On an Evening in Roma

So close...yet so far🍃

5:45pm, 14th August, 1940.

Rome, Italy.

Anirudh Roy Choudhary was out for an evening walk to clear his mind...hoping to cure the dull ache in his brain.

It's been a long day...correction, it's been a long seven years...

Even though the sun now hung low on the horizon behind the old stone houses it was still humid enough to make him sweat under his light green shirt and gray waste coat.

August is considered to be mid-summer in this part of Italy.

On top of the tall buildings the evening sun blazed the sky in red, blue, orange and gold hues...some might describe it as breathtaking ...but to him it was just the ending of another day...

Rome... the City of Seven Hills...one of the most beautiful cities in the World...but it doesn't hold any beauty in his eyes. The old Anirudh would have loved to learn about its history and cultures...

The old Anirudh would have done a lot of think differently...but that Anirudh is gone now...dead under the burden of his reality... there was only Barrister Babu now...whose only goal was to keep his family and his people safe and alive...

Shaking off those gloomy thoughts he started walking again. The street was busy, people were mostly out for a stroll like him, some men in business suits were returning to their homes from work...there was a rush on their gait...yearning to return to their families.

...Was it very wrong of him that he didn't wanted to return to his??

He wanted to get lost in the crowd...here he was nobody...here he didn't have a village full of people looking up to him to protect them...to fight for them...shed others blood for them...

Here, he didn't have a Kaka who always expects him to be the undaunted and unwavering leader of Tulsipur...he didn't have to look at his younger brother whose innocence of youth was destroyed carrying the feud in his young shoulders...he didn't have a Baba who was punished without any fault...

...here he wanted to let go of all his burdens for few days...

But he knew that can never happen...it was just his wishful thinking...even here he had a role to play...the role of a big brother... another brother he has failed to protect...

He knew he had protected Batuk physically by sending him away from Tulsipur...but mentally? He wondered how much he had succeeded to protect him mentally!!

...Why else would he turn out like this?

Batuk was being threatened to be expelled for his University...not that he could blame the authorities, Batuk was failing most of his subjects, not to mention the inappropriate behavior in class, escaping class, being caught during fornication on University ground and the list goes on...he had to leave Tulsipur at momentary notice to preserve his brothers future as much as he could.

13 hours ago

When Anirudh arrived in Italy it was midnight and by the time he had reached Batuk's lavish apartment it was almost 4:00am...fortunately he knew where the spare key was hidden...unfortunately, his brother wasn't alone...

Unfortunately but not unexpectedly...he was no stranger to his youngest brother's nighttime activities...

At the sound of the door opening Batuk and his female companion stumbled out of his bedroom...barely dressed...and as if it wasn't embarrassing enough after an awkward introduction by Batuk, and it was awkward not only because of the situation but because Batuk said her name wrong...twice, it took her exactly five minute to get over the uncanny resemblance between the two brothers and come up with a brilliant idea, her words not his.