MOHAPATRA RAJENDRA PRASAD
(1930-1994)

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Sneha !
     Ooh !
What are you watching ?
I am looking at the hide and seek game of life.
Are You enjoying it ?
What about you ?
Just as you're feeling.
Kumar,
        Yes Sneha life is just like a film Innumerable sketches of black and white on a huge white screen. At times psychedelic columns of all hues keep dancing and sometimes......
        Kumar had not yet stopped talking when the lights in the cinema hall came on. Just then [INTERVAL] came onto the screen.
Kumar looked at Sneha's face. Sneha hidingly was looking at Kumar's face. Below the eyelids were conceded decades of melancholia [sadness]. Kumar tried to read-but he couldn't. Sneha's Cooey-Cooey nature, at the moment, was getting Kumar equally excited. The bindi on Sneha's forehead started shining Kumar's mind became turbulent.
"Sneha"
      Ooh. !
Should we go out ! I don't know why I'm not feeling well. No, Kumar, My head is feeling heavy. Come on, let's go home.
    Kumar did not object. Both of them came out of the movie hall. It was already dark. The entire city was looking well illuminated. Both of them sat in one rickshaw. It was as if Sneha was totally lost in thought. It seemed as though Sneha had herself in the seat of the movie hall. Sneha literally put all her weight on Kumar. She was toally silent. Why ? For What ?
Sneha,
     Ooh !
           Are you watching how well the lights of the city are sparkling.
Daily it lights up.
Are you experiencing anything new about today's lighting up ?
Kumar, please don't ask me anything today. Today I am feeling all out of . I am having a headache and my whole body is paining.
Should I lightly press your head ?
Not necessary.
Why ?
There'll be no use of it.
Are you angry ?
I don't have that night.
Kumar kept silent for a while. He felt as though a mountain load of his feelings would come crashing down. He was frightened.
What has happened to you ?
What never happens
Sneha
      What ?
Won't you say ?
What about ?
Whatever you're not saying.
I've told you much before.
Don't confuse me Sneha.
I've nver tried to confuse you.
Then ?
No Kumar you've never tried to enter into life's complexities. Don't try even today, then you'll only hear a melancholic song from trees, leaves, flowers, fruits etc. and you will become mad and restless. You like to throw a stone into still water and watch the ripples. You derive pleasure, because there is rhythm and music. You like to see your own reflection in still water. I know so don't try to tempt me - you don't realise as to how much melancholia is there in that rhythm and music.
Sneha,
       Today theme is a great change in you, I don't understand.
Once I told you, Kumar, you won't understand - it is something that you simply cannot understand. You should have the requisite depth to understand.
The rickshaw was rolling down the macadamized roads of Cuttack. Through the thick crowd. Kumar kept on wondering as to what Sneha had told him. What he's hearing ? From whom he's hearing ? Kumar had passed twenty-one years of his life. Since childhood he had been seeing Sneha. They had played together as children, studied together. She was that same Sneha. Only a few years age difference between them. But where ? Materially though Kumar had advanced five years , yet he reminded far behind gradually Sneha's whole body weight was as Kumar. Kumar had become totally excited, romantically speaking. And Kumar hands, quite automatically went on to grasp at the fleshly parts of sneha's upper body [breasts]