I took a long time in the bathroom on purpose so that she could put on her blouse and arrange the bed. I cannot bear white sheets and pillows except in the darkness of night. When I came out, I saw Maloti had straightened the sheet, but the bedspread hadn’t been laid on as yet. I was breathing rather hard as we sat down to eat, facing each other. From time to time I had trouble catching my breath, but made an effort to engage Maloti in conversation and appreciated it when she responded (we both knew the game we were playing). With effort I began to eat slowly. I was quite hungry after the long trudge through water-logged streets. At least I should have been. I thought that if I ate a full meal, I’d fall off to sleep right away. But no, I am tired, yet not sleepy. I feel as though today’s rain has totally exhausted me. My joints ache as though I’ve been beaten up by some hoodlum at Sealdah.
In fact, I was beaten up once, back when a first-year student. I was returning home one evening with my college buddy Subroto. We were talking about the movie we’d just seen, Blue Angel. Beleghata was then still like a village. There were no street lights. It was dark, and there were a lot of fields and swamps and thickets. All of a sudden two hefty guys appeared out of nowhere and jumped us. ‘Scoundrel! You’re going to go over there again, huh? You’re going to be nasty again?’ they shouted as they gave us a few solid raps on our backs and heads, then fled through the fields, fading away like white shadows. They had handkerchiefs tied over their mouths, which they took off to wipe the sweat from their necks as they left. That’s all I saw of them.
We’d been carrying our books and class notes. We gathered them up in the fading evening light. One couldn’t be found, which we didn’t waste time looking around for, but proceeded quickly, each to his own house. We hadn’t dreamt that something like this could possibly ever happen. We’d been utterly taken aback by the suddenness, the unexpectedness of the whole thing. There wasn’t enough time to figure out what had actually happened. This being taken by surprise, being made a fool of, occupied my thoughts for such a long time that I didn’t feel much bodily pain. And the incident baffled me all the more since, from my point of view, it was totally meaningless. I couldn’t come up with the least little reason for it, couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to beat up either Subroto or me. I lay in bed that night and tried for a long time to think: Who were they, and what were they angry about? As I tried to put the pieces together in my mind as to what really happened, I was suddenly startled by this realization: we hadn’t even shouted. Forget about fighting back, we hadn’t tried to put up any sort of defence. There were just two of them, and there were two of us. Even assuming they were much stronger, we could have at least resisted or made an attempt to see who they were. Yet even in my wildest imagination I couldn’t bring myself to strike back. The very thought of hitting someone disgusted me, for then I’d have to touch a sweaty body. I’d be forced to establish some kind of relationship with a totally strange mass of flesh and muscle. No, no, I just couldn’t do that. I didn’t think through all of this then. These thoughts came to my mind gradually, only later. But I did sense one thing, vaguely, that night: any sort of intimate contact between two bodies repulsed me.
Naturally, there’s one very big exception to this, and it didn’t take me much longer to find that out, though it took me quite some time to accept it. Two years later—we were in the third year then—Subroto said to me quietly one day, ‘Do you know who did that thing to us?’
‘What thing?’
‘You remember. We were beaten up. It was Bimal. The one in Economics Honours—Bimal Gupta. He and another fellow.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘Bimal told me himself. He was mad at you because he thought you were sending his sister anonymous love letters and loitering outside the Brahmo Girls’ School to catch a glimpse of her. They beat me up for no reason at all.’
‘I didn’t even know he had a sister.’
‘He does, he does,’ said Subroto, audibly clicking his tongue.
Only then did I discover that of late Subroto and Bimal had become great pals. Subroto would go to his house from time to time. Afterwards, it even happened that once in a while Subroto, Bimal and I would go for a cup of tea to Lily Cabin and shoot the breeze. I didn’t get angry with Bimal, nor did I get mad at Subroto for making friends with him. I don’t know why there is no anger in me. Or maybe the anger gets stored in my brain and I just don’t feel it in my body. I would say quietly to myself, ‘I now realize what sort of a person you are, and I’ll never be friends with you again.’ That may be the way I express anger. This does the other fellow no harm, and I can go about my own business with equanimity. It’s enough of a punishment, I feel, that inwardly I have not forgiven him and never will.
For Subroto, the main attraction at Bimal’s house was not exactly Bimal but his three sisters, aged fourteen, fifteen and seventeen. When he’d get me alone, Subroto would tell me about them. The oldest one’s name was Monika, in Subroto’s opinion a ‘good-looker’. He and Bimal would sometimes take the three sisters to the movies. He’d sit beside Monika and in the dark they’d hold hands, slip out of their sandals and press their feet against each other’s, shift around in their seats so their cheeks brushed, and so on. ‘Bimal beat me up because he suspected me of sending love letters to his sister, and now he’s helping Subroto get intimate with them’— something like that should have occurred to me, but no such thought entered my head. Actually, I wasn’t the least bit interested in either Bimal or his sisters. It was merely out of politeness that I continued to listen to Subroto’s stories. One day he told me how the other night he had conveniently got Monika alone on the terrace and kissed her—many times, for a long while. Monika too had responded enthusiastically. I was stunned to hear his elaborate description of the event, for up until then I didn’t even know that a man’s moist tongue played any part in what the poets call a kiss. I was also somewhat embarrassed because, as I listened to his description, Kusum came to mind.
I don’t know if this happens to all young boys, but during adolescence I really suffered. Oh, the horror when at fourteen I first got an inkling that there was another body hiding inside mine—no eyes, no ears, but terribly alive. An animal lying in ambush beneath my clothes. A part of me but, unlike my arms and legs, not obedient to my will. Independent, with its own separate desires. And when it raised its head, it was as if darkness descended over me. It had started gradually, even sweetly—images of women would float around me, like the wind, like a melody, like perfume. I’d sketch pictures of girls’ faces in my geography notebook. I’d have imaginary conversations with some calendar girl. But intruding upon this delightful game, my second body would rise even stronger. I was terrified by its ferocity, but couldn’t help myself—my hand just had to submit to its demand once every so often. And the end result was that I thought I’d done a foul deed. I couldn’t look my parents in the eye. I got tense. Then there was a teacher at school and a mature young male relative of ours at home, who would talk around the subject but make their meaning quite plain, and the advice they gave me was so blatantly incorrect that both my sense of guilt and the reason for it increased. I went from school to college in such physical and mental condition.
After passing the matriculation exam, I visited an aunt in Krishnanagar. It was there that I first got to touch a girl, knowing fully well what I was doing. It’s nothing to boast about, really. They were two sisters, of thirteen and fourteen, called Goyna and Chhutki—nothing you’d write poetry about. Goyna had slightly crossed eyes and pudgy cheeks. Chhutki was a reed, tall and lanky, and when you looked at her face, your eyes would immediately fall upon big teeth, which stuck out a little even when she wasn’t smiling. Daughters of some typist in the judges’ court, they lived in my aunt’s neighbourhood and had been taken out of school as their marriages were being arranged. During the day they spent a lot of time loitering around the neighbourhood. They’d pop in to my aunt’s house at any odd time of the day. Whether it was becau
se they were poor or because their mother, who had a bunch of children to care for, was unmindful, I don’t know, but their clothes were always dirty and, in the eyes of a city person, not very becoming either. Besides, they really hadn’t learned manners. I’d be reading bound volumes of back issues of Bharati, and they’d burst in and play with my fountain pen or my watch or look at my books. ‘Where’d you get the watch?’ ‘Who gave you the pen?’ ‘Why do you wear your hair so long?’— examples of their style of conversation. And when they’d say, ‘What’re you reading?’ and sometimes lean over to see, I’d glimpse clear proof of their puberty bursting out of those loosefitting chemises. Sometimes they’d brush up against me and the smell of their dirty, sweaty bodies or their saris made my nose twitch. My aunt would at times notice them and say, ‘Come along now, girls, don’t disturb Angshu.’ They’d giggle at this mild scolding and run off. But then they’d return again at some other moment, Goyna alone or Chhutki by herself or sometimes both together. It so happened one day that I put my hand on Goyna’s blouse, and she took it and stuffed it inside. Later on, I played this same game with Chhutki, and sometimes with both sisters at the same time. But I never got any real pleasure from that. Actually I derived more enjoyment from reading Manindralal Bose’s novel, Ramola, or Satyendra Datta’s poetry. I held those girls in such contempt that I couldn’t even think of them as ‘girls’. There was nothing in them of the poetic dream with which I was gradually imbuing the word ‘girl’. I didn’t kiss them, wasn’t the least tempted (because a kiss was a declaration of love, an endorsement, a contract, and it was utterly impossible for me to be ‘in love’ with them). Their odours repulsed me. Their coarse and foolish conversation annoyed me. It was merely some animal drive that made me paw at their flesh, but even the animal was not satisfied by this. I wasn’t terribly sure what the animal, in fact, craved. And then there was the element of fear that my aunt or someone else might catch us. Yet, the girls would arrive just when I was alone, and no one else was nearby, as if plotting, prying, peeking here, there and everywhere, looking for this opportunity, and then they’d behave as though I’d been waiting for them all the while. In the end how dull and tasteless the whole thing seemed to me! I began to look forward to returning to Calcutta where I wouldn’t have to see Goyna and Chhutki any more.
A change took place in me when I got to college. From the time I was a little boy, I’d loved to read. I knew half of the poems in Chayanika by heart. I’d read some of Sharatchandra’s novels fifteen or twenty times over. Once I stayed up all night reading Gokul Nag’s novel, Pathik—they were the reason why during that stormy period I didn’t lose my calm. I discovered an even better refuge in the college library. My hungry eyes and mind began to lap up the printed words. It’s my firm belief that I got enough strength from these nutriments to carry me through the agony of adolescence and on to become a self-reliant young man. My favourites were two Russian authors, Turgenev and Chekhov. It was as if the dream of my early youth arose from their pages and hovered about me—yes, like the wind, like a melody, like perfume, like a girl sweet as honey, waiting for me in a dark, old house with grand rooms, wearing white, pacing back and forth in a garden filled with moonlit shadows. That moment, just before the train pulled out, I could see the entire sky in her big, sad eyes. This girl, fashioned partly from my imagination and partly from the books I’d read, began to haunt me night and day. I realized that this pounding of the heart, these quick glances, these deep sighs, this starting to speak and stopping, and ripping up letters just begun, this song that buzzed in my head the whole night long—this was love. This love is the most pure and beautiful thing in our lives. And, in order to give it an expression, I chose Kusum.
‘Kusum, I love you.’ These unspoken words began to circle around her like the smoke from incense lit before an idol. She guessed my very thoughts and said yes with her eyes and made me understand she loved me too. There was a secret arrangement between us, an unwritten agreement that we had decided to fall in love, and so we were in love, really. Though younger than I, Kusum was some sort of an aunt by relation—not a close relation, but there was much contact between our households, and we had no trouble getting to see each other regularly. But my relationship with Kusum didn’t proceed in the way Subroto’s had with Monika. It wasn’t lack of opportunity or of nerve. It was just that I didn’t want to. Sweet, beautiful, pure—this love—how could we taint with our bodies? We met, we talked. Our hearts would beat a little faster. Our eyes would glimmer. I’d sense a faint scent when she passed by. I’d think of her during rainy afternoons. This was enough. Anything more would have ruined it all.
Still, I couldn’t master my body. I couldn’t tame that animal. It had a way of attacking me during my most solitary and delightful moments—that blind, deaf, salivating little face, like a tiger from behind a bush, pouncing upon my most tender thoughts. Sometimes it got so uncomfortable that I would creep out of the house in order to satisfy the animal’s appetite. But I could never work up the courage to get off the main street and duck into one of those lanes.
Once in the month of Asharh, it started to rain and it seemed as though it would never stop. Seven long days I found myself stuck inside the house. College was still closed for the summer vacation. There was nothing to do. No sign of the washerman, no fresh clothes in the house. Even my books had somehow grown distasteful to me. During those dull and dreary days what started to fuss and move about inside of me was not an image of some elevated ideal, not of Kusum, either, but a figure coarse and alive and carnal, one whose breath was heavy and hot, whose lips were moist with froth, whose arms twisted like snakes, who had no eyes but whose nostrils gaped unnaturally wide. There were times when I couldn’t concentrate on anything but that and the situation eventually became unbearable. I went out the very first day after the rains let up. I didn’t seek out any of my friends. I didn’t stop anywhere. After evening set in I went straightaway to Harkata Lane. I’d never gone into that narrow alley before. An amazing sight unfolded before my eyes. On either side of that cramped, crooked lane were female forms, scattered here and there, arranged in rows, in small groups, huddled against one another around lamp posts, filling up even narrower alleyways between buildings. Men with leering eyes were going up close to have a look and then turning away, some in groups, some sullenly alone, some hiding their faces under umbrellas or blending in with the shadows, others in rickshaws. Some proceeded with hesitant steps, some hummed a tune, some had garlands of jasmine wrapped around their wrists. Occasionally, a humorous comment of sorts would be tossed out, and the rejoinder would come flying back in a tinny, high-pitched voice. Music drifted out of windows, there was the sound of anklets and harmoniums, and raucous noise in general. A drizzling rain, mud, and people jostling, bumping into one another in that narrow lane. I felt that there was no longer a sky above me, like I’d entered some huge deserted mansion, where reacting to my intrusion, termites were streaming out of musty walls, trails of ants were emerging from cracks in the floor, stinking bats were whooshing about, cold frogs were jumping on my foot—as if I’d suddenly lost my way in all the living filth of this world. I felt sick to my stomach. My heart was pounding in my throat. My eyes misted over. I was about to explode below the waist, but I’d decided that this time I would not turn back. I stopped in front of a woman, some woman, I didn’t care who she was. She caressed my cheek and said, ‘Just a kid, I see. Come along, dearie.’ Passing by a stench of some sort and stepping over heaped-up garbage, I entered her room, on the ground floor. It had only one window and a lavishly made four-poster bed; on the floor was a cotton carpet covered with sheets; a picture hanging from the wall showed three plump women with saris flying in the wind. I assumed what I felt to be an air of maturity and sat down, leaning back against a bolster, the girl beside me. But then I couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say or do. My ears began to buzz. I guess it was to encourage me that the girl opened a box and took out a paan leaf. ‘Would you like one?’
I tried to reply like a seasoned connoisseur. My voice, however, got very thick as I started to speak: ‘What sort of masala have you put in it?’
‘What masala have I used?’ The girl suddenly stood up and with both hands lifted her sari to her chest and, swinging her hips, declared, ‘This masala.’
Instantly my whole body turned to ice. The next moment I saw that the girl was lying down, her knees raised, thighs spread, and I heard a cracked voice say, ‘What’s the matter. Why are you just sitting there like an idiot?’ But I could not, for the life of me, find that animal. It had shrivelled up, hiding its body like some panicked insect. The more I commanded, ‘Come out! Come out, you double-crosser!’ the more it withdrew into itself, snail-like. When she saw me near the door, the girl sprang to her feet. I threw a few rupees at her and ran out.
Disgusting. But the thought that each and every woman had a body beneath that blouse and sari never left my mind. Kusum, yes, even Kusum! I’d be sitting in class while the teacher would be holding forth on something, say the French Revolution. Suddenly a picture would float across my mind. Kusum doing very innocent and necessary and healthy things in the bathroom. She, too, had to do those things, and she naturally had to lift her sari at those times. In my imagination I would start screaming, ‘No, no, I won’t stand this. It’s a lie, it’s impossible!’ I’d clutch at some other Kusum, someone like a passing breeze, wearing long white garments, in that dark, old house with grand rooms, glimmering like a vision. Kusum, you are my love, my dream.
It Rained All Night Page 3
