Neel Mukherjee - The Lives of Others

Ever since Chhaya had learned to identify the face looking back at her from the mirror as her own, she had been intimate with the fact — hard, unchangeable as fate and as merciless — of her own ugliness and, harder still, with the awareness that the world outside shared the knowledge too. To know that you are ugly is one thing, but to grow up with the imprint that it leaves on others’ thoughts, facial expressions, murmurs, talk, gossip is quite another; the former is a reckoning with one’s self, the latter an instilling of that most adamantine knowledge of all: that the world is as it is, and knocking your head against its hard shell is only going to break you, not dent the world.

So the storm-fronts of girlhood — tears, capricious cruelty, tantrums, envy, brittle self-consciousness — had seemed to pass eventually after an unseasonably prolonged stay, but more intractable, more sustained damage was left behind in their wake.

After five years of the drama of diminishment that was her matchmaking were played out, the neighbours started talking. Like all such examples of this genre, there was a great deal of histrionics about protecting the subject of gossip from unkindness, but drama, that is, fiction, was what it was, for it was seen to that Chhaya came to hear of what was being said about her via some circuitous route or the other. The usual, predictable things: she would die a spinster; the Ghoshes would never be able to get her off their hands; she would bring bad luck; that kind of dark skin (‘black, really, coal-black, ink-black, soot-black’) surely pointed to a dark fate; if the first face you saw after waking up was hers, your day was certain to be ruined; maybe there was something else wrong with her, something other than her dark complexion. . and so it went on. Several kind-hearted people made ameliorative gestures: there were regular remarks along the lines of ‘What if she is so dark, she is remarkably well educated’ and the gradual currency of euphemisms for her skin colour — warmly glowing, a radiant darkness — that they thought shielded Chhaya from the misfortune she was born with. But all this was as leftovers from a small dinner party offered to a region ruined by famine: the gesture was noted, but the effect was nil. In the eyes of her suitors and their families, Chhaya had seen the instant knowledge, shocked, flickering, imperfectly repressed, as soon as she had walked into the drawing room. Beside that knowledge, everything was like her name — just a shadow.

Armed with comb, Ultorath and a small stainless-steel bowl of mango pickle, Baishakhi stealthily runs up the stairs to the roof terrace. Lunch is just over, so most of the household is getting ready to go to bed for a light snooze. She is fairly certain that no one has seen her coming up here. Still on tiptoe, she makes her way to the west side of the prayer room; here she is sheltered from the eyes of any casual visitor to the terrace — someone coming up to hang out the washing, or clean out the prayer room. They would have to know she is up here to find her. She positions herself so that her back catches the October afternoon sun, loosens her still-damp hair and settles down with Ultorath in front of her. It is nearly three o’clock and her mind is very far from reading. It is almost time for Shobhon Datta, who lives next door, to come out onto his roof for his sneaky post-lunch cigarette. This is what Baishakhi has been really waiting for: the book, the bowl of pickle, even her comb and damp hair are just props in a pre-emptive drama of deception. If anyone finds her sitting here, with Shobhon on his terrace, the suspicion that she is romantically entangled with him will alight instantly on her. The props will then give her performance of wide-eyed innocence some credence.

Without this deception, perpetrated by daughters and inevitably discovered by parents, aunts, servants and neighbours, played out, it would seem, since the very beginnings of family and society, the entire fabric of Bengali family life would be marred by a huge hole. There are ‘arranged marriages’ — the real, respectable, acceptable form of union between a man and a woman — decided by parents and families, not by the people getting married, and sanctioned by centuries of tradition and practice that say the daughter is her father’s property, to dispose of as he sees fit. A marriage is a social transaction; individuals come into it later, if at all. And then there are ‘love marriages’, where two people conduct their romance with the furtiveness of a shameful, sinful act, then take their hearts in their hands and decide to break the news to their families. They are transgressive, discordant, with all the desirability of the ruptures and havoc that a cyclone creates. They are also forbidden, and such a huge force of morality is brought to bear against them that they are practically irresistible. Baishakhi has taken the first steps in sowing the storm.

Shobhon, twenty, reluctant BCom student at City College, only son of the Datta family, which has made money recently in the catering business; Shobhon, who wears his hair long, wears a gold chain around his neck, has a reputation of being a Romeo, and leaves his shirt unbuttoned nearly down to his stomach so that the chain can be seen nestling in his chest hair like an iridescent snake in dark grass, duly emerges on the terrace of the Datta house. Baishakhi, who has been staring unblinkingly at the green-painted wooden door through which Shobhon will make his entrance, instantly looks down and pretends to be so deeply absorbed in her novel that she is oblivious to the sound of the door, to his appearance a mere fifteen or twenty feet away. Shobhon, a seasoned player, pretends too that he has come to the terrace merely to have a smoke away from the eyes of the elders in his house. The acts of lighting his Capstan Gold, of cupping the match in his hand to shield it from the breeze, of flinging the spent match away all seem to be done with a slight excess of movement, more than the actions themselves demand. He starts walking up and down the terrace, Baishakhi still apparently unnoticed. Baishakhi, breath held, blood pounding in her ears, eyes fixed unmovingly on the meaningless black scrawl of letters on the page, can hear his footsteps pacing back and forth. And then, without any prelude or warning, he comes over to the side of his terrace that she is facing, places his elbows on the parapet, leans forward and whispers, ‘Ashtami evening, eight o’clock, behind the puja pandal.’

Baishakhi jumps out of her skin at this sudden violation of the tacit rules of the game. On no account are they supposed to look at each other in public, let alone speak. She stares at him, then gathers her wits about her and hisses, ‘What are you doing? Someone will see us. Don’t stand on this side of the roof.’

He answers back, still whispering, ‘Who will see us? If anyone appears on your roof, I’ll see them before you do, I’ll move away immediately. They’ll never know.’

‘We can be seen from Mala-mashi’s roof, from Namita-di’s, Sunil-mama’s. . If they look up, they'll see you. Please, please don’t stand here.’

‘How will you love, if you fear so much?’ Shobhon asks, neatly inverting the opening line of a popular Hindi film song. He is given to such smart wit at moments of great risk. As a result, Baishakhi finds him almost unbearably attractive. She colours furiously at the word ‘love’, floating so openly, so publicly, between them — a secret thought suddenly embodied and exposed by being spoken aloud — and cannot find a way to answer him.

‘Don’t forget, eight on ashtami evening, behind the puja pandal,’ he repeats, debonairly blows out some smoke rings, blue and fragile, and leaves the terrace through the green wooden door.