“How does a model of a hundred-year-old portrait have such incredible resemblance to you, Nanda?” Nikhil was strolling in our bedroom barefoot.

We were back from the party a while ago. I gave him an apathetic look through the mirror, while wiping out my make-up with a wet tissue.

It was our fifth wedding anniversary, today. Nikhil had been always perfect in all his arrangements. He arranged for the party, in a four-star hotel and resort in a posh area in Delhi called The Sapphire. I should be very happy with such a tremendous arrangement. It was for the first time in the last five years that we had celebrated our wedding anniversary. He did all this for my happiness, I thought.

But I was wrong. Ever since I realised Nikhil’s intent for organising such a big bash, I could not be as excited as I should be.

“Let’s go once Nanda I desire to experience everything myself,” I could sense his eagerness. I decided to stay silent, though.

**********

The more you require avoiding dramas in your life, the more your life does not spare you. I was chatting with my friends in the party, when Nikhil introduced me to Sanjay Sharma, one of the most successful hoteliers in the country.

“Namaste Mrs Barman,” he looked at me bemused. “Nice meeting you.”

“Namaste, please make yourself comfortable,” I welcomed him with a cordial smile.

Nikhil, my scientist husband's, latest invention, The Timepiece was holding him in the light of publicity both at home and abroad, nowadays. He attended a three-day conference, here in Delhi, with his fellow scientists, and with National and International delegates a couple of months ago. His conference was held at this resort itself.  That was when Nikhil stayed in The Sapphire for the first time. After the first day of the conference, Mr. Sharma introduced himself as the proprietor to Nikhil. That he had read about The Timepiece in the newspaper and since then he did not want to miss the opportunity to meet the legendary scientist, Nikhil Barman, the inventor of the time machine.

Mr. Sharma apparently seemed quite innocent with his short height, and a cheeky body. He was in his mid-forties, unwed, and a wealthy enough gentleman. He bought a country house in Berhampur, a little distance away from Kolkata. He was supposed to renovate it into another resort, without much changing of its winsome original structure. It was heard that this huge villa was actually an ex-zamindar's homestead, which was abandoned after that Zamindar had died suddenly, hundred and fifty years ago.

Mr. Sharma was overjoyed at the spectacular opulence of this country house and its future profits, until he received a call from the Site-Engineer.

“The labour force is not willing to work here anymore, Sir!” The Site-Engineer explained, “A sealed; hidden; and a shallow tunnel was found underneath the original temple in the backyard of the villa. Two skeletons, embosomed with each other, came out from there while digging.”

Mr. Sharma did not delay reaching there and persuaded the labourers to continue by increasing their wages. He, however, saw those two skeletons and some more as well as found some marvellous, antique oil paintings. Some of those were used to decorate the resort and the remaining were used to enhance the decoration of Mr. Sharma’s own residence here in Delhi, a half an hour driveway from The Sapphire. He, with an aesthetic taste in antique decorative items, actually fell in love with those paintings. All of the paintings were portraying a gorgeous, enchanting, and gracious lady who was hardly eighteen or nineteen then.

Mr. Sharma, however, had an intuition that all the paintings and skeletons were indicating at some mysterious history of the countryhouse, which was abandoned for the last hundred and fifty years. Since he realised, Nikhil Barman, the great inventor of the time machine, had come here in The Sapphire, he could not but desire to travel through time and unfold the mystery.

Initially, Nikhil did not take Mr. Sharma's story seriously. He was shaken after Mr. Sharma had presented him one of the oil paintings, which he obtained from the Berhampur country house, his recently renovated resort in Kolkata, which was waiting for its inauguration a few months later. Nikhil could not believe his eyes, the lady in the portrait was exactly my carbon copy! But the fact was, neither my ancestors nor I had ever been to Kolkata.

Curiosity killed the cat; true indeed. Despite being less interested in Mr. Sharma's story or intuition, Nikhil agreed to travel through time with him. He also desired me to accompany them. He thought I would be convinced, once I had enjoyed the party, met with Mr. Sharma, glimpsed at the portrait, and heard the story from him.

******

It is almost universally accepted that the romantic and passionate love is an illusion only, which leads us to marriage, and then it turns down their flames. Yet, the married couple, being out of love with each other, sometimes opt for staying together until they fall in love again.

It was love at first sight for both of us. Life, though, anointed us with all the clichés within a month or so, after our marriage. Experience taught us to lead our lives smoothly, while retaining all the resentment backstage, and to let the flow of life take us wherever it wanted to. Nikhil and I both were, maybe, waiting to fall in with each other, once again.

It was almost a week later, we landed on the runway of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport, Kolkata. It took four and a half hours more to reach Berhampur from the airport by a cab.

Mr. Sharma welcomed us at the entrance gate of this resort. He had arrived a day before. The Jungle Estate, the name, was engraved on the boundary wall in metallic letters. We entered inside; the environment around us took a change momentarily. Nature had reserved its flora and fauna with utmost care inside the resort. We were moving forward through a narrow walkway, which had divided the whole area into two parts. At the end of the walkway, the stately home of the said Zamindar had been renovated into several units for the guests.

We entered the room, allotted to us, following Mr. Sharma. The caretaker had already brought our luggage in that room much before we came in. We had freshened up and soon after reached the dining hall for the evening tea with snacks over a short chit-chat. The dining hall was in another two-storeyed building beside the main building.

“I hope, you liked the resort, Mrs. Barman,” Mr. Sharma threw me the question suddenly.

“Oh! Yes, It’s quite a refreshing environment, Mr. Sharma,” I smiled forgetting my unease.

“I would like to suggest a walk inside the resort. You may love the company of rabbits, peacock and peahens, guinea pigs, swans and other pets,” he said softly.

“That’s great!” Nikhil seemed very energetic; “We can visit the nearby areas and sights too by tomorrow morning.”

“When did you plan our adventure, so?” Mr. Sharma asked him casually.

“Tomorrow, post dinner;” Nikhil replied, while taking a sip of his tea.

******

Real love never dies. It can be lost over time. Then it gets rejuvenated in the right moment. Last night, while walking around the resort, Nikhil took my hand into his. After a long time, I was thrilled, loved to be touched and longed for more, while the gentle breeze was shuffling my hair. A canine was crying somewhere at a nearby distance. Was there anyone behind us? I looked back; it was Mr. Sharma! Suddenly, I was stung by a strong sense of déjà vu.

“I thought to accompany you,” he looked slightly abashed.

I realised, for the first time, there was something about Mr. Sharma, that gave me a creepy feeling, every time I met him so far. I doubted his motive to bring us here. Was his story real or was he just bluffing? If so, then what could be the reason underneath?

The Timepiece! A shiver coursed down my spine, as I thought I could decode his motive. “Is it any professional jealousy? Who is he working for? Is Nikhil aware of anything?” All these questions started juggling up in my thoughts.

“Why aren't there any more staff or any other patron in your resort?” I asked him trying my best to hide my tremble.

“The housekeeping will join the day after tomorrow, a day before the inauguration,” he seemed innocent, “I want to allow the guests only after the housekeeping would join. I am eagerly waiting to know the history of this place, and I don’t want anybody to get informed about it.”

Next morning we went to visit the nearby sights. Only then, did I know that Nikhil too had a doubt from the very beginning. Yet, he had a strong desire to discover the end of this mystery. He, of course, had his “Plan B” in his mind in case of any emergency.

*****

Life is beautiful with all its peaks and valleys. One needs to believe in and wait for the magic if one wants to extract the essence of life.

I was unaware of our future. I was not sanguine, whether Nikhil would be successful in the mission. But I fell in love with him once again after five years. As time went by, all my senses were getting numb with the fright of losing him.

We had had our dinner, that night, a bit early as a part of our plan. The only caretaker of the resort had been sent home in the evening. Mr. Sharma did not want any fourth person as a witness of our voyage.

It was 10 o'clock at night. We were supposed to start our time travel by midnight.

“Are you scared, Nanda?” Nikhil could read my mind; “It would take hardly an hour and a half of the present earth-time if everything goes well.”

“I don’t want to lose you, Nikhil.” I was choked with tears.

“You won’t, I promise;” he gave me a deep and passionate kiss on my lips. “Even, I don’t want that either.”

The time was slowly running towards the future. We were preparing ourselves to go back in the past, to unveil some mysteries, and to go for a litmus test of Nikhil’s own invention, The Timepiece. 

“It’s twelve at night,” Nikhil said as the old Grandfather Clock of “The Jungle Estate” struck twelve times.

“I wish I could turn back the clock and bring the wheels of time to a stop.” Deep in my heart, I said, and in reality, I got ready to embrace the uncertainty of life, though.

A gentle knock on the door; we understood that Mr. Sharma was also all set to start. We came out of the room and followed him to the tunnel at the backyard where the skeletons and other stuff were found.

Nikhil apprised, “Nature never allows us to change any of her rules. She may tolerate us to travel through the time, but to change any event that took place in the past. If someone attempts to change the past; nature will prevent with all her power to let the past be uninterrupted. The future is flexible, and the past is rigid. We should remember it throughout our journey." 

*****

“Time traveling would be like watching a movie, what one will see is past, so untouchable,” said Nikhil. He put on a new wristwatch on his left hand as we were about to start our journey. Mr. Sharma was showing us the way with his torchlight.

We reached to a staircase, totally destroyed, started from the tunnel and it ended somewhere deep down the netherworld. Nikhil looked at his watch and set the time, 1917. He pressed a blue button on one side of the watch. A bright electromagnetic orifice appeared suddenly at a distant. Nikhil, holding my hand tight in his, moved ahead. As we entered the orifice everything around us changed, the staircase seemed to be broken and abandoned.

“The history of this place is much older, I think. This place seems abandoned already.” Nikhil whispered.

“Let’s go back to fifty more years,” Mr. Sharma said, “I heard everything was a destroyed here hundred and fifty years ago.”

Nikhil reset his watch, 1867, within a few seconds we had felt a strong vibration beneath our feet, a vigorous power dragged us inside the magnetic field, and then threw us all on the other end of the orifice.

We reached to a dark, damp room and saw a pair of dying young couple was embracing each other with utmost love. The young girl noticed the bright blue light that was reflecting from our electromagnetic hollow. The blue light enhanced the beauty of that girl; we all were amazed noticing that, she, really was my resemblance.

She, indicating the bright and blue light, said, “Look, darling! The doors of the heaven are opened for us, we are going towards our next birth now. We will surely meet there, Abhimanyu.”

Abhimanyu, the youth she was embracing, turned his face towards the light now, we all got dumbfounded; it was Nikhil!

As we were stepping up the stairs the time was going backward by a few more years. The past had repeated in a cinematic way unfolding the mystery to us.

*****

Zamindar Krishna Chandra was getting married for the fourth time in his mid-forties. The new bride, Maya, was nineteen only. Krishna Chandra being obsessed with his new bride-to-be had decided to decorate each of the walls in the palace with Maya’s portraits. The famous young artist Abhimanyu had been chosen for painting her portrait.

Everyone knew that the other three wives of Zamindar Krishna Chandra died due to cholera. However, the truth was, they were all thrown into the secret room beneath the temple to die as they could not give birth to the Zamindar’s child. He was not ready to accept the fact that he was infertile.

Maya too gradually discovered the truth. She knew she too would be abandoned soon for the same reason. Her fate would be the same as the other three wives of the Zamindar. But she never bothered about the consequences.

In a short while though, Maya and Abhimanyu deeply fell in love with each other. The gardens, the backyards, the woods and its animals, the nights and the days inside the palace were the witnesses to their love.

On one fateful night, when Maya and Abhimanyu were walking in the garden, holding hands; the gentle breeze was playing with Maya’s hair, the rabbits were accompanying them, and the leaves were singing into their ears. That's when, Maya felt someone was there behind them. She heard her pet dog crying at a near distance. Did the hound want to inform her something?

She looked back, and at once turned stiff. It was Zamindar Krishna Chandra! His anger, sorrow, and revenge had no bounds. He threw them alive into that secret room beneath the temple, and then ordered his men to seal the entrance of the tunnel.

A fearless Maya laughed at Krishna Chandra and cursed him, “Even if it is not in this birth, Abhimanyu and I would surely be reunited in our next birth. It’s you who would live your every life alone with your ego and wealth.”

*****

Sanjay Sharma was too befuddled to digest that Zamindar Krishna Chandra was his own pre-incarnation. Mr. Sharma, forgetting the reality and Nikhil’s advice, rushed towards his own past, as Zamindar Krishna Chandra was sealing the entrance of the tunnel.

“Wait! You can't do that!” He cried out, “It’s all your mistakes that forced me to stay alone and get frustrated in this birth too. Look at them!” He indicated towards Nikhil and me, “They are happily married in this life!”

Nature, as Nikhil said, did not allow Mr. Sharma to stop Krishna Chandra. Suddenly, we experienced a tremendous shaking and vibration around us. The electromagnetic orifice was gradually moving away from us. Nikhil tried to stop Mr. Sharma, but all in vain. The blue light that was reflecting from Nikhil’s Timepiece was dwindling.

Nikhil, holding my hand tight in his grip, jumped into the orifice. The magnetic field engrossed both of us. We were lost in the whirl of the time. The Time, then, threw us back in the present. We discovered ourselves in the backyard of "The Jungle Estate," before we discovered that The Timepiece had disappeared.

The mysterious first rays of the sun, here in this part of the earth-time, was getting ready to decorate the nature at the end of the dark night.

******