Dignity

 

The Boy from Chetla Who Went to Russia

Samiran Ghosal was born in 1979 into a family that had almost nothing to call its own. His childhood unfolded in the narrow lanes of Chetla, in a Kolkata that was at once magnificent and merciless, a city of grand colonial buildings and crumbling tenements, of intellectual brilliance and grinding poverty, of celebrated restaurants and hungry children. It was a city where Tagore's poetry floated through the air, where tram bells announced the arrival of another day, and where millions struggled quietly to make ends meet.

His family lived in a single, cramped room shared by seven people. There was barely enough space to stretch one's legs, let alone dream. His father was an alcoholic, and his nights often ended in drunken outbursts and violence. His mother bore the brunt of his temper, suffering regular beatings, merciless rapes, behind the closed doors of their little home. The children lay huddled together, pretending to be asleep, listening to the arguments and muffled sobs. For them, night was not always a time for rest; sometimes it was something to be endured.

His mother worked as a cook in several affluent households. She left home early and returned late, her hands carrying the smells of other people's kitchens and her body the exhaustion of endless labour. In those homes, she prepared elaborate meals, cooked with ingredients her own family could scarcely afford. The contrast must have been cruel. She could prepare sumptuous dishes for wealthy families, but back home, feeding her own children was a daily challenge.

Samiran grew up eating rice starch, the cloudy liquid left after rice had been boiled, and potol biscuit (a small, ridged, gourd-shaped inexpensive bakery biscuit) for lunch. These were not delicacies but necessities. Hunger was a familiar companion, and food was never something to be wasted. Poverty had taught the family its own arithmetic: how to divide a little among many, how to make a meal last, and how to survive until the next day.

But Kolkata was not merely a city of deprivation. It was a city of extraordinary character, beauty and contradictions.

The morning sun illuminated the magnificent Howrah Bridge, its steel structure rising above the Hooghly like a giant sentinel guarding the city. Ferries crossed the river, carrying office-goers, traders and ordinary people between the two banks. The Victoria Memorial stood in pristine white marble, its dome reflecting the changing moods of the sky. The Maidan, vast and green, offered a welcome escape from the congestion of the streets. Football matches, horse-drawn carriages and groups of young men arguing over politics were all part of its daily theatre. The Kolkata Race Course, with its sweeping green turf and magnificent thoroughbreds, offered a glimpse of the city's colonial inheritance. Horse racing was a distinctly British pastime, and one of its curious traditions was the practice of placing bets by studying the horses' droppings, sometimes even pressing them to judge their freshness and consistency—a rather earthy ritual that had survived the grandeur of the sport. The trams moved leisurely through the city, their bells ringing with an almost nostalgic charm. Yellow taxis darted through traffic, buses competed for every inch of road, and hawkers announced their wares in voices that seemed to belong to Kolkata itself. The smell of freshly fried telebhaja mingled with the aroma of roadside tea. College Street was a universe of books, where knowledge could be bought for a few rupees and intellectual arguments could continue for hours over cups of coffee. The old mansions of North Kolkata, with their elaborate balconies and fading grandeur, carried stories of another age.

During Durga Puja, the city transformed itself. Streets glittered with lights, magnificent pandals emerged from neighbourhoods, and the rhythmic beat of the dhak filled the air. The city celebrated with an exuberance that seemed to suspend the realities of everyday life. Even the poorest households found ways to participate in the festivities. Kolkata had an extraordinary capacity to celebrate life, despite everything that life denied its people.

It was in this city that Samiran attended a modest corporation school. Its classrooms were ordinary, its benches worn by generations of deprived children, and its facilities far from impressive. Yet, within those unpretentious walls, a remarkable possibility was taking shape. Samiran was one among hundreds of children who came from humble backgrounds. Nobody could have guessed that this little boy, whose family struggled to afford a proper meal, would soon find himself preparing for a journey across continents.

Then came the unbelievable news.

At the age of just eight, Samiran received an invitation to visit Russia.

Russia!

For a child whose world had largely been confined to Chetla, the very idea of travelling to a foreign country must have seemed surreal. The name itself carried the mystery of distant lands, snow-covered landscapes and a language that sounded nothing like the Bengali he heard every day.

The journey promised to take him into a world completely unlike his own.

Imagine his first encounter with Moscow. The city would have seemed impossibly grand. Broad avenues stretched into the distance, lined with monumental buildings, imposing facades and elegant streetlights. The architecture carried the weight of history, with massive structures, ornate details and vast public squares. There was a sense of scale that must have overwhelmed a child accustomed to the narrow lanes and crowded houses of Chetla.

The heart of Moscow was particularly spectacular. Red Square, with its immense open expanse, was surrounded by some of the most remarkable landmarks in the country. The Kremlin stood proudly behind its fortified red walls, its towers rising against the sky. Nearby, the extraordinary domes of Saint Basil's Cathedral displayed a riot of colours, shapes and patterns. They seemed almost unreal, like something painted by an artist with an unusually vivid imagination.

The Moscow Metro would have been another revelation. Its underground stations were nothing like the ordinary railway platforms he knew. Marble columns, elaborate chandeliers, sculpted ceilings and magnificent mosaics transformed them into underground palaces. Even the act of travelling from one place to another seemed to have been elevated into an artistic experience.

And then there was the snow.

For a boy from Kolkata, where winter meant a light woollen sweater and perhaps a pleasant morning mist, the Russian winter must have been an entirely different experience. Snow covered rooftops, pavements, trees and parks. The familiar landscape disappeared beneath a blanket of white. The air was sharp and biting, and people moved about wrapped in thick coats, woollen caps, gloves and scarves. Their breath appeared as little clouds in the freezing air. Perhaps he had never imagined that water could transform the world so completely.

The Moskva River flowed through the city, its banks lined with magnificent buildings and bridges. In winter, the landscape acquired an almost dreamlike quality. Theatres, museums, concert halls and public monuments spoke of a country with a deep cultural tradition. Music, ballet, literature and the visual arts occupied an important place in Russian life. It was a civilisation that had produced some of the world's greatest writers, composers and artists.

Everything was different. The language, the food, the climate, the people, the architecture and even the rhythm of everyday life. For an eight-year-old boy from a modest corporation school in Kolkata, it must have been an experience of astonishing proportions.

Only a short while earlier, he had been sleeping in a cramped room with six other family members, listening to his father's drunken rage and his mother's cries. He had known the taste of rice starch and the humble potol biscuit. His mother had spent her days cooking in other people's homes, while his family struggled to survive.

Now, an invitation had opened the doors of an entirely different world.

It was not simply a journey from India to Russia. It was a journey from the margins of society to the centre of an extraordinary opportunity. It was proof that a child's circumstances need not determine the boundaries of his future.

And perhaps that is what makes Samiran's story so poignant.

Kolkata, with all its contradictions, had nurtured him. Its crowded streets, its intellectual traditions, its resilience and its irrepressible spirit had been the backdrop to his early life. Chetla had given him his roots, his corporation school had given him an opportunity, and somewhere beyond the poverty of his home, a door had opened.

At eight, Samiran Ghosal was going to Russia.

A little boy from Chetla was about to see the world.

And in that journey travelled not just a child, but the silent sacrifices of a mother, the hopes of a modest neighbourhood and the enduring promise of a city that has always believed that greatness can emerge from anywhere.

The Making of Samiran Ghosal

 

Russia had given Samiran Ghosal a glimpse of a world far removed from the narrow lanes of Chetla, but it would be wrong to suggest that the trip transformed his life overnight. It did not. The invitation had been, in many ways, an opportunity for various NGOs to showcase what they could achieve through their social initiatives. Samiran was one of the fortunate children chosen to be part of that experience. He returned to Kolkata, and to the same modest circumstances he had left behind. His family was still poor, the room was still crowded, and the hardships of everyday existence had not miraculously disappeared.

Yet, something had changed within him.

He had seen a different world, met people beyond the boundaries of his familiar surroundings and understood, perhaps instinctively, that one's circumstances need not dictate one's character. He returned with a quiet determination to build a life founded on discipline, dignity and good habits. This made creating wealth and a good life. He made certain choices early in life and remained steadfast about them. He never smoked or drank. He learnt to respect women, not as a matter of social display but as a personal principle. He believed in treating people with courtesy, irrespective of their social standing. These were not dramatic declarations; they were habits he cultivated and carried into adulthood.

Education became his next important milestone.

Samiran enrolled in the commerce stream at New Alipore College, an institution situated in the planned residential neighbourhood of New Alipore. The paid his own fees from private tuitions. The locality, with its broad roads, organised blocks, leafy avenues and comparatively quieter surroundings, presented a striking contrast to the congested lanes of Chetla. The college campus had its own modest academic atmosphere, where young men and women from different backgrounds came together with ambitions of building professional careers. The classrooms, corridors and common spaces were filled with the familiar energy of college life: hurried footsteps between lectures, animated conversations, friendships taking shape and the occasional anxiety over examinations.

For Samiran, college represented more than an academic qualification. It was another step towards financial independence. He was studying commerce, a subject that would introduce him to the world of accounts, business, finance and economics. But he was equally conscious of the practical realities of life. His family could not afford to support him indefinitely, and he was determined not to remain a financial burden on his mother.

So, from his very first year, he began giving private tuition.

The decision was not an easy one. He had to balance his lectures, assignments and examinations with the demands of teaching younger students. But the money he earned, however modest, gave him a sense of independence he had never experienced before. Every rupee mattered. It could contribute towards household expenses, pay for his books or spare his mother a little of the burden she had carried for so many years. He was no longer merely a child watching his mother struggle; he was slowly becoming someone who could share her responsibilities.

His tuition assignments took him into different neighbourhoods of Kolkata. He travelled by bus, walked through unfamiliar lanes and climbed the staircases of apartment buildings, carrying his books and notebooks. Sometimes he taught in spacious drawing rooms, sometimes in modest homes where a corner of the dining table became his classroom. He discovered that teaching required patience, discipline and the ability to understand another person's difficulties. Gradually, he became a familiar face among the families whose children he taught. His punctuality, polite demeanour and sincerity earned him their confidence.

It was during this phase of his life that another chapter quietly began to unfold. One of his students was Susmita De. He met her when she was in class nine.

Love did not arrive with the drama of a film sequence or the extravagance of a romantic declaration. It entered his life rather unobtrusively, through ordinary encounters, conversations and the gradual discovery of an emotional connection. There was something about Susmita that began to occupy his thoughts long after their conversations had ended. He found himself looking forward to meeting her, remembering little things she said and discovering that the anticipation of seeing someone could make an otherwise ordinary day remarkably special. Susmita came from a large family, with two sisters Sumita and Sanghita and one brother Arijit. Her mother was a housewife and father, a central government employee. Samiran very organically got mingled with the family.

For a young man who had grown up amid domestic violence, financial insecurity and the constant struggle for survival, affection meant something deeper than attraction. He had witnessed a distorted version of marriage and companionship at home. He had seen how a woman's dignity could be violated by the very person who was supposed to protect her. Perhaps this was one reason why respect for women had become such an important part of his character.

Susmita represented the beginning of a different emotional world. He was learning that tenderness did not have to be accompanied by fear, that disagreement need not end in violence, and that love could be expressed through consideration, patience and mutual respect. Extremely reserve and an introvert, he chose to reveal only a part of his family life to her.

His life was still far from comfortable. He was a college student who depended on private tuition to support himself and contribute to his family. There were no expensive restaurants, lavish gifts or extravagant outings to celebrate romance. Their world was shaped by the simpler pleasures of youth: conversations, shared moments, stolen glances and the excitement of discovering someone who mattered.

Outside, Kolkata continued with its familiar rhythm. Buses groaned through traffic, trams clanged along their tracks, roadside tea stalls filled with animated conversations, and the evening lights gradually illuminated the city's streets. For Samiran, however, the city was beginning to acquire a new meaning. Its familiar streets were now associated with anticipation, memories and the possibility of love.

He was growing up, not merely in years but in temperament.

The boy who had once travelled from Chetla to Russia was now learning the more complicated lessons of adulthood. Russia had not rescued him from poverty. His college education had not instantly secured him prosperity. But he was building himself, one decision at a time.

And somewhere between his commerce lectures, private tuition assignments and growing affection for Susmita, Samiran Ghosal was beginning to write his own story.

A story in which the circumstances of his birth would remain a part of his past, but would never be allowed to dictate the person he wished to become.

The Fragility of Life

As Samiran's relationship with Susmita gradually blossomed, he also became familiar with the little world that surrounded her. There were occasional family gatherings, brief visits and moments that brought him closer to the people who mattered to her. He was particularly fond of her younger sister, Sumita, who was only six years old at the time.

There was something disarmingly affectionate about the way Samiran treated the little girl. He never considered her merely a child who happened to belong to the family of the woman he loved. He developed a tenderness towards her that came naturally to him.

On one occasion, Sumita was running a high fever. She looked miserable, her little face flushed, her eyes heavy and her body too weak to engage in her usual childish mischief. Samiran sat beside her, gently touched her forehead and tried to cheer her up. When she complained about feeling terribly unwell, he gathered her into his arms and hugged her tightly.

"Give me your fever, Sumita. I will take it away. Let me take your fever and set you free."

It was a child's illness, a simple fever that would eventually subside with care and medication. But the tenderness of that moment was extraordinary. For a six-year-old, his words must have sounded like a magical promise. She nestled against him, perhaps believing that this young man could indeed take away everything that hurt her.

Samiran held her for a while, as though he could protect her from every discomfort the world might bring.

It was a small incident, but it revealed something significant about him. Having grown up in a home where affection was often overshadowed by violence, he had developed an instinctive desire to offer others the tenderness he had so rarely experienced himself.

Life, however, does not always honour the affection people have for one another. Sometimes, without warning, it delivers a blow from which an entire family struggles to recover.

Arijit's death came in the most devastating of circumstances.

It was a motorbike  accident. When he was eighteen, Arijit was travelling with his girlfriend, Sujata, when the journey took a tragic turn. What should have been an ordinary ride ended in an unimaginable catastrophe. The motorbike  met with a fatal accident, and the impact was so severe that neither of them survived.

Sujata was killed alongside Arijit.

The news arrived like a thunderclap. There are moments when the human mind refuses to accept what the ears have heard. The first reaction is disbelief, followed by frantic questions, desperate attempts to establish whether there has been some mistake, whether the information is incomplete, whether someone has confused the identities.

But there was no mistake.

Two young lives had been extinguished in a single accident.

The family was plunged into shock. The house, which had once echoed with conversations, laughter and the ordinary commotion of everyday life, suddenly became unbearably silent. Grief occupied every corner. There were tears, unanswered questions and the painful realisation that someone who had been part of the family's everyday existence would never return.

The loss of Arijit was devastating enough. The death of Sujata added another dimension to the tragedy. She, too, had a family, dreams and a future that had suddenly been taken away. Two families were left to confront the same cruel reality.

For Susmita, the loss was particularly difficult to comprehend. Death had entered her immediate world, not as an abstract idea but as an irreversible fact. The familiar presence of a brother had disappeared, leaving behind memories that would now carry an unbearable ache.

Samiran stood beside her during this difficult period. There were no words capable of repairing such a loss. No comforting sentence could bring Arijit back or undo what had happened. Sometimes, all that love can offer is presence: the willingness to stand beside someone when the world seems to have collapsed around them.

And Samiran understood that some wounds cannot be healed by words. They can only be accompanied by silence, patience and affection.

 

Love, Loss and a New Beginning

Time, they say, has a way of changing the shape of our lives. It does not necessarily erase the past, nor does it guarantee that every wound will heal. But sometimes, even in the aftermath of great tragedy, life offers us another reason to smile.

Samiran and Susmita eventually got married, although their marriage did not come about under conventional circumstances. Their union owed much to the intervention of Susmita's widowed grandmother, who took it upon herself to bring the two together. Perhaps she had recognised the depth of their affection, or perhaps she simply understood that two people who had stood by each other through difficult times deserved an opportunity to build a life together.

Whatever her reasons, she played a decisive role in their marriage. It was an unusual beginning to a relationship that had already weathered considerable emotional turmoil.

However, marriage did not automatically restore the warmth between Samiran and his in-laws. Arijit's death had left a deep and painful fracture within the family, and grief gradually hardened into resentment. His parents, overwhelmed by the loss of their son, struggled to reconcile themselves to the tragedy. Somewhere in their desperate search for an explanation, they found someone to blame.

Samiran.

He had gifted Arijit a motorbike when the latter was seventeen. To the grieving parents, that gift became the most convenient explanation for their son's death. Had there been no motorbike, Arijit would still have been alive. That was their reasoning, repeated with the conviction of people who could not bear to accept the randomness and cruelty of fate.

It was perhaps an irrational conclusion, but grief rarely follows the rules of reason. The motorbike became a symbol of their loss, and Samiran became the person upon whom their anger could be directed. His relationship with his in-laws grew increasingly bitter. The affection and familiarity that had once existed gave way to awkwardness, accusations and emotional distance.

For Samiran, this was particularly painful. He had lost someone he had cared about deeply, and now he was being made to feel responsible for that very loss. There was little he could say to change their minds. No argument could compete with the anguish of bereaved parents. But life had other plans for Samiran and Susmita.

Their daughter, Kamalika, was born in 2009, bringing with her the freshness and excitement that only a child can bring into a household. The little one soon became the centre of their world. Her laughter filled their home, her innocent questions interrupted their conversations, and her growing personality gave them countless reasons to celebrate the ordinary pleasures of parenthood.

In 2018, their family grew once again with the arrival of their son, Kartik.

The house now had the familiar chaos of two children growing up together. There were toys scattered across the floor, school preparations, birthday celebrations, occasional sibling quarrels and the endless negotiations that accompany bringing up children. Their lives revolved around school schedules, meals, homework, family outings and the little triumphs of childhood.

Samiran, who had grown up in a single cramped room in Chetla, now had a family of his own. The boy who had once eaten rice starch and potol biscuit for lunch was determined to provide his children with a childhood in which they would never have to measure happiness against hunger.

Susmita and Samiran built their life around their children and their companionship. Their journey had not been without pain. They had experienced bereavement, strained relationships and the bitterness of accusations. Yet, they had managed to create a home where affection and togetherness mattered.

Kamalika and Kartik became the two most precious chapters of their shared story.

For Samiran, perhaps the greatest achievement was not the journey to Russia, his college education or even his eventual professional accomplishments. It was the family he had built against the odds.

He had grown up witnessing a marriage that was marked by violence and fear. Now he had the opportunity to create something different for his own children: a home where love could be expressed freely, where respect was not conditional, and where childhood did not have to be spent listening to the sounds of domestic discord. The past had not disappeared. Arijit's absence remained, and the bitterness of his parents lingered. But within the four walls of Samiran and Susmita's home, another story was unfolding.

A story of two children, two parents and the fragile, beautiful business of being a family.

Samiran became fiercely focused on building wealth. Perhaps he had begun to believe that financial security was the only way to protect his family from the uncertainties of life. He went on to become the director of a company he was working for over a decade. He bought a plot of land in Bansdroni and, when the opportunity presented itself, sold it for twice the price. He subsequently invested in a three-bedroom apartment to accommodate his growing family, only to sell it later at a handsome profit. Property transactions gradually became a source of income, and he developed an instinct for spotting opportunities where others saw little promise. This way he bought a huge plot of land in the heart of Kolkata where he planned to build a factory of mineral water, agarbatti (incense stick) and an open garage.

But wealth creation was only one part of his life. He had responsibilities that left him with little room to breathe. For seventeen long years, he single-handedly shouldered the responsibility of looking after his mother, who was battling cancer. Hospital visits, medical expenses, sleepless nights and the emotional exhaustion of watching someone he loved suffer became an inseparable part of his existence. When she finally passed away, a considerable part of him seemed to go with her.

His father, then almost seventy, became his next responsibility. The old man was not particularly easy to live with. His rude behaviour often tested Samiran's patience, but he swallowed his resentment. He had made a promise to his mother that he would take good care of his father, and he intended to honour it. A promise made beside a dying mother's bed was not something he could bring himself to break.

The financial pressure was enormous. He was carrying the family's burdens almost entirely on his own shoulders, constantly calculating, investing, earning and planning for the future. By the time he returned home, he was often physically and mentally drained. His wife, Susmita, would be waiting for him, but Samiran had little left to give. Even their moments of intimacy became increasingly infrequent, reduced to hurried encounters between exhaustion and sleep.

Susmita tried to understand initially. But understanding, when stretched over months and years, can slowly turn into loneliness. Samiran was present in the house, yet increasingly absent from their marriage. He was building a future for his family, but somewhere along the way, he had stopped living in the present with his wife.

The inevitable had to happen.

The first indication came from an unlikely source: his four-year-old son.

One afternoon, the little boy casually mentioned something to his grandmother, who was still living with the family. "Dida, I saw Mumma's friend coming in the afternoon."

The grandmother, taken aback, immediately informed Samiran. At first, he dismissed the remark as the innocent observation of a child who might have mistaken an acquaintance for a visitor. But the seed of suspicion had been planted.

A little later, the boy repeated the story to his father, this time with an unsettling degree of certainty.

"Papa, I saw Mummum with the friend in our bedroom. He comes regularly."

Samiran felt something snap inside him. He looked at his son, trying to understand whether the child was merely repeating something he had overheard or describing something he had actually witnessed. Four-year-olds rarely understand the implications of what they see. They simply report the world as it appears to them, without knowing that a few innocent words can shatter an adult's carefully constructed reality.

Samiran was furious. When he heard the same this from his dying mother, “Please keep a watch on Susmita.” The possibility that another man had been entering his home, occupying his bedroom and meeting his wife in his absence was unbearable. His first instinct was to confront Susmita, but he restrained himself. An accusation without evidence could lead nowhere, and he was determined not to act on hearsay, even if it came from his own son and mom.

He decided to find out for himself.

Without telling anyone, he arranged to have a hidden camera installed inside the house, positioning it where it could capture the movements in the rooms during his absence. He went about his daily routine as though nothing had happened. He spoke to Susmita, attended to his work and maintained the appearance of normalcy.

But something had changed. Every time he stepped out of the house, he carried with him a single, tormenting question: What is happening now in his house?

He did not have to wait long. Technology, unlike human beings, had no loyalties to protect and no excuses to offer. The camera recordings began revealing what he had dreaded most. There was no room for misunderstanding, no possibility of dismissing what he saw as a child's imagination. The images were brutally clear.

Samiran watched the footage once. Then again. And again.

He must have watched it more than a hundred times, as though some part of him was desperately hoping that repeated viewing might somehow alter what had been recorded. But the images remained unchanged. The man was there, in his house, in his bedroom, with his wife. The familiarity of their movements was perhaps more devastating than the betrayal itself. This was not an accidental encounter or a momentary lapse of judgement. It appeared to be something that had acquired a routine of its own.

He watched in silence, often late at night, when the rest of the household was asleep. Tears rolled down his cheeks, but he made no sound. He did not want anyone to hear him. He did not want to explain why a man who had spent seventeen years caring for a dying mother, honouring an irritable father's wishes, providing for his family and sacrificing his own comforts was now sitting alone, feeling utterly defeated.

His mind became a battlefield.

He thought of the property he had bought and sold, the money he had earned, the responsibilities he had carried, the countless evenings he had returned home too exhausted even to speak. He remembered the promises he had made to his mother, the future he had planned for his children and the marriage he had believed he was protecting through his sacrifices. Had all those years of struggle meant so little? Had his absence from the bedroom, born out of exhaustion and financial anxiety, become an invitation for another man to occupy his place?

He relived, perhaps unwillingly, in Shakespeare's Othello. Like the Moor of Venice, he found himself consumed by the thought of marital betrayal. But there was a crucial difference. Othello had been manipulated by Iago, whose insinuations and carefully manufactured evidence transformed suspicion into murderous certainty. Othello mistook deception for truth and destroyed Desdemona, an innocent woman. Samiran, on the other hand, believed that he had seen the truth with his own eyes. Yet, like Othello, he was allowing wounded pride, possessiveness and jealousy to overwhelm every other faculty of reason. There were echoes, too, of other tragic misunderstandings in literature: the hasty conclusions in Romeo and Juliet, where incomplete information leads to irreversible consequences, and the destructive power of suspicion in Much Ado About Nothing. The tragedy of human relationships is often that people stop communicating long before they begin destroying one another. Samiran was no longer interested in explanations. He believed the recordings had answered every question.

But the deepest wound was not merely sexual jealousy. It was humiliation. The man had entered his private world, crossed the threshold of his home and, as far as Samiran could see, made a fool of him under his own roof. Worse still, his four-year-old son had witnessed something no child should have had to understand. That innocent voice kept returning to him: "Papa, I saw Mummum with the friend in our bedroom."

He began to look at his wife differently. Every ordinary conversation seemed false; every smile appeared rehearsed. He wondered how many times she had watched him leave for work, knowing that someone else would arrive in his absence. He wondered whether the family members had noticed anything, whether the neighbours knew, whether his own home had become a place where everyone knew something except him.

Anger alternated with grief, and grief repeatedly gave way to an almost unbearable sense of worthlessness. At times, he wanted to scream. At others, he simply sat staring at the screen, unable to comprehend how his life had come to this.

Yet beneath the tears, something darker was taking shape. He stopped thinking of the other man as a human being with a name, a family and a life of his own. In Samiran's wounded imagination, he had become the embodiment of everything that had gone wrong. The man had to pay. Samiran became consumed by the conviction that he had to kill him.

It was no longer simply a question of punishing an adulterous lover. In his distorted state of mind, murder began to resemble the only way of recovering a dignity he believed had been stolen from him.

And that was the most frightening transformation of all: the man who had spent his life protecting his family was beginning to contemplate an act that could destroy it forever.

The Stranger Who Saved Two Lives

Sometimes, providence arrives without ceremony. It does not announce itself through miracles or revelations. Sometimes, it comes disguised as an ordinary passenger, an ageing stranger who gets into a taxi on an otherwise unremarkable evening.

Samiran had begun driving for Uber after his regular working hours. The additional income helped him meet the mounting expenses of his family. But lately, the long hours behind the wheel had acquired another purpose. Driving kept him away from home, away from Susmita, away from the bedroom whose very walls now seemed contaminated by betrayal.

He drove through the crowded streets of Kolkata with a mind that was seldom on the road. The traffic lights changed, pedestrians crossed, buses honked impatiently, and the city continued its noisy existence, indifferent to the storm raging inside him.

One evening, he accepted a booking from an elderly gentleman near Gariahat. The passenger was probably in his late seventies, a thin, silver-haired man wearing a neatly pressed white kurta and carrying a small cloth bag. His face bore the quiet dignity of someone who had endured much and complained little.

"Good evening," the old man said, settling into the back seat.

"Good evening, Sir."

"Long day?"

"Yes."

"You sound tired."

"I am."

The old man smiled faintly. "There are two kinds of tiredness, young man. One disappears after a good night's sleep. The other remains even after ten hours in bed."

Samiran glanced at him in the rear-view mirror but said nothing.

"Forgive an old man's curiosity," the passenger continued. "You seem to be suffering from the second kind."

For the first time in several days, Samiran almost smiled.

"Perhaps, Sir."

They drove in silence for a while.

At the destination, the old man discovered that he had left his wallet at home. He searched his pockets twice, growing visibly embarrassed.

"I am terribly sorry. I seem to have forgotten my wallet."

"That's all right, Sir. You can pay another time."

"But how will I find you?"

"You needn't bother."

The old man looked at him with unusual attentiveness.

"What's your name?"

"Samiran."

"Thank you, Samiran. My name is Aniruddha Gupta. I come to this neighbourhood quite often. Perhaps we shall meet again."

Samiran nodded and drove away.

He had no reason to believe that the encounter would change his life.

Yet, three evenings later, another booking brought him to the same locality. To his surprise, the passenger waiting by the roadside was Aniruddha Gupta.

 

"Ah! My generous creditor!" the old man exclaimed, recognising him. This time, he insisted on paying the previous fare as well.

"You know, Samiran," he said, "there is something reassuring about discovering that kindness still survives in this city."

Samiran shrugged.

"Kindness doesn't cost anything, Sir."

"Sometimes it costs a great deal. Especially when the person being kind is himself unhappy."

Samiran's expression changed.

"Why do you think I'm unhappy?"

"Because you have the face of a man who is fighting a war nobody else knows about."

The remark unsettled him.

For several moments, he said nothing.

Then, almost involuntarily, he asked, "Sir, have you ever been betrayed by someone you trusted?"

The old man took his time before answering.

"Yes. More than once."

"What did you do?"

"That depended on how old I was when it happened."

"What do you mean?"

"When I was young, I wanted revenge. When I grew older, I wanted justice. Now, at my age, I mostly want peace."

"Peace!" Samiran repeated bitterly. "That's a luxury, Sir. Not everyone can afford it."

"No," the old man replied gently. "But revenge is often far more expensive."

The words remained with Samiran long after he had dropped the passenger home.

Over the following weeks, their paths crossed repeatedly. He came to know that the old man was a counsellor. Sometimes Aniruddha booked his car through the app. On other occasions, they happened to meet near the tea stall where Samiran waited between rides. Gradually, a curious friendship developed between the two men, separated by nearly half a century but united by an unspoken familiarity with suffering.

Aniruddha never pressed him for explanations. They discussed Kolkata, politics, sad songs of yesteryears, the rising cost of living and the peculiar loneliness of growing old in a crowded city.

One evening, while sharing tea in small earthen cups, the old man said, "You remind me of someone I knew many years ago."

"Who?"

"Myself."

Samiran laughed without amusement.

"Were you also a taxi driver?"

"No. I was neither a driver, nor a director, I was a schoolteacher. But I once carried so much anger inside me that I mistook it for strength."

"What happened?"

"I nearly ruined my life trying to punish someone who had already ruined my happiness."

Samiran looked at him sharply.

"Did you succeed?"

"In punishing him? No."

"Then he got away with it?"

"Perhaps. But I eventually realised something important. His punishment and my recovery were two entirely different things."

Samiran stared into his tea.

"That's easy to say when you haven't experienced what I've experienced."

"Quite possibly. Tell me what you've experienced."

And for the first time, Samiran began to speak.

He did not tell the entire story immediately. His words emerged in fragments, interrupted by long silences. He spoke of his marriage, his relentless struggle to earn money, his wife's betrayal and the recordings he had watched until the images seemed permanently engraved upon his mind.

Aniruddha listened without interrupting.

Finally, Samiran whispered, "I want to kill him."

The old man did not recoil. Nor did he offer the customary sermon about morality.

Instead, he asked quietly, "And what will happen the morning after?"

Samiran frowned.

"What?"

"The morning after you kill him. Have you thought about that morning?"

"I don't care what happens afterwards."

"That is not an answer, Samiran. That is anger speaking on your behalf."

"He destroyed my family!"

"Then why are you so determined to help him finish the job?"

Samiran stared at him.

"What do you mean?"

"If he has damaged your marriage, why must you destroy the rest of your life to avenge it?"

"He humiliated me!"

"And killing him will erase the humiliation?"

Samiran did not answer.

"Will the recordings disappear? Will your wife's betrayal cease to have happened? Will your marriage become what it was before?"

"No."

"Then what exactly will you have achieved?"

"He will be dead."

"And you?"

Samiran looked away.

The old man leaned forward.

"Answer me, Samiran. What becomes of you?"

"I'll go to prison, I suppose."

"And who will look after your family? Your son who is a genius?"

For a moment, Samiran seemed irritated.

"Why are you bringing my family into this?"

"Because you brought them into this long before you met me. You told me you worked yourself to exhaustion for them. Surely they deserve a place in your calculations."

Samiran lowered his eyes.

"I have two children, You know that, sir" he murmured.

"Yes, I do. But I want to hear it again. How old are they?"

"My daughter is older. My son is still very young."

"And what will you tell them before you go to prison?"

Samiran's lips trembled.

"I won't have anything to tell them."

"Precisely. Other people will tell them your story. They will grow up hearing that their father killed a man because he could not bear his mother's betrayal. Is that the inheritance you wish to leave them?"

Samiran clenched his fists.

"You don't understand what it feels like."

"Then help me understand. Does your little boy love you?"

The question seemed almost absurd.

"Of course he does."

"Does he run to you when you come home?"

"Yes."

"Does he ask you to carry him?"

"Sometimes."

"Does he fall asleep beside you?"

Samiran nodded.

"Then imagine him waiting at the door one evening. He hears a car outside and runs towards it. But it isn't you. The next evening, he waits again. And the next. Eventually, somebody tells him that his father is in prison."

"Please stop."

"Would he understand why?"

"No."

"Would your reasons matter to him?"

Samiran shook his head.

"To that child, you are not a betrayed husband. You are Papa. That is the only identity of yours he understands."

Something broke inside Samiran.

He covered his face with both hands.

Aniruddha waited.

After a long silence, Samiran whispered, "I have a daughter too. What will happen to her?"

"That is a question you must answer before you do anything irreversible."

"She'll hate me."

"Perhaps. Or perhaps she'll spend her life trying to reconcile the father she loved with the man the world calls a murderer. Why should she have to carry that burden?"

Samiran began to weep.

The old man placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Tell me about your parents."

"My mother is dead."

"I'm sorry."

"She suffered from cancer for seventeen years. I looked after her. Everything. Hospitals, medicines, doctors. I did whatever I could."

"Seventeen years?"

"Yes."

"That is a long apprenticeship in love."

Samiran looked up.

"What?"

"Seventeen years of caring for someone who could not repay you. That tells me more about your character than anything else you've said."

Samiran's eyes filled again.

"Before she died, I promised her I would take care of my father."

"Is he alive?"

"Yes. Almost seventy. He's difficult, sometimes unbearably rude. But I promised her."

"And have you kept your promise?"

"I've tried."

"Then who will keep it when you're in prison?"

Samiran stared at the ground.

The question struck him with a force that no accusation could have achieved.

He remembered his mother's frail hand resting in his, her voice weakened by illness, her eyes searching his face for reassurance.

Look after your father, Samiran. Whatever happens, don't abandon him.

He had nodded then, unable to speak.

Now, years later, the promise returned with devastating clarity.

"My mother would never forgive me," he whispered.

"Perhaps you know her better than I do."

"She wouldn't. She taught me to forgive people. She suffered so much, but she never became bitter."

"Then ask yourself what she would say if she were sitting here beside us."

Samiran closed his eyes.

For a moment, he could almost hear her.

Baba, what are you doing? Have you forgotten your children?

His shoulders shook.

"She would be ashamed of me."

Aniruddha shook his head gently.

"Don't presume to speak for the dead, Samiran. But you can honour what they taught you while they were alive."

They sat quietly as the evening traffic moved past them.

Eventually, Samiran said, "But what about justice? Am I supposed to forgive them and pretend nothing happened?"

"No."

"Then what?"

"You must decide whether your marriage can survive this. You may confront your wife, demand the truth, seek a separation or end the marriage. You have every right to protect your dignity and your children's future. But you do not have the right to turn another person's wrongdoing into a licence to kill."

"How can I live with the humiliation?"

"By refusing to let it define you."

"That's easier said than done."

"Of course it is. Most things worth doing are."

Samiran gave a weary smile.

"You speak as though you've solved every problem in life."

"Far from it. I've merely survived enough mistakes to recognise a few before someone else makes them."

"But the images, Sir. They won't leave me. Every time I close my eyes, I see them together."

"Then stop watching the recordings. Destroy them instead!"

"I can't."

"You must try. Every time you watch them, you reopen the wound and persuade yourself that it is still bleeding for the first time. You are punishing yourself repeatedly for something you did not do."

Samiran was silent.

"Tell me something," Aniruddha continued. "Why have you worked so hard all these years?"

"For my family."

"Why did you buy property?"

"To secure their future."

"Why do you drive this car after working all day?"

"To earn extra money."

"And why did you care for your mother for seventeen years?"

"Because she was my mother. Because I loved her."

"Then look at the extraordinary contradiction. You have spent your life working to preserve the lives and happiness of people you love. Now you are prepared to throw all of that away because of a man you despise."

Samiran looked at him helplessly.

"I never thought of it that way."

"Anger is a poor accountant, my friend. It remembers every insult and forgets every blessing."

A faint breeze stirred the leaves above them.

After some time, Samiran asked, "Did you ever forgive the person who betrayed you?"

Aniruddha smiled sadly.

"I stopped wishing them harm. Whether that amounts to forgiveness, I cannot say."

"Did you forget?"

"Never."

"Then how did you find peace?"

"I stopped making their actions the centre of my existence. I had a life before the betrayal, and I decided I would have a life after it."

Samiran considered this.

"And what if I can never forgive my wife?"

"Then don't force yourself to. Forgiveness is not an obligation. Neither is reconciliation. But restraint is your responsibility. You can leave a relationship without destroying a life."

For several minutes, neither spoke.

Then Samiran said something that surprised even himself.

 

"Sir, I think I wanted to kill him because I couldn't bear the thought that he had won."

Aniruddha looked at him.

"And what does winning mean to you?"

"Taking away what belongs to another man."

"Your wife is not a possession, Samiran. She is responsible for her choices, just as you are responsible for yours."

Samiran lowered his head.

The old man continued, "Suppose you kill him. You lose your freedom. Your children lose their father. Your father loses the son on whom he depends. And your mother's last wish remains unfulfilled. Would you call that victory?"

"No."

"Then what would victory look like?"

Samiran thought for a long time.

Finally, he answered, "Seeing my children grow up. Giving them an education. Looking after my father. Being able to look at myself in the mirror without feeling ashamed."

Aniruddha smiled.

"There. You have answered your own question."

The conversation ended well past sunset.

Before leaving, the old man said, "Promise me one thing."

"What?"

"Do not confront anyone while you are still thinking of killing him. Give yourself time. Speak to someone you trust. Seek help if the anger becomes unbearable. And remember that no humiliation, however painful, is worth making your children fatherless."

Samiran nodded.

"I promise."

But their conversations did not end there.

Over the next several weeks, Samiran continued meeting Aniruddha. Sometimes they spoke for an hour; sometimes they merely shared tea in companionable silence. There were days when Samiran's anger returned with frightening intensity. On those days, the old man listened patiently and asked the same deceptively simple questions.

"What will happen the morning after?"

"Who will look after your children?"

"What did you promise your mother?"

Gradually, Samiran began to recognise the difference between the pain he could not immediately escape and the violence he could still choose not to commit.

One evening, he arrived at their usual tea stall looking unusually composed.

"I haven't watched the recordings for ten days," he announced.

"Good."

"I still feel angry."

"Naturally."

"I still hate that man."

"You may hate him for a long time."

"But I don't think I want to kill him anymore."

Aniruddha looked at him without speaking.

Samiran continued, "Yesterday, my little boy fell asleep on my chest. He was holding my shirt so tightly that I couldn't move without waking him. I lay there for almost an hour."

He paused.

"And I suddenly thought, what if I had gone through with it? Who would he have held on to?"

His voice faltered.

"My daughter needs me too. My father has nobody else to depend on. And my mother..."

He stopped, struggling to compose himself.

"My mother spent seventeen years fighting death. I cannot honour her memory by deliberately causing another death."

Aniruddha's eyes grew moist.

"Then you have made a wise decision, Samiran."

"I don't know whether I'll ever be happy again."

"You don't have to know that today."

"I don't even know whether my marriage is over."

"That is something you can decide when you are calmer."

Samiran looked at the old man.

"Why did you spend so much time talking to me? I was only your Uber driver."

Aniruddha smiled.

"Because one evening, when I had forgotten my wallet, a tired young man told me not to worry about the fare. He was kind to a stranger even when his own life was falling apart."

"That was nothing."

"Nothing?" The old man shook his head. "We never know how far a small act of kindness may travel."

Samiran lowered his eyes.

For the first time in many months, he felt something other than rage, shame or despair.

He felt gratitude.

As they prepared to leave, Aniruddha placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Remember something, Samiran. The opposite of revenge is not necessarily forgiveness. Sometimes it is simply the decision to go on living without allowing the person who hurt you to dictate what you become."

Samiran nodded slowly.

He had spent months believing that another man's death would restore his dignity. Now he was beginning to understand that his dignity had never depended on that man's existence.

That night, when he returned home, his son came running towards him.

"Papa! Papa!"

Samiran bent down and lifted the child into his arms.

The little boy wrapped his arms around his father's neck and rested his head on his shoulder.

For a long time, Samiran held him without speaking.

He thought of the old man, of his father waiting upstairs, of his daughter, and of the mother whose final promise he still carried in his heart.

Then he kissed his son's forehead.

The child looked at him curiously.

"Papa, why are you crying?"

Samiran smiled through his tears.

"Because, Baba, I nearly forgot something very important."

"What, Papa?"

"That I have you."

The little boy laughed and hugged him tighter.

And Samiran, who had once been determined to take a life, realised that he had come perilously close to throwing away his own.  He had not forgiven the betrayal. He had not forgotten the humiliation. But he had finally understood that he could refuse to become a murderer without surrendering his right to be wounded.  Sometimes, the greatest victory is not over the person who has wronged us, but over the terrible person our suffering threatens to make of us.

The Wind That Had Forgotten How to Blow

Samiran had made a promise to the old man. He would not kill. He would not allow his anger to destroy what remained of his life. But promises made in moments of clarity are sometimes difficult to honour when confronted with the very sight that awakens one's deepest wounds.

It happened a few days later.

Susmita had returned from a Kali temple. There was a deep streak of vermilion on her forehead, bright and unmistakable. She looked composed, almost serene. Perhaps she had gone to seek divine blessings; perhaps she had simply wanted a moment of peace. Samiran did not know, nor did he care to ask. To him, that vermilion became an unbearable provocation. He saw in it an image of a woman who could still go about her life, offer prayers and return home as though nothing had happened.

Something inside him snapped.

The confrontation was ugly. Words gave way to accusations, and accusations to violence. He beat her savagely. Did he remember his father beating his wife?

The bitterness deepened when Susmita's father confronted Samiran. He had his own explanation for the marriage's collapse, and it was neither charitable nor particularly fair. He accused Samiran of having concealed his family background before the marriage. "You never told us that your mother was a cook in somebody else's house," he said with undisguised contempt. "Had we known, would we have given our daughter to you?" The irony was particularly cruel. Samiran had risen through years of struggle to become a director, shouldered responsibilities that few men could have managed and built a respectable financial position for himself. Yet, in the eyes of his father-in-law, none of that counted. His designation, his achievements and his financial standing far beyond his father-in-law were suddenly immaterial; what mattered was that his mother had earned her living as a cook. Susmita, too, maintained that she had been kept in the dark about his mother's occupation. Whether this was genuine ignorance or a convenient position to adopt after the marriage had unravelled was something Samiran could no longer establish. He found the accusation especially painful because his mother's occupation had never been a source of shame to him. She had worked honestly, raised her son with dignity and endured seventeen years of illness without demanding that life be kinder to her. He had spent years trying to honour her sacrifices. Now, the very woman whose dignity he had tried to protect was being invoked as an accusation against him. It was perhaps one of the cruellest ironies of his life: the world had found a way to insult the mother he had loved long after she was gone.

It was not a moment of calculated punishment but an eruption of accumulated rage, humiliation and helplessness. The man who had once struggled to hold his mother's frail hand without hurting her had now raised his hand against the woman who had shared his life.

When Susmita's parents arrived, they found little room for discussion. They were appalled by what had happened. They took their daughter away, determined that she should not remain in a house where she was no longer safe. The marriage, already fractured by betrayal and bitterness, had reached another terrible threshold.

For a while, the house seemed suspended between two lives. Samiran continued with his work. His father remained dependent on him. His children needed attention. The ordinary demands of existence did not pause simply because a family had fallen apart.

About a month later, their daughter went to stay with her mother. The separation became more than a temporary arrangement. The family that had once occupied the same rooms, shared meals and planned its future together was now scattered across different addresses. There were no more familiar conversations at the dinner table, no ordinary domestic quarrels, no expectation that everyone would be home by evening.

The house had become quieter, but the silence was not peaceful.

Samiran, however, did not surrender to despair. He continued working relentlessly, often day and night. He drove his Uber, pursued his property dealings and attended to every financial obligation he could manage. He remained committed to looking after his father and ensuring that his children lacked nothing. Even Susmita, despite everything that had happened between them, remained within the circle of his financial responsibilities. He continued to safeguard the interests of his wife and daughter, refusing to let the bitterness of their separation become an excuse for neglect.

There was something deeply contradictory about the man. He could be consumed by anger, yet remain devoted to his responsibilities. He could feel betrayed and still worry about whether his daughter had everything she needed. He could spend an entire night driving through the city, returning home exhausted, only to make sure that the next instalment, the next school expense or the next household requirement had been taken care of.

But what did he return home to?

There was no Susmita waiting for him. No little footsteps running towards him. No familiar voice asking how his day had been. Sometimes he would look at the rooms and remember how they had once been occupied by the sounds of family life. A child's laughter, the clatter of utensils, an occasional disagreement, the simple irritation of everyday domestic existence. He had once considered these things ordinary. Now he understood that ordinary happiness was perhaps the greatest luxury life could offer.

He missed his daughter terribly. He missed the little boy who had unknowingly set in motion the chain of events that had changed their lives. He wondered what the children made of their parents living apart. Did they understand? Did they blame him? Would they remember the home they had once shared, or would it gradually become a fading recollection?

And Susmita?

He could neither bring himself to forget what he had seen nor entirely erase the years they had spent together. Their marriage had not always been a battlefield. There had been a time when they had made plans, laughed over insignificant things and imagined growing old together. He sometimes wondered where that couple had disappeared. Had they been lost in the demands of parenthood, financial pressure and neglected affection? Or had the betrayal simply exposed a fracture that had existed long before either of them acknowledged it?

He had no answers.

The old man he had met through his Uber journeys had once told him that anger should never be allowed to determine the kind of man one becomes. Samiran remembered those words. But he also knew that he had failed himself when he raised his hand against Susmita. The memory troubled him. He could not justify it, however unbearable his humiliation had been. He had wanted to preserve his family and had, in one terrible moment, made its destruction more complete.

Yet he continued to work.

Perhaps work was his refuge. Perhaps it was his punishment. Perhaps he believed that if he could secure his family's future, some part of the past might still be redeemed.

There was an irony in his name. Samiran, derived from sameer, means wind or gentle breeze. A breeze is supposed to bring freshness, to stir stagnant air, to offer relief on a sultry afternoon. But this Samiran seemed to have lost the very quality his name promised. He moved restlessly from one responsibility to another, carrying the dust of disappointment wherever he went. The freshness had deserted him. The wind that was supposed to bring relief had become a weary gust, struggling against its own direction.

And yet, somewhere deep within him, a little hope survived.

He hoped that time might soften the bitterness. He hoped that his children would grow up without carrying the scars of their parents' conflict. He hoped that Susmita might one day recognise the efforts he continued to make, even from a distance. He hoped that the family might someday sit together again, perhaps not as it had been, but as something new, something less fragile.

He knew that reconciliation could not simply be demanded. Trust, once broken, could not be restored through money, property or sacrifice. He would have to confront his own failings as well as the pain inflicted upon him. He would have to learn that providing for a family and being emotionally present in it were two entirely different responsibilities.

But he was not ready to give up hope.

Every morning, he rose and went about his work. Every evening, he returned to an increasingly empty home. Between the two, he carried the weight of a marriage that had collapsed, children who needed both their parents, an ageing father and a promise made to a mother who was no longer alive.

Perhaps he was trying to build wealth because money was the one thing he still knew how to control. Perhaps he was trying to protect his family because he could no longer protect his marriage. Or perhaps, beneath all his exhaustion and anger, he was simply a man who did not know how to stop loving the family he had lost.

And so Samiran continued, carrying his disappointments with a stoicism that few could understand. His life had never been a gift; it had been an acquisition, earned through labour, sacrifice and an almost stubborn refusal to surrender. He had risen from modest beginnings, become a director, built financial assets, looked after a mother through seventeen years of cancer, honoured his obligations to an ageing father and continued to provide for the family that had drifted away from him. He had made mistakes, some grievous enough to haunt him, but he had not abandoned his responsibilities. Perhaps his greatest struggle was not against poverty, betrayal or humiliation, but against the temptation to allow them to define him. He sometimes remembered Russia, where he had travelled as a child, a distant world of snow-covered landscapes, unfamiliar streets and a freedom he had been too young to understand. Those childhood impressions had remained somewhere in his memory, like fragments of another life. He wondered occasionally whether that little boy, who had once looked upon the vast Russian horizon with innocent curiosity, would recognise the man he had become. The boy had travelled far, though not always in the direction he had imagined. Yet Samiran still carried something of him within himself: the capacity to begin again, to endure and to hope. His name meant Sameer—the wind, the gentle breeze that brings freshness after a long, oppressive summer. Life had battered that wind, burdened it with grief and robbed it of much of its lightness. But it had not entirely stopped blowing. And perhaps that was Samiran's quiet triumph: he had not been granted an easy life, but he continued to meet it with resilience, an unbroken sense of duty and the dignity of a man who refused to let adversity have the final word.