Amit Chaudhuri - Real Time - Stories and a Reminiscence

“That’s all right, behanji,” he said; from the first day, she had been his “respected sister.” “We’ll have less time for the lesson today, that’s all,” he said, chuckling, but also asserting himself subtly. Then, to placate her, he said quickly, “Maybe I arrived a little early.”

This morning was quiet, except for the activity in the kitchen that indicated the essentials were being attended to. In the bedroom, next to the huge double bed, the harmonium had already been placed on the carpet by the bearer, John. The air inside had that early-morning coolness where an air conditioner has not long ago been switched off.

“A glass of thanda paani,” he said after sitting down. This request materialised a couple of minutes later, the glass of cold water held aloft on a plate by John, while Mrs. Chatterjee turned the pages of her songbook unhurriedly, glancing at bhajan after bhajan written in her own handwriting. They were too high up — on the fourteenth floor — to hear the car horns or any of the other sounds below clearly; the sea was visible from the windows, but too distant to be audible. Sometimes her husband, Mr. Chatterjee, would be present — and he’d shake his head from time to time, while sitting on the bed, listening to the guru and his wife going over a particular phrase, or line. Sometimes he was content doing this even while taking off his tie and waiting for tea, his office-creased jacket recently discarded on the bed, beside him.

Indeed, he had married her twenty-two years ago for this very reason: that he might hear her sing continually. Not everyone might agree about the enormity of her talent; but something had touched him that day when he’d met her in the afternoon in his still-to-be in-laws’ place in one of the more distant reaches of a small town, and heard her sing, not the usual Tagore song, but a Hindi devotional by Meerabai. He was the “catch” then — a medium-sized fish that had the potential to be a big one.

Fifteen years they’d lived together in Bombay now, and for ten years in this flat that gave the illusion from certain angles that the sea approached very near it. And for fifteen years, almost, he had wanted his wife’s voice to be heard more widely than it was — what he thought of as “widely” was a hazy audience comprising mainly colleagues from his company, and from the many other companies he had to infrequently, but repeatedly, come into contact with — though it wasn’t as if he’d mind terribly if the audience extended beyond this group of semi-familiar faces into the unclear territory of human beings outside.

She had a weak voice, admittedly. It managed one and a half octaves with some difficulty; it was more at ease in the lower register, but quavered when it reached the upper sa and re, something the guru had grown used to. When she sang “Meera ke prabhu” now, towards the end of the song, there was, again, that quaver. It was something she met reasonably bravely, head-on, or ignored it altogether, as did the guru. Neither could continue their respective pursuits — she, of being a singer, he, of being her teacher — if they took the quaver and its signal too seriously; they knew that one or two of these limitations were irremediable, but without much significance in relation to the other dimensions of their partnership.

“How was that?” she asked after she’d finished. She needed to know, in a perfunctory but genuine way, his opinion.

“It was all right today,” he said. He was never quite ingratiating in his response, but never harshly critical, either. They had reached a silent mandate that this was how it should be. He went over a phrase as the servant brought in a tray with teacups and a small plate of biscuits.

It was always a pleasure to hear him, even when he was humming, as he was now. And he was always humming. There was no denying his gift; but he probably still didn’t quite know what to do with it. He was almost careless with it. He sipped the tea slowly and carefully selected a biscuit. Sometimes they might give him a gulab jamun, towards which he’d show no lack of intent or hesitation, or a jalebi.

* * *

HE WAS CERTAINLY NOTthe first teacher she’d had. He was the latest in a line that went back these fifteen years; he’d arrived to take his place at the head of the line, and to succeed his predecessors, roughly sixteen or seventeen months ago. She had interviewed him, of course, or conducted a little audition in the sitting room, during which she’d asked him, respectfully, to “sing something.” He had descended on the carpet self-consciously, between the glass table and the sofas, and enchanted her, humbly but melodiously, with a bhajan she couldn’t remember having heard before. She shook her head slowly from side to side to denote her acknowledgement of his prowess, and his ability to touch her, and because she hadn’t heard anyone sing quite so well in a long time; and yet it was an interview, at the end of which there was a silence; and then she said: “Wah! Very good!”

At first, she’d called him “Masterji” (which she still did at times), as she had all her former teachers. There was no formal, ceremonial seal on the relationship, as there is between guru and shishya; he was there to do his job, to be a teacher, and she to learn. Nevertheless, the relationship had its own definition. They’d grown dependent on each other; he, for the modicum of respect he received here (fit enough for a guru, even though he might be a mere purveyor of knowledge rather than a repository of it), and the by no means negligible amount he got paid; there were also the little ways in which Mr. Chatterjee helped him out, with his official contacts. As for Mrs. Chatterjee, she liked the tunes he set the bhajans to, and could also recognise the presence of accomplishment; and she was too tired to look for another teacher. She used to change teachers every three or four years, when they began to dominate her too much; or when they became irregular. But he was much younger than she, and she’d grown fond of him — he was very mild and had none of the offensive manners that gurus sometimes have; she’d come to call him “Masterji” less and less, and addressed him, increasingly, as “Mohanji” or “Mohan bhai.”

* * *

MR. CHATTERJEE CAME HOMEat a quarter to seven, and called out to his wife, “Ruma!”

Later they had tea together in the balcony, facing Marine Drive and watching the sun set at seven-thirty, because it was late summer. Everywhere the glow of electricity became more apparent as the swathe of pink light permeating the clouds above the sea slowly disappeared; now darkness, and with it an artificial nocturnal light, was coming to this part of Bombay.

“Sometimes I feel we have so much, Ruma,” Mr. Chatterjee sighed. She didn’t know what he meant; she didn’t even know if it was a complaint or an uncharacteristic confession of gratitude. Of course it wasn’t true; that was obvious — they didn’t have children. Towards the beginning, they’d tried various kinds of treatment; and then they’d given up trying without entirely giving up hope. Now, as you slowly cease to miss a person who’s no longer present, they no longer missed the child they didn’t have. They gave themselves to their lives together.

“We should go to the party by nine at least,” he said. In spite of the tone of alacrity he used with his wife, the idea of having to go to the party exhausted him tonight. To change the subject, and also to allow the communion they’d had with evening to survive a little, he asked:

“What did he teach you today? A new bhajan?” Today was Thursday, the day the “he” in the enquiry came to the house. She thought briefly, half her mind already busying itself for the social activity ahead, for the new sari to be worn, and said: