Amit Chaudhuri - A New World

The weather dictated other small changes. Mrs. Chatterjee had to move the plants in the verandah (which she appeared to ignore but which, as it turned out, she actually tended to carefully when no one else was around) to the right, where they could get more light. And the clothesline, on which the clothes used to act like weather-vanes to the wind and heat, was moved to Jayojit’s parents’ bathroom.

A few times, of late, the Admiral had found his grandson playing hide-and-seek among the two clotheslines that had been hung in his bathroom. He’d bent to wash his face, and had heard a sound; unbending, he’d say, “Who’s that?” Bonny emerged from behind the drying clothes. “What’s this, dadu,” said the Admiral. “You’re here?” “You didn’t see me at first, did you, dadu?”

“You have a regular garden here,” said Jayojit to his mother, relaxing in the verandah. “What are these plants?”

“Oh, don’t ask me,” said Mrs. Chatterjee. “Mali used to come, but he doesn’t come these days. All for the good. .” she pondered. “I have to pay Maya two hundred rupees, we can’t afford another one.” Always exaggerating this state of being hard up, he thought. She turned to look at a plant, as if she’d just noticed it. “That one’s eglonomia; that one,” shifting her gaze, “is money plant.”

“Nice leaves,” said Jayojit, looking critically at the eglonomia. He tore off part of a leaf — it was dying — with a finicky, calculated movement. The sun dimmed, as if it had been snuffed out, and then kindled again as a cloud moved past.

THE 29TH OF MAY. A small desk ANZ Readymoney calendar, with photographs of wildlife accompanying each month; it had come as a gift from the bank. Jayojit’s mother was choosy about calendars; calendars came and calendars went; there were calendars from steel plants and fledgling joint-ventures that were given away as gifts; this one she had kept on the wall-unit in the living room, next to an old, wooden, miniature tusker that was advancing somewhere, and which would look deprived of purpose without it next to it.

Jayojit had gone out to the American Express office on Old Court House Street, whose façade was dominated by opaque sheets of glass, to change some traveller’s cheques, and then passed the Governor’s (once the Viceroy’s) house on the way back, to the Grindlays Bank in the south, where he had an account. He had opened the account three years ago, not so much on an impulse as guided by instinct, not to speak of fresh opportunities the bank was presenting to NRIs, so that interest rates were not only higher here than in the recession-ridden West, but that, more promisingly, the money could be converted, whenever he wished it, to foreign exchange. They sent him bank statements, of course; and cheque books.

“I waited in the bank for a while — after all, it’s air-conditioned — reading all the ads for ANZ Readymoney. I thought, what the hell, it’s not pouring too heavily, I’ll risk it and take a cab.”

After a while he said, as if admitting to something slightly embarrassing:

“I like that branch.”

The Admiral said:

“Yes, I like it too. And that fellow who works there— Sanyal; Dr. Sanyal’s son. Always helpful.”

Jayojit, though, when he walked through the glass doors into the air-conditioned space, forgot about Sanyal. Once you came into close contact with the staff, you realized that things were being run with some tardiness and confusion; not confusion, perhaps, but something like it. Jayojit disliked being ignored for too long; he realized, wryly, that he had the fragile pride of the dollar-earner in these matters.

“Sir, could you wait for a few minutes?”

A girl in a cotton sari, an outline of kohl around her eyes; he turned from her to gaze absently upon a rather innocent poster of a young, and apparently happy and affluent, couple filling in a form.

The girl continued to write for about five minutes. She was not aware that he was looking at her again; until he let his attention drift and shifted his gaze towards the other people in the bank.

“Sir?”

He had begun to daydream; it was him she was calling. At last! She was looking straight at him. He shifted out of the sofa; he felt conscious of his largeness, but he used his imposingness unobtrusively on these occasions.

There was an air-conditioner behind her. (But this must be so much nicer than home, thought Jayojit, trying to imagine what her home must be like.)

“Sir, you wish to deposit fifteen hundred dollars into which account, savings or fixed?”

Her voice was girlish, but detached and polite; in spite of its lack of volume and insistence, it was clearly audible among other voices and transactions.

“Fixed,” he said after a moment. He was probably not as conversant with these terms as he should be.

He was transferring this money because, over the next two years at least, he’d be here for part of the year; that, after all, was the arrangement. Bonny was to be with him. Better to have some money earning interest when he was away. She bent her head to write something again. Jayojit luxuriated in the breeze coming from the air-conditioner. He noticed that there was no vermilion in the middle parting. The pleasure this artificial breeze gave him never lessened; it relaxed him whenever he happened to be in its path.

“I’ve never heard this name before,” she said, smiling. It was as if she’d let this slip out accidentally.

The absence of vermilion did not necessarily mean she was unmarried; at least, not these days any more.

“That’s true,” he said, reluctantly drawn into the conversation. “It is quite unusual.” He wondered again what “Jayojit” exactly meant, and why his parents had given him this name. “The one who is victorious over victory itself.” His parents must really have been straining to find a name that was new, a name not in common currency. And they had created this mutation. Then, as if in reaction, they’d given his younger brother quite a traditional name: Ranajit.

As if she’d noticed something or somebody, she said:

“Please give me a few minutes.”

Jayojit turned and saw a middle-aged man who’d probably been waiting behind him for some time return to a sofa where other customers sat. He absently held his passport in one hand, in case she needed it. A couple of minutes had passed and a girl from an enclave within called, “Sunita, could you please complete this rupee draft, please?” Sunita, still attending to Jayojit, looked up and said, “It’s completed.” “No, no,” said the other girl (she was dressed in a salwaar kameez), “this one’s to Bombay.” The woman did not reply for a few seconds; she was looking at the form; and then, plangently, “Give me a few seconds, yaar,” she said. “Ten different things. .” she muttered in a lower voice.

After some moments had passed, she continued in that low voice, murmuring her surprise to herself:

“Surajit I’ve heard of, and Ranajit — and I have a cousin called Biswajit. .”

At first he thought it was rain again, and then discovered it was the air-conditioner, its hum imitating the sound of a downpour. Unlikely name for Ranajit, though, for a less war-like person one wouldn’t find, nor one as absorbed in the small-scale promises of corporate work; or so Jayojit imagined.

None of this— this work — required special ability, he was sure; mainly dependability and some intelligence. She needed the money to buy her own saris and stick-on bindis. Maybe she had a boyfriend.

“My younger brother’s called Ranajit,” he said.

She adjusted her sari, as if she knew she was being watched.

“What’s the dollar like today?” he asked abrasively, as if asking after the health of a brash young relative who seldom fell ill.