I peeked at my watch to check the time. It was around 5:00 a.m. The sun was not up yet. I sneaked a peek into the room to check on Geeta She was fast asleep. Aunty too was sleeping on the couch. Miss Sengupta saw me and got off the chair and came out of the room.
Miss Sengupta asked, "Is everything all right?"
"Yes ma'am everything is fine. I just came to check up on Geeta" I replied.
"Ok..." she replied. "I thought you guys went home?"
I replied "No Ma'am, I could never let her out of my sight, knowing very well that that lady is this close to our friend and you will be surprised to know but Vikash and Master da is also in the vicinity"
Miss Sengupta, raised her left eyebrow and looked at me with a slightly surprised expression saying "Wow, that sweet child surely knows how to make friends, even though with all the things the child has suffered, in life, the one good deed has bought all the people from the past to protect the child."
I understood what the one good deed Miss Sengupta was talking about, but I refrained from reminding her about Sunaina, lest it saddens her.
Miss Sengupta saw me holding the journal and asked me what it was.
I replied "Its nothing ma'am, when I met Geeta for the first time, I was curious about her past and had questions. Pestered by my interest, she handed me her journals. I had them photocopied and have been panning through them."
We made our way to the cafeteria to get some tea and then she asked me what did I learn from the journal. l narrated everything I have learned so far. Starting from the day Abhinu came to the Banerjee residence, about Lt. Col. Banerjee, the kind of man I think he is, his friendship with my sister Monika and Aarohi. How they traveled to Kolkata, the news about the basketball matches, how they came to Purulia to get trained by some army officers before the selection, a girl called Sunaina being the first of the 10 to be selected by SAI during the school level matches.
The name Sunaina bought a smile and a happy glow on Miss Sengupta's face. It felt like she knew who Sunaina is.
I asked, "Do you know this Sunaina?"
Miss Sengupta replied "Yes... She was my daughter. She is the very reason I am sitting next to your friend, and also taking a transfer to Purulia for her well being."
It felt like, Miss Sengupta really cares for Geeta. We had our tea and came back to the room. Aunty and Geeta were still asleep. I told Miss Sengupta that I would be waiting outside if she needs me. The journal was coming to an end and I still had no clue who Geeta is. The only one coming close to Geeta's description was Aarohi, but I couldn't understand why did she decide to change her name.
I continued reading the journal.
4th March 1993
Today was the day we have eagerly been waiting for. Our dream to prove to our country that we are ready for the Youth Olympics. Also, it was an opportunity for all of us to show everyone that the 10 players from the West Bengal team are enough to reach Florida. We played our first match with the team of Jharkhand, it was the same team with whom we had a draw during the warmup matches. We were taken by bus to Birsa Munda Stadium in Ranchi where the match was scheduled to take place. Yadav sir came and told us to give our best since the last match was a draw. He asked us to use a Box-and-One strategy. In this defense, four players play zone (in a box shape) and one player plays man-to-man usually on the offensive team's best player, and since we knew who the best player from the Jharkhand's team was, it was not difficult for us to anticipate their moves. Coach sir's plan worked well and we won the match against Jharkhand without losing a sweat.
**** Box-and-One strategy is a good one, never knew Yadav sir would let the young kids try this strategy. It's a good thing that he has taught them one of the most difficult strategies and this is usually utilized by the NBA players. I continued reading the journal and found that the next match was supposed to be against the team of Meghalaya. Abhinu writes that they had to go all the way to Shillong and they played the match in Don Bosco Stadium Shillong. They were told that this would be the first time they will be playing in a fiberglass pitch. Uncle and Aunty came to see them, a few days before they left for Shillong. They got for them some warm clothes because uncle told them that during the month of March, Shillong is very cold, and they would need to stay warm ****
15th March 1993
I have read in books that Shillong is known as the Scotland of the east. As we entered the beautiful city, I understood why it is called so. I have never seen any other place as beautiful as this. I have been to a few places, like Ladakh and Dehradun but this place was something different. We were taken directly to the DonBosco stadium. The match was to take place around 3:30 p.m. We were told that this stadium is among the 4 stadiums in India with a fiberglass basketball pitch. Before the match started, a man came and wished us good luck. He was wearing a long white robe and a black blazer and was clean shaved. Our local SAI representative who liked to address himself as Sandy told us that he is the assistant headmaster of St. Anthony's School Shillong. He told us that children like to call him Father John out of respect and he is very brilliant and really very good with children. As a matter of fact, he was lucky to receive education under his guidance too. Before the match started we were told that Taposh Dada would be the captain. Taposh dada assembled the team and cautioned us that his earlier coach taught him that playing against guys from the hills sometimes can be difficult, and their strong point is their stamina and speed. We will be able to cope up with their speed but when it comes to stamina, we will be at a loss, our strategy would be small passes and more scores from the Charity Stripe. He directed Aarohi and me to be near the charity stripe and try to score as much as possible. We followed what Taposh dada said and ended up drawing the match. Both of the teams were awarded 2 points each.
**** It was good that Taposh remembered their coach's teaching, and it was good that they followed it else it would have been goodbye for the West Bengal team. Abhinu kept writing that they didn't have any matches for the next 2 weeks and most of the time they spend their time practicing. ****
18th March 1993.
Today something happened which made me very sad. Aarohi got hurt. She wanted to try on roller skates and ended up banging her head against a pillar. She was bleeding profusely and had to be taken to our Medical Examiner Dr. Prakash. Later we came to know that they had to administer her 6 stitches. I called up uncle and within 30 minutes he was there. He looked worried and wanted to take Aarohi home but she didn't want to go, she kept insisting that her country needs her, and she cannot let her country down. An hour later, Aunty reached and she had a surprise with her too, It was none other than Monika and her elder brother Joe, whom we met in Purulia last year. Brother Joe shook our hands and wished us luck for the next tournament and went to meet our coach sir. We came to know that he is a very good basketball player and represents the under 15 national basketball team. He was really a nice man and is actually much better than what Monika keeps telling about him. We hugged one another since we were meeting after such a long time, spent the whole day together. Later in the evening, the 6 of us had lunch together and they left for home. Aarohi and I had to stay back in the training center.
**** Oh my God !!! I am such a stupid boy... I don't believe it... this is the second time I met the kids and again I totally failed to recognize the 2 children once again. I don't believe it, I felt like the universe was conspiring against me, or it's my foolishness.
There is one thing I have to admire about Aarohi, at such a small age she is talking about patriotism. Doing something for the country. It's really hard to find such a sincere player at such a small age.
I continued reading, Abhinu writes that it took another 5 days to get the stitches removed, One day one of the senior players found that Aarohi was taking some sort of medicines named Estradiol. Dr. Prakash asked her who told her to take those meds and she replied that aunty took her to a doctor who advised her to take those medicines, and showed him the prescription for it. He looked at the prescription and stopped her from taking those meds. A child of her age should not be taking those and the composition of that particular medicine is used for a different purpose.
I continued reading the journal and I found that the next match was against the state of Tripura. There were no more entries after the 9th of April 1993. Where are the entries gone now? This is the second time in 2 days that a large part of the entries have gone missing from the Journal.
It was around 6:30 and the sun was up, I looked at the room and saw, Mrs. Banerjee was awake. Geeta was still sleeping and Miss Sengupta was sitting on the same chair, where I had been sitting for the last 10 days, She was struggling to keep herself awake.****
I decided to wait until Geeta wakes up. For some reason, my mind kept telling me to keep a close eye on Geeta today. I went and sat on the bench once again and ignoring the missing entries, continued with the journal once again. The next entry is 3 months later. "That's quite a long duration. What happened during these 3 months."
14th July 1993
It has been 3 months now since I am writing this journal. I don't know how to start this but I have started to feel like I am a cursed child. The people whom I had loved dearly have abandoned or left me alone. On the 9th of April, we had our match against the state of Tripura. This was the first match we played on the home ground.
Before the match started, a man approached me and Aarohi, and introduce himself as Vikash Subedhi. He told us that he had seen the match against the team from Meghalaya and he felt like the Indian National Sub-junior team could benefit a lot from the inclusion of agile and quick-thinking players like us.
We couldn't believe what we just heard. We introduced him to Uncle and Aunty who had come to watch us play. As the match started we decided to do the move Sagar sir taught us.
We raised our hands, and ran towards the field and as we reached the centerline, we stood on our knees and touched the ground with our forehead, to pay respect to Sir and Mother earth.
The match started and we played a very good match. We had our advantage against the team since we knew their strengths and weakness very well. We ended up winning the match and Justin being declared as the best player for the day. As we were returning back to our training center our Bus met with an accident.
I don't remember much what happened after the accident, but I vaguely remember Aarohi pulling me out of the van, giving me some water to drink, and then both of us trying to pull out all of our friends from the van. I remember Sunaina and Taposh dada thanking us before they lost consciousness. They both were bleeding profusely. Aarav, Justin, Joy, Sam, and Tony's body felt lifeless but at that moment all we could think of was they were our friends and Dad always kept saying never leave your man behind when you are in a battlefield and this situation felt like it was more than a battlefield.
Finally, as we went to pull out Anju from the wreck, there was a blast and Aarohi and I were thrown away from the van. I tried to pull myself towards Aarohi, even though I was hurt myself and as I reached near her, I saw blood near her chest, before I fainted. Aamaya didi told me that I regained consciousness after 60 days. She also told me that all my friends whom we have tried to rescue were no more. Taposh Dada died on the way to the hospital and Sunaina struggled for 2 days before she gave up. Aamaya didi started crying and told me that Aarohi came out of coma 3 days back, however, due to an injury to her head and a splinter piercing her heart during the accident, her heart gave up. Doctors tried to use a pacemaker to keep her alive, however, when she regained consciousness her body couldn't take the load of the pacemaker and finally gave up. The doctors said that since Aarohi was too young, the pacemaker didn't work on her.
The only person, my Athos, is no more, I didn't believe it. I hugged Aamaya didi tightly and cried, the doctors came and gave me some medicines and I drowsied off to sleep.
Even though I was sad, a part of me was happy that Aarohi was gone. At-least now she doesn't have to suffer what she has been suffering for the past 3 years. If anyone would read this diary, they might think I am a mean boy but after knowing Aarohi's secret, and the way the family treated her, everyone would wish she was dead instead of enduring what they did to her. Aarohi, please forgive me for hoping that you are dead but I cannot bear to see you suffer every-day.
After I regained my senses, I saw Aamaya didi was still standing next to me. I requested her if she can take me to where Aarohi was cremated. I came to know from Aamaya didi that Aarohi was buried and not cremated. She told me that a child younger than 10-years-old is buried according to the Hindu tradition. We got the permission of the doctor and Aunty took me to St John's Churchyard where Aarohi was buried. They gave her the most beautiful farewell ever. Uncle had also got a tombstone erected at the place where she was buried.
In the tombstone, it was written "IF YOU'RE BRAVE ENOUGH TO SAY GOODBYE, LIFE WILL REWARD YOU WITH A NEW HELLO" AAROHI S BANERJEE, 17TH JULY, 1986 - 11TH JULY, 1993. WONDERFUL DAUGHTER AND BEAUTIFUL FRIEND."
I was happy that they had erected a tombstone to honor the bravest person I ever knew, but deep down I was also angry that even after her death they dishonored her memory. I planted a rose plant next to her Grave and left the crematorium.
****This was really a sad day. Bengal team lost some of the future players for the team. To tell the truth I really don't know how Abhinu might be feeling, first, he lost his dad, and now one of his best friend... Life is really getting tough for that poor child. I hope he stays strong. But one thing I don't understand, what is this secret. Why is it so important that it is hurting a 7-year-old so deeply. I wish I could meet this Abhinu and uncover the truth and lighten his burden. ****