Do you remember, Jayanto, our first meeting? It was winter. Angshu brought you home from office. He was wearing grey slacks and a tweed coat, with a nice clean tie. Not an inkling of eight hours of hard work could be seen on his face or attire. And you—in a discoloured Nehru vest on top of a not-tooclean panjabi and dhoti, your feet and sandals literally covered with dust, and that tall, dark, strong body with,eyes shining behind those glasses. I had to serve tea, had to sit there, and while Angshu took a bath (even in winter he bathed in the evenings—a very meticulous person), I had to converse with you. These are the rules in this house—I am to be a friend of my husband’s friends, whether I like them or not. Exactly a year after our marriage Nayonangshu gave up teaching in college and took a job with an advertising firm on Clive Street. His salary went up in one leap from two hundred and fifty to four hundred and fifty rupees, and along with that we left Beleghata and shifted to this smart, neat, newly constructed flat on Jhautola Road. Nayonangshu decorated the flat according to his taste (rather I decorated it according to his taste), and in his opinion our true married life had just begun. He had a large circle of friends. Almost every evening somebody or the other would come by, the Sunday morning session never broke up before one-thirty in the afternoon, and on some nights it would go on till half-past ten or eleven. At the Beleghata house his friends would meet on the ground floor. I stayed upstairs. My mother-in-law would send in a servant with the tea, or they would go out to Favourite Cabin, or get together at someone else’s house. I used to think this arrangement natural and reasonable, but Angshu disagreed. He’d tell me about his friends. So-and-so was brilliant, so-and-so a first-rate conversationalist, and he thought it a pity that I’d never met them. I’d say, ‘I’m fine, I really don’t have to meet all those people, dear.’ And that’s how I really felt. I was completely caught up with Angshu then, but he convinced me that if women don’t mix with men, they remain stupid (the women, that is), they stay uneducated. If they keep themselves exclusively tied to housekeeping and their circle of relatives, women never develop as real persons, as individuals. After we took this separate apartment, Angshu practically forced me to take part in those adda sessions. His friends very seldom came with their wives. Some weren’t even married. A pleasantly furnished flat, a home of just husband and wife where everyone felt at ease, plenty of tea to go around, and moreover the company and ministrations of a woman—who wouldn’t enjoy convivial sessions at such a place? But did Nayonangshu ever consider how I felt sitting there in a room full of men I’d just met or knew only slightly, listening to arguments on umpteen different subjects, all equally unfamiliar, from Sudhindra Datta’s poetry to African politics? I felt uneasy, very uneasy, and suffocated. My jaw would start aching from just sitting there silently. I got homesick for my mother, my father, for the female company of the Beleghata household, and I was upset because I almost never got to be alone with my husband, even during his leisure hours. And if that was the case, then what did we gain by leaving the joint family? I registered my complaint, ‘Why do you always drag me into your circle of friends?’
‘You aren’t in purdah, are you?’
‘It’s not about being in purdah—why do I have to sit there for no reason at all?’
‘Why do you say for no reason—isn’t this your home too? Besides, no one’s saying you have to sit there all the time—if you’re not enjoying yourself, get up and leave, but at least show your face once in a while.’
‘Why should I? Is your wife something to be shown off to people?’
‘What a thing to say!’ A shadow fell over Nayonangshu’s face. ‘There’s something missing if you’re not there, that’s all.’
I remained silent for a moment and then said, ‘Don’t you ever feel like being alone with me?’
‘We have all the time in the world for ourselves.’
‘What do you mean—is your wife only something for your nights?’ I found myself blurting out.
Nayonangshu gave me a stern look. ‘You are a lady, Maloti. This kind of talk doesn’t become you at all.’ After a slight pause he added, ‘Just because we are married to each other doesn’t mean that no one else exists in this world.’ Precisely the point that could have been made about the joint-family arrangement in Beleghata, but it didn’t occur to me then.
There was no comparing my education with Nayonangshu’s. There were no end to the things he knew. In an argument of this sort I’d always have to admit defeat. But a resentment was building up inside me—why didn’t Nayonangshu ever take me to the movies, even on Sundays? There were so many events going on in the city which everybody else went to. Why wouldn’t he take me to them? Just because he didn’t like that sort of thing, why shouldn’t I be able to do what I fancied? Of course, I could go with one of the women in our neighbourhood or with somebody from my parents’ or my father-in-law’s house, and I did go sometimes—but why wouldn’t Angshu accompany me? All our neighbours took their wives to the movies; why was Nayonangshu the only exception—why should everything be just the way he wanted? If I enjoyed watching a Hindi film, why wouldn’t he watch one with me even if he didn’t enjoy it, just to please me?
Besides, those ‘evenings’ of his, which absorbed him hour after hour—what pleasure did they hold for me? I often got up and left, and they didn’t seem to notice I’d gone. I’d go into the bedroom, turn off the lights and lie there all alone—I’d get hungry, I’d get sleepy, I’d be about to burst into tears, I’d get infuriated at the sound of their laughter. My head would start to throb from all that cigarette smoke—they’d make the night stretch on and on. No one would even mention leaving. It was as if the house wasn’t really a house but some hotel, and my job was to run it. But, of course, at that time this resentment had not taken any recognizable shape in my mind. I was still in a state of bliss because Angshu loved me ‘to the point of madness’. (Later I realized how terribly selfish that love was—he would sulk if I so much as wanted to spend a night at my mother’s. If I wanted to visit my aunt in Asansol for a couple of days, he’d prevent it on various pretexts, yet he would never be willing to accompany me to any of those places. In other words, he’d never do anything that was the least bit disagreeable to him, even if it made me happy, yet he hoped that I would enjoy everything that he liked. I had to deny myself constantly, but he wouldn’t make any sacrifice whatsoever for my sake—this was the definition of his ‘love’, though I didn’t realize it then.) That was a time when my married life seemed to be going smoothly and spontaneously, and I wasn’t aware of the months, the years flying by. ‘Winter’s set in. You’d better change the curtains now.’ ‘The covers on the cushions are dirty.’ ‘My panjabis are all falling apart.’ Nayonangshu would make such commands and I would run from shop to shop, fulfilling all his wishes. But he never brought home even one sari for me, never asked if I needed anything. He went to office—besides that he did nothing for our household. He’d get ‘sick to his stomach’ if he so much as stepped inside a clothing store. He wasn’t willing to ‘waste’ a whole hour picking out curtains, but would grumble terribly if the colour wasn’t to his liking. I saw all this through the eyes of love then. I took it for granted that his ways were just right for him, that it wouldn’t befit him to be anything other than what he was. For me, it was a matter of great pride that he wanted me near him all the time. Some days after lunch I’d go to visit my mother (they lived in Ballygunge Place, not very far from Jhautola Road), but when it became late afternoon I would scramble home in order to get there before Angshu did. He really disliked coming home from office and not finding me there—that’s quite natural, I guess. But if I ever told him to come over to Ballygunge Place from office so that we could have tea there and then go home together, he’d never agree—no matter how much I wanted to spend a little more time with my mother. He wanted the comfort, the familiarity of his own home. He wanted his own ‘own-ness’, of which one part was me—and that role I accepted with pleasure then. So even though it was sometime
s aggravating that his evening sessions were ‘incomplete’ without me, it filled me with pride and joy to think that I was so necessary to Nayonangshu, so valuable. And gradually, without my being aware of it, a change took place in my life: I became completely at ease with, and a part of, Nayonangshu’s group of friends. I learned how to join in their conversation and found that my comments weren’t regarded as silly—now and then I even won approving exclamations from those gathered there. And that wasn’t all. I began to sense that some of the friends weren’t coming these days just because of Nayonangshu, they were coming for me, too. I was starting to gain status in that circle—on my own merit and not just because I was a friend’s wife. I liked that—it seemed that just as Angshu had wanted, I had become a separate individual—a personality—and I thought Angshu too was happy that I had made a place for myself among his friends. Even then a few of his ideas and some of his behaviour seemed a little odd to me, a little too much, I felt—like the evening when we were invited to dinner at Biren Talukdar’s. Biren babu himself took us in his car. We were six people in all including him—and it took us a little time to figure out how we’d all fit. Angshu told me to sit beside Biren babu. I didn’t want to, but was embarrassed to raise much of an objection; a plump fourteen-year-old girl sat next to me. It bothered me, all that rubbing against another person’s body. I sat very straight. Biren babu kept telling me over and over again—sit comfortably, Mrs Mukherji, you’re not interfering with my driving in the least, and I repeatedly told him that I was fine. When we got home I told Angshu, ‘Why did you make me sit next to Biren babu?!’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Much too close and uncomfortable.’
‘It was the same for us.’
‘But—’
I was thinking about how to say it, but Nayonangshu said it for me, ‘Are you so fearfully chaste that you won’t sit next to any man except your husband, even in a car? It’s my opinion that husband and wife should not sit side by side if there are others around.’
Listen to that, what sort of bizarre idea to have! Another time, just when Angshu was ready to go to office, an old friend of his appeared at the door. Angshu only had time for a few words, but while arranging his briefcase he said, ‘Don’t go just yet, Asit—have a seat, how about a cup of tea?’
A little embarrassed, Asit babu replied, ‘I thought you also had a holiday for Rath. Anyway, I’ll come back this evening, see you then.’
‘Hold on, stay a while—after coming all that way you’re not simply going to turn around and leave!’
The gentleman sat down. I offered him tea and biscuits. By the time he got through talking, it was half-past ten. That night I said to Nayonangshu, ‘Don’t you have any common sense? Why did you ask Asit babu to stay?’
Angshu replied, ‘For heaven’s sake, he lives outside Calcutta. It’d been a long time since he’d been here to see me—should he have turned around and gone right back?’
‘What would have happened had you not been home?’
‘If I hadn’t been home, you would have asked him in and entertained him. Asit’s not a complete stranger to you.’
‘But I was alone in the house. Bunni was at school then.’
‘So what?’
Nayonangshu looked at me and fell silent, then a moment later added, ‘If it hadn’t been Asit but say some Suprabha or Tapati, what would you have done?’
‘But it’s a different matter with women.’
‘Why is it different? Can’t you ever forget the difference between men and women?’
I said to myself, ‘Is it possible to forget that?’
And it wasn’t just that day—there were many, many times when it happened that I entertained one of his friends when Angshu wasn’t home. Perhaps as the lady of the house that was my duty, but this duty, which at the beginning I felt to be an imposition, gradually turned into something quite enjoyable. I could say things which Nayonangshu no longer listened to attentively (because the subject had become stale for him) but which others found interesting. If I described some event, Angshu would almost always interrupt, ‘You’re not telling it exactly right, it didn’t happen quite like that, it was like this … ,’ but others would enjoy the way I told the story. And if Angshu wasn’t around, my pleasure in conversing would increase and his friends too seemed to speak a little more openly. Eventually it became that way even when Angshu was present, some of his friends were more attentive to me, and that, by the way, did not please him—even though he had drummed it into my head all these years that men and women were equal.
Nayonangshu had various kinds of friends—some dated from his college days, some he’d met in the ad business, some were journalists or of the literary set. He’d always been in the habit of inviting people home, even those whom he liked only slightly. Another habit he had was to excessively praise at the outset each and every new acquaintance. Just as he’d feel no hesitation referring to those he disliked as ‘louts’ or ‘scum’, if he saw the least little positive quality in someone, he’d praise him to the skies. ‘A very nice man—cultured—the type of person seldom found among businessmen’—this was how he’d described Byomkesh Bhaduri after making his acquaintance, and afterwards when Byomkesh was imprisoned for some political reason, Nayonangshu indignantly declared that it was most unjust to send such a perfect gentleman to jail. But that day when a thick envelope arrived in my name with the Alipur Jail stamp on it, I noticed a shadow fall over his face. I gave him the letter to read—an utterly ‘harmless’ letter—about how much Byomkesh had enjoyed coming to our place, and how he’d learned to value little things, now that he’d been cut off from all pleasant surroundings. I enjoyed reading the letter, and also felt sad for Byomkesh babu. But after Nayonangshu read it, he said in a dry voice, ‘The gentleman writes rather good Bengali’—just that, and no more. Yet I know that if the letter had been addressed to him instead of me, he would have been effusive in his praise. Throughout dinner I’d have had to listen to the virtues of Byomkesh Bhaduri. Another time—we had an invitation to the Lake Ranjani Club, and when Gunamoy Deb, the writer, saw Nayonangshu, he immediately enquired, ‘Where’s Maloti Debi?’ And the next moment, as he saw me, he smiled and said, ‘Ah, there you are, Mrs Mukherji. Your husband just doesn’t seem complete without you.’ Again that day I saw a shadow darken Nayonangshu’s face.
After we got home he said, ‘Gunamoy babu’s a rather naïve person. Just says whatever’s on his mind, doesn’t he?’
I rather diplomatically replied, ‘I’d be very proud, naturally, if someone said I was incomplete without you.’
‘Neither one is right. If a person has any worth at all, it’s in himself or herself alone—we have an identity other than being just such-and-such’s husband or wife. To speak of someone like that is impolite—it’s really rather foolish.’
I raised the argument, ‘Then why should I accept any invitation as your Mrs?’
‘If you don’t want to, don’t.’
Nayonangshu said nothing further but lay down on the bed, then rolled over and sulked, as if I had done something wrong. I too turned away. I remembered the day he had said that without me his evening sessions were ‘incomplete’; so what was wrong if today someone else had voiced a similar opinion? Why should that upset Nayonangshu at all? He could talk your head off you when it came to praising Gunamoy’s writings—I’d heard him hold forth for a full hour on Gunamoy’s latest novel. Actually, Gunamoy Deb had shown more interest in me than in him. He’d have been most disappointed had I not been there. His eyes had lit up and his face had beamed just upon catching sight of me. This Nayonangshu could not forgive, even when it came to one of his favourite authors. But why should there be anything wrong in that? How was it impolite? We were both invited to the Ranjani Club. If either of the two was not present, it would have been noticed—that was the simple truth of the matter. And ‘without you your husband seems incomplete’ was actually a compliment to both of us. We gave the appear
ance of being a happy couple—wasn’t that what it was all about? Gunamoy had come to our house a few times, and we’d met him at other places too. He’d always seen Angshu and me together. It was only natural for him to think about us that way—wasn’t it? What was wrong with that? Why did Angshu get angry about it? I went to his professional parties, only tagging along as a ‘Mrs’ to the principal ‘Mr’. There I had no other identity but that of being his wife—and he accepted that quite easily. Fact is, Sir Husband could never forget that he was lord and master and the wife his dependent. Fact is—no matter how much we boast of our modern ways—women are, and have to remain, puppets of their menfolk. And to think of the mouthfuls of words that Nayonangshu would spew out about just that. But at heart, didn’t he really want that everybody should pay him more attention than to me, all the time? And didn’t that make him selfish, jealous, conceited? Just thinking about it made my head tingle. I felt disgusted lying there next to him that night.
It was the same with Jayanto the day Angshu first brought him home. After he’d left I had to listen to endless praises of the man: ‘Because of financial difficulty, he couldn’t finish college. He was in political detention for several years, and after he was released he worked as a taxi driver in Calcutta—maybe he isn’t terribly well educated but he’s definitely what you’d call a man of action.’
I enquired, ‘How do you mean?’ And he replied that five years ago, practically without any capital, Jayanto had brought out a weekly. He’d worked really hard and had finally established his magazine, out of which he managed somehow to support his family—wrote half of the stuff for the magazine himself, checked the proof sheets, went around soliciting ads.
It Rained All Night Page 5