February by Rituparna Mukherjee
Standing at the lake you watch the last few dried leaves, traces of a dying winter, fall into its waters. Spring is here. A rather unusually cool spring this year. February arrived with an extra day making you melancholy. So, you stand on the lake, on this leap February day, that comes not so very often, and are about to make a decision. You have asked him not to text you for the day but your fingers itch to fish the mobile phone out from your bag and check if he has left any. You nod your head. Try to focus. Try to draw a list of pros and cons. Be careful. Make a decision. But you recall the recent spat you had with him and his words burn you, just like his presence tingles through you like strange confusion, something so adolescent that you had forgotten what it was to feel this way. He had asked you to make up your mind and saw right through your hypocrisy in wanting to be available yet distant. But, at forty, can you love again when you already have it? How many loves co-inhabit this many-chambered heart? You watch your body, so sure of itself till now, so at peace, turn green in places, bloom in desire, words oozing out of secret crevices. You smile to yourself at this thought, touch your hair, and the first hints of greyness. What does a road not taken mean to you? What do you owe yourself or the world for that matter? You get up. Tomorrow is March. Perhaps a kinder time. One is fortunate if February, with its raging palash blooms on knotty wintry trees, leaves one unscathed. It is simple really. In March you will be human.
About the Author:
Rituparna Mukherjee teaches English and Communication Studies at Jogamaya
Devi College, under the University of Calcutta. She is currently pursuing Doctoral
degree in Gendered Mobilities in West African and Afro-Diasporic Literature at IIIT
Bhubaneswar. She is a published poet, short fiction writer and a passionate
translator. Her work has been published in many international magazines of repute.
She translates Bengali and Hindi fiction into English and is the chief editor at The
Antonym Magazine. Her first complete work in translation, The One-Legged, has
been published from The Antonym Collections in January 2024. She is also an ELT
trainer and an ESL author.
