the world went dark for a second, and he wondered who Jumna might have been, and what terrible transgression she might have committed: this person who rang the doorbell at nine thirty in the morning.
‘But since you’re having such an awful life in this birth,’ said the boy, leaning forward on the heavy drawing-room chair, ‘you should have a wonderful life in the next one.’ He smiled, because it was a joke; but he also hoped it might be true.
‘I hope so,’ she said solemnly, picking up the jhadu. She too was joking; but she didn’t completely reject the idea.
‘You’ll probably live in a palace,’ said the boy, elaborating. They shared the joke together in the drawing room. In this way, they’d become close. The sorrow of this woman, without his knowing it, had – like something you eat or drink early in life, whose effects become clear only in adulthood – entered and penetrated him.
He wanted to cure her and educate her. When he was still a child, his parents brought him a doctor-set; temporarily, he became her doctor. She was ignorant; she must be treated and warned. ‘You drink tap water,’ he accused her. ‘It has germs.’ Indeed, she drank tap water in the kitchen, cupping her hand and bending, then wiping her mouth with the back of her hand in absent-minded satisfaction.
So, the treatment commenced. He had to inoculate her. He used the plastic syringe from the doctor-set. Then, to be more thorough, he pricked her with needles from his mother’s large dressing table. ‘Why must you do this, baba?’ she asked, genuinely bewildered. ‘Because you have germs inside you,’ he replied. She could say nothing to the boy.
Two days later, tearful but smiling, she said to his mother, ‘Baba is playing doctor. He pricks me with needles.’ And she showed the marks on her arm. ‘He’s been giving me injections,’ she said, still smiling.
‘I was trying to cure her,’ the boy said stubbornly.
The treatment stopped.
* * *
H E WAS LORDLY with her, and at home in general, but he was afraid of the outside world. It wasn’t fear as much as a shyness of contact – a mild terror of people he already knew. He disliked convivial occasions; he particularly disliked festivals. During Holi, he was the last to go and play; once, when he’d been standing among the furniture in the Cumballa Hill flat, unsure of whether to join the friends who were clamouring outside the main door and indulging in profligate bouts of doorbell-ringing, he was horrified to see, suddenly, purple water trickling underneath the door into the flat; one of the boys outside was busy; it was like a horror film.
He didn’t like Diwali either, though he hadn’t entirely admitted this to himself. Come Diwali, Apurva Sengupta journeyed dutifully to Teen Batti to bring back a small package of sparklers and firecrackers. Then nighttime, and the dark umbrella of the sky flashing with meteors; but Nirmalya wanted the sky to be quiet again. There was a small back garden in La Terrasse from which his father tentatively launched rockets into the sky. But, while chocolate bombs exploded in the neighbourhood, it was clear that Apurva Sengupta didn’t care much for the festival either. When Nirmalya had asked him why he never bought chocolate bombs (because, although he was uneasy with the festival, he was also eager to be part of it), Mr Sengupta said:
‘This is the way businessmen use up their black money,’ as a pudgy boy in shorts on Little Gibbs Road advanced and swiftly lit a fuse and then ran away again. ‘They have all that money lying around, they have to find ways of spending it.’
A one-night conflagration of undeclared assets! This was one of the revelations of Nirmalya’s childhood. Almost all his friends’ fathers had ‘black money’. Yet he always sniffed the air when a bomb went off, because he loved the sweet smell of burning explosives.
* * *
T HE BOY CAME OUT into the sitting room; his mother
‘But since you’re having such an awful life in this birth,’ said the boy, leaning forward on the heavy drawing-room chair, ‘you should have a wonderful life in the next one.’ He smiled, because it was a joke; but he also hoped it might be true.
‘I hope so,’ she said solemnly, picking up the jhadu. She too was joking; but she didn’t completely reject the idea.
‘You’ll probably live in a palace,’ said the boy, elaborating. They shared the joke together in the drawing room. In this way, they’d become close. The sorrow of this woman, without his knowing it, had – like something you eat or drink early in life, whose effects become clear only in adulthood – entered and penetrated him.
He wanted to cure her and educate her. When he was still a child, his parents brought him a doctor-set; temporarily, he became her doctor. She was ignorant; she must be treated and warned. ‘You drink tap water,’ he accused her. ‘It has germs.’ Indeed, she drank tap water in the kitchen, cupping her hand and bending, then wiping her mouth with the back of her hand in absent-minded satisfaction.
So, the treatment commenced. He had to inoculate her. He used the plastic syringe from the doctor-set. Then, to be more thorough, he pricked her with needles from his mother’s large dressing table. ‘Why must you do this, baba?’ she asked, genuinely bewildered. ‘Because you have germs inside you,’ he replied. She could say nothing to the boy.
Two days later, tearful but smiling, she said to his mother, ‘Baba is playing doctor. He pricks me with needles.’ And she showed the marks on her arm. ‘He’s been giving me injections,’ she said, still smiling.
‘I was trying to cure her,’ the boy said stubbornly.
The treatment stopped.
* * *
H E WAS LORDLY with her, and at home in general, but he was afraid of the outside world. It wasn’t fear as much as a shyness of contact – a mild terror of people he already knew. He disliked convivial occasions; he particularly disliked festivals. During Holi, he was the last to go and play; once, when he’d been standing among the furniture in the Cumballa Hill flat, unsure of whether to join the friends who were clamouring outside the main door and indulging in profligate bouts of doorbell-ringing, he was horrified to see, suddenly, purple water trickling underneath the door into the flat; one of the boys outside was busy; it was like a horror film.
He didn’t like Diwali either, though he hadn’t entirely admitted this to himself. Come Diwali, Apurva Sengupta journeyed dutifully to Teen Batti to bring back a small package of sparklers and firecrackers. Then nighttime, and the dark umbrella of the sky flashing with meteors; but Nirmalya wanted the sky to be quiet again. There was a small back garden in La Terrasse from which his father tentatively launched rockets into the sky. But, while chocolate bombs exploded in the neighbourhood, it was clear that Apurva Sengupta didn’t care much for the festival either. When Nirmalya had asked him why he never bought chocolate bombs (because, although he was uneasy with the festival, he was also eager to be part of it), Mr Sengupta said:
‘This is the way businessmen use up their black money,’ as a pudgy boy in shorts on Little Gibbs Road advanced and swiftly lit a fuse and then ran away again. ‘They have all that money lying around, they have to find ways of spending it.’
A one-night conflagration of undeclared assets! This was one of the revelations of Nirmalya’s childhood. Almost all his friends’ fathers had ‘black money’. Yet he always sniffed the air when a bomb went off, because he loved the sweet smell of burning explosives.
* * *
T HE BOY CAME OUT into the sitting room; his mother
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