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‘Is this the first time you’ve come, then?’ said Piya.
‘No, it’s not,’ said Kanai. ‘I was sent down here once, years ago.’
‘Sent down? Why?’
‘It’s a story that involves the word “rusticate”,’ said Kanai with a smile. ‘Are you familiar with it?’
‘No. Can’t say I am.’
‘It was a punishment, dealt out to schoolboys who misbehaved,’ said Kanai. ‘They were sent off to suffer the company of rustics. As a boy I was of the opinion that I knew more about most things than my teachers did. There was an occasion once when I publicly humiliated a teacher who had the unfortunate habit of pronouncing the word “lion” as if it overlapped, in meaning as in rhyme, with the word “groin”. I was about ten at the time. One thing led to another and my tutors persuaded my parents I had to be rusticated. I was sent off to stay with my aunt and uncle, in Lusibari.’ He laughed at the memory. ‘That was a long time ago, in 1970.’
The train had begun to slow down now and Kanai was interrupted by a sudden blast from the engine’s horn. Glancing through the window, he spotted a yellow signboard that said, ‘Canning’.
‘We’re there,’ he said. He seemed suddenly regretful that their conversation had come to an end. Tearing off a piece of paper, he wrote a few words on it and pressed it into her hands. ‘Here – this’ll help you remember where to find me.’
The train had ground to a halt now and people were surging towards the doors of the compartment. Rising to her feet, Piya slung her backpacks over her shoulders. ‘Maybe we’ll meet again.’
‘I hope so.’ He raised a hand to wave. ‘Be careful with the man-eaters.’
‘Take care yourself. Goodbye.’
Canning (#ulink_989527b1-7cb4-53d3-81fa-d1e91f1a0067)
Kanai watched Piya’s back with interest as she disappeared into the crowd on the platform. Although unmarried, he was, as he liked to say, rarely single: over the last many years, several women had drifted in and out of his life. More often than not, these relationships ended – or persisted – in a spirit of affectionate cordiality. The most recent however, which was with a well-known young Odissi dancer, had not ended well. Two weeks earlier she had stormed out of his house and forbidden him ever to call her again. He hadn’t taken this seriously until he tried to call her cellphone only to find that she had given it to her driver. This had come as a considerable blow to his pride and in the aftermath he had tried to plunge himself into a short affair of the kind that might serve to suture the wound suffered by his vanity: that is to say, he had sought, without success, a liaison where it would fall to him to decide both the beginning and the end. In coming to Lusibari, he had resigned himself to the idea of briefly interrupting this quest – but if life had taught him any lesson, it was that opportunities often arose unexpectedly. Piya appeared to be a case in point. It was not often such a perfectly crafted situation presented itself: with his departure foreordained in nine days, his escape was assured. If Piya decided to avail herself of his invitation, then there was no reason not to savour whatever pleasures might be on offer.
Kanai waited till the crowd had thinned before stepping down to the platform. Then, with his suitcase resting between his feet, he paused to cast an unhurried glance around the station.
It was late November and the weather was crisp and cool, with a gentle breeze and honeyed sunlight. Yet the station had a look of bleak, downtrodden fatigue, like one of those grassless city parks, where the soil has been worn thin by the pressure of hurrying feet: the tracks glistened under slicks of shit, urine and refuse, and the platform looked as if it had been pounded into the earth by the sheer weight of the traffic that passed over it.
More than thirty years had gone by since he first set foot in this station but he still remembered vividly the astonishment with which he had said to his uncle and aunt, ‘But there are so many people here!’
Nirmal had smiled in surprise. ‘What did you expect? A jungle?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s only in films, you know, that jungles are empty of people. Here there are places that are as crowded as any Kolkata bazaar. And on some of the rivers you’ll find more boats than there are trucks on the Grand Trunk Road.’
Of all his faculties, Kanai most prided himself on his memory. When people praised him for his linguistic abilities, his response was usually to say that a good ear and a good memory were all it took to learn a language, and he was fortunate to possess both. It gave him a pleasurable feeling of satisfaction now to think that he could still recall the precise tone and timbre of Nirmal’s voice, despite the decades that had passed since he had last heard it.
Kanai smiled to recall his last encounter with Nirmal, which dated back to the late 1970s when Kanai was a college student in Calcutta. He had been hurrying to get to a lecture, and while running past the displays of old books on the university’s footpaths he’d barrelled into someone who was browsing at one of the stalls. A book had gone flying into the air and landed in a puddle. Kanai was about to swear at the man he had bumped into, Bokachoda! Why didn’t you get out of my way?, when he recognized his uncle’s wide, wondering eyes blinking behind a pair of thick-rimmed eyeglasses.
‘Kanai? Is that you?’
‘Aré tumi!’ In bending down to touch his uncle’s feet, Kanai had also picked up the book Nirmal had dropped. His eyes had fallen on the now-damaged spine, and he had noticed it was a translation of François Bernier’s Travels in the Mughal Empire.
The bookseller, meanwhile, had begun to yell, ‘You have to pay – it’s expensive that book, and it’s ruined now.’ A glance at his uncle’s stricken face told Kanai that he didn’t have the money to buy the book. It so happened that Kanai had just been paid for an article he had sent to a newspaper. Reaching for his wallet, Kanai had paid the bookseller and thrust the book into Nirmal’s hands, all in one flowing motion. Then, to forestall an awkward expression of gratitude on his uncle’s part, he had mumbled, ‘I’m late, have to run,’ and had then fled, leaping over a puddle.
In the years since he had always imagined that when he next ran into Nirmal it would be in a similar fashion – Nirmal would be in a bookshop fondling some volume he could not afford and he, Kanai, would reach discreetly into his own pocket to buy him the book. But it hadn’t happened that way: two years after that accidental encounter, Nirmal had died in Lusibari, after a long illness. Nilima had told Kanai then that his uncle had remembered him on his deathbed: he had said something about some writings that he wanted to send to him. But Nirmal had been incoherent for many months and Nilima had not known what to make of this declaration. After his death, she had looked everywhere, just in case there was something to it. Nothing had turned up, so she had assumed Nirmal’s mind had been wandering, as it often did.
Then suddenly one morning, two months before, Nilima had called Kanai at his flat in New Delhi’s Chittaranjan Park; she was in Gosaba, a town near Lusibari, calling from a telephone booth. Kanai was sitting at his dining table, waiting for his cook to bring him his breakfast, when the telephone rang.
‘Kanai-ré?’
They were exchanging the usual greetings and polite inquiries when he detected a note of constraint in her voice. He said, ‘Is something the matter? Are you calling for some special reason?’
‘Actually, yes,’ she said, a little awkwardly.
‘What is it? Tell me.’
‘I was thinking it would be good if you could come to Lusibari soon, Kanai,’ she said. ‘Do you think you could?’
Kanai was taken aback. It so happened that Nilima was childless and he was her closest relative, yet he could not remember any occasion when she had made such a demand. She had always been very much her own person and it was out of character for her to ask a favour. ‘Why do you want me to come to Lusibari?’ Kanai said, in surprise.
The phone went quiet for a moment and then she said, ‘Do you remember, Kanai, I told you years ago that Nirmal had left some writings for you?’
‘Yes,’ said Kanai. ‘Of course I remember. But they were never found, were they?’
‘That’s the thing,’ said Nilima. ‘I think I’ve found them: a packet addressed to you has turned up.’
‘Where?’ said Kanai.
‘In Nirmal’s study. It’s on the roof of the place where I live, on top of the Trust’s Guest House. All these years, after he died, it’s been locked just as it was. But now it’s going to be torn down, because we need to build another floor. I was clearing it out the other day and that was when I found it.’
‘And what was inside?’
‘It must be all the essays and poems he wrote over the years. But the truth is, I don’t know. I didn’t open it because I knew he’d have wanted you to look at them first. He never trusted my literary judgement – and it’s true I’m not much good at that kind of thing. That’s why I was hoping you could come. Perhaps you could even arrange to have them published. You know some publishers, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do,’ he said, flustered. ‘But going to Lusibari? It’s so far after all – from New Delhi it’ll take two days to get there. I mean, of course, I’d like to but—’
‘I’d be very grateful if you could, Kanai.’
This was said in the quiet but firm tone of voice Nilima used when she was determined to get her way. Kanai knew now that she was in earnest and would not be put off easily. In their family, Nilima was legendary for her persistence – her doggedness and tenacity had built the Badabon Trust into what it was, an organization widely cited as a model for NGOs working in rural India.
Kanai made one last attempt to give her the slip. ‘Couldn’t you just send this packet by post?’
‘I wouldn’t trust a thing like this to the post,’ she said, in a shocked voice. ‘Who knows what might happen to it?’
‘It’s just that this is a very busy time,’ said Kanai. ‘I have so much to do.’
‘But Kanai,’ she said, ‘with you it’s always a busy time.’
‘That’s true enough.’ Kanai was the founder and chief executive of a small but thriving business. He ran a bureau of translators and interpreters that specialized in serving the expatriate communities of New Delhi: foreign diplomats, aid workers, charitable organizations, multinational companies and the like. Being the only such organization in the city, the services of Kanai’s agency were hugely in demand. This meant its employees were all overworked – none more so than Kanai himself.
‘So will you come, then?’ she said. ‘Every year you say you’ll visit but you never come. And I’m not getting any younger.’
He caught the pleading note in her voice and decided to check his impulse to fob her off. He had always been fond of Nilima and his affection had deepened after the death of his own mother, whom she closely resembled, in appearance if not in temperament. His admiration for her was genuine too: in founding his own business he had gained a fresh appreciation of what it took to build up and maintain an organization like hers – especially considering that, unlike his own agency, the Trust was not run for profit. He remembered, from his first visit, the dire poverty of the tide country and he thought it both inexplicable and remarkable that she had chosen to dedicate her life to working for the betterment of the people who lived there. Not that her work had gone unrecognized – the year before the president had actually decorated her with one of the country’s highest honours. But still, it amazed him that someone from a background like hers had lasted in Lusibari as long as she had – he knew from his mother’s accounts that they belonged to a family that was notable for its attachment to the creature comforts. And in Lusibari, as he knew from experience, there was little to be had by way of comforts and amenities.
Kanai had always extolled Nilima to his friends as someone who had made great sacrifices in the public interest, as a figure who was a throwback to an earlier era when people of means and education were less narrow, less selfish than now. All this made it somehow impossible to turn down Nilima’s simple request.
‘If you want me to come,’ he said, reluctantly, ‘then there’s nothing more to it. I’ll try to come for maybe ten days. Do you want me to leave immediately?’
‘No, no,’ Nilima said quickly. ‘You don’t have to come right away.’
‘That makes it a lot easier for me,’ said Kanai, in relief. His stormy but absorbing involvement with the Odissi dancer was then still heading in an interesting direction. To interrupt the natural trajectory of that relationship would have been a considerable sacrifice and he was glad he was not going to be put to that test. ‘I’ll be there in a month or two. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve made the arrangements.’
‘I’ll be waiting.’
And now there she was, Nilima, sitting on a bench in the shaded section of the platform, sipping tea while a couple of dozen people milled around her, some vying for attention and some being held at bay by her entourage. Kanai made his way quietly to the outer edge of the circle and stood listening. A few among the crowd were supplicants who wanted jobs and some were would-be politicians hoping to enlist her support. But for the most part, the people there were just well-wishers who wanted nothing more than to look at Nilima and to be warmed by her gaze.
At the age of seventy-six, Nilima Bose was almost circular in shape and her face had the dimpled roundness of a waxing moon. Her voice was soft and had the splintered quality of a note sounded on a length of cracked bamboo. She was small in height and her wispy hair, which she wore in a knot at the back of her head, was still more dark than grey. It was her practice to dress in saris woven and crafted in the workshops of the Badabon Trust, garments almost always of cotton, with spidery borders executed in batik. It was in one such, a plain white widow’s sari, thinly bordered in black, that she had come to the station to receive Kanai.
Nilima’s customary manner was one of abstracted indulgence. Yet when the occasion demanded she was also capable of commanding prompt and unquestioning obedience – few would willingly cross her, for it was well known that Mashima, like many another figure of maternal nurture, could be just as inventive in visiting retribution as she was in dispensing her benedictions. Now, on catching sight of Kanai, it took her no more than a snap of her fingers to silence the people around her. The crowd parted almost instantly to let Kanai through.
‘Kanai!’ Nilima cried. ‘Where were you?’ She ran a hand over his head as he bent down to touch her feet. ‘I was beginning to think you’d missed the train.’
‘I’m here now.’ She looked much more frail than Kanai remembered and he slipped an arm around her to help her to her feet. While members of her entourage took charge of his luggage, Kanai grasped her elbow and led her towards the station’s exit.
‘You shouldn’t have taken the trouble to come to the station,’ said Kanai. ‘I could have found my way to Lusibari.’ This was a polite lie for Kanai would have been at a loss to know how to proceed to Lusibari on his own. What was more, he would have been extremely annoyed if he had been left to fend for himself in Canning.
But Nilima took his words at face value. ‘I wanted to come,’ she said. ‘It’s nice to get away from Lusibari sometimes. But tell me, how was your ride on the train? I hope you weren’t bored.’
‘No,’ said Kanai. ‘I wasn’t. Actually I met an interesting young woman. An American.’
‘Oh?’ said Nilima. ‘What was she doing here?’
‘She’s doing research on dolphins and suchlike,’ Kanai said. ‘I asked her to visit us in Lusibari.’
‘Good. I hope she comes.’
‘Yes,’ said Kanai. ‘I hope so too.’
Suddenly Nilima came to a halt and snatched at Kanai’s elbow. ‘I sent you some pages that Nirmal had written,’ she said anxiously. ‘Did you get them?’
‘Yes,’ he said, nodding. ‘In fact, I was reading them on the train. Were they from the packet he left for me?’
‘No, no,’ said Nilima. ‘That was just something he wrote long ago. There was a time, you know, when he was so depressed I thought he needed something to keep him going. I asked him to write a little thing about the Sundarbans. I was hoping to be able to use it in one of our brochures, but it wasn’t really appropriate. Still, I thought it might interest you.’
‘O,’ said Kanai. ‘I somehow assumed it was a part of whatever he’d left for me.’
‘No,’ said Nilima. ‘I don’t know what’s in the packet: it’s sealed and I haven’t opened it. I know Nirmal wanted you to see it first. He told me that, just before his death.’
Kanai frowned. ‘Weren’t you curious, though?’
Nilima shook her head. ‘When you get to my age, Kanai,’ she said, ‘you’ll see it’s not easy to deal with reminders of loved ones who’ve moved on and left you behind. That’s why I wanted you to come.’
They stepped out of the station into a dusty street where paan-shops and snack-stands jostled for space with rows of tiny shops.
‘Kanai, I’m very glad you’re here at last,’ said Nilima. ‘But there’s one thing I don’t understand.’
‘What?’
‘Why did you insist on coming through Canning? It would have been so much easier if you had come through Basonti. No one comes this way nowadays.’
‘Really? Why not?’
‘Because of the river,’ she said. ‘It’s changed.’
‘How?’
She glanced up at him. ‘Wait. You’ll see soon enough.’
‘On the banks of every great river you’ll find a monument to excess.’
Kanai recalled the list of examples Nirmal had provided to prove this: the opera house of Manaus, the temple of Karnak, the ten thousand pagodas of Pagan. In the years since he had visited many of those places, and it made him laugh to think his uncle had insisted that Canning too had a place on that list: ‘The mighty Matla’s monument is Port Canning.’
The bazaars of Canning were much as he remembered, a jumble of narrow lanes, cramped shops and mildewed houses. There were a great many stalls selling patent medicines for neuralgia and dyspepsia – concoctions with names like ‘Hajmozyne’ and ‘Dardocytin’. The only buildings of any note were the cinema halls; immense in their ungainly solidity, they sat upon the town like sandbags, as though to prevent it from being washed away.
The bazaars ended in a causeway that led away from the town towards the Matla River. Although the causeway was a long one, it fell well short of the river: on reaching its end Kanai saw what Nilima had meant when she said the river had changed. He remembered the Matla as a vast waterway, one of the most formidable rivers he had ever seen. But it was low tide now and the river in the distance was no wider than a narrow ditch, flowing along the centre of a kilometre-wide bed. The freshly laid silt that bordered the water glistened in the sun like dunes of melted chocolate. From time to time, bubbles of air rose from the depths and burst through to the top, leaving rings on the burnished surface. The sounds they made seemed almost to form articulate patterns, as if to suggest they were giving voice to the depths of the earth itself.
‘Look over there,’ said Nilima, pointing downstream to a boat that had come sputtering down the remains of the river. Although the vessel could not have been more than nine metres in length, it was carrying at least a hundred passengers: it was so heavily loaded that the water was within fifteen centimetres of its gunwales. It came to a halt and the crew proceeded to extrude a long gangplank that led directly into the mudbank.
Kanai froze in disbelief. What would happen now? How would the boat’s passengers make their way across that vast expanse of billowing mud?
On the boat, preparations for the crossing were already in train. The women had hitched up their saris and the men were rolling up their lungis and trousers. On stepping off the plank, there was a long, drawn-out moment when each passenger sank slowly into the mud, like a spoon disappearing into a bowl of very thick daal; only when they were in up to their hips did their descent end and their forward movement begin. With their legs hidden from sight, all that was visible of their struggles was the twisting of their upper bodies.
Nilima frowned as she watched the men and women who were floundering through the mud. ‘Even to look at that hurts my knees,’ she said. ‘I could do it once, but I can’t any more – it’s too much for my legs. That’s the problem, you see: there isn’t as much water in the river nowadays and at low tide it gets very shallow. We brought the Trust’s launch to take you to Lusibari, but it’ll be at least two hours before it can make its way here to pick us up.’ She directed an accusatory glance at Kanai. ‘It really would have been so much easier if you had come through Basonti.’
‘I didn’t know,’ said Kanai ruefully. ‘I wish you’d told me. The only reason I wanted to come through Canning was that this was the route we took when you brought me to Lusibari in 1970.’
As he looked around, taking in the sights, Kanai had a vivid recollection of Nirmal’s silhouette, outlined against the sky. Nirmal had put him in mind of a long-legged waterbird – maybe a heron or a stork. The impression was heightened by his clothes and umbrella: his loose white drapes had flapped in the wind like a mantle of feathers, while the shape of his chhata was not unlike that of a long, pointed bill.
‘I still remember him, standing here, while we were waiting for a boat.’
‘Nirmal?’
‘Yes. He was dressed in his usual white dhuti-panjabi and he had his umbrella in his hands.’
Suddenly Nilima seized his elbow. ‘Stop, Kanai. Don’t talk about it. I can’t bear it.’
Kanai cut himself short. ‘Is it still upsetting for you? After all these years?’
Nilima shivered. ‘It’s just this place – this is where he was found, you know. Right here on the embankment in Canning. He only lived another couple of months after that. He must have been out in the rain, because he caught pneumonia.’
‘I didn’t know about that,’ Kanai said. ‘What brought him to Canning?’
‘I still don’t know for sure,’ Nilima said. ‘His behaviour had become very erratic, as it tended to when he was under stress. He had retired as headmaster some months before and was never the same again. He would disappear without leaving any word. It was around the time of the Morichjhãpi incident, so I was beside myself with worry.’
‘Oh?’ said Kanai. ‘What was that? I don’t recall it exactly.’
