The Candy Floss

(This is a story I wrote recently for a competition )

The center aisle of the train was filled with people standing elbow to elbow. The man in front of her smelt of cigarettes and roasted chicken. Every few minutes wafts of cheap perfume would reach her nose from an unknown place. The beads of sweat on her forehead had multiplied themselves in volume owing to the rise of temperature or pressure or humidity-she couldn’t remember which one, although she heard her sister chanting it only this morning. The train was nearing the stop where she was ought to get down.  But her heart was pounding with excitement-yes, in spite of the vile atmosphere; her heart was pumping blood at a vigorous rate. She was suddenly nervous. She ran her fingers through her hair, but the hair entangled even more. After five seconds, the train screeched to a halt and the people went pouring out of the gates. She stepped out on the platform. In front of her, was a huge board, yellow in colour which read ‘Welcome to Ballygunge Station’.  She adjusted her bag on her shoulders but the new ‘Fastrack’ bag slipped down and fell on the dusty platform. She picked it up quickly. She searched for the exit gate but couldn’t find one, although she had made innumerable train trips through this station. There was utter confusion. After fifteen more minutes, she finally found the gate marked ‘EXIT’ right on her left side. Strange, she thought. There was a strange twinkle in her eyes that were trying to search for Ranbir and her mouth had unknowingly curved into an eerie smile. She stepped out of the platform into a busy street, encroached by vendors. The September sun was looking delicious and the sweet smell of roses and jasmines was diffused in the atmosphere.

“Ragini”, she heard someone call her name from behind, forcing Ragini Oberoi to turn around. She looked like any 25year old girl, with shoulder length black hair and chocolate brown eyes but the Monalisa-like mystifying grin on her face half the time made her a bit different. Ragini turned around, but the grin on her face vanished when she saw the owner of the voice. It was her cousin, Neeraj. She ran and ran until she reached a garbage heap and hid behind it. She hated the idea of having to face Neeraj. She hated him for taking her to some psychiatrist every second day who continuously asked her questions about her personal life and continuously kept saying sour things about Ranbir. How senseless and cruel! But Ragini hated Neeraj more these days because two days before she had heard him saying that she should be sent to a rehabilitation center. She didn’t want to go anywhere without Ranbir and so she had decided to run away with him to some distant place, away from her family and Neeraj who believed her to be ‘mad’, and have some strange disease whose name she did not remember. Last night, she had sent a message to Ranbir’s cell-phone saying, “Ranbir, my family wants to send me far away. In spite of our engagement, they don’t allow me to go out alone, even when I say I want to meet you. Please save me. Meet me tomorrow at the airport and I will run away with you. Buy the tickets for Indigo 5236(Kolkata-Dubai) and board the plane. I’ll be there. Bye…”  But she didn’t notice the service reply-“Not Delivered-Number does not exist”.

Right now, she only concentrated on camouflaging behind the garbage heap and meeting Ranbir. But wait, where? Ragini couldn’t remember where she had promised to meet Ranbir. She concentrated hard, and after almost an hour remembered. Convinced that Neeraj had gone by now, she stepped out into the open again.  It was past noon, she guessed. After walking up to the bus stand, she waited for the ‘Dumdum Airport’ bus and boarded it. In another hour, she reached the airport and went in. Purchasing the tickets for Indigo5236, she decided to have a burger. Although she had been here barely a month ago, she couldn’t find the ‘McDonald’s’. Strange, she thought again. All of a sudden, she saw a sweets shop. She rushed in there and bought her favourite pink candy floss. Candy floss was one thing which both Ragini and Ranbir loved. She smiled at the thought.  With a weird grin on her face, out she went strolling in the lobby of the airport. But she froze midway, when she saw Neeraj again, this time with a man dressed in a khaki uniform. Out of sudden panic, she put the candy floss in the bag and ran to the “Ladies” washroom, which she spotted in time. The flight was to leave in an hour. Ragini managed to sneak out through the back door of the washroom after a lot of time. She went to her terminal, just when the flight was about to leave. She took her seat panting. Just then, she turned around to search for Ranbir. On the last seat, a fair complexioned man with spiked hair and spectacles smiled at her.  Convinced that Ranbir was there in the back seat, Ragini smiled back and then immediately felt asleep, without having her dinner or her candy floss.

 In the morning, when she woke up, Ranbir was nowhere to be found. The flight was to land in another fifteen minutes. She showed Ranbir’s photo to the other co-passengers, but they denied of having seen him only. Ragini cried endlessly. At the Dubai airport, she began searching for him again, in hope that Ranbir was only playing a prank, but all in vain. The candy-floss in her back had turned into a solid mass by now, but didn’t matter anymore to her. In the Dubai airport, Neeraj found Ragini and took her back to Kolkata, not saying a word throughout the journey. Back at Kolkata, she resumed to her daily routine of seeing psychiatrists round the clock.

The candy floss in her bag was still uneaten. She swore she would eat in only with Ranbir. Two days later, Ragini opened her bag, only to find her leftover money and a pink note saying,

“The candy floss is mine this time <3”.

Tears swelled in her eyes. “I was always right. Ranbir is still there. I don’t know what happened. But he still loves me and I know that. It’s not what the psychiatrists say that he is no more. It’s just a bad dream, nothing else. ”Outside the room, Neeraj was in tears. He knew he hadn’t done the right thing as a brother, but he was helpless. He couldn’t see Ragini like that.  Neeraj exactly knew that all that Ragini saw last night at the flight was nothing but hallucinations of Ranbir, her fiancé, who had died in a car accident the next day of Ranbir’s and Ragini’s engagement. But this couldn't be told to her directly at any cost, lest she would run away again. This had already been her fifth runaway, although Ragini probably didn't know it. Neeraj closed his eyes and sighed.

After ten years, Ragini’s Alzheimer’s disease was treated by regular medication and a three-year stay at the rehabilitation center. The memories of Ranbir had been completely erased from her mind. But she had some eerie sense of panic, whenever she saw pink candy floss. However hard she concentrated, she couldn’t come up with the reason-only the smell of sweet roses and jasmines…