PRAISE FOR SAIKAT MAJUMDAR
On The Firebird
‘I would not have known about the fiery energy of death had I not read this extraordinary novel.’
– Mint
‘The novel accomplishes so much, on so many levels, it proves difficult to summarize its many achievements, but perhaps the book’s most impressive qualities are Majumdar’s knack for literary, artistic nuance, and his ability to capture humanity in all its complexity, merging raw, intense emotion with a subtle, resilient profundity.’
– Los Angeles Review of Books
‘This subtle coming-of-age novel grabs the reader’s attention.’
– Publishers Weekly
‘The novel is replete with subtle mind games and sexuality… there is not a stagnant moment.’
– Telegraph
‘For a slim novel it is dense with longing, with grotesquerie, with love and hate and death. Calcutta’s theatre emerges revivified, like the firebird, the phoenix, from the ashes of burnt down playhouses.’
– OPEN
‘The world of the theatre is presented almost like it is a hallucinogen. I think it will make a great film because of its play with the illusions of a deluded mind and the illusions offered by the world of theatre.’
– Mahesh Dattani
‘The Firebird dares to bring back the scope and sprawl of colossal tragedy.’
– Outlook
On Silverfish
‘The first thing…about this debut novel is its elegant lucidity— how carefully each word is chosen, each sentence written, how beautifully phrases are strung together to garland a narrative that is at the same time compelling, magical, public, private, and strewn with judiciously chosen fragments of memory…Silverfish is a brilliantly etched, haunting, intelligent first novel.’
– Hindustan Times
‘A moving debut from a talented new voice.’
– Indian Express
‘To Majumdar, words are almost supernatural—they shape our identity, our history and they fend off death.’
– Daily Star
The Scent of God
SAIKAT MAJUMDAR
To the memory of Professor P. Lal
(1929–2010)
And for Wendell Mayo
teacher, editor, champion
The Magic Wrist
Whenever India played Pakistan, the villagers in Mosulgaon wanted India dead. For the boys, that was the best reason to watch cricket on TV. The village was just outside the walls of the hostel; their roars and firecrackers were real, an enemy of their own!
That Saturday, India was to play Pakistan. But even such excitement paled next to that of watching it in the common room of Bliss Hall. It was a dark festival. All eighty of them packed on the floor of the room, on the thick, ribbed carpet. The door was closed and weak sunlight filtered through the glass pane of the windows. Garish light flickered from the TV set perched on the table in front.
The boys wanted to shout and scream but for Kamal Swami sitting on a chair at the back. Kamal Swami was unbeatable on the cricket field, he aimed like Arjun. His saffron robes flapped wildly in the wind when he bowled, and before you blinked, the ball blew up the wicket like a child’s toy-house. But he rarely spoke during match-screenings, only once in a while to make a rare forecast whether a batsman would stay or get out. And he was always right, so that scared the boys a little.
In the darkness, the common room became a maddening place. No one could see anything. It was like a movie theatre. The blue flannels on the screen and the frenzy of cheering spectators on the stands, all that was visible in the common room of boys who cheered in whispers. The crowd drove them crazy, for the match was happening in Peshawar and the Pakistanis wanted to drown the Indian batsmen in their fierce war-cry. From time to time the boys wanted to smash the TV screen, claw at the brute Pakistanis who waved massive green-crescent flags like weapons at the heroic Indian batsmen who fought their killer bowlers.
‘Cut their dicks off,’ Bora whispered softly at the TV.
‘Dicks slit already,’ Asim Chatterjee roared. ‘Bloody mullahs!’
‘Firecrackers going off at Mosulgaon,’ someone whispered. ‘They cheer when Pakistani bowlers get a wicket.’
They lived and breathed with this village. One could see the thatched huts from the rooms of the C Block, and if they stared hard they could also spot muddy-looking women bathing. The villagers hated the ashram and they wanted Pakistan to rub the noses of the Indian team in the dirt.
‘Slit-dicks!’ Asim Chatterjee roared again.
‘Asim!’ His name flew and hit Chatterjee like a thunderbolt from the back. Kamal Swami’s voice always pierced like an arrow. Chatterjee crumpled up like a withered flower. He looked big and burly and already had hairy temples and upper lips but it was easy to crack him as under the loud body of a bully there was always shame, the shame of hairy whiskers and upper lips in Class 7 and the reminder that he was a man among children.
But Kamal Swami never had to say much.
Silence thickened in the common room, the TV buzzing alone. The flag-waving Pakistani crowd was gone, vanished into the television and far away in Peshawar. Anirvan glanced to his left. Kajol sat staring at the TV. His face said nothing. The Swami’s voice had not touched him. He never rested till the last equation on his homework was solved to perfection and nobody ever found a balled-up sock under his bed. Was he really watching the match? Or just looking at the TV because they were all supposed to?
To watch the Pakistani leg-spinner Abdul Qadir was to die laughing, but to face him on the pitch was to face death. Balls pitched at perfect length and spinning up to a foot to knock the bails off the stumps. A deadly googly where the ball struck the direction opposite to where it was supposed to go. He danced like a cripple trying to twist at the disco and it was painful to watch a man do such things to his body. But they had stopped laughing as the ball that came out of that dance was an arrow of death for the batsman.
The silence became more pointed. Watching Qadir was a bizarre kind of a delight. He began his twisted dance to the wicket and the whole room leaned forward. Anirvan’s weight rested on palms splayed on the carpet on either side, ready to attack. The ball fell at the perfect length before the leg stump, and the batsman tried to drive it towards long-on. The ball caught the edge of the bat and shot at the off-stump like a snake’s tongue. The hawk at the slip caught the ball and the Pakistani team howled like a pack of wolves. A gasp went up in the dark room and Anirvan clenched his fingers to feel Kajol’s palm in his own. It was a soft and small palm, almost like a baby’s. The anxiety of the moment was a disease and one had to share it.
A curly-haired sixteen-year-old boy had appeared to face the guile of Abdul Qadir. His name was Sachin Tendulkar and he had raked up some massive innings in domestic tournaments. But he was just a boy and the devious Qadir would slaughter him soon. They waited.
Anirvan had not let go of Kajol’s hand. It was beginning to feel strange as the moment couldn’t last forever, the moment when one slapped his neighbour’s thigh or clenched a hand in excitement, but he held Kajol’s palm and sensed the moisture in it, the moisture coating his bony knuckles.
He was a boy really, this Sachin Tendulkar, a curly-haired boy who could perhaps play in the older boys’ school team. It was absurd and delightful to see him in the massive cricket gear—the pad and the helmet and the heavy bat, among these real and famous cricketers. The boys were just happy that Waqar Younis—the deadly paceman—was not there to draw blood with his bouncers. He would come back soon but the trickster Qadir would happily send the boy back to the safety of the pavilions long before that.
Anirvan unfurled each of Kajol’s fingers slowly inside his palm, like he was p
laying a secret game of numbers with his digits. Kajol had smooth, well-trimmed nails. Anirvan ran his fingers over them and imagined his tiny nail-cutter tucked away carefully inside his desk where everything was arranged like a library catalogue. He was the kind of boy who never trimmed his nails on a day he was not supposed to, like a Thursday, or the day of the week he was born, just as his mother had told him. One who set aside two days in the week when he clipped them after his bath, when they were soft.
Anirvan’s heart beat wildly. Sachin Tendulkar took guard to face Abdul Qadir. Anirvan caressed Kajol’s fingers, feeling the spot behind his knuckles where the skin wrinkled, the spot below it where tiny hairs had sprouted, so tiny and so little, he was almost hairless.
Qadir did his fatal dance. The ball pitched and spun madly. The boys wanted to close their eyes and not see the terrifying sight of the bails flying off the stumps.
Swiftly, the curly-haired boy changed into a battle-stallion and hooked it wildly over mid-wicket. A sixer!
The boys gasped and almost forgot to cheer. And then they cheered, a wisp of sorrow in their voices. What a spunky boy! He will kick before they kill him. Soon.
Anirvan squeezed Kajol’s hand. His fingers slid back, caressed his wrist, the baby bone awake on the corner, the veins of his pulse that made up the soft belly of the wrist. It was his to play with. It did not question Anirvan’s claim on it, doing whatever he wanted to do with it. He did not dare to look at Kajol but knew he was staring at the TV. Did he resent having to watch cricket? Perhaps the rowdiness of the Pakistani spectators and the rowdiness of Asim Chatterjee made him wince.
The camera focused on Abdul Qadir, returning to his dancing run-up. A smile danced on his lips. A cheerful snake. He would now kill the boy, split his stumps wide open. Bora closed his eyes and said something under his breath. It was some kind of a prayer. It was odd to see Bora pray, as if he were ill and had no idea what he was doing.
The ball pitched right on the middle stump and spun in the wrong direction. A googly that would sting the leg stump. Smoothly, the curly haired boy pulled the ball over long leg. Out of the field and out of the world!
Who was this Sachin Tendulkar? Who was this boy, really? What kind of guile had made his wrists?
Anirvan’s heart leaped. Kajol squeezed his fingers, quickly, clumsily. Anirvan glanced at him through the corner of his eye; he looked straight at the TV. Where did he have his heart? In Peshawar or with the algebra left unsolved in his room? Somewhere else?
And then Sachin Tendulkar sent Qadir outside the stadium for a third time. His wrist turned like the arc of a revolving planet. The spectators were quiet, in sudden mourning. The boys’ chests hurt with pride and were about to explode. The firecrackers had died out there in Mosulgaon.
Qadir was smiling. The bastard was game!
Everything felt right. Anirvan wanted to bring Kajol’s delicate wrist to his mouth, suck his soft baby fingers one by one. There was an ache in his loins. Everything was taut.
‘Take that you split-dicks!’ Asim Chatterjee howled.
‘Turn off the TV!’ Kamal Swami’s voice struck out like a slap across the room.
Anirvan pulled out his hand sharply from Kajol’s.
Before they knew it, Sunondo Dey stood up in the front row and turned off the television. He loved to follow the vilest orders of the Swami. He hated to see his classmates happy.
The boy with the magic wrist was gone.
Cane
Kamal Swami hit them where it hurt. He took the TV away right when the firecrackers were dying down in Mosulgaon.
The Swami never made a mistake. He had taught Anirvan so much. How to craft a deadly backhand smash across the ping-pong table. How to blow the conch before prayer.
The first day he tried, the conch had sucked all the air from Anirvan’s lungs but no music had come out. It had made a noise like a fart. He had puffed up his cheeks again and blown hard into the curled mouth of the large white shell. Nothing.
That day, he had asked Nath to let him do it. Nath had looked confused. ‘Huh?’ It was hard to make out emotions on Nath’s dark and knotted face. He was the tribal boy with spunk in his lungs. It was his duty to blow the conch at prayer every day.
‘You can’t,’ Nath had said.
‘But I can.’ Anirvan had argued.
The song of the conch was the beginning of prayer. The boys became quiet the moment the conch was blown. Anirvan’s lungs were about to burst. He felt a hand touch his right shoulder.
‘Here,’ Kamal Swami said softly. ‘Give it to me.’
Anirvan felt his heart stop. Kamal Swami was the hostel warden of Bliss Hall. The silent monk. Nobody heard him as he never wore shoes or slippers indoors. You never knew if he was faraway or right behind you. The boys fell quiet the moment he walked into the room.
The Swami lifted the conch to his lips. His saffron chador, neatly folded on his right shoulder, creased lightly. The music came. An arrogant booming wail. It wouldn’t stop. Not even the tribal boy Nath had such force in his lungs.
The Swami paused.
‘Turn your lips into an O,’ he whispered. He reached out with his fingers, touched Anirvan’s lips, shaping them like he was trying to curl open the petals of a flower. He smelled of incense and cardamom, and his saffron robe was like a seawave.
‘Push hard while you blow.
Like this.’
He blew again. And again. Long wails swam out like fragrant war-cries. They swirled around the prayer hall, flew past the long, L-shaped corridor of the hostel, swung around the rooms of the boys, and floated in waves over the wide green ashram lawns.
Anirvan’s lips felt numb.
The Swami stepped inside the prayer hall. Quietly, Anirvan followed him.
Inside, there were eighty of them. Eighty eleven-year-old boys draped in coarse cotton chador, seated in drowsy rows filling the hall, shrouded in the fine white haze of incense.
They were half asleep. They had sleepwalked outdoors at daybreak for their PT class in white t-shirts, khaki shorts and white running shoes which Sushant Kane said made them look like young prisoners. But it was Sushant Kane’s older brother, Prashant Kane, who stood in the football field and called out their names to make sure that nobody missed PT. They ran around the field four times and did those impossible arches—stretched out behind and touched the ground with both hands. Anirvan could never do it.
If you missed PT you had to do an arch while Prashant Kane slashed a cane on the soft hind part of your legs. If that made you lose your balance you had to do the whole thing all over again … and again till you could arch quietly while being caned. The monks said your mind should be beyond touch while your body was in pain. Sometimes the boys screamed. But most of the time they stayed quiet.
When they marched back into their hostels and tied the chadors over the khaki shorts they were too tired to take off, most of them were still in the haze of sleep. By seven o’clock they were inside the prayer hall. Nobody could talk inside the hall. If Tridib, the biology teacher, heard a boy speak there would be such a smack on his temple that his head would sing throughout prayer. But you were lucky if you were caught by the biology teacher. If you were unlucky, Kamal Swami might see you.
Kamal Swami never beat a boy if he heard him whisper or giggle during prayer. He stared at him with dead eyes. Then he would move his jaws slowly as if he had something to say. But he never said anything—just nodded his head from side to side. It made the boy feel dirty throughout the day, sometimes, for days afterwards, till the Swami called him to his room alone and spoke softly about how the mind was a brat of a child and the best way to discipline it was to simply let go, step beyond it, and watch its antics like he lived outside it.
Something stirred in their sleep-drugged bodies as Kamal Swami entered the prayer hall. They straightened their backs, just the way they were told to sit in meditation. Their spines felt the rhythm of the Swami’s toes muffled inside his socks. He moved through Bliss Hall
silent and shoeless, just in these soft socks, sliding through in the prayer hall, the dining hall, or the boys’ rooms. It was the best reason for the boys to keep the floors clean and smooth, like a shiny coin they liked to spit on and polish.
Anirvan found peace when the Swami sat down. The Swami’s skin glowed; his saffron robes had a fresh clean smell and a whiff of cardamom. He was like a prayer hall that walked.
‘Leave your mind, swim out of it, and watch it wander,’ the Swami always said.
Anirvan felt his whole being leave his body, float away on a light breeze, linger on the angular bones of the boy sitting next to him, whitened by the prayer chador flung over his body. Kajol was thin, and looked thinner under the thin cotton chador.
‘Watch it like a fish bobbing in the water, a trivial, colourful thing that is no longer a part of you.’
Kajol always sat next to him during prayer. Kamal Swami had asked the two of them to sit on the right hand corner at the back of the hall, close to him.
Anirvan watched his body breathe. It was no longer his body. It pumped in and out like a lifeless machine. He was a wisp of smoke that floated away, like a genie escaping a magic lamp.
There was a single drop of life left in his body. Right around his left knee which touched Kajol’s bony right knee. Throughout prayer, their knees were glued, afraid to breathe and stir, lest they lose each other.
Sleepwalk
The night of the semi-finals, Anirvan went to bed with the memory of the cricket match. He curled up with it like a child curls up with his soft toy. And so he slept, and so every night after that. It was a snatch of the day he could kiss and hug to sleep.
Kajol had said something. It was as if he had used real words. The boy who rarely spoke. Anirvan had thought he would never speak to him. Not even after the silent talk across the corridor, the day before the Class 7 half-yearly exams.
Walking to memorize was so hard. It was painful. Anirvan had tried to deny it for a while; but then he couldn’t any longer. He was no bright spark. He had wandered into the school debate team but he struggled at the exams. His classmates could crack algebra equations in their sleep. And they never slept because they studied eighteen hours a day, combed their hair perfectly, and wore neatly washed and pressed shirts to school every day. Some of them were also good-looking and fair-complexioned and so the monks liked them. They always got the rooms right next to that of the hostel warden.
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