Night fell. And those rice light strings hanging from the roof railings of the three-storied sizable house were gleaming as densely as vertically aligned with curtains. The coolness in the breeze calmed every nook. Sitting in her chair, Siajshee glazed out of her expanse. The casement window facing her profile was cloaked with white brilliant cord of tiny bulbs. Her work table in front of her with a desk lamp on it and a heap of printed texts and envelopes stretched out were close at hand from the smaller window. One of them read “To, Siajshee Adwah, Freelance Subeditor, Season’s Publishing House…... another letter lying across its edge addressed “To Siajshee Adwah, Consultant Editorial Board, Magenta Publications….and several others like them assumed similar state of being.

Staring at the solitary opening in the wall, she figured, “This is a bewitching place and I really feel that I cannot thrive without sitting here. It is my unhindered pleasure to be able to look out of this window and recall my polestar! However, today the entire vista is hindered as these rice lights stay hung.”

On a sudden, there was a knock at the door and a low voice of maid, Manju mai “Didi you have been called in the drawing room.”

Manju mai did not recede from the closed door. She waited and heard “I’m coming,” and left.

“Did you ask her to come to us?’’ aunt Suhago asked in a rising tone.

“Didi is coming,” replied Manju mai softly.

“She should let us know what her in–laws will like to wear. Vidusha and Visham seem almost helpless. How could they approve of this vile and foul marriage? They have pushed themselves to the backseat” she complained scornfully.

Vidusha and Visham were Siajshees’s parents who had to support this marriage even when the groom-to-be was not of preferred genesis but a man more of historical grit. If anything, Siajshee was in her thirties, old enough responsible for her independent judgments. Aunt Suhago was, wherefore, not alone to be murmuring against this wedding. The secret and evident talks at the wedding supported her inclination but this ripple was adopting undertones whenever and wherever she sat between the ingatherings.

“We would like our every acquaintance and friend to be invited for the wedding. We are not building a hideaway. We are by all means persuaded not to drive a wedge between us and others. We wholly believe in earthly and cosmic life. All skepticism frozen out, I feel I’m privileged to cherish both,” Siajshee had made a solemn statement to her bellicose father.

“I no more understand her,” said her father full of fight.
To her mother she had confessed verily “What thought of mine have been understood in this house ever? Very little. My deeds have remained with me. They were meant to reach out to all in the family.”

Though her mother had not understood what she meant, nonetheless she pretended hard as always and wished to be a solace, and thought from her part that the need was to console both the daughter and the father.

Siajshee cherished the thought “Its stirring! I have it in my mind. I am sharing an intriguingly mesmerizing kaleidoscopic space with someone who seems to be relying on my words, my descriptions, as if in no time.”

Of her childhood memory, something always joyfully twanged inside her when she saw elder women – her cousins, her aunties with her mother along – rounding up. This time it was different. She was still envious of her childhood, and this was different. She never thought that she would be so convincingly hasty in binding with her new mate like Ashim. How could one persuade a recent companion to meet someone unfamiliar whose aura she hasn’t met? In their conjoint essay towards an entrance exam, the journey had become an invasive aural experience for Ashim Vaday. She felt she wanted to meet him at the end of it all. The sojourn at Baragaon and the return, Siajshee had enough of occasions and enough of him to funnel a mind. They had travelled a long distance with each other and their fathers glued sociably, their purpose partook of the attributes. First, they were young and not unglamorous, second, they were being chaperoned by their fathers, third, they shared a past with a hint of an old friendship and fourth, not to ignore, they were aspirant microbiologists. Most certainly Miss Vaday was and Miss Adwah, though little prepared, knew nothing beyond this option then.

“She is tugging her knack in her head,” Siajshee could not help thinking.

Ashim sounded determined in her pursuit for a ‘well-founded prospect’; she had a list to recount and account under entitlement to her endeavors. Miss Adwah could not afford to resort to such a depository. She wasn’t sure about her wishes.

The situation out of which Siajshee and Ashim co-operated each other on this journey was born years ago when a fortunate stay of their mothers was arranged by their fathers. Ashim’s good-hearted grandfather had allowed a temporary space to young Vidusha in his own majestic extended family home at a time when she needed it the most. She had come to pass her secondary school exams in this small town where the affluent and the masterful grandfather, still left unpunished by the fate of hubris, was high and mighty to help a father who was escorting her meritorious young girl to an unaccustomed land.

“The place was pleasantly tuned to what I had never anticipated. Sunanya was among us, although she feared ending in failure, she joined me in contriving together for the preparations of exams. She would get cold feet and blood in her veins would throb when she would imagine about results and her keen claim in all domestic chores,” usually Mrs Vidusha would repeat the anecdotes with almost same words whenever she would be in her story-telling mood.

“She would accompany her aunties in their regular chores, prattle on and on. She was awaiting her marriage and that would have got spoiled in case her oversight dominated because a bridegroom who was a pharmacist and owned two medicine stores would like to have a wife who is at least minimum degree holder. We became friends from then on and somehow she managed her way out towards her marriage.”

“Two years later your grandfather finally got the pick of the bunch and I got married too. I was good at study while your father wished me to do the housework instead,” Siajshee’s mother would say in a comprising, fading tone.

Years later, Sunanya’s girl and Vidusha’s girl had joined hands for a train journey. But they parted ways after few years. However, before this journey their mothers had met and their chances allied.

“He is a Library owner”, she said at last.

“That is because he owns a library” Ashim announced indifferently.

“Yes and no,” she said

“Why do you say no?” Ashim questioned with an air almost perplexed and arrogant.

“I agree he owns a library but to all who are members of this library he says it belongs to everyone. I, sometimes, feel he carries the library in his head,” Siajshee was about to finish when…..

“Does he carry the library in his head? Ashim retorted.

“No and Yes,” she said

“How could a man be ….” thought Ashim and said nothing about her desire to meet him. It was Siajshee who was setting the stage of lure. The coming month quartered and in the first quarter, Ashim came to Patna to meet the Library owner.

“He is indefinable, believed charmer. He would definitely be successful. He would be able to affect her the way he accrued my will,” Siajshee held the thought within.
Rendezvous did not materialize the way Siajshee had thought. Siajshee introduced Ashim to Rajay, the known Library owner, in his matchbox-sized visitor’s room. They talked and soon Siajshee realized that the Library owner couldn’t impress Ashim.

“But why? He could have adroitly done the convincing. Plus, he doesn’t go beyond rational. Why didn’t he?” she said to herself and pondered over.

Library owner was a moustached man, had beards, in like manner, he looked sturdy, wise, and acted in a sprightly fervor, and there was more of him which was difficult to understand and explain.

Though recently, after her meeting with the Library owner, interactions between Ashim and Siajshee became more difficult by leaps and bounds. However, their mothers remained friends.

“We are friends who would not connect often but every situational gathering makes us walk down our memory lane,” Siajshee’s mother would often tell about their friendship.

Siajshee had come to the town of Library owner, Patna when she was in her twenties. She had come from her grandfather’s town, Lalitganj about forty miles away from Patna after bidding adieu to her grandmother who was taken away to her ancestors six months ago. She had accompanied her parents to witness the last rites received by her departed body. Though to a worldly-wise, Rajay and Siajshee had met years ago as schoolmates, their binding still seemed unworldly, a feeling that would be ruthlessly tested many times, a feeling which, however, would leave room for untried world all the same.

“She is no more. The first love of my life is gone. I cuddled her freely,” Siajshee had thought about her grandmother and cried, thought and cried, cried, cried, cried.

He didn’t know where the Siajshee was when he had come to see his grandmother who had her closed eyes all the time, all the time, no more awake, never, never. Her father had not taken her to him before she had left her and not even after she left. It happened few years after the Rajay had submitted to aid his grandfather’s last days but his grandmother left earlier than him with her two closed eyelids. That turned out to be a brief feat and his father moved to Patna.
Later in his life, the story of his grandmother aggravated his scruple.

“Did I ever live with qualm before I was irritated by father against his self – obssessed life?” Rajay said to himself.

Before his grandmother poisoned herself, she had lived a long helpless life. Grandfather and three of her children – two daughters and one son – discarded her. One of her daughters, Rajay’s mother knot was tied to the best pick for marriage, a junior cadre law enforcement agent who was esteemed to have been crowned with success in a family where as grandfather’s only son he breathed half-educated and jobless.

“This marriage was unquestionable accomplishment – a work-shy man on easy money with an eye-filling and obeying wife by his side” Rajay had told Siajshee in school as he had begun concluding contemptuously about his family a year after he transformed himself into a Library owner. He had some dispositive thought about his father’s daily laziness which he showed towards his professional work – going late for office and as much as possible dodged work.

Siajshee’s grandfather had earned profusely from brokerage of train tickets and built an ‘ambitious ambit’ of middle class dream – a two-storied house in a conspicuous plot between the busy alleys of main town. He had befittingly passed his sense of disdain to his ambit. He had partial realizations that a lady with “allure” deserved his extravagant awe and wonder more than the grandmother. And then the grandmother began to learn living with neglect and closing insolence. Moreover, grandmother was an illiterate mortal. So, she could never learn by reading about others’ opinion against negligence and nobody around her would talk or read about it to her.

“I remember,” Siajshee would speak to self after meeting his old schoolmate-turned- Library owner who was in his thirties “Her skinny face, protruding cheek bones that preserved her grit and gloom, her obliging silhouette that served all – her son, her daughter, her husband, her son-in-law – and her long journey to contrive her husband’s possessions. It was all centered towards others in her life.”

Then life gradually ebbed away to zilch when her children conspired against her rebellion and she was left muzzled from all sides. Her presence was considered in their lives – dull, abominable and pathetic.

Siajshee’s mother often said to Siajshee, “We stood by her. Your father argued with all others so that they do not demean her time after time with their bickering. But they overpowered all our motions.”

“These were face – saving measures which only feeble preachers create who reason out nothing and cling on to some repetitive conciliatory lines which precede no answer. A defenseless life is very demanding. It demands a breath of life from you to kindle itself. A lively rage against them would have saved her,” she said to herself and her mother.
Her father had kept her away from his grandfather until she mellowed to speak herself. Her grandmother passed away early in her life. She had begun to bear in mind the legacy of her grandmother’s lost faith and hope after she found her belief in the Library owner. Her grandmother was beaten by her grandfather and his grandfather didn’t suffer because of his grandmother’s pre-planned suicide. They had their histories in common which they had learnt in years of their company with each other during school.

Library owner was scion of proud and resourceful roots where honesty and gregariousness governed the lives of the independent members. Man of vivid imagination. He practiced life with his imagination. This is what Siajshee learned about him during his and her thirties – days into the ‘life of library’ and relearned more about him. Townspeople would say his roots were on the other side of the river Ganga. Few elders among inhabitants could talk about telltale signs of his roots traceable on the other side of the river which remained approachable by toilsome lone trail through the ferry by the side of the town. And for most of the people he built an easily reachable abode in the central region of the city, his library.

Words written on the attention-seeking bulletin board of the library were:
“Enlighten ourselves contemplating insights of good books”

“Am I making sense out of these words?” he asked once when someone appreciated him. To another man he replied “This is what my experience taught me, we see more number of readers of the books than the one who ponders over them.”

“He would not repeat his words on things he experienced, he had an inventive closet in him, he has hundred ways against all monotones,” Siajshee would think of him. He inspired her to leave behind her inherited stifling self.

The library had completed a year when Mr. Visham Adwah in his 50s settled in Patna. Few days later, he emerged in the visitor’s cabin and greeted young Rajay.
He saved the courtesy of the first talk and humbly posed a question, “Mr. one could notice that your name features nowhere in the hall or visitor’s room and not even on the board at the entrance.”

“If this library helps people make their lives better it will rejoice me more than anything. Many people like you already know this library and my name as well. I’m assured people like you would uphold my reputation as a Library owner,” easy words came from him in a firm and optimistic voice.
Mr. Adwah was glad to send his only daughter and his only son to the nearby library where the only monetary demand was an affordable membership fee.

“The young man appears to be good and knowledgeable; he can guide our children towards a focused career. I would ask him to give special attention to them,” in his mind Mr. Adwah weighed before persuading his children who hesitated to go to the library.

The library was a big reading hall with large open shelves fastened all along the walls with books stacked in them. At the centre of the middle wall, on a cream placard with maroon ink were marked words:
“No shutters, no doors, only open windows are permitted”

The membership was unrestricted. However, adults were too busy to bend their heads down into any of the works of literature, science fiction, biographies, general science, history or other genres of the collection. But there were few of them like Siajshee. The children were sent in numbers who could read sitting on the mats scattered in a free will fashion on the floor of the hall.

“The man of your choice is in lower ladder…how…I mean?” questioned Siajshee’s father with his clenched teeth in a tone expressing all disgrace, “How could this be acceptable? Wouldn’t you lead a below status life?”
“My grandmother also left me quite sooner than she should have. I believe she also had much life left in her and I owe my childhood to her.” Siajshee said sharply
She added, “ I know him for years. He is a man of courage and psyche,”.

These arguments from her mouth were of the type on which he always coveted the chance to beat but she had since long exasperated him, silenced him, leaving him with perennial undercurrent of indignation. As Mr. Adwah had begun diagnosis of her pained eyes that complained about a suffocated and crushed soul. His words ended in grimace.

The medley of books standardized through Dewey decimal classification was extended to readers in a way one would hold out faith and potential. He would converse about them in a way that a gracious woman would be enthralled by a gallant man. His single-eyed caution and benevolent authority would challenge people who hindered reading sessions of the members – composed of young aspiring beings and growing children. He would reason the points. His unflinching fidelity and discretion had variously allured all eyes of the town.

Siajshee belonged to a bunch of radiant callow girls. They waited for evenings when library would open for all school and college-goers.

Rajay would tell them, “Hold your unity in high esteem and foster your individuality.”

One of the girls would utter on his back “Is he going mad after his customary rounds of the library even during weekends? Can’t he see we are united? Aren’t we girls? He needs rest. Blabbering on with open eyes could be a sign of dementia, isn’t it?”

There were few others who would not disagree. However, when he would come closer to speak to them, all grudges would melt into his discreet gentility and fundamental questioning. They would encircle him to enable listening in awed silence. The motley members of library would share with him about their experience in the library and outside library.

That fateful day Siajshee was getting prepared to join her reading sitting when one of her friends came running to her room.

“Have you heard?” the friend gasped.

“What?” Siajshee questioned

“The Library owner is gone,” the friend replied.

“Is it a fun to you? How can he suddenly be gone?” Siajshee said.

Any rumor could not be as appalling as this fact was. The door of the library was left open and no trace of the man could be found. Nobody knew what lied behind. He was just invisible. They waited day after day but he was nowhere. Siajshee and other young enthusiasts would sit on the threshold of the library and express their speculations.
“Is he dead?” one of them submitted to the most dreadful.

Days and months elapsed and no one heard about him. He was declared missing in police reports with obscure signs. There were few around Siajshee who were appearing in lesser disquiet and lesser haste than the rest.

“Was my father one of them?” He has not hashed out the matter even once,” She was trying to clinch with it.

And that day which could not be mistaken to be like just another day. A man had brought a message from him that he was going on an expedition. He did not want to come back for library but had decided to say his farewell before he would leave. The middle-aged man in his crimson shirt and black trousers had come to search for the library and had informed the first person he met there. A silent hammering filled the air of the room and shrinking in the settee Siajshee was driven in despair and nothingness in reaction.

Siajshee saw the Library owner on the day of farewell party that was zealously disposed by the employees of the library with pomp and circumstance. He had reappeared before his proclaimed expedition. She could not say any word to him. At one point they saw each other and he was taken in convoy till the point from where his arduous journey would start. His expedition lasted for six months.

Old aunt Suhago was a newsmonger who pleaded for stories and when time would come be the first to resist all allegiance to such claims and rumors. She wanted to take hold of the situation when she summoned Mr. Visham.

“What else do you know about the man?” she asked in a commanding tone.

“Aunt I know little about him. I’ve met him once when Sia had brought him home. The man was smart and seemed mature. Then I didn’t know she wanted to marry him,” Mr. Visham responded.

Siajshee was summoned.

“Tell me what does he do?” Aunt Suhago asked arrogantly.

“Is that what you all want to know?” exclaimed Siajshee.

“Yes,” Mr. Visham said in resounding manner

“I don’t know how you will take it. …ok. He runs a library,” she said in the emotionless tone.

“Runs a library….ah? He must be earning well, after all you earnestly think of your fortune with him? Aunt Suhago asked

“Isn’t it right that there are many things to wrestle with in our lives? And, we two are intensely together in acting towards them and this feeling is in our favorable fortune,

That’s not enough though, he keeps pondering over innovative ways to make money. It is real pick-and-shovel affair to own a library in a rented house. He teaches sensibly to procure the necessary amount. Have no problem with this set of circumstances indeed,” She replied with sheer mirth in her eyes and solemnity in her vocal cord.

Whilst aunt Suhago kept motionless, father Visham was flustered. He wanted to stand erect at once and leave the two behind. But he alike ached for anything that he would adulate in this wedding. He bowed down thinking about ways to enable her get wind of the life. Life was something that he has inferred it to be. Finally, before pouring of any more words, Siajshee turned upright and walked past them.

“The Facebook just became a true janitor of this bonding,” she pondered over.

Years of schooling had caused plenitude of sharing of food, emotions, conversations, past lives, outlandish similitudes and anomalies, and decision of parting ways. Siajshee got enlisted in a new school in class 9th to gain vantage points in humanities from a renowned school for further studies. After being rooted in her career, she harked back to tumble to her school mates through Facebook. During one such forage, yes, two years ago, she dug through his name. It loomed in a search – she was over the moon. Before long, she had as well left him a message to groove on this act.

“Why hasn’t he sent a reply?” She would often think afterwards for days to come.

He laid hold of a response in almost a year. They began communicating on phone soon after. He was in Patna. In the city, there were few pet spots which recreated their childhood reminiscences. They doted on their companionship and wedding became a reasonable conclusion of this corporeality. During school days, she would often march with bunch of classmates to seek out for nearby eatery for some bites of her favorite samosas. Siajshee would often fetch copious chunk of money from her father’s wallet to spend in eatery. Rajay learnt about it from other friends. He would not be the one uniting with us rather he admonished me for exorbitant expenses. He was also consummate project bellwhether. He would devise project plans both scientific and artistic depending upon

“Often in project exhibitions of the school, he would represent our class with other representative students. I believe it became his acumen! But what I liked that he stayed a pretence buster, for us who would show their vanity. Well that was his wit. However, some of our classmates teased him to be too stern a personality, at times. Though, he was a young boy of integrity, “she thought profoundly.

“But what worried me was his early smoking and tobacco chewing habits which we had unwittingly discovered when he was in class 12th. Accidently, I had combed his school bag in search of a book and then these belongings…….oh,” she continued thinking

Today, sitting in a cafeteria, they have laid eyes on each other. Reckoning of present and future were in their minds.

“Why do you find me befitting? I have lived a lower middle-class life. If anything, you have breathed a letter-perfect middle-class life with your parents,” he asked her candidly.

She replied politely, “I have treasured your understanding and love for life. You have endured a good deal of terrible times in your life. I must learn from your life. Even though, you are independent now, I behold, you have seen your parents’ struggle. Your childhood and youth have been both poor and powerful. In addition, I have chatted with you. You know your discipline as if you have mastered yourself and I veritably admire your traits. You may not be a perfect person but your engagement with social reform is awe-inspiring.”

“I feel embarrassed to get such reverence glued to me. Will your parents ever be avid to our wedding?” he stated with his eyes rejoicing in an eager glint.

She was amazed by this undeclared glint even though the question was a challenging threat to their acceptance.

She presumed intently, “This time I will stop him from any expedition. What does he do when he is on it?” Then.

“Quite predictable! Though, my mother is a warm-hearted lady she will have issues regarding your social stature and genesis,” retorted she with no shimmer in her eyes.
“What sort of opinion your father will have?” He asked again.

“He will speak less and show anger more in his gestures. He will also withhold tons of issues about multiple ramifications of our relationship. I recall our school days with a vengeance after all such thoughts,” she made a quick reply worryingly.

His father ran an electrical shop. Although, his business was not kicky but his hardiness and fettle were gripping. Rajay had bespoken such attributes in school as well. He was kind-hearted and promising. His brainchild assuredly reflected his mind. The community people appreciated his endeavor and more students liked to enlist in the library. Siajshee has also often visited this library to meet Rajay. She had dug out his classes and she could not believe her eyes that he has transformed into a propitious teacher as well. She had then divined few months ago that he would like to marry such a sagacious man.

“He would inarguably remain my old friend unto my deathbed,” she deemed it to be sooth of her life.