Rain is coming diwn so hard that the windows if the classroom are almost vibrating.
Water snakes down the glass in crooked streams. The sky outside is a dull, endless grey, and every few seconds thunder rolls somewhere in the distance.
Inside, nobody is paying attention to the weather. Because Dr. Arindam Roy's voice is loud enough to compete with it.
“Most of you reduce Jibanananda Das's Bodh to depression. Sadness. Existential misery.” He pauses, turning away from the blackboard. “But have you ever stopped to ask why the poem refuses to let you go?”
A few students look up.
Arindam walks slowly between the first two rows, a piece of chalk turning between his fingers.
“There is something stubborn about that poem. A strange insistence. Almost a need to hold on to something when everything else has already begun to fall apart.”
The classroom is quiet.
Then...
CREEK!!!!
With a loud screech the door swings open.
Every head turns to the source.
Riya Sengupta stands in the doorway, breathing hard as she catches her breath.
Her hair is dripping. Her white shirt is slightly damp at the shoulders, and the bottom of her jeans is splattered with mud. She looks like she has fought her way through the rain and lost.
For two seconds, nobody says anything.
Then Arindam looks at the clock.
Everyone sits tight. Anticipation building.
Arindam doesn't disappoint. The corner of his mouth lifts. “Well?”
The entire class has gone pin drop silence.
Riya closes her eyes briefly.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Good morning. You're twenty minutes late. Seems like you broke your own record. Again.”
“I am sorry, sir. Won't happen again."
"Tell me that, when pluto becomes a planet again."
A couple of students immediately lower their faces to hide their smiles.
Riya notices. Her eyes narrow at the scene that is creating. Albeit being late, Riya won't admit her fault rather...
“There was waterlogged traffic on Aurobindo Sarani,” she says. “The bus..”
“Please.” He raises one hand stopping her midway, “Spare me the details. I've heard enough. It's not like, this is a once in a lifetime event, Ms. Riya. It has become a routine. Now, why don't you do us a favor and come back after the class ends.”
“Sir, I'm just explaining..”
“I know. You always have an explanation. You're hindering my class. Please, leave."
Riya stares at him. Her hands fist around her back. Eyes glaring at the back of Dr. Arindam who is now back on the blackboard. Hands raises to write when it stops midway.
"I won't."
The entire class gasps loudly. Oh the audacity!
Arindam turns back slowly to face her. Raising a brow, he asks, "Excuse me?"
Riya gulps before holding her head high and speaking, "I won't, Sir. It wasn't my fault that the roads are blocked, drains are clogged. People are late because of rain. I ain't responsible for that."
The heavy, stifling silence in the room stretches so thin that the distant rumble of thunder sounded like an explosion.
Arindam doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't lose his temper. Instead, he takes two slow, measured steps toward the door, stopping just a few feet from where Riya stand by. Outside, the rain lash viciously against the windowpanes, but inside, every single breath is held.
“You aren’t responsible for the clogged drains, Ms. Sengupta,” Arindam says softly, his voice dropping an octave into that dangerous, quiet precision his students feared far more than shouting. “Nor were you responsible for the stalled tram last Tuesday. Or the signal failure on Friday. Or the sudden downpour three weeks ago.”
He tilt his head, his eyes locking onto hers.
“Aurobindo Sarani floods every year. The weather today is unfortunate, yes. But for you, it is merely a convenient mask for a habit. You expect the university to bend its schedule around your chronic lack of time management. How does your classmates manage to come on time. If they can, why can't you? If us, faculty has a sense of responsibility towards all of you, then you must respect and maintain decorum as well Ms. Sengupta. Rules are the same for everyone."
Riya’s jaw set hard. Wet strands of hair clung to her cheek, and a drop of water trickled down her temple like sweat. She is already cold. Her body shivering slightly. But her anger won't let her go down without a fight. “I left my hostel forty minutes early, sir. I walked three blocks through knee-deep water just to catch a connecting bus. I didn't turn back. I came here.”
“Wish I could welcome you with a noble prize in hand for gracing us with your presence. But unfortunately, Miss Riya Sengupta, life is not fortunate all the time. We must learn to adjust and be on time. ” Arindam countered coldly.
Their standoff hung in the air. Students are watching them like a table tennis show. They are very much habituated to the cold war between Dr. Roy and her.
Riya isn't backing down, and Arindam is a man whose discipline was legendary across the department. Everyone wait for the inevitable, the sharp flick of his wrist pointing her toward the corridor, the finality of an absolute dismissal.
Instead, Arindam slowly begin tapping his piece of chalk against his palm.
“You insist you belong in this room today,” Arindam says, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Fine. Let us test your intelligence."
Riya’s shoulders tense for a moment then rekaxes. “Sir?”
“One condition,” Arindam announce, turning his gaze briefly toward the rest of the silent class before settling back on her. “I will ask you a single question from the text we were discussing before you interrupted. Answer it accurately, and you may take your seat. Fail, and you walk out that door without another word of complaint. Do we have an agreement?”
A collective murmur ripple through the class. It is a trap. Everyone know Arindam sir’s questions; even when prepared, students stumbled under his rigorous analytical demands.
Asking a student who have just walked in drenched, flustered, and out of breath to analyze Jibanananda Das on the spot was practically an execution.
Riya swallow hard. Her fingers tighten on the strap of her dripping backpack.
“Ask away, Sir.” she said.
Arindam lower his hand. He take a step back. Creating a little distance. Folding his hands across his chest he asks the question he haven't discussed in the class yet.
“Earlier we were discussing Bodh. Most readers treat the central awareness in the poem as a passive curse; a paralyzing melancholy. But Jibanananda explicitly writes: ‘সকল লোকের মাঝে বসি/ আমার নিজের মুদ্রাদোষে/ আমি একা হতে চলেছি আলাদা’ which means ‘Sitting among all people, by my own compulsive flaw, I am becoming isolated alone.'"
Arindam's eyes pinning her to the spot. “Why does the poet describe his own heightened consciousness not as a grand tragic destiny, but as a mudradoshe; a petty, embarrassing personal quirk or habit? How does that specific choice of words strip the speaker of romantic martyrdom?”
It is a brutally nuanced question. One that required not just a surface reading of the Bengali text, but an understanding of Jibanananda’s deeply ironic, self-deprecating modernism. Arindam watch her face, fully expecting the telltale signs of defeat. The darting eyes, the hesitant stammer, the eventual silence.
Riya stand frozen for a long three seconds. Water drip from the hem of her jacket, hitting the tiled floor with a soft splat.
Then, she unfist her hands.
“Because a martyr expects a crown, sir,” Riya say, her voice unexpectedly steady, cutting through the heavy rhythm of the rain outside. “If Jibanananda called it a tragedy, he would be romanticizing his own suffering. He would be asking for sympathy.”
Arindam’s brow give a microscopic twitch, but he doesn't interrupt.
“By calling his bodh a mudradoshe, a nervous tick, a bad habit; he makes his isolation unglamorous,” she continued, holding his gaze without flinching.
“It isn't a noble burden given by God. It's an involuntary twitch of the mind that he can't stop, even when it alienates him from everyone else. He isn't proud of it. He’s exhausted by it. But he can't turn it off any more than a man can stop a nervous habit.”
She take a small, quiet breath, her tone sharpening. “It strips away the romance because true isolation isn't majestic. It's embarrassing. It makes you an outsider standing in the doorway while everyone else is warm and comfortable inside.”
The silence that follow was suffocating.
Outside, a low rumble of thunder roll across the Kolkata skyline. Inside, forty students sat completely motionless, glancing back and forth between the wet, defiant girl at the door and the notoriously unyielding professor standing in the aisle.
For two agonizing seconds, he simply stare at her, the piece of white chalk held motionless between his fingers. Deep behind his dark-rimmed glasses, a flash of genuine, surprise ignites and vanishes just as quickly.
Without a word of praise, Arindam turn on his heel and walk back toward the blackboard.
“The third bench on the left has an empty spot, Ms. Sengupta,” he instruct flatly, picking up his lesson as if the entire confrontation had been nothing more than a minor footnote. “Sit down. And do not disturb my class."
Riya let out a long, silent exhale, pull her bag higher onto her shoulder, and walk down the aisle.
