Anuradha Roy - An Atlas of Impossible Longing

“Would you let me do all that Brahmo women do? You don’t even let me go alone to Calcutta. Kamal has to go with me — or even Nirmal. And they never want to.”

“You’d never be able to go on your own. I send them with you for your safety.” Amulya pushed his feet into his slippers. “Tell me,” he continued in an indulgent tone, “can you find your way anywhere ? You may be fifty, but you’d still be a lost little girl on the roads of any big city, what with your Shyambazaar at the other end of Howrah Station. Come now, tell Manjula to bring me a cup of tea.”

He put his pipe into his pocket and walked out to the garden.

* * *

A month after the relatives had left, there arrived an envelope thicker and stiffer than usual. Inside were two sheets of blue notepaper closely scrawled upon, and a photograph. Amulya handed Kananbala the picture and began to read the letter. As she looked for her spectacles, which she had still not got used to, he exclaimed, “What a coincidence, the girl’s father used to be my uncle’s lawyer before he retired! He helped him win that Pukurbari case.”

Kananbala brought the picture of Nirmal’s prospective bride into the wavering yellow circle of lamplight she was sitting next to. She reached out and raised the wick a little and put on her glasses.

Amulya said, “Apparently that house they have in Manoharpur by the river is like a palace, and this girl Shanti is the only child. There is no mother, and no other brothers and sisters. It’s good when a girl doesn’t have too many relatives.” And, after a short pause and the satisfaction which comes with finding the right word, “ Uncomplicated .”

Kananbala examined the photograph in the light of the lamp. It was an oval face that could have been a little less bony. The girl’s hair was pulled back in a plait that returned in a snaky curve over her shoulder to the front of a simple, narrow-bordered sari. Not the latest fashion in either hairstyle or clothes — though, Kananbala thought, I hardly know what the latest fashions are. There was nothing remarkable about the face except its thoughtful expression and the eyes which seemed a strange, light colour, she could not tell what. The irises unusually large, filling up the eyes; the lashes overlong. The gaze was slightly unsettling because of the straight, thick brows that pressed down on the eyes. Kananbala wondered if the picture had been touched up in a studio.

Nirmal was almost eight years younger than his elder brother, an autumn flower, more precious to Kananbala for being late. She still caught herself examining his every feature in as much loving detail as she had when he was a baby. Where Kamal had turned out rather nondescript, ill-humoured, dyspeptic, and already showing signs of jowls, the sharp lines of Nirmal’s face, his quick movements, his air of irresponsibility and a sudden, noisy laugh which made his eyes dance, convinced Kananbala she was not being biased when she felt he had grown into a handsome man. She knew mothers were not supposed to have favourites, but it was Nirmal who came straight up to her room first from school, then college, and now from work, to tell her stories of all that had happened during the day. He would do nothing without consulting her first, and their dependence on each other was absolute, this she believed.

She looked again at the picture in her hand, the picture of the woman to whom Nirmal would belong. She felt too tired to think about it all.

“Let’s see the picture,” Amulya said, reaching out. “What do you say? I think Nirmal should be sent off to see the girl. I have a good feeling about this match.”

Just as you did about Songarh, Kananbala said to herself.

* * *

Nirmal married Shanti in March 1928. The wedding was in Manoharpur. The bride’s father, it was said, had roused himself from years of isolation to invite all his forgotten relatives and the neighbouring villagers. He lit up the riverbank with a hundred and one oil lamps. From a week before, shehnai players sat in bamboo machans at the entrance to the house, playing their pipes. Bikash Babu disliked the shehnai’s wail, but was determined to fulfil every conventional expectation the groom’s family might have. The groom’s party — Amulya, Nirmal, Kamal, and Manjula — left Songarh on the overnight train to Calcutta. They were to join up with other relatives there and then take the train to Manoharpur in a merry, festive group.

Her prospective daughter-in-law’s magnificent house, its wooden staircase, its mirrors and chandeliers, its riverside setting and splendid garden were to remain a story for Kananbala. Though some women disregarded such superstitions, she knew as a good mother that her presence at his wedding would only bring Nirmal bad luck. So, heeding tradition, she stayed back, alone in Songarh with the household’s two servants and three temporary cooks, resigned to custom but anxious and feverish, preparing for the wedding party to return. For the two weeks they were away, she did nothing but order the servants around, have food cooked, and ready the house with an energy she had to dredge up from her past. She rose early and went to bed exhausted every night. The rossogullas had to be creamy enough to dissolve on the tongue, the salty snacks crunchy enough to be heard in the next room. There had to be great quantities of everything. The Oriya cooks hired from Calcutta were instructed to cook the best lobster they had ever made. The fish was to be brought from Calcutta on the overnight train, packed in ice. She made lists of things she needed to remember.

In quieter moments, after the servants had locked up for the night and left her alone with the drowsy maid, she pulled out her jewellery box and began to put aside all the ornaments from her own trousseau that she would give the bride. She lingered over her heavy gold bangles with the snakeheads that she loved, with their solid round feel and emeralds for the snakes’ eyes. Nirmal’s wife must wear them. She held the bangles in her hand and tried them on one last time before setting them aside.

The night before the wedding party was to arrive, an owl’s call interrupted Kananbala’s half-awake dreams. She was breathless and thirsty and tangled up in the bedsheet when she awoke. It was dark outside, but she felt the urge to step out of the house and go to the forest.

As if sleepwalking, Kananbala rose from her bed and sidestepped the maid who slept on the floor. She opened her bedroom door and went down the stairs. At the front door she came upon a heavy padlock on a chain. The older manservant, Gouranga, was sprawled before it, snoring. She had forgotten how securely the front door was locked each night. She tried to think where the key was kept — the servant’s waist, of course. She remembered the side door and half ran to it, but that was locked too.

The stillness of the night, punctuated by the owl’s hoot, cracked open with a roar: the lion! The lion no-one else could hear! She ran up the stairs, forgetting to shuffle, and went out onto the roof.

At last she was out in the open, black night, under a nail-paring of a moon, looking into the shapeless gloom of the jungle. The lion roared again. No owl or fox answered it. She stayed there, her mind crowded out with thoughts that allowed her to think nothing, till the horizon paled and the first bird sang.

* * *

Nirmal and Shanti were given the room at one end of the top-floor terrace, the only one on that side of the roof. They spent their first night together on a bed prickly and damp with the traditional flowers, the noise and ribaldry of their visiting cousins seeping into their sleep. In the cold hour just before dawn, Nirmal found, half awake, that he and his new bride had curled up against each other for warmth. He gathered courage and kissed her on the forehead. Shanti slept on.