Nearsighted

Oil Dooars is a small tea town in the himalayan foothills.The place developed around the several tea gardens at the east end of town.Most of the people are poor and uneducated.A few have gone elsewhere to educate themselves and stayed on in that better place.Some have even come back to work in the tea estates in various capacities. Twenty five year old Ian Batter has recently acquired a mail-order degree.He has also become aware of the female of the species lately.His father is a head clerk in Batra Tea Garden.Though Ian had performed well in high school,his father could not afford to send him to college in Tiger Grove.Or Calcutta for that matter.So Ian was forced to join a correspondence course which gave him a three part degree in one year.Naturally such a degree was of little use to Ian.Then,he discovered girls.He saw them wherever he went.He had seen them before of course but now he knew what these people looked like.He was impressed by their beauty,their grace,their elegance.And by what they meant to him.And then his cousin Arin came visiting.
Arin lived in Calcutta.He was in the Merchant Navy.Ian's family had no idea as to what exactly Arin did in the Navy.But he had obviously travelled the world.And he liked to tell people that.Everyone listened to him with rapt attention-particularly the Dewars who lived next door.Their daughter Sonaa would drop in every now and then for no particular reason.But Ian took no notice of her.But to get back to Arin,once he started yapping there was no stopping. "The most beautiful girls in the world are in Amsterdam.And I have gone there many many times. "Really? Mr Dewar gulped, "How many times? "O I have lost count. Arin said with great disdain.But the seed had already been planted in Ian's mind.He spoke to his father the next morning. "I want to join the Merchant Navy he said. "What for? You can't find a job in Oil Dooars for heaven's sake!For days Ian tried to convince his father.But he would not relent. Ian had been told that the most beautiful girls in the world lived in Amsterdam.And the Merchant Navy was the only way that he could get to that city of his dreams.Then,Ian decided that he would take things into his own hands.
He stole his mother's ornaments and after selling them bought a plane ticket to Calcutta.When he arrived in Calcutta he was asked to visit the Marine Engineering Research Institute on Hide Road.But the taxi driver forced him to hand over all the money he had.He was left without so much as a penny.He was lucky to come back to Oil Dooars.His father gave him a sound thrashing.But after seven days all was forgiven. One evening Sonaa came and sat next to him. And then Ian knew it. This was the moment he had been waiting for. Sonaa was she,he was now convinced.The girl whom he had ignored all his life,but who for him was the most beautiful girl in the world.