Amit Chaudhuri - The Immortals

‘Why, Nirmalya? What can you possibly lack? You have everything.’

Later, he joined them for lunch and dourly polished off Arthur’s fruit trifle.

DESPITE THE URGE to go to the Himalayas, he also went with his parents to the Taj, and ate chilli cheese toast with them in the Sea Lounge. With a mixture of firmness and practised intimacy, Mr Sengupta, as he entered, placed an arm on the waiter’s shoulder and asked to be led only towards the left to the large sea-facing windows. There they sat at the tables meant for two — for couples or business accomplices; indeed, his parents came here every Saturday, for one unadulterated hour of silent nibbling and tea-stirring punctuated by conversation — and when Nirmalya came with them, he descended oddly on the third, awkward chair that was placed before the table by someone, and waited for the rectangular strips of toast with their swollen topping of cheese flecked with warning red spots.

Never entirely removed from where his parents were, or the areas in which he’d grown up or studied, he could still be spotted — even in the Taj on a Saturday — at different places almost simultaneously, as if these different incarnations of him — in the bookshop, at one end of the lobby, then at another end — all had a mysterious purpose or mission. Once, floating unmindfully, almost contentedly, down the glassy surface of the corridor that connected the old Taj to the new, he saw, and was seen by, a small figure, motionless among elegant passers-by. Pyarelal!

‘Pyarelal, what are you doing here ?’ asked the boy, delighted, confused.

Pyarelal grinned as if he had a secret. His pale yellow kurta shone. Then, as Apurva and Mallika Sengupta approached, he dipped low and did a namaskar.

‘I have a programme here at six,’ he explained — he hadn’t shaved properly; there was still a bit of grey stubble on the chin. ‘My student Jayashree Nath performs before tourists. Please come whenever you have the time, baba.’ Behind him was the church-heavy door of the Tanjore restaurant. It was ajar; through a small gap, Nirmalya peered in to see a waiter in a dark suit, a shadowy, noticeably handsome figure — the restaurant was empty of diners at this time of the day — and a group of what looked like American men and women.

And, indeed, next week, Nirmalya did drop in to Tanjore; he pushed open the door, and was let in by the waiter in the black suit without a word. There were about fifteen tourists in the semi-dark of the restaurant; red-faced women in dresses or trousers, as if congregated in some suburb for a dashing evangelist, or to debate the environmental policies of an industrial house; and large men who were unaccountably shy. When Pyarelal appeared in a businesslike manner, he glanced at the audience, as a great artist resurrected from the dead might regard the living, without surprise, but with restrained curiosity; and then he spotted Nirmalya. He was pleased, and sent him a knowing smile. Bowing, but gazing above the audience’s heads, he did an elaborate namaskar, almost as much part of the performance as the dance itself. The tourists stirred vaguely, respectfully, as at the beginning of a speech; they didn’t know what the correct response to this was. He sat down before the harmonium with great solemnity; the dignity was expected of him; he’d cast aside the other Pyarelal, the one who was married to Tara, with three children, Puaji to the nephews and nieces, old Puaji, who would never go away, and who lost his temper at night. There was a sound of bells, again, again, and then Jayashree Nath, the bells round her ankles vibrating with every step, appeared on the platform with a young tabla player who ducked his head and glanced goofily at the visitors. She, however, had a far more worldly, assured air, like a tourist guide, cheerful, mechanical, underneath her apsara’s appearance; and, in a tourist guide’s English, she related the story she was about to perform, the perennially winsome one about Radha going with her friends to the banks of the Yamuna and there being harried by Krishna.

When she began to dance, and Pyarelal, clearing his throat daintily, to croon the words in raga Khamaj into the microphone, the explanation gradually became superfluous. The suburban women’s blue eyes sparkled like chips of aquamarine, as if extra interpretation were unnecessary. Repeatedly, surreptitiously, but in a strangely public way, like a lover who wants to make his excitement plain to anyone who cares to notice, Pyarelal glanced at Nirmalya; today’s performance was for him. The tourists were never not appreciative; even on bad days, when they danced and sang with less involvement, going through the motions in a way only they were aware of, the tourists’ applause was always spontaneous and automatic. This left Pyarelal content but secretly disconnected; he knew he’d been transformed into a fresco, a gilded element in a larger ‘Indian’ experience. Today, Nirmalya’s presence gave the performance a hidden competitiveness; they were no longer ‘Indian’ artistes, they felt they needed to show him that they were good artistes. So, although the tourists were innocent of this, Pyarelal and even Jayashree Nath and the tabla player were engaged in a give-and-take of concealed pleasure, of revelations and gestures, with the intruder.

Once, he took Pyarelal upstairs, to the veranda outside the Sea Lounge, where his parents, a couple of splendid potted plants their neighbours, sat on cane chairs having tea. ‘Pyarelalji, do sit down!’ said Mallika Sengupta, as he lowered himself cautiously into the forbidding oasis. ‘Will you have some tea?’ asked Apurva Sengupta, and Pyarelal made one of his exaggerated gestures, humble and overwrought, which could have meant anything. Tea arrived, and Pyarelal watched fastidiously as the waiter poured the weak brew into a china cup; ‘Bas, bas,’ he interjected with dignity as the man added milk. He began to relax; thoughtful, but every nerve sensitive, he stirred the tea with a spoon.

TWO MONTHS AGO, Nirmalya and Mallika Sengupta had gone for the first time to Shyamji’s house.

‘It is very far, didi,’ Shyamji had warned her, as if she’d suddenly threatened, unreasonably, to journey to a wilderness. ‘A very small place — we don’t have much to show. .’

‘What nonsense!’ said Mrs Sengupta, in total control, as usual, of her decision, distracted by the heat, a neglected spot of powder on the tip of her nose.

Shyamji had recovered instantly and smoothed his hair back as he went out of the apartment; he’d said very sincerely, his pride recollected:

‘Please do come, didi. We’d be very happy if you did.’

When they arrived finally after an hour and a half in the summer evening, moving from familiar terrain into unfamiliar Matunga, through dust, oil-slicks and traffic past the slums of Dharavi, they found Shyamji in spotless white kurta and pyjamas, and Sumati, smiling, her pallu covering her head, waiting for them.

‘Aiye, aiye, didi,’ said Sumati. ‘Oh, I’m so glad baba came too. Vel-come ,’ she said to him in English. ‘Kyun, did I say it right?’ and laughed loudly.

Shyamji and Sumati vacated their places on the divan for Mrs Sengupta and Nirmalya, and sat on an old sofa opposite. Hurriedly, Sumati went inside to make tea; the small sitting room was divided from the kitchen and the bedroom inside by a curtain and a wall. She came out briefly again with a tray with two glasses of water for the visitors and stood before them; they didn’t know, for a moment, what to do. Caste was not, of course, the problem; for what can keep you from accepting food and drink in a brahmin’s house? No, caste, anyway, was an irrelevance for the Senguptas — but other questions preoccupied them. Shyamji was watching patiently; but the Senguptas didn’t drink water that wasn’t boiled; they’d agreed amongst themselves to ban all water offered to them outside home, unless, of course, it came from a completely trusted source. Still Sumati, in her innocence, hovered like a spirit of solicitude, a half-smile on her lips; Mrs Sengupta, hot in her sari, hesitated, then picked up the glass and, as if this were the logical thing to do, placed it on the table in front of her. Nirmalya, faced with the tumbler, retreated almost visibly into his own awkwardness: ‘No, I’m all right,’ he said, and Sumati protested in disbelief, ‘Kya, baba, you don’t want water?’ and the tumbler returned to the kitchen behind the curtain from where it had come. Behind the divan, on the wall, was Pandit Ram Lal’s portrait, utterly still. And, from a distance, you could hear kirtans from the gurdwara’s loudspeaker.