Neel Mukherjee - The Lives of Others

‘We all thought Bhola was going to turn out to be the writer,’ she said, ‘given the way he used to chatter away all the time, creating all these ridiculous tall tales, but it turned out to be the quiet one, you.’

Priyo flinched inwardly at the comparison with Bhola. How distasteful that even Chhaya should bring them together in her head, using the common bond of storytelling. But Bhola was only someone who was afflicted with logorrhoea, and his chatter was just that, chatter; whereas he was the true writer, literally so — he wrote his stories down on paper, they had shape, a design, a selection of things from life, a gathering that imposed a paradigm on the formless wash of time and reality. But Bhola? Priyo immediately felt disloyal, thinking this line of thought; Bhola was his brother, after all; a simpleton maybe, but still, connected to him by blood.

And yet, sitting here, talking about Priyo’s literary efforts, both brother and sister unspokenly conspired to ignore the loud, pervasive ticking of the clock in the background.

The same ticking was, like the slow rise of an inundation, filling Charubala and Prafullanath’s lives. Lying in bed, under the white canopy of the mosquito net, the ceiling fan turned on at full volume to battle the almost-solid presence of June heat, their conversation came back to that unchanging centre.

‘The lecturer’s family has said no,’ Charubala said to the roof of the net.

‘Oh,’ Prafullanath replied, looking up at the ceiling too. There was enough in that one syllable.

Silence.

‘Did they say why?’ Prafullanath asked at last.

‘The usual excuses: horoscopes not matching, girl too educated. .’ she said.

She imagined the futile beating of the fan’s blades, a fast, blurry whirr in the dark. It was going to be another of those long nights.

‘Did you tell her?’ he asked. They had long reached the stage when they had stopped referring to her, or could no longer refer to her, by name.

‘No. What’s the use? I can’t bear to see the disappointment on her face,’ she answered. She paused to steady her voice, then continued, ‘At least they didn’t, like last time, that engineer, write back to say she was too dark. Or like that family where we had to keep chasing them and they came back with, “She doesn’t seem like a home-maker.”’

There was real anger beginning to taint her tone. Prafullanath remained silent.

‘This business is putting an end to all my nights’ sleep,’ Charubala declared.

‘What if we step up the amount of dowry?’ he suggested.

‘You have done that on two occasions now, but nothing has come of it.’

‘Yes, but what if we increased it further?’

‘All is fate. How can we ever go against what’s written on our foreheads? I fear. . that. . that. .’

Prafullanath reached out sideways and tried to clamp his hand on her mouth. ‘Chhee, don’t say inauspicious things like that.’

The sanction made the unsaid even more palpable, as if the thoughts had been waiting outside the room and had at last been given permission to enter; now there was no denying their presence.

Prafullanath and Charubala circled around them in a quaint dance.

‘Achchha, what if we got a new set of photos? Got a really good photographer and asked him to do some top-notch studio portraits?’

‘How is that going to help? They will eventually have to come here to. . to see her.’

They had come face-to-face with the unacknowledged party in the dance. They started again.

‘What about those families who don’t bother to get back after they’ve visited? Are there any of those still left that we’re waiting to hear from?’

‘There can be only one meaning to their silence, don’t you think? What’s the use of contacting them? They’ll only come up with the usual excuses.’ Pause. ‘Or tell us the truth that we all know.’

There, the presence again, unignorable.

Charubala broke part of the taboo.

‘Achchha, don’t dark girls get married? They are becoming brides by the hundreds, thousands, every day. Our Chhaya is hardly the blackest imaginable,’ she said.

In through the opening Prafullanath went, somewhat reluctantly. ‘Y-y-yes, that’s true. But. .’

‘But what?’

‘But. . I mean. . her. . her blackness is a. . is slightly different, no?’

Silence again, which was answer enough.

Now that the breach had been made, it seemed to hurt them less to widen it.

‘Then there is the other matter.’

‘I did look into it. .’

‘We should have had it done when she was small.’

‘But who could have predicted at the time that a slightly lazy eye would have become so prominent? I suppose others see it more than we do. We live with her, we see her every day, we don’t even notice it any more.’

‘Yes. Do you remember, one family wrote back to accuse us of lying by omitting to mention it? They were really nasty about it, all respectability thrown to the winds. Thank god our Chhaya didn’t end up at theirs.’

‘Yes, small mercies. Do you think we should seriously start looking again into the eye-operation business?’

‘We must. She’s not getting any younger, you know. As it is, she’s marred her chances by doing an MA. I told her then, what’s the need? Isn’t a BA enough? I reminded her that it would be difficult to find a match for her, if she kept doing one degree after another. Do you know what she said? “You seem to be in one hell of a rush to get rid of me. Am I such a burden to you? I am happy to go out and look for a job so I can earn my keep.” Can you imagine? I could hardly speak, I was so upset.’

‘She has a dangerous tongue, like a knife.’

‘She’s twenty-six this year. Soon she’ll be over the hill. We’ll also have to start thinking of Priyo and Bhola’s marriages.’

‘We haven’t been able to get Priyo to renege on his foolish oath of not marrying until Chhaya is married off. Do you think he’ll budge?’

Charubala was again on the brink of thoughts she had managed to keep unthought, just about, for many years. She looked into the whirlpool briefly and felt dizzy with. . with what? Fear? Or shame? She looked away quickly and decided it was a matter of the greatest imperative that either Priyo or Chhaya, and preferably both, got married as soon as possible. This winter, she decided. It had to be.

Why Priyo agreed — on a whim, it appeared to his mother — no one knew. Charubala did not dare ask him in case he went back to his previous position of intransigence. Maybe he had forgotten his foolish pledge, she thought; and let it rest at that. The wedding was rushed through, even though Charubala had her doubts about the girl. Priyo’s ‘yes’ had such immediate weightiness that she did not think about speculative and lighter counterweights on the other half of the scales. It did not occur to her to ask her son why his choice had alighted on Purnima — the caste, the family, the woman herself, everything was a fraction of a degree off — when she, Charubala, had preferred at least three or four of the matches that had come in. There was that shy, modest Datta girl who had so decorously kept her head down throughout the first meeting. The family was not well-off, but that had seemed a small blot. Then there was the pretty, smiley, child-like Das girl; lower-caste, yes, but such a sweet disposition; she would have been such a radiant presence in the house. And she had been as fair as the dawn too. But no; Priyo had to go for a dark, coarse girl, with a voice that could curdle milk instantly. But hers was not to reason why or question; it would not do to look a gift-horse in the mouth. So on a cool February evening Charubala and Prafullanath ticked yet another box in their long list of responsibilities towards their children; two down, three to go. Only Charubala knew that she had ticked her box feebly, with fading ink, for could it be that Priyo unmarried but Chhaya stable was a more desirable option than a married Priyo with a sister who was becoming more intractable by the day?