Long, long ago there lived two cousins, one would come from an affluent convent and the other would come from a vernacular school. Both would hold the forefingers of their once Naxalite uncle and head towards a book-store in the vicinity.The book store was not one of those flashy, glitsy ones where the walls and the accessories are more lucrative than the pages of the books. Here at "Bipin babur boiyer dokaan" (book store of Bipin babu), the walls would be sooty and the stained glass almirahs would be accomodating far more books than they were meant to be. So, naturally we would have to tell Bipin babu (the bearded middle-aged man with a pug and on it carefully balanced would be his glasses), what we wanted. He spoke impeccable English and his bangla was just as good.
The moment he would see us, he would ask me, "What would My Lady fancy?". Then he would look at me for a while and bring out a book almost magically and his choice could never go wrong. He exactly knew what I wanted all the time ;-)
Next would be my cousin's turn. By then, he would have fidgeted his way out to a book already. I somehow loved his books' cover pictures of skulls dripping with blood and delicate princesses on flying horses and hungry leopards...and he admired mine with ship sailing and the little Prince waiting for his extra terrestrial friend on the Earth.
After lunch, we would both go out on Dinu kaka's Koli, his black cow and come back with a dreaming head, as the light of the sun danced in our heads. Then would we sit down with our books, our backs against the wall of the "Chilekotha" (the attic). The stories would soon transport us to different locations untill "Mani Ma" (aunt) would call us for "Luchi" and "cholar dal" that would be ready by then. That would be our favorite meal of the day. At the end of it she would serve us "Aam kheer".
Mani Ma had an unusual charm about herself. Not that she would hug us and kiss us any time but she would tear the hot "luchis" into pieces for us, take the bones of our fish, and many more such amazingly thoughtful things that wove a strange mesh of affection around her.
My cousin and I, both grew up and realised it was time to look beyond our restricted charms. So we moved on different paths. He on technical and I on humanities. We met again some days ago in his child's study. This time sharing the same book. Our backs against the same wall and our fingers on the same line of the same page.We met again...
