The Last Visit

Thank you tournesol for beta reading.

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The Last Visit

Bulbbul’s hair was untamed. Her eyes were blazing fire but were deep with compassion. She looked over at Sudip from one of the treetop of the forest. People said that the chudail haunted the forest and feasted on the commuters, and now, the forest was slowly burning around him, but Sudip couldn't care less about it. He took in her appearance. Though she looked scary in her untamed self, she never looked so beautiful. She looked like the Goddess of death herself had descended from the heavens.

Devi maa came to protect me.The little girl’s words after her assaulter's murder made sense now.

“Badi Bahu,” Sudip said in awe, comprehension dawning him. Bulbbul smiled. It was a smile he had never seen before.

Somewhere far off in the distance, Satya fired his gun, causing the tranquility of the moment to break. Sudip's eyes went wide with horror, but Bulbbul seemed unmoved by the sound.

“Go. He can hurt you,” she ordered him, instead.

“I cannot. I cannot leave you alone. Satya babu is hell-bent on killing the chudail,”

“Please go. You are the only one who kept my belief in humanity intact; I cannot afford you getting hurt,” Bulbbul said, almost begging.

“Promise me you’ll be safe,” he said helplessly.

“When have I ever been safe?” she retorted. But he couldn't register her snark, as worry for her safety started causing his anxiety to increase.

He looked at her pleadingly, hoping that she'd let him stay, but there was a certain resignation yet sternness in her expressions that made his heart bleed.

"Be safe, Sudip," She said, almost dismissingly. "I promise I'll try to be safe. Now go,"

He looked at her for a few seconds and then turned on his heels. He ran away, turning to look at her after every few steps he took. He wanted to have a last look at her, capture her in his memories, before he lost her forever.

The whole village watched as the forest burned down, but that meant that the witch was dead. They all rejoiced the death of the evil, everyone but Sudip, who knew that the goddess was defeated by their ignorance. Soon, rumors of murder of Badi Bahu and her driver by the chudail started surfacing.

Sudip knew that hoping for Bulbbul's survival was useless. He has seen the resignation and heartbreak in Bulbbul's eyes. He knew that she was done with her mission and had chosen death. He just wished that she hadn't given up this soon.

The next afternoon, a servant from the haveli knocked on his door and informed him that Satya was on his way to visit him. Sudip knew what he had to say to him. But Sudip didn’t want to see Satya babu. He didn’t want the confirmation of her death; he wouldn't be able to bear it.

“She is dead, they found her body last night.” Satya babu said the second their eyes met. Sudip wanted to strangle him, hit him, cause him the same amount of agony that he was feeling. Instead, he slumped to the ground and held his head. Tears trickled down his cheeks.

“I... I didn’t know it was her,” said Satya. "I killed her. I thought I was protecting my people," He continued, as he fell to the ground.

“You thought she was a chudail,” Sudip said, furious, “A chudail who feasted on innocents. But she was out there, protecting her people, like a true Thakuraain. You all failed the village, but she didn’t. And now you have killed the true ruler and protector of the village. You have killed the woman I...” He stopped himself before he let the emotions he had buried deep within him resurface. "You are a murderer," He spat out.

“I am so sorry. My ego and hatred had blinded me. I refused to see that the men she had killed were vicious predators who hurt their own wives and granddaughters. I thought that women can't be brutal, but I forgot how horrible men can become. The villagers said that they were being preyed on by a witch and I believed them,” Satya paused, and then sobbed with his voice full of agony, “I lost my friend.”

Yeah, right! The friend you never bothered contacting, the friend you left behind with those vultures. The friend who loved you with her very being, but you never acknowledged her love. The friend you murdered.

Sudip wanted to reply sarcastically but didn't.

"She was my innocent Bulbbul," Satya said sadly.

Sudip never got to meet the innocent Bulbbul. The lady he met had seen the world and its brutality. She was brutal and just, and no more innocent.

"When your husband hits you and breaks your legs, and your brother-in-law rapes you, being innocent doesn't become a priority," Sudip said unable to tolerate more.

Satya looked at him in shock and gasped. He struggled for words, but Sudip didn't have the time or patience for Satya to see how evil his family was; how men could get evil. He knew he should explain to him what had happened to Bulbbul after he had left for London, but he was too tired and wanted to be alone with the thoughts of his Badi Bahu.

"It's too late now; you should go," he said. It was too late for Satya's repentance. Too late for anything.

Sudip moved out of the village after Bulbbul’s final rites and settled in a small town on the border of Bengal. He did his best to continue his Thakuraain’s legacy by helping people and looked out for the village children.

One day, as he got ready for his day, someone knocked on the door. Thinking that it might be one of the villagers requiring medical assistance, he rushed and opened the door. He gasped in shock when he saw who it was.

It was Bulbbul. His Thakuraain. His Badi Bahu.

“Badi bahu,” he whispered. He leaned on the door as his feet gave away. He wasn't really sure what he was feeling. He was ecstatic, but there was a part of him that believed that this was an hallucination. He wanted to touch her, hug her, but he just gaped at her like a stargazer gazing at the Dhruv Tara.

She smiled at him. The smile was not her usual stoic smile, but a childlike, innocent smile.

“Won’t you invite me in?”

He staggered out of her way and she walked in. She wore a grey saree and her hair tied up in a simple bun. Her face was devoid of any makeup, and she looked at peace more than ever.

“You shouldn't be here, you are...”

“Dead?”

He nodded, and she smirked. That was the Bulbbul he knew.

“You are dead. This isn’t you,” he said with finality after observing her for a few seconds.

“How are you so sure?”

“I just know,” he said, desperately hoping that she would deny. He hoped that she would say that she escaped the forest fire, that she was alive, that she was there with him.

“You are right; I am dead. I had some unfinished business. Now that I have completed most of it, I am here to complete the last bit.”

“Is Indranil Babu dead?” he asked.

Sudip should be more worried about being visited by an apparition, but instead he was asking about the man who ruined everything for Bulbbul. He was asking about the man who beat his wife and then left her to fend for herself. The man whose mentally ill twin brother had raped Bulbbul as she was recovering from her injuries. Sudip knew he should hate Indranil, wish him death, and he did! But there was a part of him that loathed Indranil less and worried more for Bulbbul's innocence. The innocence that was squashed the moment she lied that her bones were broken because she fell off the stairs. That innocence was replaced by thirst for justice when she took over her husband's throne and become the Thakuraain of the village.

“No. Killing him wouldn’t end it. His strength was his ego, his desire to control. I had to kill that to end him,”

Sudip nodded. He didn’t need to know more, he doubted that he would get any more information.

“Do you still read Sherlock Holmes?” she asked after a long pause, making Sudip chuckle dryly.

“Yes.” He looked at his book collection in the corner. “I read it out to the children, sometimes. There is a girl, Rekha; she loves them. Her hunger for knowledge reminds me of you,” Bulbbul smiled.

“Protect them. Do not let anything kill their innocence.”

“I try, but no one can protect them like their Devi.”

She shook her head, not accepting the title. The two fell into an companionable silence, as Bulbbul glided across his small room. She looked happy, and Sudip couldn't help but feel at peace at the thought. After a few, she spoke, breaking the silence.

“I used to call you a coward.”

“And like a coward, I ran away at the first chance I got.”

“No, you are a lot braver than you think. You are brave enough to bury your feelings; you are brave to be there for a broken woman. The world gave you dirty looks, but you took it all, only for me. Thank you,”

“I did it because I love...” he did not complete. Even in her death, he respected that she was a noblewoman, and he was a nobody.

“Say it. I am not a married woman now. I am dead; the societal constraints don’t bind me anymore. I came here to hear the one thing I had been waiting to hear all my life. I flirted with you, instigated you, but you calmly rejected my advances. You were always there as a friend, a companion but we both knew we deserved and desired more,”

Deserved and desired, Sudip blinked at the phrasing. He knew that she was attracted to him, but he also knew that she loved Satya, so her words stung.

“Do you even love me? Or are you just looking for someone who you feel you deserve?” he asked.

She smiled as if she had read his thoughts. Maybe as a ghost, she could.

“For the longest time in my life, I loved Satya, but my love was unrequited. He never loved me back. During the last moments of my life, as I sat amongst the burning trees and waited for my death, I realized that I loved two men.

I didn’t understand how it was possible. I didn’t know how I could love two men, but I love you both. I never stopped loving him, but I started loving you, and I continued to love you two.”

Sudip blinked at her, unable to think clearly at her confession.

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me, but I had to express myself. I had hidden all my life. I refuse to hide in my death. I just had to say what I wanted to say. And now that I did, I should leave.”

“No, wait!”

She gave him a sad smile and disappeared into thin air. Sudip fell to the ground, crying. Life had given him one last chance, but he failed. He failed himself and her. Sudip had failed his Badi bahu.

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Just a clarification: Since she is a Thakurain, the villagers called Bulbbul "Badi Bahu" irrespective of their relation to her and the same applied to Sudip. In the movie, Bulbbul asks him to call her by her name, but out of respect of her position in the society and to maintain boundaries, Sudip never does so.