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CHAPTER 64 (#litres_trial_promo)
A Note to Readers (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Reader’s Guide (#litres_trial_promo)
A Conversation with the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract from Teatime for the Firefly by Shona Patel (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
The traveler has to knock at every alien door
to come to his own,
and one has to wander
through all the outer worlds to reach
the innermost shrine at the end.
Rabindranath Tagore
From Gitanjali
Small villages cluster the waterways of East Bengal in India. Seen from above they must appear like berries along a stem, dense or sparse depending on the river traffic that flows through. Crescent-shaped fishing boats skim the waters with threadbare sails that catch the wind with the hollow flap of a heron’s wing. Larger boats carry people or cargo: bamboo baskets, coconut and long sticks of sugarcane that curve on their weight down to the water’s edge. There are landing ghats along the riverbank with bamboo jetties that stick out over the floating water hyacinth. Here the boats stop and people get on or off and take the meandering paths that lead through the rice fields and bamboo groves into the villages.
Once a week, the big world passes by in the form of a paddleboat steamer bound for important destinations: Narayanganj, Dhaka, Calcutta. It shows up on the horizon, first a tiny speck the size of a peppercorn, and grows to its full girth as it draws closer. The village boats scatter at the sound of its imperious hoot, and small boys in ragged shorts jump and wave at the lascar who moves easily along the deck with the swashbuckling sway of a true seafarer. His long black hair and white tunic whip in the river breeze as the steamer gushes by with a rhythmic swish of its side paddles, leaving the tiny boats bobbing like toothpicks in its wake.
Once a bridal party loaded with pots and garlands caught the powerful wake of the steamer as it passed. It bounced the boat and almost tossed the young bride into the river. The shy young husband instinctively grabbed his wife, drawing her into an awkward but intimate embrace. The veil slipped from the bride’s head and he saw for the first time her bright young face and dark, mischievous eyes. He drew back, embarrassed. His male companions broke into wolf whistles and rousing cheers and his bride gave him a slant-eyed smile that made his emotions settle in unexpected places. During the remainder of the journey, their fingertips occasionally met and lingered under the long veil of her red and gold sari.
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Sylhet, Bengal, 1871
Shibani was the lighthearted one, with curly eyelashes and slightly crooked teeth, still girlish and carefree for a seventeen-year-old and hardly the demure and collected daughter-in-law of the Roy household she was expected to be. Having grown up with five brothers, she behaved like a tomboy despite her long hair, which she wore, braided and looped, on either side of her head twisted with jasmine and bright red ribbons.
Everything was so strict in her husband’s house. The clothes had to be folded a certain way, the brinjal cut into perfect half-inch rounds, the potato slivered as thin as matchsticks. Then there were fasting Mondays, temple Tuesdays, vegetarian Thursdays. Mother-in-law was very particular about everything and she could be curt if things were not to her exacting standards. But Father-in-law was softhearted; Shibani was the daughter he had always wished for. She brought light into the house, especially after the older daughter-in-law, who walked around with her duck-footed gait and face gloomy as a cauldron’s bottom. Perhaps being childless had made her so, but even as a young bride the older daughter-in-law had never smiled. What a contrast to young Shibani, whose veil hardly stayed up on her head, who ate chili tamarind, smacked her lips and broke into giggling fits that sometimes ended in a helpless snort.
During evening prayers Shibani puffed her cheeks and blew the conch horn with more gaiety than piety. She created dramatic sweeping arcs with the diya oil lamps, and her ululation was louder and more prolonged than necessary. Mother-in-law paused her chanting to give her a chastising look through half-closed eyes. Father-in-law smothered a smile while her husband, Shamol, looked sheepish, nervous and love struck all at the same time.
Every evening Shibani picked a handful of night jasmine to place in a brass bowl by her bedside so she and her husband could share the sweetness as they lay in the darkness together.
* * *
A year after they were married, the first son was born. They named him Biren: Lord of Warriors. Shamol carefully noted the significance of his birth date—29 February 1872—a leap year by the English calendar. Shamol worked for Victoria Jute Mills and owned one of the few English calendars in the village. Just to look at the dated squares made him feel as though he had moved ahead in the world, as the rest of the village followed the Bengali calendar, where the year was only 1279.
In truth, moving ahead in the world had been nipped in the bud for Shamol Roy. He was studying to be a schoolteacher and was halfway through his degree but had been forced to give up his education and work in a jute mill to support the family. This was after his older brother had been gored by a Brahman bull near the fish market a few years earlier. His brother recovered but made a show of acting incapacitated, as he had lost the will to work after he developed an opium habit—the drug he had used initially to manage the pain. Only Shamol knew about his addiction, but he was too softhearted to complain. He did not tell anyone, not even his own wife, Shibani. He considered himself the lucky one after all. Life had showered on him more than his share of blessings: he had a beautiful wife, a healthy baby boy and a job that allowed him to provide for the family. Every morning Shamol woke to a feeling of immense gratitude. The first thing he did was to stand by the holy basil in the courtyard and lift his folded hands to the rising sun to thank the benevolent universe for his good fortune.
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Mother-in-law was mixing chickpea batter for eggplant fritters when she looked out of the kitchen window and saw Shibani and Apu, her friend from next door, gossiping and eating chili tamarind in the sunny courtyard. Baby Biren lay sleeping like a rag doll on the hammock of Shibani’s lap. She jiggled her knee and his head rolled all over the place.
“Shibani!” yelled the mother-in-law. “Have you no sense? Do you want your son to have a flat head like the village idiot? Why are you not using the mustard seed pillow I told you to use under the baby’s head?”
“Eh maa! I forgot,” said Shibani, round eyed with innocence, a smudge of chili powder on her chin. She scrambled about looking as if she was going to get up, but as soon as her mother-in-law’s back was turned she settled back down again.
“The mustard seed pillow is currently being used to round the cat’s head,” she said to Apu, giggling as she tickled Biren’s cheek. “The cat is going to have a rounder head than this one.” Biren opened his mouth and she let him suck on her fingers.
“Aye, careful!” cried Apu. “You have chili powder on your fingers.”
Biren’s little face puckered and his big black eyes flew open.
“Eh maa, look what you did,” chided Apu. “You woke the poor thing up!”
“Just look at him smiling,” said Shibani. “He’s even smacking his lips. Here, pass me the tamarind. Let’s give him another lick.”
“The things you feed him, really,” said Apu reproachfully. She never knew whether to admire Shibani’s audacious mothering or to worry about the baby. “Remember the time you made him lick a batasha? He was only four months old!”
Shibani laughed, her crooked teeth showing. “You were my coconspirator, don’t forget.”
The two of them had smuggled batasha sugar drops from the prayer room and watched in awe as the baby’s tiny pink tongue licked one down to half its size. Of course, the sugar had kept him wide-eyed and kicking all night.
“This child will learn to eat everything and sleep anywhere,” said Shibani. “I don’t care if he has a flat head, but it will be full of brains and he will be magnificently prepared to conquer the world.”
* * *
At six months Biren had a perfectly round head full of bobbing curls, the limpid eyes of a baby otter and a calm, solid disposition. He hated being carried and kicked his tiny feet till he was set down, after which he took off crawling with his little bottom wagging. He babbled and cooed constantly and a prolonged silence usually meant trouble. Shibani caught him opening and closing a brass betel nut cutter that could have easily chopped off his tiny toes. Another time he emerged from the ash dump covered with potato peels and eggshells.
“This one will crawl all the way to England if he can,” marveled the grandfather. There was a certain sad irony to his words. An Oxford or Cambridge education was, after all, the ultimate dream of many Sylhetis and, being poor, they often did have to scrape and crawl their way to get there. Even with surplus brains and a full merit scholarship, many fell short of the thirty-five-pound second-class sea fare to get to England. Sometimes the whole village pitched in, scraping together rupees and coins to send their brightest and their best into the world, hoping perhaps he would return someday to help those left behind. But most of them never did.
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Shibani slipped around to the pumpkin patch near the woodshed behind the house. She cupped her hands over her mouth and called like a rooster across the pond. Soon, there was an answering rooster call back from Apu: a single crow, which meant, Wait, I am coming. Shibani smiled and waited.
The two friends no longer saw each other as much as they used to. Both of them had two-year-olds now. Apu’s daughter, Ratna, was born three days after Shibani’s second son, Nitin, who was four years younger than Biren.
Nitin turned out to be a colicky infant who grew into a fretful toddler. He clung to his mother’s legs, stretched out his hands and wanted to be carried all the time. He ate and slept poorly and forced Shibani to reconsider the charms of motherhood.
Shibani shifted her feet. Now, where was that Apu? Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a small movement in the taro patch. Shibani gave a tired sigh. It was that nosy son of hers again. Biren had lately started eavesdropping on their conversations. Apu and Shibani often discussed private matters relating to their mothers-in-law, husbands and what went on in the bedroom. Six-year-old Biren had already picked up on the furtive nature of their conversation. How long this had been going on and how much he had overheard already, Shibani dreaded to know, but this time she was going to teach him a lesson.
Apu ran out of her kitchen, wiping her hands on the end of her sari. Shibani watched her nimble figure jump over backyard scrub and race around the emerald-green pond. She is still so lithe and supple, like a young sapling, Shibani thought fondly of her friend, who was a trained Bharatnatyam dancer.
Apu huffed up to the fence and mopped her face with the end of her sari. “I have only five minutes. Ratna will wake up any minute. Quickly, tell me, what?”
Shibani rolled her eyes in the direction of the taro patch and silently mouthed, Biren.He’s listening. Then she said loudly, “Have you heard the latest news about the small boy in the Tamarind Tree Village? The one whose ears fell off?”
“No, tell me,” said Apu, suppressing a smile.
“He had these big-big ears and was always listening to grown-up things. Now I hear his ears have come off. Can you imagine? One day he woke up and his ears were lying on his pillow like two withered rose petals. Now he has only big holes through which bees and ants can get in and make nests in his brain. So tragic, don’t you think?”
Apu clicked her tongue. “Terrible, terrible. The poor fellow. What will happen to him, I wonder?” The shuffling in the taro patch grew agitated. Apu began to feel a little sorry for Biren. “Are you sure his ears fell off?” she asked. “I mean, fell right off? I heard they almost fell off. They had begun to come a little loose but thank God he stopped listening to grown-up things. He had a very narrow escape, I heard.”
“I hope so, for his sake.” Shibani sighed. “I would feel very sad if I was his mother. Imagine having a son with no ears and a head full of bees and ants.”
The taro leaves waved madly to indicate an animal scurrying away.
“Oof!” exploded Shibani. “That fellow is impossible. He listens to everything. Now I hope he will leave us in peace. I can’t wait for him to start going to school.”
“He starts next week, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Shibani. They had waited all this time because Shamol wanted him to go to the big school in the Tamarind Tree Village near the jute mill. It was a better school because the jute mill funded it privately. Most of the mill workers’ children studied there. “Thank God Biren is a quick learner. He’s already far ahead in reading and math because Shamol tutors him every night. That reminds me, did you talk to your mother-in-law about Ruby’s tuition?”
Apu sighed. “I asked her. Twice. Both times it was a big no. It is so frustrating. Your suggestion made so much sense. Shamol can easily tutor Ruby along with Biren in the evenings. But Mother-in-law won’t have it. She says if you educate a girl nobody will want to marry her.”
“What nonsense!” cried Shibani. “We both had private tutors and we got married, didn’t we? Thank God our parents were not so narrow-minded. Let me tell you, sister, Shamol especially picked me because I was educated. He said he wanted a wife he could talk to, not a timid mouse to follow him around with her head covered.”
“At least you two communicate. My husband doesn’t talk at all,” grumbled Apu. “He is gone all week and when he comes home I can’t get two words out of the man. Living with him is like living with a mango tree, I tell you. He gives shade, he bears fruit, but he does not talk.”
“He’s a good man,” murmured Shibani. “He adores you and the girls. We were both lucky, really, to get good husbands.”
“But just see my karma! Thanks to my mother-in-law I am going to end up with two illiterate daughters.”
Shibani gave Apu a crooked smile “What is your problem, sister?” she said sweetly. “Your Ruby will marry my Biren and Ratna will marry Nitin. It’s all settled between us, remember? We decided that the day they were born. Now, concerning my future daughter-in-law’s education—has your husband spoken to his dear mother? He may be able to convince her to change her mind.”
Apu shook her head. “Oh, he will never go against his mother’s wishes, even if he disagrees with her. It’s just as well I have you to talk to, sister. Otherwise, I would have surely gone mad.”
Shibani gave a noisy huff. “How can anybody go through life without talking? I don’t understand.”
A loud wail came from the direction of Apu’s house. Apu glanced hastily over her shoulder. “Did you hear that? I better run! Ratna has woken up. I think she is coming down with a fever.”
“Can you come and oil my hair for me tomorrow?” Shibani called after her. “You give the best head massage!”
“I’ll come after lunch!” Apu yelled back. “Around this time when Ratna takes a nap. Don’t forget my chili tamarind.”
* * *
Later that evening Shibani overheard Biren talking to his grandfather. “Grandfather, can you please check? Are my ears getting a little loose?”
“Why should your ears be getting loose? Did your mother box them for you?”
“No, no, please see, Grandfather. I think they are going to fall off. What should I do?” Biren wailed.
Grandfather twisted Biren’s ear and pulled out a cowrie. “Look what I found,” he said, handing it to Biren. “Your ears are not loose. They are full of loose change.”
“Sometimes I think I hear buzzing inside. I think it may be a bee.”
“They are buzzing because they are full of money,” said Grandfather. “I wish my ears buzzed like yours. I’d be rich.”
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Every morning, Shamol Roy took the passenger ferry to the jute mill dressed in a spotless dhoti and a starched cotton tunic, with a handkerchief perfumed with rose water folded in his pocket. At sundown he returned, wilted and worn, smelling like the rotting dahlias in a flower vase.
The stench of decomposing organic matter clinging to his clothes and hair came from the raw jute in the mill storage godown where he worked as a bookkeeper along with his assistant. For ten hours a day Shamol Roy sat in the windowless godown of Victoria Jute Mills as sweaty laborers went in and out of the single door to unload the bullock carts lined up outside. The laborers hoisted the heavy bales on the claw hook of the large industrial weighing scale; the assistant squinted at the scales and shouted the weight, which Shamol Roy noted in neat, precise rows on his red tombstone-shaped ledger. The floor of the godown was black and sticky with dirt, and vermin of all kinds—cockroaches, rats, even predatory snakes—squeaked and scrabbled in the dark corners.
A small, tidy man, fastidious by nature, Shamol Roy sat on an elevated wooden pallet with four bowls of water placed under each foot to discourage the creatures from crawling up. There was little he could do, however, about the rotting smell that pervaded the godown; it came from the jute stalks that had been submerged in stagnant water to ret so that the useful fibers could be pulled out and dried for use.
The sun was already deeply slanted in the sky when he caught the ferry home. A sweet river breeze caressed his face and a great flock of cranes crossed overhead to roost in the marsh. The boatman sang a soulful river ballad accompanied by the beat of the oar as it broke the water into pleats of gold. As the boat turned the fork in the river, the flame tree of Momati Ghat first appeared like a gash on the horizon and blazed into full glory as the boat pulled up to shore. The tea shop was closed and a mongoose scrabbled among the broken terra-cotta cups. It streaked off into the undergrowth at the sound of his approaching footfalls.
As Shamol Roy walked down the crooked path to his basha, his heart skipped to see his pretty wife dressed in a fresh sari with jasmine twisted in her hair. His two little boys, scrubbed and clean with their hair combed, ran up to meet him. They each held a hand and walked him back to the house. Biren was bright with chatter about his first fallen tooth, which he rattled in a matchbox, while little Nitin toddled along sucking his thumb.
Shibani went inside the house to prepare his tea. She never waited to greet him at close quarters, knowing well that Shamol was embarrassed by his disheveled appearance and the smell that came off his clothes. The boys didn’t mind. For them it was the smell of their father coming home. In the bedroom Shamol Roy found a set of clean home clothes laid out on the bed: a chequered lungi, cotton vest and his wooden clogs on the floor.
He picked up the brass lota from the kitchen steps and headed down to the well, where he washed down the smell of the workday from his skin and hair. Only after he had changed into fresh clothes did he begin to feel human again.
He sat in the courtyard, a tumbler of hot tea warming his hands, a happy man.
“So how was school today?” he asked Biren.
“We had English lessons, and the new boy spelled elephant starting with an L.” Biren rolled his eyes as if to say, What an idiot.
Shamol Roy feigned ignorance. “Oh, elephant is spelled with an L, is it not?”
“Baba!”
“Then what is it?”
Biren mouthed E and his tongue poked through the gap in his teeth, reminding him of his recent toothless status. He opened the matchbox and looked momentarily stricken when he couldn’t see his tooth, but there it was in the far corner.
“So what should I do with the tooth?” he asked his father.
Shamol Roy looked at the sweet, solemn face of his son. “Let me see, now,” he said gently, pulling down Biren’s bottom lip. “It’s the bottom tooth, isn’t it? Then you must throw it on the roof of the house and ask a sparrow to get you a new tooth.”
“But how can I do that, Baba?” Biren cried. “I’m not tall enough. I can’t throw it over the roof. Then the sparrow won’t get me a new tooth.”
“I’ll lift you up. You’ll throw it over the roof, don’t worry.”
