Taj Mahal,again.

Bombay University is a great place to study in. At the undergraduate
level the university allows individual colleges to do their own thing.
However no college in Bombay is allowed to take students at the
postgraduate level. The university arranges to teach the students
aiming for a masters degree at its campus in Kalina. One of the
exclusive subjects that only the brightest are allowed to take up is
Computer Science. Only sixteen students are admitted every year after a
rigorous screening procedure. Arin was lucky to get through the
entrance tests. He had a first class degree in Statistics from DGR
college. He had tried to get into the Mstat course at the Indian
Statistical Institute in Calcutta but had been eliminated at the
interview level. Nevertheless his progress in the Computer Science
course had been more than satisfactory. He managed to secure a first
class in his degree examination. He appeared for a number of campus
interviews and was selected by Computer Maintenance Corporation also
lovingly called CMC. He was posted in Calcutta. This was great for him
because his father had just been transferred out of Bombay to Calcutta
city. They had a flat in Calcutta so housing was not going to be a
problem for Arin. And that was a great relief.
Arin had been born in Calcutta. When he was eight years old his family
had moved to Bombay. He was now twenty-three. Calcutta seemed a little
strange to him. For one it was slower than Bombay. In just a month Arin
began to miss what he surely thought was his kind of place. And that is
when he met Sonaa. Sonaa worked in CMC in the marketing department. She
was a MBA from a local institute. Sonaa was beautiful. So beautiful
that people stopped to look at her when they passed by. And she was
very conscious of her superior looks. She was a very ambitious lady.
She wanted everything in life and more. She already had a car which she
drove to work. But you would always find her talking about sports cars.
She had chosen a real fancy car which she wanted in her garage by the
time she was thirty-five. She had a great appetite for beautiful
dresses. Whenever anyone from her office went abroad a gentle request
was made to that person to get a particular fancy garment. If it was
not a dress it was shoes. Or it was a bag. Make-up was another
priority. People were a little shocked when Sonaa began to be seen with
Arin. Arin was intelligent, good-looking smart too. But he seemed to
pale in comparison with Sonaa. Arin was after all from a middle-class
family and despite his dreams about a successful future life he was not
as pushy as Sonaa. But the two of them got on well. Arin did what he
could to measure up to Sonaa. He wore good clothes, bought himself a
stylish motorbike. He even started to frequent Sonaa's favourite
nightclubs. But Sonaa was not satisfied. She wanted Arin to be the man
of her dreams and for that he had to be really special.
One day Sonaa and Arin went to a travel fair. They had some time to
kill and this was a pleasant way of doing it. There were many stalls at
the fair. One of these stalls had a picture of the Taj Mahal. The Taj
Mahal was the mausoleum of the wife of the Mughal king Shah Jahan. It
was a grand structure in marble inlaid with precious stones. It was so
beautiful that it was considered one of the seven wonders of the modern
world. Sonaa pointed to the picture and said, 'I want you to do
something that is as grand as that.'.Arin quite innocently said,
'What?'. Sonaa coldly said, 'The Taj Mahal'.
The next day Arin brought some papers from the Housing Board. He showed
them to Sonaa and smiled sheepishly. But Sonaa was stern. 'You know
what I told you.',she said. The next day Arin took Sonaa to a car
finance company. But the moment Sonaa realized where they had come she
walked out. It was a weekend. Sonaa had given no ultimatum. But Arin
felt obliged to prove his worth to his girl. He began to think.
Arin did not come to work on Monday. At around four pm Sonaa received a
call from him. She was asked to come to an address on Hide Road. When
Sonaa got down from the taxi she was disappointed. Arin was standing at
the gate of a shabby looking building. As Sonaa entered through the
door she felt very cold. As she moved from one room to another the
temperature fell further. After a while she realized that she was at a
cold storage facility where vegetables and fruits are stored at
sub-zero temperatures. They were now one end of a large hall. With a
smile that was really a mile long Arin declared, 'It took me three days
to make it but I am proud of it'. Sonaa was led to the far end of the
hall. And there it was. A whole Taj Mahal made completely of ice. Of
course Arin was no sculptor but the genuineness of his effort showed.
Over the last three days he had spent all his waking hours to create a
Taj Mahal from ice. For Sonaa. He asked Sonaa, 'What do you think?'.
Sonaa smiled encouragingly.