The Golden Gandhi Statue From America

by Subimal Misra

  She saw that groping paw coming her way, the face obscured by the hand. Somewhere, with a crash, a big lump of clay was rolled into the water. A wave arose, ripples. Trembling ripples, and finally everything subsided. Fish were caught in landlord Patit Paban Choudhuri’s nets. The peasant’s daughter tripped and spilt blood all over the courtyard. The plain fragrance of sojney flowers flowed in, relentlessly, from across twenty years.

  FIVE

  As there was no light, everything was hidden. In that obscurity, they removed their masks and descended into the darkness, exposing their big teeth. Sniffing, smelling, sometimes groping, they probed that forbidden existence. Somewhere far away, within the mist, a lamppost would be lit. Somewhere, sacred texts would be recited, of the Buddha, of Jesus, of Mohammed. Disembowelling, tearing to shreds, taking in fully the smell of flesh and blood. Every now and then, looking around warily for whether anyone is watching anywhere. Being assured, fangs and claws are lowered again, and tear the stomach out from the abdomen. It gets bloodier. Ripping flesh with fangs and claws, attaining supreme contentment, they did their work under cover of darkness.

  None of those who had gone ahead had returned. The whole place was desolate. And there were a few beggars under the tree, with a broken clay pot on the fire made of straw and twigs, old cabbage leaves cooking. A swarm of half-peeled, dry faces encircled them.

  SIX

  Eva wanted many things. A green field, a refreshing lake of clear water, a jamrul tree on which squirrels would scurry. A mud house, togor and balsam blooms sprawling over the courtyard. And if at night, in the fluttering breeze, the fragrance of kamini flowers wafted in – then nothing like it!

  Eva was now dressing up. She looked at herself in the mirror. She would emerge fully adorned, proud. Eva wanted people to look at her, wanted to be desired. She felt happy when people gaped at her on the streets. The cigarette scorched my fingers.

  When the taxi stopped in front of the bar, Eva got down. The neon lights of Park Street sucked away the night’s darkness. A pleasing soft light in the room, no brightness anywhere to dazzle the eyes. I sat down with Eva. A uniformed waiter brought two drinks. I discerned the smell of my own blood in that coloured liquid. Eva became sharp-eyed when she drank alcohol. I gazed at her. The cigarette burnt out in my fingers.

  SEVEN

  At the Choudhuri family’s senior section’s granary, dew fell all night long. Eva and I sat and merrily, smashed glasses one after the other. The shards of glass were strewn all around and gradually became a city of mirrors. ‘Oh dear, what’s to become of us now?’ said the peasant’s daughter as she sat down. Blood spilled on their courtyard. Eva clapped her hands in joy. The old chief rent-collector, fixing the strings holding his spectacles around his ears, his body bent, recited in a mutter, ‘This time, the collection’s very bad, young sire, the peasants are agitated.’ On Park Street, the clatter of glass shattering. Eva giggled, hee hee! She says, ‘Isn’t my laugh like Gina’s?’ Plastered on alcohol, Louis XVI says, ‘Who’s asking you to eat cakes instead of bread – it’s bread you shall eat, got it?’ Broke more glass. All around the room heaps of broken glass. And as my own distorted image flashed in that broken glass, raising my arms, I, a member of the family’s junior section, thrown into a frightful confusion, flailed my arms in self-defence. When the waiter came and enquired, I screamed out, ‘How late is it?’

  There was no reply.

  EIGHT

  By and by, the street becomes quadrangular. Negotiating the twists and turns becomes increasingly complicated. Shona boudi lies wearing Eva’s skin. He sees a feudal, bluish hue oozing out of the blood. The owl hoots from inside the alcove. The light comes on instantly. I see Shona sprawled across the couch, giggling – hee, hee! When Shona pulls a long face, the light will go off. In consternation, Babu dada would go and stand at the street crossing, puffing on a cigarette. Flapping its wings, the owl will emerge from the alcove and sit on Shona’s shoulder. Babu was very angry about the owl: ‘I’ll kill it one day!’ Shona: ‘Oh let it be, the innocent creature, doesn’t harm anyone.’ Babu does not reply, he merely grinds and gnashes his teeth and goes out to the street crossing.

  Suddenly, the door opens. The interior of the room is visible. But nothing can be seen. Babu hides everything that belongs to Shona. Sure enough, one day, as she sleeps, he sneaks out and… Shona’s…

  NINE

  He searched for matches, couldn’t find them. Went to the bathroom, vomit poured out. Washing his hands and face with water, he recovered somewhat, and as he was about to go back the mechanical bird called out.

  There is much more on the alcove. A bottle of perfumed oil, a powder-box, hairpins, a golden lipstick tube. In one corner, the mirror. The sindoor-box, a packet of incense. Beneath the upturned stool, the mechanical bird. The bird speaks. Pecks and chomps audibly at grain. Sometimes, it nibbles. When it is annoyed, it comes to peck. And at night, it becomes an owl. He looked up and saw the picture of Goddess Lakshmi overhead. Lakshmi worshipped by two generations. Eva performs her puja. A garland of marigolds on the picture. The couch spread across the room. Covered with a white sheet. He tore the garland and threw it to the ground. He brought down the picture carefully. The picture preserved by two generations. He wondered where he would keep it. Unable to decide, he put it down on the alcove, near the mirror, where the owl sat, the mechanical bird.

  TEN

  All the peasants went home. All the labourers, all the scholars. Only he remained, just him. His body got wet in the rain. Warm in the sun.

  His colour drained away in the swampy forest’s mud and slime. What happened to you, what happened – you wanted to live! But what happened instead? Now darkness swung unevenly on the branches of the pakur tree. The moon floated wildly in the dark waters. The hoot of an owl rolls in from some fantastic forest clump.

  The barrel of the gun is laid on the chest. He screams, ‘This land is ours. The fragrance of dry earth moistened by rain is smeared over our body.’

  ELEVEN

  Somewhere in the vicinity of this city, there’s an empty field, there are trees somewhere, where birds dwell. Morning dawns to birdsong there. As he thinks along these lines, he sees water overflowing in the bathroom. He doesn’t hear anything. Walking through the mists, treading through many fields, woods and forests, he finds the prayed-for dawn.

  TWELVE

  Nobody gives us anything, we snatch it away.

  1969

  Translator’s Acknowledgements

  I have been extremely fortunate to benefit from the encouragement, comments and suggestions of many people. Mrinal Bose introduced me to the name of Subimal Misra and prodded me on throughout. Subimal Misra gave me his unstinting approval and trust, without which I could not have proceeded. The late I.K. Shukla also gave the project his blessings. Ankur Saha referred me to his article on Subimal Misra in the Bengali e-zine Parabaas and provided continuous encouragement, as did Souva Chattopadhyay, who made valuable critical inputs and suggestions.

  Sandip Bandyopadhyay, Amit Basu, Devananda Chatterji, Abhijit Bhattacharjee, Rosinka Chaudhuri, Mark Maclean, Anjan Ghosh, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Samir Bhattacharya, Soumitra Das, Lorena Gibson, Somnath Sen, Aditya Dutta Roy, Amul Saha, Aromar Revi and Bhashwati – all took the trouble to read my translations and give their comments.

  I fondly remember my late aunt, Revathy Gopal, who gave her comments and suggestions. My other aunt, Malathy Sitaram, was also generous with her comments.

  Ahmad Saidullah most graciously expressed his appreciation and took pains to suggest various corrections. Nilotpal Roy read through the story translations and wrote a critical evaluation, besides sharing much about Misra’s writing with me. Amit Chaudhuri generously affirmed the value and importance of this translation project.

  Sam North, editor of Hackwriters.com, carried four of the stories on this literary e-zine. Gulf Coast, a literary journal published by the Department of English, University of Houston, published one of the stories.


  I am indebted to Ruchir Joshi for recommending publication of the work, and to Karthika V.K. of HarperCollins India for her interest. It was a pleasure to work with Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri and Pradipta Sarkar of HarperCollins India on the publication. Jan Mohammad devoted immense effort and patience to arrive at the cover design.

  I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to everyone, including those whose names I might have missed out inadvertently. Without this collective support, the present work could not have been completed. However, I remain fully responsible for the final output.

  Finally, I would like to acknowledge my debt to my wife, Rajashi, and my sons, Rituraj and Rishiraj, for their patient acceptance of my translational immersion.

  V. Ramaswamy

  P.S.

  Insights Interviews & More…

  Who is Subimal Misra?

  Why is he an ‘anti-establishment’ writer?

  * * *

  Subimal Misra on Subimal Misra

  Translating Subimal Misra

  Books by Subimal Misra

  On This Translation

  Subimal Misra on Subimal Misra

  My birthday

  I do not know the precise day I was born. My mother told me I was born on a Wednesday in December 1943. My ‘official’ birthday, 20 June 1943, is entirely fictitious, ascribed by the school I was admitted to. I was born in a poor brahmin-pandit family. Like in all the poor families of my village, there was no custom of remembering or celebrating the birthdays of children.

  About me

  I got an MA in Bengali from Kolkata University but never completed my thesis. I gave up a college lecturer’s job in a mofussil area since the teachers spent most of their time playing cards. In the honours class, there was just one girl, who sat demurely. Besides, the police were after me, partly on account of political suspicion. Far away in the mofussil area, I missed Kolkata terribly. I could not stay beyond three months, and I returned to Kolkata, my beloved place of work.

  I was a humble school teacher in a high school in Kolkata. Here too, my salary was not raised as I refused to appear for the B.Ed examinations. Besides, I had destroyed all my academic records. The school was adjacent to Sonagachhi, the city’s most renowned red light area. A large section of students from that area (most of whom did not have a father’s name) came to study at this school, and I, like other teachers, had to invent names for their fathers. Through my relationship with the students, I was able to gather information and hard facts about the crude and naked business system, where a son is often deputed to bring customers to his mother. I have depicted those grim pictures in some of my writing.

  I live in a small, untidy rented flat, crowded and littered with thousands of books of all descriptions, records of Indian and Western classical masters, empty tea cups and cigarette packets, leaving little or no space for movement. I am married and have a daughter, my wife visits me occasionally. In my family life, I maintain the spirit of living together, and let my wife lead her own life without any complaint. I usually do most of the household chores as my mother is extremely old and the maidservant often prefers not to come.

  A different writer

  I am not a ‘good’ writer or a ‘parallel’ writer, but a different kind of writer. What’s understood to be story-writing – I don’t do that. I destroy that. From the very beginning, I wanted to depart from the conventional narrative tradition that defines all writing.

  My writing has the capability to challenge world literature in some aspects. Subimal Misra has no earlier parallel.

  Use of montage

  I tried to bring the montage technique of cinema, specifically Eisenstein’s, to language and writing, so that two or more visual elements are brought together to produce something new.

  In ‘Haran Majhi’s Widow’s Corpse or The Golden Gandhi Statue from America’ (1969), I tried to go beyond both the narrative as well as the documentary form. Employing Burroughs’s cut method, I searched for a new third form, which could bring to writing the language of cinema, specifically the montage technique. The result was something new in the context of Bengali literature, and also perhaps in writing in English. ‘Haran Majhi…’ could be called a work of magic realism.

  Let me give an example from Italian neorealist cinema. In the film Bicycle Thieves, there is a scene where the poor father and son are eating, and two wealthy people are also eating nearby, and the little boy stares at them. These two contradictory things, composed within the same scene, produces a third dimension. It is not read, it is not a statement. It is something ephemeral. It is a sense, where the observer or reader is also a part of the process.

  The very title, ‘Haran Majhir Bidhoba Bou-er Mora ba Shonar Gandhi Murti’, that is, ‘Haran Majhi’s Widow’s Corpse or The Golden Gandhi Statue’, brings together two completely different, incompatible entities – the corpse of the dead widow of a peasant from Bengal and the father of the nation and national icon, Gandhi.

  Later, I also attacked the montage technique; for instance, in the story ‘Sotityo Ki Rakhbo, Aparna?’ (‘Shall I Retain My Chastity, Aparna?’, 1985).

  Way of saying

  I have also written on specific subjects and themes, where the way of saying is what is said. I do not believe there is such a thing as ‘reality’. ‘Socialist reality’ too has been attacked. In the recent story, ‘Mati Norey’ (‘The Earth Quakes’, 2005), while talking about my youth, I confront a wrestler. This is an allusion to a famous, popular writer. I wrestle. I myself do not know whether I win or lose. The ground beneath my feet quakes. It is about wrestling with popular writers.

  Against the commercial

  As a writer I have always been against commercial writing, which enables readers to effortlessly swallow what’s written. I have never written like that.

  After writing for over forty years, I have not allowed a single word of mine to be published in commercial publications – those that can bring fame and money – even after being invited to contribute. I do not want to write for publishers who pay because I do not write what they think can sell. If they did publish my work, I would have to compromise. I only write for little magazines. When I get invitations to write from both establishment and little magazines, I always go for the latter. If popular writers are writing in a little magazine, then I don’t write for them. I have not permitted my stories to be used in commercial theatre either. An invitation from a commercial magazine or publisher is an insult to my writer-self. I fear I have not been writing anything ‘new’ or controversial. Little magazines have limited circulation. They are unable to pay their writers. Hence, I have never earned any money from writing.

  Bengali publishing

  People in Europe, who read books by European writers, can never understand the problems facing a serious writer in a language like Bengali. There are publishers for non-mainstream writers there. Such publishers do not exist here. How a writer like Subimal Misra struggles against market forces and lives his anti-establishment writing practice – Europe can learn about and from that.

  In the Bengali publishing world, only those books are published which can sell well and yield a profit to the publisher. Hence, publishers want to publish those kinds of stories and novels.

  My books do not have a specific price, they have very long titles, and publishers do not comprehend my ‘anti-establishment’ writing. Hence, they do not publish my work. They fear that the market cannot accept my writing. No serious writing in Bengali can be popular today. There is no publisher in Bengal who has the capability to publish my writing.

  For instance, they do not understand that I try to communicate through the very letters themselves. There is almost no press in Kolkata that is willing to do the kind of typographic work I want.

  But I write, so what am I to do after that? Because I write in such a publishing context, I have had no option but to publish my own work. But I do not have the means to do that. I was a humble school-master. Because I did not take the B.Ed degree, my
salary was not raised. As a matter of principle, I did not teach tuitions. Hence, there was no possibility of accumulating money except by saving. By cutting down on all my requirements, like getting by without eating fish, I saved money. I even had to take a loan at an exorbitant rate of interest from the watchman at my school.

  However, some of my readers wished to pay more than the suggested price for my books, they argued with me to let them help. That is how I brought out my books. I do not make any costly covers, I use cheap paper.

  No book of mine – not a single one – has been reviewed in all these years in any mainstream publication. How is this possible? My writing has simply been ignored, concealed and denied by the Bengali publishing world, the totality of it, which does not permit someone like me to even live

  Books versus commodities

  How are my books to be sold? Bookstores sell commodities called books and, hence, Subimal Misra’s books are not available in bookstores. I have no desire to be read by one and all. That is impossible.

  The print-run is small. Each book has a personal touch, rendered by me by hand. The books often have very long titles. One of my books does not even have a title – it has a number of suggested names and the reader can tick the one he prefers.

  The book-sellers in College Street don’t keep my books. So, besides writing and publishing, I also sell my books by myself. I work on each and every aspect of the book, from writing to text composition, layout, cover design, printing, conveyance, storage, distribution and sale. In this way, I have sought to demonstrate my opposition to the whole commercial publishing industry and practise an alternative.