Amit Chaudhuri - The Immortals

He was grateful, settling into the front seat; he’d have had to take the local train otherwise. ‘Where are you going now, didi?’ he asked, politely, almost an afterthought, delicately adjusting the kurta sleeves which had dark patches beneath the armpits; but with a curiosity that hovered on the brink of wonder, as if he were convinced that her daily routines were bound to be interesting and unpredictable. And, having known Mrs Sengupta for four years, having been close to the family, he was circumspect and cautiously concerned about the sort of journey she was making now, he didn’t want her to ever be too far from what had been her sources of pleasure and well-being. Her reply gladdened him immediately:

‘We’re going to the club. We’ll have lunch there,’ she revealed in an unflappable sing-song, ‘and wait for Mr Sengupta to join us for tea.’

So things were more or less as they were, he thought, nodding in assent inwardly, becoming increasingly calm in the interrupted air conditioning after the little incident with the Fiat; this move to the suburbs, the retirement, hadn’t really changed anything. After a moment, Mallika Sengupta said:

‘In fact, Shyamji, why don’t you join us for lunch? If you’re not doing anything else?’

Traffic lights changed into a church and into mosques. She was pleased with the idea. Residential buildings with names like Jaijaiwanti and Ahir Bhairav widened into new office blocks; the sea came and went slyly. Shyamji was uncomfortable but full of curiosity.

‘Didi,’ he said, looking at the road ahead of him in Shivaji Park, ‘will I be allowed in these clothes?’ for he was in his usual loose white pyjamas and kurta.

‘Of course you will,’ she said, in a tone that dismissed all imaginary opposition in advance. ‘There are no dress restrictions.’

In the foyer of this old, slate-roofed building, she impatiently signed him into the voluminous register which was open upon a page full of names and signatures and distinguished scrawls, while Shyamji stood beside her, with the mildly questioning furrow on the brow that was almost always present these days, adorned by the remnant of a small orange tika that had been put there by his mother after the morning pujas, neither at a loose end nor relaxed, waiting for something — some embarrassment or unforeseen glitch. The moment didn’t come; as you entered the corridor, the members usually looked up from their food or conversation or glass of fresh lime soda to stare at you, but only if they already knew you or thought they should; unashamedly, almost with warmth, certainly without hostility, they rested their eyes on the newcomer, as if they were about to smile; but they had an instinct for not dwelling at all on people or detail that didn’t interest them. Hardly anyone noticed Shyamji.

Climbing up the three steps to the veranda, Mallika Sengupta, unaware of Shyamji’s discomfiture, clutching her handbag, led the way. They entered the dining hall. Shyamji, decorous, eyes lowered in expectation, and Nirmalya, his chappals making a slight hissing sound as he dragged them on the wooden floorboards, followed. Shyamji would not have understood Nirmalya’s embattled defiance, or what he thought he was fighting. He, unimpeachable in his white kurta-pyjamas, had become very serious, and mildly disapproving, as he always was, of any hint of flippancy.

They were surrounded by the din of waiters and executives, lawyers, businessmen. They sat at a table, the menu card, propped up on a holder, upright before them. It said in undistinguished bureaucratic type, ‘Chicken Xacutti, Brown rice, Daal, Kachumbar salad’, and, beneath this, the same list was faithfully repeated, except that ‘chicken’ was substituted with ‘paneer’. And, further below the main course, the terse but inviting addition, ‘Ginger pudding and custard’.

‘What will you have, Shyamji?’ asked Mallika Sengupta. Waiters were disappearing at the far end of the hall behind a partition that separated kitchen from dining room.

‘Vegetarian,’ he said, simply, as if that would solve all his problems; he glanced around him, bemused. Orders were placed with a tall, swarthy waiter who suddenly loomed before them, nodding and writing with a pencil as Mrs Sengupta spoke. Then they sat silently for a while, Shyamji toying with and unfolding the napkin, Mrs Sengupta momentarily contented, as if she were giving him not only lunch, but the club on a platter. Words were unnecessary between teacher and students; finally, as water was being poured from a jug into their glasses, Shyamji enquired, his brow creased, thoughtful:

‘Didi, how much does it take to be a member of this club?’

And Mrs Sengupta felt a pang for him, too brief to be called sadness — again, it was a sort of pity she felt, as when she’d seen him standing absently in the bright sunlight on Pali Hill next to the broken-down Fiat.

‘Seven or eight thousand,’ she said quickly; she noticed the gold-plated buttons on the kurta, the hair combed serenely back. ‘Mr Sengupta would know.’

He nodded, abstracted and serious.

‘Achha hai,’ he said firmly, dispassionately, as if he didn’t mind facing up to the truth, however surprising it might be. ‘It’s a nice place.’

Shyamji left them soon after lunch; his series of ‘tuitions’ in this part of the city began from early afternoon. Mother and son approached the sofas on the veranda; they stood against the nets that had been hung along the side to keep out crows, marauding cats, and the cricket ball, waiting to bid farewell to Shyamji.

‘Bhojan se anand aa gaya,’ he said, referring to the food. He smiled affectionately, teasingly, at the boy; then the smile became formal, but nonetheless remained warm, as he turned to look at Mrs Sengupta. ‘It was a great joy.’

‘Shyamji, you did not eat properly,’ she remonstrated.

‘What, didi,’ he said, upbraiding her gently; his kurta looked as good as new — there wasn’t a hint of dishevelment about him.

Nirmalya and his mother sat on one of the sofas, waiting for early afternoon to dilate to teatime. Others were immobile, holding the first evening papers in their hands, with digestion. The nets hadn’t succeeded in keeping the club cat-free; they crept to the tables and meowed persuadingly, begging adeptly, without desperation; and the smaller children, who’d already finished school, and were sitting oddly alone in their uniforms, their ‘house’ colours displayed on sashes or badges, or had been briefly reunited with a parent, dropped bits of steak sandwich in their paths, pleased to be showering them frugally with their teatime snacks, which the cats pawed without eagerness. And, on the whole, there were few ‘dress restrictions’; grown-up men danced slowly past in shorts and strapped sandals; and once, a handsome, well-built teenage boy, taking a short cut between the bathroom and the pool, ran across in swimming trunks, a towel over his shoulders, his hair ink-black and wet, raising a few eyebrows and titters.

At half past four, when an ageing gentleman at a neighbouring table had begun to doze, Apurva Sengupta arrived, his jacket folded over the crook of one arm.

‘Ah, there you are!’ said Mallika Sengupta, savouring the accident of suddenly spotting him.

And Nirmalya, seeing his father in his post-retirement incarnation, of the world of corporations and yet not quite of it, content to be part of the ghostly transitoriness of the afternoon and teatime as he wouldn’t have been before — Nirmalya could sense, almost, as he used to when he was a schoolboy, that they had something in common, which he didn’t try to put a name to.

A FEW OF the things that had furnished the apartment in Thacker Towers reappeared now in this small flat. A large oil by the soon-to-be-forgotten Vithal, of two white horses galloping in a green space, a picture with a technicolour air, full of melodramatic energy, hung above the sofa from the wall on the left, and seemed to dominate the room with its drumming of hooves. It had been a coveted acquisition when they’d bought it four years ago. But, otherwise, the drawing room and the flat itself had a crisp, post-retirement elegance; things were scaled down in comparison to the spaces they’d inhabited before, and the arrangement of furniture, carpets, plant-life and decoration was economical and bright.