When You Are With Me

Preface

Perhaps we will be lost,
But remember we will be found.
You and I will come together all around.

The heart has surged close,
To touch the depth of the soul.

Emerging from this cruel society,
We will fight the crusade silently.

All I dream is you,
All I want is you,
The strength in me occurs from you.

We are moulded together.
You in me and Me in you.

Perhaps We will be lost,
But remember we will be found.
You and I will come together all around.

_________________________

As an iron cuts another iron, so one practice breaks another practice.

How will this relationship be if it comes out of the house of customs?

Set in the pre-independence era in rural Bengal. A 21-year-old lad,
Anirudh Roy Choudhary, the son of Zamindars. A London-returned Barrister arrived back in his motherland, to wipe out customs and societal beliefs which prevent the progress of women.

"No one can change the social system, neither we nor you" the man interrupted brutally to stop him.

"Can try to change it?" Anirudh yelled with wide red eyes.

" Because Anirudh RoyChoudhury has come for this Change...I HAVE COME FOR THIS CHANGE" He roared in front of hundred Britishers, in front of his family. In an attempt to prove his words, he drank two brass storage pots of water. Leaving all bewildered by his fitoor, his passion. Ending up doing things incompatibly.

He had been criticized, suffered humiliation, and mocked. But he stuck to his resolves. No one supported him. His friends, his family sneered at his views.

❅❅❅❅❅

Bondita Das, a Hindu Bengali girl, lived with her widowed mother Sumati, in her maternal uncle's house.

Bondita's age was tender but arguments were huge. She was a tyrant yet outspoken too.

"We worship Dugga maa, a goddess. Then why the priests in the mandir are men?" She questioned patriarchy.

"How a girl can be Lakshmi(goddess of auspiciousness) and paraya Dhan(alien money) at the same time?" Making people scratch their heads while thinking about her arguments.

"Tell me," she raised questions.

❁❁❁❁❁

In Anirudh's friend's marriage, In a bid to save her from sati-pratha. Anirudh married an eleven-year-old Bondita.

To protect her from an evil practice he was bound to use another evil custom 'child marriage'.

Destiny bought them together in a way to make a change in society.

The journey initiated, not of romance but
Of revolution, struggle and change!
Of friendship and affection!