The Residue of Love

 

The Residue of Love

Some people believe that true love and genuine knowledge outlive the body—that they turn immortal, transcending the cycle of birth and death. Kishore never accepted this romantic metaphysics. To him, such theories were often floated by “any Tom, Dick, and Harry” who lacked both logic and evidence, yet proclaimed their beliefs as eternal truths.

“Yes, knowledge can outlive a person,” Kishore argued, “but only through books, institutions, and students. Wealth survives through inheritance or philanthropy. But don’t call it mystical, and don’t tell me that people are reborn with the same wisdom or love. It’s always a hoax! Some even claim to remember their past lives and narrate them like polished TED Talks—no contradictions, no glitches—just pure fiction marketed as metaphysics!”

Kishore grew up questioning everything—enough to unsettle priests, astrologers, and elderly neighbours. At college, he formed a Freethinkers’ Circle that became infamous for grilling teachers with uncomfortable questions.

Once, during a lecture, the teacher remarked, “We are the product of our choices—that is the law of Karma.” Kishore disagreed. Not everyone, he argued, is blessed with options.

He asked, “Sir, how did you come to college today?”

“By a rickshaw,” the lecturer replied.

“And who was pulling it?”

“The rickshaw puller, of course.”

“And why was he pulling it and not you?”

“It was his rickshaw—his choice,” the lecturer said confidently.

Kishore then asked, “Was it really his choice—or simply the absence of choices?”

Silence.

“You can’t label the absence of choice as choice. That’s utter misguidance,” Kishore concluded.

The teacher took offence and marched to the principal. The principal counselled Kishore gently: “You have the tendency to observe everything only in parts. Wisdom will come with maturity. Wait for the right age.”

To Kishore, this was a standard spiritual tactic—a convenient way to marginalise questioning minds: branding youth as immature, curiosity as insolence, and independence as indiscipline. Society, he felt, preferred obedient followers to thinking individuals.

The parents of such rebellious boys dreaded vacations. When the Freethinkers returned home, they debated with pandits and astrologers, creating such chaos that parents would hurriedly pack them back to their hostels.

Once, when someone asked Kishore in a critical tone why the Freethinkers’ Circle had no women members, he replied, “They’re watching us—our stand on gender equality and our rebellion against male dominance. Just wait—soon they’ll join us and lead from the front.”

Everyone predicted a bleak future for the group: “No company wants a doubting Thomas!”

Yet life surprised everyone—all ten Freethinkers secured respectable jobs. They had merely “suspended questioning temporarily” for interviews. Kishore, their leader, even landed a top government post.

His secret?

“I never stopped arguing. I just changed my tone—‘I may be mistaken… with due respect… sorry to differ, sir… there’s another perspective…’ That’s how you win without offending.”

Marriage, however, was where Kishore drew a firm line. He believed marriage turned spirited minds into obedient conformists. Eight of them eventually married (some even shamefully embraced dowry), but Kishore and another hardcore Freethinker held out. Families panicked:

• “We will die without seeing our bahu and grandson!”
• “Those who die without a grandson go to hell!”
• “Unmarried men suffer strange illnesses—migraines, night attacks—even a churail comes in dreams as a wife, sucks their blood, and inflicts diseases no doctor can diagnose!”

Finally, an elderly man arrived at Kishore’s home with a peculiar request.

One of the Freethinkers—the ninth in their band of ten—had refused to marry, and his mother was heartbroken. After the doctors’ prognosis on her health, she was convinced she would die of grief within six months, even before the onset of her third heart attack. Since Kishore was the group’s leader, only he could persuade her son.

Kishore agreed—but when he tried to convince his friend, the friend set one condition: “Only if you marry too.”

 

And so, at forty, Kishore and his friend married two educated sisters, aged thirty-eight and thirty-six. The Freethinkers didn’t fuss over beauty or horoscopes—and certainly not dowries. The brides took just one vow:

“We will remain Freethinkers after marriage.”

The vow-taking was neither ceremonial mumbo-jumbo nor sacrosanct. Kishore simply handed his bride a register documenting the Circle’s discussions—their ideological heritage. That was the formal initiation before the two women became the perfect match for Kishore and his friend.

That evening, with Kishore, his father, and sister seated in the car, the procession set off for the bride’s house. Barely a quarter of a mile away, Kishore asked the driver for his licence. It had expired. Horrified at the thought of being stopped and forced to bribe his way out—illegal and unethical—Kishore returned alone on foot to fetch his own licence. The elders protested that returning once the baraat had begun was inauspicious, but Kishore dismissed the superstition.

It was around 8 p.m. The road lay dark under a canopy of silence—no streetlights, no movement. Near an old banyan tree, an elderly woman in a white sari appeared and softly asked, “Will you take me along?”

“The car is full,” Kishore replied.

She smiled. “No matter—I’ll sit on the roof.”

Kishore laughed. “It’s a car, Mataji, not a bus!”

Her eyes glowed with an odd tenderness. “I’ve waited for this opportunity for years,” she said gently.

When Kishore asked who she was, she didn’t give a name—only said, “I am your best well-wisher.”

Before he could ask more, she had vanished into the darkness.

Later that night: Kishore was driving. The hired driver—licence expired and conscience equally questionable—had fallen asleep beside him, snoring softly. As the night deepened, fatigue crept in; the road stretched like a dull ribbon under the headlights.

And then, in that eerie half-second between waking and sleep, the woman in the white sari flashed into view, running across the road straight toward the car.

Instinct snapped him awake. He slammed the brakes. The car screeched. The passengers lurched forward, startled and disoriented. Kishore gripped the wheel, his pulse hammering—but said nothing. For a man who had spent decades mocking ghost stories, admitting this would destroy his rationalist image. One word, and he’d become the very legend he had spent his life debunking.

Instead, he opened the flask and poured himself a cup of tea, letting the hot liquid burn his throat and his sleep away. It was a conscious violation of the wedding-night fast that forbade food or drink before the ceremonial palm-tying.
Better to break a ritual than break his neck on the highway!

He reached the bride’s house safely, married, and returned home the next morning.

During the post-wedding lunch, a relative joked, “First serve food to Kishore’s aunt—his father’s sister. If her spirit isn’t fed, she’ll come demanding answers! She’s a dabang even in the afterworld!”

Everyone laughed—except Kishore. The remark struck him like lightning. His paternal aunt, the only soul who had loved him as fiercely as his mother, had died when he was in Class V. She had only one wish—to live long enough to lead Kishore’s wedding procession. Fate was merciless. A swift, cruel snakebite had taken her before she could see that day.

That afternoon, Kishore accompanied the cook to the coconut grove, where food was traditionally offered to the departed. As always, stray dogs and crows came to eat. But now, the events of the previous night began to align in his mind.

Could that gentle woman in the white sari have been his aunt? If she hadn’t woken him… would the car have crashed? Would his bride have been widowed on her wedding night?

Kishore never spoke of it—not to his wife even, not to his Freethinker friends. For the next twenty years of married life, he carried one quiet, disobedient thought:

Perhaps love does survive the body—not as mysticism, but as lingering concern; a residue in the air, a vibration that returns when needed.

A Freethinker remained a Freethinker. But one night, love had out-reasoned him.

--------------------------------

By

Ananta Narayan Nanda

Bhubaneswar

7-11-2025

-----------------------------------

To get the author's English novel Ivory Imprint, (ebook), please visit the Amazon link at https://amzn.in/d/8B3V96H 

To get the author's English novel Ivory Imprint (paperback), please visit the Amazon link at https://amzn.in/d/egyKzZA