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but simply through my searing ambition to become a great doctor. After dinner, I’d study till midnight or one in the morning, and then, tired of medical textbooks, go to bed with a novel and resume reading the same novel in bed for a while upon waking in the morning. This was my habit at that time, but it didn’t last.
    I laugh when I think about it now, but my heart beat with nervousness on the morning of my wedding day. I’d seen Bina in so many different situations for so long, spoken to her in public, and later in private, so many times, but every time I realized she was about to become my wife, that she would live in my house, sleep in my own bed, that her authority over my life would be greater than mine – and that all this would continue not for a month or two, not even for a year or two, but all my life; every time this realization hit home, I had no choice but to run and get myself a drink of water, or pace up and down my room.
    Yes, I was very nervous that day. But I shouldn’t be putting the cart before the horse. It’s best to begin at the beginning.
    I remember the first time I saw Bina. There I was, sitting in mypatientless chamber, dressed for the day, when my friend Ramen telephoned. “Can you come over right away?”
    â€œWhat’s the matter?”
    â€œThere’s this girl who’s cut her foot – it’s all swollen up – she’s in a lot of pain . . .”
    I laughed and replied, “What do you want a personal visit from the doctor for? Put a boric compress on it, it’ll heal.”
    â€œNo, it’s just that – she needs to recover very soon, or else we can’t get on with our rehearsals.”
    â€œRehearsals? For what?”
    â€œYou didn’t know? We’re putting on a play, The New Nest .”
    I’d read a novel called The New Nest recently by Shailesh Dutta, who was quite a famous novelist back then. Was it being made into a play? The answer was yes. Dutta had written the play himself, and he was directing it himself too; the girl who had injured herself was his sister-in-law. She was playing the main role, but the poor girl could barely stand because of the pain, so I had to go over and cure her promptly. I was to go to Dutta’s home. Ramen gave me an address on Lake Road; the lake was a new addition to Calcutta and Lake Road had been built very recently.
    â€œWhat are you doing there?” I asked Ramen.
    â€œI’m with them too.”
    â€œSince when have you started hobnobbing with writers?”
    â€œOne has to keep in touch with everyone. Don’t forget,” said Ramen and disconnected.
    Ramen was a great friend of mine those days. He was a strangecharacter; the first two years in medical college had convinced him he wasn’t going to get through examinations, so he dropped out and opened an oculist’s store on Free School Street. The shop soon moved to Chowringhee and an ophthalmologist with a foreign degree was installed, as was an Anglo-Indian girl at the counter. None of us had expected his business to thrive so much. We were a little surprised, to be honest; he didn’t have much by way of concrete capital. But he did have one divine form of capital – his appearance. You seldom found such a handsome Bengali; six feet tall, as fit as the center forward of a football team, with a fair, ruddy complexion and a head full of curly black hair. It was his appearance, I felt, that was the key to his success.
    These same good looks meant that the Anglo-Indian he’d hired as an assistant became so brazen that she didn’t relent till she had married him. Friends like us tried our utmost to prevent it, but Ramen whistled his way to the registrar’s office. Within a year the marriage was over, but Ramen couldn’t have cared less. He ran his shop with the same enthusiasm as he had earlier and promptly hired another Anglo-Indian girl to run the counter.
    Arriving at