by K R Meera
When I put them into his pocket and turned to go home, he grasped my hand firmly. ‘Let’s go to my house,’ he whispered slowly.
‘Which one?’
‘The one I stay in.’
I fell silent. A bird gently opened its wings and shook its feathers.
‘Let’s go to your ancient house.’
‘This time of the night? There will be cobras there . . .’
‘I like it better . . .’
He pulled me gently towards his body and murmured, ‘But this house you will remember forever.’
When I leaned against him thus, fear and a wild excitement overpowered me. The car buzzed through the darkness of the noisy street like a yellow bee. Traffic’s thin today, I thought. The car turned towards Sonagachi through Chitpur Road. Leaning back against the seat, I closed my eyes and tried to predict the future, like Ratnamalika. In the dark, a red curtain emerged. I stood beneath a newly built gallows tree, ready to be killed. When the lever was pulled, I was pulled high up. My salwar came off from below and my kameez, from above. As I struggled, I saw a large crowd come nearer, shouting and screaming. When I opened my eyes in terror, we had entered a lane where people milled around as if at a festival fair. In the dark and the bustle, it was impossible to recognize anyone. I felt as if my feet were tied together. I felt that horrendous pain again—as if my toes were being torn off.
28
Grandfather Kalicharan met Binodini Dasi the first time at Jamuna Baiji’s house, one monsoon. She was barely eight then, and already married. He was sitting in the veranda of Jamuna Baiji’s house at Kalighat. Jamuna Baiji was a scholar and a very learned musician. Hers was a typical Bengali home with a central courtyard where kitchen utensils and clothes were washed, and the men bathed. There were rooms around it with balconies bound by delicately patterned iron grilles facing the courtyard. Grandfather saw a little girl, an angry pout on her face, clad in a single garment, the end of which was pulled over her head. She came in from the rain, shielding herself with a large leaf, a red kite with a broken string clutched to her chest. But it was when he saw her act on stage that she captured his heart. Grandfather was a strong man, of robust health, fond of the arts, and till then, free of the entanglements of love. But Binodini’s acting left him shaken. Like the rope that extends into the cellar after the hanging is over, the veins in his heart trembled and shivered. She became a famous actor who shook all of Bengal.
When I set foot on the front yard of a bungalow that hid its face partially behind a decrepit old house on Avinash Kaviraj Street in Sonagachi, following Sanjeev Kumar Mitra, the image of Binodini Dasi sitting upright with her left leg resting on her right knee, dressed as Chaitanya in Chaitanyaleela flashed in my mind. For a moment I thought I was in her house. If it was indeed so, Grandfather too must have stood sighing at its doorstep, his heart heavy with love, head bowed with the weight of the inferiority of his old age. I was elated by the thought. There were four or five cars parked in front of the white-walled bungalow; I could see four or five men, some clad in a chauffeur’s uniform. From the white porch, the pillars of which seemed to rise to the sky, there were nine flights of steps that circled the veranda leading to the interiors. The steps led to vast open doorways. My eyes were drawn to the innumerable windows in the building—the windowpanes were painted a strange red, and they glinted upon the white walls even in the darkness of night. Like a lamp gleaming from behind a curtain, the inside of the red-windowed bungalow glowed a deep yellow. The stories that Thakuma used to tell us of the two- and three-storeyed mansions in the turning from Chitpur Road to Cornwallis Street and towards Bowbazar and Maniktola, and the wealthy bazar women who owned them sprang to mind. I stared in fright at Sanjeev Kumar Mitra who was waiting for me at the door where the stairs ended.
‘Are you afraid?’ He took off his glasses and looked at me seductively.
I could hear vaguely some music being played inside; it sounded like raucous disco music. Father referred to my ancestor Kalicharan as ‘bada artist’. Thakuma too insisted that he, who was a connoisseur of music and a lover of the arts, visited the house of a fallen woman, a Muslim at that, not for her body but for her peerless voice. He went seeking her at the age of sixteen, fired by rash youthfulness and egged on by friends, after selling the gold-encased tiger claw he wore on his neck. Jamuna Baiji was a unique woman. At the time, she was over forty years old. As she undressed, she hummed a little song. Like a cobra roused by the snake charmer’s music, Grandfather was lulled and snared; he forgot his purpose. He fell at her feet in salutation.
In her time, Jamuna Baiji was greatly respected by the grandees of the city and by its artists and scholars. She taught Grandfather Kalicharan music for many years. Binodini’s mother brought her daughter to her so that she could be taught not just music and dance, but also agreeable manners. Grandfather realized that such manners had to be learned only after he met Jamuna Baiji. He already had fathered six children by that time—all daughters. But seeing the twelve-year-old Binodini live on stage as a full-grown woman, he lost his heart to her. His irrepressible desire for her never left him. Finally, some seventeen years after he met her, did he beget a son—my father’s father, Purushottam—through his ignorant and uncouth wife. When he died, at the age of eighty-five, he had twelve children. But when asked about his last wish, he muttered just two syllables, ‘B . . . b . . .’ Whatever that intense last wish that began with a ‘B’ was, it stayed unfulfilled when he died.
Sanjeev Kumar led me into a central courtyard that resembled the Jorasanko Thakurbari. Three women, well past their prime, who were washing dishes, stared hard at me, startled by my presence. Their heads were covered with their pallus and they wore large nose studs. Their faces were completely blank, devoid of all expression. The same sense of alienation that had assailed me in the jewellery shop once again overpowered me. From the cavernous interiors of that huge house sounds of music, dance, conversation and laughter floated out; the aromas of many kinds of food wafted in the air. I sent a sidelong glance at the many rooms that opened into the veranda. Expensive shoes that one sees in fancy advertisements had been left outside many of the doorways.
‘I want to go back . . .’ Worried, I looked at Sanjeev Kumar Mitra as we climbed those unending flights of steps. ‘If Baba gets to know . . .’
‘This is not a place where people like your baba can enter.’
There was a certain arrogance to his tone now. Because the memory of his rough palm woke up somewhere on the left side of my body, I stood unmoving on the steps.
‘No, I need to go.’
‘Who are you afraid of? Your baba or me?’
Sanjeev Kumar came down the steps he had climbed and put his hand on my shoulder kindly. ‘Look, this house has more tales of history to tell than even you. There aren’t many historical figures in the saga of Kolkata who haven’t visited this place.’
His words were tender now.
‘Sonagachi! The filmmakers from my father’s place are very fond of it. Who doesn’t like to hear tales about beshyas?’ He pursed his lips sarcastically.
I climbed the steps slowly, thinking all the while about the word beshya. Binodini Dasi had hated her mother after she had shoved her into the bedchamber of a man older than her grandfather. She was eight years old then. He abandoned her after just one night. Binodini’s mother dispatched her to Jamuna Baiji hoping to make her useless daughter’s life secure by teaching her some music and dance so that she could become the concubine of some rich man. Jamuna Baiji discovered Binodini’s genius. She turned her into an actor at the age of nine. Before eleven, she was a seasoned performer, one among the five pleasure women chosen by Girish Chandra Ghosh, who brought about a revolution by casting women in female roles, to be part of his theatre troupe. Grandfather Kalicharan urged his younger brothers and sons to replace him as the hangman; he preferred to hang around Girish Chandra’s troupe.
Binodini Dasi performed her first lead role at the age of eleven to great success right before his eyes. She stole the limelight in the play Shatusamhaar, singing mellifluously and delivering her dialogues with great mastery. Grandfather, who could never gather the courage to go closer or reveal his ardour, lingered around her, burning inside all the while. All her love affairs unfolded in front of his eyes. When I heard that the zamindar had ordered Binodini to stop acting, my hands craved to fashion a noose for his neck, he wrote later. She was not ready to give up the stage. The young zamindar went away. Grandfather was also witness to the arrival of the Marwari millionaire Gurumukh Ray, who offered any amount of money if Binodini could be given over to him as his concubine. At that point Girish Chandra was in dire straits, unable to find enough money to complete Star Theatre. Can’t you make this small sacrifice for the sake of art . . .for your own sake, pleaded Girish Chandra. A small sacrifice, she asked, grieved. She was rendered speechless when he told her, you are after all a beshya, what do you have to lose? My life is full of bedna gathas, heroic tales of sorrow, she wrote later in her autobiography. But they were more painful to my forefather who transformed the hangman’s job into great art, flawless and dramatic in its execution.
Did I not mention that love that is not like the noose fixed between the third and fourth vertebrae is impossible in our family?
‘Sanju babu, who is this lovely girl?’ asked an old woman hobbling out of one of rooms, so bent that she touched the floor. Her beautiful face was touched with rose powder, and her brows and eyes were lined with kohl. She wore heavy gold jewellery; one of her arms full of gold bangles held up her waist as she walked. When the other arm waved in the air, the gold bangles on it jingled noisily. Even her wizened feet with all their veins showing were adorned with anklets.
‘My client, Thakuma. She keeps me . . .’ Sanjeev Kumar ran his hand over his moustache as he spoke.
The old woman laughed loudly. ‘Is she in love with you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Daughter, if you are a beshya, never fall in love; our mothers used to sing that when we were children. Bhalo beshe mukhe aagun, shotru beri paayi . . .’ Fire burns on the face of love; my feet are in chains, went the song. She peered at me closely. ‘Sanju, she reminds me of your mother at first look.’
‘Yes, I thought so too, at first . . .’ he murmured.
Parts of that bungalow reminded me of the Alipore Correction Home and the CNC office. Sanjeev Kumar Mitra opened a door on the second floor and invited me in. It was a room from which doors opened in several directions, like the aparajita vine.
‘This is my home . . .’
He went in and sat on the large, satin-covered sofa. But there was more pain than pride in the way he said it. Maybe this bungalow had too many tales of sorrow to tell?
‘You are very wealthy, aren’t you?’
I sat down and looked around. The floors were red, polished so well that they reflected my face; the walls were white. The blood-red hue reflected everywhere in the room. Even the gilt-edged paintings on the wall were the same red, as were the sofas.
Hearing that Binodini had given in to Gurumukh Ray, the young zamindar was enraged and went in search of her. I will give you twenty thousand rupees to complete the construction of the theatre, he said. When he raged on, saying that he would give her all the money she wanted as long as she gave up acting, Binodini said, ‘I have made money, yes, but money cannot make me.’ He pulled out his sword and thrust it at her. Binodini, who was not even twenty then, faced him with more presence of mind than a fifty-year-old woman. She told him, ‘Kill me if you wish. But what a terrible dishonour to your family it would be if you are hanged for killing a beshya! You will have to leave this world with a mark too shameful to be erased.’ If it had happened, wrote Grandfather, I would have settled the score on the gallows. After his death, his children and grandchildren tore up his Book of Love. They knew well that his love for a beshya would bring them dishonour too.
I became all the more weary when I saw a young girl come in with tea, paan and sweetmeats, accompanied by the withered old woman. Outside, the darkness had thickened. I felt that we were in a place which could not be penetrated by even a tiny ripple of the swirling street sounds.
‘Drink your tea,’ the old woman ordered as she turned to leave. She hummed as she walked towards the door.
Kete diye premer khudi
Abar keno lotke dharo
When the door banged shut, Sanjeev Kumar looked at me.
‘Do you know what those lines mean?’
‘Isn’t that the song of the kite flyers? Why do you hang on like this, after breaking my kite string?’
He took off his spectacles again, went over to bolt the door and bestowed on me a meaningful smile with those green eyes. And then, sliding behind my chair, he touched my shoulder with his hand, slowly extending his right hand to lift my chin, and sending a strange piercing look into my eyes.
‘That’s a song about physical love—between a man and a woman.’
I could not tear my eyes away from his.
‘The woman sings: You’ve cut too soon the kite which soared in the
skies . . . and why now again . . .’
His hand began to slither over my body.
‘No, don’t . . .’ I stopped him, utterly discomposed.
He ignored my protest; pulling me close to his chest, he stroked my hair. The realization sank in that even the symbol of the self-respect of Indian womanhood could submit meekly if a man gently rubbed the unguent of love on her. It left me amazed.
The year after she started visiting Gurumukh Ray’s bedchamber to raise the funds to complete Star Theatre, none other than Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa came to see her play Chaitanya in Chaitanyaleela. Completely carried away by her acting, he went and bowed to her. Mother, he said, you are indeed Chaitanyam! Grandfather recorded how the bhadralok ostracized him for showing goodwill towards the beshya and how he complained about that to Vivekananda. Soon after that, the zamindar made his way into Binodini’s room, pulled her up by the hair and bellowed: ‘Betrayer! Whore!’ Binodini cast her eyes on him easily, as if she were on stage playing Sita or Draupadi, and smiled. Then she delivered the most powerful line she had ever uttered in her life: ‘It is you men who have taught us to betray!’ The rooms in Sanjeev Kumar Mitra’s house opened out one behind the other. I knew that he was taking me very slowly over quite a distance through those rooms as he held me close. When Girish Chandra Ghosh died, none of the female actors he had introduced to the stage were allowed to pay their last respects. Binodini Dasi ended her acting career at the age of twenty. She became a rich man’s concubine and soon bore a daughter, but the bhadralok would not let her educate the child. The little one died when she was eleven. Binodini returned to her old house in the beshyas’ street like the ilish returning to the sea to die. Thank God, Grandfather Kalicharan did not survive to witness that part of her tale of sorrow. But the first blow I received when I heard the story was not from the bit about Binodini’s death. After Grandfather Kalicharan’s death, his wife, who was always dismissed as ignorant and uncultured, began to sing—that part really floored me. Her mellifluous kirtans filled the little Shiva temple near Nimtala Ghat every morning. The ripples of the Ganga echoed them joyfully.
When the strong rosewood door was opened, I spied the large cot and the mattress on it with my left eye. The bed and the red satin bedcover I had already seen in my dream. It made me afraid to think that rats may actually be romping on it. The lanes of Sonagachi were beginning to calm down. The pimps and beshyas now jostled there. The yellow lights glowed indifferently. On both sides of the lanes too narrow for even a single vehicle to ply, there milled around women, fat and thin, fair and dark and wheatish, all made up with layers of rose powder and heavy kohl, clad in tight blouses that revealed their breasts and midriff, with or without a bindi on their forehea
ds. They stood there waiting, hands on hips, chest wide open. I remembered the clay-smeared Durga statues left to dry in Kumortuli. The preparations for Navaratri must have begun. Thakuma used to say that the soil for the first puja in the houses of the rich has to be collected from the beshya’s doorstep. When Sanjeev Kumar lowered his face towards mine on the red bedcover, I shut my eyes tightly. I felt a thousand rats with blood-red lips scamper all over my body. One half of my body desired his body. But the other half demanded his inner self too. I opened my eyes; my glance fell on a picture hanging above the bed. A woman. Below the forehead with the large red bindi, huge eyes that took up almost all the space between the nose and the forehead. The eyes gave a piercing look and the blood-red lips offered a strange smile. I pushed Sanjeev Kumar aside. His mobile phone started ringing that very moment. It irritated him, but he pulled it out of his pocket and jumped up.
‘Uh-uh . . . tell me, Harish babu . . .’
Then, he turned sharply towards the little table beside the bed, picked up the remote control and switched on the television. As I got up, smoothed down my clothes and prepared to leave, the newsreader stared at me: ‘Meanwhile, the government has decided that Jatindranath Banerjee, guilty of the rape and murder of a young girl, deserves no mercy. With this, the death sentence, which is to be carried out day after tomorrow, appears to be confirmed . . .’
I froze as if my feet had been tied together. Like the broken string of a kite that was flying high, my senses hung in the air, stunned and hapless. The newsreader continued: ‘Banerjee has been in jail for the past fourteen years for a crime committed eighteen years ago. The chief minister arrived at this decision after having examined the petitions submitted to him by anti-death penalty groups in Bengal and all over India. According to the law, the state government can recommend the relaxation of the death penalty to the governor and the latter can repeal it. However, Home Secretary Amit Deb says that since the Supreme Court and the President of India have rejected Jatindranath Banerjee’s mercy petition, the chief minister and his colleagues feel that he deserves the most severe punishment for his heinous crime. He also said that the district administration has been ordered to make all necessary arrangements . . .’