Amit Chaudhuri: Real Time: Stories and a Reminiscence

“No, no,” said the guru, smiling at her naiveté and shaking his head. “She made them for you — just eat them and see.” She wasn’t sure if she wanted to touch them; they looked quite rich.

“I’ll have one in the evening,” she consoled him. “When Chatterjee saheb comes. He’ll like them with his tea.” But in the evening, Mr. Chatterjee demurred.

“This’ll give me indigestion,” he said; but he was distracted as well. No sooner had he been given his extension than a bickering had started among a section of the directors about it; not in his presence, of course, but he was aware of it. At such times, he couldn’t quite focus on his wife’s music lessons, or on the guru; the guru was like a figure who’d just obtruded upon Mr. Chatterjee’s line of vision, but whom he just missed seeing. “You know sweets like these don’t agree with me.” The sweets were an irrelevance; if the two directors — one of whom, indeed, he’d appointed himself — succeeded in fanning a trivial resentment, it would be a nuisance, his position might even be in slight danger; he must be clear about that. You worked hard, with care and foresight, but a little lack of foresight — which was what appointing Sengupta to the Board had turned out to be — could go against you. Sometimes, he knew from experience and from observing others, what you did to cement your position was precisely what led to undoing it.

Mrs. Chatterjee felt a twinge of pity for Mohanji. As if in recompense, she ate half a ladoo herself. Then, unable to have any more, she asked John to distribute them among the cook, the maidservant, and himself. “They’re very good,” she told them. She could see her husband was preoccupied, and whispered her instructions.

* * *

SENSING A TENSIONfor the next couple of weeks, which was unexpected since it came at the time of the extension being summoned, a time, surely, for personal celebration, she herself grew unmindful, and withdrew into conversations with a couple of friends she felt she could trust. Once or twice, the guru asked her, full of enthusiasm, what she’d thought of the ladoos, but never got a proper answer. “Oh those were nice,” she said absently, leaving him hungry for praise. A slight doubt had been cast upon the extension, although it was trivial and this was most probably an ephemeral crisis; still, she felt a little cheated that it should happen now. It also made her occasionally maudlin with the guru, less interested in the lesson than in putting unanswerable questions to him.

“Mohan bhai, what’s the good of my singing and doing all this hard work? Who will listen?” How quickly their moods change, he thought. There you are, he thought, with your readymade audience of colleagues and colleagues’ wives; what more do you want? The questions she’d asked chafed him, but he skirted them, like a person avoiding something unpleasant in his path. One day, however, he was feeling quite tired (because of a bad night he’d had) and lacked his usual patience; he said:

“One mustn’t try to be what one can’t, behanji. You have everything. You should be happy you can sing a little, and keep your husband and your friends happy. You can’t be a professional singer, behanji, and you shouldn’t try to be one.” Mrs. Chatterjee was silenced briefly by his audacity and wondered what had made him say it. For the first time in days, she saw him through the haze of her personal anxieties; for a few moments she said nothing. Then she said:

“Perhaps you’re right.” Her eyes, though, had tears in them.

When Mr. Chatterjee heard of this exchange, he was very angry. In spite of all they had, he’d never felt he’d given his wife enough. And because she sang, and sometimes sang before him, it was as if she gave him back something extra in their life together, and always had. It wasn’t as if she had the presence or the personality or the charm that some of the wives in her position had; it wasn’t as if she was an asset to the society they moved about in. Her singing was her weakness, and it was that weakness that made him love her more than he otherwise would have.

“How dare he say such a thing?” he said, genuinely outraged. He was angry enough to forget, temporarily, the little factions that had come into being in the company. “I will speak to him. As if he can get away just like that, disclaiming all responsibility.” Without really meaning it, he added, “You can always get another teacher, you know.”

Two days later, he delayed setting out for his office, and deliberately waited for the guru to arrive. Barely had the music lesson begun, and the recognisable sounds of voice and harmonium emerged from the room, than Mr. Chatterjee looked in, fully suited, and ready to go. The guru, seeing him, this vision of executive energy, bowed his head quickly in mid-song, privileged that the Managing Director should have stopped to listen to him for a few moments. Mr. Chatterjee was impatient today, and wasn’t taking in the Surdas bhajan; he had a meeting with the Board.

“Ji saheb,” said the guru, stopping.

“Guruji,” said Mr. Chatterjee, “please don’t say things that will upset my wife. That is not your job. You are here to give her songs and improve her singing. If you can’t do that properly…”

“What did I say, Chatterjee saheb?” asked the guru, interrupting him, and noticeably concerned. “Saheb, she has ten new songs now…”

“Don’t evade the issue,” snapped Mr. Chatterjee. “You told her, didn’t you, that she could never be a real singer. What is your responsibility, then? Do you take a hundred rupees a turn just to sit here and listen to her?”

The guru’s hands had grown clammy. “I won’t listen to such nonsense again,” said Mr. Chatterjee, shutting the door behind him. “Please switch off the air conditioner, behanji,” the guru said after Mr. Chatterjee had gone. “I’m feeling cold.”

* * *

IT WASN’T AS IFthe guru began to dislike Mr. Chatterjee after this. He took his words, in part, as a childish outburst, and they couldn’t quite hurt him. One thing he understood anew was how little Mr. Chatterjee knew about music, about the kind of ardour and talent it required. But why should he? Mr. Chatterjee’s lack of knowledge of music seemed apposite to his position. If he’d been a musician, he wouldn’t be Mr. Chatterjee.

The guru knew that if he wasn’t careful, the Chatterjees might discard him; Mrs. Chatterjee might find herself someone else. He’d also begun to feel a little sorry for her, because of what he’d said; he could have replied, perhaps, that, given the right training from early childhood, she might have been a better-known singer, or, if she’d been in the right place and at the right time, she might have become one; there had been no need to quite expose her like that.

For the following two days, Mrs. Chatterjee, going around in her chauffeur-driven car from the club to the shops in the mornings, couldn’t bring herself to hum or sing even once; the driver noted her silence. She’d suddenly realised that her need to sing had been a minor delusion, that she and her husband and the world could get by without it — she hadn’t been honest with herself; and no one had been honest with her. She remained polite with the guru when he came — they’d started to watch each other warily now, in secret — but went through the new bhajans with him without any real involvement, glancing again and again at her watch to see when the hour was up. Then, after a few more days, she realised she was taking herself too seriously; the force of the guru’s words diminished, and she began to, once more, look forward to the lesson.

* * *

MEANWHILE, MR. CHATTERJEEhad dealt with the problem at his end, after making, first of all, several late-night telephone calls to some of the foreign shareholders and directors. He had to shout to make himself heard, sometimes keeping his wife from sleep. “Are you sure, Humphrey?” he asked, putting the onus of responsibility on the Englishman. And then, “Yes, I can see there’s no other way…” Two days later, he met Sengupta, the man he’d employed four years ago, and appointed to the Board last year, face-to-face across the large rosewood table. “R.C.,” he said, referring to him by his initials (he himself was “A.K.”—Amiya Kumar — to his colleagues), “you know why we’re here. If there was any dissatisfaction or disagreement, we could have thrashed it out between ourselves. But that was not to be.” As if digressing philosophically, he observed, “Brite has had a grand history, it has a present, and a future. No person is more important than that future.” Interrupting himself, he sighed. “Anyway, I’ve spoken to Dick and Humphrey, and they agree that even the project that was your undertaking is going to fold up. It shows no signs of promise. It was a mistake.” Sengupta had said nothing so far, not because he felt he was in the wrong, but because he thought his position, because of what he’d done and the way he’d done it, was a weak one; changes were necessary, but he could see now that he should have gone about looking for them in a more knowing way. “One thing I want to say before I resign, A.K.,” interjected Sengupta, looking at the bright space outside the large glass windows, “is that I’ve had a wonderful few years at Brite, and I regret it couldn’t be for longer. However, I don’t always agree with the company’s style of functioning — it’s not democratic.” “Companies aren’t democracies, R.C.,” said Mr. Chatterjee, with the exaggerated patience of a man who was getting his way. “You weren’t elected to the Board, I appointed you to it. The election was a formality. Anyway, if you wanted to effect some changes, you should have waited a couple of years. You were certainly in the running.” Sengupta shook his head and smiled. “I don’t know about that. Some of us make it, some of us don’t — it’s a bit of luck and a bit of merit, and a bit of something else.” He looked at his hands. “I know my opportunity won’t come again; that’s all right. But — another thing — I don’t think our personal world should encroach upon our business world, should it? I’m a great admirer of Ruma, a simple soul, a very pure person, but do you think that those costly parties with all that music and singing are necessary?” “Social gatherings and parties have always been part of company policy; they raise its profile and perform all kinds of functions, you know that. The music came at no extra cost,” Mr. Chatterjee observed firmly. R. C. Sengupta waved a hand. “You’re right, you’re right, of course! But the teacher, excellent singer, what’s his name, I heard you were going to sponsor some show or performance to showcase him. Of course, I don’t know if what I’ve heard…” Mr. Chatterjee bristled. “Who told you that? That’s absolute rubbish. He teaches my wife — I think it’s unfair to draw either of them into this.” He paused and reflected. “An idea may have been floated at one time, as such things are, but it was revoked.” He straightened some papers on the table. “I personally thought it was a good idea. More and more companies are doing it, you know. Music is a great but neglected thing, a great part of our tradition. We should extend patronage where it’s due. It can do Brite no harm.” He looked at his watch. “We’re late for lunch,” he said.