N the process of growing up, a M youth generally aquires a mix-

® ture of sensiblities and emo-

tions which throws open new & dimensions of attitudes and

■ outlook on life. At this stage,

» new feelings of attraction and

■ repulsion tend to develop in a

marked degree. Sohail, a young man of eighteen was no exception to this trend. It was. therefore, quite natural that a young girl living nearby should attract his attention. But the characteristic aspect of the whole affair was that the centre of attraction for the girl was not her whole beauty but only a part of her countenance.

To make the point clear, it may be stated that in the eyes of Sohail, the attractive part of the girl lay in her bounteous long tresses. As she sometimes used to dry the long hairs in sunshine on the railings of her veranda, Sohail looked transfixed at the beautiful scene. Sohail had no knowledge whether the girl was aware of her ecstatic feelings about her hair. Some might interpret it as a sign of love harboured by Sohail about the girl. But in fact it was not so. for Sohail never came near her or t41ked to her on any occasion. Yet Sohail felt a sort of compulsion gripping him whenever the enchanting spectacle of the girl drying her hair presented itself.

: However, in the process of inexorable

march of time, everything changes. In the case of Sohail, the feelings of enchantment by him for the girl gradually faded and such feelings became less obsessive. He even forgot what happened to that girl when her family left that locality later.

After a couple of decades when Sohail passed into middle ago, a strange twist of fortune awaited him. At an important shopping complex in the Dhaka city. Sohail came across the same woman whose long tresses once threw him into fits of ecstacy. He had no difficulty in recognising that woman after such a long period because of their long residence in the same locality.

Though Sohail never talked to her before when she was young, the long years intervening in their life which have now placed them both at the threshold of middle age, the erstwhile reticence which stood in the way of any previous communication between them before, disappeared instantly as they could recognise each other.

Sohail came forward and said: "We must be known to each other. Isn t it?’’ The woman had a few moments of hesi tation as she tried to remember and then her face lit up with memory of remembrance. She then nodded her agreement.

They then made mutual queries about their present life and where-

abouts. Sohail learnt from her that she was presently a college teacher with two teen-aged boys. As the occasion was not suitable for more detailed talks, they parted company and Sohail promised to see her again at the address she gave him.

This chance encounter could have been an ordinary event but for certain of its fall-out effects. Sohail could not help noticing that the woman's hair which were once an object of glory were less bountiful now with most of them turned completely white. Their present state of lacklustre facade sent pangs of grief over something irretrively lost.

At the stage when Sohail saw her with her past glory of hairs in limbo. Sohail also in his middle age had some strands of grey hair, which he had sought to cover up with regular use of hair dye. When he subsequently compared his own image with his dyed up hair side by side with the bleak features of the middle-aged college teacher woman, he seemed to lose all incentive for improve his features by hair-dying. He then decided to allow the remaining parts of his hair to go grey without any help of hair dye.

It all seemed pointless to him to keep trying to look young with black hair when he found that the object of his adoration once cherished in the woman in her early years proved so ephemeral.