of fierce passion, the sky felt like a veil of black tranquility married to a poetry of stars. It was the softness of the night that called body and brain to rest and let the heart go to its steady rhythm. The sound of Anirudh and Bondita's irregular breathing had permeated the fastened ambience inside the car, fogging the window panes, and concealing themselves from the outsides of the world.

"Shona, we are in public, let's drive home." Anirudh checked his wrist watch.
"It won't take more than ten minutes."
Anirudh broke from their ardent kiss and panted the words to his wife.

"But there is no one outside, it's all deserted." Bondita raised her eyebrow naughtily, biting her lower lip in a passionate reckoning.
"Besides, my head hurts!"

It took a little coaxing for Anirudh to finally drive Bondita home and the entire way back Bondita teased him out of patience. She should finger brush his soft hairs and ran her tongue sensuously on the exposed vein on his creamy neck. She would squeeze his strong thigh, moving her hand further up, making him gasp and groan for more.

"We're home, tigress!"
Anirudh growled, halting the car abruptly with a jerking seizure on the open veranda of the new mansion. With a fevered urgency he grabbed the back of Bondita's neck, gripping her hair as he pulled her closer, his wild eyes hinting at the possibility of the fierce night that awaits them.

"Let's go up... Anirudh!" Bondita hushed.

Anirudh smirked at her words and unlatched the car door. A gust of cold night air invaded the cosy warmth inside the car, and along with it, came a roll of cries, subsiding into a snivel, a painful whimpering of a baby.

"Rudhi... my baby!!" Bondita almost shrieked as Anirudh noticed the sharp change of emotions in her large wailed up eyes.

"Barrister Babu... Barrister Babu why is my baby crying like this?" Bondita shuddered as Anirudh helped her out of the car, tangled in her silk saree and pencil heels. Her heart was beating fast, and this time it wasn't for him.

"Shona... Calm down... babies cry..." He hunched down on the ground to help remove the knotted saree from her footwear. But Bondita's restlessness for her baby knew no bound. She discarded the heels on the ground and ran inside the main door, barefooted.
Anirudh followed.

There are places in the heart that one doesn't even know exists, until you love a child. Bondita rushed inside the room to find baby Rudhi cradled in Mani Kaki's arms, who is rocking her with desparate attempts of soothing her cries.

"What happened?" Bondita almost pounced on the woman with eyes full of tears as she snatched Rudhi from her arms.
"Why is she crying like this?" Her voice cracked as she placed soft kisses incessantly on the baby's face.

Manimala was a women of experience. She flinched her nose at Bondita and looked away in disdain. Women are daughters, devoted wives, mother's, but this modern version of progressive womanhood disgusted her.
'Why on earth would a women study?
Isn't the responsibilities of a family not enough to teach her a life lesson?' Manimala would always vehemently argue on why is it important for a husband to discipline a wife.
'A thrash or two from time to time is needed, you see... Or else, you would turn out to be someone like that Roy Chowdhury Memsaheb, always arguing about everything and with everyone..." Manimala would tell her fellow friends.
"And, the worst part is her husband always supports her!"
The women in her colony would raise their eyes and curl their lips at her words.
A husband listening to his wife is the worst kind of manliness known to them.