Kajori (Kolkata Memoirs)

by Sramana Mitra

  She went back to the study. Head down, as she entered, Mashtarmoshai burst out. “I knew it. The moment that husband of yours walked in. He and Joseph are spoilt brats. Never worked for anything.”

  Kajori waited. The lazy harassing trumpet call in the music room embarrassed her.

  “I’ll finish all fifty problems for Saturday.”

  “You do what you like, Ma. Who am I to tell you what is right, what is wrong? You are old enough.” He packed his books, got up to leave.

  “Promise, Mashtarmoshai.”

  At the club, the air was thick with smoke. Joseph invited Kajori to dance. At first, Kajori was uncomfortable, missing the rhythm, faltering on the steps. But Joseph’s hands guided her patiently through her awkwardness. Soon, she caught on to the beat. The rhythm pulsed in her head and magically, her feet followed along. The two bodies moved in synch, their harmony filling both up with liquid joy.

  Joseph dipped her, twirled her. She felt at once dizzy and giddy with exhilaration at her first dance ever.

  Shekhar watched her laughing in the arms of his friend, her full breasts against his chest, swaying with the music. He tried to focus on the music. The floor was full of bad dancers, Joseph being the lone star who knew what he was doing. But the crowd kept on swaying, unapologetically.

  They danced three songs in a row, before he walked Kajori back to Shekhar. “Your wife’s a great dancer!”

  “I noticed.”

  “Dance with her.” Braganza gestured with his hands towards the floor.

  “Come, let’s dance,” Kajori, obviously enjoying herself, tugged at him.

  “I don’t know how. These idiots are making fools of themselves.”

  “Oh, they’re just having fun,” Joseph winked at Kajori.

  She looked around. Indeed, the Bengali men were terrible dancers. She preferred dancing with Joseph.

  “Of course she doesn’t do housework … she goes to college!” said Meera, lying on her side, holding her cards up.

  The two sisters-in-law were playing cards on the bed in Maya’s room. Meera and Maya were both pregnant. Kajori, at the door, listened.

  “I wish I was going to college as well!” said Maya, adjusting the bolster pillow supporting her arm. “My mother-in-law would throw me out if I didn’t do the kitchen duties.”

  Meera slapped a card on the bed. “You’re not Surjo Shankar Ray’s grand daughter!”

  “Last night, they came home at 1:00.” Maya slapped another card. “Went to listen to American music.”

  “I wish I could go for American music with my husband.”

  “Oh, but you don’t speak English like she does!” They both laughed out aloud.

  Kajori entered the room startling both women.

  “Can I join your game?”

  “You?” said Meera, “Play cards?”

  Kajori smiled, joined them on the bed. Maya’s maid Hori’r Ma served tea. She brought a bowl of puffed rice mixed with onions, green chilies, peanuts, and mustard oil. As she left the room, she commented, “The sun rose on the west this morning, hna go boudira?”

  Maya dealt a round of cards. As Kajori picked up her hand, she asked Meera, “Is the baby kicking?”

  “Mine is,” Maya said, touching her belly.

  “Not mine,” sighed Meera. “I am just becoming fatter and fatter.”

  Kajori had done everything possible not to get pregnant. “Do you feel sick?”

  “Oh no, that was early on.” Meera rolled over. “Now I’m eating all the time, don’t you see?”

  Maya added knowingly, “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  AS SHEKHAR CAME back from work, showered, changed into his milk white Pajama-Punjabi, and Kajori finished her session with Mashtarmoshai, they found themselves alone in their room.

  Shekhar started playing a song that Tagore had interpreted in Bengali from an English original. As he played, he sang both the English and the Bengali versions, merging the two. He sang playfully, hoping Kajori would join him, emphasizing lines that begged her to come. She didn’t. She sat on the bed, lost in thought.

  The floor-to-ceiling mirror reflected a portrait of Shekhar’s great grandmother, as a nine-year old bride, standing next to her twenty-one year old husband.

  “What’re you thinking?”

  “Nothing …”

  “C’mon. Kajori’s not in this room.”

  She smiled absently. “Mashtarmoshai was talking about Energy.”

  Kajori and Mashtarmoshai had recently started exploring connections between Physics and Metaphysics. The questions haunted her.

  “What about energy?” He narrowed his eyes to fake interest, but the smile he tried to hide lingered.

  “He says all energy fields are connected. If I am far away from you, and want to connect with you, I can.”

  “You can use the telephone,” he shrugged.

  “No, no. Connect with energy.”

  “Telepathy?” Shekhar was mildly interested.

  “Something like that. Meditation.”

  Shekhar rolled his eyes.

  “How’s it possible without violating laws of Physics?”

  Shekhar looked blank.

  “A young man in Vienna – Fritjof Capra – wrote an article.” Kajori got down from the bed. “Anyway, it’s not interesting for you,” she added.

  “Unfortunately not! Can we switch to Tagore? Come, sing with me.”

  “I’m tired,” she sighed, sitting in front of the dressing table to untie her braid.

  “You never tire of Mashtarmoshai’s boring lectures.”

  “I don’t find them boring.”

  Arriving in Puri after the overnight train, they had only the energy to fall into bed for a few hours - their bags still packed on the floor.

  Late morning, as the family gathered in the verandah, Shekhar collapsed on an easy-chair, fell asleep.

  Kajori’s finals were over. She stood first, won the university gold medal. During her Masters studies, she published a paper in the American Journal of Physics on radioactive decay.

  The servants brought kochuri bread, sautéed potatoes, and a giant kettle of tea.

  Meera and Maya had grown rounder. Annapurna and Kajori sat with them, sipping morning tea from clay cups.

  “When will you announce your good news?” asked Meera of Kajori.

  “Me? Which good news?” Kajori was waiting to hear from Oxford.

  “Aaha ...” Meera taunted. “Here … this,” she pointed at her belly.

  “I don’t have one, Didibhai!”

  “Well?” asked Maya. “Why not?”

  Kajori did not answer. She thought, “Because I will go to Oxford.”

  A few days later, on a hot afternoon, as Kajori sat reading in the verandah, Ramapada brought her a letter. A big smile lit her face as she read. She rushed inside for Shekhar, running from room to room. She found him on the roof terrace, flying kites with his cousins.

  She gave him the letter, and stood anxiously without saying anything.

  Shekhar smiled, took the letter, “Your dream comes true.”

  “Read it!”

  “I don’t need to read it to know that now I am definitely not good enough for you,” he said.

  “Nonsense! You will come with me to England.”

  “What do I do in England?”

  “Business …?”

  “What business?”

  “Family business?”

  He glanced up at the kites bobbing in the sky, watching the string going limp, then taut again.

  “If I go to England, there’s no business waiting for me. I’ve to start from scratch. Dadu will give the textile mill to Ajoy.”

  “Can’t you start something on your own?”

  “Do you think I am a good businessman?” He looked back at her. “I don’t do much, you know.”

  “But you go to the office everyday …”

  “Let’s be clear. I’m not a brilliant businessman like Dadu.”

  “Okay,
but you can get a job.”

  Shekhar saw a red kite about to cut Ajoy’s saffron one. He leaned over and took control, just in time. “Shono,” Kajori pursued him.

  “Kajori, I’m nobody in England. In Kolkata, my family name stands for a lot. I have a starting point.”

  “But just for a few years …”

  Shekhar made sure the saffron kite was safe, before handing the reigns back to Ajoy. He looked at Kajori. “And when you’re done with Oxford, you go to America, right?”

  “I haven’t thought that far.”

  “I have. I know you. You want to go further. You hate me for holding you back. How many times will I start from scratch?”

  Kajori watched Shekhar, who had turned again to watch the sky dotted with colors.

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “You will. You don’t understand, Kajori. I belong in Kolkata. In Puri. In my family home.”

  Back in Kolkata, Shekhar stayed awake at night. Kajori slept beside him, still innocent, still unaware of the degree of complexity ahead of them.

  Shekhar leaned over, looked at her sleeping face. He saw dark circles under her eyes blended with the smeared kajol.

  It was dawn. Sunlight slid gently into the room through the window shutters.

  Kajori slowly opened her eyes.

  Shekhar kissed her, whispered, “I don’t want you to go to Oxford.”

  Kajori, unable to imagine Shekhar could be serious, smiled, whispered back, “What if I leave you and go alone?”

  In the study, Mashtarmoshai waited, as she walked in with a plate of mango slices.

  “What is the plan, Kajori?”

  “I don’t know,” she sighed. “I can’t go alone.”

  “Shekhar won’t come to Oxford!”

  She collapsed on the chair. “No.”

  “A glass of water …” Kajori pushed the glass. Mashtarmoshai sat looking at her. “Five years alone in England …”

  “I won’t go alone.” She got up and walked away.

  “You’d give up the scholarship?”

  “Well, he doesn’t want to go …” Kajori stood helplessly in the middle of the room. “We’d have children … I can do my PhD here … I can teach ...” She asked uncertainly, “What should I do, Mashtarmoshai?”

  “Convince Shekhar to go with you.”

  “He won’t go, I told you.”

  “That’s impossible. I’ll talk to him.”

  Mashtarmoshai broke the rules, marched into the inner wing, calling, “Shekhar, Shekhar …!” Kajori followed anxiously, “Mashtarmoshai!”

  Shekhar came out to the hallway, looked at Mashtarmoshai, then looked around him confused. Kajori, embarrassed, dropped her eyes.

  “You have to go to Oxford.”

  Shekhar smiled, “Do I?”

  “Kajori has a promising career. You have to support her.”

  Shekhar did not respond, just stood there, his smile gone. Servants passing by looked from one face to another.

  “She has wanted this forever. And this scholarship is very difficult to get.”

  “I know.” Shekhar said finally. “You think I don’t know that?”

  Mashtarmoshai, frustrated, took his crusade further. “I want to speak with your father, Shekhar.”

  “Follow me, Mashtarmoshai,” Shekhar said with a sigh. Further embarrassed, Kajori followed them. They climbed the stairs to the third floor, to Kishore Narayan’s wing.

  “Mashtarmoshai, you? Here?” Kishore Narayan sat up in his easy-chair. Kajori listened from the darkness of the staircase.

  “I had to come. I’m sorry. You know about Kajori’s scholarship?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “What do you think?”

  Kishore Narayan puffed his cigar a few times. “Well, if Shekhar wants to go with her, I have no problem.” He looked at Shekhar uncomfortably.

  “But Shekhar doesn’t want to go.”

  “Well?” Shekhar’s father looked at him again, annoyed that he had been dragged in the middle of this issue that was not his to resolve.

  “Ask him to go!” Mashtarmoshai insisted.

  “Do you want to go to England, Shekhar?” Shekhar did not answer readily. “I will, of course, pay all your expenses,” his father offered.

  “I haven’t decided, Baba.” An awkward silence hung in the room.

  Mashtarmoshai waited for a resolution but getting none, turned around and stormed out of the room. Kajori followed him downstairs to the second floor verandah. “Mashtarmoshai, this is pointless ...” Not paying attention he kept going. On his way out, he encountered Kajori’s father on the front-wing staircase.

  “Here you are, Rabi Babu. I was about to go to your house.”

  “What’s the matter, Mashtarmoshai? You look -”

  “Fed up. Yes.”

  “It’s about Kajori’s scholarship.”

  “What else?”

  He bowed his head. “She cannot go alone, Mashtarmoshai. That’s for sure.”

  “So you’d let her ruin her career? Just watch? Do nothing?”

  “It’s not our decision. Shekhar has to decide.”

  Mashtarmoshai, shaking his head wildly, retorted, “I asked you a million times not to marry Kajori off so soon. You did not listen. I told you Shekhar is not good enough for her. You did not listen. Now are you listening?”

  Kajori was braiding her hair, getting ready for University. Shekhar sat on the bed tying his shoe laces. They had not spoken of the incident.

  Annapurna burst into their room, ignoring Kajori.

  “Thakurpo, what is going on in this family?”

  “Boudi!” Shekhar tried to calm and usher her to the hallway.

  “I hear you’re following Kajori to Oxford?”

  He held out his arm again to the open door. “We don’t know yet.”

  “For God’s sake, Thakurpo, you can’t follow your wife to fan her ambitions! It’s already a scandal she’s so much more educated than you. Now you want to follow her to Oxford. To do what? Wash dishes and cook for her?”

  Kajori flinched, seated in front of the mirror.

  Turning to her, Annapurna continued, “Why did you get married at all?”

  Kajori’s jaw tightened. She stood up and turned around. “Didibhai, you’ve been cooking and cleaning for your husband ever since you were married. Let us cook and clean for each other. It’s not so bad.”

  IN THE MONSOON, Mashtarmoshai died. He’d fallen in the wet street and never recovered. Shekhar took Kajori to Puri.

  It was only the two of them in the house, with a lone servant, Ramapada. It rained incessantly. The outer edges of the verandah ran with streams of water. The jasmine enjoyed the monsoon after the unbearable drought. Rain found other canals down the coconut palms.

  Kajori walked around listlessly from room to room.

  Normally the rooms bustled with people, but were empty now, dusty, disapproving. She sat for a while on an empty sofa, thinking about Mashtarmoshai. How lonely he must have felt lying on the street. She stood on the verandah watching the rain falling on the sea. She still did not know what destiny had decided.

  Shekhar paced on the roof terrace, smoking cigarette after cigarette.

  When the rain started again, he came downstairs to find Kajori sitting on the floor in the verandah, her head resting on her knees.

  Ramapada and the Oriya cook were busy preparing dinner in the kitchen. Shekhar loitered in. “What are you making?”

  “Chicken curry, dal and rice, Dadababu. Will that do?” The cook asked, concerned. “I can fry some potatoes as well.”

  “We can also make fish fries,” added Ramapada.

  “Show me how to make dal and rice,” Shekhar demanded.

  “Dadababu, why?” Ramapada said defensively. “We’re here. Everything’ll be ready in an hour.”

  Kajori looked in from the door. “What’s going on?”

  Ramapada rolled his eyes and gestured to Shekhar. “Didimoni, Babu wants to cook.”
>
  Kajori smiled, looking at Shekhar.

  “I’d have to in England, right?” He laughed.

  “You’ve changed your mind?”

  “I’ve made up my mind.”

  Joseph arrived suddenly in the morning. He startled Kajori by walking down the verandah just like that.

  “Joseph?” She jumped up from the armchair. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to surprise you.”

  “Did you know he was coming?” She asked Shekhar, who nodded smiling. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Joseph, trying to shake the rain from his raincoat, stomped his boots.

  “I’m going to arrange breakfast.” Kajori ran downstairs.

  Shekhar brought him a towel to dry his hair. Hanging up his raincoat, he handed Shekhar a large envelope containing the divorce papers. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Shekhar,” Joseph said anxiously, as he took off his wet socks.

  “I’ve thought it through.” Shekhar assured his friend with a pat on the back. “Many thanks for taking the trouble to come all the way.”

  “Well, I still can’t get over the fact that she’ll be completely rejected by your family, her family.”

  “She’ll find a new community in England. A new husband.”

  Kajori came back with plates of parota bread and mango pickle. Joseph awkwardly searched her face. Ramapada followed with tea and fried eggs.

  “I had forgotten how relaxing it is to be here, Kajori.” Joseph stretched and yawned.

  “Well, enjoy. I put a towel on your bed,” she said. “We’ll go swimming after breakfast.”

  “Wish I could stay a week. I can only stay a day.”

  “Dadababu, are you planning to cook today as well?” Ramapada enquired.

  “Shekhar? Cook?” Joseph was alarmed. “I was so looking forward to the food …”

  “He’s learning to cook for England,” explained Kajori, smiling.

  Joseph looked at Shekhar, confused. “Of course.”

  At lunch, they had a large feast with crab curry, banana flowers, banana bark, dal, and steaming basmati rice, none of which had Shekhar’s finger-prints.

  “This is why I came, my friend ... nothing like Bengali food.”