Rajmahal by Kamalini Sengupta

“It’s New Year’s Eve! Come on!” They left their second aborted theatrical entertainment in a month, and crossed the street over a carpet of expended firecrackers. Just outside the Grand Hotel and Prince’s, above the sounds of merriment, they heard the ships’ sirens hooting as the year turned. Martin swung the car on to the edge of the maidan and they all got out inhaling the smoky chilled air. Then they stepped on to the grass, joined hands, and moved slowly around in a circle singing “Auld Lang Syne.”

    â€œPenny for your thoughts, Jack Strachey,” from the very old and India-haggard Myrna, joining her husband at the veranda balcony.
    â€œNone,” promptly. “I have none at the moment.”
    The only secrets Jack had from Myrna were her secrets, her affairs, the knowledge of which he had always kept hidden from her. He guessed at most of them, wondered how far she went, and stopped worrying. He knew she must come around, some day. Confronting her, giving her ultimatums, all that was never an option. Myrna knew he knew. She also knew, deep down, that he could never betray her. Why did she deserve such devotion, she often paused to wonder? Straying was so zealously surveyed and expected in their society.
    Away from it all at this age, her nagging drowned such considerations.
    â€œWhy?” she said, pulling at Jack’s arm. “Why should you have no thoughts?”
    â€œPetrov, it’s because of Petrov. He’s teaching me meditation. You have to stop thinking, that’s what he says.”
    â€œIt isn’t that, of course it isn’t!” Myrna Strachey, nowhere near as gentle-minded as her husband, still fretted at the loss of the Sharp’s chairmanship and its follow-up of honors. “Sir John and Lady Strachey!” Not to be, not to be ...
    â€œWe should have gone home of course, left this ungrateful country and this, this puerile city and gone back to our proper places. We can still go home. You never talk of going home any more!” Myrna’s high-pitched voice was a direct contrast to her stately body. Her voice . . . ! Jack quickly disciplined himself against blasphemous thoughts.
    â€œI thought you liked Calcutta . . . ”
    Myrna catered to the common view of their peers that India, and
Calcutta, of all places, couldn’t possibly hold a candle to the imaginary Britain with a big ballooning “B.”
    Jack half-listened to her and mentally listed the plus points of their staying on. The Rajmahal with its congenial tenants, the luxury of servants, the friendly Indians, the blissful Royal Calcutta Golf Club and the Tolly, with grounds more reminiscent of English country estates than the paddy fields, fish ponds, and banana groves typical of Bengal. Top-notch partying with industrialists, diplomats, and the Governor of West Bengal who continued to include them on his guest list. The races, where they preened with maharajas. The air conditioning and the annual sojourn in the hills to combat the hiatus of the hot weather. And the veranda views over the ceaseless activity of the maidan , the cricketers, the yogis, and ear cleaners, the Jain monks feeding ants early in the morning. Distanced from the people, yet in touch through the maidan ’s spectacular rallies. Monsoon rains cascading and sweeping over green, ghostly tree forms through windblown mists.
    But friends dropped off as the Stracheys lost their glamour. Martin visited them less and less, discouraged by a wife hostile to India and his parents. Then there was Petrov, across the landing, turning peculiar, and Proshanto Mojumdar, dozing off in the middle of his scatty chatter.
    â€œIt’s the tropical climate.” Myrna complained. “Brains get addled.”
    The Stracheys no longer vacationed in Britain. How could they understand that aging and its refinements were universal?
    Jack was urged by many to write his memoirs. He was a prime witness