by Satyajit Ray
‘You don’t know, babu. This man is totally mad. He seemed to have made a slight recovery lately. Before that, every evening as soon as it got dark, he used to go and hang upside down from trees. Just like a bat!’
Translated by Gopa Majumdar
First published in Bengali in 1964
Indigo
My name is Aniruddha Bose. I am twenty-nine years old and a bachelor. For the last eight years I’ve been working in an advertising agency in Calcutta. With the salary I get I live in reasonable comfort in a flat in Sardar Shankar Road. The flat has two south-facing rooms and is on the ground floor. Two years ago I bought an Ambassador car which I drive myself. I do a bit of writing in my spare time. Three of my stories have been published in magazines and have been well-appreciated by my acquaintances, but I know I cannot make a living by writing alone.
For the last few months I haven’t been writing at all. Instead, I have read a lot about indigo plantations in Bengal and Bihar in the nineteenth century. I am something of an authority on the subject now: how the British exploited the poor peasants; how the peasants rose in revolt; and how, finally, with the invention of synthetic indigo in Germany, the cultivation of indigo was wiped out from our country—all this I know by heart. It is to describe the terrible experience which instilled in me this interest in indigo that I have taken up my pen today.
At this point I must tell you something about my past. My father was a well-known physician in Monghyr, a town in Bihar. That is where I was born and that is where I did my schooling in a missionary school. I have a brother five years older than me. He studied medicine in England and is now attached to a hospital in a suburb of London called Golders Green. He has no plans to return to India.
My father died when I was sixteen. Soon after his death, my mother and I left Monghyr and came to Calcutta where we stayed with my maternal uncle. I went to St Xavier’s College and took my bachelor’s degree. Soon after that I got my job with the advertising agency. My uncle’s influence helped, but I wasn’t an unworthy candidate myself. I had been a good student, I spoke English fluently, and most of all, I had the ability to carry myself well in an interview.
My early years in Monghyr had instilled certain habits in me which I have not been able to give up. One of these was an overpowering desire to go far away from the hectic life of Calcutta from time to time. I had done so several times ever since I bought my car. On weekends I made trips to Diamond Harbour, Port Canning, and Hassanabad along the Dum Dum Road. Each time I had gone alone because, to be quite honest, I didn’t really have a close friend in Calcutta. That is why Promode’s letter made me so happy. Promode had been my classmate in Monghyr. After I came away to Calcutta, we continued to keep in touch for three or four years. Then, perhaps it was I who stopped writing. Suddenly the other day when I came back from work, I found a letter from Promode waiting for me on my desk. He had written from Dumka—‘I have a job in the Forest Department here. I have my own quarters. Why don’t you take a week’s leave and come over . . .?’
Some leave was due to me, so I spoke to my boss, and on the twenty- seventh of April—I shall remember the date as long as I live—I packed my bags and set off for Dumka.
Promode hadn’t suggested that I go by car; it was my idea. Dumka was 200 miles away, so it would take about five or six hours at the most. I decided to have a big breakfast, set off by ten and reach there before dusk.
At least that was the plan, but there was a snag right at the start. I had my meal and was about to put a paan into my mouth, when my father’s old friend Uncle Mohit suddenly turned up. He is a grave old man whom I was meeting after ten years. So there was no question of giving him short shrift. I had to offer him tea and listen to him chat for over an hour.
I saw Uncle Mohit off and shoved my suitcase and bedding into the back seat of my car. Just then, my ground-floor neighbour Bhola Babu walked up with his four-year-old son Pintu in tow.
‘Where are you off to all by yourself?’ Bhola Babu asked. When I told him, he said with some concern, ‘But that’s a long way. Shouldn’t you have arranged for a driver?’
I said I was a very cautious driver myself, and that I had taken such care of my car that it was still as good as new—‘So there’s nothing to worry about.’
Bhola Babu wished me luck and went into the house. I glanced at my wristwatch before turning the ignition key. It was ten minutes past eleven.
Although I avoided Howrah and took the Bally Bridge road, it took me an hour and a half to reach Chandernagore. Driving through dingy towns, these first thirty miles were so dreary that the fun of a car journey was quite lost. But from there on, as the car emerged into open country, the effect was magical. Where in the city did one get to see such a clear blue sky free from chimney smoke, and breathe air so pure and so redolent of the smell of earth?
At about half-past twelve, as I was nearing Burdwan, I began to feel the consequence of having eaten so early. Hungry, I pulled up by the station which fell on the way, went into a restaurant and had a light meal of toast, omelette and coffee. Then I resumed my journey. I still had 135 miles to go.
Twenty miles from Burdwan, there was a small town called Panagarh. There I had to leave the Grand Trunk Road and take the road to Ilambazar. From Ilambazar the road went via Suri and Massanjore to Dumka.
The military camp at Panagarh had just come into view when there was a bang from the rear of my car. I had a flat tyre.
I got down. I had a spare tyre and could easily fit it. The thought that other cars would go whizzing by, their occupants laughing at my predicament, was not a pleasant one. Nevertheless I brought out the jack from the boot and set to work.
By the time I finished putting the new tyre on, I was dripping with sweat. My watch showed half past two. It had turned muggy in the meantime. The cool breeze which was blowing even an hour ago, and was making the bamboo trees sway, had stopped. Now everything was still. As I got back into the car I noticed a blue-black patch in the west above the treetops. Clouds. Was a storm brewing up? A norwester? It was useless to speculate. I must drive faster. I helped myself to some hot tea from the flask and resumed my journey.
But before I could cross Ilambazar, I was caught in the storm. I had enjoyed such norwesters in the past, sitting in my room, and had even recited Tagore poems to myself to blend with the mood. I had no idea that driving through open country, such a norwester could strike terror into the heart. Claps of thunder always make me uncomfortable. They seem to show a nasty side of nature; a vicious assault on helpless humanity. It seemed as if the shafts of lightning were all aimed at my poor Ambassador, and one of them was sure to find its mark sooner or later.
In this precarious state I passed Suri and was well on my way to Massanjore when there was yet another bang which no one could mistake for a thunderclap. I realized that another of my tyres had decided to call it a day.
I gave up hope. It was now pouring with rain. My watch said half past five. For the last twenty miles I had had to keep the speedometer down to fifteen, or I would have been well past Massanjore by now. Where was I? Up ahead nothing was visible through the rainswept windscreen. The wiper was on but its efforts were more frolicsome than effective. It being April, the sun should still be up, but it seemed more like late evening.
I opened the door on my right slightly and looked out. What I saw didn’t suggest the presence of a town, though I could make out a couple of buildings through the trees. There was no question of getting out of the car and exploring, but one thing was clear enough: there were no shops along the road as far as the eye could see.
And I had no more spare tyres.
After waiting in the car for a quarter of an hour, it struck me that no other vehicle had passed by in all this time. Was I on the right road? There had been no mistake up to Suri, but suppose I had taken a wrong turning after that? It was not impossible in the blinding rain.
But even if I had made a mistake, it was not as if I had strayed into the jungles of Africa or South Am
erica. Wherever I was, there was no doubt that I was still in the district of Birbhum, within fifty miles of Santiniketan, and as soon as the rain stopped my troubles would be over—I might even find a repair shop within a mile or so.
I pulled out a packet of Wills from my pocket and lit a cigarette. I recalled Bhola Babu’s warning. He must have gone through the same trying experience, or how could he have given me such sound advice? In future—Honk! Honk! Honk!
I turned round and saw a truck standing behind. Why was it blowing its horn? Was I standing right in the middle of the road?
The rain had let up a little. I opened the door, got out and found that it was no fault of the truck. When my tyre burst the car had swerved at an angle and was now blocking most of the road. There was no room for the truck to pass.
‘Take the car to one side, sir.’
The Sikh driver had by now come out of the truck. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘A puncture?’
I shrugged to convey my state of helplessness. ‘If you could lend a hand,’ I said, ‘we could move the car to one side and let you pass.’
The Sikh driver’s helper came out too. The three of us pushed the car to one side of the road. Then I found out from the two men that I was indeed on the wrong road for Dumka. I had taken a wrong turning and would have to drive back three miles to get back on the right track. I also learnt that there were no repair shops nearby.
The truck went on its way. As its noise faded away, the truth struck me like a hammer blow.
I had reached a dead end.
There was no way I could reach Dumka that night, and I had no idea how and where I would spend the night.
The roadside puddles were alive with the chorus of frogs. The rain had now been reduced to a light drizzle.
I got back into the car and was about to light a second cigarette when I spotted a light through the window on my side. I opened the door again. Through the branches of a tree I saw a rectangle of orange light. A window. Just as smoke meant the presence of fire, a kerosene lamp meant the presence of a human being. There was a house nearby and there were occupants in it.
I got out of the car with my torch. The window wasn’t too far away. I had to go and investigate. There was a narrow footpath branching off from the main road which seemed to go in the direction of the house with the window.
I locked the car and set off.
I made my way avoiding puddles as far as possible. As I passed a tamarind tree, the house came into view. Well, hardly a house. It was a small cottage with a corrugated tin roof. Through an open door I could see a hurricane lantern and the leg of a bed.
‘Is anybody there?’ I called out.
A stocky, middle-aged man with a thick moustache came out of the room and squinted at my torch. I turned the spot away from his face.
‘Where are you from, sir?’ the man asked.
In a few words I described my predicament. ‘Is there a place here where I can spend the night?’ I asked. ‘I shall pay for it, of course.’
‘In the dak bungalow, you mean?’
Dak bungalow? I didn’t see any dak bungalow.
But immediately, I realized my mistake. I had followed the light of the lantern, and had therefore failed to look around. Now I turned the torch to my left and immediately a large bungalow came into view. ‘You mean that one?’ I asked.
‘Yes sir, but there is no bedding. And you can’t have meals there.’
‘I’m carrying my own bedding,’ I said. ‘I hope there’s a bed there?’
‘Yes sir. A charpoy.’
‘And I see there’s a stove lit in your room. You must be cooking your own meal?’
The man broke into a smile and asked if I would care for coarse chapatis prepared by him and urad-ka-dal cooked by his wife. I said it would do very nicely. I liked all kinds of chapatis, and urad was my favourite dal.
I don’t know what the bungalow must have been like in its heyday, but now it was hardly what one understood by a dak bungalow. Constructed during the time of the Raj, the bedroom was large and the ceiling was high. The furniture consisted of a charpoy, a table set against the wall on one side, and a chair with a broken arm.
The chowkidar, or the caretaker, had in the meantime lit a lantern for me. He now put it on the table. ‘What is your name?’ I asked.
‘Sukhanram, sir.’
‘Has anybody ever lived in this bungalow or am I the first one?’ ‘
Oh, no sir, others have come too. There was a gentleman who stayed here for two nights last winter.’
‘I hope there are no ghosts here,’ I said in a jocular tone. ‘God forbid!’ he said. ‘No one has ever complained of ghosts.’
I must say I found his words reassuring. If a place is spooky, and old dak bungalows have a reputation for being so, it will be so at all times. ‘When was this bungalow built?’ I asked.
Sukhan began to unroll my bedding and said, ‘This used to be a sahib’s bungalow, sir.’
‘A sahib?’
‘Yes sir. An indigo planter. There used to be an indigo factory close by. Now only the chimney is standing.’
I knew indigo was cultivated in these parts at one time. I had seen ruins of indigo factories in Monghyr too in my childhood.
It was ten-thirty when I went to bed after dining on Sukhan’s coarse chapatis and urad-ka-dal. I had sent a telegram to Promode from Calcutta saying that I would arrive this afternoon. He would naturally wonder what had happened. But it was useless to think of that now. All I could do now was congratulate myself on having found a shelter, and that too without much trouble. In future I would do as Bhola Babu had advised. I had learnt a lesson, and lessons learnt the hard way are not forgotten easily.
I put the lantern in the adjoining bathroom. The little light that seeped through the door which I had kept slightly ajar was enough. Usually I find it difficult to sleep with a light on, and yet I did not extinguish the light even though what I badly needed now was sleep. I was worried about my car which I had left standing on the road, but it was certainly safer to do so in a village than in the city.
The sound of drizzle had stopped. The air was now filled with the croaking of frogs and the shrill chirping of crickets. From my bed in that ancient bungalow in this remote village, the city seemed to belong to another planet. Indigo . . . I thought of the play by Dinabandhu Mitra, Nildarpan (The Mirror of Indigo). As a college student I had watched a performance of it in a theatre on Cornwallis Street.
I didn’t know how long I had slept, when a sound suddenly awakened me. Something was scratching at the door. The door was bolted. Must be a dog or a jackal, I thought, and in a minute or so the noise stopped.
I shut my eyes in an effort to sleep, but the barking of a dog put an end to my efforts. This was not the bark of a stray village dog, but the unmistakable bay of a hound. I was familiar with it. Two houses away from us in Monghyr lived Mr Martin. He had a hound which bayed just like this. Who on earth kept a pet hound here? I thought of opening the door to find out as the sound seemed quite near. But then I thought, why bother? It was better to get some more sleep. What time was it now?
A faint moonlight came in through the window. I raised my left hand to glance at the wristwatch, and gave a start. My wristwatch was gone.
And yet, because it was an automatic watch, I always wore it to bed. Where did it disappear? And how? Were there thieves around? What would happen to my car then?
I felt beside my pillow for my torch and found it gone too.
I jumped out of bed, knelt on the floor and looked underneath it. My suitcase too had disappeared.
My head started spinning. Something had to be done about it. I called out: ‘Chowkidar!’
There was no answer.
I went to the door and found that it was still bolted. The window had bars. So how did the thief enter?
As I was about to unfasten the bolt, I glanced at my hand and experienced an odd feeling.
Had whitewash from the wall got on to my hand
? Or was it white powder? Why did it look so pale?
I had gone to bed wearing a vest; why then was I now wearing a long-sleeved silk shirt? I felt a throbbing in my head. I opened the door and went out into the veranda.
‘Chowkidar!’
The word that came out was spoken with the unmistakable accent of an Englishman. And where was the chowkidar, and where was his little cottage? There was now a wide open field in front of the bungalow. In the distance was a building with a high chimney. The surroundings were unusually quiet.
They had changed.
And so had I.
I came back into the bedroom in a sweat. My eyes had got used to the darkness. I could now clearly make out the details.
The bed was there, but it was covered with a mosquito net. I hadn’t been using one. The pillow too was unlike the one I had brought with me. This one had a border with frills; mine didn’t. The table and the chair stood where they did, but they had lost their aged look. The varnished wood shone even in the soft light. On the table stood not a lantern but a kerosene lamp with an ornate shade.
There were other objects in the room which gradually came into view: a pair of steel trunks in a corner, a folding bracket on the wall from which hung a coat, an unfamiliar type of headgear and a hunting crop. Below the bracket, standing against the wall, was a pair of galoshes.
I turned away from the objects and took another look at myself. Till now I had only noticed the silk shirt; now I saw the narrow trousers and the socks. I didn’t have shoes on, but saw a pair of black boots on the floor by the bed.
I passed my right hand over my face and realized that not only my complexion but my features too had changed. I didn’t possess such a sharp nose, nor such thin lips or narrow chin. I felt the hair on my head and found that it was wavy and that there were sideburns which reached below my ears.
In spite of my surprise and terror, I suddenly felt a great urge to find out what I looked like. But where to find a mirror?
I strode towards the bathroom, opened the door with a sharp push and went in.
