They were walking together, holding each other's hands, along the beautiful seaside promenade with metal railings. As they looked at the sky, they saw the sun setting, adding strokes of twilight hues all over the sky. The colors fused into the dusky horizon, and then the sun slowly disappeared, seemingly buried beneath the unfathomable ocean. The merging of the ocean and the sky at the horizontal line made it difficult to differentiate between the two.

"Ritom, do you think our walk will ever end?" she said, turning to him. Then she looked up at the sky. "Look, it has become so dusky."

"Yes, we can't even separate the sky and the ocean from each other, just like us," said Ritom, wrapping his arm around Monoshini's shoulders.

"Be reasonable, Ritom."

"This is where we are now, a public place."

"Please stop this nonsense. I request you," she said, trying hard to free herself from his arms. She struggled for a moment to extricate herself from his grasp but failed, as usual.

In that very moment, an idea came to her mind. She began to tickle him, her fingers dancing across his T-shirt aimlessly like a carefree melody. She became engrossed in the color of his T-shirt, maroon, her favorite one. She nodded and chuckled as she remembered that she had gifted him that shirt on his twenty-fourth birthday this year. Soon after, his laughter filled the air, and she slipped away from his grasp.

She ran towards the railing and came to a sudden stop, her hands gripping its rods as she braced herself upon it. A gentle breeze blew from the seashore, tangling and lifting her hair into the air. The dupatta of her salwar kameez swayed gently, then billowed through the air. Its tassels tickled his face as he ran after her and stood behind her.

Standing beside her, he asked, 'What's on your mind?' His gaze fixed on her folded fingers wrapped around the metal rod of the railing.

"We should head back to the hotel. It's getting late," she uttered with an indifferent voice, leaving him unable to determine the cause of her indifference. He couldn't understand why she seemed upset.

"Isn't it enjoyable for you? You haven't seemed happy here with me amidst the soothing sound of the lapping waves," Ritom asked, his eyes reflecting wonder, followed by a question mark.

It was so obvious for him to ask her why she was unhappy. They had visited that place many times before; it wasn't their first time. They had truly appreciated it. They would find happiness in the tranquility—the soothing sounds blending with the gentle breezes along the coast, the waves lapping against the seashore. 'So peaceful,' he thought, lost in his reverie, far from the hustle and bustle of a crowded metropolitan city like Kolkata.

Whenever an image of a city crosses his mind, he sings:
'As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.'

He could remember some lines of a poem he had read years back when he was in university during first semester. Presidency, those days were unforgettable. He finished his degree and then landed this boring job at a semi-government higher secondary school. Life became so irritating when children never listen to him in the class. There was always a murmuring sound, as if many children were talking together at the same time. It seemed horrible, the echoing effect of it.

"And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings."

He recited the lines aloud, unknowingly; he had finally remembered them.

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree. W. B. Yeats," she said, turning her face slightly towards him.

"That's what we sense here, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is."

"Then why do you look sad?" he shrugged

"I don't know. Sometimes this atmosphere just makes me feel melancholic."

Turning to sadness became a 'to-do' thing when her mind went blank. The struggle intensified as the weight of unfinished articles loomed with impending deadlines. There was no time for leisure anymore. Amidst the chaos, a few days with him managed to find space, even though their relationship balanced precariously on the edge of toxicity. The thought of quitting her job occasionally crossed her mind. Could her aspirations reach the sky? Could dormant studies be rekindled, reigniting the spirit of academic dreams and propelling her across the globe? But then, a sigh escaped as she faced the reality of her tough situation, wondering how to manage even this job, knowing that giving up would lead her nowhere but dystopia.

Another sigh followed, accompanied by the burden of labored breath. An academic content writer by profession, she worked nearly twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, no weekend at all , all for meager compensation. Together, they inhabited a two-bedroom apartment near Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Airport in Dum Dum, Jessore Rd, Kolkata, West Bengal.

"But this is our Innisfree. We come here to find happiness, to be as free as birds, as liberated as the waves," he uttered.

"We don't come with the intention of making ourselves sad, do we?" he continued.

"But sometimes, I find pleasure in being sad," she replied with a trembling voice, looking at the surface of the sea. She continued, "We all appeal to emotions. Most people claim to be less emotional, as they believe pleasure can only arise from extreme happiness. But I believe pleasure can also stem from sadness."

"You believe that we shouldn't let our emotions govern us, that we shouldn't let them rule our actions. But unknowingly, somehow, we do it. Unintentionally, sadness becomes our inspiration sometimes."

This extensive philosophical discourse briefly interrupted the silence, casting a momentary pause. He again lost himself in thoughts, gazing at the moon and the way it graced the countless minuscule waves on the surface of the sea.

She softly uttered, "Shanti, Shanti, Shanti."


© L o s t S o u l