Bhattacharjee Bari was so large that I often got lost and failed to find my room. Ten large rooms spread over two floors, and right in front of the rooms ran two long verandas – laid in white marble that glittered during the day. The open gaping terrace on top stood diametrically opposite to the large piece of land that surrounded the building; converted into a garden and maintained flawlessly by our gardener.
You may have noticed Atanu, we have Krishnachuda, hibiscus, rose, night jasmine, dahlia, neem, jackfruit, guava, and mango trees all lined up neatly in rows and circles. A luscious stretch of green grass and seasonal vegetables adds to the beauty of our house.
Atanu: The garden is beautiful.
Mrs Bhattacharjee: We’ve a young boy of the indigenous tribe, living with us here. Jewel. He looks after the garden and I must say, he has made it beautiful. Jewel resembles the Chinaman who visited our village when I was in school, to write a research paper on the trees of our village. Before his visit, we never realised that the trees we took for granted could mean so much to a man from a faraway land. How foolish we are, really! A foreigner teaches us to value our things…
Jewel looks like that Chinaman, only he is much darker. I find it a bit odd though that he hardly visits his family, not even during Kharchi puja-- the tribal equivalent of our Durga puja.
My husband had accidentally extended his hospitality to this unfortunate child. He had not even asked if I wanted the boy in Bhattacharjee Bari or not. “Poor tribal boy. Those innocent, painful eyes… let him stay Sagota. He could help us with the household chores and look after the garden.” He had said. I remained silent. My father used to say-- silence is always the best answer when in doubt and disagreement.
So Jewel had stayed, tended to the garden (we had to let go of our old gardener, who I must say wasn’t able to distinguish between a rose and a Dahlia due to his failing vision), helped me in the kitchen and played with Sukanto. In fact, Sukanto loved Jewel and cared for him like his very own.
This place, Tripura, was intriguing to begin with…and not in a good way. It was not that different from our village in Midnapore in its look--green, bushy, and watery—with ponds and lakes around. My village was on a plain though, no hillocks, only a tranquil river running alongside its tree-lined muddy paths. But the heart of Tripura, its people, were nothing like my neighbours and relatives.
They spoke a different dialect of Bangla to begin with, odd and vulgar sounding. Like you twisted and trampled the language and created a murky, incomprehensible version. They ate fish like us but they also ate dry fish, like their tribal brethren, which had a suffocating odour, something akin to burning flesh coupled with barbecuing fish. They, I mean the Bangali in Tripura, have more in common with their counterparts in Bangladesh, and their tribal cohabitants than those living in Bengal. And even the Brahmins settled in here, like my father in law, have learnt to speak the dialect, to transact with the local folks -- swimmingly. My husband too, sounded just like them. Once, I told him about my discomfort in speaking to the maids, neighbours and relatives. You will learn to speak like us, Sagota. It’s the sweetest language. Right from the heart. He said smiling.
To be honest, at first, I didn't like the place, more so, its people. Not even a bit. But then with time, I started to get them, especially the women--their acidic humour, their lack of interest in books, their money mindedness and above all, their self-centred opinion on almost everything in life.
Bhattacharjee Bari, was the only place I truly liked. It was my refuge and an extension of my dreams. I spent as much time as possible, looking after it, attending to its daily needs, fixing it with the servants and beautifying it. I didn't merely live in the house, my soul merged with it. If anyone said anything bad about it, I cried. If anyone praised Bhattacharjee Bari, I felt buoyant all day.
One day I summoned enough courage and told my always-busy-with-business husband, "If we paint the rooms in different colours, I will be able to find our room with ease. These white rooms – everywhere, confuse me. Please, can we paint the house?" And just like that the house turned colourful. I asked them to paint our room blue-- in the colour of the sky. All the other rooms were painted in shades of lemon yellow and pink.
My father-in-law was so happy with the house being painted. It was pending for years, he said. I even heard him tell my husband over evening tea: Do you understand now, why we need a woman in the house?
I was the only woman in Bhattacherjee Bari, apart from the two maids and in the beginning, they hardly spoke – to me. They chatted all day with each other, but when I was around, they were on their guard. Every time I entered the kitchen, they flinched -- like I was some wild animal about to pounce on its prey.
But strangely, once I started talking to them, on those days when I was up for a chat with them – honestly, who can tolerate maids or anyone for that matter--every day? They became chatty and opened up about their families. Not that I liked hearing their mostly senseless stories, but I listened because you see, there’s a silent protocol an employer and employee follows. And that’s of tolerating each other amicably in order to finish the targeted work. And who knows in doing so they might end up liking each other.
When I got married to Sukanto’s father, he was thirty – eleven years older than me. Our age gap was nothing compared to that of my parents. My mother was thirteen when she was married to my thirty three year old father. She died giving birth to my younger sister. She was only twenty two. It was not my sister’s fault though, nor was she a bad omen. After her birth my father was in fact doing more puja and we were prosperous for a while. But our relatives and neighbours thought otherwise and never spared an opportunity to remind my sister of the tragedy that coincided with her birth. After her marriage, she settled in Kolkata with her new family. It has been years since Shiuli got married and I can’t recall her visiting my brothers and their families in Midnapore, even once.
My mother in law died of pneumonia years ago, when my husband was about sixteen years old. She was a plain, fragile woman, who appears constipated and depressed in pictures and portraits. The woman on the wall -- in the living room – next to the book case --that’s her.
I don’t think I would have liked her much. My relatives thought I was lucky. Not to have a mother in law is like a dream come true, it happens to only a select few, Sagota, exclaimed my pishi, my father’s affluent younger sister over a plate of alu-jhinger posto, beulir dal and hot rice. This was our standard lunch on Sundays, the one we used to eagerly await.
She was always accompanied by her kids during those visits. Our well-dressed, impolite cousins who practised charity by donating their ripped copies of Bangla classics to us. I listened to her in amusement and smiled. Somehow, I had always liked my aunt, she was shrewd, no doubt, but never hid her true thoughts behind sugary sweet sentences or resorted to pretence. We knew she was a pretty viper.
Yes, it was an ideal situation: large house, no mother-in-law, and a rich family. It was a dream come true for a poor village girl. But I was frightened. And despite focussing on all the positives and being zealously cheered by relatives, I couldn’t get rid of that unknown fear. I tried to encounter my fear and put it down in my mind as marriage jitters. I had seen Rati, my young friend staring blankly at the kul tree, when my father robotically read marriage mantras in their large courtyard, as her almost my father’s age bridegroom sat like a shrivelled hay doll, patiently waiting for the drama to end. Rati, that day was frightened, just like me. She knew the kul tree in her father’s courtyard will never be the same again…
Atanu: What about after marriage? Were you still frightened?
Mrs Bhattacharjee: Yes. The father and son living in such a large house, with a couple of domestic servants, only triggered negative thoughts in my mind. Many a times, I wondered if having a mother in law would be better, even with quarrels, division in affection, et al.
Relatives came in to stay, some for days, others for months. But they always left. No one wanted to stay
back. Not even the poor ones; they gladly took the money that my father in law offered and promptly returned to their homes. Something about Bhattacherjee Bari intrigued them. And intrigue doesn’t appeal to everyone, it frightens most—it frightened them.
Five years ago, my husband passed away in his sleep. He had suffered a major stroke sometime at night. I was shattered, so was Sukanto. But I couldn't help wonder if god would be that kind to me. Will he let me die in my sleep, peacefully?
After my husband's death, Sukanto was dead against keeping the house as-is. He somehow started disliking the very place he grew up in. Like he was trying to wipe out his past; the fond memories of his father hidden in the rooms and corridors of Bhattacharjee Bari. Sukanto loved his father earnestly but never expressed it.
In fact, the father and son were strikingly similar, when it came to their tall physique, green eyes, parrot like nose, colour of the skin—just like jaggery and reticent nature. They never expressed what they felt and people who didn't know them all that well, found them mysterious, confounding and attractive. Like a book with a cryptic title.
He argued with me: maa, I want to modify this house. Let's make it modern, improve it. We fought over it for months, finally I gave in. Somehow, I managed to retain most of the old furniture. And he agreed to paint my room blue. Again. We moved to our hotel in Ambasa for six months on Rudroda’s advice.
Atanu: Who…?
Mrs Bhattacharjee: Rudro da, Rudro Choudhury. He is our friend and oldest employee. He advised against staying with any of our hard pressed relatives. You see, they may welcome us with open arms into their homes, but they would not forget about their extended hospitality. Or, shy away from using their goodness of heart as a pretext to extract money in future. So we stayed at our hotel with a bunch of nosy stuff whose daily chat then was predominantly about the rich woman and her son living in a hotel and not with their relatives. See, they don’t get along with their own people… They would say in hushed voices, whenever we were around. It was their way of driving the message -- money isn’t everything.
One sunny afternoon, I decided on visiting Sukanto on a whim and watch what he was doing to our home. I changed autos and took a rickshaw to reach our home from Ambasa. Jewel advised me against it. But I didn’t want to take the car. Or him. I wanted to go alone – to my son.
The roads were hot and empty. The tired and reed-thin rickshaw puller dropped me in front of our gate. The labourers had left our iron-grilled gate ajar. There were broken bits of mortar, bags of cement and patches of sand everywhere.
I found him eating his lunch alone-- calmly holding his white dish (his favourite) and scooping a mouthful of brown-gravy-covered-rice from his plate; head bent over his folded legs, absolutely at peace--like a sadhu. Malati had served him lunch; it was her duty then—to carry lunch prepared in our hotel along with his white dish and spoons, without fail and serve it by two. Her husband drove her in our car and dropped her to Bhattacharjee Bari. It was Jewel’s idea to employ her husband as our temporary driver till the renovation was complete.
He was sitting in my room that was being transformed. The blue walls scraped clean – he put blue wallpaper instead, the furniture removed, the floor broken and bare…He didn’t notice me but the labourers did. They were jittery and spoke in muffled voices when they saw me pass by and walk towards him.
My son was somewhere deep inside himself. Our eyes didn’t meet, we didn’t talk much either. But I could feel his happy dream. And then as I was walking away, my eyes fell on those red bricks that lay cluttered in front and behind him. They seemed to speak through their stillness, telling me clearly and boldly that Bhattacharjee Bari was changing. I found it rude that I should be reminded of it thus. But I didn’t bicker; I’ve never argued agitatedly with anyone in my life. So I simply turned away and never went back till the new Bhattacharjee Bari was ready and Sukanto asked me to…
4 NOVEMBER, 2015
After talking to the grieving mother, Atanu finds Sukanto’s wife – Kalpana walking in the corridors of Bhattacharjee Bari. It’s late in the evening. But he decides on finishing the day’s investigation with her…
Atanu: How are you?
Kalpana: Good question! Would you like a cup of tea?
Atanu: No, thanks. I’m deeply sorry…
Kalpana: Hmm…Did you know Sukanto?
Atanu: We were classmates for a while…
Kalpana: Were you two close?
Atanu: You could say that.
Kalpana: How was he -- then?
Atanu: Popular.
Kalpana: Mm…Like always…You know sometimes, you have so much love to give that you don't know if you're giving it to the right people. You're not sharing you're giving, so it's one way.
I think that's what I do. I give love and give it to those--who look like they need it, but after they feel loved, they forget all about it. Like some of us forget the name of that good doctor who cured our seething pain in the urinary tract that prevented us from answering nature's call at night, effortlessly.
It's a pattern with me and I can't seem to change it. And I confuse love with a lot of other emotions, predominantly the ones which have the power to leave me pitying myself. Not a good feeling, I know, and I want to deal with it. Do something about it. Turn it around and use it for my own good, but I fail, miserably.
That's what happened when it came to Sukanto. When I met him, this one time before marriage, he looked like a giving, caring and nurturing person. He was so handsome with an easy, affable manner. Tall, muscular, not the beefy-muscular, but the lean-toned muscular. And he had green eyes. His irises were the shade of spring-time-green and there was this thin circle of grey around his eyelids which just lit up when light fell on them. He was handsome but he didn't seem to notice it. That made him even more likeable and like you said…popular.
And Sukanto was popular. He had so many friends and they all came to our marriage.
I've never had these many friends. I've mostly befriended women, older than me, like few of my neighbours in desperate need of company, any company. And I have had young companions; those school going teenage boys and girls who came to study mathematics after school. They were my meagre source of income and my temperamental companions. On most days, they were happy but on some days, they were not to be messed with, or joked at or even encouraged by an innocuous pat on the shoulders. They just needed to be left to themselves.
I think that's how people are more or less. But to be so at such a young age was new to me. I couldn’t remember being this way, or maybe I was like them but I never knew. That’s probably one of the advantages of being an orphan. There are no anguished mothers and fathers fretting over how unmanageable and aggressively independent their thirteen year old sons or daughters are turning out to be.
I grew up in a house with a brother who was silent on almost all days of the year. He was a tight lipped, brooding boy, who transformed into a silent adult without anyone noticing anything right or wrong about him.
My uncle, who was our guardian and caretaker all rolled into one, left us alone with our joys and sorrows but took care of our needs, on a weekly basis. He rounded up on the list of tasks and things to buy, every Sunday, over breakfast and to be fair to him--we mostly got what we asked for.
I think, the fact that we realised we were orphans made it easy for everyone. We never asked for more or for things we didn't really need. Our uncle was secretly grateful to us for that. We could see it written all over his face, especially when he wrote down the list of things he needed to buy for school and home or the payments he had to make. It was always the fundamental things: books, notebooks, soaps, oil, rice, potatoes…
Exactly how much does a government school teacher earn, if he is not giving tuitions after school hours? A meagre sum that can barely keep a family of three afloat. I think we all realised that his bachelor hood was a boon to us. It meant one less person to feed.
When I was married to Sukanto, I had to say goodbye t
o my older didis and boudis and my younger group of companions and I was politely advised by my uncle, who was new to this advising business, to march ahead and step into a new world, and into a new life. As if getting married was a political procession!
Quite naturally, I was apprehensive. I wondered if people were more or less the same everywhere, how will I discover a new world? And a new life? Well, I did have a life and I liked it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted a new life with all its changes and challenges.
But when I surreptitiously looked at Sukanto on the first night after marriage, I realised maybe it would be a new and likeable life, after all. Places never mattered much to me. People did -- their words mattered.
Our marriage was a big event at Agartala. I was introduced to a few VIPs, none of whom I recognized or took the pain to remember. But I did detect the CM when he walked in, chiefly because there were security personnel accompanying him and trying unsuccessfully to blend in with the colourfully dressed, over-cheerful marriage attendees.
Wants and Desires: A Psychological Thriller Page 3