SCALE (4)

When school opened after summer vacation, the girl's holiday ritual received a setback. When she fell asleep after a tiring day or read for a test, the parents kept the vigil on her behalf and devoured the news, for it was one kind of shame for a local storm to be overlooked but a far greater indignity to be defeated by the inevitability of the news schedule.

Late at night, when the girl shifted in her sleep and saw the moonlight flooding through the open window, she felt at peace for she had passed on some essential truth to her parents for safekeeping.

Years passed. The girl became a young woman, trying to realise her destiny and become a cog in some great wheel. She now lived in a misshapen city by a coarse grey river. A spell of inclement weather, both in the city, and the towns and districts further away, made her call her parents and speak to them over the phone. 

After the call ended, she realised they had paid their debt even as they were discussing mundane matters. With spirit and tenderness, she sat down and wrote, "Seven people were killed, including one in the city, when a cyclonic storm..."

Her boss summoned her soon after. He was a Party man, with a patient face and a droopy moustache, looking somewhat like a walrus. "Just rework the introduction, everything else is fine."

She waited for further instructions.

"It must begin by saying 'One person was killed in the city'", he explained. "Don't you see, the life of one person in the city is far more important than half a dozen in the districts."

(EOM)

SCALE (3)

It was still light by the time the storm died out. All their neighbours were outside, surveying the destruction. Part fearful and part wondering, they looked like those arrived on a new planet. 

Flowerpots in most balconies had turned into debris, a woman's nightdress had flown off the clothesline and now hung from an electricity pole. Vanquished trees lay on their sides, surrounded by the rubble of brick walls they had crashed against. Like any survivor, the earth looked exhausted but proud.

Soon, everyone learnt that not all localities had been as lucky as theirs. Somewhere, three people lay buried beneath a collapsed bus shelter. Several had been electrocuted by live wires while hurrying home to safety. This will make it to the evening news on television, the little girl's mother remarked to no one in particular. It made the little girl anxious, it had been two years since the mining disaster, the only time their dusty little town had made it to the news telecast from Calcutta. 

Once power was restored, she waited for the news bulletin. She felt a similar trepidation when question papers were handed out in her school's examination halls.

When those fifteen minutes came to an end, she sat with her mother and sulked. It was kind of last minute, her mother said, blaming the storm for its inconvenient timing. She felt they would have all the news by the next day, maybe some footage too. 

The next evening, the little girl felt more confident of the situation. Her hands were no longer clammy nor did her heart feel heavy and dull. She endured the speeches and meetings, road accidents and football matches. When the bulletin ended after the weather forecast, she stayed undefeated. 

She spent the next two hours waiting for the national news, where the logo of the news channel bounced across the map of the country to boisterous music. It was just a summer storm, not a big event, her father tried to reason. She sat through the bulletins in both Hindi and English, finding out about wars in distant lands and cricket in the Caribbeans.

By the third day of the vigil, her parents began to worry and consequently argue. Her father refused to believe the girl was unhappy. The mother sensed the disquiet but could not arrive at the reason. The girl responded to every kind of enticement but nothing could budge her while the news was on. 

Days turned into weeks. All through the day, the walls reverberated with the monotony of the news being read out. As evening crept in, the parents complained of nasty headaches. Fewer people visited now that the house had begun to reek of disappointment. Those that came preferred not to stay long.

SCALE (2)

As long as it raged, there was little one could do but sit inside and feel its power. Like every storm she could remember, there was a roaring crash of glass utensils within the first couple of minutes. Over time, the little girl had concluded that a mysterious, perverse family arranged their glassware on the windowsill at the mere whiff of a storm, just so they could hear them break.

Soon, the closed window shutters rattled, followed by a menacing whoosh, the sound of an angry wind dealing with whatever lay in its path.

With power disconnected, the room was pitch-dark. Now and then, ventilation shafts admitted the pink-white brilliance of a lightning crackling across the sky. It relieved the obscurity for an instant, then the room seemed darker than ever. To keep the roar of the thunder out, the girl kept her earlobes pressed with her fingers. She sat close to her mother, who looked more reliable during thunderstorms, and asked her when the wind would slow. "Once it starts raining," her mother replied. 

This turned out to be inaccurate. The wind's fury refused to abate, even after heavy sheets of rain had started lashing around. The wind blew as if it was looking for scores to settle, with a piercing whistle and cruel method. 

For the girl, it was an unfamiliar face of the storm. She turned to her parents. They were trying to grade the storm according to its severity, as if the storm was a creature of reason and understanding and it would somehow reduce the hazard it posed. 

"Listen to that sound, that is a tree being uprooted," her father told her. Her mother asked her to invoke the relevant deities. The girl realised her parents were omnipotent only till a bad storm struck. In a calamity, they were puny and useless.

SCALE (1)

By the second week of April, people were talking of nothing but the weather. An arid burning heat had taken control of the land; no one seemed to remember the last time it rained. 

Behind shuttered windows, women spent the afternoons roasting raw mangoes to make cooling sherbet. Their children, near diabolical with their sweaty armpits and itchy hair, crowded storefronts, exhausting their allowance buying synthetic fruit concentrates sold in tall glass bottles.

The nights were more pitiless than the day. The searing heat was all around, as if its source had not been the familiar sun but some other-worldly presence. Power supply was fickle. On most nights, the Boses had their dinner by the unsteady flicker of an oil lamp. Reluctant, they went to bed, which was hot like an angry wife or mistress. 

Every night they agreed that a thunderstorm was overdue. It was the nor'wester, the sudden havoc of summer afternoons, which could deliver some reprieve before people started dropping dead.

The Bose's daughter was now almost ten. Her worries had always been greater than her age, and that particular night she stayed awake, fearing the worst. She made nothing of her parents' unthinking optimism, the elusive storm troubled her. When Mrs Bose awoke the next morning, she saw the girl sitting near the foot of the bed. 

Has such a hot dry spell happened before, the girl asked. Her mother assured her that it had, that people always spoke of the weather in extreme terms because they forgot what the previous years had been like. 

Over the next several days, the little girl watched the horizon for dark clouds. It began to seem vain, she had just about resigned herself to watching everyone she knew boil to a slow death when the storm arrived one afternoon.

The sun disappeared behind a sky the colour of dull copper; in the still, sultry air, breathing seemed like an act of penance. At around four in the afternoon, the dead leaves came to life, whirling around in a mad fury. Then the storm broke.

MARRIAGE

Aloka, with her unyielding optimism, ended up being hit the hardest. She sat alone in the bedroom, without stirring. Every few minutes, she tried explaining herself to anyone who cared to listen, mostly neighbours streaming in and out. 

She needed to darn new school sweaters for the boys and had sent Molly to get some yarn from the Lepchas who set up temporary shops near the bus terminus in winter. They were wrapping up for the year, she had heard, and clearing their stock at dirt cheap rates. 

Molly was late, yes, but not enough to make her worry. There were all those shops selling cosmetics and trinkets nearby, the girls always lingered there. Those who listened half-heartedly to Aloka's account failed to fathom its relevance now that Molly had turned up married and all, and sat in the living room, beaming with excited satisfaction. Rinku and Rimpa flanked her on either side, looking at the thick splash of red vermilion on the parting of her hair, and breaking out in helpless giggles every few minutes.

Proloy, who had been summoned back from office, stood outside the building, chatting with Dr Debdoot Das, now his son-in-law. He excused himself at the first opportunity and went to talk to Aloka in the privacy of their bedroom.

Aloka threw her hands up in the air. "Now what?"

"One down, Aloka. One down. You know what it means, don't you?" In his fervour, he had gripped her tight on the shoulders. He let go seeing her wince with pain. "The twins, with their reputation? They'll get their own guys. The problems are getting solved, can't you see?"

"Are you insane?" Aloka looked at him, horrified. "That man is as old as you are. Molly has married him. A man old enough to be her father."

"Well, he's never married before. Makes quite a bit of money. And look how decent he is. He could have taken advantage of her. But he did not. One phone call, they meet. He proposes marriage. Done."

Aloka looked at him with a frozen stare of disbelief. 

"Have you not seen how happy she looks?" Proloy continued. "We'll host a reception, of course. Debdoot, he deserves his name. Messenger of god. What more could we have given our Molly?"

He got up, too excited to sit at one place for long. "And yes, do not wake me before ten next Saturday, come what may."

And indeed Molly sat in the drawing room, face flushed with happiness. She, Komolika Kundu, was now the wife of a doctor. She was Dr Mrs Debdoot Das. Her old-fashioned name had not been an obstacle. The homework of yet-to-be-born children had not stood in her path. And she still didn't have the faintest idea about The Grateful Dead.

(EOM)

December 2, 2016

 

MARRIAGE

"I'm sorry to intrude Mr Kundu," the cardiologist son spoke up. "I'd like to have a private word with my mother."

It took the Kundus a while to realise that they were being expelled from their own living room. They hurried inside and closed the door after them, then gathered behind it to listen.

"Why are you punishing him? He is completely recovered now, do you not know that?" The words were bounding out of the cardiologist with fearsome velocity. That was why he looked so ill at ease, Proloy realised. 

"Ronnie, calm down and have these samosas," Brishti Bose was saying. "Now imagine them paired with your father's cocktails. This is the rage our parties have been missing."

"Any maid can do that. Maybe we should hire her?"

"Calm down, I said. She is not going to be your wife. You already have one, so busy running her dad's nursing home, you barely see her."

"You are looking for revenge, that's all. That girl." The cardiologist lowered his voice. "That girl, may I remind you, is not qualified to see the inside of a college. Think of the genes, for heaven's sake."

"May I remind you where your brother was the week his classmates were writing their final college exam? Under a sofa, at a crack den, on Ripon Street."

The uncle cleared his throat and decided to interject at that point. "May I remind both of you that we are in a one-bedroom flat, not a palace, and they can hear everything you are saying?"

By the time Proloy went back to the room, the cardiologist was waiting to leave. His hands were tucked inside his trouser pockets. "Congratulations, Mr Kundu," he said. He was slow and deliberate now, grating the words between his teeth with relish. "Your daughter will marry my younger brother. Children will be born of that union. And then, one day, they will stumble over their homework but that is not our worry now, is it?" He strode out, taking the stairs, stiff with hurt pride and a sense of injustice. 

Brishti Bose followed him, her face sullen with anger. "I'm sorry for his behaviour," she said from the doorway.

The uncle had stood up and fished out a soiled visiting card from his wallet. He gave it to Proloy Kundu, with an apologetic smile. "Should have done this when we came in. My name is Dr Debdoot Das. The phone number's there."

"You practice in town?" Proloy asked.

"No, the collieries. More money. No lack of individuals with outstanding police warrants. People like me, we are their only hope against disease and death."

"It says here you worked at a government hospital before."

"Let's say I was wrongly accused, of this or that. Or as the newspapers say, I left under a cloud." He looked pleased at his own wit. "Anyway, you come to our parts, let me know. I live alone."

 "My work is local area development," Proloy replied. "Strictly within municipal limits."

Molly, imagining the room to be empty, had come in to clear the plates. The uncle turned towards her with a kind smile. "It was nice meeting you, Komolika."

The sound of Proloy's and the visitor's footsteps died on the stairs. The taxi was having trouble, revving its engine. Molly noticed a tiny scrap of paper, tucked under the cup and saucer from which the uncle had drank his tea. She opened it. Inside, in hurried, urgent writing, was a message. "Call me. I'm lonely."

****

MARRIAGE

In Bangla, the word 'Proloy' referred to a cataclysm. But he had always been unlike his name, his personality closer to a moss-infested duck pond, so that any pharmacy owner could walk in and make his children cry. 

He went back to the drawing room and opened the drapes. The tired light of the afternoon poured in. The curious neighbours from the adjoining flats had vanished from sight. The brevity of the lunch had convinced all that fate had failed Komolika Kundu, yet again.

****   

The evening's visitors had arrived from Calcutta that morning and checked into a hotel. The prospective groom had lost several valuable years of his life to a crippling cocaine addiction. His struggles were behind him now, and he had revived interest in two early passions, music and foreign languages.

Through the week, he taught French, German and Spanish to a bunch of school students from his parents' home in a posh neighbourhood in the southern part of the city. In the weekends, he picked up the guitar to jam with a different set of learners.

Over a telephone conversation, the parents had given veiled assurances to Proloy Kundu about their considerable financial heft, and how little it mattered what their son earned through his scattered efforts. The dabbler in music and languages had chosen not to make the four-hour train journey, sending his mother and elder brother to inspect the future wife instead.

The Kundus prepared for the visit with subdued expectation. With the passing of years, there came about new and clever ways of putting people in their places, Aloka had realised. It made her pour her heart into the one truth she was certain of and prepare tiny samosas with three different fillings. One with a mash of potatoes, peas and cashewnuts, the second stuffed with spiced chicken mince and a sweet one, containing grated coconut laced with jaggery and raisins. 

The Boses, mother and son, arrived at six sharp, and kept their metered taxi waiting in front of the building. The mother looked like she had been a striking beauty in her own days but bore the ravages of time with dignity. She was plump now, with bobbed hair and dark, tobacco-stained lips. She smiled with a warmth people usually reserved for long-lost friends.

Her older son, the cardiologist, was tall and lanky and wore a formal dinner suit. He looked agitated, in spite of spending the afternoon napping at the hotel. He kept thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets as if they contained the answers to whatever was churning his mind.

The Boses were accompanied by the woman's brother, a local doctor who was helping them around town. He was around Proloy's age and had the same aging good looks as his sister. He wore a maroon sweater over crumpled grey pants.

"Your house is unusually quiet for a family your size, Mr Kundu," Mrs Bose said, once they were seated. "Where did you dispose of the rest?"

Proloy hesitated for a moment, till Mrs Bose's robust laughter convinced him that her humour was sincere. 

"The movies," he replied. "With enough cash for some Chinese food later, there are food stalls around the movie hall."

"Call me Brishti," Mrs Bose replied. She slurped on her tea and turned to Molly. "I must begin by saying, I admire you Komolika. That's your name, right? You have worn a handloom saree, as if it's any other day. No ostentation at all. Takes guts. I'm very impressed."

Molly, somewhat alarmed at the unexpected praise, pushed the platter of crispy, browned samosas towards Brishti Bose. She took up a handful and began munching on them with obvious enjoyment.

"You know how I get my sarees? Say this jamdani I'm wearing? I don't go to shops, nuh-uh, not for me. You see Komolika, I have contacts among the weavers. No middlemen, no traders. Get the best, at half the cost. In fact, that is how we'll shop for the wedding too. No off-the-shelf business for my Komolika. Such a sweet girl."

Proloy's mind started racing. He was certain that good fortune did not arrive, so unexpected and vigorous, to small towns on winter evenings. But Brishti Bose was no fraud, her expensive attire and easy grace showed that affluence did not catch her by surprise. 

This must be some elaborate practical joke, he thought, some unusual game played by rich people to pass their idle hours. He stole a glance at his wife and daughter. Aloka's eyes were filled with tears, convinced that her painstaking effort with the samosas had finally wrought its magic. Molly had retreated behind her ancient goddess persona and showed no emotion.

MARRIAGE

In the end, five people turned up for lunch around Sunday noon. The Kundus had been expecting three: Shayon, the intended groom, his older sister and the sister's husband. 

Aloka had closed the heavy drapes, to discourage curious onlookers peering from their windows in the neighbouring building. The air was perfumed and heavy. With well-dressed strangers sitting expectantly in artificial light, it felt like the waiting area behind a theatre stage.

There was nothing to do but eat. Molly could be introduced casually, the way Aloka had devised, instead of a grand entrance that inevitably resulted in disappointment. Proloy thought he detected shuffling of feet around the landing, probably the more intrepid of his neighbours. He could not gather the nerve to check.

The unannounced guests were a married couple, Shayon's childhood friend and his wife. "I hope we are not too much trouble," the friend said, by way of an apology. "The car was half empty and we thought, it's a Sunday, so why not."

The Kundus smiled widely. Nothing would have made them happier. The guests were to be served in the drawing room instead of crowding them around the tiny dining table. Aloka had started scurrying back and forth, serving bowls and ladles in hand, Molly in tow.

"Are you very attached to your name, Komolika?" Shayon's sister asked after a while. Her attention seemed focussed on working the infinitesimal bones of the hilsa fish, having refused every single one of the appetisers. Her husband, who was posted in Rajasthan and had requested the fish, had done the same. They looked like a team of wily cats, out hunting with a plan.

"I like my name," Molly replied, after giving it some thought.

"A bit old-fashioned, isn't it? My brother, you know, is called Shayon. We were thinking Sraboni, to get the rhythm right. Does it feel right to you? Think about it."

Molly stood rooted to the ground, a basket of paneer pakodas in hand. Proloy turned his attention to Shayon, who had been staring at the patterned china plate as if it was telling him his future. 

"Why Shayon, you have barely touched your food. Do you not like the cooking?" He gestured towards Aloka to ply him with the mutton curry.

Shayon looked up, his left hand shielding his plate to prevent any food from reaching it. His face was like some fairground mask and gave little away. His eyes were glinting though, like cold, pointed steel. "Komolika, tell me, what is your opinion about The Grateful Dead?"

In the silence that followed, Proloy could hear himself growing old. Molly, a veteran of uncomfortable situations, took half a minute to steady herself and left the room. Her mother followed abruptly, a bowl of apple and dates chutney in hand that had not been served to anybody.

Proloy saw the group to the car as soon as they were done with their meal. While the rest piled in, Shayon's friend stood with him for a while, lighting a cigarette. He thanked the Kundus for their hospitality and wished them well.

"There's a girl, she's just finished her MBBS. Very pretty. Lives close by, all of us used to play together when we were kids. Makes sense, right? She's a doctor, Shayon runs his pharmacy business. Of course, there's no question of her working unless Shayon's parents were comfortable with it."

Back in the flat, Aloka was cooped inside the kitchen with Molly, its thin plywood door bolted from inside. Proloy tried listening in. It sounded like an alien tongue, all sighs and half-utterances, invented to contain several centuries of female anguish. He had no key to understand it.

In Proloy and Aloka's bedroom, the two pairs of twins had gathered themselves in a tight circle and were busy devouring something out of a bowl. "Is that the fish? Is it gone?" he bellowed at them. "It was not a snack, you idiots. Do you have any idea how much it cost?" 

Four heads, mouths greasy with the mustard-laden gravy, darted him an indifferent look. What an impossible madhouse, Proloy thought to himself.

MARRIAGE

On a winter's afternoon around seven years ago, the wife of Aloka's younger brother had drowned in the Damodar, the river that ran along the western edge of the town. They had been out on a picnic along with other married couples their age and several infants. At the sight of his young wife being swept away by the rushing undertow, Aloka's brother had jumped right in, tipsy enough to disregard the fact that he did not know how to swim. 

Later that evening, their companions had discovered the woman's body a few hundred feet away, wedged between rocks on the craggy riverbank. It had taken another week to find her brother's corpse, several kilometres downstream, his face mauled into obscurity by the claws of some angry animal. Joy and Bubu were just four years old.

In life, some people are tried more than others, Aloka had convinced herself. It had made it easier for her to raise the orphans and hurt less when Molly's marriage proposals had repeatedly crashed into pieces. After every rejection, Proloy would bury his face into the pillow and silently sob into the night, so that the girls would not find out. Aloka would be next to him, stroking his back, dredging up an old saying she had heard as a child from her grandmother. Finding a groom is like looking for a serpent in a dark room, she would tell him. You know it's there but there is no easy way to find it.

Aloka never let her emotions get in the way while arranging for these visits. The trick was to treat it like any other work. She had to rein in her twin daughters. One look at those pretty, flighty girls and Molly would not stand a chance. 

Cardboard boxes, filled with sweets and pastries, were stacked inside the refrigerator. Those needed safeguarding from the boys and their nimble appetite. Aloka had confronted them once last year, after they had wiped off some twenty nolen gur sandesh in a matter of minutes. They had stood quietly, looking at her with forlorn orphan eyes, like two sad cows caught grazing on someone else's pasture.

It is how God plays with us, Aloka thought. She felt a surge of hope about the next day. Molly's photograph stood approved, horoscopes had been matched. What could go wrong? The family stopping for lunch had requested one indulgence: to arrange for some hilsa fish. It was not the season but not impossible to get. 

She had but one persistent fear. Rinku and Rimpa were brilliant, in an almost effortless way. They would go to university, get jobs and one day come home with the men they wanted to marry. Aloka had to make sure Molly was not lingering around to face that day.

****  

MARRIAGE

"So where will you be all day?" Proloy Kundu asked. "Some disaster in the Economics department needs your urgent attention?"

Rimpa ignored the barb. "Committee work. Republic Day, then Saraswati Pujo."

"You're in the final year, about to leave college."

Rimpa looked at her father, a dainty smile dissolving the pout. "The young need guidance."

Proloy Kundu kept looking at Molly. She had turned twenty-three last month. Always the quiet sort, these days she hardly spoke unless she could come up with something acerbic. Her thick mass of hair was gathered in a slovenly bun. Wide, tranquil eyes on a dusky face, burdened by a thick pair of brows, she sat drinking in the play of light and shade in the distance. 

They were rude but right, Proloy thought. She is more painter's muse than trophy wife.

Rinku and Rimpa left the dining table, trying to beat each other to the bathroom. Joy and Bubu stood at the kitchen door, making inquiries about breakfast. Aloka sent them out to buy eggs for toast. "Put on some pants before you go," she yelled after them. "And don't eat half of them on your way back."

Proloy slid into the chair opposite Molly as soon as they were alone. "Your Ma has talked to you about tomorrow, I believe?" Molly sat looking at the dregs gathered at the bottom of her teacup. She looked like some ancient goddess carved in stone, who neither hears any prayers nor grants one's wishes. Proloy decided to try again.

"Two groups, okay? One coming from Dhanbad, they'll stop for lunch. Then the family from Calcutta, they'll drop by in the evening." He managed to catch his wife's eye through the kitchen door and gave an agonised look.

"Molly, just check if there's some multani mitti left," Aloka said. "I'll prepare the face pack before I start in the kitchen." She flopped her corpulent arms on the dining table to create some impact.

Molly rose to the bait. "You think that your face pack will turn me into some fair princess that everyone wanted to marry?"

"No, it will just take the oil and dirt off, so that you don't look like a mechanic's garage," Aloka retorted.

"How about practicing some writing? Remember those folks from last year, they had asked me to compose two letters to see if I'm of any use? Two letters?" She was slowly chewing her words now. "Formal and friendly?"

"We're trying our best, you have to understand," Proloy said.

"But Baba, you know I'm not good enough. The ones from Calcutta, they'll put up at a hotel, right? They will ring our doorbell at six the next morning, like last time, to check what I look like without the paint?"

"Molly, we are not the ones hurting you," Aloka said. A trace of resignation had crept into her perennial singsong voice.

"But don't you see what it was, the two of you?" Molly's voice was hoarse with pain, like one toiling for long under some ancient curse. "I failed school. Not just Maths or Science. I failed geography. Who fails geography? It's beyond rescue. All of it."

****

MARRIAGE

 "Why do you send out these dimly-lit photographs?" he asked. He felt like picking a quarrel, if only to agitate the serenity on Aloka's face. "What happened to the ones taken by that professional studio?"

"Uff, Glamour Studio," Aloka spoke, with a mock shudder. "Their beautician did such a poor job with Molly's make-up, a family from Calcutta wrote back saying they did not want their son to marry a birthday cake."

"The make-up. It got layered," she explained after a pause, noticing her husband's uncomprehending face. 

"We have to stop approaching these folks in Calcutta," Proloy Kundu muttered to himself. "Their attitude, as if everyone has just got a Nobel Prize. Empty vessels. All of them."

"You want last Sunday's papers?" Aloka asked after a while.

"Nah, gone through them twice. Even circus clowns want college graduates."

The building in which the Kundus lived was at the northern tip of the housing society, skirted by a low-grey boundary wall. Low, dun-coloured warehouses lay irregularly scattered beyond the wall. A coil of cumulus cloud gamboled around a late winter sun, its shadow occasionally rippling over the dappled fields in the distance. Proloy Kundu and his wife sat for a while, gazing out of the window, talking of people and places that were no more.

A dull chorus of voices emerged from the drawing room, interrupting their conversation. In the absence of a second bedroom, the entire brood slept there through the year. The twin boys, nestled on the sofa-cum-bed under a single quilt, were awake and kicking each other's shins. Their unrest had made the mosquito netting collapse on the three girls, who slept on layers of thin mattresses piled up on the floor. Everyone was complaining in bitter, drowsy tones.

"Hide the mail, quick," Aloka said, getting up to arrange for fresh cups of tea and glasses of milk. "They'll be here any moment now."

She had barely finished before they all walked in, still grumbling like troops on the retreat. The girls had shawls swaddled tight over their nighties. Joy and Bubu, the boys, wore pullovers that grazed their knees. Those had once belonged to Proloy. He rose to make space and conceal the envelopes.

"Am I wrong to assume it's a holiday? That no one has anywhere to go?" Aloka said. She placed a large, wide-mouthed jar on the table, filled with biscuits that looked like survivors of some violent upheaval. 

"No school today," Joy spoke up. "Who broke our biscuits?"

"Of course it's not a holiday," Rinku, one of the twin girls, replied. "I have three hours of continuous practical classes in the morning. And then I signed up with that private laboratory, remember? Because their equipment was better? Well, that's Saturday afternoon for you. I hope my legs don't fall off by end of day."

"Don't expect me before five in the evening," Rimpa, the other of the twins, volunteered. She sat pouting, her thin, pale fingers rotating a broken fragment of a biscuit. "Seriously, what is with the biscuits? Every brand and variety seems to have been smashed in here. Has Palash stopped coming?"

"I bought those from Sharma's grocery. Some of the stuff gets damaged during unloading. You get a heavy discount on those," Aloka said.

Rinku and Rimpa widened their eyes and drew their breath, in horror, as if they had been practicing it together for a long time. 

'Wait till you have your own families," Aloka said, departing for the kitchen.

MARRIAGE

Proloy Kundu often thought what it would be like if he slept till ten on a Saturday morning. His mind relished the idea through the tedium of the working week, especially on days he met the municipal authorities. All around, as rickety finances fought losing battles with bulging overheads, he saw himself, as in a vision, content and curled up in bed, his right leg astride a fat bolster. No leaky taps, no clogged drains. Nothing to toss him out of bed unless the house caught fire, but that was a moral crisis beyond the scope of his imagination.

Every Saturday morning, he found himself aloof from that vision, at fifty-three, within sniffing distance of his retirement, stuck in a rented government flat. He sat at the dining table, his fingers wrapped around a cup of black tea, mostly worrying what lay ahead for his three adult daughters once they exited his threshold. He also had charge of his wife's orphaned nephews, so lazy mornings had become as distant to him as space travel. 

His wife joined him, dark brown of complexion, wearing a housecoat tightly fastened over her nightdress. She was a stout workhorse, and this morning reminded Proloy Kundu of a mature tree trunk. At forty-eight, she had one of those determinedly positive outlooks on life he found frightening. The shy, slender girl he had married was but a memory now, tucked inside photo albums. 

She handed him a stash of envelopes, the week's accumulated mail. 

"That's all?" he asked her. The frayed edges of the envelopes suggested he had already given them a cursory look in the course of the week. 

"The light blue one's from yesterday," Aloka replied, stirring an extra spoon of sugar into her milky tea. "Registered post, with acknowledgement."

Proloy Kundu reached out for the paper knife and slit open the coarse-grained envelope along its length. He peered inside, without disturbing the contents. 

"Just the photo," he remarked.

"Rejected?" Aloka asked. "Not even a note?"

"Wait, there's something written at the back." He tapped the corners of the envelope to ease the photograph out. Between his thumb and forefinger, he looked at the image of his first-born, Komolika, or Molly as they called her. She was staring guardedly at the camera, as if unsure what was to follow. She looked dressed for a wedding, draped in an ornate royal-blue silk saree, white jasmine stringed along her dark, flowing hair. 

"Not meeting our beauty standards," he read out from the back of the photograph.

DECAY

In a sudden whim, the clouds parted one morning to welcome a cold but brilliant sun. People threw their windows open to let the light in. All the residents of the housing society were stirring at once. If one stood on the football field, it would seem an indolent giant was rising from its winter sleep.

There is no saying who first noticed the solitary figure standing in the middle of the field. He wore shiny black trousers, his thick pullover was as red as a fire engine. A wide-brimmed ochre-coloured hat shielded his face from view. Had he merely stood his ground, it was doubtful whether the men would have battled their inertia and stepped out of their homes. But he started jogging around the edge, as if to warm himself up for something more. It was an unsure and wobbly run. It began to look as if he might fall.

"What is the latest happening with our Ambika-ji?" Sunil Dasgupta, the agricultural officer, asked the group huddled at the northern corner of the field.

"He's been acting up. A lot," Soumen Bhadra, Ambika Prasad's neighbour said. Soumen looked distracted and scratched his chin. 

"What are those pants made of? Gabardine?" Rafique Chowdhury, the veterinarian, piped in. 

"Probably," said Proloy Kundu. "Or something that reflects light."

Everyone laughed. The runner had started throwing his arms out and punching the air. He was tuning his muscles. 

"Always too proud to ask for help," Soumen said.

"It's cancer bhai," Sunil Dasgupta said, with a hint of exasperation. "It finally got to his head."

Ambika Prasad had stopped to catch his breath. He steadied his extended arms. In that golden January morning, he started running again, this time flapping his arms as if about to take flight.

(EOM) 

Nov 16, 2016 

 

DECAY

The van was headed back to town for cooking supplements. Ambika Prasad chose to ride back. The outdoors had exhausted him. His head reeled from the eddies of gossip all around, and the shrieks of unruly children. The pain was searing him all over now and he briefly considered visiting Dr Udayan Sikdar for some pain-relievers. 

We will send some lunch your way, his colleagues promised.

The fresh air breathed through his thin hair as the van sped back on the empty road, flanked by nude rice fields. It made its way into the industrial part of the town, first the wide avenues skirting sleepy British-era bungalows with front gardens, then the looming rusted chimneys of the iron and steel works. 

The artificial tar lake was next, its oppressive malodour like accumulated sin. It sat thick and gloomy with discarded sludge. 

It had all been wrong-headed, he thought as he neared home. He could have staggered home drunk every night, after spending his earnings on women of ill-repute. Instead of spending his life cooking and mending and sewing, he could have let a mistress take care of it all. No one would have known because no one would have taken the trouble to notice. Now it was too late to make amends.

As he unlocked his door on reaching, he noticed the cheap blue form of an inland mail lying under the door. It was a reply from his son. It read:

Respected Father,

All of us are very pleased to hear from you. We hope you are taking good of your health, especially as the cold is quite severe now. Mother is well; her joint aches come and go.

It will please you no doubt to know that soon you will be a grandfather again. We have been afraid to broach the news, knowing how you feel on the subject. But now we can all share the coming joy together.

Babli, Lovely and Divya (Jubilee), your three goddesses, keep asking about you.

Your loving and dedicated son

Shivnath

****

The new year dawned wet and raw. All through the day, bitter wintry winds made people look for any excuse to stay indoors. Like all vile, unforgiving things, the weather refused to relent over the next few days. Streets remained foggy and mysterious, the domain of working men herded around weak bonfires. Rich people arrived at deserted street corners to donate blankets to the poor, and hastily departed in their cars. The merrymaking of Christmas week seemed buried with all other signs of life.

DECAY

He lost the cook on arriving at the park, who went scouting on the sandy riverbank for a place to light his woodfire oven. He was glad to be alone. He decided on a spot next to the white honeycombed fence, spread out his handspun rug on the wet grass and settled down with a movie magazine he had brought the previous day.

From where he sat, he could see the swirling river to his right, sparkling like polished silverware. A chain of artificial meadows rose and fell towards the left, interrupted by a winding canal crossed by a wooden bridge. Pebbled streets snaked around the meadows, mostly empty at that hour. 

Ambika Prasad looked at the cover of the magazine. A young woman in a swimsuit, with a somewhat overwhelmed look, looked back. The palms of her hands rested at the back of her head, as if she was looking at a wardrobe, wondering what clothes to wear. If it became the talking point, as he expected, the pretty penny he spent would be worth it.

The rest of the picnickers were trooping in, chattering like happy birds at sunrise. The meadows turned into a painter's palette, dotted with the bright colours of discarded shawls and pullovers. Ambika Prasad laboured over the rumoured infidelities of Bombay's movie stars. He had to duck his head every now and then, to avoid the orbit of free-spinning frisbees.

Colleagues came and sat with him. On the weather, Ambika Prasad agreed it had been a somewhat arid year. From afar, he could hear the voice of the overweight cook, clearly vexed, losing an argument to a bevy of women.

Payal Mukherjee brought Ambika Prasad his breakfast. Her father was his colleague, an overseer of projects at the office.

"Here now, eat," she said. She held two plastic bowls heaped with puffed rice. Eggplant fritters, fried golden brown in chickpea batter, were embedded on them, like flags on a mountain top.

 Ambika Prasad thought about his irate stomach. "I'm too old for this," he said.

"Then just talk to me," Payal replied. Her faltering marriage had made her a source of discomfort for the other wives. She had been playing badminton with the children since she came and looked alone.

"Do you think, Ambika-ji, that I'm a terrible person?" she asked, munching on a mouthful of food.

"I still think of you as a baby," Ambika Prasad replied. "I saw more of your baby days and childhood than my own Shivnath."

"My husband visited twice, you know. Sat on the sofa, sobbed away," she said, looking towards the haze at the far bank of the river, dense and green. "It looks so odd, a grown man crying."

Ambika Prasad found it hard to respond to such domestic turmoil. He flipped through the magazine, from whose pages well-endowed women, dressed inadequately, beckoned with all their might. Payal yelled at someone to get Ambika-ji some decent breakfast.

"No one noticed me there," she continued. "His mother has gout. She is crying buckets. They don't miss me. They missed the work I did."

"The point is, where do you go from here," Ambika Prasad finally managed a reply. "And your boys, where do they go."

Payal sat lost in thought, chewing on a blade of dry grass. Her breakfast bowl was empty. A little boy appeared, carefully carrying a paper plate. It had buttered toast, a slice of fruit cake and an orange. 

Ambika Prasad reflected that he could have sat with a bunch of red roses on his lap, and no one would have bothered.

 

DECAY

 As the days got colder, Ambika Prasad kept trying to become a different man. His time was spent undoing the things that had defined him through his life. He arrived late for work. Sometimes, he left early. He was not as strong as before and it increasingly suited him not to wake up at the crack of a chilly dawn.

On a whim, he took a day off, sending word through the peon who lived in the building. No one came to ask after him or send him any papers to copy or stamp. He lay huddled under the blanket. The afternoon sun dissolved before his eyes, making way for the languid sadness of a winter's evening. 

Ambika Prasad did not get up to turn on the light. Mosquitoes were surging through the open window. A few of them, in a circle right above his head, hummed an insistent note from some ancient rite. It could not have escaped notice that I was changing my ways, he began to reason. But nobody cared. The business of life going on as usual was such a big sham. 

He had been shy with townspeople he little understood. They thought he was selfish and were returning the favour.

****

Like every year, the final week of December brought a rush of picnics and outings in its wake. The families in his building had decided on some derelict temple in a forested area, about one hundred kilometres out of town. They had hired two mini trucks for the journey. 

Ambika Prasad felt faint even thinking of the effort. He refused to take part. He knew what to expect, dancing at the back of the truck like one possessed, the driver braking hard every now and then, those at the back falling on each other's body parts. 

Soumen's kids, along with some of their pimply cohorts, planned to cook a Sunday lunch on the rooftop. They came to ask him over, in high spirits and talking all at once. Ambika Prasad promised them he would drop by.

"The office picnic will be held a day after Christmas," Amiya-babu, the boss, announced at work. "No point locking horns with drunken hoodlums on Christmas Day, for a little space or shade."

Ambika Prasad nodded vigorously, he supported the sentiment. The children's park at the edge of town was the unanimous choice. 

On the day of the picnic, Ambika Prasad was the first to clamber up the minivan meant to ferry people. He found himself in the company of some oversized woks with soot-heavy bottoms, gigantic ladles and colanders and several jerry cans of drinking water. An overweight cook sat with his legs spread wide on the rear seat, dozing between some bundled up kindling on one side and a crate of live chicken on the other. Sacks of potatoes, onions and cauliflowers occupied the other seats. 

Ambika Prasad sat on the hump of the engine, next to the driver. It was only a short distance, he told the disapproving slab of pain in his stomach.

DECAY

 The experience at the movie hall buoyed Ambika Prasad to no end. He felt braver than ever. Instead of starting his ablutions at five in the morning, followed by a shower, he lay in bed till almost eight. At work, he talked loudly with everyone and even perched himself on other people's desks to banter. Though no one brought it up, he was sure his behaviour was being noticed and possibly discussed.

He itched to let his family know he was a changed man. It worried him that he must have always appeared dull to them, a distant figure who sent money by post. He had little time to lose now that his days were numbered. He decided to write a letter which would make them sit up and take note. Once they came to visit, they'd see and marvel.

For two evenings in a row, he sat up on his bed, working on a number of drafts. He was uncomfortable sitting all hunched up, for his stomach hurt more than on other nights. Every few minutes, he had to readjust his shawl which kept slipping off his shoulders. His fingers were numb with the cold. In the end, he settled on a version. It was subtle yet conveyed the urgency of his personal twilight.

All his life, he had written to his father, later his son. For the first time, he had addressed a letter to his wife. He wrote,

Beloved Janaki,

I hope the herbal oil you had purchased abated the pain in your knee joints. Modern medicine is no good in the final years of one's life. Taking them is an abuse.

Tell Shivnath, our son, that though costs are rising, it is important to keep the family name alive.

Give my love-laden blessings to Babli, Lovely and Divya (Jubilee) who are missed every day.

He struggled over the signature. His wife of forty years had always referred to him as 'Shivnath's father'. It looked dimwitted when put in a letter. He ended up signing his entire name, as in official papers.

Ambika Prasad bought expensive postage to ensure the letter travelled quicker than ordinary mail. His unusual views on modern medicine would strike them as odd, and make them speculate about his health. Again, he was known all across his village for refusing to pine away for a grandson. Such thinking is provincial, he told any village elder who brought it up. An about-turn there would confirm that things were not right with him. 

Over the next several days, the sound of an autorickshaw hurtling past found him rushing to the window, for he reckoned his family would set out within hours of reading the mail.

**** 

DECAY

 As his solitary figure crossed the field towards the twinkling beacons of the movie hall, Ambika Prasad felt far from home and a stranger to his life. He wanted to hum a song that matched his ardour. None came to mind. His heart was heavy with the weight of the unknown. His abdomen felt numb. Probably from the shock, he thought.

At the ticket counter, he asked for the expensive balcony seats. A boy of about twenty was selling tickets. He had thick curly hair, and wore ear studs that matched his fluorescent green shirt.

"What did you do Grandpa, to get thrown out of bed on a cold night?"

He lowered his voice when he did not get an answer.

"This is not that kind of Hollywood, you get it? This is action, guns and bombs. Dishoom-dishoom. Lots of guns, rat-atat-a-tat. Some tight leather skirts is all you will get."  

An invasion seemed underway inside the hall. Hordes of boys who looked like replicas of the boy at the counter. A few stood on the chairs at the front row, hooting and cheering at the advertisements that had started to roll. The rest ran up and down the aisle, flapping their arms as if about to take flight.

On the overhanging balcony space, Ambika Prasad sat in the near-darkness among a sea of empty red chairs. A man, presumably a drunk, was curled up in one of the corner seats, either asleep or dead. Ambika Prasad felt sleepy and dispirited. The pain was back, nibbling away at his stomach. The janitors had begun cleaning the bathroom stalls, and the biting stench of cheap disinfectant and stale urine singed his nostrils.

He had expected the boys to quieten down once the movie started. He was wrong. The irregular shouts turned into a unified roar of approval, punctuated by loud clapping, along with whistling at the glimpse of any female character. 

By the time Ambika Prasad decided to go home, most of them had their pants gathered at their ankles.

DECAY

 Soon, Ambika Prasad ran out of things to do. 

He had considered himself lucky to have been forewarned of his death. He used the time to tidy up his finances. He looked up debtors who had owed him for so long that their paths never crossed anymore. 

At the back of his mind, he had expected his illness to stick to its schedule and worsen in a way that matched his dwindling priorities. As his grip mellowed, his family and neighbours would step in and get him to a hospital. 

Instead, a gnawing clammy ache burned him through the day and robbed him of his sleep through the nights. It kept coiling around his abdomen like a whirlpool, as if it had nothing to do but feed on itself. For the first time in his life, Ambika Prasad was stuck with an indefinite amount of time he did not need. It was cruelty meant for a man fond of order. An unseen force was measuring out the pain, in no mood to hurry things up. He had become like others. He had no idea when death was due.

The solution announced itself just as the problem was becoming a nuisance. He had gone to bed one night and lay on his side with the quilt up to his chin. His appetite was waning, so he had skipped dinner. The Vespa's steering was turned at an angle that faced him. He lay awake looking at its sightless visor. 

It struck Ambika Prasad that he had been given an opportunity to mark out his last days from the rest of his insipid life. He was expected to abandon himself to death, not wait patiently for it. I have been blind this whole time, he thought to himself.

He got up and dressed quickly. It was a little after nine. Families were settling down to dinner in front of their television sets. The night show at Kuheli did not start before half past nine, there was plenty of time. He feared prying questions from neighbours and pulled on his brown monkey cap. Outside, he was relieved to find the world sombre and deserted, wrapped in the paled yellow mist of the streetlights.

DECAY

 Nobody at work knew he was sick. Ambika Prasad arrived like every other day, a venerable old man of few words and regular hours. He had stopped being an errand boy decades ago. Hardly anyone knew what work was expected of him. If there was need for a precedent, or a happenstance had to be dredged up from the past, people turned to him. 

"Ask Ambika-ji," colleagues would tell each other. "More useful than those service rulebooks gathering dust on the shelves."

At other times, he sat and copied documents through the day, even as typewriters rattled in fury all around. For one who never completed school, Ambika-ji wrote a fine hand, generations of bosses had commended. It had made him guard his turf with zeal. 

Had he wanted to discuss his illness, Ambika Prasad would have a hard time deciding on a confidant. Early in life, his uncles had warned him about making enemies in an unfamiliar town. It had sounded grave and useful, what could be used in life, taught to the younger lot. 

Ambika Prasad had gone to great lengths to abide by it, for it had turned out to be a difficult one to practice. 

He could never afford an opinion. If others insisted on knowing his views, he made a quick headcount to see what the majority was thinking and agreed with them. Later, he would make it a point to inform the side lacking in numbers that there was much that was right in what they believed.

To make matters worse, fresh, enthusiastic officers would be asked to head the office from time to time, with a mandate to set things right. Ambika Prasad dreaded those types. One of them was Manas-babu, a lustreless anaemic with shoulder-length hair, who always leant against the steel cupboard while speaking to his staff. Manas-babu had got it into his head that unless an earthquake or communal riots were convulsing the town, all employees had to report for work at half-past ten. 

The union was swift to respond: Go slow, it said. Reduce the pace of work.

A signature on a file could take days. Ambika Prasad dragged his feet at work and took loads of paperwork home to help the cornered Manas-babu.

He was found out and ended up being trusted by no one.

****

DECAY

 Soumen was still laughing, though quietly now. 'Your belly must be on fire."

"It's the way life works, Soumen-bhai. You come in bawling. You go out groaning. No one wants to come, no one wants to go."

"Oh, stop being frivolous Ambika-ji," Soumen said, he had stood up to leave. "Clever men like you lead long lives."

Ambika Prasad kept quiet.

"I mean, look at me," Soumen continued. "I can barely fit my family inside that tiny flat. Half our stuff is on the landing or the stairs. You, on the other hand, have managed to make room for two paying tenants."

This time, Ambika Prasad joined Soumen in his hearty laughter. Some years ago, their neighbourhood had been roiled by a series of scooter and motorbike thefts. Two of his colleagues, without garage facilities but worried about their vehicles, had decided to put Ambika Prasad's near-empty flat to use. Ever since, he had slumbered every night with a Vespa scooter and Bajaj motorbike keeping him company near the foot of his bed.

* * * *

Ambika Prasad got busy from the very next day. He wanted to sort out his affairs, of which there were few, before his strength went. Always a careful man, he had, quite some time ago, written a detailed note to his son about the money owed to him by the government, were he to suddenly die. He had put it in a brown paper envelope and pasted it to the back of the only framed portrait of his wife and him, taken a month after their marriage. 

The time had now come to make an inventory of everything else he had. He hauled out the aluminium storage trunk from deep under the bed, another reminder of his marriage, a gift from his wife's family. He spent an entire evening going through its contents. The portrait lay at the bottom of the trunk. He unfastened the envelope from its back and took out several ruled sheets of paper. 

With a steady, even hand, he made it known to the family surviving him that he would leave them half a dozen white dhotis, eight full-sleeved white shirts, six pairs of white socks, two woollen pullovers (brown and dark grey), a brown monkey cap, an embroidered Kashmiri shawl (grey) and two blankets. 

After a while, he added a dictionary, the copy of the Gita he read every night, a dog-eared copy of World Short Stories, translated to Hindi. He updated the amount of money in his bank account, adding the interest earned since he had prepared the note. 

 

Decay

 Having lived an austere life, Ambika Prasad had decided against a grand, expensive death. An image formed in his mind, of Dr Udayan Sikdar's specialists crowded around a bar, waiting for his hard-earned money to make its way into their fat pockets. He breathed in a lungful of the vigorous morning air. The sweet shops of the neighbourhood were opening as he walked past them, the wafting aroma of the cardamom-laden milky tea gently brewing in vats. He crossed the road in front of Kuheli, that pink expressionless concrete giant of a movie hall. He started walking across the field towards the rental buildings, where he stayed at a one-room flat on the ground floor.

Ambika Prasad returned a man free of all doubt. He had lived alone all his working life. Now that he was old enough to die, he would do so without a fuss. He was not going to deprive his flesh and blood so that fat doctors could get fatter. He looked around his flat, a spartan room with a toilet adjoined. He slept without a mattress, on a narrow wooden cot at the corner. His other worldly possession, a portable black-and-white television, stood on a wooden stool facing the bed, pressed against the opposite wall. 

Ambika Prasad had one child from his marriage. Like a swift but short-flowing river, his wife had delivered their son on the tenth month of their marriage and dried up. Shivnath was a village schoolteacher, with his own family, he had always lived with his mother. 

He considered telling his wife and son about the diagnosis. They would turn up within the next few days, but so would half the village, trailing behind them. Relatives he barely remembered would crowd all around, wailing at regular intervals about his imminent demise. At other times, they'd inquire about the local movie shows as he rushed about arranging for their food and rest. 

Pulling out the kerosene stove from under the cot, Ambika Prasad started kneading the dough to make chapatis for his lunch. It was best to die alone, he thought to himself. 

Later, as he was halfway through his meal, a knock sounded on the door. Soumen, from the same floor, was waiting outside. He came in without being asked and perched himself on the cot. Ambika Prasad sat down on the handspun rug on the floor and continued with his meal. 

"So, my missus sent me to ask after you, Ambika-ji," Soumen said, dragging out the last word. He was leaning forward, his hands clasping each other, elbows resting on his thighs. "You know, with all the groaning and coughing of late, every night."

"I'm fine. Went to the doctor this morning," Ambika Prasad replied.

"Oh! So what is it? The chest?"

"No, the stomach."

Soumen started laughing. He was tall and swarthy, always wore his shirts with a few buttons open. Not good with money, he drove a jeep, repairing roads. A larger presence than life had made plans for. Ambika Prasad waited for the generous boom of his voice to subside.

"Your stomach you say," Soumen said, wiping the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand. "Look what you're eating."

A neat stack of round chapatis sat on the stainless steel plate, flanked by a mound of crisp fried potatoes, onions and green chillies. A long, fat red chilli, its insides pickled with a glut of spices, curved like a lazy serpent at the side. It trailed a rill of mustard oil, adding to the pungency hovering in the room. 

DECAY

He became an errand boy at a government office. He went before others, swept the floors with considerable energy and spent the rest of the day arranging for hot tea and cold drinking water for everyone.

"How old are you?" the man filling in his paperwork had asked. 

"Sixteen," he had answered. 

The man had looked at him, shrugged and entered it into the official records.

His reverie was disrupted by the sound of a sheet being torn. The doctor had made two neat columns, one was a list of specialists Ambika Prasad could consult. The other was an index of the tests he had to undergo without any delay. 

"And this is where Ambika-ji, I stop being of use to you," Dr Sikdar said. He had opened his glasses and was cleaning them with a soft, fresh wipe. "Of course, I know all of them from the club. I can talk to them if you need any help. Getting something clarified, you know. I don't think I can arrange a discount, heh heh."

"You will notice that I have not recommended any clinic or hospital," Dr Sikdar continued, putting his glasses back on. He leant forward, tapping with his pen on the torn sheet that lay in front of his patient. "Most of these guys have their preferences, not that I support such arrangements or anything."

Ambika Prasad folded the prescription into a precise rectangle and put it in the front pocket of his shirt. He thanked the doctor and got up to leave. The doctor's chamber adjoined a pharmacy, it served as a thoroughfare. Dr Udayan Sikdar saw the mild-mannered Ambika Prasad, clad in a spotless white dhoti and a white shirt, slowly walk away towards the light outside.

"You will have to see a specialist, Ambika-ji, you won't be able to go through this alone," the doctor called out after him.

DECAY

On a crisp Sunday morning towards the end of November, Ambika Prasad learnt that he had not long to live. He had been lying on the doctor's examining table, a narrow and raised platform clothed in green Rexine, and had just sat up. His head swam a little as he adjusted his glasses and tried to find the foothold with the toes of his left foot. He figured he was dizzy from sitting up too quickly, not because of any shock from hearing bad news about his health.

His doctor, Udayan Sikdar, was busy scribbling on a fresh white sheet of the prescription pad. He was bald and portly, and his thick, black-rimmed glasses overpowered a kind face. "So, think hard and tell me Ambika-ji. What should I put down for your age?"

Ambika Prasad smiled to participate. Dr Sikdar never seemed to tire of the joke. 

"You know how old I was. Fifty-five."

"So you say," Dr Sikdar laughed.

"So I know."

Growing up, Ambika Prasad had no idea about his birthday. He was certain his siblings and cousins didn't know theirs either. Children were born like flies in their village. No one made a fuss about the day or the time. If the newborn and its labour-weary mother survived, it was enough.

When the time had come for him to join his uncles in town and find a livelihood, he had asked his mother about his age. She had thought for a while. It was a mixed year, the way she remembered. The village had not flooded during the rains but Rampuri, their milch cow, had suffered a stillbirth. She was certain of the time though. The overnight train was rattling past even as the first cries of the baby were heard. In fact, she had been so witless with pain that it seemed that the mud walls, vibrating all around, would fall on her. Knowing how trains ran, Ambika Prasad had decided against further inquiries.