Penance of love

The confession, however, came much later on a dry sunny day, when she told him in a hospital bed how much she would regret it if she had to die before her dream came true. He came home and prayed in earnest that if the time had come for her to go, then he should go with her as well. He walked around the hospital in the middle of the night, unable to visit her in the cabin because her mother was staying with her.

In the frenzy of love that looked finished before it started, he vowed to himself again and again that if only death spared her from its clutches, he would never let go of her from his bosom. The memory of the rainy day revolved in his mind and he was convinced it was destiny that love should cast its spell on both at once. After she got well and went home, he distributed sweets in the neighborhood mosque and told his friends that he was fortunate amongst men, because God had answered his prayers.

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She said to him that if anything had brought her back from the gorge of death, it was the power of love. She promised to love him for the rest of her life and asked him to promise that he would do the same in return. He caught a butterfly for her and described the colours on its wings. She wept on his shoulder like a child, because it reminded her of the colours in her own life since she fell in love with him. She told him between tears that dreams were wings for humans and she wished to spread her wings in the sky of love.

One night the police picked him up from the house as a suspect for the murder of a student leader. He pleaded innocence, but the court slammed detention on him for fifteen days. She visited him in jail, taking food, books, and cigarettes for him. She told him that her father was one of the best lawyers in town and he would fight his case in court. Then she placed his hand on her head and asked him to swear in the honour of their love that he would quit politics as soon as he got out of jail.

After his release, he discussed politics with her. He argued that students should have concern for the future and prepare themselves to take the responsibility of their country. She disagreed with him and called politics poison for young minds. The young men hardly knew the difference between good and evil and politics only made them exploits in the hands of the wicked ones.

He reasoned that it was his duty to love his country. She reasoned that love could never be a duty so much as honesty could never be a policy. She claimed that a mother didn't love her child because it was her duty, but because it was her nature. Politicians must adopt politics based on character, not on charisma. He wanted to know what was the difference. She explained that character thrived on principles, whereas charisma thrived on prejudice. Character led to the truth and charisma led to a target.

He asked what if politics could make truth its target. She said it couldn't, because politics required compromise, which condemned truth. Politics was based on mobile truth, she added, which was why the politicians shifted in their strategy to avoid the sacrifice and suffering, which were needed to establish the absolute truth. He retorted that she was talking about prophets, not politicians. She replied that politicians were the secular prophets, the inspired teachers or leaders for the common mass, only if they could be sincere and honest.

During student unrest in the university, he went into hiding. She told him that she was disappointed in him, failing to understand why he had to make her unhappy when it wasn't needed. He regretted his mistake and promised to give up politics, once that particular trouble was resolved. He claimed that he was innocent, and politics was nothing but a dirty game where people who erred blamed it on others.

Her father talked to his friends and used their influence to have all charges dropped against him. When he came out of his hiding, the families got together and decided that they ought to put the yoke of marriage on his shoulder in order to ensure that he stayed out of harm's way. He took her to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate the decision and bought her a diamond ring for engagement. She reminded him that it was the power of love, which carried them through hurdles and hardships. He promised to love her forever, because she was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Two months later he called in the middle of night and told her that the police was after him again. When her father called the police station, the officer-in-charge told him that his would-be son-in-law was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate a political figure. When he called again in the morning, she told him that he had betrayed her by getting involved in politics. He said he knew nothing of any conspiracy against anybody and he had not met anyone in the political circle since he got engaged to her.

For the first time since she met him, her mind wavered in doubt. Her father warned her that the young man she loved had streaks of a politician in his character, and he couldn't be trusted. She felt humiliated by him, embarrassed before her own family. She failed to understand how deeply a man could love her if his promises were so flimsy. She refused to take his calls and told her parents that she would call off the engagement.

He sent her flowers on her twenty-second birthday, wishing to see her even for a glimpse. She refused to take the flowers and told the deliverer that she no longer had anything to do with the sender. He madly called her house throughout the day, but she refused to come to the phone. Her parents asked him not to call again until their daughter was settled in her soul.

Next day he died in police encounter outside a student hostel. There were conflicting accounts of how he died; some said he was killed elsewhere and then brought to the hostel; some said he was hiding in the hostel where he got killed during a police raid. She fainted when she heard the news of his death and regained her senses two days later. She told everyone, who came to know how she was, that she had taken a dive into death with the man of her love and come out from the other side of his grave.

Love, she concluded, was no different from politics. One has to lose if other has to win. She would need the rest of her life to sort out who had won and who had lost between two of them. Meanwhile, she wished to die for him every day, because the love that came on a rainy day now burned in her heart like a blazing sun.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.