He had scowled at the newspaper for over an hour. The inverted Ovaltine baby smiling up at him had now and again become the face of Ramola Devi.
Avinash gritted his teeth. As if she was giving alms to him. Offering to lunch with him. Who needed her courtesies? Did she think him to be one of her admirers? Craving her closeness, worshipping her. He had done right. To keep her at arms’ length. He smirked bitterly. How many fellows could refuse you, Ramola Devi? How many of them have you got wrapped around your little finger, now that Shankar Da is gone? Were you at it even when he was there, the poor man, never looking up from his work…he wouldn’t have known, whatever you did.
He felt angrier still. These bioscope women, they were all alike. Thinking they could take anyone for a ride. Not him. She would know that now.
Thought no end of herself, she, Ramola Devi. Turning her back on all the talk around her. Didn’t bat an eyelid when the Miracle deal went kaput. Going from heroine to director. Anyone could, if they had the Bharat Talkies wherewithal…why, hadn’t Shankar Da once said he himself had the makings of a director. Perhaps, one day…if Shankar Da had lived. Dada had liked his ideas, thought them worthwhile. And she…asking his views on Mirabai, Avinash snorted angrily. Like it was a matter of some amusement. As if his thoughts were of any great import, when you Madam are more than half finished with your great picture. You might well have called on me before, knowing this picture had mattered to me, just as it did to you.
He had himself returned. Dragging with him that crafty Makhandas. How much doing it had taken, did she even understand? How difficult it was for him to say even ordinary things to her…how he always got that lump in his throat…how much she had hurt him…all alike they were, these bioscope women. Shankar Da, he was different, a true gentleman. Always to be remembered and respected. Ramola Devi, best kept away.
He had Mani…he rubbed her as she purred against him. He had gotten out of his office and driven around a good part of the afternoon. Until the throbbing inside his head had left him with a dull ache. Mani had lain in wait, stretching herself, then running up to him. Could she ever be like that, Ramola Devi, ever belong to anyone? Had she ever even belonged to Shankar Da? Why couldn’t she run like that to him, like Mani…give in, let him look after her.
He found the anger stirring again inside him. Anyone in his place would think the same of her…that she was like any other bioscope heroine, playing her games. No matter what everyone said about her being a true lady, a class apart from the rest. And then going on about that two paise ka heroine of hers. Mr Mukherjee, I have become rather fond of her…wasting herself on that little nobody…you’ll know Ramola Devi when she puts a knife in your back, that Rajbala of yours, that one that you’re so much in love with now.
What do you know of love Ramola Devi? Of pain? To want someone so much that even her sight makes you feel sick with joy…you won’t ever know. He felt the anger rise up in his eyes and swell into the tears that made Mani a black and white blur.
Why couldn’t he despise her? Why did he let her come out of nowhere sometimes, to take him over…cloud his mind even when he was laughing, darken his mornings and lighten his nights? Why hadn’t he simply taken her offer of that lunch, the chance to look in her eyes… perhaps hold her hand?
Because he was afraid…of her…that if he looked in her eyes for a while she would read his mind. Those fears behind his calmness, his feelings of unworthiness that crept in when she was before him, those that he would then cover up with his nonchalance…or indignation, like he had, that morning. She would see it all, he knew that, if he ever did let her come close. She would uncover him, know his faults. And that he could not let happen.
V
Anil was feeling sick inside.
Potla picked another khasta kachori and bit into it. ‘Mmmm…khasha…outstanding,’ he closed his eyes and munched dreamily, then opened them again. ‘What Anil Da…not eating?’
Bikash, production-in-charge at Bharat Talkies, rose from his corner on the floor, dusted the crumbs off his dhoti, then yelled. ‘Eii Ganshaaa.’
Ganesh, cook’s boy at the men’s mess house, yelled back from the hallway’s end, ‘Whaaat…?’
‘One, two, three…Anil…Prabal…no?’ Bikash yelled again. ‘Three more teas, jaldi…’ He looked around at his guests assembled in his lodgings at the boarding house. ‘What I was saying, things have changed, dada has changed, he’s not his old self anymore…Kedar Da. Something’s not right. I told Potla that day…and all after this Rajbala came, say whatever you will. Even after Shankar Da died he was not like this. Gone into a shell, he has, true or not? You say, Potla…’ He looked at Potla.
Potla cleared his throat, raised his eyebrows in consideration, picked a lyangcha and bit into it. ‘Not untrue that,’ he mused through his chomps, flashing the breakdown of lyangcha into lumpy pieces of kheer.
‘Close your mouth, you rakshasa, you’ll get fired if our Madam sees you…learn to eat like a memsahib…I mean, sahib.’ Shyamal slapped Potla’s back.
A maddened Potla hit him back. ‘Is eating also some art…or what…you shaala assistant cameraman? What’s your work? Big artist you think you are, three and half years I’ve been at Bharat Talkies, so many like you came and went, understood?’
‘Ei, stop it you two.’ Bikash snapped. ‘Ei Shyamal, let him eat…and Anil, you fasting or what? Ne, eat a lyangcha.’
Slowly Anil pulled a lyangcha from the plate and took it to his mouth. He looked at Bikash, ‘You were saying… about Kedar Da, he said something to you?’
‘Naaa…nothing, but it’s there for everyone to see. Put Potla on Mirabai, and himself doing sound for that first time director. Kedar Gupta, famous sound recordist of our industry not working on the big picture…why?’
‘Why…am I no good, or what?’ Potla scowled at Bikash.
‘Ei quiet, eat another lyangcha…ne…’ Bikash pushed the plate to Potla. Then pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘Remember, he didn’t come to the studio some days, just after this Rajbala came. Sent word he was sick. Nothing happened, guaranteed, I know it. My masima is their neighbour…next door…they’d have known, had there been some illness.’
Anil felt his heart sink. Bikash knew.
‘Even then I would think nothing of it. But, you say Potla…what things he said about that Rajbala…’ Bikash nudged Potla.
‘Why don’t you? Always poking me everybody,’ Potla looked uncomfortable.
‘Say it, acting shy like a girl…tell them…’ Bikash scolded Potla.
Potla picked another kachori, viewed it for a moment, then put it back. ‘It was Kedar Da only who told me about the heroine being changed for Mirabai. I couldn’t believe…from Ramola Devi to that Rajbala…said Madam had called him and said to tell everybody. Kedar Da said…that she was a good choice, and that we should all stand with Madam’s decision…’
Bikash slapped his leg. ‘Madam’s decision my foot! He didn’t even hear me out, when I had started to protest. Same thing he said to me, that it was final and Madam would hear nothing more. But…this much I can say, Madam did not want this Rajbala, her face, the way she spoke that first day we took Rajbala’s shots…I was on the set. Madam did not want even to look at that girl…you say, Shyamal, weren’t you at the camera, with Bimal Da that day?’
Prabal was nodding. A Shankar Chattopadhyay find, Prabal at twenty-nine was reckoned the industry’s most promising music director. ‘It’s true, re, the first music sittings also…same…Madam would just sit, looking out of the window.’
‘One more thing,’ Shyamal cut in. ‘that day when Rajbala first came to the studio, we were all waiting, remember, to see her? She came alone, in the car they had sent from the studio. Anil Da, you said to me to take her to Madam’s office. First thing Madam asks me, isn’t Kedar Babu with you? Where is Kedar Babu? Her face… like she thought Kedar Da would get Rajbala to her… why? I didn’t think anything of it then, but now…’
‘Then? Tell me then?
’ Bikash grimaced. ‘What are we to make of all this?’
Potla interjected. ‘Aren’t we making too much of it? And anyhow, now Madam seems quite happy with Rajbala. Not how she was before.’
‘Naturally…’ Bikash cut him off. ‘…Rajbala has become better. Madam and Nishith Babu have been after her, night and day…even I could become some top heroine if somebody like our Madam trained me.’
‘That is all fine’, Shyamal chewed on his lip. ‘But it still doesn’t explain Kedar Da’s haab-bhab, his demeanour… we have all noticed it, whatever we may say. This is the world of bioscope brothers, everything happens here,’ he nodded meaningfully.
Anil had had enough. He got up slowly.
‘I have to leave, re…some work, before I go home…’
‘You ate nothing. You also in some trouble, or what, like our beloved Kedar Da?’ Bikash laughed. ‘Or being manager-in-chief doesn’t agree with you?’ He winked.
‘Bikash, you really are too much sometimes.’ Anil heard Potla as he walked away.
What if any of this talk got to Minati bouthan? She who had mothered him like her own son, she and Kedar Da. What had he gotten Kedar Da into? And, what had Kedar Da told Madam about Rajbala? Whatever it was it had taken his peace away…they were right. Kedar Da had not been himself. He had known it before any of them…and it was all for him.
And Raju…Raju had changed, she too was not herself. The last two times they met alone, she hadn’t become angry even once…nor complained, it just wasn’t like her, like she was in another world. And…last evening, she had not come…though he had signalled clearly in the studio when he had gotten her alone for a minute. And she had understood it, he knew that. Then why? Was she not well? Was anything troubling her? Madam, he knew, was pleased with her, Anil, this girl will go far, she had said to him. He had not expected it, and it had made him happy. But she…Raju, was she happy? He had to get her alone for a minute, somewhere in the studio…he simply had to know.
VI
‘It’s all in the mind’, sighed Ambarish Dev Burma. ‘All of it. If you can take over their minds you will have their bodies. Get to skin and flesh in haste and you get only a part of it…’ Their living bodies could not ever be so delightful. The body had to die and be rid of its dirt, to become beautiful. If Putu had died when she was little… if…if only he had thought to take her up to the roof and fling her down, like Baba had come flying down from atop their estate house. Then perhaps she would have become beautiful, a pretty little thing. But no, she had lived, and grown into a monster, an ugly oily-headed pug-nosed good-for-naught. He might have loved her, if he had held her little bloodied body…its crushed pulpy skull and broken face, like how they had found Baba.
He had loved Ma with all his heart that night as she had lain in his arms, as he had felt her slowly stiffen. He had liked it when she was cold but still gentle…soft. When he still could part the folds of skin and the hinges and openings…enter them with his fingers, feel the last of the moistness, before it all became like wood. Like how that keeper at the studio must have found that gone-tohell Menoka…soft and cold…the idiot, then racing to call the boss, when he could have had so much fun with her. Such waste, if only he had known what was on her mind, he never would have let go of her that night. He groaned. To have watched, as she had noosed the sari around her thin neck. She had used one of the chairs, or stools perhaps, from the dressing room. The tin roof, with its low girders, she had managed to get that sari through one of them, knotted it below then twisted the other end around her neck…and swung. She must have been in some state, that beshya, to be drunk and still have managed all of that. Must have needed all of her strength…to kick away the chair from under her feet. He had not understood the whole of her, he must have left just a little bit of her mind free…and she had trumped him. He might have pushed her a tiny bit too hard, he had to admit, in those last days when the picture had gone on the floor. He had gotten so very tired of her tears and clinging. He had wanted a fight from her. And the more she fought back, the more fun he had had…taming her back again. He had never thought she could free herself…just like that.
She would pay for Menoka…Rajbala would…she would make it up to him. He was flushed, he ran his fingers through his hair, then rubbed his face with his hands. Even his thoughts of Rajubala made him feel all funny these days, like he hadn’t ever felt before. He’d never really…he mused…well, greatly enjoyed his physical intimacies with those other girls, not even Menoka, not as much as he had loved playing all of those games with them. Tiresome, how such intimacies always had meant looking in their eyes…how they unfailingly tried to suck you in, thinking they could make you happy. Still…it made them yield, that whole charade of love, you could take over their silly daft little heads.
Only…he had never really fancied the apogee of it, with those other girls. Menoka had stirred that in him, with her death. He hadn’t slept two nights and two days in the thrill of it, after he had heard. True, he was angry, furious at himself more than her for letting her get away. But then…he had fallen truly in love…with Menoka… it all had passed so very clearly before him, her swaying limp body, her sari come undone…perhaps, she had clutched at her neck, tried to free herself in those very last moments. And then, her neck had hung forward, tongue bitten…those fists…and tiny toes still tight from clawing the air. Perhaps the keeper, when he had got her down… he must have needed a hand, called an accomplice…the two of them, perhaps they had had a bit of fun with her. He hoped that they had. He chuckled as those thoughts came back to him.
And now…how he loved Rajbala. Never had he loved living flesh and skin in this way, except Ma. Ma hadn’t let him come to her even in her last days, not while she still could look upon him. Then her eyes had closed and he had crept in beside her, sent them all away… and watched, as her breaths had turned to gasps then slowly run out, like air from a white clothed balloon. Ma had wanted to die, he knew it…even Menoka…but they didn’t die for Him. No, they had died to get away from him. And for that they would rot. Rajbala would die for him, in her love of him. He would see to that. All soft and cold, hung from a rope, eyes open staring at nothing…eyes that wouldn’t then peer into his insides. He would lay her down ever so gently, and look in those dead eyes when he would make love to her.
VII
‘That dog in that picture, he is also a star,’ he’d smiled at her. ‘Like you Rajbala. Do you want to be a star like him…like that little dog?’
Raju tossed in her slumber and twitched. She was in the old house with the statues and marble floors, those wooden stairs, the pictures on the walls. One of them had a man wearing nothing cutting the throat of a little girl, a girl with golden hair. Had he cut off more heads, like Ma Kali? Were they real, that man and that girl? From somewhere far off?
He had seen her looking. ‘You like that painting? My father had bought it…he was like that man.’ She hadn’t known what he had meant.
He had shown her some photographs, from bioscope pictures made in America. In the dark library room, the pictures making blocks of brightness as he had held the oil lamp over them. He hadn’t switched on any lights. Only the two big oil lamps, carried in by that man who would open the door to her. The man who never looked at her.
Raju sat up in bed, her throat dry. She ran her tongue on the roof of her mouth. The water-filled earthen pitcher was by the side of the bed. Could she get to it? Might not she get pulled into some dark underworld if she so much as put a foot out of bed? Crocodiles crawling below her in the dark…waiting…to bite off her two feet if they hazarded their way out of her bed.
When she had gotten back from the old house, it was the dead of night. She had heard the church clock strike the chime of one as she was stepping into the car, his car that would get her back every time. Now her visits were closer, more often than before. He would send for her through his man Asghar, the driver who came sometimes even as she was finishing her evening’s meal, and waited as
she got quickly dressed. Like the man who would open the door in the old house, Asghar never spoke to her. She knew his name because Saheb had called out to him one time…‘Asghar…’ for him to take her back.
Saheb would always be in the corner room upstairs, the room with the big bed where she had first sat. Sometimes he wouldn’t speak or even look her way, as she would creep in and climb onto the bed, like on that first night. Somehow she had known it to be her place…Saheb had a way of telling her things without saying them. She understood from the way he looked at something, or leaned back in his chair. Like he was speaking to her through his arms and feet…and those eyes. And there were some things…a long lock of hair laid on the pillow. Who’s was it? She hadn’t seen any woman ever in that place, it had to be a woman’s. And then, the jasmine garland laid on the bed’s side. It was for her, she had known it. Though she hadn’t touched it. It had lain there, awaiting her, buds half-open, like Saheb’s watching eyes…she would feel his eyes on her even as she would look away.
He still had not come close. Why? They…men… they all tried it, sometime or other, why not he? She’d even tried her own little things…to draw him, in the beginning. He had looked away, almost ashamed. When he had led her to the darkened library he had walked straight ahead…not behind, so he could lay his eyes on her bottom. Led her like she was that little dog in the picture.
‘Fame…’ his face had flickered red in the lamp’s glow. ‘Like sand…quicksand…like the hair that comes off your head, alive now, dead tomorrow. Do you waste hair Rajbala, when you do up your hair?’
She had felt suddenly bald, like her head of long dark hair had been shorn by the glint of his eyes.
He had smiled. ‘You cannot imagine it, but for art, we must learn to lose, sacrifice, give up…we must live our lives through our art, else we will be like that little dog, a bit of something today and nothing tomorrow… forgotten…finished.’
Menoka has hanged herself Page 17