Rajmahal

by Kamalini Sengupta

  “Ruby. A gem, yes, a real gem. Er . . . how is she by the way?”

  “Divorced, we are divorced!” Shudhangshu shouted.

  Proshanto nodded and went back to his bedroom to dress. When he came out, he found Shudhangshu sitting comfortably at the dining table wolfing sausage, bacon and eggs with relish. “Come on, Dada,” he said magnanimously. “Make yourself at home!” He laughed obnoxiously. Everything about Shudhangshu was obnoxious, including the clinging body odor. “Hope you don’t mind, I’ve started breakfast. Very hungry, especially after the late night . . . ” He stopped abruptly and bit his tongue. Why remind Dada that he had come in drunk and helped himself to giant pegs of whiskey till Proshanto had fallen asleep in his chair.

  “What, last night . . . ?”

  “Found you fast asleep on your chair in the drawing room, and dreaming. Something funny. You were laughing away most loudly. Gave me quite a fright, by Jove. There you were, mumbling in your sleep and laughing. Couldn’t make out a word you were saying. I had to carry you to bed. You need looking after Dada . . . ” Shudhangshu, wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Ah! That was delicious! Try some, Dada!”

  One of the servants arrived with a plate of fried eggs on toast and put it down in front of Proshanto. He ate neatly with a fork and knife and with a concentrated frown. When he looked up again his eyes encountered Shudhangshu and he gave a start. “What are you doing here, Shudo?” he said. “Are you planning to stay?”

  “I just told you,” said Shudhangshu irritably. “Of course I’m planning to stay. I need your advice about Rudro . . . ”

  Proshanto Mojumdar’s infinite reserves of courtesy came into known territory again with a grateful leap. “Oh but of course, of course. You must stay. And as long as you wish. Where is the dear boy? And where is Bonzo?”

  “Dada,” said Shudhangshu with extreme circumspection. “You know Rudro is still asleep. And, it’s not Bonzo, it’s Rover, Rover!” He found himself shouting and lowered his voice with an effort. “Bonzo was your last dog, the bulldog, remember? He died at least twenty years ago. This one’s a Doberman. His name is Rover, Rover!” This was a mistake, because Rover had returned from his walk and answered the call. He came bounding in, a monster clothed in a sleek brown body, bristling and growling at the presence of this intruder. Shudhangshu cried out and sprang up, another mistake. The dog leaped at him ignoring Proshanto’s calls and clamped his jaws on his arm. A servant, already on course with a jug of water, threw it instinctively at the dog. The water cascaded on to both dog and Shudhangshu and the temporarily shocked Rover was held back by the servant. “Damn monster!” growled Shudhangshu at the confined dog, chained and being pulled out of the room. Proshanto looked on with dropped jaw. “I cannot understand it,” he said. “What is the matter with the dog? Where is he? Bonzo, Bonzo!” he called. The dog bayed from the next room.

  “Oh god, Dada! You’re the limit!” Shudhangshu’s arm dripped with blood and water.

  He called to the servants, “Where have you tied him? You should have tied him up earlier. You know he bites. Be sure he’s kept out of my way!” Fuming, he left to have himself treated. Inoculations, bandages, and pain didn’t encourage a feeling of kindliness toward the dog.

  Soon, Shudhangshu was settled into the Rajmahal, constantly aware of the dog’s menace, and trying to work out ploys to relieve Proshanto of his money. But controlling his irritability was a hard task, especially with Proshanto’s insistence on calling out to “Bonzo” at regular intervals. The dog’s baying response resounded in reply. “It’s too much!” fumed Shudhangshu. “Dada’s gone off his rocker!” And he held his head and shook it morosely. “I have to stop shouting at him! Come on!” he exhorted himself. “Control yourself !”

  “Dada,” he said. “You must allow me to pay you for my board here. As it is, you are being so kind to Rudro.”

  The clever move wiped out Proshanto’s confusion. “Pay? Of course not! Have you forgotten you are my younger brother, and Rudro is like my son! Have you taken leave of your senses?”

  “Far from it, Dada. I’m in close contact with my senses I can assure you,” and Shudhangshu laughed his uproarious laugh. “But . . . I’m having some problems with my health . . . My heart . . . ” he added vaguely, refusing to divulge anything further in spite of repeated pressing. This additional nuance further pulled his elder brother to him through dutiful anxiety, and in time Shudhangshu’s health became an obsession with Proshanto. Shudhangshu’s feeling of power grew. “It’s so easy to manipulate him,” he thought. “Why can’t I get the old skinflint to part with his money?” And again he held his head and shook it, his frustration bursting out in a growl to match the dog’s.

  He stayed away from alcohol to help his self-control, yet at the back of his mind, he knew his addiction would return, which it did in just one day. “A noble drink indeed,” he said, happily draining plentiful draughts of superior malt whiskey again. He ordered it by the crateful on his rich brother’s account, after convincing him it was essential for his heart. He also took the cunning course of encouraging his brother in his campaign for an elevator.

  Proshanto Mojumdar’s memory contained a scattering of clear points in the fog of forgetting. Among these was the matter of the elevator. Whenever he mentioned it, which was often, Shudhangshu enthusiastically supported him. “It is time to prepare for old age before the stairs create an insurmountable barrier to the world outside,” said Proshanto. Repeatedly. The other tenants supported him, including Surjeet Shona, in spite of her apartment being on the ground floor. They banded together and tormented Junior Mallik, the landlord’s son, who had charge of the building. Loud arguments could be heard from the Mallik apartment, dominated by Junior’s harangues. “Can’t you understand climbing the stairs will give you exercise! Don’t you see it’s a must...!”

  Bravely, brushing aside Junior, his father Ali Mallik acquired a prized antique elevator. “What do you think?” he said to Proshanto Mojumdar, when it was unloaded outside the lobby. “It’s a copy of the Government House elevator. If it’s good enough for Government House, it should be good enough for us, don’t you think?”

  “What! That ‘birdcage’?” roared Junior, arriving magically.

  “A brilliant move!” enthused Proshanto Mojumdar.

  The Rajmahal could hardly contain its excitement. When had such a technological revolution been promised in its interiors? What, how, when, was it going to, to enjoy this stunning, electrically worked contraption of such delicate proportions, a veritable fairy goddess with its curvaceous roof and wrought metal filigree, its trellised designs of rings, curlicues and flower bouquets? For the Rajmahal had fallen in love with the little creature. “I want you!” it sang, silently and frustratedly to itself. “I want you!” It almost had an orgasm, stopping itself just in time when a beam nearly snapped out of position.

  Junior was outraged, but could do nothing when his father stood firm. “Very good,” he said, clapping mockingly. “Congratulations dear father on your enterprise. I only hope it works!”

  His words, uttered with such bad grace, sounded the death knell of the enterprise, and the elevator would never be installed. It was discovered there simply wasn’t space enough in the stairwell. Small as it was the birdcage was too wide by almost a foot. And attaching it to one side of the lobby raised grave problems of symmetry. The Rajmahal found its desire to embrace the flighty little creature dissipating. Any suggestion of creating a lopsided aberration, pretty though the cause may be, was too upsetting to the confirmed bachelor returning to his senses.

  “I concede,” said Proshanto Mojumdar despondently to Ali Mallik, after the birdcage had been evicted.

  “Sorry old chap,” muttered Ali, wincing as he contemplated the long years of toiling up the stairs with gammy knee joints.

  But with Shudhangshu’s continuing support, Proshanto defiantly installed a dumb waiter from his first floor veranda to the lobby floor, his last major, coherent act, a cogent one. J
unior Mallik trembled with rage and helplessness at the desecration of his lobby, but stopped from taking out a court injunction when the other tenants showed such a sickening solidarity in the matter. Though it shuddered to the cornerstone of its conservative structure, the Rajmahal, remembering the bird cage, was excited again by this belated introduction of technology. It felt in its bricks that soon, surely, the real sleek thing, of which Proshanto Mojumdar had many brochures, would be installed. The dumb waiter was announced by Proshanto Mojumdar as a warning. Either this aberration or the real thing. Proshanto’s victory filled him with indulgence toward his ally, his younger brother.

  Now the latter could say, tongue in cheek, “Has Rudro talked to you yet? Wait. Let me call him.”

  Rudrangshu, who was combing his hair in front of the mirror in his bedroom, came in reluctantly, saying privately to his father. “It’s embarrassing Father. Why can’t you leave the old bozo alone?”

  “Shshsh,” cautioned Shudhangshu. “Try and behave yourself. A lot depends on your uncle.”

  Rudrangshu was a youthful forty with beautiful hair that bounced healthily and swept his brow. The slight raising around his eyes, an acknowledgement of his father and uncles’ bulging eyes, gave him a look of innocence. His generally pleasing aspect was reduced by a lazy-looking plumpness in the stomach region. Rudrangshu was too intelligent to imagine he could beat his laziness, and had long ago decided to spend time traveling without purpose, a pursuit for which he had a real bug, fed by two sea voyages with Proshanto and Mohini, the high points of his life so far. He spent time fantasizing about these voyages while constantly combing his superb hair and trying to work out the problem of finance. Even so, he was too guileless and too fond of his uncle to covet any inheritance from him. He resented his father’s desperate tactics to take control of his life, convinced he was depraved if not downright wicked. He had his own theory that the emanation of Shudhangshu’s characteristic body odor was the devil’s sulphur.

  After his mother’s desertion of him in the same package as the smelly Shudhangshu, Rudrangshu gladly accepted Mohini as her replacement, his mami or “Aunty,” and began calling her Mini-ma, after her nickname “Mini” and sometimes “Little Mother.” When his father summoned him in that significant way to talk to his uncle, therefore, he called on his late aunt for help.

  “Mini-ma,” he called, feeling the psychic emanations which sometimes overtook him, “Mini-ma. What am I to do with this father of mine?”

  The house guarded its tenants zealously, keeping the ghosts from getting hyperactive. It knew that, contrary to the vague belief among mortals, ghosts couldn’t be omnipresent, omnipotent or omniscient since that would make them gods, which they surely were not. It was more likely they were prescient rather than omniscient. So, Mohini’s ghost, which was in a state of suspended prescience at this moment, had to be prodded by the house, and she gladly responded to Rudrangshu’s mental summons.

  “Dada,” Shudhangshu was saying, “It’s time Rudrangshu set up something on his own. What do you think?”

  “Eh? Excellent, excellent!” said Proshanto. “But he is such a clever lad, he will always make excellent progress!” And he looked beamingly at his nephew with the innocent eyes and cute mop of hair.

  Rudrangshu, seeing what his father was up to, said, “Certainly Uncle! I have your blood after all!”

  “What about my blood?” said Shudhangshu, obviously hurt, and triggered to aggression he added sharply, “It’s the capital! Rudro needs the capital to set up . . . ”

  “Credit me with some intelligence Father . . . ” butted in Rudrangshu. “Look Uncle . . . I’ve made my own arrangements. I’ve already told father I don’t need capital,” and he looked triumphantly at his poor odor-emanating father who would find it difficult to come to the point again.

  “No need to doubt the boy, Shudo. Let him stand on his own two feet. Are you sure it is not you who are in need of cash, eh?”

  “No, Dada! Credit me with some concern for my son,” said Shudhangshu, fuming privately, “By Jove, that boy’s sly!” And then his anger melted as he looked at his son’s charming face, his only souvenir of his wife Ruby whom he so devastatingly loved and missed.

  But with a strange cussedness, Proshanto Mojumdar simply couldn’t get the point. “What is to become of Rudro’s future? Who knows when Dada’s going to kick the bucket? People live till they are ninety these days. Look at old Petrov, still going for long walks and so forth. Rudro will be destitute and dead before Dada! He’s forty already. Rudro, forty! By Jove, he doesn’t look it!” And smiling fondly, Shudhangshu got lost in thoughts of his darling son merging into the persona of his darling ex-wife.

  Inevitably his frustration brought him on to the expensive whiskey with increased ardor, and his impatience reached frenetic levels. “A precipitation,” he soothed himself. “That’s all it needs. Nudging on the inevitable. Why not? What a precious thought!”

  “Swine!” the prescient ghost of Mohini swore, certain her husband’s life was in danger. And then she urged her husband, “Oh, get on with it! Can’t you win this race? Can’t you either just give him what he wants, now, or die quickly and peacefully in your bed!”

  And thus a terrible tussle took place, between Mohini the anxious, hovering, waiting ghost and her desperado brother-in-law, while the obtuse Proshanto Mojumdar chewed the cud. Rudrangshu was uncharacteristically busy trying to buffer his uncle from his father. “What happened to all that ‘Mini-ma’ business?” wondered Mohini. But abandoning his laid-back attitude for the present had exhausted Rudrangshu too much for psychic games.

  It was a measure of Shudhangshu’s repulsiveness that no one and nothing, neither his son nor his brother, nor the prescient ghosts, nor the house, had an inkling of his true motives. For, to be fair to the malodorous father, he would only rest happy if his son, his ego’s extension, was successful. And, like most of the world, he assumed success meant happiness.

  But Shudhangshu possessed dithering desperation, not the required ruthlessness to achieve that end. This wasn’t the opposite of, but obliquely separate from self-centeredness. His assumptions about success were so uncomplicated that he couldn’t imagine his son could be indifferent to money making. His machinations would precipitate Rudrangshu into uncharacteristic action.

  Forced out of his inertia and compelled to protect his uncle, Rudrangshu’s laid-back, lay-about life was disturbed, and he decided on drastic action. He activated his intelligence to focus and reached his version of a compromise formula. It was, in the end, uncompromising, because it involved abandoning his old uncle and cutting out his father’s interference in his life. It was, within the parameters of his character, ruthless.

  One fine day, Rudrangshu Mojumdar picked up his possessions and left the Rajmahal, ran away. Figuring out that the pursuit of happiness was the only worthwhile course, he applied to a luxury ocean liner company for a job and found himself employed. The ship was to set off from England, and he complacently approached his uncle to fund the journey. “Rudro my boy!” beamed the loving Proshanto. “I’m so glad you asked!”

  “I’ll return every penny of it to you, Uncle, I promise you!” Rudrangshu could feel the familiar frisson of Mohini’s presence and smiled happily to himself. “Good-bye, Mini-ma, little Mother,” he said. “Knowing you are there, I won’t grieve when Uncle goes. He goes to infinitely better company than he has here!” And he added, “You at least will understand and approve of what I am about to do.” Mohini Mojumdar’s ghost whooped with joy. Shudo, she thought, having lost control of his son, would be distracted from murderous inclinations.

  Rudrangshu’s disappearance upset both father and uncle. Shudhangshu made weekly entreaties to his son through the personal columns. “Dear Rudro, Where are you? I anxiously await news. Remember I am on your side. Please come back, or failing that, please write. Your anxious Father.” Proshanto, on the other hand, felt his nephew’s absence as a hollowness which couldn’t be pinpointed. The
hollowness was increased by the absence of the dog from his usual position by his side. These frustrations brought his forgetfulness into full spate, and smothered his kindliness. “Where is the dear boy? And where is Bonzo? Rudro, Rudro! Bonzo, Bonzo!” was his constant, maddening call, followed by the chained dog’s baying response. Shudhangshu, inebriated and combative, was riled beyond forbearance and foamed and raved. The Mojumdar apartment became the noisiest in the Rajmahal, and the other tenants refrained from complaining only because they had grown old with Proshanto.

  When Rudrangshu wrote finally, his letter was addressed to his uncle. Proshanto cut open the envelope and a check fell out. “When did Rudro leave? I do not remember extending a loan to him!” He automatically had the check dispatched to his bank and kept the letter aside, pleased his nephew had taken to a life at sea. “I knew that boy would come to good,” he mused happily. “I wonder what post he holds . . . Ahh. God is kind.”

  His frustration receded but came up again when Shudhangshu appeared in the doorway and flopped into a chair. “You must go on a diet, Shudo,” he said. “What about your cardiac problems?”

  “Ooof Dada. Do you have to say the same thing every time you see me, every day five hundred times?”

  “But you are much too stout for your age! Look at me!”

  “Yes, yes!” said Shudhangshu. “I’ve been looking at you for weeks. And listening to you too.” He stopped abruptly when he saw the envelope and recognized Rudrangshu’s handwriting. “By Jove, he’s written!” he shouted. “Dada, why didn’t you tell me?” He pounced on the letter.

  “Dear Uncle,” read the sweating and trembling Shudhangshu.

  “I hope you are quite well. I for one am positively flourishing. You will be happy to hear that I have joined shipping and that I am aboard the Queen Elizabeth II at this very moment, about to dock outside New York! Surprised?

  “I have enclosed a check for the amount you so very kindly and generously lent me. I have Mini-ma and your portraits with me. As you know, you are like parents to me.