The Boomerang Effect

This is not our story, though with the benefit of hindsight and a little emotional quotient we might look back and see things we thought were about our actions than about Shantana Bose. The incident of meeting with Bose was one of those happenings we call "suddenly business,” We won't know when this comes but it does bring a tear to our eye and a leap to our heartstrings.

 On a very hot summer afternoon, driving along the highway, punctuated by occasional vehicles our eyes upon a lone, lanky, dust covered young man, trying to thumb a ride. Other vehicles sped by but we thought of one of our sons , if in some orb of the future, happened to be in the same predicament  what might befall him, and so we stopped.

The young man took long strides and his answer was that he was hoping to somehow go back to his home in Kolkata. His search for a temporary job had been fruitless. He said he wouldn't have minded a sweeper’s job, anything to earn enough, for a rail fare.

 "Sir could you give me a lift to a point where I could look to find some work? We threw caution to the winds and asked him to hop in. It didn't pass thru our minds that he could be a would be attacker. Question and answer time in broken communicating language gave us his profile. He was 23 years old and qualified as a welder cum plumber. He had come on a contract. But one fine day the company decamped with the machinery and his due salary for a month. He had to leave on his own and hoped to find a workshop which would employ him .But no one it seemed would employ him without a reference from his immediate former employers

 The look of desperation in his eyes, yet the surety that he would be able to survive if he got home to Kolkata was patent in every word he spoke. His hopeless attitude when he said that he didn't wish to travel ticketless and his dignity made us aware that he was the stuff that made the young person’s into men of caliber.

 We drove him home and offered him our hospitality, esp. with a bath in our outhouse and a clean tee shirt...Our small daughter, unasked, made him a big cup of tea and a pile of jam sandwiches which he wolfed down having been on a diet of water for four days.

 We couldn't get him a job, but as an alternative thought of giving him the price or a railway ticket to go home. Payday was two days away and we scrounged thro the kitty to tills, in stray hiding places for emergency cash and promised the children ice creams if  they helped us garner from their pocket money, enough to pay for his ticket, a couple of meals and tea till he reached home

 As we handed him the money wishing him God speed, he opened his knapsack and brought out a stack of all his original certificates. "Keep these with you Sir, till I repay you as soon as I can. Let this be my assurance and guarantee." Stranger words never hit us before but we were no Shylocks. At his insistence we gave him my uncle's address n Ballygunge and said he could repay it when he could when the fates smiled on him. Today the rail fare we gave him would be a pittance but then it was a prize sum for a man making his way in the world.

 Typical of his culture he touched our feet, blessed my daughter for the food and left with a spring to his feet.

 An incident long forgotten for six months surfaced when the uncle in Ballygunge rang to ask why a perfect Bengali  called Santanu Bose brought him some money as a repayment for a rail ticket. Santanu Bose had narrated the story .We had always believed that no one ever gave anybody anything free but our faith in human niceties was renewed. Bose gifted my uncle with a box of the most delicious Bengali sweets as sweet remembrance

 A year later uncle rang to say that on puja day Bose now running his own welding shop had gifted a box of choice sweets. He had said that he couldn't forget the kindness done to him in Kerala. We were flabbergasted at Bose's gesture? He wouldn't take no for an answer.

 For the next six years Bose gifted my uncle with Bengali sweets of quality during the puja celebrations, till the latter left Ballygunge...

 Much water flowed on and the on Sunday afternoon young Bose well dressed and confident knocked on our door. Recognition was instant. We exchanged pleasantries

Like long lost friends still in broken communicative mode.

 Bose was married to Suchitra who was soon to be a mother. He was on his way to a job in the gulf.

 Ere he got up to leave he called out to my soon to be teenaged daughter and gifted her with a pair of exquisite gold jumukas. It's for my young behen who gave my tea and jam sandwiches, when I was almost dying.

 He touched our feet and left for better shores having been refined in the fire of an ordeal which made him a better man.