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Crossed & Knotted
Crossed & Knotted
Crossed & Knotted
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Crossed & Knotted

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Crossed & Knotted is India's first Composite Novel, a book written by fourteen authors in close collaboration with each other. The chapters, each a story in itself, are knotted with one another through characters, events, settings and emotions. The result is a read that crisscrosses through a multitude of emotions bringing out deep rooted human desires. They narrate tales of love and betrayal, suspense and mystery, courage and dilemma, along with hope and resilience. Read it for a taste so tantalizing, that your mind will surely be craving for more! This book has been written by 14 authors namely, Sutapa Basu, Ayan Pal, Sanchita Sen Das, Arvind Passey, Mithun Mukherjee, Avanti Sopory, Bhaswar Mukherjee, Anupama Jain, Deepti Menon, Amrit Sinha, Monika Nair, Amar Lakshya Pawar, Bhuvaneshwari Shankar, Arpita Banerjee

LanguageEnglish
PublisherReadomania
Release dateMar 2, 2015
ISBN9788192997537
Crossed & Knotted
Author

Sutapa Basu

Sutapa Basu is an avid reader and a compulsive bookworm. She is an irrepressible storyteller to children and pens down tales with twists for the adult audience. Her poetry is an evocation of Nature resonating with mystical introspection. A professional career as teacher, editor, and publisher had seen her traipsing across the vast Indian subcontinent with short detours into nearby Nepal and Bhutan and not-so-nearby Dubai and the United States while working with a couple of renowned international publishing houses until she decided to strike out on her own. Today she dabbles in art, training trainers, authoring, and counsels educational and publishing entities. In the last five years of her professional career, she has launched 111 educational titles, 33 CDs and digital products, a language lab and a website. She has also developed and edited over 450 books over the last thirteen years. Resident editor with Readomania.com, Sutapa is an Honours scholar from Tagore’s Visvabharti University, Santiniketan and holds a teaching as well as a masters degree in English Literature. Recently she has co-authored and edited, 'Crossed&Knotted, India’s first composite novel' and edited 'Chronicles of Urban Nomads, A collection of unputdownable stories' both published by Readomania.

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    Crossed & Knotted - Sutapa Basu

    Introduction

    Have you ever seen a coral reef shining through crystal clear waters? Isn't it amazing to know that the brilliant blues, fluorescent greens and bright pinks are created by thousands of tiny sea organisms merging together? Though each individual element lives on its own, they join together to recycle themselves into one single ecosystem that is a wondrous feat of Nature; the multi-hued coral!

    A composite novel is exactly one such miraculous feat of storytelling. It is a novel whose chapters are in distinct shades of vibgyor arranged to create the magnificent rainbow. Each chapter can stand alone as a short story, yet all of them are arranged and specifically composed to create a complete novel with a beginning, middle and an end. When the story-chapters are read as a whole, the tension between the ideas of the individual stories and the conflict between opposing thoughts become clearly apparent. Through it all the protagonists evolve, affected by the passage of time and new events unraveled by each story. Because of these dynamics, the stories need to have an awareness of what the other stories accomplish. The aim is to create a circle whose two ends—the opening story and the story with the dénouement—must eventually meet after traversing a plethora of emotions, conflicts and resolutions through the story-chapters.

    Crossed & Knotted is India's first composite novel. Being an innovative genre, it is considered to be in the experimental realm and not many literary folks in this country prefer to go down that path. Even internationally, starting as early as the 14th century with Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to the present, composite novels have been mostly penned by a single author with only a few multi-authored books. Readomania, true to its vow of bringing unique concepts to Indian writing, has picked up the gauntlet and invited fourteen authors to write the fourteen chapters of this composite novel.

    The making of Crossed & Knotted has obviously been a game of unity in diversity. The close collaboration with which the authors had to work nearly made them feel like members of some secret cult. All the authors had to pick up threads from the previous story and weave it into their story. This could be a conflict, a character, or an aspect of the plot. The authors who wrote the last story-chapters had to constantly look back at the concluding story that was always peeping over their shoulders. There were timelines to be crossed as characters grew up from infants to adults. As the locales changed, regional fabrics too came into play. Landscapes and landmarks, histories of cities and countries, flavours and lifestyles had to be woven and knotted in. It was certainly challenging yet extremely satisfying in the end.

    The novel opens with Sudip Roy, a naïve, small-town boy tying himself up into a marriage of inconvenience. The plot thickens as his young daughter explores a mysterious diary whose roots emerge from an unlikely spot. The scene moves to war-torn Afghanistan where human courage wins over personal tragedy. While two air crashes stain the pages with pathos, they lead up to a rare possibility that brings hope to one and horror to another. Rebirth has a completely new meaning; Sudip Roy discovers it when a father and a daughter fight the war of morality.

    Crossed & Knotted is not just a composite novel; it is Ulysses' odyssey whereupon you embark on an expedition sailing to magical lands each exclusive in its unique attraction. You experience the wonders of each exploration until you reach the destination that finally resolves the conflicts that triggered your journey.

    Chapter 1

    A Curious Dalliance

    Sudip looked out of the window. The wall clock chimed eight but not a sliver of dawn cracked the darkness. The howling of the wind pierced even the double glass windows. The tall trees swung desperately bowing their bare, spiky tops to the storm's caprices.

    The turmoil out there perfectly mirrors my thoughts. This curious empathy somewhat cooled his boiling mind.

    Delhi was weathering its first storm of the new year. Temperatures were at freezing and the chill drilled its icy fingers into the bones. People had wrapped blankets and quilts over their thick woollies though the heating was at full blast in the large room. In fact, some of them glanced curiously at Sudip in his shirtsleeves and jeans. But he had been sweating profusely through his bleary vigil of the night before. The coat, hastily flung on when leaving home, was discarded on a chair. Even now he could feel a trickle sashaying down his back.

    He was in the ICU lounge of a renowned private hospital. There were at least a dozen more attendants of the critically-ill patients. In various postures of relaxation or sleep, they were spread out on the lounge chairs. The acute air of anxiety and tension in the room last night was now considerably reduced, simply because sleep had mercifully brought a lull. But for Sudip, there had been no respite from the tumult raging inside him ever since an unconscious Megha had been wheeled into the ICU.

    Sibilant whispers hissed at the small of his back.

    'Is that the guy? The one who came with that…'

    'Yaah! All over the body…the sores…'

    '… and the stink…'

    '… did you see the face…swollen…'

    'Eyes… just slits…'

    '…wonder if she was already gone…'

    '…his wife…do you think…?'

    They trailed off, as Sudip turned around. Two bulky bundles of blankets, scarves and shawls were sitting side by side in the last row. Only pairs of beady, inquisitive eyes were visible, following him across the room.

    Yes…my wife…

    The doctors who met the gurney had been brusque. 'Please wait outside. We will let you know.'

    Not that he wanted to be close to the festering and suppurating mound of sores and abscesses hardly recognizable as human; his wife, Megha.

    He had been sitting on the edge expecting a call from the ICU precincts anytime. The night had passed in fits and starts and now it was another day. Sudip was still waiting; waiting to hear his sentence. It had become intolerable. So he had walked over to the window to watch the storm outside, hoping for a diversion.

    The first time he had seen Megha had also been through a window. Nine years ago, he had been twenty one; thin; face more angular; hair curling behind ears; soulful large eyes full of innocent eagerness; a shy smile usually playing on his gently curving lips. There had been a boyish vulnerability about him.

    Circumstances in the last few years had altered his world view, bringing subtle changes to his appearance. He was heavier; a beard and mustache eroded angles and masked the softness of his lips; his eyes, still large, were inscrutable now. Cynicism peeped through now and then.

    That time, eons ago, he had been sitting at the window of his room and going through the manuals of his new job. Only a few months ago, he had arrived from Barasat, a suburb of Kolkata, to his uncle's home in Delhi. His uncle had been living in the capital for the last twenty years. When Sudip graduated with Honours in History, he had insisted that the boy take a shot at the position of a cataloguer with the American Library, in Delhi. His uncle had swelled with paternal pride when Sudip was selected. 'And of course, my brilliant, now-nearly-American nephew must stay with me,' his uncle wrote to Sudip's parents. They had been relieved. Raised in a large joint family of a small rural hamlet, they had worried lest Sudip felt lost in the vast city. His rudimentary acquaintance with Hindi would be another hindrance.

    'Now we can relax.' His mother had sighed. 'His Chotka and Kakima will take full care. Sudip can eat properly and live with our own family.'

    That evening, Sudip had just taken a sip of tea, when the hairs on the nape of his neck tingled. He was under scrutiny. He lifted his head and his gaze caught on the window opposite. A girl stood there! She was staring directly at him. Sudip had only just taken in her shoulder-length hair and yellow salwar-kameez, when their eyes locked and she smiled! Dazzlingly! Her dusky face lit up. Her dark eyes gleamed. Sudip's heart leaped into his mouth. He turned to look nervously at the open door. Oh my God! I am actually looking at a GIRL! I can't do that…I can't…It's not right! It's…it's…it's improper! What if someone catches me? Oh no! And what IS she doing? She is SMILING! At ME! How will I explain that I have done nothing to bring that smile on? He stood up hastily, his books dropping to the floor. Leaning out, he pulled the shutters and bolted them. The last picture retained in his mind was of the girl laughing! Uproariously! Head flung back! No doubt at me! What was her joke? Sudip was disgusted. And what kind of a wild girl is she?!

    Brought up in a parochial family with traditions of propriety and taboos, socializing between sexes had been strongly discouraged. Even at a tender age, boys and girls were expected to play games matching their diversified adult roles and certainly not with each other. When necessary, the men did converse with the correctly-veiled women of the family. But, even glancing at women, not of the family, was considered indecent behavior. At home, the only females, outside the family, Sudip had encountered were his younger sister, Shona's friends. And they would either hurriedly move out of his way, or turn their faces away to giggle irritatingly. None of them even dared look at him, let alone smile! Sudip had naturally assumed that this inclination to shyness, especially before unfamiliar males, was an aspect common to all females. And the only women, who were not this way, were spoken of in whispers, by the boys in his college. Yet that night, as he lay down, the girl's laughing face rose behind his closed eyes. Who is she? He wondered before sleep overcame him.

    The next evening, he unlatched the shutters of his window with some trepidation. But the open window, of the flat opposite, was empty. He read for nearly an hour and was about to close his books, when he happened to glance out. And there she was! This time in fiery orange, holding the window bars and swinging herself forwards and backwards. How long had she been watching me? When she noticed that he was looking at her, the full lips curved into a smile that seemed to hold something more than mere merriment. There was a hint of a tease in it, kindled by the sultry eyes. Sudip was mesmerized. The minutes ticked by. The primordial dalliance of senses played and bait was dangled on a hook. Naivety took a bite, the hook snared and prey was reeled in! With tremendous effort, Sudip broke the spell that held him captive and banged the shutters closed! Why can't I breathe? He was gasping.

    Yet, the next day and the next and the next, the open window enticed him inexorably. The very audacity of the girl, that had revolted Sudip at first, inexplicably fascinated him. On the seventh evening, Sudip bolted his bedroom door. Impatiently, he crossed the room to fling open the shutters knowing the girl would be waiting. And she was! They smiled at each other.

    She was saying something, her face stuck out, as far as the grill would allow. 'Do you have a name?'

    Sudip grinned at her teasing familiarity. 'Sudip Roy.' He had lost a little of his inhibitions, but a lot remained. There was a pause. Then he muttered, 'And yours?'

    'Megha. Megha Sarvarkar.'

    Sudip came to know that she was taking undergraduate classes at a nearby college. Her father was a senior engineer in the government, her elder brother, a clerk with the Ministry of External Affairs, and her mother, a semi-invalid. Sudip, in turn, told her about his family in Barasat. That he had grown up amidst a brood of cousins, surrounded by aunts and uncles. His own parents had been embedded somewhere in the intricate family structure. Nostalgia tinged his reminiscences of fishing in the gurgling brook that rippled over rocks behind their large, old, rambling family home; his mischievous dares to steal from orchards; devouring plucked fruit sitting on laden branches; running pell-mell when chased by the stick-wielding neighbours! He also spoke of his job with the American Library, acquired through several tough rounds of tests and interviews. And, went on to express his gratitude for Chotka's generosity and belief in him. 'I had never dreamt that I could get into the American Library. Everything happened because of Chotka and my parents.'

    He noticed that his sincere, unassuming words had given him a certain stature in her view. Looking down from that unfamiliar height, made Sudip suddenly dizzy!

    Soon they started meeting at small teashops and cafes. Accompanying a girl, who so obviously liked him, gave Sudip a hormonal high that was addictive. The mating dance thus commenced. Other than her fine eyes and an enchanting smile through which a little crooked tooth peeped, Megha was quite ordinary in appearance. Her dusky skin and buxomness prevented her from being a real beauty. It was her piquant vivacity that attracted Sudip. He hardly noticed her lackings. Her panache in dealing with waiters or auto drivers held the young man in awe. Besides, she was completely conversant in Hindi—and the ways of the city; still a mystery for Sudip. In short, he adored her for all that he found missing in himself.

    Once, while they were sitting in a café, there was a sudden downpour. It didn't let up till darkness fell. As Sudip pondered excuses to give at home, he pointed to her damp hair. 'What will you tell your parents?'

    Casually pushing back a wisp, she shrugged, 'Oh, I will make up an excuse. Maybe a bus strike…a friend's party…a traffic jam…water logging.'

    Sudip just loved her nonchalant stance. And never thought of questioning the kind of liberty she seemed to enjoy at home. In fact she took him to her other friends; both boys and girls. Sudip was intrigued by the bold, jeans-clad girls incessantly chattering about fashion, films and boyfriends. They accepted Sudip as Megha's boyfriend. Occasionally the boys' easy back-slapping familiarity with Megha annoyed Sudip. Yet, having been friendless so long in the city, it felt good to belong to a peer group.

    One evening, Sudip returned home to find a letter from his father that ended with an exhortation to him,

    '…there will be many distractions in a big city. But I know that you will avoid them and dedicate yourself to your new job. There is much to learn, so don't miss any opportunity to do so. Also, never forget your roots and your family…'

    Sharp guilt pierced through his happiness. What am I doing? Is Baba's faith in me justified? Then and there, he decided that his meandering must stop. That evening he hardened his heart and kept the shutters latched. He read till he heard Chotka enter. Then he went down to dinner.

    Chotka, Kakima, his young cousin and Sudip were about to start eating when the doorbell rang. His uncle got up and opened the door.

    'Yes?' Sudip heard him inquire politely.

    'Can I come in?' A familiar voice! Sudip nearly fell off his chair. Stunned he looked at the door as Megha entered. She looked furious. 'I want to speak to your nephew.' The tone was ominously quiet.

    Confused, his uncle's reply was involuntary. 'Yes.' And then gathering his wits, 'But who are you?'

    'I am Megha Sarvarkar. I live next door. Your nephew is going to marry me!' It was a calm announcement.

    Sudip was utterly taken aback. Never in all his short life had he come across such outrageous statements from anyone, let alone a young girl!

    His Chotka looked speechlessly from Megha to Sudip, who had suddenly petrified into a stone figure with a dropped jaw and glazed eyes. It was his aunt who broke the pregnant silence by a shriek,'Sudip!'

    Jumbled words and images flashed across Sudip's mind with a repetitive refrain. Marry? When did I say that? What is she talking about?

    Megha ignored everyone and looked directly at Sudip. 'Why did you close the window?'

    Sudip was silent.

    'Answer me!' Her voice had risen.

    Sudip stammered. 'No I…I was working…no the window…'

    'Keep it open!' snapped Megha. And turning on her heel, she marched out of the door.

    For about ten full minutes nobody spoke and then his uncle and aunt both began. 'What is happening?'

    'Do you know her?'

    'What window has to be opened?'

    'Sudip, your mother will have a heart attack!'

    'Are you going to marry her?' This last one was from his small cousin who was agog with excitement at this unexpected entertainment.

    Sudip sat holding his head in his hands and stared at the tablecloth. His uncle exploded, 'Sudip, look at me!'

    Sudip pushed his chair back and ran upstairs, banging the door of his room. Tears of embarrassment and humiliation ran down his cheeks. He lay on his bed and kept playing the scene over and over in his mind. Why did she have to come here and expose him in this way? So many times he had explained to her about his family's strictures. While there was anger at her intrusion, a grudging sense of admiration underpinned it. She has the guts! She just said it…whatever she wanted to say, didn't she? Yet confusion still clouded his thoughts. They had never discussed marriage. Why did she say that, then?

    By next morning his father's words had been completely deleted from his memory. Overnight he had taken the decision. It is my life! I will live it as I want to, not as Baba-Ma or Chotka or anyone else wants! I will marry Megha when she completes BA. And why not? She is modern, smart and so daring! A new Sudip went down to breakfast.

    His uncle asked him point-blank. 'Do you have a relationship with that girl?'

    Megha's bravado gave Sudip the temerity to announce to his uncle, 'Yes. We have decided to get married.'

    His uncle and aunt cajoled him, coaxed him and ticked off all the reasons why he should not. Sudip was silent till his aunt aired her opinion, 'The girl has no modesty. How can any girl walk into a strange home, so late at night, and announce that she will marry the son? She has no decorum, no sensibilities. She will not fit into our family. Besides she is Marathi!'

    Sudip's response was heated and passionate. 'She is modern. Not like people from Barasat. I don't want to marry girls with old ideas. I will marry only Megha. So what, if she is Marathi? You are Assamese and look at you! Can anyone be more Bengali? She will change too.'

    Eventually, his uncle was forced to inform his parents of Sudip's strange obsession and adamancy. Prashant and Karuna Roy, his parents, descended post haste on the scene. The more the Roys tried to dissuade Sudip, the more mulish he became. By then Sudip had convinced himself, that he and Megha were the quintessential lovers whose bond grows stronger with every opposition. Peace and harmony took wing from the home.

    Surprisingly, this incident altered the equation between Megha and Sudip, too. Though there had been no formal proposal, they took it for granted that they were marrying. Another subtle adjustment occured; now Megha took all decisions and Sudip gamely followed her lead. She began giving Sudip advice on all matters; what to wear; how to counter his parents; how to speak. Sudip became an adoring disciple. He only took umbrage when the boys got too familiar with Megha. Then there were heated exchanges.

    So busy was Sudip in marking territory that he didn't realize when Megha had succeeded in her coup. Maybe, a few years of going out with Megha would have brought Sudip to his senses; how little his fantasy matched fact. But that was not to be.

    He returned one evening, with glad tidings that he had been promoted to a supervisory position. 'Now, I have to set up cataloguing units at the Library branches in different cities.'

    Chotka was elated and the family heaved a sigh of relief. But, Sudip was heartbroken. Megha did say that she wanted to accompany him but didn't seem too perturbed. Instead she consoled Sudip, 'We can now write love letters, like in the movies.' Secretly, she welcomed the physical distance and freedom. She was quite tired of his possessiveness.

    The next year, Sudip spent time entirely in different cities. His enthusiastic energies were consumed by his work, as well as by the long, passionate letters written every week. To his dismay, he hardly received a letter a month. Telephone calls were even rarer. Of course, Sudip could not call at her home number.

    Consequently their love story progressed solely through Sudip's fantasies during the lonely days and nights. Sometimes it would strike him. Was she was too busy with her friends? And red hot rods would instantly pierce into him!

    One day abruptly, the rhythm changed. Frequent letters from Megha started arriving. Not loving epithets, but a letter every other day. And all of them were marked by a curious urgency to fix the wedding date. Sudip was mystified, but did not want to question it. He was content to know she was eager to start life with him. Instantly, he followed up with calls to the HQ to transfer him back to Delhi, preceding a home leave.

    At home, a storm of protests met Sudip's appeal to propose an alliance to Megha's father. But soon it sunk in, that nothing would budge him. Finances were tight as his father had recently bought the house at Barasat after retirement. So it was decided that Sudip and Megha would marry after twelve months. Contrary to tradition, the proposal was taken from the boy's to the girl's home. Megha had insisted on this. Due diligence was done by Chotka, though it left a bitter aftertaste, thanks to Mr Sarvarkar's pomposity.

    When she got to know the date, Megha broke into hysterics. She heatedly commanded Sudip, 'You have to marry me within the next ten days! I will not wait.'

    Uncharacteristically, Sudip put his foot down and told her in no uncertain tone that he would not acquiesce. 'My father wants that date. And I believe he is right.' She banged the phone down.

    A few days later, Mr Sarvarkar called Prashant Roy, 'Megha is very depressed. In fact she is ill. Sudip was very rude, you see. Why don't you and I decide?' Consequently, every decision was taken by him, bulldozing through Prashant's objections. Finally, Sudip's father had to go in for a bank loan and the date was advanced by four months.

    Tantrums, such as these, did make Sudip pause once and take stock. A little, red devil leaped up and down inside him; Are you sure she is the right choice? Yet, to admit now, that he had erred, would be too much of a drubbing for his ego, so he quashed the little horned creature.

    Back in Delhi, Megha's captivating smile trounced all his doubts in a trice. Of course, she was the right girl for him. And nobody else! Megha would come over every evening when he returned from office. They would chat in his room sharing the tea and snacks made by his aunt. Sudip ignored his Chotka's and Kakima's frowns. He was in seventh heaven and did not want the pink clouds to disperse.

    One Sunday, Megha took him shopping. She wanted to select the wedding ring. Traditionally, Sudip was to gift it to her on their first night together. 'You see, all my family will gauge your worth by the ring. So I need to choose it.' It was a bald excuse, Sudip discovered, when the worth burned quite a large hole in his pocket.

    The little devil did pipe up again. How altruistic! But Sudip shushed it.

    The wedding day dawned bright and sunny. Conches blew and uluvera reverberated through Sudip's home. Relatives flocked. Amidst much teasing and laughter, Sudip was the nucleus of the various wedding rituals. Towards evening, the sky threateningly darkened. The auspicious sandalwood was still damp on Sudip's forehead, when a vicious storm blew out of nowhere. The festive tents were torn off. People ran for shelter from the torrential rain. Chotka, accompanying the customary turmeric and gifts for the bride, had a narrow escape on his way to Kolkata, where the Sarvarkars had put up. His car just missed being hit by a huge uprooted peepal.

    The bridegroom's party could not start for the venue until the cyclone had abated. Is this an omen? What darkness to befall a new beginning! Such and more were the grey thoughts chasing through Sudip's mind.

    By the time the groom sat at the sacred fire it was well after midnight and long past the auspicious hour. The priest hurried through the wedding. The little red devil kept whispering superstitious portents, but Sudip steadfastly wore a smile.

    On the nuptial night, Sudip proffered the ring. He had expected, at least some coyness. Megha just slipped it on; as though it had always graced her finger and she had only loaned it to Sudip for this ceremony.

    After a long day meshed-in by relatives, now they were finally alone. Sudip's throat suddenly felt dry. Casually Megha looked around the room. 'Have you bolted the door? Please switch the light off, will you?' Her tone was cool whereas Sudip was sweating. Sudip hurriedly went about the jobs. In the darkness, he lay

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