On this cold January night, 2nd January 2006 to be precise, Piya is standing in the middle of a desolate West London road wearing full red bridal dress and costume.
It is her wedding night. And here she is leaning against her Golf, smoking a long thin cigarette. That traditional Indian wedding dress is heavy but she is still shivering under the dark foggy sky. As she draws deep on her cigarette, she closes her eyes and lets her mind float.
Though Piya has been smoking for the last six years, it was only in London that she started smoking openly. Her parents separated 15 years ago. Her mother stayed in Kolkata and father moved on to London. Her father had been like a ghost in her life appearing suddenly and then disappearing again. When her mother died she came unwillingly to stay with his father in London. She never liked him but the thought of staying in the city of joy all by herself didn’t appeal her and her father somehow persuaded her to come and stay with him. That’s how Piyali Ghosh has been in London for the last three years.
Presently, in the wilderness of night, a phone rings and breaks the eerie, heavy silence. Piya opens her eyes and seems bewildered. Suddenly realising, she reaches for her purse, takes out her mobile phone and looking at the number, answers it reluctantly.
“Piya, where are you?” A male voice is on the other end. It seems she does not want to answer the question. The caller is persistent.
“Piya, are you there? Please answer me. I am worried, Piya! Where are you? ”
“The rendezvous” she murmurs and disconnects.
That was Darren- Derry for Piya. She met Derry two year ago. He helped when she had lost her wallet and could not produce a ticket on the underground train. He admired her taste in books and offered to buy her a coffee.
Piya takes the last puff of the cigarette and throws the stub. She looks around as if she is trying to comprehend how she got here and what is she doing here. Maybe it’s the cold or maybe she is tired of standing for too long, she opens the doors and gets in the car. She picks up the pack of cigarette lying on the dashboard and switches the radio on. A cheesy slow old love song starts floating inside the car. She takes out a cigarette but is in no hurry to light it. She leans back into the seat and closes her eyes. Either she is listening to the song or has gone into deep thought. But then suddenly, she opens her eyes, moves forward and shuts down the radio. There is silence again with faded echo of the song still in the air.
White floating wisps hit the windscreen of the car and turn into transparent droplets. It has begun to snow. Snowflakes hover in the air, glowing under the pale light coming from a distant street lamp. Piya is now looking at the snow or maybe through them at something in far distant. The unlit cigarette is still dangling in her hand.
A black big car appears from the fog and speeds past Piya’s stationary car. The fast moving car has suddenly changed the flow of the air and now the snowflakes are swirling in a quick circular motion. Piya also seems shocked and shaken by this disturbance. It’s like she has suddenly woken up from a deep slumber. And then her phone rings again. She looks at the phone but lets it ring. The music seems a contrast from the song which was playing on the radio. The ringtone seems a fusion piece with prominent flute notes. After a few seconds, the tone dies down leaving the silence breathing again.
Derry showed her London. He took her to museums, park concerts and Broadway musicals. Taught her to row and fish. In the daytime, he was studying political science in LSE and on weekends he taught painting in a art school. His studio apartment was their den. It was perpetually in the state of orderly untidiness. Books scattered all over. Music records and CDs. His studio space in one corner with several finished and unfinished canvases, brushes and colours. It was an eclectic intellectual heaven where Piya could spend hours and hours. Both would spend huge amount of time without speaking any word, happy just to be in that space with each other. Sometimes he would paint her while she read with jazz playing in the background. Sometimes they would lie on the mat smoking cigarettes looking at the ceiling listening to each other’s breathing.
