Title: Monologue Sipra Roy
Michelle: ( present age 73)
Sitting with a photo frame which bears the group photo of High school students on the last day of graduation. when I was 17 years old and most of the group were almost more or less of same range. It was late afternoon when the last rays of setting sun through the window illumines miserly a small section of the half-dark studio room ;
Sitting on the corner of her bed near the window ; there are some more photos scattered on the bed beside her and a beautiful large album which resembles a piece of art .She looked lost in the photo frame and roaming in her memory lane ;her cheeks bears dry stream of tears .She was looking at her friend ,Sylvia who left to the other world few hours ago.
Michelle:(. (Monologue):>>>>>>>>>>(in Flash-back...)
.......Sylvia , you too left me alone in this vast world , while I came back alive from nursing home after critical heart surgery! You were always runners up to me , not only in sport and game , but in study , drama , music or art, but in every field in the game of life you beat me , kick me .....Gazing at the photo of closely knitted four friends I was roaming through my memory lane throughout the day ; we four were really soulmates ;we had never any quarrel.
..Remember? The class mates nicknamed us with a funny title "Misy-patpy"seaming the four names together 'Michelle, Sylvia, patty and poppy' like a bouquet.
Look , how bright we were, eyes of each were full of dream& hope glittering like glowing stars.You and I started our school life from nursery in Midtown Brookline High school; Patti and poppy joined us in grade nine. We were the prominent "so-called "Pop students in the class. We get attention from teachers as well as from students . The first stage of our initial life spent well . I was strong in literature; my aim of life was to be writer-cum -film director, Sylvia excelled in photography : you took your passion as your profession too. you got job in some trade magazine as assistant photographer. Patty became a very successful entrepreneur of event-management , and Poppy ?
She always wanted a handsome rich man to marry and to be a loving wife and mother ; she used to say that she was raised by single mother and felt tired and pity of hardship of mother's working-life for herself ;She had no wish to get job . She did not even take admission to any college .She met her future husband first in the Brooklyn Garden during Cherry Blossom festival. Poppy was 'black beauty' of our school. she looked like a statue of black-stone ; some boys had crush on her and called her as beautiful as Nefartiti.
Poppy got married within six months of her High school graduation with the man of her first love . Remember ? how much we the 'Misy-Patpy' enjoyed the ceremony in Charleston as bride's maid ! Her husband was the owner of some four star luxurious hotel of Charleston . We spent a whole week at the insistence of the couple !
Yes, She led a happy married//conjugal life for 11 years with two children .Then she fell sick with slow fever and caugh. She neglected it initially ; her husband forced her to visit a doctor .She was diagnosed lung cancer and in quite advanced stage! I visited her last only five days before her death. ...I spent with her whole day in the nursing home . As I got ready to leave her she burst into tears embracing me and said whispering ,
"do you know(struggling a long breathe) that not the disease but what pinched me bitterly --is that Mark is dating a. woman who is a Dr of this nursing home as he came to know my days are limited..." a second wave of louder cry made her body shiver like seizure.
"Please pray god to take me quickly, and take care of my children She released me and looking straight to me in tearful eyes vomited from poisonous voice ,
" never believe a man nor his love!"
I took my flight with sad shrouded mind .All. these years I wished her children on their birthday . They were sent to boarding school after their father's second marriage. I used to wish them in their birthday and Christmas Day ;but I stopped it as Poppy's husband didn't like it .
Story of Poppy ends in tragedy.
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After the completion of High school , I went California with one year scholarship for the film institution .I made a documentary of 18 reel. on water-pollution.. and the potential ways how to control it .I was producer cum director and author , editor . The documentary was sent to Venice and won award. I worked as assistant with some good directors to learn their technic and also filmy experience. Then I took great risk to make a film of my own .
That was a great blunder for me .
I wrote the novel on the background of Greek epic Homer ,titled as "Voyage of New-age Ulysses"//or,("Return Voyage of Ulyssys").The theme of my story was the journey of a struggling life of a young ambitious brilliant student . My protagonist was a student of anthropology in Berkley university His traumatic journey of life was against his torturing alcoholic father to rescue his siblings and his stepmother who was a black woman with three children from the previous husband . Like Ulysses sailing alone across the the sea Mark, (my protagonist) struggled hard throughout the youth to win happiness to his ill-fated step-mother and to bring up all his siblings to grow up as wise dutiful citizens.
( Continue)
