‘Abani, you familiar with Prahlad’s lines?’
Behind the stout, short man who asked me that question out of the blue, I could see a phalanx of people in costume, their faces caked with make-up, waiting with bated breath for my answer. The moment I told Horen that I knew nearly every line of Prahlad by heart—naturally, given my job as a prompter—I was quickly whisked away by more than a pair of hands into the dressing room, a room in which I had only a few minutes ago left a small bottle of brandy as required by the Prahlad-to-be Ronobir Banerjee.
It turned out that Ronobir had met with an accident. A tram car had knocked him down as he was about to negotiate an open drain. And while he was out of immediate danger, one of the horses had trampled over his right hand and he was certainly not fit to be on stage for at least a few weeks.
There was some talk of getting Barin Saha, who was playing the irascible snitch Narad, to step in as Prahlad. But that was impractical. Narad had the bulk of the songs to sing, and Barin was in the play not because of his thespian skills, but for his incredibly nasal singing voice that was quite the rage in those days. In any case, Barin, a forty-year-old man, playing the role of a boy had already been cause for some debate when the casting had first been discussed. There was no time to go into all that again.
Sitting in Ronobir’s chair and propped up to the right level by a few uncomfortable pillows, I was given emergency tips by Horen and company—rules about always facing the audience and not running into the lines of other characters (a classic prompter’s problem).
‘There’s nothing to really worry about. The main scenes are going to be carried by Palash [Palash Mitra, playing the blustering demon king Hiranyakashipu—interestingly, wearing a blond wig] and Abinash [Abinash Chatterjee, playing both the benevolent Vishnu and his sin-avenging avatar Narasingha]. They will take care of the climax. And there’s Durga to carry you through most of your scenes.’
The truth was that whatever was being said into my ears didn’t really register. I knew that there was indeed little to be afraid of. Today’s show was primarily for the benefit of the camera, which didn’t require me to say my lines anyway. Next to me, but seemingly a whole theatre hall away, was Durga Devi, staring into the mirror and, occasionally, patting her hair down in the thicket of false gold head-jewellery that she was wearing. She looked both competent and kind, and I trusted her to ‘carry me through’.
Suddenly, Durga became the focus of all my attention. The make-up man told me thrice to look straight, but my head kept swivelling to take another look at her through the rest of those present in the room. She seemed transformed; I had seen her like this only once before. Where? I ached to remember where. And then I did. I had seen her playing the unfortunate Elokeshi in Elokeshi & the Mahant during a clandestine outing to the theatre with the boys.
‘Don’t worry too much about the lines. Just make sure you’re performing right.’ That was the last bit of advice Horen passed on to me before disappearing into the wings, signalling rather dramatically for the curtains to be raised.
I was not required to be on the stage for the first twenty minutes. As I kept watching the performance from the side, I could only marvel at how exquisite Durga Devi was as Kayadhu, Prahlad’s mother, Hiranyakashipu’s queen. Yes, there was something different about her tonight. There was less of that wooden movement of previous nights; more life on her face and in her eyes.
As a stage actress, Durga had yet to achieve the dizzying popularity of other ladies like Sushilabala, Basantakumari, Norisundari and Ranisundari. These were women who started their professional careers as prostitutes and courtesans—words that meant little to me then, and I was intrigued by my mother’s hushed-tone condemnations when she told my still-responding father about our neighbour Nirmal-babu’s ‘unhealthy addiction to the theatre and those prostitutes on stage’. From what I could gather by the time I was more familiar with the entertainment world, the entry on stage of women like Ranisundari was greeted with blasts of the shahnai from the orchestra and approving hoots and whistles from the audience. This happy commotion continued through the time these ladies delivered their thunderous lines drenched in tears. Their very appearance in the middle of a play was a small theatrical phenomenon by itself.
‘They’re screechers. Pure and simple screechers,’ Shombhu-mama would say whenever the subject of any of these actresses came up in the form of a newspaper report or part of a general discussion from behind the bioscope machine.
‘But you must admit they ooze theatrical passion, Shombhu,’ one of his hair-combed-back friends had said one evening, leaning against the front wall of our house just as I was about to unbutton my shorts and urinate from the second floor.
‘Rubbish! It’s Girish Ghosh who’s made it impossible to say a word against those banshees. They were better off at Boubajar with their arm-flailing, bangle-shaking caterwauling.’
So Shombhu agreed with his sister Shabitri. These women on the stage were up to no good. I felt relieved that I was no fool to think so on my own. But Durga was different. In the few productions I had seen her from the wings, her entry would bring about a hush. Coughs from the seats could be heard suggesting a need for attention. Her beauty when mixed with her words and gestures demanded the cigarette and cheroot smoke in the whole theatre to settle down. Even the shahnai and violins heard what she had to say.
And I was going to join Durga on the stage.
‘Abani, when you go out there on the stage, imagine you’re underwater, where you can’t see anybody and nobody can see you except the characters on the stage. There is no sound in the water. There is only the light. So all you need to do, all you have to do is be seen, your face and your eyes. Use the light, okay? I need you to use the light, underwater. Okay?’
I knew what Shombhu-mama was saying. In my costume of white cloth wrapped and tucked across my scrawny body, I muttered an okay. When he let go of my shoulder, he seemed to throw me into water. I turned one last time to look at him and then disappeared into the darkness of the wings and beyond.
Twenty-odd minutes later I walked onto the stage. Everything below me—those bobbing heads, those eyes, those faces, those curling smoke ribbons from the bobbing heads, the stagelight bouncing off those faces—disappeared. If I did see anything at all outside the stage it was a partially illuminated figure standing not too far behind the man with the dhol on a raised platform in the orchestra pit, who seemed to be hiding behind a camera. There was a corrugated strip of smoke curling up and breaking, curling up and breaking behind the man with the dhol and behind the inhaling camera. With Durga and I sharing the stage and Shombhu’s sturdy 1913 Éclair-Gillon Grand in front I felt the glare of the shadows and light. I was speaking through the pupils of my eyes, darkened double-fold by the paleness of my face. I was no longer standing on the stageboards. I was being sucked in and faithfully etched on to nitrate to be replayed from the distance. I was underwater and Prahlad. The lines didn’t matter.
Long shot of a room. At the far end, we see a young boy tossing and turning in bed. On the other side stands a giant cupboard with a mirror and a carving of a stag’s head. It is night and the only light comes from the moon that can be seen through a vast window.
Medium shot of the boy tossing and turning in the moonlight.
Close-up of the boy’s face. It is crunched up with tension and a frown crunches it even more.
The title card reads: ‘The young Prince Prahlad is having a bad night. Like every night, he is wracked with uneasy dreams.’
Medium shot of Prahlad’s mouth opening and a white, translucent ether seeping out of it. The prince is still tossing in his bed and is completely unaware of the mist-like emissions from his mouth travelling across the room and taking shape near the cupboard. The room is bathed in a light that seems to be moonlight reflected off and refracted from the white mist.
Long shot shows the mist slowly taking a human form. It hovers a few feet above the floor near t
he cupboard. It throws no reflection on the mirror. In fact, it is forming in the mirror.
Medium shot of the mirror which now shows a full-formed human body still swirling into complete shape. But instead of a human face, the head solidifies into that of a lion.
Close-up. The lion’s head blinks its lion eyes. It is calm and it ducks its head once.
Long shot of the room with the lion-man apparition hovering at one end and Prahlad still in his bed. The reclining figure lifts his hands up to his chest to form a pranam.
The lion-man lifts one of its legs, brings it up and across its waist, even as it keeps standing.
Close-up of Prahlad. He opens his eyes with a start.
Title: ‘Prabhu! Save me!’
Long shot. Prahlad is sitting up. The moon is shining. There is no one but the boy in the room. Iris-in on the moon.
Another day of storms and thunder. Another day of torment for Prahlad. It was as clear—clear as the waters that went up, down, through, under, over and out of the aqueduct that his father had installed downstairs—that it would be a terrible day. It wasn’t that the rains were responsible for him feeling this way. It was the knowledge that once again he would not make the grade. Being the only son of Maharaja Hiranyakashipu sounds like a delightful thing. Heir to the throne, free of confusion that affects so many other royal houses where squabbles break out as fast and furious as the thundershowers across the kingdom. But unlike the near-perfect sewage system of the capital, Prahlad’s heart was getting clogged with rising misery. He had failed his father so often, and he knew he would do so again today.
He remembered, with shame, his archery lessons. ‘Hold the bow finger below your chin. It’s pointless if you dangle it in front of your chest, like a woman,’ Hiranyakashipu would tell him with all the patience that the Lord of the House of Dwabhuja could muster. And that was a lot, considering the stories that Prahlad had heard about his grandfather Trinayanraje. His uncle Paranjaya had once let go of the rope in a tug-of-war contest. To set an example for all the male members of the House of Dwabhuja, Trinayanraje had ordered his son to spend six weeks in a farmer’s household. Paranjaya was to drag a heavy ploughshare every day, replacing two fine and relieved bullocks who tasted leisure for such a stretch after so long.
The most recent occasion when Prahlad had disappointed his father was when he had fainted at the sight of blood. The encounter had been postponed for as long as things like that can be postponed. To make matters especially humiliating, it wasn’t even human blood that was spilled. At the annual festival, twelve buffaloes were sacrificed at the altar of Lord Maheshwar. It was the usual thing. But unusual for Prahlad, for Queen Kayadhu had done her bit all these years to protect her son from seeing the bloody ritual. She knew that Prahlad had an instinctive squeamishness about blood. She had almost had to call for the calming herbs—dangerous if administered to minors—when the boy had once scraped a knee playing. Red pinpricks had appeared on the damaged skin, and the sight of these droplets, rather than any pain, had made young Prahlad scream in terror and agony as if he was being crushed to death by one of the crusher elephants his father used to deliver justice. So every year close to the anointed day Kayadhu sent out the message that the prince was stricken with some contagious ailment, or had developed stomach cramps (for which one of the cooks, rather unfortunately, received ten lashes), or had dislodged his shoulder bone after a rough tumble from the royal pony.
This time, though, it was not just any old buffalo sacrifice. It was impossible for Prahlad to get out of this one. He had reached the important age of fourteen.
And after he had fainted, and recovered—forced to, by his father’s mighty roar—Prahlad was told that, two days hence, he would have to undertake a much more severe task than blood-watching—and that his father would be close at hand to initiate him into manhood. To make matters worse, even this, like practically everything else in the world, would be initiated with another round of bloodletting.
The cutter in the hands of the man reflected the bouncing flames of the torches lighting up the hall. Beyond the hall was the newly constructed bedchamber. Hiranyakashipu was waiting, along with a hallful of elders and priests, for his son to come down from his room and take one of the most important steps in any man’s life. He remembered his own case and smiled to himself. His father had led him to the chamber where the lady, decked in gold and nothing else, waited on the bed. She was blindingly beautiful, as temple ladies were required to be, but as his father saw him to the door and closed it, he was too nervous to look at her.
‘Nothing to fear, Rajadhiraj,’ she had said.
It was important that no kind of stimulant was taken by the virgin prince. The time and occasion would come when stimulants could be taken and would be taken. But tradition dictated that the first time it would be done, it would be done with all the senses intact. The idea was to confront and conquer the fear and nervousness that comes with ignorance.
She had patted the white spread on the bed and had gently told young Hiranyakashipu to sit next to her. What had followed was, on his part, clumsy, terrifying, pleasurable. Parts of his body were guided into parts of hers, all the while, constant motion being of utmost importance. And when he cried out—a shrill, short unmanly sound—he had gained the right to claim something new in this world.
In the end he had come out of the room wiser, in charge of his body and with the knowledge that seeking the pleasure of a woman, like seeking victory in war, needed preparation and a mindset. The woman had kissed him fully on the lips, smiled a motherly smile and had bid him goodbye. On the other side of the door, the awaiting crowd had roared in approval and, to the sound of conch shells blowing, the cutter had come down on yet another buffalo.
Today, Hiranya’s son, Prahlad, was to gain that knowledge and correct the sinful blemish of being ignorant of bodily pleasures. Except he was late.
Climbing down the broad staircase, escorted by two junior priests and two royal guards, Prahlad was worried sick. His stomach had already heaved much of its contents out of his body. This, despite his mother having stayed up with him the whole of last night, trying to dispel as many fears as possible. She had even tried to make light of it by showing him parts of her own body, if only to tell her son that he would encounter them and many more in a totally different context but that finally nothing would be entirely strange. But he had shaken his head furiously till dawn, and twice broken into sobs.
It was useless, Queen Kayadhu thought, as she heard the drums beating downstairs. She prayed to her God, Lord Narayana, for some kind of help, considering she had no idea what she could specifically pray for, since she did want her son to know the pleasures of a woman—let no one doubt that she didn’t.
But it was Maharaja Hiranyakashipu who was now starting to harbour unpleasant doubts. Where was Prahlad? Where were the two temple priests and guards who were supposed to bring him to the ceremony? By sheer force of personality and writ, he had managed to negotiate many other embarrassing moments that his only son, his heir and pride, had brought on him. He had been patient and yielding also because he wanted to be considerate to the wishes of Kayadhu. But this was getting too much. Would Prahlad now refuse to be led by him to the bedchamber that awaited him? And would that be because the boy disapproved of his father, or was it something more fundamentally abhorrent?
Hiranya sprang out of his bedecked seat and rushed upstairs himself. The whole hall went silent with only the gurgle of the aqueduct audible. He swivelled round at the black stone banister, already thundering, ‘Prahlad? Prahlad!’ But before he could set a foot on to the second step, there was Prahlad, flanked by his four escorts, some twenty steps above him. The son froze seeing the father. Both man and boy remained planted where they stood as if momentarily transformed to stone.
It was Prahlad who first spoke. His voice had changed from its usual whinnying tone and, for the first time in his life, Hiranyakashipu was afraid of his own, beloved son.
‘Dear
est father, do you not know who is king? This is the time for people—subjects and monarchs in this mortal world—to gird up their loins for the honour of the real king, the Lord who is everyone and knows everything,’ said Prahlad, boring his eyes into his father’s and emitting this guttural string of sentences. ‘Your false rule, father, will end and the true king shall rule again. I care little about what I am to do as prince or son. For my heart and my mind are free and settled in the true king’s worship. The person who calls me his son is no father of mine until he accepts this truth.’
Hiranyakashipu had started shaking with a shame that quickly transformed into rage. This was his son, his heir, his pride and joy that had spoken these words in a voice dripping with disdain. Understanding would come later. He first let out an amplified groan and turned around to rush back to the silent, dumbfounded hall. His head was throbbing with a ringing sound that, if anyone else could have heard it, would have been identified as metal on metal. As Hiranya went to grab the nearest blade that he could lay his hands on, Prahlad rushed up the stairs and barged into Kayadhu’s room.
His mother was resting on the bed. She propped herself up immediately on seeing the look on her son’s face. It was one of horror mixed with surprise and Kayadhu jumped up and dragged the bar across the door behind her sobbing son. He was crying, unable to hold back anything at all. His nostrils and now his face were wet with dripping mucus and he shuddered in recoil as he wept uncontrollably. Kayadhu held him and also shook with his sobs. Prahlad was momentarily blinded in the darkness of her embrace. All he heard was a muffled heart beating furiously through the silk.
As he lay there in his mother’s arms, oblivious of the first thumps on the barred door, his hands felt the soft body that lay under the rustle, the world-defying contours of her waist, the cloth-like surface of her back, the cliff-drop of her shoulders. Above all, he felt the pressure of his body on her body and he felt cushioned by her breasts. He was aware of every part of her body except her hands when the thunderous shout on the other side of the door demanded that he come out.
Bioscope Man Page 8