The same black hair,
the same red lips ... there was so much about Ms Basu that was home ... that was familiar.
Movement of her lips when she talked made the words secondary. Movement of her hips when she walked could stop you in your way ...
I was about 12 year old, and it was 8th standard. Ms Basu taught us English. How old was she? 21-22 maybe ... I'm not sure, all I know for sure is that she was still unmarried then. And that every boy I knew in school was in love with her.
There was this schoolbook story about a scarfaced guy, somewhere in story was an incidence where this guy was in prison awaiting execution; his girl comes to see him and brings with her a knife ... he takes it, hugs the girl and kills her with it.
"This love", Ms Basu explained us, "is different from the average love. Ordinarily, you'd die for the one you love, but here, both he and she wondered how she'll live without him, she chose to die than to live without him, that's how she loved him ..."
The same gestures of hands when she talked, the same widening and narrowing of eyes. Like I have known it forever, like I have known her forever...
My love for her was not very different from many others to be honest, I thought about her lustfully too, but I never talked about her lustfully with other boys, I avoided and hated the ones who did. Like I owned her in some silly spiritual way ... the same warm smile ... the same crystal laughter ...
And she discussed other stories, of sea dragons and foghorns, escaped convicts and faceless ghosts. I listened as if she had written those stories herself, as if she's telling them only to me...
I imagined her naked as much as the other boys ... wondered if her breasts are as fair as her face ... wondered if her nipples are black or pink or brown ... The general belief was that they were pink. Not even dark pink or light pink, this special pink - Some would use the phrase 'baby pink' ... the phrase has, since then, never failed to excite me...
Some swore they had had a glimpse of them some days when she wasn't wearing a bra and her shirt wasn't very thick and they were dark in color, others said they had seen them some rainy day when she got wet coming into school and her dress turned semi transparent...
Explaining why 'Cassius Clay' threw his medal away, she added that one lesser highlighted but important reason was the mayor describing Cassius as one of the 'typical' boys of the area; the area in question being infamous for notoriety of black youth. This pained Cassius a lot. I knew I'd had hated to be called a typical boy of my class when it came to attaraction towards her.
One main difference in my liking for Ms Basu and others was that where most other guys only wanted to 'see her naked once', I wanted to marry her. Yes, really! It was only 10 year age difference right? If she would only wait 6 years for me - till I turn 18, I was sure I'd marry her. There was no doubt about that in my mind...
At the end of the class one day she told us that she has got engaged and would be getting married in a couple of months, after which she'd be leaving for Australia to live with her husband and so, obviously, will not be teaching us anymore.
I couldn't believe it was happening to me. I couldn't believe I'd not be seeing her ever again. Never ever again...
Some guys were sure it was a love marriage, a few said they always knew she had a boyfriend, some used 'lover' instead to add to the affect, it made me more jealous. "I always knew she had a lover, you can tell by her breasts, they can not grow this big unless someone works on them regularly.", someone said. I'd had kicked his guts if I had the courage to. But I was such a weakling ...
A few guys said they had seen her boyfriend come to pick her up on his bike after school on several occassions. Some said no - it was her brother, his face looked so much like Miss Basu. Others said she had a lover but was getting arranged married to someone else because of family objections. There were hundreds of versions, and certainly none of them were accurate.
I didn't care for any of them, and didn't believe any were true. A part of me didn't want to accept she was going away...
But she did.
She was gone. And one fine day a new teacher walked in to teach English in her place. The stories were never the same, there were no hidden treasures behind them, there was nothing worth exploring in them anymore, they were just strings of words.
Nor the movement of lips, nor the gestures of hands ... nothing made sense anymore. The foghorn was only a foghorn now, the blue car only a blue car. The magic was gone from the written word, the color was lost ... the words were all black now ...
I have no photographs of her, just a mental picture. She would be 40 or about today but in my mind she'd always be the same. Always 'Miss' Basu; Always 21-22. With the same black hair, the same talking eyes, the same dancing lips, the same gestures of hands ...