Chrissy called. This time she has her boyfriend with her. They want to meet me for beer and dinner at Blue and Beyond, the rooftop open-air restaurant on Lindsay Street, below which nighttime Kolkata winks, twinkles and lies invitingly spread.

We meet. She is looking as lovely as ever, the evening breeze gathered in her hair. The same old warm hug, the familiar smell of sunscreen lotion.

Samid. Her boyfriend, a diving instructor and underwater photographer at the islands. Beer and small talk first. For the rest of the evening, we talk only of Havelock.

He has found the girl. Havelock, really, is what I’m left with. Nearly a year back, she had made me jump into the middle of the sea. True. For someone with just a notion of swimming and who could be arrested for attempted suicide, I had shed my fear and clothes to dive in right after her. On her insistence of course, “Come on, it’s great, come”. The snorkeling gear in place, the lifejacket tightly knotted around me, and with those duck paddles for nuisance value, I had nervously eased myself off the boat and into the wide, open sea. Wooosh — our guides must have drowned laughing. My legs stiff, outstretched and desperate, they touched no land. So I floated. Head down, immersed below the surface of the sea, I saw. The heavy sound of breathing inside the mask the only hint of my own existence — around me was a parallel universe. Schools of fish, richly or dully coloured, small or big, squirming or elegant, played around me and around blocks of corals lying far below.

... contd.