My Kind of Girl (5 page)

It was a small room. There was nothing in it except the four white walls, though the marks on the floor where the furniture had stood had not yet been erased. Huddled on the floor were the inhabitants of the house: the professor, his wife and daughter, and the other two children curled up on the floor, asleep, one's legs on the other's body. Having seen these people only from a distance, suddenly seeing them up close in these unusual conditions jolted Makhanlal into realizing how distant, how remote they actually were. Why was he here? What could he do?

They were silent, too. The professor raised his eyes only to lower
them immediately, and his wife didn't raise hers at all. The only one who stood up, briskly, was Malati – of course Makhanlal hadn't forgotten her name in all these months.

She came to the door quickly and said, “You? Why are you here?”

Her tone was rough, without a trace of welcome in it, and yet Makhanlal heard music. “You? Why are you here?” could only mean that she had recognized him, that she knew who he was. His uncertainty fell away, boldness suffused his soul. He spoke without effort, “I had to come. Something needs to be done.”

Malati was probably about to say something, to utter some protest born of strong self-respect, but Makhanlal left immediately. The landlord's people were on hand, and he spoke to them and resolved everything within the hour. The professor joined them, speaking in a feeble voice, even objecting as much as he could in the circumstances to Makhanlal's intervention. Eventually, when everything was settled, when those same perspiring laborers returned everything to its place and proceeded to arrange things properly, then – by then – the professor was so exhausted he couldn't even utter conventional words of gratitude, for which Makhanlal was extremely thankful.

The rest of the day passed in flight for him. How lovely the day seemed, his work, the people, Calcutta – possibly he loved the entire world that day. And the kindness of the world too seemed limitless; whatever he asked for was being granted with one word, there seemed to be no obstacles at all, anything he wished for seemed to materialize before him instantly. His journey back home after his day's work
was different too. Every day, he returned because he had to, because even exhaustion set its limit – but that day it felt as though someone or something was awaiting his return. The night and the breeze seemed to suggest as much.

His feet slowed down naturally before the professor's house. The rooms were lit up, the shadows of the fan blades were whirling as usual on the first floor wall. Surely everything was fine, there could not have been any other problems, but still, he thought, let me check. Was it pure philanthropy? Didn't he have an ulterior motive? Just as this question occurs to you now, it occurred to someone else too. And that is where this story ended.

As soon as he knocked softly, the downstairs door opened, and it was Malati who Makhanlal saw standing before him. He would have been happier had it been someone else, but it was too late to retreat now.

“I just came . . .”

A completely unnecessary announcement, and when the person he'd addressed said nothing in response, even the dim-witted Makhanlal realized its redundancy.

“. . . find out if everything's all right . . .”

“Please come in.” She spoke like a doctor inviting a patient in. “Yes, everything's all right.”

Makhanlal entered. When he looked around everything seemed fine: the pictures on the walls, the books on the shelves, the radio in the corner, all just as he had seen on his way to and fro past the house.
Once upon a time he had imagined a lot of joy in this room, but now, finally here in this beautifully arranged setting, his daylong happiness seemed to fizzle out, to have no basis, no meaning.

“Please take a seat.”

He didn't want to at all, but something seemed to compel Makhanlal.

Malati sat at a distance and said, “I knew you'd come. I was waiting for you.”

Makhanlal felt a tremor run across his stout body at these words.

“There's something I want to ask you.”

“Yes?”

“Why did you do this? Don't be silent, answer my question.”

Makhanlal looked into his interrogator's eyes and realized he had erred.

“Why did I do this? I have no idea.”

“You have no idea? Then let me tell you. The self-satisfaction of philanthropy is no mean thing. It feels wonderful to be given a chance to help the poor. The gratitude of other people is delicious, isn't it?”

Every word tumbled out of this modern, educated woman's shapely lips with lucid articulation. On hearing so many obscure words all at once, thickheaded Makhanlal became even more stupid. He could say nothing in response.

“And besides, you have your own motive too. You decided that you would bring us under your control and take revenge on us.”

Makhanlal could hear nothing but meaningless sounds in words like motive and revenge. He groped for words, just as a person gropes in
the darkness, but could find nothing to say, nothing that he could say.

“But what you think will not happen, it can never happen.”

Now Makhanlal stood up and said, “I thought nothing, maybe I have created difficulties for you, those difficulties . . . please forget them.”

“Only after your money's returned can we forget. But get it back you will. Maybe it will take time, but we will definitely return it.”

“All right.”

“Another thing. Do not come to this house again – never, not for anything.”

Makhanlal turned near the door and said softly, “No, I will not come.”

Back on the road, Makhanlal walked past his house. He walked around for hours that night, with that awkward gait of his indecently proportioned body. The thoughtful darkness of the blackout was sympathetic, if uninquisitive.

The room had been echoing with the contractor's deep baritone all this while. As soon as he stopped, night descended more heavily on the waiting room, attendant to its expectant silence. From afar, penetrating the veil of fog, came the sound of shunting, like a stifled moan during a dream, and from even further the sky was rent by the anguished cry of a dog. When the sounds died away, the Delhi man coughed mildly and said, “Is that the end of your story?”

“Do you need to hear more?” a smile appeared on the edge of the writer's lips.

The senior bureaucrat, even accustomed as he was to everyone's obsequiousness, was not thrown off his stride by that derisive smile. He asked gravely, “Perhaps I may be pardoned for asking a question: did the professor return the money?”

The contractor reached out for a cigarette. His hand was like a claw, the knuckles extremely thick and covered with hair. His face was so large that the small cigarette hanging from his lips looked rather ill-fitting. Blowing smoke like an amateur, he said, “This is all I know of Makhanlal's story, I do not know the rest.”

“There is no need to, either,” the veteran writer observed. “What happened after that, whether he met the girl again, how she felt after insulting her benefactor, whether or not she used to pretend to read by the downstairs window in the hope of seeing that huge, ugly man once more – all this is irrelevant. The girl of our dreams, who lives in our heart, Makhanlal wanted to see her for one time as a real person – that is all that is real, all that matters, nothing else does. Surely Makhanlal would have married a girl of his mother's choice after they moved to their new house – by now he must have a full family of his own, children, he must be earning a lot, too – but none of these subsequent events can cancel out the earlier one. Whatever Makhanlal had to get from his Malati, he has gotten already, he will never lose that, don't you think?” the writer looked at the contractor as he concluded.

“Never mind, Makhanlal, it's the others' turn now,” the contractor showed his large teeth as he laughed.

“Your turn,” the doctor winked at the bureaucrat.

The man from Delhi seemed prepared. He didn't waste his time
refusing – he had probably planned his own story while he had been listening to the previous one; probably the result of office discipline. Just as he did his work on time in the office, so he started his story the same way, in a low, smooth voice, using small words . . .

.          .          .

G
AGAN
B
ARAN'S
T
ALE

My name is Gagan Baran Chatterjee. I am a minor celebrity in Delhi and Shimla, where they know me as G.B. Chatterjee. The initials G.B.C. have been scrawled on important government documents at least a thousand times. I went to England at twenty-one, and upon my return at twenty-four, I got a job in Delhi. I've lived there ever since. So long have I been there that I can no longer imagine living, or ever having lived, anywhere else. After retirement? I've made arrangements for that too. I have a house at Civil Lines in Delhi, you can see the Yamuna from the veranda. Bengal's damp climate doesn't suit my wife's health – her father used to be the principal at Agra College. Our children speak in Hindi-laced Bengali, and they speak in English even more. Even this conversation with all of you in Bengali – this too is new for me. I
hardly ever have these trysts with Bengal anymore, I don't even feel any attraction. Once in a blue moon when I do go to Calcutta it's on official work, I don't stay a day longer than necessary.

And yet it was in Bengal that I was born, that I grew up, that the first chapter of my life was spent. Back then, in that distant childhood, could I ever have imagined myself as I am now? Nor, for that matter, can I now picture that boy, that shy young man, as the first edition of myself. All those memories seemed to have been wiped clean, I thought I had forgotten them all – but suddenly, after our conversation, it's all come back so clearly.

I remember a boy from an ordinary Bengali family, aged seventeen, studying at a small town college. Having won a scholarship for my matriculation results, I was at the center of everyone's intense expectations; most of my time was spent trying to live up to those expectations. You may find it hard to believe now, but I really was an innocent back then, the quintessential “good boy,” ever obedient, a hardworking student, extremely courteous to all and sundry to the point where I didn't even dare look anyone in the eye.

But so what? Within me, the spirit of seventeen was quietly doing its work. You spoke of love; I used to dream of it too. Learning the formulae of chemistry had taken so much effort, but the basic formulae of life were there to be learned on their own; they advised trying to add color to one's life, if temporary, and I was no exception to this. Countless were the number of novels I lapped up in between textbooks, all the titles you get in our small town. Yes, I even read – as a writer, you'll laugh – even poetry. In poetry or in prose, wherever
there was romance, there my heart received its sustenance – and how strange it was too, not all the writing in the world could alleviate my longing. The more I heard about love, the more I wanted it.

Today, I feel that no matter how much I heard about love through the written word, I heard nothing; even if I did, I did not listen. But when I heard it at seventeen, from Pakhi, melody flowed from flutes to fill the skies.

Yes, back at that distant age of seventeen, Pakhi had loved me. I can recollect her exact shape as I speak, she's coming to life before my eyes. Black eyes. It was in those eyes that love was born, in those eyes that love lived its life; in those extremely conservative times, there was no other language available to us. I would be present as others talked amongst themselves, and so would she – but I cannot remember our having said a single word to one another then. Or perhaps that conversation of the eyes was a form of dialogue, one that sated whatever hunger we felt then. At least, we harbored no hope of anything more, nor did we have the opportunity for it.

But this same Pakhi finally spoke one day – one night, on a winter night such as this one.

It was about three in the morning. Imagine a small town, the road cutting through an enormous field to one side, fog all over, and the pale radiance of a dented moon hanging in the sky. The play staged at the Railway Club had just ended – it was a major annual event – and every home was represented in the audience. The women were the eager ones, the majority of the men present merely escorts. That exalted post was mine for the night, despite my youth, simply by virtue
of my being a male. While the elders were reluctant, there I was, jobless and without any examinations looming before me – entirely available in other words, which was why the womenfolk pinned me down. I wasn't very keen, but in those days it was simpler to do something, even unwillingly, than to refuse.

The women still sat behind a screen back then, but there had never been anything to block out their voices. Even if I could not see them, I could hear them, their giggling, their conversations, their bickering over seats, their observations about the play, their admonitions to their children; a mix of peculiar cries. There was plenty of shouting on stage too. As I nodded off sleepily, I felt I was watching two different plays, no, three – for since I was sitting close to the stage I could hear the prompting too, not to mention the fact that Draupadi and Bhimsen could be seen smoking on the side, occasionally. This three-piece din went on and on, showing no signs of relenting – I kept dropping off every now and then – but the play simply would not come to an end.