16

This time, when it was time to leave home, Harihar Ray took his son with him. He said, ‘He never gets anything to eat at home, but if we’re away from here, there’ll at least be milk, and ghee—it will do his body good.’

Apu had never been anywhere since the day he was born. In his village, he had been to the Bakul tree grove, the Gosain garden, the wild mangosteen grove, the riverbank, and at the furthest, the paved road to Nababganj—that was the extent of his travels. Sometimes, in the month of Baishakh or Jaistha, when it grew very hot, his mother would stand at the river ghat in the afternoons. On the far bank of the river, in the fields of straw, the babul trees would be bursting with yellow blossoms; cattle would be grazing. The sight of the big silk-cotton tree, draped with thick gulancha vines, made it seem like a relic from some ancient age. The cowherds would bring their cattle down to the river’s edge to drink, and Akrur Majhi, the fisherman from their own village, would paddle out in his small fishing dinghy to set his wicker traps. Here and there in the fields, clusters of golden shower blossoms would sway in the gentle afternoon breeze. And precisely at that time, some days, when he gazed towards the far side of the river, where the blue sky bent down over the green line of the distant village forest at the edge of the green straw fields, something strange would happen to his heart—something he didn’t know how to put into words. He would only wait for his sister to come out of the water and then say, ‘Didi, Didi, look, look over there!’ Then, pointing to the far end of the field, he would add, ‘There! Behind that tree? It’s so far away, isn’t it?’

Durga would laugh and say, ‘Far away—is that all you’re pointing at? Oh, you’re crazy!’

Today, for the first time, this same Apu set foot outside his village. For several days beforehand, he had been so excited he could hardly sleep at night. He had counted down the days, and at last, the day of departure had arrived.

The path from their village curved, leaving the Nababganj road to the right, and joined the unmetalled road to Asharhu-Durgapur outside the fields. As soon as they were on the Durgapur road, he asked his father, ‘Baba, which way is the railway line, the one the trains run on?’

His father said, ‘It’ll be just ahead, come on. We’ll cross the railway line soon enough.’

That one time, their cow Rangi’s calf had gone missing. For two or three days they searched everywhere but couldn’t find it anywhere. He had gone with his sister to the south field to look for the calf. It was the month of Poush; the peas in the fields had formed pods. He and his sister were bending down, now and then picking peas from the field and eating them. A little way ahead of them was the paved road to Nababganj. A line of bullock carts, laden with date-palm jaggery, was creaking its way along the road to the market in Asharhu.

His sister was staring intently at the hazy fields far beyond the paved road, as if watching for something. Suddenly she had exclaimed, ‘I have an idea, Apu! Let’s go see the railway line. Want to go?’

Apu, astonished, had looked at his sister’s face and said, ‘The railway line? But that’s so far away! How will we get there?’

His sister said, ‘Is it really that far? Who told you that? It’s just on the other side of that paved road, isn’t it?’

Apu said, ‘If it were close, wouldn’t we be able to see it? Can you see it from the paved road? Come on, Didi, let’s go and see.’

The two of them stood on the Nababganj road for a long time, craning their necks. His sister said, ‘It’s very, very far, isn’t it? We can’t go. You can’t see anything. If we go that far, how will we get back?’ But her longing gaze remained fixed on the distance; she felt both temptation and fear. Suddenly, his sister, in a reckless mood, declared, ‘Come on, let’s go see, Apu! How far can it be? We’ll be back before noon. Maybe a train will be passing. We’ll tell Ma we were delayed looking for the calf.’

First, they glanced around to see if anyone was watching them. Then, climbing down from the paved road, the brother and sister broke into a run, straight south across fields, marshes, and wetlands, under the midday sun. A run, a run, a run—the red road of Nababganj fell farther and farther behind. The paddy field after harvest, the water-station grove, the Thakurdighi pond, all fell away to their left; to their right, far in the distance, lay other landmarks. Ahead, a small marsh came into view. His sister laughed, looked at him, and said, ‘If Ma finds out, she’ll skin us alive.’ Apu laughed once—a daredevil’s laugh. And then they ran again, ran, ran—for the first time in their lives, their fresh young blood was intoxicated with the joy of unbridled, boundless freedom. Who had time to think about what would happen later?

What happened later was not pleasant. After going some distance, they came upon a large swamp directly in front of them, thick with hogla reeds and shola plants. On top of that, his sister lost their way. Not a single village was in sight—only paddy fields, marshes, and thickets of cane. It was impossible to pass through the dense cane groves; their feet sank into the mud and water. The sun grew so hot that even in the winter month, sweat poured from their bodies. His sister’s sari was torn in several places by thorns. He himself had to pull thorns from his own feet two or three times. In the end, forget the railway line; just getting home became a challenge. They had come a long way, and the paved road was no longer visible. When, after much difficulty, they waded through water and crossed paddy fields to get back to the paved road, the afternoon had already passed. When they got home, his sister had to tell a whole basketful of lies to save both her own back and his.

And today, that very same railway line would appear before him so easily—no need to run, no getting lost, no scolding to face!

After walking a little farther, he stared in astonishment. An elevated road, much like the paved road to Nababganj, cut through the middle of the field, stretching far to the right and left. Piles of reddish gravel were stacked in rows along the edges. On white iron posts, what looked like many ropes were strung together. As far as the eye could see, these white posts and taut ropes were visible.

His father said, ‘Look, Khoka, there’s the railway line.’

In a flash, Apu dashed through the gate and onto the tracks. Then he began to look up and down the railway line with eyes full of wonder. Why were there two iron rails laid parallel to each other? The train runs on these? Why? Why does it run on iron instead of on the ground? Doesn’t it slip and fall? Why? Are those things called wires? What is that humming sound coming from them? Is news travelling through the wires? Who is sending the news? How do they send it? Is there a station that way? Is there a station this way?

He said, ‘Baba, when will the train come? I want to see a train, Baba.’

‘How can you see a train now? The train comes in the afternoon, there are still two hours to go.’

‘It doesn’t matter, Baba. I want to see it before I go. I’ve never seen one. Please, Baba!’

‘Don’t be like that. This is why I don’t like to take you anywhere. How can you see it now? We’d have to sit here in the blazing sun until one in the afternoon. Come, I’ll show you on our way back.’

In the end, Apu had to trudge along behind his father, his eyes brimming with tears.

You are moving on… you know nothing. What might catch your eye along the path, your large, youthful eyes are devouring your surroundings with a world-consuming hunger. In your own delight, you too are a discoverer of lands. To find the joy of the unknown, one doesn’t have to travel the world. What does it matter to me if someone has been there before me, to the place I set foot in for the first time today, the river in whose waters I took a new bath, the village whose breeze cooled my body? To my senses, it is an undiscovered country. For I, today, for the first time, with my mind, intellect, and heart, have savoured its newness!

Amdob! A small village of farmers—what a lovely name! Women were chopping straw in the courtyards, tethering goats, feeding rice to chickens. The men were drying jute, cutting bamboo. Watching all this, the village was soon left behind, and they were out in the open fields… The marsh was brimming with water… Egrets sat in the fields of uri paddy… The water was hidden beneath the leaves and blossoms of water lilies.

At the edge of the Khalsemari marsh, the vast expanse of the September sky, rain-washed and deep blue, stretched over the lush green fields of early rice. The horizon was ablaze with the magnificent colours of sunset—fantastical mountains of clouds, islands of clouds, oceans of clouds, dream-palaces of clouds… He had never had such an intimate acquaintance with the open sky before. For the eight-year-old boy, the distant land beyond the fields now lifted its veil of mystery.

It was getting very late. His father said, ‘You’re such a gawker. Why do you stand there gaping at everything you see? Walk faster.’

They reached their destination after dusk. The disciple’s name was Lakshman Mahajan, a substantial farmer and a well-to-do householder. He welcomed them with great reverence and made a place for them to stay in the large eight-gabled hall outside the main house.

Lakshman Mahajan’s younger brother’s wife had come to the pond ghat for her morning bath. As she was about to step into the water, her eyes fell on the bank, where she saw an unfamiliar little boy in the banana grove. With a thin stick in his hand, he was pacing back and forth, from one end of the grove to the other, muttering to himself like a madman. She bent her head, came closer, and asked, ‘Whose house have you come to, Khoka?’

Apu’s bravado was reserved for his mother. Away from home, he was terribly shy.

At first, the thought of turning and running crossed Apu’s mind. Then, in a hesitant voice, he said, ‘That house over there.’

The young woman said, ‘The Bhattacharya-thakurs’ house? You’re the Bhattacharya-thakur’s guru’s son? Oh!’

The young woman took him by the hand to her own house. Their homes were separate—a short distance from Lakshman Mahajan’s house, with the pond in between.

The young woman’s manner put Apu at ease, and his shyness melted away. He went inside the house and looked around at the furniture and objects with curiosity. Oh, so many things! They didn’t have things like this at home. These people must be very rich! A clothes rack made of cowrie shells, colourful hanging shikas, woollen birds, glass dolls, clay dolls, shola-pith trees—and so much more! Timidly, he picked up one or two things and turned them over in his hands.

Until now, the young woman hadn’t looked at the boy’s face properly. Seeing him up close, she thought, he’s still such a child, his expression as innocent as a five-year-old’s. She had never seen such a beautiful, guileless look in any other boy’s eyes—such a complexion, such features, such a beautiful face, such large, innocent eyes that looked as if they had been painted with a brush. The young woman felt a great wave of affection for the unfamiliar boy.

Apu sat and told her all sorts of stories—especially about the railway line from the day before.

A little later, the young woman made some mohanbhog and gave it to him to eat. There was a large portion of it in a bowl, with so much ghee that his fingers became smeared with it. Apu took a small bite and was astonished—he had never eaten anything so exquisite before. Why were there raisins in the mohanbhog? His mother’s mohanbhog never had raisins. At home, he would pester his mother, ‘Ma, you have to make me mohanbhog today!’

His mother would smile and say, ‘Alright, I’ll make it for you this afternoon.’ Then she would simply boil some semolina in water, mix in a little jaggery, and create a poultice-like substance, which she would serve lovingly to her son on a bronze sarpuria plate. Apu had always eaten this with delight, never knowing that mohanbhog could be like this. But today, it occurred to him that there was a world of difference between this mohanbhog and the one his mother made! And at once, his heart filled with pity and sympathy for his mother.

Perhaps his mother didn’t even know that this kind of mohanbhog existed! He seemed to understand, in a hazy way, that his mother was poor, that they were poor—and that was why they didn’t have good food at home.

One day, Apu was invited to the house of a Brahmin neighbour. At noon, a girl from that house came and called for him. On the veranda of their kitchen, they carefully laid out a wooden stool for him, sprinkled water on the ground, and prepared a place for him to eat. The girl who had come to fetch him was named Amala. She had a lovely fair complexion, large eyes, and a very pretty face, and was about the same age as his sister. Amala’s mother sat beside him and served him, placing on his leaf-plate some chandrapuli she had made with her own hands. After he had eaten, Amala accompanied him back to his house. That afternoon, while playing, Apu’s toe suddenly got caught in a gap between two bamboo poles of the garden fence. It was a new fence made of freshly split bamboo; the toe was cut and bleeding profusely. If Amala hadn’t rushed over and freed his foot from the gap, his entire toe might have been severed. He couldn’t walk, so Amala carried him in her arms to the side of the granary, plucked some patharkuchi leaves, crushed them, and bandaged his toe. For fear of being scolded by his father, Apu didn’t mention this to anyone.

That night, as he lay in bed, Apu dreamt only of Amala. He was being carried in Amala’s arms, he was sitting beside Amala, he was playing with Amala, Amala was bandaging his toe, he and Amala were running back and forth on the railway line—Amala’s smiling face was with him all through the night in his sleep.

In a daze, he just kept looking for Amala to arrive. All the other children came, the games began, and the morning wore on—but there was no sign of Amala. The young woman from inside the house sent for him to come and eat; every morning and afternoon, she would prepare food for him with her own hands. As he was leaving after his meal, he asked the young woman, ‘Did Amala-didi come this morning?’ No, she had not. As the morning grew later, the games broke up. His father called him for his bath.

Still, where was Amala? His heart swelled with hurt pride. Fine, let her not come! He would be angry with Amala for the rest of his life—he would never speak to her again!

In the afternoon, the games started again. Everyone else came—but not Amala. Even though five or six children had come to play, Apu felt as though he had no one to play with.

No one seemed a suitable playmate. He played listlessly for a while, but still there was no sign of Amala.

The next morning, Amala came. Apu didn’t say a word. He wouldn’t go anywhere near the spot where Amala was sitting. Yet, he kept glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, trying to see if she understood that he was behaving this way because he was angry. At first, Amala truly didn’t understand. But then, when she realized that something was definitely wrong, she went up to him and asked, ‘What is it, Khoka? Why aren’t you talking? What happened?’

Apu didn’t understand all the subtleties. His lip trembled with hurt pride as he said, ‘“What happened,” indeed! As if nothing has happened! Why didn’t you come yesterday?’

Amala was taken aback. ‘I didn’t come, is that it? Is that why you’re angry?’ Apu nodded his head to confirm that this was exactly it. Amala burst out laughing, took Apu by the hand, and led him into the house. When the young woman heard the story, she first laughed until she cried, then, stifling a smile, she said, ‘Well, Amala, it looks like you can’t go home now. What can you do? Since Khoka can’t bear to be without you, you might as well stay here. Or else…’

At the way the young woman spoke, Amala seemed to grasp something and, in a tone of embarrassed protest, said, ‘Oh, stop it, Boudi! If you keep on like that, I’ll never come to your house again!’

A little later, Apu went with Amala to her house. Amala opened their glass-fronted cabinet and showed him a large European doll made of glass, a wax bird, a tree, and so many other things. They had all been bought at the Snanjatra fair in Kaliganj, Apu learned upon asking.

New, new toys—a rubber monkey that would blink its eyes and look at you no matter which way you moved; a doll of some sort that, when you pressed its stomach, would suddenly thrash its arms and legs like an epileptic and play a small tambourine. But the most amazing thing of all was a tin horse. Just as Ranudi’s uncle wound the clock on their veranda, you could wind this horse up with a key, and when you let it go, it would clatter across the floor—it went a long way—just like a real horse.

Seeing this, Apu was dumbfounded. He picked it up and, turning it over and over in astonishment, looked at Amala and said, ‘What kind of horse is this? It’s wonderful! Where did you buy it? How much did it cost?’

After that, Amala opened a vermilion container and showed him something inside—a small piece of something like red tinsel. Apu asked, ‘What’s that? Tinsel?’ Amala laughed and said, ‘Why would it be tinsel? Haven’t you ever seen gold leaf, Apu?’ Apu had never seen gold leaf.

Was gold really that red? He turned the piece of gold leaf over and over, examining it carefully. As he walked back home with Amala, he thought, ‘Oh, my poor Didi has none of these toys. All she does is scrounge for dried nata fruits and rora seeds, and she only gets beaten for stealing other people’s dolls!’ He had never before seen the wealth of toys that another girl his sister’s age could possess. Today, having the chance to make a comparison, his heart melted with immense pity for his sister. If he had money, he would buy Didi a clockwork horse—and a rubber monkey… the one that blinks its eyes and looks at you no matter which way you move…

The young woman had an old pack of cards; not exactly a full pack, but rather a collection of leftover cards from various decks. Apu would sometimes pick them up and shuffle through them. At Ranudi’s house, there were often card games in the afternoon, and he would sit and watch. The ace, the jack, the king, the queen—there would be squabbles over who held which card. It was a fine game! He didn’t know how to play cards; neither his mother nor his sister did.

Some days his mother would go to play cards, but no one really wanted her to join their game; everyone said she didn’t know how to play. On the days she did manage to sit down for a game, she would put on an air of being a seasoned player—but she would be found out soon enough. Someone would say, “Oh, Bou, what is this? You’ve played an ace right here! Didn’t you see he just trumped with the jack of colours? Right in front of your eyes?” His mother, trying hastily to cover her ignorance, would laugh and say, “Oh, you’re right! What a silly mistake, Thakurjhi, I wasn’t paying attention at all.” Then she would resume playing, a little smile on her lips, glancing from one person to another, affecting an air of knowing everyone’s hand, as if she were about to pull off some great move—but a little later, someone would cry out in astonishment, “What is this, Bouma, let me see? Oh, what will become of me! You had such a binti in your hand and you didn’t declare it?” His mother, smiling slyly with a knowing look, would say, “Ah, yes, there’s a story behind that!”

“I didn’t show it on purpose.” In truth, she didn’t fully know what constituted a binti—and her fellow player would snap in anger, “What story is there to tell? You’ve ruined a perfectly good hand! Give the cards to Sejboudi, go on, you don’t have to play anymore—we’ve had enough.” His mother, trying to mask her humiliation, would laugh again—as if nothing had happened, as if it were all a joke and they were only teasing her, and she was taking it in the same spirit.

If only he had a pack of cards, then he, his mother, and his sister could play. After their meal, in the afternoon, by that window on the side of their house that bordered the woods… the one whose shutters had been eaten away by some insect, turning the wood to a powder as fine as mustard-seed… a powder that would shower down with a soft rustle if you touched it, releasing the smell of old wood—and from the woods by the window, the afternoon breeze would carry the bitter scent of the gandhabhedali creeper, and in the thicket of kalmegh plants on the veranda, his sister’s familiar kanchpoka beetle would fly up, then settle, fly up, then settle again—in the lonely afternoon the three of them would spread a mat by that window and play cards to their hearts’ content.

It wouldn’t matter if they didn’t know all the rules for a binti; in their game, it would be fine not to declare a binti—no one would make anyone else get up, no one would say anything insulting, there would be no laughter or ridicule; everyone would play just as they were able. It was the playing that mattered—so what if no binti was ever declared!

That evening, Apu was invited to the bride’s rooms.

Sitting down to eat, he was astonished by the variety of the food and the grandeur of the arrangements. Why were the salt and lime served separately on a small, flower-patterned dish? His mother always put salt and lime right on the plate! And separate little bowls for every single curry! And so many curries! Was that enormous head of a giant freshwater prawn really all for him?

Luchi! Luchi!

Beyond his and his sister’s waking dreams lay the faint blue twilight of a fairytale land… a land his distracted mind would suddenly, with hungry wistfulness, rush towards on so many nights and days while eating rice with oler danta-chachchari or lau-chhenchki, on so many mornings and afternoons empty of snacks—a land where, in the heat of midday, their neighborhood’s master cook, Biru Ray, wandered about with a gamchha on his shoulder; where a great iron karai of ghee was set upon a newly-built, large stove, and the divine, delectable scent of frying luchis filled the air; where countless children in fine clothes came and went; where, on a summer’s day, cotton durries were spread out over the floor of the Ganguli’s big natmandir and under the jalpai tree. The address of that country could be found just once a year—on the day of Ramnabami or Dol in the month of Chaitra or Baishakh—for on that day, they would be invited to the Ganguli house in the other part of the village.

But how had that glorious day dawned today, so completely unexpectedly! As he ate, he thought again and again that his sister had never eaten a meal like this, ever!

The next morning, the game began again. As soon as Amala arrived, Apu ran and caught her hand. “Amaladi and I are on one side, and all of you are on the other!”

After they had played for a while, it occurred to Apu that Amala was more eager to have Bishu on her team than him. Apu didn’t know the real reason for this—Apu was a complete novice, and to have him on your team was to guarantee defeat. Bishu was a boisterous boy; it wasn’t easy to catch him in a chase or beat him at a game. At one point, Amala showed her annoyance quite openly. Apu tried with all his might to win, to make Amala happy, but despite his best efforts, he lost again.

The next time teams were formed, Amala leaned towards Bishu.

Apu’s eyes filled with tears. The game suddenly seemed tasteless to him—Amala was turning to Bishu for everything, all her laughter and chatter was with him. A little later, when Bishu wanted to go home for some task, Amala pleaded with him again and again to come back. Apu felt a terrible jealousy; the whole morning turned completely empty. Then he thought to himself—Bishu is leaving the game; if he goes, they’ll be short a player, that’s why Amaladi is talking like that. If I were to leave, she would say the same to me, she’d say even more. He suddenly pretended he was about to leave and said, “It’s getting late, I’m going. I have to bathe.” Amala said nothing. Only the blacksmiths’ son, Nadugopal, said, “Come back this afternoon, bhai!”

Apu walked a little distance and then glanced back—his absence had made no difference to anyone; the game was going on at full tilt. Amala, playing the ‘old woman’ by the post, was full of enthusiasm—she wasn’t even looking his way.

Wounded and proud, Apu reached home, not saying a word to anyone.

A fine Amaladi she was! So what if she didn’t want him? What of it?

Two days later, Harihar came home, bringing his son with him.

It had only been a few days, but already Sarbajaya could no longer bear being without her son. Durga’s games, too, had lost their spark. A few days before Apu’s trip, a squabble over a boat made from the dried shell of a country pumpkin had led to them not speaking to each other. Now there were many more pumpkin shells piled up, but Durga no longer took them to the water to float—why did I have to quarrel over something so silly and twist his ear? Let him come back, and I’ll never fight with him again, he can have all the games for himself.

Back home, Apu spent the next fifteen days recounting the tale of his incredible journey. So many amazing things he had seen in just these few days! The railway line, where real trains ran! Clay models of custard apples, papayas, cucumbers—so lifelike they seemed real! That doll, the one that, if you pressed its belly, would flail its arms and legs like an epileptic and suddenly start playing a khanjani! Amaladi! And how far he had gone, past how many lotus-filled bils, how many unfamiliar new villages, along how many lonely paths across open fields, to that village where, when his father took him to a blacksmith’s shop by the road for a drink of water, they had called him inside, kindly given him a wooden piri to sit on, and served him milk, chire, and batashas! Which story should he leave out, and which should he tell?

His sister was spellbound by the story of the railway line, asking again and again, “How big were the rails you saw, Apu? Were they laid out? Very long? Did you get to see a train? Did one go by?”

No—Apu hadn’t seen a train. That was the one thing he had missed—and it was solely his father’s fault. If they had only sat quietly by the railway line for four or five hours, they would surely have seen one—but he had been utterly unable to make his father understand.

Being late, Sarbajaya was in a hurry. As she distractedly stepped through the front door into the courtyard, something like a thin rope caught against her chest, and at the same moment there was a sharp patang sound as something snapped, and two ends of some things fell slack on the courtyard floor. It all happened in the blink of an eye, before she could properly see or understand what it was.

A little later, Apu came home. The moment he stepped past the door into the courtyard, he stopped short—he couldn’t believe his eyes. What was this! Goodness, who broke my telegraph wire?

The suddenness and magnitude of his loss left him stunned at first. After collecting himself a little, he looked and saw that the wet footprints on the courtyard floor had not yet faded. A voice from within him called out—It was Ma, no one else. Definitely not anyone else, it was Ma. Going into the house, he saw his mother sitting there, calmly washing jackfruit seeds. He stopped abruptly and, striking a pose like Abhimanyu from the jatra play, leaned forward and said in a reedy, sharp, sweet voice like the seventh note of a flute, “Well, Ma, didn’t I go to all the trouble of gathering those creepers from the woods and thickets?”

Sarbajaya turned around in surprise. “What did you bring? What happened—”

“Don’t I have to work hard? Weren’t my hands and feet all scratched by thorns?”

“What are you saying, like a madman? What happened?”

“What happened! I went to all this trouble to string up a telegraph wire and it’s been torn down, hasn’t it?”

“Honestly, you can’t go a moment without some outlandish scheme, can you? Something was strung up in the middle of the path—what do I know, telegraph or some-graph. I was coming in a hurry, it broke—so what am I supposed to do about it now?”

Then she turned her attention back to her work.

Oh! What terrible heartlessness! He had once thought that his mother loved him. Of course, that mistaken notion had been dispelled long ago—but still, he had never, even in his dreams, imagined her to be so cruel, so stony-hearted. Yesterday, all day long, where hadn’t he been—Nilmoni Jetha’s overgrown homestead, the Palits’ big mango grove, Prasanna Gurumahashay’s bamboo forest—roaming alone through terrifying jungles, and with what difficulty had he managed to gather the gulancha creepers that dangled from high branches. The rail-rail game was about to start, everything was ready, and now this…

Suddenly he wanted to say something very harsh to his mother, something very rude, something that would pierce her to the core—and standing there for a moment, perhaps unable to think of anything else, he said in a tone even sharper and lower than before, “I’m not eating my rice today, you just wait. I’m never eating it!”

His mother said, “Don’t eat then, don’t eat, go on. As if eating your rice will make you a king? And yet when it’s time to serve the food, you can’t bear to wait. Go on, don’t eat. We’ll see who feeds you when you’re hungry.”

That was it! In the blink of an eye—everything was still there, she was there, he was there, his mother was still washing jackfruit seeds—but where was Apu? He seemed to have vanished like camphor! Just at that moment, Durga, who was entering the house, was startled to see him rush past her at the door like a storm, and she called out in a bewildered voice, “O Apu, where are you going like that? What happened? Apu, listen—O Apu, listen—”

His mother said, “I don’t know. Honestly, the preposterous things you children get up to, my bones are worn to dust. He strung something up in the middle of the path, I was coming in, it broke—so now what? Did I tear it on purpose? And for that, my son is angry—‘I won’t eat my rice.’ Don’t eat then, go on. As if you two will ring the bells of heaven by eating your rice, is that it?”

In these battles of wounded pride between mother and son, it was always Durga who had to be the mediator. After much calling, at about two in the afternoon, she found her brother. With a dry mouth and desolate eyes, he was sitting on the trunk of a fallen mango tree in the Rays’ garden on the path to the other para.

Had anyone come to Apu’s house that afternoon and seen him, they would never have imagined this was the same Apu who, in a fit of pique with his mother, had left home that morning. From one end of the courtyard to the other, the wire was strung up again. Apu was gazing at it in wonder; nothing was missing, it looked exactly like a real railway telegraph wire.

He went to Sotu’s house and said, “Sotuda, I’ve strung up a telegraph wire in our courtyard, let’s play rail-rail—will you come?”

“Who strung up the wire for you?”

“I strung it up myself. Didi brought me the creepers.”

Sotu said, “You go and play. I can’t come right now.”

Apu understood in his heart that he was not the one to call the older boys and put together a team for a game. Who would listen to him? Still, he went to Sotu one more time. With a dejected face, he held on to the corner of the veranda and said unenthusiastically, “Come on, Sotuda, will you? You, me, and Didi can play now.” Then, in a tempting tone, he added, “I’ve picked all these batabi-lime leaves for tickets.” He opened his hand to show the quantity. “Will you come?”

Sotu did not want to come. Apu was very shy with outsiders, so he said nothing more and returned home. He was so sad his eyes were about to fill with tears—even after he’d pleaded so much, Sotuda wouldn’t listen!

The next morning, he and his sister got together and built a large shop with bricks, then set out to gather their wares. Durga knew more about the produce of the woods and jungles—between the two of them, they collected nona leaves for paan, wild mete alu and pholer alu yams, radhalata flowers for fish, telakuchi gourds for potol, chichchire for long beans, and lumps of earth for rock salt. They gathered so much more and spent so long arranging their shop that it grew quite late. Apu said, “What will we make the sugar out of, Didi?”

Durga said, “On the path to the bamboo grove, on that little mound, there’s some good sand—Ma brings it for roasting puffed rice! Let’s go get that sand. It’s white and sparkly, just like sugar!”

While searching for sugar in the bamboo grove, they wandered into the woods bordering the path. In a very dense part of the forest, high up on a chatka tree, half-hidden in the deep green foliage of a large creeper, dangled some bright red, large, perfectly round fruits. Apu and Durga were both stunned to see them. After much effort, a few of the fruits, along with a piece of the creeper from a lower section, broke off and fell to the ground. With great joy, the two of them ran together and picked them up from the earth.

There were only three ripe fruits. They were placed in the shop, mainly for decorative purposes, in such a way that they would be the first thing a customer noticed. The buying and selling began in earnest. Durga herself bought up nearly all the paan from the shop. The game was well underway when Apu saw Sotu entering through the main door. Overjoyed, he ran to welcome him. “O Sotuda, come see what a nice shop we’ve made! And look at these fruits Didi and I picked—what fruits are they, can you tell? Do you know?”

Sotu said, “Oh, those are makal fruits—we used to have lots in our garden!” Apu was overjoyed that Sotu had come. Sotuda didn’t visit their house very often—besides, Sotuda was a leader among the older boys. His arrival seemed to dispel the childishness of the game.

After the game had been going on in full swing for a long time, Durga said, “Bhai, give me two maunds of rice, the really fine kind. Tomorrow is the final settlement for my doll’s wedding, a lot of people will be eating.”

Sotu said, “I suppose we’re invited, are we?”

Durga shook her head. “Of course! You’re the bride’s party, after all. I’ll come tomorrow morning and take you with the ceremonial offering. Sotuda, tell Ranu to grind a little sandalwood paste tonight. I’ll come and get it in the morning.”

Durga had barely finished speaking when Sotu snatched something from the goods on display in the shop and suddenly bolted for the door. At the same instant, Apu, shrieking in his reedy, sharp, sweet voice, “Oh Didi, he took it, he took it!” ran right after him.

Before a bewildered Durga could fully grasp what was happening, Sotu and Apu had run out the door and were gone! As her eyes fell on the play-shop, Durga saw that not one of the three ripe makal fruits was left!…

Durga ran to the door in a single dash and saw Sotu running ahead on the path by the gab tree, with Apu a short distance behind him. Sotu was three or four years older than Apu; besides, he was not a boy with Apu’s slender, girlish build—he was strong, with sturdy arms and legs. There was no way Apu could catch him in a race—yet the only reason he was almost upon him was that Sotu was running with stolen goods, and Apu was running for dear life.

Suddenly, Durga saw that Sotu, while running, bent down for a second and glanced behind him—and at the same moment, Apu stopped dead in his tracks. By then, Sotu had run out of sight, turning onto the path by the chalta tree.

By then Durga had run and reached Apu’s side. Apu had his eyes squeezed shut, was bent slightly forward, and was rubbing his eyes with both hands. Durga said, “What happened, Apu?”

Without opening his eyes properly, Apu, in a voice of agony, rubbing his eyes with both hands, said, “Sotuda threw dust in my eyes, Didi—I can’t see anything!”

Durga quickly pulled Apu’s hands away. “Stop, stop, let me see. Don’t rub your eyes like that, let me see.”

Apu immediately brought both hands back to his eyes and said in a desperate voice, “Ooh, Didi, my eyes feel so strange—my eyes have gone blind, Didi!”

“Let me see, let me see, don’t put your hands on your eyes like that. Stop.” Then she puffed air onto a corner of her sari and began to apply warm compresses to his eyes. After a while, Apu began to open his eyes a little. Durga lifted his eyelids and blew on them many times, then said, “Can you see properly now? Alright, you go home… I’m going to their house and telling his mother and grandmother everything. I’ll tell Ranu too. What a naughty boy he is! You go, I’ll be right back.”

Having gone as far as the back door of Ranu’s house, however, Durga did not dare go any further. She was afraid of Sejthakrun. After standing by the back door for a while and hesitating, she returned home. Entering through the front door, she saw Apu standing behind the left panel of the door, which he had pushed forward just a little, crying silently in its shadow. He was not a crybaby; he rarely cried over anything big—he got angry, he sulked, but he didn’t cry. Durga understood that he was deeply hurt today; his treasured fruits were gone… and on top of that, to be humiliated with dust in his eyes! She couldn’t bear to see Apu cry—it did something strange to her heart.

She went and took her brother’s hand. In a soothing voice, she said, “Don’t cry, Apu… Come, I’ll give you all of my cowries… Come… Are your eyes hurting more?… Let me see, have you torn your cloth?”

After the midday meal, Apu would stay indoors instead of going out. The room was an old one in their ancient, dilapidated brick house. It was filled with things: an old-fashioned wooden chest, a wicker trunk faded to a brownish colour, a clothes rack made of cowrie shells, and low wooden stools. There were boxes Apu had never seen opened, and earthenware pots and jars whose contents were a complete mystery to him.

All these things together gave the room a certain smell of age, of oldness. He didn’t know what it was a smell of, but it seemed to call to mind a time long past. Apu hadn’t existed in that past, but this cowrie-shell rack had, and his grandfather’s wicker basket, and the large wooden chest, and that head of the sondali tree visible from within the forest. On that patch of scorched jungle, there had once stood someone’s grand chandimandap. And how many other boys and girls, with how many other names, had once played in this very homestead, before vanishing like shadows, so long ago!

When he was alone in the room, when his mother went to the ghat, he would be overcome by the temptation to open that box, that wicker basket, to bring them out into the daylight and examine what strange mysteries were hidden within. On the highest shelf of the rafters lay a pile of palm-leaf manuscripts and ledgers in a large wooden tray; he had asked his father and learned that they had belonged to his grandfather, Ramchand Tarkalankar. He dearly wished he could get his hands on them, bring them down and turn them over for a closer look.

Some afternoons, he would sit by the window that faced the forest and read from his tattered copy of the Kashidasi Mahabharata. He had learned to read quite well on his own now; he no longer needed to have it read aloud to him but could read it as fluidly as water and understand it all.

He was very sharp when it comes to his studies. His father sometimes took him to the gatherings of old men at the Gangulys’ chandimandap. He would give him the Ramayana or a panchali to read and say, ‘Read for them, my boy, let them hear you.’ The old men were full of praise. Dinu Chattujye would say, ‘And my grandson—he must be about your boy’s age—he’s torn through two primers, Bapu, you won’t believe it, and still can’t properly recognise the letters. He’s got his father’s blood in him. As long as I’m around, Bapu, he’s safe, but the moment I close my eyes, he’ll have to take hold of the plough.’ Harihar’s chest would swell with pride for his son. He would think to himself: Could your lot ever produce such a boy? All you’ve ever done is practise usury. We may be poor, but we are a family of scholars, after all. My father didn’t fill all those palm leaves with manuscripts for nothing; he passed down a certain lineage, and where could that possibly go?

Just a few hands’ breadths from their window stood the boundary wall of their home, and right on the other side of it, hugging the wall, began a vast wilderness of weeds and undergrowth.

Sitting at the window, all he could see were the tops of the bhant-sheora trees, like the waves of a green sea; creepers of all kinds swaying from tree to tree; the crest of an ancient bamboo grove, its top bent with age over the sondali and bon-chalta trees, and on the dark earth below, the dance of a wagtail! Beneath the large trees, a dense jungle of wild turmeric, wild arum, and pungent yam jostled and struggled, craning their necks towards the sunlight. The plant that failed in this battle for life, crushed under the shade of its proud, triumphant neighbour, its leaves now discoloured, its stalk a deathly pale and beginning to rot—before its dying gaze lay the full, shimmering sunlight of late autumn filling the forest. The world, with all its beauty and mystery and vastness, daubed with the moist, desperate fragrance of parasitic flowers, was slowly fading from view.

This wilderness stretched unbroken from the edge of their house all the way to Kuthi’s Field on one side, and to the riverbank on the other. To Apu, this forest seemed endless. He had wandered so far into it with his sister, yet he had never seen its end—only the same path winding under tittiraj trees, the same thick gulancha creepers dangling, the same clusters of bon-chalta fruit all around. The narrow trail would end in a mango orchard, only to begin again under this tree and that, weaving through thickets of wild colcynth, nata-kanta thorns, and moyna bushes, leading who knows where. All one saw was a wild gourd vine swaying somewhere in the void, or a clump of parasitic plants on the moss-covered branch of an ancient shirish tree.

This forest had brushed his heart, and his sister’s, with the fresh touch of its greenery. They had known it since birth, and in every silent moment of every day, it filled their thirsty souls with a joy so varied, so wondrous. The yellow spikes of fragrant nata-kanta flowers on a rain-freshened, deep green bush; the light-footed scampering of a squirrel on the thick branch of a moyna-kanta in the shadow of the approaching sunset; that profusion of leaves, flowers, and fruit—but more than anything, when a lone, unknown bird of the forest would perch on a crooked branch at the very edge of the dense woods, he could not put into words the strange, exquisite, and profound joy that filled his mind. It was like a dream, like an illusion. Birds sang all around, flowers showered down with a soft rustle, and the light of the setting sun deepened into shadow.

Somewhere in this forest was an old, silted-up pond, and on its bank, a ruined temple. Just as Panchanan Thakur was the village deity now, the goddess Bishalakshi of that temple had once been the same. She was the deity established by the Majumdar family of the village. Once, upon having a wish fulfilled, they had offered a human sacrifice at her temple. Angered by this, the goddess announced in a dream that she was abandoning the temple and would never return. This was a story from long ago. There was no one left alive who had seen the worship of Bishalakshi; the temple had crumbled into ruin, the pond before it had silted up into a marsh, the surrounding area was overrun by the forest, and there was no one left in the Majumdar family to even light a lamp.

Except—and this too was a long time ago—a villager named Swarup Chakrabarti was returning from an invitation in another village. As he came down to the river ghat in the evening, he saw a beautiful sixteen-year-old girl standing by the path. The place was far from the village proper, dusk had passed, there was no one on the path, and Swarup Chakrabarti was quite astonished to see a beautiful young girl alone by the woods at such an hour. But before he could say a word, the girl spoke in a tone that was slightly proud, yet sweet. ‘I am the goddess Bishalakshi of this village. A cholera epidemic will soon begin here. Tell the villagers to offer a hundred and eight pumpkins as sacrifice at Panchanan-tala and perform a Kali puja on the night of the fourteenth moon.’ As soon as she finished speaking, before the stunned Swarup Chakrabarti’s very eyes, the girl seemed to slowly dissolve into the winter evening’s mist. A few days after this incident, a terrible epidemic did indeed break out in the village.

He had heard these stories so many times. Whenever he stood by the window, he would think of the goddess Bishalakshi. Couldn’t she be seen just once? Suddenly, while he was on a forest path, perhaps gathering gulancha creepers—just at that moment—

So beautiful to look at, wearing a red-bordered sari, with necklaces and bangles just like Ma Durga.

‘Who are you?’

‘I am Apu.’

‘You are a very good boy. What boon do you wish for?’

He goes to his bed and lies down. Now and then, a gentle breeze carries the bittersweet scent of some creeper or leaf. At the height of midday, from the top of some distant, tall tree, a kite lets out a long, drawn-out cry—as if high above all the little sorrows, joys, and conflicts of this tiny village, past and present, a lone, homeless, wandering god were travelling the sun-drenched, blue, and lonely sky of a Sarat noon, his sweet-voiced tribute fading far, far into the distance.

He never knows when he falls asleep. When he wakes, he sees that the day is almost gone. Shadows have fallen across the entire forest outside his window; a reddish sunlight glints on the tops of the bamboo grove.

Every day at this hour, in this precise shadow-filled afternoon, looking out at the lonely forest, the most wonderful thoughts come to his mind. His heart fills with an extraordinary happiness. He feels as if days like this, filled with the sweet scent of leaves and creepers, had come once before, long ago. The hazy memory of the joy he felt on those days comes back to fill these days with the hope of some unspecified future delight. He feels that something is about to happen, that these days will not pass in vain—that a great joy awaits at their end!

With these afternoons, with this joyful, multi-faceted forest that had been his companion since birth, was entwined a message from a land of mystery and dreams. Looking at the shadow-filled sky above the bamboo grove, he could see a supplicant, taking advantage of a young hero’s generosity, holding out his hand to beg for his celestial armour and earrings. He saw a poor little boy somewhere, after drinking rice-water, dancing with glee before his playmates, shouting, ‘I’ve had milk!’ And that bael tree on the abandoned homestead—that was the very spot where the veteran warrior Bhishmadev lay on his bed of arrows, and where Arjun, with a sharp arrow, pierced the earth to sprinkle the waters of the Bhogabati onto his dying lips. In his early youth, while hunting in the flowering groves on the banks of the Sarayu, King Dasharath had mistaken a poor boy fetching water for a deer and killed him—that had happened right by the pond next to Ranudidi’s garden, under the big jamun tree.

There was a book in their house, its pages all yellow, part of its cover missing. The title was written as ‘Birangona Kabya’, but he didn’t know the author’s name, as the first few pages were torn out. He loved the book. In it, he had read:

Not far I saw a lake, and on its shore A royal warrior lay, writhing on the ground. His thighs were broken! Seeing this, I rose and cried, ‘What nightmare, O my lord, have you shown to me!’

On the day of the Kalui-chandi brata, when he goes with his mother for a picnic by the old silted-up pond in the north fields of the village—no one knows this, but that little pond, surrounded by woods, is the Dwaipayan Lake from the Mahabharata. In that lonely pond in the fields, the broken-thighed, humiliated hero remains, all alone. No one sees him, no one looks for him. The farmers return from their banana and eggplant fields in the north, leaving no trace of human presence anywhere. When the deep, moonless night’s darkness slowly spreads over the undiscovered, uninhabited, unknown lands beyond Sonadanga field, a human sorrow thousands of years old awakens and finds meaning in his burgeoning, eager mind’s sympathy—sometimes in the form of an ignorant boy’s joy, deluded by his poor father’s trickery, sometimes in the image of a luckless, solitary, and helpless prince. How many times had his eyes grown moist while reading that book by the unknown author!

His father is not home. If he were, Apu would have to sit in the house with his books open, studying with single-minded focus. The day would be almost over, and still there would be no escape. His heart would grow restless. How much longer must he sit and memorise Subhankar’s arithmetic verses? Would he not get to play today? Was there any daylight left? He would feel a great anger and resentment towards his father.

Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, he would be set free. Tossing his books and papers down in a heap somewhere, he would go out into the shadow-filled courtyard and dance with joy.

That wonderful, strange afternoon… the playhouse by the deeply shadowed trees… the string of a gulancha creeper tied as a clothesline… a shutter made of palm fronds… a cool, cool fragrance wafting from the forest… a sliver of reddish sunlight glittering on the top of the abandoned pomelo tree on his Jethamoshai’s land… a brown-winged tero bird flying up to perch on a wild colcynth bush… the smell of fresh earth… a child’s world would brim over with overflowing joy. How could he explain to anyone what that joy was!

In the evening, Sarbajaya had put the rice on to cook. Apu was sitting on a mat on the veranda. It was very dark. The crickets kept up a monotonous drone.

Apu asked, ‘How many days till the Puja, Ma?’

Durga was cutting vegetables with a boti. She said, ‘Twenty-two days left, right, Ma?’

She had counted them precisely. Her father would be coming home, bringing dolls and clothes and alta for Apu, for their mother, and for her.

These days, because she was growing up, her mother didn’t let her go to other neighbourhoods for festival invitations. She had almost forgotten what luchis tasted like. On bright, Kojagari Purnima nights, filled with moonlight, she used to wander from house to house through the neighbourhood, down paths woven with the light and shadow of the bamboo groves, and bring back her anchol full of roasted khai and muri from the Lakshmi Puja. Conch shells would blow in every house, the smell of frying luchis would waft from the street, and perhaps someone from the neighbourhood would send over a plate of the puja’s cold offerings to their house. She used to bring back so much khai-muri that her mother would give it to them for their snacks for two days, and eat some herself. That one year, Sejthakrun had said, ‘Why should a girl from a respectable family roam from house to house like a peasant collecting khai-muri? It looks bad… Don’t send her anymore, Bouma.’ Since then, she no longer went.

Durga said, ‘Want to play cards?’

‘Go on then, fetch the cards from the other room and we’ll play a bit.’ Durga looked at Apu with a troubled face.

Apu laughed and said, ‘Come on, I’ll stand guard.’

Their mother said, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, look at the girl’s fear! All day long she’s turning the world upside down, running here and there with no fear at all, but at night, she’s completely paralysed just to go from one room to the next!’

It was the pack of cards Apu had brought back from a disciple’s house. All three were equally skilled at the game. Apu still didn’t know all the suits—from time to time he would show his hand to his mother, a player on the opposing team, and ask, ‘What suit is this, diamonds? Look, Ma.’

Durga was in very high spirits today. They rarely cooked at night; there were usually leftover rice and curries from midday. But today, rice was on the stove, and a curry would be cooked. This brought her immense joy. Today felt like a festival. Apu said, ‘While we play, tell that story, Ma, the one about Shyamlanka.’

He suddenly laid his head in his mother’s lap. Stroking her arm, he said in a wheedling tone, ‘Recite that rhyme, Ma, the one that goes—Shyamlanka grinds the spices, her hair trails on the ground.’

Durga said, ‘If you recite rhymes during the game, how will we play, Apu? Get up.’

Sarbajaya said, ‘Dugga, where did you find those patalkonr mushrooms today?’

‘You know the Gosains’ big garden? That time you and I went looking for the red cow, Apu? A lot had sprouted there. No one found out, Ma, because it’s so overgrown, you see? Otherwise, people would have picked them.’

Apu said, ‘You went there? Oof, that place is so wild, Didi!’

Sarbajaya was looking at her son again and again with great affection. The Apu of just the other day—who, when she sang, ‘Come, O moon, come, and place a ti-i-ip on my little one’s brow,’ would repeatedly tilt his moon-like forehead towards her cupped fingers like a clockwork doll—was now sitting down to play cards! The scene struck her as utterly novel. Even though she was on the opposing team, she felt a pang of distress whenever Apu couldn’t play a card right, or hoped to win a trick and couldn’t, or when the bad cards went to him and the good ones came to her.

Durga said, ‘You know what happened today, Ma?’

Apu said, ‘Don’t! If you tell, I’ll be cross with you.’

‘Go on, be cross then. Listen, Ma, he doesn’t know the name for poppy seeds. Today at Raji’s house, they had put some out to dry in the sun, and he asked, “What’s this, Raji-di?” Raji said, “It’s liquorice, have a taste.” And he stood right there and ate some, Ma, without realising they were poppy seeds. Isn’t he a fool, Ma?’

Apu protested with his words, but he wouldn’t really be cross with his sister. That day, when Satuda had stolen his ripe makal fruits and run away, it was his sister who had searched the woods and gardens all day long, and in the evening, had come and untied her anchol before him to reveal a whole heap of makal fruits, saying, ‘How’s that, then? You were crying so much this morning, weren’t you?’ That evening, he didn’t know which had brought him more joy—the makal fruits, or the gentle, affectionate smile on his sister’s face, especially in her large, dark eyes.

‘Are you playing thoughtfully, Apu?’ Durga gathered the cards and began to shuffle them with great delight.

‘What’s that flower I can smell, Didi?’

Their mother said it was the chhatim tree behind their Jethamoshai’s homestead, the smell of its flowers. Apu and Durga both asked eagerly, ‘Yes, Ma, you said a tiger once came to that chhatim tree, didn’t you?’ But their mother quickly threw down her cards and jumped up. ‘Oh no! The rice is burning, I can smell it. Let me take it off the stove, wait, I’ll tell you.’

As they sat down to eat, Durga said, ‘This patalkonr curry is so delicious, Ma!’ Her face was filled with a heavenly satisfaction. At the same time, Apu chimed in, ‘Wow! It tastes just like meat, doesn’t it, Didi? There were so many patalkonr sprouting in one spot, Ma. I thought they were toadstools, so I didn’t pick them.’ At their effusive praise, Sarbajaya’s chest swelled with pride and contentment. And to think, she hadn’t even had the right ingredients! People called Sejthakrun to cook at their feasts; let them just call her once, and she would show Sejthakrun what real cooking was. Oh yes. Sarbajaya said, ‘Pour some water for Apu’s hands, Dugga. What kind of behaviour is this from a boy? Rinsing his mouth in the middle of the path? Every single night you do it, right there on the path.’

But Apu would not move another step. The gap in the broken wall ahead, the dark bamboo grove, the blackness of the bushes and jungle, as black as luffa seeds. The abandoned, ruined homestead… and how many other unknown horrors! He couldn’t understand: when it was a matter of life and death, was rinsing one’s mouth on the path really such a big deal?

Afterwards, everyone would go off to sleep. The night would deepen, and the dew-damp night air, tinged with the first hint of autumn, would fill with the heady fragrance of the chhatim flower. At midnight, the faint light of the waning moon would rise over the tops of the bamboo groves, glinting and shimmering on the dew-drenched trees, on every branch and leaf. In the exquisite sorcery of light and shadow, the edge of the forest seemed a place full of mystery, like the land of sleeping fairies. Then, perhaps, a sudden gust of wind would sweep past with a rustling sigh, swaying the branches of the sondali trees and setting the tops of the telakucha thickets trembling.

On some nights, at just such a time, Apu would wake.

It was as if the goddess herself had appeared—Bishalakshi, the forgotten presiding deity of that very village.

It was they—those whose footprints had vanished long, long ago from the cool mud thick with kucha moss, by the waters of the sand-fringed Ichhamati, waters as clear as pomegranate seeds; those whom perhaps even the ancient saptaparna on the bank had never seen—it was they who had once made offerings of flowers, fruits, and naivedya in the temple of that age-old presiding goddess. Who, among the people of today, even knows her?

But she had not forgotten this village.

When the village fell into a deep hush late at night, she would wander through the woods, coaxing flowers into bloom, she would watch over the fledgling birds, and in the last watch of the moonlit night, she would fill the tiny honeycombs of the little bees with the sweet honey of buno-bhaonra, notkan, and punyo flowers.

She knows in which corner of the thicket the basak flower hides its head; where, in the seclusion of the forest, the chhatim blossoms lie sleeping in the shadow of the trees; at which bend in the Ichhamati a throng of blue-petaled kolmi flowers is pushing up through the gaps in the green moss; and where, in a tiny straw nest cradled in the branches of a thorn tree, the tailorbird’s chicks have just awakened.

The forest seemed filled with the gentle radiance of her beauty. An exquisite grace filled the night—in the silence, the moonlight, the fragrance, the sorcery of indistinct light and shadow.

But before the daylight could break, the Banalakshmi would vanish, none knew where. Since the time of Swarup Chakravarty, no one had ever seen her again.