Literary Pursuit (Short Story)

Heartstrings

Photo Courtesy: Pexels.com

BY PRAMITA BOSE

The invocation was on. And a slight nip in the heavy dewy air was slowly melting into a warm sunshine that brightened the sky to beckon a hectic day ahead. Rows of high-school pupils alongside the school choir with hymn books in hands continued to sing along to the melodic tunes, played on the piano keys by the music teacher Mr. Boris McKenzie. Someone had rightly said...the Gospel music has its own rejuvenating magical allure to cast a spell around. It’s spiritual and embalming, and even acts as an elixir to a certain degree. Often it’s administered to soothe the distressed hearts with undercurrents of devotional sedatives injected inside.

Post the early morning prayer at the assembly hall, the bell rang for the first period to commence. The time table read Library. Surely, it’s Monday — the first working weekday after a relaxed and fun-filled weekend. So, naturally, the vacant minds needed to be reloaded with reams of enriching knowledge. Quite a similar scholastic theory applied in Dickens’s (noted English author Charles Dickens) Hard Times, many would agree. Well, no sooner the alert-alarm was sounded out than a batch of 51 students in green skirts and white shirts promptly made an urgent beeline outside its own classroom to head for the reading session. A wide rectangular wooden tablet embossed with the obvious words ‘Silence Please’ in bold highlight glistened brightly across the library door, as if to dictate the surrounding ambience, which seemed to immediately settle into a shroud of stillness from a ripple of noisy chatter. Quietly, the teenage girls crept into the spacious chamber to take their respective seats. The teacher-in-charge of the period — Mrs. Sudha Pillai — was busy at her desk, scribbling on a sheet of paper. Noticing another class trickling in to agitate the atmosphere of the serene zone a bit, she lifted her head up to look through a pair of thick-rimmed glasses firmly reclined on her nose-bridge.

“Ssshhhhh,” she whispered to discipline the ever-chirpy maidens, peering from beyond the frame of her spectacles. After wishing them all a steady, yawn-less ‘good morning’ (because in most cases, the drawling indolent tone switches on the snooze button), she registered their individual attendance and instructed them to browse books from several shelves, orderly arranged according to genres in fiction and non-fiction categories. While a bevy of sprightly lasses huddled up in a nook to discuss in hushed voices what to pick and what not to, the rest had confidently opted for what they already wanted and plonked themselves down back into the chairs to bury their heads into a fantasy world.

Books are an easy escape route to get transported to a different time and space, aren’t they? For Seema, certainly it is. She resumed reading Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, which she couldn’t finish off at home, thanks to the crucial Maths test for which she has been diligently preparing under her private tutor’s guidance. With only a few good pages left to flip through, the 14-yearold sensitive heart could no longer hold her horses to reach the end of the story. Adolescence has its own ways of dealing with things, especially the matters of the heart, its amorous emotions, which are never easy to contain in. A suspense-thriller will send the pulse rate racing but a Victorian romance of four sisters’ coming-of-age escapades is bound to cause a flurry of glees and aches on a fluctuating graph. Try and trace this track and one will definitely map out a path, undulated with intermittent crests and troughs.

Gradually, Seema was absorbing the saga like a soaked sponge, until the bus-engine on wheels, sound of tram bells and the tinkling of rickshaws on a bustling Kolkata street penetrated her focus from a distance at regular intervals. After a point, even that vehicular buzz seamlessly blended with her reading rhythm in tandem. The time was middle-March and the beautiful spring has just set in with its full blooming blossoms and fruity sprouts like a preening peacock. As they say, once a romantic, always a romantic. More so, a tween will know it better. Considering Seema’s age and stage of mental maturity, it is pretty understandable that she would float on her cloud of dreams and conjure up an imagery of her desirable love nest. Till the bubble of this la-la land bursts, a love-thirsty heart will reasonably pine for a soulmate before it turns lovelorn with the blows of a mundane life, harsh realities and daily travails.

Closing the book, she spared a moment for Soumen. Suddenly his face flickered across her mind. Does he too think of her this way — in a fleeting trice of respite, amidst disjointed thoughts and his daily chores? Not really, she guessed. And why would he? It was only a casual encounter and no premeditated assignation like what usually happens between two love doves ever took place amid them. He being a boy from her neighbouring school and she, just another girl from the adjacent academic precinct — that’s all. No sparks were meant to fly and set their hearts aflutter! One fine afternoon, the so-called ‘brother-sister’ (sic!) institutions liaised on a creative exhibition forum to communicate and exchange their ideas and opinions. Till here, no harm done or has it already? May be a light tremble of resonating feeling — nothing more nothing less.

He was immersed in his complex science-models, explaining their salient features, functions and significant nitty-gritty to her and her classmates circling around. In the process, he had however, kept carefully stealing a glance at her with his bright eyes every now and then, only to gauge how attentive she was to his serious talks. Following his deliberation, his invigilating teacher called him out along with the other candidates of his group and it is at that point that Seema came to know his name for the first time. Much later, she coaxed one of her classmates Nikita Mehra, whose boyfriend Devendra Gupta happened to be Soumen’s batchmate from the same section, to filter out a bit of dope on the boy in question. The girl in turn did pass down some useful information to her about Soumen’s nature, which had soothed her nagging heart to a great extent. It’s difficult to fathom and assess what exactly had raised her palpitation then....but his neat, smart presence in school uniform (navy blue trouser with white shirt and blue tie), his suave charm and cool confidence, a disarming smile or his polite demeanour — either of these qualities was more than enough for her to hear the message, loudly and clearly echoing in her mind. Is he the one in life to forge a union forever with? ‘Oh! That’s too premature to conclude,’ she instantly shrugged it off with a shudder of her shoulder. But doesn’t he have all the makings of a prospective gentleman in the near future? A thorough one, she risked in imagining with a brief blush.

All the MBs (read Mills & Boon) she has devoured to date, does he match any of those hot-bod heroes, she would fancy late into the night? So what if he doesn’t. A man in life does not necessarily have to step straight out of a sentimental novel’s cover to make things sickly mushy and dreamy. Rather, he must be more of flesh and blood to fit into a mould of practicality, isn’t it, she logically surfed. After all, this planet is not the bed of roses alone but a path full of thorns as well. A die-hard fan of old English classic cinema and a Bernard Shaw admirer, Seema could have effortlessly envisaged her ideal man as a cross between the fatherly Prof. Henry Higgins from Audrey Hepburn starrer My Fairdry Lady and the friendly ‘chocolate cream soldier’ Bluntschli of the iconoclastic Arms and the Man. “A combo of elderly reproach of a strict master and an amiable request by an affectionate buddy isn’t a bad selection at all,” she muttered under her breath.

The bell tolled to terminate the 45-minute-long period and Seema was jolted out of her short-lived reverie under its shrill effect. The class got dismissed and it crawled out, holding new volumes in hands after returning the previous ones. After school that day, Seema peeped out of her school-bus window to revisit the nostalgic view when she had slyly watched Soumen gulping down the tangy, watery puchkas from the pavement vendor. The spicy-savoury, crispy balls, stuffed in with mashed potatoes, soury juice, black chick peas, chilli powder, rock salt, moodi (puffed rice) masala are a sheer bliss in every bite. And not to mention its pool of piquant tamarind chutney (sauce), of course. The smack of finely chopped mint-coriander leaves, ground chilli paste and red chilli powder is unforgettably heavenly. And the fabled tamarind water scores high with its essential ingredients of rock salt, roasted cumin and chaat masala powder with a pinch of seasoning salt to boot. The indulgence is enticingly tart and sharp at its best. The red chutney dripping from his mouth, his herd of pals kidding him with a candid banter, his bus driver calling them out to board before it whooshed away — all flashbacked in a sequence of slides, safely stored in her sub-conscious photographic memory. And it is not this audio-visual sliver alone she fondly remembered, other reminisces too frequently ferment in her mind to toy with. For instance, at the Lake Town coaching centre, she would have vaguely fancied spotting Soumen to drop in his younger brother Soham, a standard six student, for his Science lessons. From his conversation with one of the parents seeing off his ward, she could overhear that he too takes his Science tuitions, study materials and lectures from the same institute.

A class 12 board examinee, no wonder, Soumen’s final year at school appears more crucial than anything else to distract his attention and divert his focus from. A brainy student she knows will never allow a silly pitfall to snatch away his future prospects as the results must augur well for determining his forthcoming course and set his goal in the right perspective. That day, Seema almost bumped into him as she was caught unawares at the doorstep of Akash Home of Education when Soumen walked up with his sibling to say goodbye. The child hurriedly went inside, tugging off the satchel from his elder brother’s clutch, while the latter’s face gleamed under the faint twilight beam at dusk. Seema quickly evaded an eye contact before Soumen could cast a stare in her direction. Her lips quivered and she tightly hid the torn edges of her book jacket with a shaky, sweaty palm. The name-slip nonetheless, gave away her full name in block capitals — SEEMA GHOSH. Earlier, when she was a tad curious to know Soumen’s surname, then one autumnal afternoon, just before the schools closed for the Pujas, one of his school friends yelled it out from behind, addressing him as only ‘Roy’, which is anyways a common mode of informal exchanges amongst bosom buddies in close circles or better still, ‘partners in mischievous pranks’.  

On another occasion, she caught his glimpse, entering the nicely decked and lit-up premises of a wedding reception at a nearby venue in her locality, clad in a dark, well-ironed formal suit. The bespectacled look certainly adds a manly quality and sobriety to his overall personality and disposition, she had then introspected. But do all these sightings come with any special implication, she now wondered. Are these God-sent signs, strong and adequate enough to assert one as a soulmate, which in generic sense, bears a divine connect to it? Nothing seems to form a proper answer to her itching queries. May be, this is just an evanescent phase. Like a fugitive, this too will steadily vanish for good and evaporate like a waft of camphor someday. One has to grow out of a puppy love and its innocent fragrance. Even the high-school sweet-hearts may not often team up for life. They may cuff around for a while only to give out wrong signals to others and to each other, but inevitably fail to click and stick around forever. The hours flew by, days passed off in a jiffy and an entire week was gone ever since Seema had mentally weighed a futile possibility for her future.

As spring was in full swing, the fervour in the air was that of sweet romance and joyful festivity. Though February 14 is the universal Valentine’s Day to usher love in life, Indians normally celebrate Holi or Vasantotsav to bask in the milieu of amity, liking, regard and care in the month of Phagun. It is the most fascinating fiesta of colours, jubilation and happy harmony to sprinkle best wishes and a palette of passsions to shower over. It offers a convenient pretext to get drenched in wet gulaal (colours) or being smeared with dry aabir (colours) or even spray a jet of dyes with water-pipes or else wallop variegated balloons with a thump only to let the hair down and tickle one’s spirits with that tingle of an oh-so-coveted emotion!! Some crazy revellers also prepare bhang to drink and get a kick out of that concoction. In an upbeat mood, all would have left no stone unturned to either visit Tagore’s Shantiniketan in Bengal to participate in its famous spring fest, which percolate into a receptacle of global confluence or else, pay a rapid visit to Vrindavan, a town in the Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh, where Lord Krishna in his childhood purloined butter from his foster-mother Yashoda’s larder as a cowboy and made merry with his lady-love Radha as well as the gopis (cow-herd village belles). Well, this could be anybody’s ideal date with the purest form of amorous passion but honestly, how many can actually see their vision coming to fruition! Hardly a handful can be counted on the fingers, wot say! However, as they say, if God willing, then nothing can prevent the surge of waves from breaking the impregnable barriers of an encompassing barricade of boulder-rocks.

An official circular was dispatched from approximately five-six convent schools in the same vicinity under the auspices of a common church to host an interactive cultural programme in the form of a picnic to socialize and engage in recreational activities. Senior students, all from class nine to 12, were selected for the event. As it was a new session, a new academic year, the concerned authorities thought this to be a novel way to kick-start the cultural calendar. Seema along with her classmates knew no limits to express her rejoice. They squealed and danced with gay abandon like a bunch of wanton little kids. And the timbre of their fever-pitch exhilaration was ear-splittingly loud. Though Seema as a girl was a wee bit poised and sensitive by nature, yet she couldn’t check her pent-up mirth this time. She let loose her folded arms and her plaited hair to declare her ecstasy. She hasn’t felt so blithe and jolly in ages. She felt a light cushion of air below her feet only to levitate herself in mind high above from the ground level. The floor looked far behind, while the ceiling approached closer.

On the eve of Doljatra (Bengal’s Holi — the festival of colours, also the same in Odisha and parts of U.P.), when Holika Dahan is symbolically observed by burning the effigy of Holika, the demoness in bonfire (the ritual represents the triumph of good over evil), then a few chosen candidates from a cluster of adjoining schools and some situated in near proximity, tie ribbons of bonhomie and friendship on one another’s wrist. An essay competition was held prior to this aforesaid get together to cull the most suitable boys and girls for the purpose. Seema to her heart’s content, scrawled out her profound notions about peace and amity and how it binds composite cultures, races and people from different countries, irrespective of diverse religions, castes, creed and so on. Visibly elated on getting through with a tick mark in the box against her name on that crucial list, she decided on a traditional outfit to don on the special day. Yeah, it’s the assumed nine-yard drape to be compatible with the prescribed dress-code for the jamboree — the eternally evergreen Indian sari. The red-bordered yellow base, woven out of Bengal’s rural handloom will be no doubt, a perfect wear for such an auspicious event. “Ma gifted me this taant sari, earlier this Saraswati Puja,” she gladly gushed to her friends, unable to check her excitement.

The long wait with a bated breath was finally over and March 29, the preceding day of Holi arrived to live up to the impending affair. The boys’ school was equally enthusiastic about the imminent gala and an overly thrilled pack was already dressed in starched, stark white kurta-pyjamas with a hint of yellow in their uttariyas (a long trail of cloth twirled around the neck or hung over an arm), probably to denote the seasonal hue. The whole picture seemed kaleidoscopic as shades of lemon, ochre and chrome yellow dappled the crowd with a dab of colourful patches. Garbed in conventional attire, Soumen Roy looked dapper at the very outset to strike a lasting first impression. God knows if this Mr. Natty would suddenly catch a nubile young woman’s eye only to be ensnared in her net in no time. As it is, inquisitive daughters’ mothers are always on a snooping prowl to hunt this eligible beau out of his bachelorhood bush for the beloved apple of their eyes. Now, all depends on Cupid’s arrows to pierce whose heart and when. The boys’ school bus chugged out of the school gate, widely kept open by the security guard to head for the lush greens of Kolkata, the venue for the excursion to take place. Maidan, the lungs of the metro city, the open-air field with plenty of trees and a vast blue sky overhead is no less of a saddle of verdant nature, upon which, the imaginary medieval knights in their shining armour can take a breezy ride along with their darling damsels.

Seema stood in front of her dressing-table mirror, gazing at her self-image, reflected upon the transparent glass, as her mother helped knotting her sari and pinning up her crimson-red blouse to it. A maroon minuscule bindi on her forehead; two tiny gold rings dangling from her earlobes; a metal bracelet on her wrist (constituting silver, copper and iron as its chief components); a pale, muted lip gloss with matt effect to subdue any element of tacky gaudiness, lest it appeared unduly in poor taste — Seema looked a demure delight from each and every angle. Wish she gets her Mr. Right today itself. Did a whiff of air rustled that prayer against her right ear, brushing past her soft cheeks and touching her on a tuft of loose hair strands carelessly enhancing the beauty of her face? She is still a 14-year-old student of the ninth grade but girls of this age usually look extra graceful and pretty in a fabric, well-knit and intertwined with warp and weft yarns. Her petite frame is yet to elongate optimally and develop to its full prime while her tresses are tidily combed to fix up the white bel (Arabian jasmine) flowers in her round bun to lend her a ladylike getup and demeanour. She stepped out in a pair of snuff-coloured sandals with raised heels of thick soles and carried a nicely embroidered jute purse with a leather-strap handle to sport as an accessory. After reaching school at Park Street from her residence in Central Avenue, she and her classmates got onto the school bus, which shuttled them to the green turf for a rejuvenating spring cultural carnival.

As the contingent of each and every Alma Mater poured in at the expansive tract of land, the respective school management bodies exchanged pleasantries with their top-brass counterparts and the function was flagged off post a brief formal speech with Gurudev’s (the Nobel Laureate bard Rabindranath Tagore) oft-quoted poetic lines from his immortal verse, Where the Mind is Without Fear. The stage was all set for every participant to showcase his/her talent to a large gallery of spectators, thronged at the site. A bevy of young girls garlanded in orange marigold with their wrists girdled in white tuberose climbed upon the stage to perform a dance recital, which they had rigorously practised daily after school. Aesthetically choreographed by their music-teacher Mrs. Tanima Sinha, the piece was beautifully rendered by Seema and her peers under her strict supervision. As they performed to the lilting Tagorean ode — Rabindrasangeet ‘Basante Phool Ganthlo’ — to commemorate the multihued youthful spring, a pair of eyes thoroughly perceived its subtle nuances. How her hands went up to form different mudras, how the toe bent and pointed to form a certain posture, how she smiled and rolled her eyes to express the bard’s lyrical words — he gaped and dazed at every inch of the synchronised progress. Yes, Soumen was smitten by the overture, Seema had offered to a discerning gathering. He found it immensely adorable and much to his delight, difficult to control the inner storm intensifying with every passing moment. The programme concluded following a series of presentations from several students of other schools featuring elocution, skit-recitation, play enactment and last but not the least, Soumen’s reading from the renowned 20^th century Irish poet William Butler Yeats’ Sailing to Byzantium (a poem with a visually-enchanting appeal that uses the journey to the ancient Greek imperial capital city, now known as Istanbul in present-day Turkey, as a metaphor for spiritual odyssey) in his freshly cracked voice as the 17-year-old rested on the threshold of a ripening youth from his tender raw adolescence.

Post the cultural extravaganza, a recess for refreshment was announced from a line of erected, make-shift kiosks dotting the arena. Over hot cups of tea and tasty snacks on paper plates, the faculty, other trustees of the upper echelons and board members interacted amid animated discussions. Farther down in scattered clumps, under the tree canopies or below the parti-coloured, pied tarpaulin stitched with applique-works, chirpy school children in flecked finery chatted along and frisked around in flocks. Tucked a little away from this mob, there stood a mute Soumen with reticent patience to study, explore and ogle at Seema from a distance, who was advancing with a gang of girls. As the multitude dispersed, he made an effort from his lone corner to draw her attention towards him and yeah, he succeeded, much to his satisfaction. She moved up calculatingly and he too followed suit from the opposite direction. Unlike poles attracted and when the gap narrowed to make it too close for comfort, then Soumen averted the prying onlookers’ eyes (if any) to sneak out a chit of paper from his pocket and unfurled his handkerchief to camouflage his daring action. The scroll fell off on Seema’s way beside her feet and her heart initially skipped a beat, startled by this unexpected incidence. Thanks to his tall, lanky frame, Soumen fell way above Seema’s shoulders, which she could sense as he stooped low to drop the paper and pick up his hanky from the grassy lawns. While Soumen whisked past, Seema immediately lifted the light object in between her slender fingers and slid it inside her purse only to shelter it from the spying world and calmly settle down her ruffled and flicked heart-feathers too! She, however, mustered up the courage to turn back only to find Soumen releasing a heart-warming, disarming smile at her. He trotted ahead but his gait was steadfast and his stance, resolute. He uttered nothing but his mind had said it all. No words of flattery can suffice and substitute this gratifying gesture. Her heart was tangibly gladdened by this taciturn gift from his end. She grew weak in her knees and heaved a sigh of fulfillment, of great relief. It is priceless and cherishing forever, she knew from inside.

On her return-trip to school, Seema deliberately chose a window seat to read the first love letter of her life in silent seclusion. She carefully opened her hand bag to furtively fish out the missive, which she had been so desperately missing in her life for such a long time. She unfolded the crushed piece, creased and crinkled with lines formed under the impact of her grip when she had hastily shoved it inside her purse to conceal it from the world around. With an emphatic handwriting in cursive style, Soumen bared his heart out uninhibitedly. The blue ink from a micro-tipped pen flowed forth like a running river. Seema read it in her mind. And thus it went:

“Let’s be friends first and leave the remaining journey for God to decide. If He has brought us face to face today, then it is up to Him to plan out the future course. We two can only act out the plot He intends to script. I always thought it to be a mere coincidence whenever we crossed each other’s paths at various places. But today, something happened Seema…seeing you dance on the dais so elegantly! Oh yes, I forgot to tell you that I gotta know your name sometime back when it was pronounced as one of the dancers on stage and you stepped forward hearing the same, acknowledging the audience applause and appreciation with a graceful bow. The performance was worth praising I must say. Keep it up. Here’s my mail id: soumenroy@gmail.com for our further correspondence. Shoot me a mail if it deems fit for you. Even a blank one will enable me to gauge your response.

I know I’ll be keeping really busy with my books for the next couple of months or so, as this is a very important year for me careerwise, but in this e-age of constant networking, communication is no big deal. However, I’d like to touch base beyond those modern modes of mobile phones, texts and apps. Why don’t we adopt the old school method? Of course, we won’t fly pigeons with letters tagged to their clawed limbs but can certainly endorse the post office service to pen poetry, couplets and phrases to each other, wot say? If you like this idea, then do jot down a line at the mail address. I’d certainly want to know your opinion on this. Hope, your permission will be granted. So let’s begin a new chapter…” He left the letter knowingly unfinished for Seema to complete the unexpressed sentences, say those unspoken words, fasten up the untangled laces and clasp the loose ends from there on.

A relieved Seema delicately shut the letter up in her lap and stealthily put it back into her purse only to get washed away in a stream of romantic thoughts. She imagined a magenta box with a magical mirror fitted with a spangled lattice on the flip side of the lid. She unlocked it turning in a puny silver key only to discover a pile of letters, composed in felt-tip pen on coloured paper sheets with Soumen’s name written across every single piece. Her daydream got interrupted when the school-bus driver blew off a blaring horn to alert the gatekeeper to open the two large iron slabs painted in jet black with filigreed designs on top, holding a bar with the school name and its emblem embossed in a slew of bold alphabets with stylised fonts. Retiring late that evening from a hectic day at school’s special programme, Seema’s eyes literally drooped to hit the hay and go off to fast asleep as early as possible, when her restive heart gave her a wake-up call. “Will it be too late if she doesn’t send the mail tonight? What if, tomorrow never comes! Who knows the world may end tonight and culminate this very moment with an unforeseen apocalypse,” she speculated. So before everything soared to a climax, let her heart talk it up with his. She at once switched on her home PC, waited anxiously for it to boot, clicked on the Internet logo and logged onto her personal account to push the mail across. A blank mail with the id seema_ghosh@rediffmail.com got transmitted in a nanosecond to Soumen Roy’s mail inbox. The cool, meritorious dude on the other end was cleaning up his desk to arrange books from the Physics syllabus for his late night study. With the table-clock placed right in front of his eyes and the coffee thermos ready to keep him awake burning the midnight oil as he learnt, memorised and revised from the chosen subject, he pulled up his chair to sit when his eyes arrested the new mail entry under the ‘Check Mail’ menu on his laptop screen. His eyes sparkled reading the sender’s name and his face betrayed his thoughts. Yes! He did it. An inner voice screamed unabashedly, ‘Woohoo!’ over this achievement. With a victorious smile and without batting an eyelid, he opened the compose box of his account beneath the blank mail to reply with his residential address noted as: 69, Prince Anwar Shah Road, South City, Kolkata-70.

The next morning was like a fairytale dawn for Seema, who had now become a princess in her own make-believe realm with her newly crowned prince by her bedpost. At the crack of the first rays of the sun, she rose up, rubbing off her eyes. Cautiously drawing out the desktop from her cabinet to suppress any kind of noise that might disturb her parents in the next room, she sat on a small wooden stool to write a letter, her first attempt to that ‘someone special’ in her life. She carefully tore off a pink page from her slam book, spirally bound by an aluminium wire and started filling it up with meaningful notes of sweet nothings using a violet marker pen. Random expressions came to her mind as she emptied her heart out, replete with hitherto unreciprocated feelings. Since now the sluicegate was opened, the dam ruptured with a profuse rush to deluge her surroundings. By the time her mom knocked on the door, she was finished with the task at hand. Replying to her call, she pleated the letter with a lot of care and sealed it inside a blue envelope with a dash of glue. She then opened the right door of her cupboard and yanked out a pencil bag, which contained a handful of postage stamps she often used for sending letters to her grandparents, staying in Darjeeling. She pasted one on top of the envelope and kept the precious letter over a plastic folding-table surface. Drying the gum with the table fan, she turned over the envelope and neatly wrote the receiver’s address with a fluid calligraphic slant.

On her way to the bus stop for her school transport to arrive, she requested her father to halt at the nearby post office with an excuse to send a snail mail as part of a circulated chain letter to a pen friend. So before Seema alighted from the pavement to commute to the other side of the road with her dad, she posted her first love letter into the deep red cylindrical box stationed on the footpath to the boy she found most interesting in life to date. Prior to proceeding, she just looked back with a hope harboured that her letter would be delivered on time. Well we presume, love’s labour is never lost. This is just the initiation in the right direction....

***************************************************************************