Eighteen years after Amitabha Bagchi’s ‘Above Average’: Arindam Chatterjee revisits his past

The first time I met Paroma, on the front lawns of her college in Delhi, she was wearing a beret set at an angle that brought the term “jaunty” to mind. She was also wearing a full wide smile that, coupled with the beret, conveyed warmth, friendliness and, I now realise after so many years, an inherent desire to not take herself seriously. All these years I thought of that beret as an affectation, and because I always felt that foppery and presenting oneself through clothing choices was inherently shallow, and because I liked Paroma and didn’t think she was shallow, I discounted that beret as an act of silliness, just an impulse.

In all the years I knew her, Paroma never said anything that would suggest that she might have worn that beret that day as an ironic comment on people who dressed to impress, and now that I write this down I realise that her earnest but light manner was, in fact, a lovely and attractive thing in its own right. Not being capable of taking life lightly myself, I assumed that anyone that I found worthy of taking seriously should be equally ponderous in their approach to the…

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