The corridor outside Abhishek's classroom still hummed with the last vibrations of Professor Sen's voice—echoes of Miltonic cadences, half-threat, half-blessing—when Abhishek stepped out, clutching Eliot's Selected Poems against his chest like a secret shield. The smell of chalk dust, linseed-polished floors, and the faint trace of jasmine from the courtyard trees clung to his senses. The November sunlight, warm and lenient, poured through the tall windows of Presidency College, washing the hallway in a honeyed glow.
Bhupesh Kumar Gupta appeared beside him—always appearing, never arriving—lean and wiry, with a shirt that never seemed tucked in properly and a personality that refused to be contained by institutional corridors.
"Bhai," he said, tapping Abhishek's book with a grin, "for a moment I thought Stalin would recite the whole of Milton only to punish you. 'Belzibub, the dreadful demon, latecomer of Kolkata…' Arrey, I was sure he'd say it!"
Abhishek allowed a faint smile. "He did recite something. But he spared the demon part."
"He didn't spare the glare. That glare can burn communists in this college," Bhupesh said proudly, as though he had personally invented the line. He walked with a swagger that came from having nothing to lose—no reputation to keep clean, no family name burdening his shoulders like the Banerjee heritage weighed on Abhishek's. Bhupesh was from near Jamtara; his accent an unpredictable cocktail of Bengal softness and Jharkhand grit.
They moved along the corridor, brushing past posters that still smelled of fresh glue—NSUI announcements on one side, Communist Party slogans on the other, each group staking claim on the minds of the young. Presidency had become a battlefield of ideology, though most students—like Abhishek—were simply trying to survive their professors and their own hearts.
Bhupesh continued his commentary, something about how today's protest turnout was low because half the boys were bunking to watch a matinée show at Metro Cinema. But suddenly Abhishek's steps slowed, then halted.
Because she was there.
Near the Geography Department, framed by the arch of the corridor like a painting waiting for its title—she stood in her red salwar and white kameez, her dupatta falling lightly over her shoulder. A soft breeze from the courtyard lifted the edge of the fabric, just enough to catch the sunlight. She was laughing at something her friend said, but it was the kind of laughter that traveled in waves—quiet, inward, unperformed.
Abhishek forgot to breathe.
It had been three months since he first saw her in the canteen line. Three months since he memorized her routine like a scholar memorizes verses:
her class hours, her chai breaks at 10:45 sharp, her habit of tucking stray strands of hair behind her ear, her way of carrying books against her chest instead of by her side.
But he didn't know her name.
His fear had kept the distance intact, tied to him like a vow he had never intended to make.
"Bhai!" Bhupesh snapped his fingers in front of his eyes. "At least utter a word. Why do you behave like Joy Mukherjee in every scene? Just go! She went to the library, not to the ladies' washroom!"
She passed by them, the fragrance of sandal and freshly washed cotton trailing behind her. She walked into the central library without turning back.
Abhishek's heart climbed up and lodged itself in his throat.
Bhupesh slapped his back. "Go talk to her. Library is not Lakshman-rekha."
But Abhishek only tightened his grip on Eliot and walked in the opposite direction—towards the English Department. Bhupesh threw his hands in the air and followed, muttering something about hopeless poets and their tragic self-respect.
When they reached the wooden door of Mrs. Susmita Roy's cabin, Bhupesh stopped abruptly.
"I'll wait outside. If I enter, she'll ask me why I exist," he said dramatically.
The door creaked open, revealing the cabin lined with tall wooden shelves overflowing with classical literature. Austen, Dickens, Bankim, R.K. Narayan, Michael Madhusudan Dutt—they all crowded the space like ghosts of brilliance.
Abhishek stepped in and sat on the student chair, knees together, hands on Eliot, posture disciplined. He looked around. Framed portraits of literary figures hung above her desk, and near the window lay a small brass idol of Saraswati, draped in a fresh marigold garland.
Through the window, he could hear Bhupesh outside arguing with Gopal Bhaiya, the department helper from Bihar with a permanently puffed cheek full of tobacco.
And then the door opened.
Mrs. Susmita Roy entered carrying a pile of books. She was in her early fifties but carried herself like someone who had not conceded to time. Her hair, cut short in an attempt to resemble Gayatri Devi, instead ended up echoing a younger Indira Gandhi. A faint line of sandalwood paste graced her forehead.
"Ah, Abhishek," she said, adjusting her glasses as she placed the books on her table. "You came. Good. Sit, sit."
He stood to touch her feet first. She gently placed her hand on his head, a gesture that felt both maternal and professorial, and then motioned for him to sit again.
"So," she said, lowering herself into her chair with the grace of someone who had mastered the art of dignified aging, "how was Sen's class today? Did he summon Milton to scold half the batch again?"
Abhishek smiled. "He… quoted Milton at me. I was late."
"Of course you were," she said wryly, tapping a pencil on the desk. "He must have loved it. Nothing excites him like an opportunity to weaponise English literature."
"He asked difficult questions," Abhishek said. "No one answered. At the end, I tried."
"Tried?" she raised an eyebrow. "Or succeeded?"
He looked at his hands. "I… answered correctly, I think."
For the first time in the conversation, something softened in her eyes. "You always do."
Outside, Bhupesh's voice rose again—complaining about waiting, complaining about tobacco smell, complaining about the unfairness of literature favoritism. Then came Gopal Bhaiya's unmistakable tone, full of impatience and loyalty to no one except his tobacco.
Mrs. Roy sighed. "That boy. He will be a union leader someday or a disaster. Perhaps both."
She turned to the papers on her desk. "Anyway, I was meaning to tell you something. Something important."
Abhishek sat straighter.
"You know the UGC meeting I attended in Delhi last week? There was a major discussion about a Central University in the Northeast. Assam, specifically. The Centre wants to expand higher education there—to bring stability, their words—not mine." She paused to adjust her shawl. "But you know the Northeast is already burning. Ethnic demands, linguistic identity, the All Assam Students' Union gaining momentum… There will be complications."
Abhishek listened quietly. He had always felt drawn to stories of distant regions—places where India's map throbbed with unrest and beauty together.
"The Board will be arriving in Kolkata this week," she continued. "They'll meet our Vice-Chancellor. Your Professor Sen… he has a history with the Northeast. Old memories. He pretends otherwise, but the past lives in him like an uninvited tenant."
Something flickered inside Abhishek, though he didn't understand why.
Mrs. Roy waved her hand dismissively. "Anyway, my point is—be prepared. There might be visiting committees. Talks. Seminars. You may be asked to assist me with documentation."
"I'd be honoured," he said softly.
She gave one of her rare smiles. "I know."
He left the cabin after exchanging a few more words, walking out to the corridor where he found Bhupesh leaning dramatically against the doorframe as though abandoned for years.
"Finally!" Bhupesh exclaimed. "I have aged. My grandchildren will ask why their Dadu waited for a poet to finish talking to Madam Roy."
Gopal Bhaiya emerged from the storeroom, wiping his hands. "Arre Chhotu," he said to Bhupesh, "jao padho. Roz idhar aakar faltu baatein karte ho."
"Arey, Gopal Bhaiya, knowledge ka koi jagah hota hai?" Bhupesh replied, imitating his accent perfectly. "Main toh yahin knowledge leta hoon."
Gopal clicked his tongue. "Dimag kharab kar diya hai college waalon ne."
Abhishek folded his hands. "Namaste, Gopal Bhaiya."
"Aashirwad," Gopal said, his cheek still swollen with tobacco. "Tum toh theek ho. Ye ladka—" he pointed at Bhupesh "—din bhar nautanki."
Bhupesh rolled his eyes and grabbed Abhishek by the shoulder. "Chalo. Let's get chai. Before Gopal Bhaiya adopts me and ruins my life."
They walked out of the department and towards the side gate of the campus, where a modest tea stall stood under a sprawling banyan tree. The smell of brewing red tea, warm milk, baking biscuits, and the faint trace of coal smoke mingled in the cool November air.
Students gathered in clusters—some discussing Marx, some Tagore, some the next protest march. A few were arguing over which posters should be pasted on the main gate: those supporting the communist movement sweeping West Bengal, or those aligned with the Congress youth wing trying to resist it.
Bhupesh grabbed two cups of red tea and a packet of bakery biscuits. "Bhai, look at them," he said, nodding at the arguing boys. "Revolutionaries sipping ten-paise chai. Calcutta is comedy."
Abhishek smiled, but his eyes drifted toward the library building again. A faint silhouette passed by the second-floor window.
He knew it was her.
They finished their tea, and Abhishek paid the stall owner before Bhupesh could argue. Then, with the sun gently lowering itself into the late afternoon haze, they walked toward the bus stop outside the main gate of Presidency College.
The city was beginning its soft transition toward evening—rickshaw bells clinking, tram wheels grinding against rails, and the faint call of the muezzin rising from a distant mosque.
Their buses arrived in quick succession. They parted with a casual wave, each swallowed by the enormous, breathing organism that was Calcutta.
•~•
Abhishek stepped off the bus near his para (neighborhood), the familiar streets of north Calcutta embracing him like an old but sometimes moody friend. The sky had settled into a deepening shade of indigo, fading slowly into violet where the last remnants of sunlight still lingered. Street lamps flickered awake one by one, throwing pools of amber over the uneven pavement.
The evening carried the smells that only Bengal could blend so perfectly—fresh ilish being cleaned by the fish sellers at the corner market, mustard oil heating in someone's kitchen, the earthy scent of wet jute sacks used to cover vegetables, the faint perfume of incense drifting from a nearby temple. These smells were not just part of the city; they were its memory, its inheritance.
He passed the fish stalls where vendors shouted the last bargains of the day.
"Duto ilish, bhalo rate debo! Fresh from Diamond Harbour!"
"Ei kumro lo, didi! Shesh hoye jachhe!"
The voices rose and fell like a chorus that had been rehearsed over generations. Housewives bargained fiercely, not because of price alone but because bargaining itself was a ritual—an assertion of dignity, an art form older than any university.
On the other side of the lane, flower sellers were packing up their remaining garlands of rajnigandha and marigold, preparing for the night's puja demands.
Abhishek slowed his pace, taking it all in—the tempo, the texture, the heritage of Bengal breathing around him. He often felt that to understand West Bengal one needed to walk its evenings. Mornings were for the dutiful, but evenings were for the dreamers, the thinkers, the wanderers.
He turned into the narrower lane that led to his ancestral home — a century-old haveli tucked within the cultural arteries of Jorasanko, where every brick seemed to hum with memory. The neighbourhood carried the echoes of the Tagore household, of songs once practised in open courtyards, of intellectual debates that spilled into verandahs, of old rickshaw wheels dragging across worn cobblestones.
The house stood behind an iron gate patterned in fading floral motifs, its walls a mix of red brick and lime plaster that had witnessed generations of festivals, arguments, and quiet evenings. The verandah pillars still bore the delicate carvings from the 19th century, and the old wooden windows—paint chipping at the edges—looked like half-blinking eyes that had stayed awake through too many eras.
As he approached, he saw two figures seated on the front porch. One was his father, Satyapriyo Banerjee—white kurta, thin spectacles, posture straight as if carved from principle. Beside him sat their neighbour, retired Judge Mukherjee, a man whose deep voice once commanded silence in courtrooms and now commanded the same respect in evening adda sessions.
"Ei to eshe gechho, Abhishek," his father said. "Class kemon holo?"
Before Abhishek could answer, Judge Mukherjee leaned forward, the creases on his forehead deepening.
"The state is heading towards dangerous times," the old man declared. "This government is losing its grip. The Naxalite movement has shaken the city to its bones. You youngsters must stay careful. Every day I hear new cases—violence, raids, arrests, disappearances…" He shook his head. "Bengal is not the Bengal of our youth anymore."
His father nodded gravely. "True. And now with the teachers' movement rising, the administration is collapsing. The newspapers today reported the Chief Minister's speech was interrupted again at the rally in Esplanade."
"The city is on the edge of something," Judge Mukherjee said. "Something we cannot yet name."
Abhishek stood quietly, listening. Political storms had been swirling around Calcutta for years now—Communist marches, Congress rallies, Naxalite confrontations, student uprisings. Presidency College had often been the first spark in a chain of fires.
His father turned to him. "Go freshen up. Your mother is doing her evening puja. Dinner will be ready soon."
Abhishek bowed slightly to both elders and entered the haveli.
Inside, the air was cool and dim. The walls were lined with sepia photographs—his great-grandparents in traditional attire, an old framed certificate from Rabindranath Tagore's visit to North Calcutta, a portrait of a young Satyapriyo receiving a medal from the Governor. These were not decorations; they were the quiet, constant reminders of the lineage he carried.
From the inner courtyard came the soft, melodic chanting of his mother, Gautami Chatterjee. She stood before the brass idol of Lakshmi, her saree draped in the classic Bengal style, her hands moving gracefully as she lit incense sticks and rang the small silver bell. The flame illuminated her face in warm, devotional glows.
Abhishek paused at the threshold of the courtyard, letting the serenity settle over him. His mother's evening rituals were a part of his life's rhythm—gentle, unwavering, anchoring.
He slipped into his room, set his books on the wooden desk, and lay back on his bed. The ceiling fan whirred above, stirring the faint scent of old books and sandalwood polish that permeated the room.
The events of the day replayed in fragments—the late morning rush, Sen's stern gaze, the verse from Paradise Lost thrown at him like a challenge, the laughter of that girl drifting through the corridor, her red and white attire still shimmering like an afterimage on his eyelids, Mrs. Roy's words about the Northeast, the tea stall arguments, the bus ride home, the political anxieties outside the house.
He exhaled deeply, as though clearing space in his mind for something new.
Outside, from the courtyard, his mother's voice rose once more in prayer—soft, rhythmic, hopeful.
It calmed him. It grounded him.
He closed his eyes.
And somewhere in the restless heart of Calcutta, in a faculty office of Presidency College, Professor Satyabrata Sen—that stubborn guardian of Milton and forgotten memories—sat alone at his desk, staring at a yellowed envelope tucked inside an old book.
An envelope postmarked:
Shillong, 1948.
A windswept memory from a Northeast that no one in Calcutta truly spoke about.
Not yet.
But soon, Abhishek would step into that world—
a world where the professor's past waited like unopened monsoon clouds,
dense with stories,
heavy with history,
ready to break.