My Father’s Ring : The Story of A Lost Romance

Perhaps I should have asked questions about the ruby ring. What was its story? Where did it come from? But, at that young age, and in the societal milieu of the time (where fathers were somewhat aloof and not to be questioned), I did not…It was only much later that I unearthed the significance of the ring, and some of the mysteries it held—a lifetime later.’ One evening in the early 1950s, when Ajit Singh Dutta was a young boy, his father gave him a ring. The ornament with its glowing cabochon ruby might have made 10-year-old Ajit curious, but at that age, he did not give it a second thought, and the ring ended up forgotten, locked in the safe of his mother’s almirah. It was only years later, after his father’s death, that the beautiful ring gradually unfurled its mysteries—a stack of letters in cream-coloured envelopes, familiar piano tunes, a mysterious woman named Louise, and a whirlwind romance caught between competing family loyalties that tried to defy the hurdles of distance and cultural differences.