by The Stranger in My Home- Facets of a Life (retail) (epub)
Calcutta was certainly my own private empire, the jewel of my life.
For thirty years I walked its winding streets, drank its sweet milky tea and breathed its acetic air, happily and with gusto. I lived in succession in Mechua Bazar, College Street, Wellington Street, Park Circus, Ballygunge and eventually in Alipore – the first three in relatively modest areas, and the latter three, especially the last, in elite environs. Even when we lived in a run-down neighbourhood, we had decent digs with functional furniture, and I always had a room of my own. I could be by myself, read endless books in preferred isolation and listen to popular music and dream dreams.
Modest barrios have their benefits. It was the only time in my life, I got to know slum kids as I played soccer with them and they treated me as equals, without distance or deference. Thanks to my parents, who had a large circle of friends, I had a vast assortment of kids as friends, from the rambunctious child of a Scottish professor to a quiet but mischievous neighbourhood girl who spoke little but wrote me long and suggestive notes. Our living room was curiously egalitarian: Father wanted us kids to sit with adults and discuss whatever caught our fancy, even the multiple affairs of a Hollywood star du jour.
I fondly remember a Turkish journalist who stayed with us and taught Mother how to make some lamb delicacies and a Japanese scholar who sang hosannas of sushi and helped an Indian boy overcome his natural distrust of uncooked pesce. Unencumbered by the rules of hygiene, I ate with friends whatever street vendors dished out, with miraculous triumph over intestinal disorders.
I went walking everywhere, taking a bus only when the few coins in my pockets permitted it. It didn’t seem arduous or unpleasant at all, and I saw things you see only when you are not whizzing past in a car. You saw every pedestrian, every beggar, every fruit seller, every rickshaw-puller with his lined, sweat-soaked face. On Kolkata’s crowded roads your shoulders touched that of other passers-by; you had to be aware of the people, men or women, tall or short, old or young, that lived around you.
When I came out of the university and took a job with an affluent corporation, I was transported overnight into another world. I got to see the elite clubs, the fancier restaurants and the night life of the well-heeled, especially the movie stars for whom I did an occasional stint on scripts. It was, however, to the credit of Kolkata that it had bistros and coffee houses where the different worlds intermingled. Politicos and professors, reporters and policemen, executives and clerks, all talked, argued, analysed, discussed, fought and made up. Kolkata was breathlessly alive on the streets and inside.
After decades overseas in different continents, now that I live in the west, I make an annual pilgrimage to Kolkata, partly to see friends and partly to renew my link with a city I still don’t want to become an alien universe. It is a quite a different Kolkata I visit.
A mammoth, modern airport beckons you. The roads are better, major street corners have become flyovers and the cars bear well-known brand names. Some of the advantages are balanced by a fierce flow of traffic and a swollen and careless army of pedestrians. Many old buildings, even the ones I knew and loved, have yielded place to large condominiums. Some shops, run by family businesses I once knew, still exist, but several have ceded ground to large shopping malls that are impressive but seem a little impersonal to me.
The city has a different look – and a different price. The last pair of shoes I bought when I lived there was for Rs 30; when I came for a World Bank mission twenty years ago I paid Rs 300 for a comparable pair; now it costs Rs 3,000. A breathtaking variety of cuisine, Indian and Indianized Asian or western food, offers the gourmand a tantalizing temptation. Friends invite me to a number of clubs, still bastions of peace and grace, and the service is jaw-dropping.
I don’t walk as much as I used to, though I would love to: the sidewalks show neglect and are crowded, not the least because vendors have misappropriated a slice. Walking in the dusk, with the breeze in my face, feels strangely nostalgic, and when I get lost, people on the street seem strangely solicitous to help me regain my bearing. One or two will even walk several yards to show me the correct turn.
That, to me, is quintessential Kolkata. Other things change, but remarkably the people haven’t changed all that much. They are busier, more hard-pressed, more squeezed by the demands of more demanding offices and factories. But they have defiantly retained some of their pristine habits or virtues. They are helpful. They are warm. They are companionable. They talk, express, exult and pull no punches to tell you what they think of the government, the city, the people around them, and their own life. They are voluble, candid and lively. They are exactly as I remembered the people of this exciting and confusing city.
I will keep visiting and getting excited as well as confused.
77
A RECALCITRANT ROWER
I WANT TO BE WITH YOU
SHE TAUGHT LITERATURE IN a college, but her ambition was to sing on the stage. She did not get the chance: when she appeared for an audition, she got a non-musical role. That was easy to understand. She was pretty and striking, with luminous eyes and long, flowing hair. She kept acting and developed a reputation.
Then she got a role in a movie. This was a good break for her, but it came with a problem. The shooting was often in the evening and continued until late at night. This was not acceptable to the nuns who maintained the hostel where she lived. She had to return early or move out of the reasonably priced room she had.
She had struck a good rapport with the well-known lead actor and mentioned the problem to him. Coincidentally he was an old friend. I had stuck with him during a long phase when he was an alcoholic and a nuisance. He asked me if I could help the young actress.
At the time I lived alone in a beautiful three-level bungalow-type house, with a large guest room with an attached bath, infrequently used by a visiting friend or two. I had a personable cook who also acted as a very competent Jeeves. Did I want a woman, an actress, in the house? I was not sure.
My friend pressed me hard. He came with her to visit me and to show her my home. Tina had an innocent, adolescent kind of charm that was disarming. She modestly assured me that she would never be in my way. She seemed to have a wonderful way with domestics and even visited the kitchen to talk with Jeeves. The latter was quite mesmerized by her and went out of his way to tell me later that she would be no burden for him.
I gave my consent. Since she would use my place mostly when she was late at work, I assumed that I wouldn’t see much of her. Normally I left for work early and often I left earlier to row in the lake before going to office. It didn’t turn out that way. As I worked during the day and taught in the evenings, I did all my reading and writing at night, frequently until late hours. She would come into the house quietly, using the key I had given her, and she could retire to her room. Instead she would tread gently into the living room, where I sat reading, and sit down without a word.
I would look up, greet her and a conversation would ensue. Soon Jeeves would come with two cups of tea. I could not help noticing that, though she had said that she had had dinner, Jeeves would invariable place a pastry or two next to her tea.
By the time I had shaved and showered in the morning and gone down to the dining room, I would find her already sitting there, nursing a cup of tea. She said she was an early riser and, in any case, she wanted to join me for breakfast. A bowl of cereal or a prosaic toast suddenly seemed to taste better.
Our nightly conversations became regular and started lasting longer. Her parents had never been close to her. She was friendly with professors who taught along with her in the college, but none appeared to be on close terms either. Her real family seemed to be her theatrical group, where the members were as fond of her as she was of them.
I once asked her, ‘If you had an accident or were seriously ill, whom would you call?’ She named three members of her troupe and said, ‘I know they will come immediately and take care of me.’ Then she surprised me by adding, ‘I might ev
en call you!’
I did not know if the accompanying smile was to signify a joke or to soften the surprise.
I knew things had changed a bit when, one particularly late night, she walked into the living room and, not finding me there, followed the light and braved my bedroom, where I lay reading and making notes.
‘Are you not well?’ she asked.
‘I am all right. I am just tired.’
‘I am tired too. Do you mind?’
She unfurled the magazine in her hand, lay down on the other side of the bed and turned on the other lamp.
‘Would you like to stay for dinner?’ I asked after a while.
‘Would you like me to?’
‘Of course, I would. I rarely get a stretch of time with you.’
I had a small dining table. We sat facing each other, the light glistening on her undulating hair and silver nails. Knowing her partiality, Jeeves had a bowl of sliced fruits, along with, for full measure, some panna cotta.
‘Are you free this weekend?’ I asked.
‘What do you have in mind?’
‘Would you like to come to my rowing club on Sunday morning? I could take you out in a boat and you would meet my buddies?’
That Sunday morning the club’s helper was taken aback when I didn’t ask for my favourite scull and instead took out a heavier boat. I took the oars and Tina stepped nimbly in and took a seat at the opposite end. She had on a plain white dress and a turquoise muffler around her neck.
‘I hope you aren’t afraid of the water?’ I said as we neared the middle of the lake.
‘I can’t swim, if you must know,’ she laughed nervously.
I paused pulling the oars and peered at her. A gust of cool wind sent some strands of her hair flying with a streak of turquoise. A tawny sun was rising at the other end, placing a curious glow on her morning-fresh visage. She was still smiling, and her eyes looked more luminous than ever. Heavens! A misty dawn could not be any better.
I sat on the plank of the boat like a petrified adolescent. I did not want to row back to the shore.
78
RAIN! RAIN!
ENCOUNTERS WITH DOWNPOURS
THE DAY I ARRIVED in Manila, I was driving out of the garage when the maid said, ‘But, sir, it is raining!’ I didn’t quite understand her, so I simply made a reassuring gesture and drove on. Then, in a minute, I understood. In the Philippine archipelago, rain usually came down like a blinding curtain of water. I felt like a helpless creature of the elements. Sheepishly, I edged into a side street and waited patiently for the rain to stop. Humbly, I resolved to listen better to humble people.
It was the reverse in Abu Dhabi. In two years, it never rained, except two days before I was to leave. It was the lightest of drizzles and lasted half an hour, but people rushed out into the streets and almost danced with joy. Friends called enthusiastically to share their experience of a remarkable phenomenon and my neighbours brought me delicious baklava. The next day Khaleej Times, the local newspaper, had a long column on the huge downpour.
In Konstanz, my favourite town in Germany, it rained unseasonably in the fall as I returned from a concert in the university. It suddenly turned chilly and I lost my way on the unfamiliar road. I ended up in a warm and friendly speakeasy, and practically spent the night drinking and sharing stories with a large round of new-found friends.
It rained in Hong Kong as I got out of the Kowloon ferry and ran for cover. I stood transfixed as cataracts of water threw a mysterious haze over the waterfront, prosaic streets turned magically mysterious, and a street urchin materialized out of nowhere, to fetch me a steaming cup of coffee for triple its usual price.
But the rainy day I cannot forget was in Kolkata, India. It had started as a warm, sunny day and I had walked back home from college with a friend. We sipped tea together and then walked over to the terrace, to show her the colourful kites flying in the afternoon sky.
I held her hand, and when suddenly, without a warning, rain started pouring down, it seemed the most natural thing to take her face in my hands and kiss her. It was my first kiss.
79
MOVING IN – AND OUT
WHEN THE TIME FOR CHANGE COMES
IT WAS UNCOMMON IN the 1970s in India for a girlfriend to move in with a man. When Jane, an obvious foreigner with her long blonde hair, moved into my two-storey bungalow in an exclusive Kolkata community, it was seen as outrageous.
We had been seeing each other for months. She spent a fortune on taxis commuting to my home from her apartment downtown. One day she grew tired, packed a suitcase and turned up at my door, not bothering to say goodbye to her company flat. I was at a loss for words, but the change brought an unexpected measure of calm to my frenetic life. I no longer ate dinner alone, and I liked seeing the occasional strand of a long hair in the wash-basin. Even the bathroom smelled different.
To some of my neighbours, however, it was something close to monstrous. What made it worse was that I refused to treat it as anything out of the ordinary. When there was a community event, Jane joined in. If a neighbour invited me for dinner, she came with me.
The chic but firm president of the homeowners’ association put it delicately to me over tea one day, ‘Is it wise?’ An elderly accountant, another association stalwart, told me, ‘Some of our neighbours are a little upset.’ The advertising executive took a different tack, ‘Do you think it is a good thing for her?’
My response was simple: Given our busy routines, this living arrangement was the only one that made sense. Besides, I wanted her near me.
Banamali, my suave domestic help on whom I depended and whose opinion mattered greatly to me, adored Jane. Not being used to having a help, she always spoke to him gently, and he went out of his way to do things for her.
My office colleagues took a cynical view. They had seen me with other girlfriends before, and they refused to treat this as anything more than a passing affair.
They felt duly vindicated when, eighteen months later, Jane had to return to the US. Her visa had expired, and the deadline was approaching to submit her final report on the project that had brought her to India.
What my co-workers couldn’t have predicted was that within six months I would resign from the job I loved, abandon the editorship of a cherished literary magazine, forsake the enlivening teaching chores that consumed my evenings, give up the house that had given me so much joy, and immigrate to the US to move in with the person I would not be without.
The suspicion of the association president and the concern of other well-wishers that it was an unwise liaison was fully and finally validated.
80
SHE COULD JUMP
AT TIMES IT ALL WORKS
SHE HAD FALLEN FROM a height of thirty feet and died, said the initial report. The first part was correct, the second part wasn’t. I was the US consul in Kathmandu. As a critically injured American overseas, travelling alone, she was my responsibility.
I took a large utility vehicle and drove pell-mell to the Teaching Hospital’s emergency ward. Judy was in a bad shape. She had fallen, thanks to a broken railing, from the third floor of her hotel. A leg and a hip had been badly injured, and she had contusion in her head, with a seriously inflamed eye. Doctors had given her painkillers but could not proceed further without X-rays. The hospital’s machine wasn’t working.
The only other local hospital that had one was closed for the day. I drove there, with Judy stretched out on the backseat. I speak Nepali and in fifteen minutes I had found out where the man in charge of X-ray section lived. I knocked on his door.
He was drinking tea with his wife and came out with a cup in hand.
‘I want to show you something,’ I said, ‘Please come with me.’ Nonplussed, he followed.
I took him to the car, pointed to the woman inside. ‘She is only twenty-five, her whole life ahead of her. She will die or become a cripple, unless you help me. Please help me with an X-ray.’
‘But I need two other peop
le to run the machine!’
‘You have me. I will get another person. We will do whatever you ask us to do.’ I got another person from the street by paying cash and we had the x-ray report.
We returned to Teaching Hospital, got two doctors and started the long process of treatment. Judy had no medical insurance and scant cash. For the hospital, the consulate was the guarantor. I persuaded the two specialists not to charge for the moment. But the nurses had to be paid. I filled up a form, put Judy’s thumbprint as she was in no condition to sign, and took out a loan from the US government.
The hospital director mentioned that a famous US neurosurgeon would visit Nepal shortly. I called him brazenly in Kentucky and invited him for dinner. I picked him at the airport, took him home for a late supper and told him frankly I needed his advice on Judy. He surprised me by saying, ‘Let’s do it.’ It was around midnight and we got in by pretending there was an emergency. The surgeon saw Judy, went through her medical dossier and prepared a detailed strategy for two months.
The next day, while in a formal meeting, the prime minister privately asked me about Judy, for her case had featured in the newspaper. When I said that the surgeon had suggested that Judy’s optical nerve had sustained some damage, he said he would ask his nephew, the best eye specialist in the country, to check on her. He came next day, along with his wife, a gynaecologist, and they both examined Judy and suggested a course of treatment. When I broached the subject of a fee, they said his uncle had specifically forbidden him to accept any.
Judy had a respiratory problem and needed an inhaler. We didn’t find one in Kathmandu. I worried and fretted and then had an idea. It was the height of the tourist season, and, when I drove to the international airport, I found the departure lounge full. I had taken the airport manager’s permission and stood on a stool near the exit door. I had everybody’s attention when I said that the tourists could return to their countries and buy inhalers again, but a young woman desperately needed one and I would be grateful if anybody was prepared to spare one. I had three!