Rajmahal

by Kamalini Sengupta

  “Speaking of which, is my parent still with you? If so, do give him my salutations and tell him I am very happy.

  “With respect and affection, Rudro.”

  Shudhangshu gnashed his teeth in extreme chagrin, that his son had addressed his uncle, not his own father. But the relief at knowing his whereabouts cancelled the chagrin.

  “What should Rudro be, given his intelligence, Dada? Purser at least?” he asked proudly.

  “What?” said Proshanto. “Could be, could be, yes. He has a strong head for accounts, has he not?”

  Shudhangshu wondered where his brother had found this nugget. Rudro couldn’t distinguish a crore from a lakh let alone add single units. But that was typical of Dada. He could reinvent life and events easily with his atrocious memory. Shudhangshu hummed, what luck, what luck for his darling boy. By Jove, he could relax at last. At last. Shudhangshu gave vent to a huge sigh, his paunch subsiding dramatically as he stretched himself in a long planter’s chair with his legs propped up on the extended arms.

  “You are really much too stout, Shudo,” said Proshanto disapprovingly. “Kindly do something about it. Your cardiovascular system does not stand a chance in such a body.”

  Shudhangshu stopped his irritable reply as a noisy covey of mini-buses rumbled by sending up strong effluents of diesel. They were sitting out on the veranda, once the Sardar Bahadur’s conservatory, in spite of the deafening roar and noxious air. “A veranda is a veranda,” Proshanto always said. “It is a great crime not to use it.” In his mind the sea and wind and waves roared in an idyllic memory reservoir as he floated away on the Chowringhee traffic waves. Over the years, the features of this traffic had altered. There were the double-decker “London” buses, the electric trams, successors to the horse-drawn tram trains of the nineteenth century. When the electric trams were new they were shiny and sleek, “the best trams in the world, better than anywhere else, Paris, London, Rome!” Proshanto was given to boastfully proclaiming. But the trams deteriorated as time overtook the scope of scant resources. Public transport was instead swelled with the addition of rashly driven mini-buses, their raunchy conductors banging the buses’ battered sides in some bus code and adding to the cacophony. Proshanto didn’t mention the trams any more, his boasts being reserved for Calcutta’s recent raging pride, the underground Metro, though he had only been on one ride and had no need for the Metro anyway.

  While waiting for the noise to subside, Shudhangshu felt his irritation swelling like the traffic. “Wonderful Rajmahal!” he cursed. “All that splendor to be surrounded by this pollution of air and noise. We have to sit out here where we have to shout and scream at each other as if we were deaf! Ridiculous Dada with his reinvention of events, which in his mind should exist and therefore do exist! I wouldn’t be surprised if his rotten memory isn’t due to this din. How can anyone think straight here?”

  When Proshanto Mojumdar’s memory played tricks, Shudhangshu at first protested. But later, with Proshanto’s insistent reinventions he often had to shake himself out of an almost willing suspension of memory.

  And here he was, so irritated by his brother’s memory tricks, yet forgetting he had manipulated that very memory for his own ends. It was he, Shudhangshu, who had planted the worry in his brother’s mind about his imaginary cardiac problems. The strange thing was that Shudhangshu sometimes caught himself believing in his own inventions, and this increased his irritation with his innocent elder brother.

  “No,” he would say, “don’t you remember? So and so wasn’t there. Look. Here’s the picture. Can you see him? He’s not there. He couldn’t come. Remember?’ Proshanto would nod absentmindedly. But soon, he would be reinventing again, chortling at the typically amusing behavior of the same so-and-so at the same event. And after a period of this, Shudhangshu would no longer trouble to take out the picture, but would almost remember so-and-so at the event himself. He would have to shake himself not to “see” so-and-so in a particular position with a particular expression in the picture when he wasn’t there at all! There would be an almost willing suspension of memory with Pro’s insistent reinventions.

  Petrov’s Diary: Is forgetfulness invariable with old age? Today Proshanto Mojumdar spoke of the Metro again, the wonderful, incomparable Calcutta Metro! His brother Shudo complained that Proshanto was forgetful and had completely obliterated the years of torture to Calcutta’s citizens while the Metro was being built. In fact, most Calcutta citizens have obliterated this memory of torture in their swollen-headed pride over the Metro! Memory, can do many harmful acrobatics, denying an inconvenient fact which simply ceases, never was . . . In this arena of memory and forgetting , truth and hallucination, people often cannot place themselves or identify their own roles. Taking the logic beyond its limit, one wonders if old age doesn’t bring one’s brain into the region of the absurd, to confuse invention with reality because it is made reality, because invention sublimates fact.

  Shudhangshu’s relief at seeing his son’s letter was short-lived. After a simple query to the shipping line, he discovered Rudrangshu was nothing but a steward, a waiter, on board the QE II. “Mojumdar, Rudolph: Steward. Duties: Serving meals in first class dining hall,” was the terse reply.

  “I didn’t have a son for him to become a waiter! And exchange his name for a red-nosed reindeer!” he moaned. He couldn’t accept that “Rudolph” was unmitigatingly happy. Non-threatening and unthreatened in turn, he was in paradise. And it was only Rudrangshu’s Mini-ma who could appreciate his success, his happiness, actually. When Mohini’s ghost read the letter from the QE II over Shudhangshu’s shoulder, she chuckled with joy.

  Shudhangshu’s reaction was the opposite. “By Jove!” he declared. “That boy is back to his lazy, tranquil self !” Shattered with the shame of the news, he felt a resurgent vicarious ambition for his offspring. Mohini’s ghost was in a turmoil of speculation. “I hope he’s not on that track again!” she said.

  That night, Shudhangshu went into a frenzy when he found the last crate of whiskey innocent of bottles, the last bottle innocent of whiskey, and all the shops closed. He shouted at the servants who had nothing to say, having themselves contributed unstintingly to the crisis. He foraged desperately and found a stock of gin. “Inferior stuff compared to that noble drink,” he grumbled. “But what choice do I have?”

  The apartment had been locked, the servants had left, and Proshanto was watching the late night news, a blind habit.

  Shudhangshu came into the room. “Dada,” he slurred, making an effort to keep a straight course. “I’ve had enough nonsense from you! Now sign this!” He thrust a checkbook at Proshanto.

  “No I will not!” said Proshanto with astonishing alacrity. “I most certainly will not! I know what you are up to!”

  Shudhangshu balked. “But it’s for Rudro!” he pleaded. “Don’t you want to do this for Rudro? He’s like your own son!”

  Proshanto smiled fondly and foolishly. “Where is the dear boy? Rudro, Rudro!”

  “Bloody hell!” shouted Shudhangshu. He tried to push a pen into Proshanto’s hand, but there was no cooperation. The pen fell to the ground. The dog’s growling could be heard from the next room.

  “Damn, damn, damn . . . !” Shudhangshu lurched out of the room in a blurring trail of curses. Proshanto was lost in a vintage cowboy film when Shudhangshu came back, chortling to himself, with a gun in his hand. It was Proshanto’s turn to balk.

  Shudhangshu banged the checkbook down on the table next to Proshanto. “Sign! On each and every check!” His gun was limp in a shaky hand. But Proshanto, without hearing, and reacting to the scene on the TV screen, was raising both his arms above his head. Shudhangshu backed away, and pointed the gun at his elder brother in a reversal of the cowboy sequence. “Come on, you old skinflint! Sign!”

  Proshanto’s arms were paining, and he missed the rudeness. “Can I put my arms down? Please. The pain is most intense.” His arms trembled like the Sardar Bahadur’s when he had held the Guru G
ranth Sahib over his head.

  “Who asked you to put them up in the first place?” said Shudhangshu without answering the question. He came closer, bumping into things. The enclosed room reeked with a distasteful odor.

  “I cannot keep my arms up for such a long period. It is impossible!” insisted Proshanto.

  “For god’s sake put them down and sign!” The gun in Shudhangshu’s hand was unsteady, he was rocking as he tried to keep standing. He put out a hand and lurched against a table. The table fell over and there was a crash of china.

  “Ei! That is Mini’s favorite piece! What are you doing?” said Proshanto, bringing down his arms at last. Shudhangshu’s gun lay where it had fallen, in a heap of broken china.

  “Mini, Mini! I remember the time when you and your Mini were fighting like cat and dog. Why this sudden devotion now that she’s dead and gone!”

  Shudhangshu bent down shakily to pick up his gun and dropped it again. “It’s this damn silencer! Too heavy!”

  “Here,” Proshanto said kindly, getting up. “Let me get it for you.”

  “Fool!” Shudhangshu furiously grabbed the gun and whacked Proshanto on the shoulder with the butt end, falling on to him and knocking him over. “Bloody fool!”

  Mohini’s ghost groaned. Shudhangshu pushed himself upright, gun in one hand, waving the checkbook with the other.

  “Why are you doing this?” said Proshanto from the floor, just refraining from holding his nose. “Have you gone mad? Have you forgotten my age?”

  “Not at all, you old skinflint. I can hear your bones rattling. They should be rattling in heaven soon! Or better still, hell!”

  The rudeness precipitated the dog’s image. “Bonzo, Bonzo!” called Proshanto from the floor. No sound and no dog. A thought tickled Proshanto’s memory. Had he not heard a dog’s short yelp, and an abrupt pop with it? Was it his imagination, or some other memory? “Forgetfulness is the premier sign of age. Without memory one is nothing. And yet memory is the chief cause of all our misery!” he mused out loud.

  “Shut up!”

  “Bonzo, Bonzo!” he called again.

  “Shut up!” screamed Shudhangshu, jumping up and down.

  The city authorities, or an accident, activated a power failure at that very moment. There was a click and a total blackout just as the gun went off with a familiar pop. Mohini’s ghost screamed unheard as the two men were thrown in opposite directions as if pulled by a puppeteer’s strings. Proshanto, who had just got himself up from the floor, fell on to a chair, quite sure he was about to die. The procedure was surprisingly painless. “I have been hit!” he thought, feeling a warm wet streak down his pajama leg. Then realizing he was unharmed, he moaned with the belated shock and shame of having urinated in his pajamas. The dog was utterly silent and it was steadfastly dark.

  “Such a thing—at my age . . . ”

  The violence and complete demonization of Shudhangshu had twisted up in Proshanto’s mind in a tangle, a Gordian knot, a contortion of the brain. This was a burglar, no longer Shudo, his younger brother. In fact, where was Shudo? “Where is he, where is that Shudo? Why are the lights off? Shudo, Shudo! Where are you?”

  Shudhangshu was too astonished to react. And then, the full moon appeared behind the glassed veranda doors, and a beam lit up Shudhangshu’s shoe. Proshanto started nervously. “Perhaps hallucinations occur at full moon time, and lunacy ensues.” That frayed shoelace! Shudo! It was his own brother! That dreadful and well-known odor! Or was he himself, Proshanto Mojumdar, losing his mind? Can the identification of a criminal be based on a shoelace? And a hum? Is such evidence acceptable in a court of law? And then, that sharp yip, and pop? Was it some other memory? Proshanto Mojumdar’s mind strained. His head pounded. He blacked out just as the room lit up again with a click.

  When Proshanto came around in a second and saw Shudhangshu he was relieved. “Thank the good lord!” he said. “Where were you when the lights went off? Absent when you are most needed! And where is the dear boy? Rudro, Rudro!” Shudhangshu walked up to him in a fury, whipped up a hand and knocked his brother’s jaw right, left, whack, smack! Mohini’s ghost exclaimed and hit out ineffectively at Shudhangshu.

  Proshanto slumped into his chair, and allowed the tears to roll down his cheeks. His thoughts careened crazily in his aching head. He started sobbing. When he could see again, he found Shudhangshu sitting on the opposite chair with a glass of water in his hands.

  “Have some water, Dada. Come on. What is this? A grown man like you weeping. Are you a baby?”

  Shudhangshu helped his trembling elder brother to sit up straight and put the glass into his hands, while Proshanto automatically held his breath and drank. He felt clearer in the head.

  “It’s Rudro. He has a problem,” said Shudhangshu.

  “What is the problem?”

  “You’re so bloody tightfisted,” shouted Shudhangshu irascibly again. How can you forget that I’ve asked you a thousand times already. Would you ever oblige me? ‘No, no, no’ that’s what you always say, without hesitation! No, no, no . . . ?”

  “But you said nothing about Rudro. Why did you not tell me about Rudro?”

  “Dammit! How many times have I not told you? Have you forgotten how you insulted me, told me I couldn’t fool you? Wouldn’t do it for me, would you, you old skinflint!”

  Proshanto’s mouth snapped shut.

  “Oh. Now you’re sulking is it? And if you’re so attached to your nephew why haven’t you taken my hints yet? Did you try to help? Ever?” Shudhangshu fell into a brown study, equally hurt. “However desperate I am on Rudro’s behalf, how can I pull this off?”

  He sat with the gun slack in his hands, moodily biting his lip while expletives revolved ceaselessly in his head.

  Proshanto Mojumdar dozed off. His weighing scale of life had tilted decisively toward happiness after the swimming pool triumph and the revival of his libido, manifesting that very night with his hearty dream laughter. People at times weep or laugh in dreams, waking up expecting tears on their cheeks, or aching ribs, but with no such outward manifestation. They are unaroused after erotic dreams in spite of the power of the dream emotion. Others wake up to find the tears, the aching ribs, and the arousal in reality. Proshanto Mojumdar was one of the latter. He usually laughed loud and long, a thick, phantasmagoric laughter, with a garbling of words. When Mohini was there, she would prod him and ask “What are you laughing about?” And Proshanto would wake up, his face wreathed in smiles, guffawing still, and say, “Laughing? What do you mean?” And Mohini would say, “But you were laughing and talking so loud! Look! You are still grinning all over your face!” But then Proshanto would get into an erotic mood, and Mohini would put aside her questions.

  So here were Proshanto Mojumdar and his sibling on a nocturnal adventure, the one just about to begin a laughing dream, the other deeply lost in stressful thought.

  “Quite a pair!” Mohini Mojumdar’s ghost thought, watching excitedly over them.

  Shudhangshu got out of his chair with an effort, overcome by exhaustion and emotion. He could sense the nasty atmosphere caused by his own nervous sweating. He walked over to the glassed doors with thoughts of opening them, looked out, and was shocked! The sky was bright, a tinge of pink instead of the gray-gold glow of city lights.

  Frantically, he rushed to his brother. Proshanto’s mouth had fallen open in a big, slack grin with the spittle drooling from a corner. His white stubble gleamed in the lamplight, and he looked positively evil. Shudhangshu pushed the nozzle of his gun against Proshanto’s cheek and almost fainted at the response, an unnaturally deep guffaw. It sounded to Shudhangshu like the mockery of the devil. Angrily, he prodded his old brother hard in the ribs, waking him up groaning and giggling at the same time.

  “Don’t tickle me like that,” said the devil incarnate, opening one eye. “Oh, it’s you, Shudo,” he said fondly, his face descending gradually as he slid off the chair. He shook with laughter like a drunk. “What is this, a joke
? Father! Father! I’ ll tell Father.” He fell asleep immediately on the carpet still laughing away merrily.

  Shudhangshu groaned and sat down with his head in his hands. What could he do, his wonderful and crazy and daring plan in ruins? Dada, the poor old senile thing, was unlikely to remember this long night. He was least worried about that. But it was back to the impasse. Rudro’s failed life. His degrading, shameful occupation.

  Shudhangshu went up to his collapsed chuckling brother, placed his arms under his shoulders, and half carried half dragged him to his bedroom. He maneuvered him on to the bed, feeling like laughing and weeping at the same time. Poor old Dada! And shaking his head he switched on the fan and left Proshanto fast, and noisily, asleep, to the relief of Mohini’s ghost.

  Then Shudhangshu cleaned up the mess in the drawing room.

  The pink of the dawn welled up and was reflected in the western sky. The cooing and flapping of pigeons mingled with the chirping of sparrows. Shudhangshu opened one of the large glass-paned doors and walked out on to the deep veranda over Chowringhee. He leaned over the balcony, breathing in the sulphurous Calcutta air mixed with the fresh scent of newly mown grass from the garden below. The traffic was already swelling, and an empty double-decker bus passed by crab-wise, listing dangerously as though the passengers already weighed down one side. Shudhangshu was aware also that the effects of the gin, which had earlier added to the dimensions of his odor, were wearing off, leaving a sour taste in his mouth. The light seeped across the sky like bloody treacle, resembling the blood coagulating around poor dead Rover whom the preoccupied Shudhangshu had quite forgotten. He had also forgotten the empty shells, one ejected after he had shot the creature, and the other after the accidental firing off at his brother.

  Proshanto Mojumdar woke up in the morning, and found himself in great pain and in pajamas smelling of urine. He pulled himself out of bed and righted his balance with difficulty. Not only did his body ache, but his hands and feet were chilly. “My circulation’s going,” he thought. He gave a tired yawn, snapping his fingers to save his jaw from locking, and went shakily through his ablutions. Warily, he removed his pajamas, holding his breath and turning his mind away from the signs of incontinence. Was getting old really so dramatic? He remembered nothing and the puzzling pain about the jaws would stop him from shaving ever again.