Courage

By Sayan Sarkar

“Look at this, darling!”

Sunetra spoke, moving towards her husband with her finger pressed against an advertisement in the morning’s newspaper. Her face was glowing with joy and expectation.

Soumitra, seated opposite her in their living room and sipping his tea, put the cup down on the centre table and leaned forward with curiosity.

The advertisement read as follows:

CourageCorp^TM – Bravery for the Masses

Are you sick of shrinking back in silence? Are you tired of your loved ones reminding you of your timidity? Well, we’ve got good news for you! At CourageCorp^TM, our patent-pending BravaSerum^TM infuses a dose of instant valour directly into your bloodstream.

Heroism has never been this easy.

Sign up today to avail limited special discounts on a first come first serve basis.

Don’t worry, if it doesn’t work, we’ll provide you with a full refund!

Hurry up and grab your daily dose of heroism!

Soumitra’s lips twisted into a look of ridicule. He was on the verge of responding with a sharp retort when, lifting his gaze, he found his wife looking on with eager eyes.

A feeling of uneasiness swept over his mind.

In his forty years of existence, Soumitra had never been a man of courage. Ever since his childhood, he had always shunned fights, stayed out of trouble, and crumbled in the face of adversity. Adjectives like timid, mild, and cowardly had stuck to him like stubborn stains unwilling to be washed away.

Even his wife Sunetra, who loved him with unwavering devotion, mourned his lack of intent and valour from time to time.  Although it had never caused any serious rift in their married life, Sunetra had always wondered what it would be like to have a husband who could take things into his own hands when the going got tough.

Today, confronted with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, she had already started dreaming and could hardly contain her excitement.

Soumitra wiped a bead of sweat that had formed on his forehead. He was no fool. He had realised that a moment of reckoning had arrived. “Do you really believe in this nonsense?” He tried to sound firm, but failed.

“What’s the harm in trying?” She replied with unabated excitement. “They have mentioned that they will give us a refund if it doesn’t work!”

“B-but what if there are, you know, side effects?” Soumitra whispered with desperation.

It was now Sunetra’s turn to look at his husband with ridicule. This was all too familiar. He was trying to run away again.

Just like in that trip to Kashmir, when Soumitra had refused to board a cable car, insisting that the cables looked too fragile to carry so many people. She had to board alone and returned to find her husband safely sipping tea in a restaurant.

Then there was another time at a wedding, when a fight had broken out between two of their drunken friends. Instead of rushing to break the fight like the others, Soumitra had conspicuously left the room in the blink of an eye.

And of course, who could forget the “lizard incident”, when a large house lizard on their bedroom ceiling had sent him scrambling for a broom to fend off the attack of the “venomous reptile” – as he termed it. But finally, it was Sunetra who had driven the lizard away, while her husband had looked on with broom in hand.

“For God’s sake, stop being so apprehensive!” Sunetra finally broke the silence. “Everything will be alright!”

“B-but,” Soumitra tried in vain to interject.

“No more buts, Soumitra,” Sunetra retorted sharply, and with authority. “We are going. That’s final.”

Soumitra heaved a long sigh, accepting his defeat and resigning himself to his fate. Not once in their fifteen years of married life had he ever gotten the better of his wife in a war of words.

*

That weekend, around eleven in the morning, the two of them were seen climbing into a yellow taxi from the curb near their house. As Soumitra shut the cab door, Sunetra opened the newspaper clipping and revealed the address of CourageCorp^TM to the waiting driver. The office, located on Rashbehari Avenue near Deshapriya Park, was a forty-minute drive from their current location.

When the taxi finally stopped at its destination, the pair spotted the large three-storied building that housed the office to their left. It was quite modern, with balconies filled with potted plants forming an elaborate vertical garden. The façade was quite colourful, and a large sign bearing the company’s name hung from the centre – emblazoned in a sans-serif font.

“Looks impressive,” Sunetra remarked while stepping out.

Soumitra hesitated momentarily but finally got out and stood on the curb. His heart was thudding against his chest, and his mind was heavy with apprehension. He took a deep breath to calm himself.

Eventually, they approached the door, where a security guard in uniform stood up and saluted them with practiced gait. He showed them the direction of the elevator and told them the floor number of the main office.

 The elevator opened up to a spotless corridor with walls lined on both sides with glossy images of men and women smiling with an unnatural, and almost heroic confidence. A reception desk stood beside the elevator, and a smart-looking young woman sat scrolling on her phone.

Noticing the couple, she put her phone down and greeted them politely. Her eyes glanced at them with curiosity, trying to fathom which one of the two was the actual customer.

“Umm… Good day,” Soumitra stammered. “My wife and I had actually come for the…umm…” His voice trailed off, and his face turned red with shame at the thought of declaring his timidity to a girl nearly half his age.

 But before the silence grew too awkward, Sunetra took control.

Brushing her husband aside, she thrust the newspaper cutting towards the receptionist with authority.“My husband has come for the serum,” She declared without missing a beat.

“Oh, I see,” the girl replied with a mechanical smile. “Please fill in your details here, sir. I’ll send word to the office.”

Finishing the formalities, Soumitra took a seat in one of the comfortable chairs beside the desk. A storm was brewing in his mind, and he grew restless with each passing second.

The girl, in the meantime, had picked up a receiver and announced their arrival to someone on the other end.

After what felt like an eternity, the door at the far end of the corridor swung open, revealing a man in a white lab coat who started approaching them briskly.

“Welcome, sir and ma’am!” He greeted them with rehearsed politeness – a broad smile plastered across his face. He was tall, lean, broad-shouldered, and looked to be in his mid-thirties. He had a certain intensity about him, and an unnatural gleam in his eyes – the same kind spiders get when they feel a tug in their web after several hours of waiting.

He took Soumitra’s hand in his own and gave it a firm shake – too firm for Soumitra’s liking.

“I’m Dr. Anjan Sen, head of R&D,” he said with intent.

“Please – this way,” he spoke, gesturing down the hall. The smile never left his face.

The couple walked down the hall – their shoes squeaking on the polished marble tiles below.

They reached a large room filled with a multitude of high-tech equipment. The room was part laboratory, part cabin – a curious hybrid, the best of both worlds. The walls were lined with steel counters, dotted with strange instruments that served unknown purposes. In one corner of the room, two men in similar white coats were sitting huddled together and whispering in a conspiratorial hush. They glanced up briefly at the pair before resuming their dialogue.

“Please take a seat, sir and ma’am,” Anjan pointed towards a pair of chairs opposite the only desk in the room.

As they settled in, he took the chair on the opposite side of the table, staring long and hard at Soumitra as if studying every feature on his uncertain face.

Soumitra felt uneasy under that gaze and looked down towards the floor.

 “You have done a wonderful thing by deciding to take this leap of faith, sir.” He spoke with enthusiasm. “This will definitely change your life.”

“But, doctor,” Sunetra interjected. “The serum is safe, right?”

Anjan’s lips curved into an assuring smile.

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” He spoke warmly. “We’ve treated five patients till now. None of them have reported any anomalies. They all have shown remarkable results.”

Over the next few minutes, he launched into a well-rehearsed explanation of the serum – highlighting its benefits, its groundbreaking inception, and the hours of tireless work by the top minds in the country to bring their plan to fruition.

The eloquence and unshakable confidence in his voice slowly melted away the doubts in Soumitra’s mind. With every syllable he heard, his faith in the drug seemed to grow exponentially. By the time doctor Anjan had finished his speech, Soumitra was bubbling with enthusiasm – eager to get a taste of a better, and braver, life. He was convinced that this was the best decision of his life.

“We will run a few preliminary tests on you before injecting the serum, sir,” Anjan explained. “It’s just a formality.”

“Alright,” Soumitra replied. “Let’s get to it then.”

“This way, sir.” Anjan motioned to the two men in the corner of the room, and the three of them led Soumitra towards a room on the right. “You can wait here, ma’am,” He further added, turning towards Sunetra.

Sunetra nodded, remaining seated as her husband disappeared into the adjoining room. Sitting alone, she eventually took up a magazine from the table and began flipping through the pages. Her mind, however, was in the other room, and she was trying to imagine how the events were unfolding inside.

Seconds turned to minutes, and she felt herself growing restless with unease. It had been her idea, and now, in the face of the silence, she hoped that things would turn out all right.

Nearly half an hour later, the door finally opened.

Anjan appeared with his trademark smile on his face. Sunetra stood up, her face fraught with anticipation.

“Your husband has successfully received the serum, ma’am,” Anjan spoke in an assuring tone. “There’s nothing to worry about. You can come in and see him now.”

Sunetra rushed into the room.

There, on a narrow cot, Soumitra sat bare-chested, rubbing a spot on his right hand where the needle had left its mark. The two assistants stood behind him in strict vigil, watching his every movement with keen eyes.

Upon seeing his wife standing eagerly at the doorway, he broke into a laugh.

“Hello, darling,” He greeted her. “Feast your eyes on your knight-in-shining-armor.”

Sunetra heaved a sigh of relief.  The joke had lightened the mood and made it clear that her husband was doing fine. Drawing closer to the cot, she whispered slowly, “How do you feel now?”

“Not that different, to be honest,” Soumitra admitted. “But then, Dr. Anjan says that most patients don’t notice a difference until a decisive moment.”

Anjan gave a nod from the doorway. “Your husband has to stay here for half an hour more, ma’am,” He added further. “Just as a precaution. Then, he’s free to go. You can sit here and chat with him in the meantime.”

The three doctors withdrew, leaving the two of them together. The couple slipped into conversation, their thoughts filled with the possibilities unlocked by their bold experiment. When the thirty minutes were over, Soumitra was told to fill out a few more forms, and then they were free.

Soumitra clasped Dr. Sen’s hands in thanks, said goodbye to the assistants, and stepped into the elevator with his wife. Once on the street, they slowly made their way towards the main road, hoping to find a cab to take them home. But just as they were about to cross the busy intersection, one of the assistants came running after them – shouting something unintelligible in their direction. Startled by this sudden arrival, the pair froze mid-crossing and turned back in confusion.

However, unbeknownst to them, a speeding car was hurtling towards them from the opposite side. As the shrill sound of the horn split the air, they swung their heads back to find the half-ton metal frame charging towards them at breakneck speed.

Soumitra’s mind raced.

He realised that the window to act was narrow, and any false step would lead to a disaster. But to his surprise, without even the slightest hesitation, he did something unthinkable.

He lunged towards his wife and shoved her clear of the incoming car. The following moment, his body struck the asphalt with a sickening thud, and his head slammed against the road.

As his consciousness began to slip, he could hear the deafening screech of tires and his wife’s desperate cry.

*

Soumitra groaned and opened his eyes slowly. A sharp pain emanated from the left side of his head.

His vision soon cleared, and he realised he was in the same cot where he had lain to take the serum a while earlier. It became apparent that he had been carried there and his injuries had been treated while he was still unconscious.

Struggling to sit up, he noticed Dr. Sen and his two assistants standing by the far wall with their backs to him. They were speaking quite animatedly, albeit in whispers, without knowing he had gained consciousness.

“How could you give him the wrong vial?” Dr. Sen was asking with alarm.

“We’re sorry, sir,” One of the assistants said nervously. “It was kept beside the original vial, and we mistook it in our hurry.”

“Did you manage to inform him in the street?” Dr. Sen asked anxiously, his voice still muffled.

“No,” the assistant replied. “He met with the accident before I got the opportunity.”

“I see,” Anjan remarked. “Then it’s best that we keep the facts from him.”

The two assistants stared in disbelief at their superior.

“A-are you sure?” One of them ventured to ask.

“Think about it,” Anjan said. “He acted out of his own courage, but he will believe it was the serum. That belief will serve us just as well, leaving us at no apparent disadvantage. Don’t you agree?”

The assistants nodded slowly, unable to counter this line of thinking. Just as Anjan turned towards him, Soumitra quickly feigned waking and pretended to stare around the room in a daze. The three doctors rushed towards him with concern.

“How’re you feeling now?” Anjan asked.

“I feel…. okay,” Soumitra replied, clutching his head. “How long was I out?”

“For nearly an hour, sir,” Anjan responded. “Thank God the car managed to stop in time.”

“My wife,” Soumitra spoke. “Is she alright? Where is she?”

“She’s absolutely fine, sir. All thanks to you.” Anjan said with admiration. “She’s in the next room, waiting eagerly for you to regain consciousness. I’ll call her in.”

“You’re a real hero, sir.” Anjan paused at the door, looked back, and added softly.

 Within seconds, Sunetra burst into the room, rushed towards her husband, and threw herself into his arms. She clung to him desperately, as if afraid he would disappear as soon as she let go. “For a moment,” She sobbed uncontrollably, “I thought I’d lost you forever.” Her hot tears seeped through his shirt.

Soumitra stroked her hair gently and comforted her with words that never went above a whisper. But within him, a storm was brewing. The words of the three doctors were echoing in his mind, and questions were forming in his mind. Questions he dared not voice.

Was his courage real? Or merely an illusion of it?

Did he leap into danger because he believed that the serum had armed him with bravery? Would he have acted the same way if he had already known that the vial contained nothing but a placebo? In the quiet room, amidst his muffled wife’s sobs, Soumitra delved desperately in his mind for answers.

Sayan Sarkar was born and raised in Kolkata. He is a passionate reader and lifelong learner who spends his leisure time immersed in books and new ideas.

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