All through the journey, we kept on sitting in front of each other. We were acquainted to each other. It won’t be right to say that we were only acquainted, we were classmates in college. There was not really a great bonding between both of us; but she was in my section. She was smart and I was just a simple middle-class girl. She had passed out from an English-medium school and could speak fluently in English when I was struggling. While she used to make running notes during lessons, I could not understand what was being taught in economics, logic or political science for the first few weeks.

She was called Simi. I don’t remember how she was known in college. She was not very pretty; though they say that youth makes even a monkey look beautiful. Her face was big like a pancake (cakuli pitha); her nose was flat and broad. Her teeth were not uniform but there was magic in her smile. She was very healthy and her bust line was bigger than ours. She used to wear skirts to college. We came in salwar kameez. All the girls were very quiet when they stepped out of the common room to go the classrooms. She was never quiet though. She had a different style of moving in and out of the classroom. She would enter the classroom after the teacher, saying –“May I come in, Sir”.

The lady who was sitting in front me resembled her. Her face was round like a pancake. Her nose appeared as if someone had slightly pressed the clay when the sculpture was still wet. Moreover, she was not smiling so I could not make out if she still had magic in her smile. She was sitting in front of me; but never showed any signs of ever knowing me, leave alone, smiling at me. I was a bit confused. I hoped I was not wrong. Or maybe she was someone else. As it is, I don’t have a good memory for faces. That’s why most of the time I have to face unpleasant situations. I had met her when I had just joined college. A long twenty years has passed by since then. She was accompanied by her three daughters and a son. A very serious gentleman sat next to her; he was sweating profusely; should be her husband. There was something in that face which reflected that the dominant man had those five lives under his thumb.

The three girls were sitting close to each other and chatting. The son sat between the parents and kept on moving around like a pet cat. I suddenly remembered the girl who came to see these people off. She had a blunt cut hairstyle and was dressed in a pair of jeans with a khadi top. She was a replica of Simi twenty years back. She is definitely Simi’s sister. But is it possible that Simi does not recognize me? Has she forgotten me? Or is this lady some one else? Her wrists were full of red bangles designed with golden work; a wide row of sindoor ran through her thinning hair on the forehead; her cheeks bore the mark of age. A white stone nose-pin adorned the nose; she had two to three necklaces of beads and a golden chain; an embroidered blouse to go with the saree. The stomach appeared heavy with fat. The fingers were swollen like moist lotus stems. The ankles were full of cuts and black marks. Is that Simi? There was hell and heaven difference between Simi and the old one. Simi had finished her schooling in Delhi and had come to our small town for some reason. She did not go back to Delhi but got admitted to the college in that small town. Her father was an officer in the Army. Sometimes she used to talk about her daddy and mummy. “Daddy has got transferred to Jammu; and Mummy makes nice ‘kachoris’; here we don’t get kachoris in any restaurant”. She used to say things like these. Yes, in those times even the best restaurants in our town did not serve ‘kachoris’.

We were twelve girls in our section. The rest were boys. However, out of all the twelve girls Simi only tried to be friendly with me. I don’t know why. But I could never be intimate with her for very long. Her way of life, her mannerisms, never suited my temperament. Maybe she was attracted to my smart looks and my smart hair-style. Whatever, it was we drifted away from each other within a few months. I was not bothered about her because I never considered her my friend. Soon she became very irregular. She started missing classes. But she was seen in the college everyday.

They were so many ‘pairs’ (lovers) in the college. They were seen talking to each other behind walls and pillars, and under the mango trees. But Simi was not in those places. She would be there for the English lesson and vanish somewhere and not seen in the logic lesson. Actually, she had no friends so one knew where she went. Simi was lost somewhere in the amazing world where stories that took centre stage were about sleazy teachers, knife fighting of hooligans, strikes for no apparent reason, elections, drama, sports, teasing the principal and vandalizing walls with names of pairing couples.

But can the town of my college days really forget Simi? That very small town, where everyone knows everyone; where every human being thinks twice before and after committing a sin; that town which was like a disciplined and cautious daughter-in-law from the village; that town woke up from the deep slumber by Simi early that dawn.

But this lady sitting in front of me can never be Simi. Simi would have started chatting with me. She was very talkative. Once she told me the story of a movie in such a way that I was able to imagine the whole movie while listening to the story under the mango tree. Our train journey was for about two to two and a half hours. In the meantime we have spent twenty minutes without exchanging a single word. There were lots of familiar faces in the compartment. I have shared a thought or two with almost everyone. I have already answered numerous questions like - Where are you going? When had you come home? Where are you these days? How many kids do you have? How long will you stay here?

‘I hope this lady is someone else and not Simi. How will we travel together for two hours or more without uttering a single word?’

It has happened before. We would be chatting with her but once we went into the classroom we would forget about her. We never paid any attention to anything about her; she was like one of those people - friends or strangers one meets on the road.

That day around four in the afternoon we were all going home in the bus. The bus was about to leave. Simi was missing for a long time; all of a sudden she came dashing into the bus. She came up to me with a smile on her face and squeezed herself next to me. Then she said – “You know he was looking for you”.

“Who? Why was he looking for me?”
“You don’t know him”.
“If I don’t know him, why are telling me about him. Look, I don’t like such things”.
“His Daddy is an industrialist”.
“Whose Daddy?”

That day I felt I was watching two movies. One from the past and one of the present.

Among the many mismatches there was one thing that matched; that one thing which kept on making amazing collages in my mind.

Her husband asked Simi or that lady for a paan. Simi took out a packet of paan from her purse and gave it to him- “Keep it”.
“No, you keep it; I will finish everything if I have it with me”.
Before Simi could say anything her son said – “Das Babu! Why don’t you keep the paan? Why are you keeping it in her purse?”

Obviously shocked at the words of the child everyone in the compartment turned to the child. No one had noticed when the child had first uttered ‘Das Babu’. I could notice the scorn in their looks. Simi’s husband was a little perturbed. He muttered slowly- “This child is really getting naughty”. Then he turned unto his son and said-“Can’t you keep quiet?”

I looked at Simi to see her reaction. As soon as our eyes met, she turned her face; she pretended as if she did not know me at all; as if my presence in this compartment was nothing more than the presence of a stranger. I don’t know why, but my undisciplined eyes kept on turning towards her; and she was continuously trying to escape my gaze. Had her husband taken her name, she would have been caught; but her husband addressed her only as – ‘Do you hear me?’ They were discussing about some problems in one of their relative’s marriage. She was looking stealthily at me even when they were chatting. When she spoke, I noticed the black mole on her lips. I was sure that this lady was none other than Simi. I wanted to address her by her name and put an end to the hide and seek game that was going on for some time now. But something inside me stopped me from doing that. I thought – ‘Let me leave her alone. If she does not want to recognise me, why should I be bothered? There are so many people who come into our lives and then shoot their way out of our lives like meteors or change their paths. Why should I be so serious about Simi?’

Simi was just like a meteor. She had come into our town out of the blue. She had dazed everyone with her light and then vanished from our lives. While still young she had gained a lot of unique experiences; they were nothing more than a matter of curiosity for us. A few of us had fallen in love as soon as they stepped into college. These things were not a secret to us. But all these were instances of platonic love. They had so much fear and hesitation that it is doubtful if they even held each other’s hand. Those were the days.

Once we saw Simi in a disgusting state. In the meantime, she was coming to college off and on. She used to come once in two to three days. That day I had a leisure period and was reading a novel under the Mahula tree behind the ladies’ common room. Simi came up to me. She looked at me and said – “What a wonderful deer cub!” I looked around. I could not see a deer cub anywhere. Her laugh did not sound normal. I realized that day that even laughter can be ugly and indecent. I was unnerved. I felt like crying. Is there anything wrong with me? Before I could think of anything she came and held me tight. I struggled. But she refused to let me go. Somehow I escaped from her clutches and ran as fat as I could. She ran after me around the Mahula tree. I suddenly ran into the common room and took refuse with one of our seniors (apa). I complained to her about how she was troubling me.

Apa looked at me with amazement and then asked –“Who?”

I turned around and saw Simi was nowhere to be seen. Apa thought one of the boys had troubled me so she advised me to go and speak to the Principal. I did not go to complain to the Principal. I went and told every thing to my best friend and felt a little better. We thought Simi has been possessed or she has become mad. Slowly word spread throughout the college. The conclusion that came out from the gossip was that- Simi is suffering from hysteria. We were new to the college. We knew what ‘history’ meant but ‘hysteria’? What was that? But soon afterwards we came to know what this ‘hysteria’ meant. After getting a vague idea of what hysteria really meant I told everyone about all my unpleasant experiences with Simi, even the incident about her getting drunk.

Simi did not care about it at all. As usual she was seen in the college for hardly thirty to forty-five minutes and then she vanished somewhere. The Principal could not throw her out of the college because she was having an affair with a guy who was a real ‘dada’ (gangster). He was two years senior to us. There were two groups in the college who kept knives instead of pens. These two groups were always engaged in feuds and incidents of attacking each other with knives were not uncommon. But the Principal maintained a silence about Simi.

Could this lady, discussing with her husband about the budget for putting a roof on her house, be Simi? Who knows? It appears her house is not very big and there is no space for a garden. She is upset about it. She had a wish to have a house with an open space; she is sad; she would never get it; at least, not in this birth. Her husband is consoling her. You ought to be happy that you have a house in Bhubaneswar; the girls will get married; we don’t know where our son will take up a job. Why do we need a big house for just the two of us? I glanced at Simi from the corner of my eyes. A free bird until yesterday; hopping along the electric posts, roof-tops, window-sills and branches of trees; somehow has caught sight of the space on the skylight. While collecting twigs and straw into the nest is nagging on- “Look, everyone gets a roof on top of their head, whether it is one of tent or it is the sky itself, is a different issue”.

The train had left the Barang station. The compartment was slightly crowded now. After a while Simi will leave the front seat and disappear somewhere, just like old days. We were seeing each other after twenty years; more like not meeting at all. But why is there no warmth in our relationship even though we are seeing each other after such a long time? Is Simi scared of me? Is she thinking I will spill the secret of her past? Will I speak out how on a fateful dawn she had awakened our small town from a deep slumber?

Yes on that day, Simi appeared at my home even before the sun had come out. She had never been to our house. I woke up to my mother’s call. What does she want from me early in the morning?

Simi said- “How will I go home?”
“What do you mean, how will you go?”
“Where had you been early in the morning?”
“How did you come?”

She did not answer my questions.

She only replied – “I would have gone, but!”

“Then, go”.

Simi’s house was in a corner of the town. I said – “Take a rickshaw and go”.

She did not speak anymore. She left the place just as she had come - ‘a morning deity’.

I did not even ask her to stay for a cup of tea. My father who was brushing his teeth asked me – “Who is this girl?”

I told him her grandfather’s name.“Oh, her mother was very infamous”.

I could not understand what my father meant by ‘infamous’. I left the place as soon as I could; anticipating that he will be cross with me for being friendly with her.

That day what I heard in college, sent shivers through me. Indeed, there are incidents like that that happen in this world. But I never thought this could happen near me and with people whom I knew. I knew Simi was into many things on her own accord. How could such a thing happen to her? And I could not even get a trace of the fact; that she had just faced a storm, when within a few hours of the incident, she had very quietly appeared in front of me like a dew drenched deity of dawn.

The incident happened like this. The night before, around eight thirty in the evening, when she was walking alone on the road, her lover and his friends saw her and proposed to accompany her. Simi felt as if some strangers were coming to attack her, baring their claws and teeth. Simi started to walk fast. Just at this moment she saw a jeep, with very dim lights, approaching from the opposite direction. She stopped the jeep and asked for help. Within a flutter of an eyelid she got into the jeep and disappeared. Neither her lover nor his friends could make out where the jeep vanished. They went to her grandfather’s house. But Simi was not there.

The rest of the incident I heard in college from Simi. Neither the helplessness nor the quiet countenance of the morning was showing in her. She appeared very calm. Until that day I had never approached Simi; that was the first time when I went up to her and asked – “Do you know, what these people are saying about you?”

She was as calm as before and then she said- “They were four people in the jeep. They took me to the dilapidated bungalow that belongs to Peter Saheb. All four of them bit me into pieces. But I am not satisfied”.

I was shocked when I heard her words. I could not look straight at her face. I was very perturbed by the incident for a long time. But Simi never came to college after that day. Where did she go? Jammu? Or did she go to another unknown town? Did she continue her studies? Or was that the end of her college life? What paths did she tread to reach to this Simi, sitting in front of me? Does this man know about Simi’s past? Does he know every thing and has forgiven Simi with his generosity? Or is it that, Simi has buried the incident away in a deep hole like a hidden treasure and there is no way this man can ever know about it?

Is Simi thinking that I will open her secrets? I will show the man the way to find the hidden treasure. Otherwise why is she avoiding my looks? I never regarded her as my friend anyway. But she always treated me like a friend. She always came close to me. But today when I want to reach her she is moving away from me. Maybe she is not Simi. Maybe she is someone else. Her memory just came to me because of the resemblance. Possible. The train reached Bhubaneswar station. Simi’s children cut through the crowd and jumped out of the train in an instance. Simi’s husband got down with an attaché and an airbag. Simi followed. I got down after a few people. Simi’s children were already on the stairs. Her husband followed while minding them. Simi was far behind them. She shocked me when she turned and smiled at me. I did not expect this. All of a sudden, I could not smile.

She asked – “You are Mita, aren’t you? Where had you been?”

I don’t know why, but I thought to myself - ‘You will never be short of tricks. Only I will be fooled’. I asked her with a note of surprise –
“Are you asking me? But, who are you? I don’t know who you are.”
“Sorry” she replied, and moved forward.

I receded a few steps back from her. I thought to myself – ‘Did you think I will expose you?’
‘Go, I have let you free. Go, make a home. Have a happy life.’

Gopa Nayak was born and brought up in Bhubaneswar, Orissa. After graduating from Ravenshaw College she went on do her masters from Delhi School of Economics.

Gopa has been teaching English in Hong Kong after obtaining a Masters degree in English Language Teaching from the Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. In 2004, Gopa obtained a master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from the University of Oxford and is currently pursuing her DPhil from the University of Oxford. Gopa loves to devote her free time to creative writing.

*Original story in Oriya “Burkha” by Sarojini Sahoo
Translated into English by Gopa Nayak gopanayak@gmail.com