by Satyajit Ray
There could be no escape this time. However, ‘little’ was all he would offer, Mohit decided. `Send the boy in,’ he said to Bipin.
A boy of about fourteen walked into the room a minute later. He came forward to touch Mohit’s feet, then stepped back and stood quietly. Mohit stared at him for a whole minute. Finally, he said, ‘Sit down.’
The boy hesitated for a moment, then sat down in one corner of a sofa, holding his hands in his lap.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ Mohit said and went out of the room. He made his way upstairs to find his wife. The keys to their safe were tied to her pallu. Mohit untied them, opened the safe, and took out four fifty-rupee notes. Then he sealed them in an envelope, locked the safe again, and returned to the living room.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked the boy.
‘Sanjay Kumar Bose.’
‘This envelope contains money. Do you think you’ll be able to take it back to your father?’
The boy nodded.
‘Where will you keep it?’
‘In the inside pocket of my jacket.’
‘Will you take a tram, or a bus?’
‘I’ll walk.’
‘Walk? Where do you live?’
‘Mirzapur Street.’
‘That’s quite far. Will you walk all that way?’
‘Baba told me to walk.’
‘Well, you can do one thing. Why don’t you wait here for another hour, have a cup of tea, and I’ll get you something to eat, look at some of my books—I’ve got heaps of them—and then you can come with me when I leave for my office. My car will drop me first, then take you home. You can show the driver where to go, can’t you?’
The boy nodded again.
Mohit called Bipin and told him to get some tea and sweets for the boy. Then he went upstairs again to start getting ready. His heart was feeling a lot lighter. He found himself in a very good mood.
He had failed to recognize Joy; but in his son Sanjay, Mohit Sarkar had rediscovered the class friend he had known thirty years ago.
Translated by Gopa Majumdar
First published in Bengali in 1979
Sahadev Babu’s Portrait
Over the last three months, Sahadev Babu had started to make a regular appearance at the auction house owned by Lazarus in Mirza Ghalib Street, previously known as Free School Street.
He had begun his career by hawking booklets—collections of jokes, riddles, popular proverbs, even songs. Then he spent seven years acting as an agent or a broker for various businesses, earning enough commission to start a business of his own. Having spent the last five years selling electrical cables, he had finally reached a point where he could afford a neat and compact flat in Sadananda Road, a Fiat, a telephone, a television, two bearers, a cook and an Alsatian. Those who had known him well in his early days could no longer recognize him easily; and, even if they did, they hesitated to approach him. As a matter of fact, Sahadev Babu himself did not wish to be recognized by his old friends. So he had altered his appearance by growing a moustache, adding an inch to his sideburns, and wearing plain glasses with a golden frame. The glasses were plain, for there was nothing wrong with his eyesight. They were added only for effect.
With his rise in life, he had acquired a new set of friends, who visited him every evening and drank good quality tea, smoked the best cigarettes, played poker with laminated cards, and on weekends, watched Hindi and Bengali films on television.
Anyone entering his drawing room could tell why he had started going to Lazarus. Almost every Sunday, he brought back from there some pretty knick-knack or the other. The clocks, lamps, statues made of brass and china, silver candlesticks, and English landscapes, had all been bought from Lazarus; not to mention tables, chairs, a settee, and the carpet on the floor.
Today, Mihir Babu, who worked for Lazarus, had promised to get him a set of novels by famous British novelists. Mihir Babu had had a lot of experience in this matter, having spent twenty years at the auction house. He could anticipate what his regular clients might like and was familiar with Sahadev Babu’s tastes. He had had to meet the demands of the newly rich often enough in the past. He knew very well that many of them were neither well educated, nor particularly fond of reading, but they liked to fill their bookcases with English books in bright jackets.
It was an attractive set of sixteen novels, bound in red leather. One look at it made Sahadev Babu’s heart dance with joy. But, in the next instant, something happened that startled him into forgetting all about the novels, at least for the moment. A picture with a gilded frame was hanging on the wall behind the table on which the novels were displayed. Sahadev Babu’s eyes fell on it.
It was an oil painting, about 3’x4’ in size. In fact, it was a portrait of a Bengali gentleman. That it was quite old was obvious not only from the layer of dust on it, but also from the various objects included in the portrait. The hookah, the kerosene lamp, the silver paan box, the walking stick with an ivory handle, were all reminders of days gone by. Besides, the clothes the subject was wearing were very old fashioned. Who would nowadays wear that kind of kurta with buttons on one side and crinkled sleeves, a dhoti with such a broad border, and such a heavily embroidered Kashmiri shawl? During the time when this portrait had been made, it was customary for wealthy and aristocratic Bengalis to get their portraits done by artists. There was nothing unusual about that. What startled Sahadev Babu was the face of the subject.
‘How do you like it?’ asked Mihir Babu, strolling across to join him. ‘His face is exactly like your own, isn’t it?’
The thought had already occurred to Sahadev Babu, but he took a quick look at a fancy mirror kept nearby, waiting to be sold. Now he could be sure. ‘True,’ he said. ‘Whose portrait is this?’
Mihir Babu did not know. ‘We got a whole lot of things from a store room in an old house in Chitpur. The house is now going to become a factory. They’ll make vests, I believe. This portrait came with all the other stuff,’ he said.
‘So you don’t know who the man was?’ Sahadev Babu asked again.
‘No, I am afraid not. But I thought of you the minute I saw it. Perhaps he was a zamindar. The artist, I am told, was well known. Sailesh Chatterjee, who was here earlier today—you know, the one who lives in Elgin Road, writes on art and artists sometimes—anyway, he said Paresh Gui, at one time, was a famous painter.’
Sahadev Babu had not failed to notice the name of the artist, written in red in the bottom right hand corner of the painting. ‘Is this going to be auctioned, too?’ he asked.
‘Why, do you want it?’
Strangely enough, getting his own portrait made was one of the many desires Sahadev Babu cherished in his heart. In fact, the idea had come to him one day, here in this shop, upon seeing another oil painting. He had mentioned it to Mihir Babu, whose response had been most encouraging. ‘That will be something quite new, won’t it?’ he had said, ‘I mean, it’s just not done any more. Yet, a portrait made by a good and experienced artist can change the whole appearance of a room. And just think how long these things last! If you see the oil paintings in art galleries—some of them five hundred years old—they look as if they were painted yesterday. Their colours haven’t faded at all.’
Since Sahadev Babu knew no one in the world of art, he was obliged to place an advertisement in the two leading dailies, Ananda Bazar and Jugantar. His neighbour, Sujay Bose, who happened to be a journalist, helped him choose the right words for his ad: ‘Wanted: an expert portrait-maker for portrait in oil colours. Write with references to the address below.’
An artist applied. Sahadev Babu asked him to come to his house. He turned out to be about twenty-five years old. His name was Kallol Dasgupta. He had recently passed out of the Government College of Arts, and was looking for work. The certificate his college had given him proved that he had talent. But his appearance put Sahadev Babu off. The young man’s long hair, unkempt beard, baggy trousers and garish purple shirt did nothing to inspire confiden
ce. He had to send him away, but the artist returned twice to ask if Sahadev Babu had changed his mind. Perhaps he was very poor indeed, and desperate for work. Still, Sahadev Babu could not hire him. If his appearance was so untidy, how could his work be satisfactory?
Eventually, a business associate recommended a different artist. This one turned out to be presentable in his appearance, so Sahadev Babu told him to go ahead, and even gave a couple of sittings. On the second day, however, he noticed that the face that was emerging on the canvas was looking increasingly like Brajen Datta’s who worked in one of the shops in New Market. At this, he had to ask the artist to stop at once. He then thrust five ten-rupee notes in his hand, and bade him goodbye.
Now, in answer to Mihir Babu’s question, he said, ‘Well, I couldn’t get a good artist even after advertising in the papers. And yet, it seems as if this portrait was made specially for me! So, I think . . . well . . .’
‘Shall I keep it for you?’
‘How much . . . I mean . . .?’
‘The price? Oh, I’ll charge you as little as possible. But the artist was once quite well known, as I was just saying.’
In the end, Sahadev Ghosh had to pay seven hundred and fifty rupees for the portrait of a man about whom no one knew anything. He brought it home, and hung it on the most prominent place on the wall of his drawing room. The room truly began to look different. There could be no doubt that the artist was remarkably gifted. Every paisley motif on the Kashmiri shawl had been drawn with the utmost care; the diamond in the ring the man was wearing on the third finger of his right hand seemed to glitter; the silver bowl of his hookah looked as if it had just been polished.
Needless to say, Sahadev Babu’s friends were as amazed as him when they saw the portrait. At first, many of them thought Sahadev Babu had visited an artist’s studio secretly and got the portrait made. When they heard the real story, they could scarcely believe it. It is not often that one finds such striking resemblances between two men, unless they are identical twins. One of his friends, Satyanath Bakshi, asked him outright, ‘Are you sure this gentleman isn’t one of your ancestors?’ That could not be the case, of course, because in the last hundred years, none of Sahadev Babu’s ancestors had managed to make any money. His grandfather was the ticket collector at a railway station; and his great-grandfather had worked for a zamindar as a petty clerk.
Nando Banerjee was fond of reading detective novels, and fancied himself as an amateur sleuth. ‘I can’t rest in peace until I find out who this Babu is,’ he declared. ‘That diamond ring . . . there’s a mystery attached to it, I am sure. I can smell it. What I have to do is consult the encyclopaedia of famous families in Bengal. Nitaida has got all four volumes. Each one is packed with every little detail about various zamindars. There are a lot of pictures, too.’
No one could concentrate on playing poker that evening. There was much talk about other strange coincidences that people had heard of.
That night, Sahadev Babu had a sudden idea. He would let the portrait hang in the drawing room during the day; but, at night, he would bring it to his bedroom. And if he could fix a blue light over it—the kind usually found in railway compartments—it would not interfere with his sleep, but he would be able to see the portrait if he woke in the middle of the night.
The very next day, he called an electrician and had a blue night light installed in his room.
Three days after buying the portrait, Sahadev Babu reduced the length of his sideburns by an inch. That was the only thing that was different from the man’s face in the portrait. Then he noticed that the other man’s nails were neatly cut, whereas his own were long and dirty. He had never bothered to cut his nails regularly, which often made them grow uncomfortably long. But now he began paying more attention to them.
Other things followed. Sahadev Babu was not in the habit of chewing paan. However, now he bought a silver box like the one in the portrait, got his bearer to stuff paan leaves with masala, and began carrying them in the silver box in his pocket. His humble beginnings and lack of education had not taught him much about social graces or elegant dressing. The portrait of the unknown aristocrat began to influence him to such an extent that, gradually, his whole demeanour changed, and his manners started to acquire a certain polish. As long as he was in his office in Lal Bazar, he remained the same man he had always been. He wore a terylene shirt and terycot trousers to work, smoked Gold Flake cigarettes, drank tea three times a day, and for his lunch, ate a plate of puri-subzi and jalebis, bought from a local sweet shop. All these were old habits.
He changed when he returned home in the evening. The way he walked, or talked, or sat cross legged with a bolster on his lap, made him a different man. Even the manner in which he raised his voice to call his bearer was new. Naturally, his friends did not fail to notice these changes. ‘If that portrait continues to influence you like this, my friend,’ they said, ‘you will have to leave this flat and find yourself a mansion.’ Sahadev Babu smiled a little at such a remark, but said nothing.
He could feel himself drawn closest to the man in the portrait when he switched off all the lights in his room at night, except the blue one. As he lay in his bed, staring at the painting, he truly felt the man in it was none other than himself. At such moments, every night, he felt a strong desire to acquire every object shown in the painting—that embroidered Kashmiri shawl, the fine dhoti and kurta, that chair, that silver hookah, that diamond ring, and the stick with the ivory handle.
Over a period of time, Sahadev Babu fulfilled this desire, obtaining each object, one by one. The chair and the stick were provided by Mihir Babu. An artisan from Chitpur came specially to make a silver hookah to match the one in the picture. Sahadev Babu bought some high quality tobacco and began to practice smoking a hookah. Getting a kurta made was no problem at all. He also bought golden buttons to go with it.
The shawl came from an old Kashmiri shawlwala. Last winter, this particular man, called Nadir Shah, had visited Sahadev Babu with a great variety of shawls. Sahadev Babu had not bought anything from him then. Nevertheless, he turned up as soon as winter started this year. Sahadev Babu showed him the portrait and asked, ‘Can you get me a shawl exactly like this one?’
Nadir Shah took a quick look at the picture. ‘It won’t be easy to get a jamavar shawl like that,’ he said. ‘But if you can give me a little time, I can look for one.’
Within three weeks, he returned with a jamavar. The colour was slightly different; but who knew what the real colour of the original shawl had been? It was an old painting, to start with. Besides, who could say with certainty that the oil colour used by the artist was not different from the actual colour of the shawl?
‘How much?’ asked Sahadev Babu.
‘I’ll give you a special rate. Four and a half.’
‘Four and a half? You mean four hundred and fifty rupees?’ Sahadev Babu asked. He had no idea how much a good shawl could cost these days.
‘No, sir,’ Nadir Shah replied, a crease appearing near his eyes as he smiled, ‘I mean four thousand and five hundred.’
Bargaining did not work. His special rate did not get any lower. Sahadev Babu was obliged to write him a cheque for four thousand and five hundred rupees.
There were, even now, a few other items left to be obtained: a marble table with three legs, a kerosene lamp with a round glass shade, and a play by Shakespeare. All of these featured in the picture. Eventually, Sahadev Ghosh got hold of these, too.
Now there was just one thing left on his list: a diamond ring, like the one on the finger of that other man.
When Sahadev Babu had started his own business, he had paid a visit to Naihati, to consult an astrologer called Durgacharan Bhattacharya. He had to find out what was in store for him. The astrologer had predicted enormous success in his new venture and the acquisition of great wealth. In fact, he had written his prediction down on a piece of paper and given it to Sahadev Babu. But in that piece of paper, there was no mention of the
heavy losses his business would suffer, within just eight years. Today, Sahadev Babu took it out, tore it, crumpled the pieces into a ball, and threw it out of a window.
Two large orders had been cancelled recently. His losses ran to several lakhs. Although he had started humbly, he had never had to face such difficulties before. His small business had grown and expanded, and he had risen higher and higher in life, without looking back. That was the reason why this sudden setback overwhelmed and horrified him; nor could he tell himself that the problem was only temporary.
He had lost his faith in one astrologer. Yet, distressed as he was, he could not help turning to another. This time, it was someone called Narayan, who lived in Girish Mukherjee Road in Bhowanipore.
Narayan took four and a half minutes to finish his calculations. Sahadev was in for a very bad time, he said. The position of his stars showed that he would have to suffer the whole year. But that was not all. Someone he had trusted in the past had betrayed him.
Sahadev Babu did not even try to work out who this person might be. Had he been warned before, he might have been on his guard. There were plenty of people he had had to trust while running his business. What good would it do now to learn who had betrayed him? What mattered was that all he had built up over the years was about to be destroyed. The rug had been pulled from under his feet.
The first thing that went was his Fiat. Four years ago, he had bought it for thirty-four thousand rupees. Today, he sold it for twelve thousand.
According to an English proverb, a friend in need is a friend indeed. Among his three close friends, only one passed this test. It was Nando Banerjee. He had not yet managed to identify the man in the portrait. One of the four volumes of the encyclopaedia did contain a picture of a zamindar of Selimganj, called Bhutnath Chowdhury, whose clothes and other accessories matched most of the details in Sahadev Babu’s portrait; but his face was entirely different. These days, Sahadev Babu found himself depending heavily on Nando’s support. Had he not stood by him, God knew what might have happened.
