The last question

“What’s the relation between an I.T professional and a Microbiologist?” – That’s the last question Jannabi asked me. Yes, she was Jannabi Bhattacharyya, with three consecutive double consonants in her name, passing nine months with me, leaving me alone at a time when I was losing everything in my life, my academics, my aim, my friends and everything.

I was eighteen, about to start my life in an engineering college, and was calling at her landline for the fifth time, with my trembling fingers on those numbers, as usual.

“It’s over.” This was the first reaction from her.

“What?” I astonished.

“You and me, it’s not working.”

I had no idea how on earth did she think that the relation was just over, but I argued.

“Well, I can change.” I survived.

“It’s not a matter of change, it just can’t continue any more. We look least like boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. That spark of love, liking and attraction has gone from our relationship. I know that if I need something, you will be there. But I am not sure the same about me. I don’t think I want someone right now in my life. There are studies to do; there are a lot of other things to do. Besides, can you remember how both of us loved physics and came close to each other by that? And now, see, how our fates have taken us to different paths of life. Can you tell me what’s the relation between an I.T professional and a Microbiologist? Our lives are taking different routes, and so should we do.”


Troubled, sad, confused, I had to pay the bill for the call. A cool refusal from a girlfriend in lieu of just 2 rupees! Well, that’s some special for a loser.

But at the end of the day, the truth was that, I had lost her from my life, and nothing could bring her back. My new engineering college seemed to be a disgusting one. Friendless, halfhearted, unmindful, I kept pouring tears on engineering physics, mathematics, and computer. In the college, the whole first year proved to be a trash for me. I didn’t like the college; I didn’t like my specialization- which was information technology. I even didn’t know what I was going to do after studying information technology.


But some changes came with the winter of second year. I was declared the class-leader. My co-curricular activities became popular in the college. I was good in table-tennis, could sing a little bit; I played guitar and flute, and above all, had a good sense of humor. People were fond of me soon.

At the third year, grey matters mattered. Circuit theories, web technology, software engineering covered up brain cells. I had to attend group discussions, seminars, had to write reports for the tech-club. Opportunities kept coming, and responsibilities were more and more.

Another year passed at the college and at the end of the fourth year, when I passed out of the college, brain consisted only c, c++, programming language and all that – just ideal for an I.T. professional.

But I didn’t join the industry as yet. An MBA degree, I thought, would be a better option for me.

It was another six months from the time I joined another B-school to do MBA, I found my diary of class twelve from and old desk.


The first page was very familiar which showed: - “No one can discover life without love. So for the girl I am able to write, these stories are dedicated to her.”

Then, I explored my old stories after about five years. They were like completely new ones to me. Here is my first story written when I was eighteen named ‘Good Night’ in which a boy on a given night reminds of the girl he loved, who treated the boy only as a friend but never as a boyfriend. The thoughts of the happy memories with the girl keep weaken his mind and turn him an insomniac person. After it, there is another story named ‘Happy new year’, in which a boy calls his girlfriend on the first day of the year to wish her ‘happy new year’, and when the girl wishes the same and encourages him to call her again, he begins to think that the girl also likes him. “What can one expect in the whole year if he is greeted by a girl on the very first day of the year?” He kept wondering in his mind. But as time progressed, he found himself being detached from the girl.

Then came my favorite story, ‘Listen to Southern Avenue’ in which a boy goes for a walk every evening to a place three kilometers away from his house, leaving his studies miles apart, in the search of a girl who used to live there. Years passed, the girl detached herself from the boy, but he didn’t stop visiting that place from time to time, out of love for the girl or the place itself.


Stories are some special, I thought. We move on, our lives change. But they exist in the same way, being the proof of our happy or unhappy past. And afterwards, when we go through them, we find another person inside us- hurt, troubled, ill-fated towards some direction.

Do you think still I hope to get her back? No, I do not. Because after so many years, I have understood that it’s not always what we lose, but it’s what we have that matters.

It’s love, which connects two unknown people from different places and decides their fate. Our paths can go different ways, but the subtle and secret relationship exists, probably for the whole life.


I lost you from my life anyway, but you were in my stories and will be there for a long time. And I shall love to write those stories, which will be the only relation between us.

- May '08