by Satyajit Ray
Snakes speak when snakes hiss
I know this, I know this . . .’
Dhurjati Babu stopped and made some hissing noises himself. Then he broke into rhyme again, his head swaying in rhythm.
‘Snakes speak when snakes hiss
I know this, I know this.
Snakes kill when snakes kiss
I know this, I know this . . .
What is this? Goat’s milk?’
The question was directed at the pudding in the plate before him.
Lachhman missed the ‘goat’ bit and answered, ‘Yes, sir—there is milk and there is egg.’
Dhurjati Babu was by nature whimsical, but his behaviour today seemed excessive. Perhaps he himself realized it, because he seemed to make an effort to control himself. ‘Been out in the sun too long these last few days,’ he said. ‘Must go easy from tomorrow.’
The night was noticeably chillier than usual; so instead of sitting out on the terrace, I went into the bedroom and started to pack my suitcase. I was going to catch the train next evening. I would have to change in the middle of the night at Sawai-Madhopur and arrive in Jaipur at five in the morning.
At least that was my plan, but it came to nothing. I had to send a wire to my elder brother saying that I would be arriving a day later. Why this was necessary will be clear from what I’m about to say now. I shall try to describe everything as clearly and accurately as possible. I don’t expect everyone to believe me, but the proof is still lying on the ground fifty yards away from the Baba’s hut. I feel a cold shiver just thinking of it, so it is not surprising that I couldn’t pick it up and bring it as proof of my story. Let me now set down what happened.
I had just finished packing my suitcase, turned down the wick of my lantern and got into my pyjamas when there was a knock on the door on the east side of the room. Dhurjati Babu’s room was behind that door.
As soon as I opened the door the man said in a hoarse whisper: ‘Do you have some Flit, or something to keep off mosquitoes?’
I asked: ‘Where did you find mosquitoes? Aren’t your windows covered with netting?’
‘Yes, they are.’
‘Well, then?’
‘Even then something is biting me.’ ‘How do you know that?’
‘There are marks on my skin.’
It was dark near the door, so I couldn’t see his face clearly. I said, ‘Come into my room. Let me see what kind of marks they are.’
Dhurjati Babu stepped into my room. I raised the lantern and could see the marks immediately. They were greyish, diamond-shaped blotches. I had never seen anything like them before, and I didn’t like what I saw. ‘You seem to have caught some strange disease,’ I said. ‘It may be an allergy, of course. We must get hold of a doctor first thing tomorrow morning. Try and go to sleep and don’t worry about the marks. I don’t think they’re caused by insects. Are they painful?’
‘No.’
‘Then don’t worry. Go back to bed.’
He went off. I shut the door, climbed into bed and slipped under the blanket. I’m used to reading in bed before going to sleep, but this was not possible by lantern-light. Not that I needed to read. I knew the day’s exertions would put me to sleep within ten minutes of putting my head on the pillow.
But that was not to be tonight. I was about to drop off when there was the sound of a car arriving, followed soon by English voices and the bark of a dog. Foreign tourists obviously. The dog stopped barking at a sharp rebuke. Soon there was quiet again except for the crickets. No, not just the crickets; my neighbour was still awake and walking about. And yet through the crack under the door I had seen the lantern either being put out, or removed to the bathroom. Why was the man pacing about in the dark?
For the first time I had a suspicion that he was more than just whimsical. I had known him for just two days. I knew nothing beyond what he had told me about himself. And yet, to be quite honest, I had not seen any signs of what could be called madness in him until only a few hours ago. The comments that he had made while touring the forts at Bayan and Deeg suggested that he was quite well up on history. Not only that: he also knew quite a bit about art, and spoke knowledgeably about the work of Hindu and Muslim architects in the palaces of Rajasthan. No—the man was obviously ill. We must look for a doctor tomorrow.
The luminous dial on my watch showed a quarter to eleven. There was another rap on the east-side door. This time I shouted from the bed.
‘What is it, Dhurjati Babu?’
‘S-s-s-s-’
‘What?’
‘S-s-s-s-’
I could see that he was having difficulty with his speech. A fine mess I had got myself into. I shouted again: ‘Tell me clearly what the matter is.’
‘S-s-s-s-’
I had to leave the bed. When I opened the door, the man came out with such an absurd question that it really annoyed me.
‘Is s-s-s-snake spelt with one “s”?’
I made no effort to hide my annoyance.
‘You knocked on the door at this time of the night just to ask me that?’
‘Only one “s”’, he repeated.
‘Yes, sir. No English word begins with two s’s.’
‘I s-s-see. And curs-s-s-e?’
‘That’s one “s” too.’
‘Thank you. S-s-s-sleep well.’
I felt pity for the poor man. I said, ‘Let me give you a sleeping pill. Would you like one?’
‘Oh no. I s-s-s-sleep s-s-s-soundly enough. But when the s-s-sun was s- s-s-setting this evening—’
I interrupted him. ‘Are you having trouble with your tongue? Why are you stammering? Give me your torch for a minute.’
I followed Dhurjati Babu into his room. The torch was on the dressing table. I flashed it on his face and he put out his tongue.
There was no doubt that something was wrong with it. A thin red line had appeared down the middle.
‘Don’t you feel any pain?’
‘No. No pain.’
I was at a loss to know what the matter was with him. Now my eyes fell on the man’s bed. It was apparent that he hadn’t got into it at all. I was quite stern about it. I said, ‘I want to see you turn in before I go back. And I urge you please not to knock on my door again. I know I won’t have any sleep in the train tomorrow, so I want to have a good night’s rest now.’
But the man showed no signs of going to bed. The lantern being kept in the bathroom, the bedroom was in semi-darkness. Outside there was a full moon. Moonlight flooded in through the north window and fell on the floor. I could see Dhurjati Babu in the soft reflected glow from it. He was standing in his nightclothes, making occasional efforts to whistle through parted lips. I had wrapped the blanket around me when I left my bed, but Dhurjati Babu had nothing warm on him. If he caught a chill then it would be difficult for me to leave him alone and go away. After all, we were both away from home; if one was in trouble, it wouldn’t do for the other to leave him in the lurch and push off.
I told him again to go to bed. When I found he wouldn’t, I realized I would have to use force. If he insisted on behaving like a child, I had no choice but to act the stern elder.
But the moment I touched his hand I sprang back as if from an electric shock.
Dhurjati Babu’s body was as cold as ice. I couldn’t imagine that a living person’s body could be so cold.
It was perhaps my reaction which brought a smile to his lips. He now regarded me with his grey eyes wrinkled in amusement. I asked him in a hoarse voice: ‘What is the matter with you?’
Dhurjati Babu kept looking at me for a whole minute. I noticed that he didn’t blink once during the whole time. I also noticed that he kept sticking out his tongue again and again. Then he dropped his voice to a whisper and said, ‘Baba is calling me—“Balkishen!” . . . I can hear him call.’ His knees now buckled and he went down on the floor. Flattening himself on his chest, he started dragging himself back on his elbows until he disappeared into the darkness under the bed.
&nbs
p; I was drenched in a cold sweat and shivering in every limb. It was difficult for me to keep standing. I was no longer worried about the man. All I felt was a mixture of horror and disbelief.
I came back to my room, shut the door and bolted it. Then I got back into bed and covered myself from head to toe with the blanket. In a while the shivering stopped and I could think a little more clearly. I tried to figure out where the matter stood, and the implication of what I had seen with my own eyes. Dhurjati Babu had killed Imli Baba’s pet cobra by pelting it with stones. Immediately after that Imli Baba had pointed to Dhurjati Babu with his finger and said, ‘One Balkishen is gone. Another will come to take his place.’ The question was: was the second Balkishen a snake or a man?
Or a man turned into a snake?
What were those diamond-shaped blotches on Dhurjati Babu’s skin?
What was the red mark on his tongue?
Did it mean that his tongue was about to be forked? Why was he so cold to the touch?
Why did he crawl under the bed?
I suddenly recalled something in a flash. Dhurjati Babu had asked about Khagam. The name had sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it then. Now I remembered. It was a story I had read in the Mahabharata when I was a boy. Khagam was the name of a sage. His curse had turned his friend into a snake. Khagam—snake—curse—it all fitted. But the friend had turned into a harmless non-poisonous snake, while this man . . . Somebody was knocking on the door again. At the foot of the door this time. Once, twice, thrice . . . I didn’t stir out of the bed. I was not going to open the door. Not again.
The knocking stopped. I held my breath and waited. There was a hissing sound now, moving away from the door.
Then there was silence, except for my pounding heartbeat. What was that sound now? A squeak. No, something between a squeak and a screech. I knew there were rats in the bungalow. I had seen one in my bedroom the very first night. I had told Lachhman, and he had brought a rat-trap from the pantry to show me a rat in it. ‘Not only rats, sir; there are moles too.’
The screeching had stopped. There was silence again. Minutes passed. I glanced at my watch. A quarter to one. Sleep had vanished. I could see the trees in the moonlight through my window. The moon was overhead now.
There was the sound of a door opening. It was the door of Dhurjati Babu’s room which led to the veranda. The door was on the same side as my window. The line of trees was six or seven yards away from the edge of the veranda.
Dhurjati Babu was out on the veranda now. Where was he going? What was he up to? I stared fixedly at my window.
The hissing was growing louder. Now it was right outside my window. Thank God the window was covered with netting!
Something was climbing up the wall towards the window. A head appeared behind the netting. In the dim light of the lantern shone a pair of beady eyes staring fixedly at me.
They stayed staring for a minute; then there was the bark of a dog. The head turned towards the bark, and then dropped out of sight.
The dog was barking at the top of its voice. I heard its owner shouting at it. The barking turned into a moan, and then stopped. Once again there was silence. I kept my senses alert for another ten minutes or so. The lines of a verse I had heard earlier that night kept coming back to me—
Snakes speak when snakes hiss
I know this, I know this.
Snakes kill when snakes kiss
I know this, I know this . . .
Then the rhyme grew dim in my mind and I felt a drowsiness stealing over me.
I woke up to the sound of agitated English voices. My watch showed ten minutes to six. Something was happening. I got up quickly, dressed and came out on the veranda. A pet dog belonging to two English tourists had died during the night. The dog had slept in the bedroom with its owners who hadn’t bothered to lock the door. It was surmised that a snake or something equally venomous had got into the room and bitten it.
Instead of wasting my time on the dog, I went to the door of Dhurjati Babu’s room at the other end of the veranda. The door was ajar and the room empty. Lachhman gets up every morning at five to light the stove and put the tea-kettle on the boil. I asked him. He said he hadn’t seen Dhurjati Babu.
All sorts of anxious thoughts ran in my head. I had to find Dhurjati Babu. He couldn’t have gone far on foot. But a thorough search of the woods around proved abortive.
The jeep arrived at half-past ten. I couldn’t leave Bharatpur without finding out what had happened to my companion. So I sent a cable to my brother from the post office, got my train ticket postponed by a day and came back to the rest house to learn that there was still no sign of Dhurjati Babu. The two Englishmen had in the meantime buried their dog and left.
I spent the whole afternoon exploring around the rest house. Following my instruction, the jeep arrived again in the afternoon. I was now working on a hunch and had a faint hope of success. I told the driver to drive straight to Imli Baba’s hermitage.
I reached it about the same time as we did the day before. Baba was seated with the pipe in hand and the fire burning in front of him. There were two more disciples with him today.
Baba nodded briefly in answer to my greeting. The look in his eyes today held no hint of the blazing intensity that had appeared in them yesterday. I went straight to the point: did the Baba have any information on the gentleman who came with me yesterday? A gentle smile spread over Baba’s face. He said, ‘Indeed I have! Your friend has fulfilled my hope. He has brought back my Balkishen to me.’
I noticed for the first time the stone pot on Baba’s right-hand side. The white liquid it contained was obviously milk. But I hadn’t come all this way to see a snake and a bowl of milk. I had come in quest of Dhurjati Babu. He couldn’t have simply vanished into thin air. If only I could see some sign of his existence!
I had noticed earlier that Imli Baba could read one’s mind. He took a long pull at the pipe of ganja, passed it on to one of his disciples and said, ‘I’m afraid you won’t find your friend in the state you knew him, but he has left a memento behind. You will find that fifty steps to the south of Balkishen’s home. Go carefully; there are thorny bushes around.’
I went to the hole where the king cobra lived. I was not the least concerned with whether another snake had taken the place of the first one. I took fifty steps south through grass, thorny shrubs and rubble, and reached a bel tree at the foot of which lay something the likes of which I had seen hanging from a line in the Baba’s hut a few minutes ago.
It was a freshly sloughed-off skin marked all over with a pattern of diamonds.
But was it really a snakeskin? A snake was never that broad, and a snake didn’t have arms and legs sticking out of its body.
It was actually the sloughed-off skin of a man. A man who had ceased to be a man. He was now lying coiled inside that hole. He was a king cobra with poison fangs.
There, I could hear him hissing. The sun had just gone down. The Baba was calling: ‘Balkishen—Balkishen—Balkishen.’
Translated by Satyajit Ray
First published in Bengali in 1973
Barin Bhowmick’s Ailment
Mr Barin Bhowmick got into compartment D as instructed by the conductor and placed his suitcase under his seat. He would not need to open it during his journey. But he must keep the other smaller bag somewhere within easy reach. It contained such essentials as a comb, a hair brush, a toothbrush, his shaving kit, a book by James Hadley Chase to read on the way and several other knick-knacks, including throat pills. If the long train journey in a cold, air-conditioned compartment resulted in a sore throat, he would not be able to sing tomorrow. He quickly popped a pill into his mouth and put his bag on the small table in front of the window.
It was a Delhi-bound vestibule train. There were only about seven minutes left before its departure, and yet there was no sign of the other passengers. Would he be able to travel all the way to Delhi alone? Could he be so lucky? That would indeed be the height of
luxury. The very idea brought a song to his lips.
He looked out of the window at the crowd on the platform. Two young men were glancing at him occasionally. Clearly, he had been recognized. This was not a new experience. People often recognized him for they were now familiar not just with his voice but also with his appearance. He had to give live performances at least half-a-dozen times every month. Listen to Barin Bhowmick tonight—he will sing songs written by Nazrul as well as modern hits. Money and fame—both had come to Barin Bhowmick in full measure.
However, this had happened only over the last five years. Before that he had struggled a lot. It was not enough to be a talented singer. He needed a suitable break and proper backing. This came in 1963 when Bhola-da—Bhola Banerjee—invited him to sing in the puja pandal in Unish Palli. Barin Bhowmick had not looked back since then.
In fact, he was now going to Delhi at the invitation of the Bengal Association to sing at their jubilee celebrations. They were paying for his travel by first class and had promised to make all arrangements for his stay in Delhi. He intended spending a couple of days in Delhi. Then he would go to Agra and Fatehpur Sikri and return to Calcutta a week later. After that it would be time for the pujas again and life would become madly hectic.
‘Your order for lunch, sir . . .?’
The conductor-guard appeared in the doorway.
‘What is available?’
‘You are a non-vegetarian, aren’t you? You could choose between Indian and western food. If you want Indian, we’ve got . . .’
Barin Babu placed his order for lunch and had just lit a Three Castles cigarette when another passenger came into his compartment; at the same instant, the train began pulling out of the station.
Barin Babu looked at the newcomer. Didn’t he seem vaguely familiar? Barin Babu tried to smile, but his smile vanished quickly as there was no response from the other. Had he made a mistake? Oh, God—how embarrassing! Why did he have to smile like an idiot? A similar thing had happened to him once before. He had thumped a man very hard on the back with a boisterous, ‘Hel-lo, Tridibda! How are you?’ only to discover he was not Tridib-da at all. The memory of this incident had caused him much discomfort for days afterwards. God laid so many traps to embarrass one!
